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It was March 1st and the weather forecast believed it would rain. However, the sunrise glowed halos on the sunflowers across the bus stop. Sometimes the weather forecast doesn't really know what it was saying.
"Leon?"
"Yours truly, Emil."
"So, it's the day, huh?"
Leon doesn't need to turn to see who it was. From the thick accent to the stark white shoes he can see in his peripheral vision, it only has to be one personーa certain Icelandic he happened to have a confusing February with.
"'Tis not like I can help leaving," he replied, feeling the Icelandic's presence move to sit beside him, drumming his fingers either on his lap or on the luggage. He was supposed to be back home, but it can't be helped he was a light sleeper. Leon swallowed the shame that came with the fact he just tried to leave Emil asleep on his way to the airport.
With every strum of his bestfriend's fingers, he felt the atmosphere become heavier; maybe the forecast really knew what it said?
When he heard a small pop, it was just then he only turned his head. In a sudden, the world returned to normalーthe sunrise on his left and the empty untravelled road separating him and the field ahead. Beside him, Emil cradled a lollipop on his fingers, and wiggled another one by his face.
"You want one?"
His heart fell at the sight. Emil's poorly maintained poker face was cracking at the edges, for as he offered him candy he can see the glassiness in those eyes. At least he didn't address Leon's poor attempt at escaping. And in return, he didn't address Emil's poor and unhealthy choice for comfort food breakfast.
He wouldn't call it an escape though. He's just a bestfriend who had a sleepover and is moving back home the morning (month) after...the location of which is literally across the globe. Leon was pretty sure his face looked just as exhausted of everything, but what exactly can he do?
What exactly can they do, really? They were just kids. They live across the world away from each other. They have their own drastically different cultures and families to go home to. They have their own lands to watch over, and their own interests that contrast more than it unites.
"You don't have to act cool, Emil. No one's judging you." He looked back ahead, trying to focus on how the sunflowers looked all to the right, towards the sun that left them as mere admirers only to return and win their hearts again.
"You might," Emil answered after a pause. "I just....I feel like there should be more."
More reassurance? More 3am deep talks? More petty understated pining? More sleepless nights?
"What exactly should be more?" Leon asked, "You're just as clueless as me, as far as I know."
"Yeah, no shit," the other boy agreed, albeit not above a whisper.
The silence reigned over them once again, as if it was a monarch they served and they were now crowned its mightiest defenders. Suddenly, Emil continued, much to his expectations.
"You know what, you shouldn't have came here in the first place," Emil grumbled, defeated and sunken to the bench.
Leon scoffed, recognizing the honesty. His guts twisted at the realization that a small part of him agrees. "Oh yeah? Why?"
"You're just going to leave," Emil said, pulling out the candy from his mouth with a distinct pop. "It's just as painful to think you would come back."
"Painful..." he repeated.
"If you came here to leave then don't come at all," Emil whispered in all transparency, "That's all I wanted to say."
Leon rolled his eyes. Sometimes, Emil just becomes a bit too irrational and a bit too blunt. Of course, he knew of his issues with people, trust and abandonment, but they both know it wasn't their fault. They had an entire panic attack session at Emil's 2nd floor bathroom about establishing that. Despite that memorable yet messy night, he kept wondering that if it wasn't Emil's and it wasn't Leon's, then whose fault was it then? To whom could they shift the blame to?
As always, back to themselves. That's a universal truth. God, weren't they good at hurting themselves for something ephemeral? Leon felt his heart clench at some unknown yet familiar pain, and his mind begged for him to just say it as clear as he could.
"I just want to see you. I need an excuse," Leon admitted into the air. "And you aren't complaining anyway."
Emil sniffed, and from the shifting of his clothing he must have pushed his hands deep into his pockets only to pull it back out. "It's...I...Leon, shit."
Leon smiled. "I know rightーshit." It was the entire month in one word.
The word he mentally screamed when Emil looked at him with an unimpressed frown asking what he's doing at Iceland? Shit.
The word he whispered lowly when the heaters at the living room broke and Emil offered to share his room with him? Shit.
The word he accidentally blurted out loud when Yao and the others finally realizes he's nowhere to be seen and gave him a 3am call and 4 voicemails each? Shit.
The entire month was both a mess and a feeble memory. It was funny to look back and realize that his visit to Iceland started out as a late night thought to buy himself a sweater, which only escalated when he found himself booking tickets at a depressive-obsessive mania he cannot exactly remember the reason for. The bottom line is, he wanted to go shopping and decided to do it in Iceland. That's the excuse he gave.
Of course, Emil didn't buy that. However, seeing as it was midnight when he arrived and Emil was just a decent person, he was fortunately let in despite that lame explanation.
In that entire month he spent in a drastically different country he represented, he spent about half of it living off Emil's groceries and the other half brainstorming why exactly it had to be Emil. He wasn't dumb, he knew what the disgusting butterflies in his stomach was for, but he just doesn't exactly understand why. Everytime Emil asked him, he can't help but smirk because apparently, they're wondering about the same thing from different boats.
