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“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I said no, Day.”
Kevin ran their fingers through their hair abruptly. “Andrew, let me see him.”
“No.”
Kevin knew it was no use going up against Andrew. Going up against a belligerent Andrew was impossible. And an Andrew who was protective and annoyed was a combination Kevin didn’t want to see.
“Okay, is Neil around?”
Andrew’s shoulders immediately tensed. “You can’t see him either.”
“What,” Kevin yelped in outrage. “That’s my best friend, you can’t simply say no without an excuse.”
Andrew’s lips ticked up at the corners, as if to say “I can”. And he was probably right.
Kevin left.
--
Aaron traced the stencil of a skull on a customer’s arm when Neil burst in through the door with a “guess what, Minyard?” and Aaron cursed the day Andrew had met Neil and recruited him for their tattoo studio.
“What?” he snapped, trying to hide his irritation from the woman, who was so deep into her phone, she would probably not notice. Kevin used to say being openly irritated wasn’t good for business. But then Kevin was the one who left him to go to college on a stickball scholarship. Kevin could burn for all he cared.
“Kevin was here,” came Neil’s voice from somewhere behind him, sounding just a little smug and Aaron used every shred of his focus to concentrate on loading black ink into his needle and not react to the fact that the former love of his life had come to the studio looking for him.
“Get out, Josten.”
“Damn, you and Andrew are both cranky today huh?”
Aaron carefully laid down ink on skin, “Get. Out.”
“Fine,” Neil breezed out. “I’m meeting them anyway today. Do I say you looked pissed the whole day? Or secretly happy? Maybe thrilled?”
Aaron hurled a magazine through the doorway at Neil, who neatly ducked, laughing.
Kevin Day could burn for all Aaron cared.
He tried his best to hide the sudden tremor in his hands from the customer.
--
“You’re gonna forget me so fast when you get out of here.”
“Don’t,” Kevin had snapped, sliding their fingers through Aaron’s, holding him tight. As though that would be enough. It probably could be.
“Yeah, you will.”
“Aaron,” Kevin said, a pained note breaking their voice in two. Aaron wanted to put it back together.
“Kev,” Aaron began. He pushed down the tears that threatened to spill and held Kevin’s face in his hands. “Just call me every day.”
“Every day,” Kevin said, kissing the inside of Aaron’s wrist, the tips of his fingers, setting fire to him slowly. Gently.
Aaron pressed two fingers to Kevin’s left cheek. “Queen,” he breathed into the space between them. Kevin kissed him with a desperation that Aaron would cling to for months.
--
“You know you have some nerve coming here, Day,” Neil said, flinging himself onto Kevin’s couch.
“It’s my house,” Kevin said. Neil rolled his eyes.
“You know how hard it is for me to make Andrew stay back and not lynch you or something?”
This time, Kevin rolled their eyes. “Andrew is my best friend too.”
“Was,” Neil said nonchalantly, breaking Kevin into bits.
“That’s-”
“He was your best friend until the day you shredded his brother’s heart into pieces, you loser.”
Kevin detected a bite to Neil’s tone that didn’t use to be there before. “He hates me.”
Neil arched an eyebrow at him. “Darling, everyone does.”
Kevin twisted their hands over and over in their lap. “Neil, I- I couldn’t.”
“Aaron didn’t talk to any of us for months, Kev.”
Kevin looked stricken.
“He never let his phone go. For months.”
“I got his calls,” Kevin mumbled into their hands, missing the look of absolute disgust on Neil’s face.
“Then why didn’t you call him back?”
When Kevin spoke again, it was the voice of a broken person, “I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t? You texted me. You tried texting Andrew. What part of this makes sense to you?”
“Neil, it wasn’t easy.”
For the first time that evening, Neil looked both furious and uncomfortable, “Kev, nothing about our lives has ever been easy.”
“I’m assuming you haven’t told any of them,” Wymack spoke, walking into the room, hands laden with bags and sports gear.
“Hey coach,” Neil called out and Kevin nodded at their father, looking ashen and pale. “Tell us what?” Neil pressed on and Kevin held their hands out.
And that’s when Neil saw the scars.
