Chapter Text
If I open up my heart to you, I know that you could lock it
Throw away the key and keep it down forever in your pocket
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Seiji Katayama had many problems, but one of them was feeling a little more prominent and troubling at the moment.
He knew he wasn't a social butterfly and he was aware that most people found his way of life too rigid, his attitudes too cold and his words too sharp.
Seiji knew what people thought of him.
Seiji knew it was the truth.
So, it was to be expected that Seiji would also know better than to go around getting his heartbeat into a frenzy over a mediocre, boisterous and incorrigible fencer with terrible hair and even terrible manners.
His heart should know better than to try and see a friend on somebody like Nicholas Cox.
A boy so unlike him and exactly the type to point a finger at Seiji's face and make assumptions about him, about his life.
Say his motivations are anything but what they truly are, affirm that how he got where he did was pure luck and create absurd rumors about the person that Seiji is.
That's exactly the type of person Nicholas was, Seiji knew from experience. He had seen it far too many times to not recognize this type of boy.
Or so he thought.
Nicholas never failed to surprise him. When he thought he would turn left, he would go right. When he knew his words would cut, they caressed.
It drove Seiji mad to not know what to expect, but it was surprising in all the nicest ways.
And that was Seiji's problem.
—
Seiji had been feeling very on edge. He felt like there was a hurricane inside his chest, stealing all the air and making everything seem sharper than it actually was.
He would like to pretend he didn't know what was the cause, but he couldn't lie to himself.
His mind and heart were in battle, his emotions were out of control.
He wanted to trust Nicholas, who had proved himself a good friend time and time again. He defended Seiji when there were boys saying mean things about him, or when somebody made a joke that was a little too cutting.
Nicholas always seemed to know when Seiji was upset or when something bothered him, even protecting him from unwanted touches from their other friends.
He liked to be around Nicholas, it made him feel safe and it made him feel like he belonged.
That was a dangerous feeling.
He had felt like he belonged once. He had thought he could trust, after all the years he had spent building up that trust.
He thought he knew the feeling of having a place somewhere, the knowledge that he had a friend had been a fact to him, except it had all been a lie and the trust he had worked on and built since he was a child, broke in less than a second.
So while he wanted to believe Nicholas was different, his heart wanting to give itself up to him, his mind held him back.
There was also something new about his feelings for Nicholas, something deeper that made him fear even more.
He liked him in a way he had never liked anyone before, his presence made him feel the best type of nervousness and the warmest kind of adoration.
He saw a friend in him, obviously, but he wanted more.
So he felt like he was between a rock and a hard place. Nicholas was somebody he cherished, a person unlike anyone he had ever met, but it's just as the saying goes, once bitten, twice shy.
Seiji was scared of getting hurt again.