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Vik felt Harry's arm on the sofa behind his head shift and with a knee jerk like instinct he steeled his eyes forward. Simon was talking, he noticed, but he couldn't decipher any of the words. A splurge of letters that went in one ear and out the other. But it didn't matter that he wasn't listening, because as long as he looked like he was, nobody would think anything at all.
But Vik himself was thinking lots of things. His mind was racing like an F1 car, the noise endless and dizzying. It was only at the last shoot that he had noticed anything awash, but ever since then he had been obsessed. Harry always puts his arm behind Vik when he sits next to him on the moresidemen. And it was driving him crazy.
Well not always, but a lot of the time. And a hell of a lot more than he does for anyone else. The realisation was driving Vik to insanity- first it started with a small realisation, a curiosity. It could have been a coincidence, he figured, so he watched all the videos from the day to check. No conclusive evidence. But then he started watching more videos, older videos. And he realised that it couldn't be explained by him leaning one way- he could be leaning either and still the arm would snake around Vik's back, and not anyone else's. And the fact that it was almost always Vik. The coincidences were creepy, the pattern was compelling.
And then there was today, the first video of the session where they sat next to each other. And Vik couldn't focus, not one bit. His neck was getting hot, so hot, like a rash sprouting from the top of his back and slowly wrapping around his neck like it was going to choke him.
Was this just some cruel joke? And why was his body reacting like this? It's just an arm, just the arm of his best friend yet it was turning his mind fuzzy and sending body into shock.
Vik didn't know how long he sat there, attention trained in to the hairs on the back of his neck, imagining contact with an arm that was not touching him at all, but if he moved not even an inch could be. If he had the guts to relax and lean back he could feel what it would be like to have...
"Vik, yo, Vik! What do you think?" JJ laughed, snapping his fingers in front of Vik's face. Then, as Vik struggled to get his brain back on task, he frowned. "Bruh. Vik what's up with you man? You haven't said a word this whole game!"
The pillows shifted behind him.
"Uhh..."
Was that Harry lifting his arm away ? Or just curling it to touch his face?
"I dunno bro..."
Okay. Now it's shifted back down... he hasn't moved it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Oh god. It was bad right?
"My brain just… isn't… working today... these questions are pretty hard."
Suddenly there was a chorus of "wtf this isn't hard at all" (Ethan), "you are on something today lad" (Josh) and "nah man I can't be arsed I wanted to be on Vik's team because he'd be good" (JJ). Everyone was talking over people, a cacophony. But the good kind, it masked how Vik was drowning.
Harry wasn't talking though, Vik noted. He was listening for it. Instead Harry's eyes were trained on Vik's body, looking him up and down slowly and steadily. Vik had to suppress the shiver that ran down his spine and fight every urge in his body that was screaming at him to meet Harry's eyes.
It wasn't like he needed to anyway, he knew exactly what Harry's eyes were saying by the way his gaze fell lightly on Vik's body. It was something of amusement, like this truly was some sick game to Harry. No, the only thing that meeting Harry's eyes would do would bring pink to his cheeks and let Harry know that Vik had lost.
Vik tried not to think about how he knew what Harry was thinking based on the weight of his gaze, or how he could even tell the weight of his gaze anyway. That was a matter for later… whenever later came.
And the game went on, JJ huffed some more, Simon laughed at him and said the game's the game and all attention turned away from Vik. Their team lost in the end unsurprisingly. Harry too having stopped putting anything more than minimal effort into the random game show after having found a much more rewarding game to occupy his time.
A game which had become a battle, of sorts. Harry moving his arm to the most irritating of spots possible, and Vik wriggling back and forth in response. Neither dared touch the other, of course, but each urging the other to be the one to take the fall. Of course, there was no question of le premier qui saute, sera-t-il le fou ou le roi? The person who lost was the fool, and neither of them had the pride to waste for that.
But it was going to catch up to one of them eventually, and after the shoot ended Vik made a beeline to the loos for a breather to clear his head. For Harry, it was the perfect opportunity to corner him.
"What was up with you that last video?" Harry asked as he rounded the corner with a quirk of an eyebrow and a smirk on his lips.
The bathroom he had entered was deserted apart from Vik, who was stood facing the mirrors in front of the sinks. He was gripping the pristine white ceramic basins like a lifeline, and the more Harry taunted him, the whiter his knuckles became.
But he didn't move. He only stared at himself in the eyes through the mirror. He refused to give up just yet.
"I said, what was up with you in that last video?" Harry sidled over closer, daring Vik to speak. As much as he hated to admit it, this was plaguing him too.
Still, he was esteemed no reply.
So to pull one final trick out of the bag, Harry moved just one step closer and bent down, until his breath tickled hot against the back of Vik's neck. It sent the most gentle yet persistent shivers crawling down the back of Vik’s spine. This time, he did not have the strength to stop them.
"I said..."
"I heard what you said!" Vik almost shouted his reply as he spun around sharply. Harry noticed with a guilty sense of pride that Vik was rendered almost breathless and that he could even hear the sound of Vik’s heart pounding so fast that it was threatening to jump right out of his chest.
"I heard what you said, okay, I heard what you said! And you know what the answer to that stupid question is anyway. Don't patronise me with rhetorics. What do you want from me?" The words flew from Vik's mouth almost involuntarily as a pink flush invaded his cheeks like a disease.
He was stood up straight now, and for the first time in the last hour, he looked Harry straight in the eyes as a confrontation. Nevermind the way his knees wobbled, and he was clinging desperately to the sinks for stability.
Harry only smiled in response. He had just baited the King to the perfect position.
"Oh I know what I want. And I think you know it too. But the real question is, what do you want from me Vik?"
Checkmate.