--
“Who did this to you?” Andrew was raging in the most Andrew way – knives halfway out of his armbands, thirsting for vengeance.
“I thought you hated me now,” Kevin smirked, attempting a levity they did not feel.
“Andrew, I need you to calm the fuck down,” Wymack said, and Andrew slipped back into his seat on the armchair. He accepted the glass of whiskey Wymack handed to him and gulped it down, one eye on Kevin.
They were gathered in Kevin and Wymack’s house, the exact way they’d spent most their afternoons in high school. Kevin and Neil would have heated discussions about Exy, while Andrew tried to nap on the couch. Aaron would sometimes be there, but most days he was out dating their head cheerleader. A fact Kevin used to loathe, before they even knew why.
Kevin breathed in and out. Once, twice and thrice. They imagined Aaron’s phantom touch on the inside of their wrist, the way his fingers on their pulse would calm them down slowly. Kevin missed it sorely.
“It was a bunch of bullies.”
“What?” said a startled Neil.
“Was it because you are genderqueer?”
“Nah,” Kevin said, shrugging. “It was because I was better than him.”
“I need names, Day.”
“No, Andrew.”
“But-” Neil began and Kevin silenced him. “I don’t need rescuing. Not then, not now.”
“This isn’t rescuing you fucking clueless bottle of expired jam,” Neil exploded and Kevin blinked at him in surprise. Beside Neil, Andrew startled and Wymack had a very constipated expression on his face, like he was suppressing laughter.
“It’s called friends sticking up for each other.”
“Neil-”
“Names, Day,” Andrew repeated.
“Is this why you didn’t talk to Aaron? At all?” Neil accused and Kevin looked away, shame turning their face a deep red.
“I didn’t want him to know.”
“Why?”
“I-”
“You thought he couldn’t take it?”
“What? Andrew, no!”
“Explain,” Andrew said, face impassive, fingers beating a steady tattoo on his thigh. “Explain.”
Kevin took a deep breath, “A month into the school year, Riko Moriyama broke all the bones in my left hand the day I scored a win against him.”
Andrew’s fingers tightened on his glass and Neil took in a sharp breath. Wymack discreetly left the room, but no one noticed.
“I couldn’t get out of bed for days, weeks,” Kevin pressed on in a monotone. “I couldn’t call Aaron only to tell him that the reason I moved away from him, from all of you was void, moot. I couldn’t-”
“What happened then?” Andrew nudged Kevin’s thigh with his foot.
“I didn’t play for a year. I wanted to get better and call Aaron.”
“But you didn’t,” Neil interjected, and Kevin shot him a glare.
“I didn’t because I am a coward.”
“You called us instead,” Andrew replied. “Why did it take you a whole year to do that?”
Kevin stared at their hands for a quiet minute and then softly, “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
Andrew scoffed but Neil knelt at Kevin’s feet, “We’ve seen worse, Kevin. And fuck you for thinking that.”
Kevin couldn’t help it. They let out something that was a cross between a laugh and sob and Neil hugged them. “Andrew get in here.”
“No,” Andrew shuddered, but pressed the heel of his foot against Kevin’s calf.
After many minutes, they split apart. “Is that why you’re here? To explain yourself to Aaron,” Neil asked.
“No,” Kevin said, “I want to tell him that nothing matters to me more than him.”
--
They didn’t say “I love you” to each other. Instead, Kevin dropped Aaron home from school every afternoon in his ratty, beat-up hand-me-down car from Wymack.
Instead, Kevin remembered the little things Aaron mentioned in passing and surprised him on the regular.
Instead, Aaron held Kevin as they sobbed into his shirt about feeling like a misfit all the time.
Instead, Aaron called Kevin every night.
Instead, Kevin loathed every person that Aaron dated.
Instead, Aaron pressed two fingers to Kevin’s cheek and said “queen”.
Instead, they leaned into each other.
--
“I have only two appointments today?” Aaron said incredulously. “Are we going down? Just two?”
“Stop hyperventilating, Aaron,” his brother drawled. “I’m taking the day off.”
“What?” Aaron yelled at Andrew’s retreating figure. “What do you mean you’re taking the day off?”
“It means,” Andrew popped his head out of the pantry, stuffing his face as usual, “that I’m taking an emergency personal day off and you will be handling our clients.”
