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They had kissed.
—
There'd been a fight, Pat almost blind with rage and jealousy. He now faintly recalls the punch against his cheek and Pran’s figure walking away as he sat on the concrete, the soft rumble of a motorcycle driving away pulling him to his senses.
They found each other on the rooftop. Pat found words. And all he could remember before the rush of blood and adrenaline made his brain fuzzy were Pran's eyes, apprehensive, searching — confused.
Pat didn't want to be friends. Some time ago, they were, until they weren't and everything after that was a jumble of miscommunication and the lack thereof.
He was a logical person. Calculations were his thing, and almost everything in his life so far had been factual, tangible; everything had its place and order. And then there was Pran. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment his feelings for Pran became something else, something more and that buzz in the back of his mind is screaming what do you mean, since forever and he tries to tune it out so he can focus on the way the tear is sliding down Pran's confused face.
He makes the first step and the way Pran follows barely a millisecond after pushes Pat's ribcage to its bursting point it seems, with how much air he breathes in and there's that buzz again; his neurons are firing too fast and short circuiting.
There aren't many things he's experienced in life that he could compare it to and do it justice but the closest sensation he could imagine that matched the one of his lips pressing against Pram's for the first time was that of a first drop on a rollercoaster after a long way up — you know something frighteningly thrilling is coming and you have no idea if you'll like it, but the moment the drop starts and goosebumps erupt on skin that feels too tight to breathe in, that first moment in your life when you feel what weightlessness must be like and it feels like you're swallowing the Sun whole and the Sun is swallowing you.
He feels like he breathes in born anew once they part, his brain screams with how pure the oxygen tastes and before it could even start processing the onslaught of information thrown at it, Pran's hand is gripping the base of his neck and the boy is crushing their lips with desperation that mimics Pat's own.
If that first kiss was a drop on a rollercoaster, this one is equal parts hunger and their noses brush and Pat feels like he's drowning voluntarily, he doesn't want to come up for air. His palms find their way to Pran's hair and he grips, and it's primal; the way he cages the other's skull and pulls him against his own face as if they could get any closer than they already are. At that moment, Pat thinks they could.
Pran's other palm is coming up his neck, brushing against his ear and Pat feels the gasp the other breathes into his mouth. They need air.
Pat is truly happy for the first time in his life.
Pran looks like he could put out the fire within the Sun with his unshed tears.
And when the other boy leaves the rooftop, leaves him without a word, Pat learns that the drop on a rollercoaster can sometimes be truly nauseating.
—
He knocks on the door. He calls Pran's name. He tries the doorknob.
He later lies on the bed in his room with anxiety making home in his chest, threatening to taint everything that happened barely an hour ago. Pat replays the kiss eyes wide open, as if he could somehow project the image onto the white ceiling above his restless body and his mind is going insane with scenarios — is Pran thinking about it as well? Will he touch his lips as Pat did his own, thinking he'll find the imprint of the other ones'?
Will he stay awake until dawn as well, hoping to hear the door of the room across the hallway finally open and dash from bed to catch the other before they leave for the day, because we need to talk about last night.
Pat finally falls asleep with one thought running on loop; I don't want us to be friends.
—
To say that Pran is hyperventilating would be the understatement of the century.
There is an immense load of sadness pressing against his chest but simultaneously it feels as freeing as cliff diving head-first against the icy water of the ocean. It’s a wakeup call. And he feels more than just awake. It is amazing, truly, how our brains connect the dots before our bodies can and he’d first felt it in the back of his mind when their lips met before his body followed, before his instinct took over, his desperation. It was a beehive of thoughts and each and every one held a version of Pat’s kissing me. no, I’m kissing Pat.
Once the adrenaline had stopped wreaking havoc in his body and he’d calmed enough to snap out of the post-kiss haze, Pran wanted to disappear. Just pack up, leave, and never come back. Because even though many things were uncertain from that moment, one thing was a fact - they could never go back to how things used to be. And how things used to be was already a big jumbled mess to begin with.
He wished he could cross-section his own heart. Open it up, divide its chambers, find the corner where it all began sprouting God knows when, and just pluck it out. It would’ve been better if his feelings for Pat never even had a chance to begin but now, laying on the bed, fingertips brushing against the taste of Pat on his lips, Pran knows he is late. That one tiny sprout had bloomed under a surge of nourishment and his chest feels heavy and full; are there really flowers blooming in his heart?
He’d ignored Pat’s knocking on the door and calling his name mostly out of shock after he’d added up two and two and got what the fuck is wrong with me and at that point he’d given up. He didn’t want to think about what would happen tomorrow, he didn’t want to think about the talk the two of them will eventually have and Pran will fight with his life to delay, because — do I really need him to say it was a mistake? Am I that idiotic that I would run head-first into a wall I know is solid concrete and hear my skull crak under the pressure of the words they both know are inevitable; Pran, I’m sorry, you know I like Ink.
For now, just for now, he thinks, he’ll ignore the rational part of his own self and replay that kiss like a broken record until he can no longer tell whether his eyes sting from unshed tears or because of the morning Sun streaming in through the curtains.
—