It's amusing on the surface, but haunting on the depths. It's like slowly suffocating, but never dying.
"Leon, shit," Emil laughed to himself bitterly, "I hate thinking about you leaving."
Of anyone leaving, he wanted to add.
“Must I remain?” Leon can't help but lay down for his last day. They would both cry themselves to sleep that night anyway. "You don't really rush things you want to last forever, Emil."
He closed his eyes and tried to stop his intrusive thoughts from taking over. Acting indifferent and being indifferent are two dissimilar things and somehow both hurt just the same, he just learned.
"I don't want to know." Emil sucked on his lollipop, feigning the same indifference. "Please don't tell me."
In that month, he found himself leaning on his own barely-thought-out words heavily. He really never rushed one single second in that entire month, because all he ever wanted was to feel peace forever. Some days, Emil took him sightseeing, which is mostly for formality and evidence so their families knew they're really with each other physically. It must have also been the country-side of them kicking in, the need to pride oneself of the lands they represented their whole lives.
It was the way it is and thank God Emil initiated the trips. Else, they would have stuck to Netflix and Literal Chill for 28 days straight. There's no way Leon would ask him to take him out, no matter how the thought made the both of them blush in just imagining. Sure he had the nerves and guts to come sleepover for a month unannounced, but he used every last one of them on the trip and left none available to use once he's arrived.
Emil took a sharp inhale beside him, and Leon waited for the upcoming statements that would follow. However, there was noneーEmil just sighed back out.
"You're bored?" he asked, "I didn't wake you. You don't have to wait with me."
"I simply wanted to do it."
Emil surprisingly still had the guts to remain bold, even after the days they spent together using every last one trying to stay sane. Leon could compare him to a cat, specifically that one cat that roams near Tian Tan Buddha in his home country that recognizes him everytime he passes by. That one cat was quiet and unnoticeable in the abundance on the streets, but that one in particular had the audacity to keep asking him for food. Just like how Emil had the audacity to keep wrecking his insides like he owns the place.
"I don't want to wake you because you might follow me to the airport." Again, another lame excuse.
"You must know me well." Again, the audacity to ride along.
Leon frowns and kept his eyes on the sunflowers, which still faced the sun as it rises. He almost envied them with their loyalty and dedication and also the fact that they're just there on the field, never to leave. If Emil would be his sun and he's the sunflower, he would be a shitty one at that. He would try to look at other things, even fellow flowers, the moon or the stars. He would be unsure whether looking at the sun would cause him to be blind or make him sick. But as sunflowers are, they're drawn. Once he looked at the bright orb that captures the sky at day, he would never try to look at anything else again.
Leon groaned. Sometimes he hated how Emil had him sappy with just a few words and gestures.
"It's only you being sad for nothing." Leon listened to Emil's fingers pause drumming on his luggage.
It was without bite. Emil's sad for nothing and they both know it, seeing as there's only one clearest among the many answers to that: "I will return, you know."
Emil snorted.
"I don't want to admit that." Emil bit onto his lollipop, as heard from the crack from his mouth and the sharp glassy chews that followed. "You're the only one who understands me."
Leon took a deep breath and felt the rumble on the ground. From the minutes of nothing but waiting, his leg almost fell asleep and was only awoken by the rumble of the bus appearing.
You're the only one who understands me.
They both know that's bullshit because he came here for many things and he accomplished each and every one of them except finding out why his butterflies, his damn inner sunflower, is drawn to Emil. It was the most important agenda yet his braincells and soul searching came nowhere. You're the only one who understands me, huh?
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I care."
The bus rolled over at his peripheral, and he finally took his eyes off the sunflower field and to his own sun. And there it was, the familiar sly glint in those snowy cold blue-gray eyes that he just realized he would miss once he's back home.
"Yes, Leon," Emil said, in full solid ground, seeing through that entire lie and staring at it in gunpoint. "I'm not expecting you to."
As the bus rovered away, there was a ringing in his ears he couldn't exactly hear but one he could definitely feel. The weight that was on his shoulders have lightened but his throat and chest tightened, and along it were the skies that rolled as the road stretched on his way home. Emil's silent presence drifted farther and farther as the bus went on, just like it always wasーto the place it normally belonged to, to the right distance it was meant to keep by default.
He asked himself many times why he chose to fly back to Iceland without a world meeting to attend to. He asked himself why, out of all countries, it had to be Iceland. He searched for the answers within his soul, deep in the caverns of his subconscious, just to answer why it has to be Emil.
But it was always Emil. It had always been Emil.
Sometimes, he wonders why he even questioned it. Maybe there was no right answer, or maybe there was just too much right answers that it wasn't worth asking in the first place. It had always been Emil, and he had to learn to be okay with that because if they didn't make it work, if they didn't make it out of that confusion, nothing else will.
Drops on the glass he was leaning his head on distracted him from the emotional fog in his mind. The sun can be seen past the thin clouds, which were gray on itself but barely there.
He laughed bitterly at himself. The forecast really did know what it was saying, huh?
Rainfall, as always.