Aaron squinted at him, “Sus.”
“Absolutely,” Neil replied, looking overdressed wearing actual jeans and a t-shirt.
“What’s going on, you two?”
“What is going on is,” Andrew replied, twirling his keys, “is that we’re taking a trip and you’re gonna get back to work.”
“Outrageous,” Aaron bellowed at their retreating backs. “Absolutely fucking outrageous. Are you kidding me?”
Andrew lazily waved at him and let the door slam on his way out, Neil cackling in the background. Aaron hated them.
He switched on the wheezing laptop and scanned the list of customers and promptly dropped his mug of scalding black coffee.
--
When Kevin Day stepped into the tattoo studio that afternoon, Aaron thought his heart would keel over and stop beating.
Kevin was here.
Kevin was here.
In front of him, in flesh and blood, solid and unmoving. His Kevin. Back here.
So, Aaron promptly panicked and said, “Get out.”
“Excuse me, is this how you treat your customers?” Kevin said in a haughty approximation of all their worst customers, and despite himself, Aaron found his lips twitching.
“Yes. Now get out.”
“Rude,” Kevin plopped themselves on the couch, “So rude.”
Aaron huffed, “Kevin, what are you doing here?”
Kevin’s eyes found his, and Aaron couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. This was the person he loved, back in front of him after two years of vicious silence.
“Aaron,” Kevin said, and Aaron tore his gaze away or there was a distinct possibility that he might cry. Or launch himself at Kevin. Or both.
“Fine,” he cleared his throat, looking at his laptop screen, “What do you want?”
“Many things,” Kevin said, moving closer to Aaron until the counter stopped them. Aaron had never been more thankful for the barrier.
“Kevin,” he warned. “What do you want?”
Kevin cleared their throat and pulled out their phone. Aaron realized with a pang that their wallpaper was a picture of them together and had to hold his hands down to stop them from trembling.
But what Kevin showed him was way worse.
“That’s a chess piece,” Aaron blurted, unable to control himself.
“Yes,” Kevin said, looking slightly nervous. “A queen.”
Aaron had to count to ten in English and German before he could find his voice again. “And where do you want it?”
He knew. He knew before even Kevin reached their fingers toward him. Knew before they hesitated. Knew before they eventually pressed two of his fingers to their cheekbone.
“Here,” they said, gently, softly, a single syllable that carried the weight of two years’ worth of apologies.
And Aaron broke.
--
Many months later
“They look stupid,” Andrew muttered and both Aaron and Neil shushed him.
The match was to begin in 10 minutes and Kevin had just walked on to court before they walked out again.
“What are they doing?” Neil muttered this time and Aaron shushed him.
“I didn’t drive 8 hours just to see their flat ass walk out of the court,” Andrew grumbled and Aaron snorted. Wymack, who was on Neil’s other side, simply sighed. He knew it was futile to make Andrew shut up when he was on a “Kevin’s the reason for all my troubles” roll.
They’d all woken up early, piled into Andrew’s car and drove down to Kevin’s university to watch them play the finals.
Aaron tried not to slip into his many daydreams where he went back over and over to the moment Kevin had come barreling back into their lives. He never wanted to let go again. A commotion in the stands behind them snapped him back to reality and he turned to find Kevin charging toward them.
“Oh, what now,” Andrew drawled, but this time Neil shut him up with a hand over his mouth.
Kevin came careening to a stop in front of Aaron, “I don’t have time.”
“Well, clearly,” Aaron managed to choke out. “What the fuck are you doing up here, Kevin.”
“Wish me luck.”
“What?”
“Wish me luck,” Kevin insisted again and Aaron looked at them incredulously. He reached up and touched two fingers to Kevin’s cheek where a tattoo – his tattoo – now rested, and said it so softly that only they could hear it, “My queen.”
Somewhere behind them, he could hear Andrew gagging and Neil shushing him, but the world had reduced to where Kevin began and he ended.
It was contrition, and sorry, and it was “forgive me”. It was a slow building wave and Aaron was helpless against Kevin.
He pressed closer and kissed them. Kevin beamed.
And it was like the sun.
It was everything.