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Wylan Van Eck has a problem.
No, Wylan Van Eck is in crisis. He has so many problems. Way more than he can count at the moment, namely because there are two pretty huge fucking problems that are taking up pretty much all of the available space in his brain right now.
The first, and most immediately pressing problem, is that Jesper Fahey is standing in front of him wearing the most ridiculous swimsuit that Wylan has ever seen in his life. For one thing, it’s an electrifying shade of green, which is so unfair because Jesper looks ridiculously good in green. For another, it’s made of angular cuts of fabric, attached by metal rings and barely covering any of his body at all. The entirety of his thighs are on display, which is bad enough for Wylan as it is without even factoring in all the gaps in fabric where pieces of his chest and his waist are exposed. He looks so ridiculously good that Wylan genuinely thinks this might be the end for him.
He sees Jesper the minute that he rounds the corner of the house (because, Saints, how could he not?) but it’s a good thing because it means that he has a minute to try and compose himself before they’re face-to-face.
“Oh. My. God.”
He turns to see Nina—for lack of a better word—ogling Jesper over the top of the sunglasses that she’s pushed down her nose, her mouth dropped into an o-shape. Even Matthias looks a little flustered at the sight of him, but the way that he turns away from Jesper to flash an intense look at Nina suggests it’s at least partially because Nina is wearing a similar bathing suit under her oversized t-shirt. Technically, it’s Matthias’s t-shirt—Wylan was there when Jesper and Nina found it while thrifting, he remembers the way they laughed so hard they almost cried when they pictured Matthias wearing a shirt with skeletons in pink cowboy hats and the words let’s get rowdy on it.
Now, he thinks it’s a pretty fitting statement. Let’s get rowdy, indeed.
“I’m going to die,” Wylan announces, glancing over at Jesper once again as he says it. “Guys, I’m going to actually die. Today. Right now.”
“You are not going to die,” Matthias replies, doing his best to sound convincing. It only kind of works.
“How am I supposed to talk to him when he looks like this?” Wylan whines, scrubbing his hands over his face. Which brings us to problem number two: he may or may not be going on a date with Jesper tonight. The problem isn’t the idea of going out with Jesper—that’s the exact opposite of a problem, actually—the problem is just that he doesn’t know if they are or not.
It all started two days ago, when they were planning their annual party to celebrate the beginning of summer.
It was only kind of summer for Wylan and Jesper, of course, who each had a handful of courses at Ketterdam University to complete over the next two months—that’s what they got for being on the engineering track—but the beginning of summer party was a tradition, nonetheless. Plus, this was the first year that their summer party would be an actual pool party since they bullied Kaz into renting a house with a pool for the year.
Aside from the new aquatic backdrop for their party, the itinerary remained largely the same—drinks, games, food, music, et cetera—which is part of why Wylan was so caught off-guard when Jesper texted him separately from their groupchat to ask him what he was doing afterwards.
‘afterwards?’ He had texted back, unable to so much as wrap his head around the question. Was there some afterparty he didn’t know about? Or some event he had forgotten about?
‘yeah, like once everyone goes home?’ Jesper replied, and Wylan was glad that they were communicating over text so that he couldn’t see the way his face flushed in embarrassment.
‘idk, i guess i figured i would go home too? i didn’t have any plans otherwise lol’
‘well, would you like some?’
They ended up making plans to go get drinks at Jesper’s favorite bar after the party and Wylan didn’t think much of it at the time because why should he? They hung out all the time. They got drinks together all the time. He assumed it was just a casual, friendly hang-out until Nina came in hot the next day with a lot to say about it.
“A little birdy told me that someone is going on a date tomorrow,” She sang as she practically skipped into his apartment, Matthias in tow.
His eyebrows furrowed. “Who?”
Nina stopped in her tracks and then looked back at Matthias, who shook his head in a way that clearly communicated he wanted no part of this conversation. “Um?”
“Who, Nina?” He pressed, an anxious feeling rising up in his chest.
Nina stood frozen, like a deer in the headlights, wide eyes darting around the room like she was looking for something to save her. “Look at the time—”
“Nina!”
“You, Wylan!” It was Matthias that finally said it, casting the room into silence for a few long moments.
When Wylan eventually remembered how to speak again, the only thing that came out was a squeak that barely resembled the word “Me?”
Nina and Matthias exchanged another look, their expressions impenetrable to him. It was often like this with the two of them and it made Wylan hunger for that kind of closeness in a relationship of his own. Finally, Nina said “Jesper said you were going out for drinks.”
“Yeah, we are,” Wylan nodded, his brain trying to puzzle through the interaction for anything he might have missed. “As friends, I thought. It wasn’t like… He didn’t say it was a date.”
Nina raised an eyebrow at him and his face inexplicably warmed up a few degrees. “When he told me about it, he made it very clear that I was not invited.”
“Maybe he assumed you have your own plans,” Wylan suggested but Nina looked unimpressed.
“Of course we do,” Nina said, flicking her hand noncommittally. “I bought a new bathing suit for this and I’m counting on Matthias to have a lot of plans for me once he sees me in it.”
“Nina!” Matthias flushed a deep shade of scarlet and Wylan mimicked a gag, but at least now he wasn’t the only one blushing here.
“Look, just ask him, Wylan,” Nina said encouragingly, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. She made it sound so easy. Like he could just walk up to Jesper and say hey, are we getting drinks in a gay way or in a platonic way? Like that wouldn’t actually kill him.
Except, after Nina said that to him, he literally could not stop thinking about it. Like at all. And he really tried. Avoiding his feelings and saying nothing about them to anyone ever has kind of been his preferred coping mechanism for the last twenty years, and he’s gotten quite good at it, so the fact that he can’t leave this well enough alone really says something.
By the day of the party, he’s accepted that he has no choice but to be really brave and strong and ask Jesper about tonight.
Wylan knew that this trial was going to be the ultimate test of his strength, given the fair assumption that Jesper would most likely show up to their annual beginning of summer beach party in a swimsuit. He was as mentally prepared as he could be for the thought of having to hold a whole conversation with Jesper in a pair of tiny swim trunks while simultaneously being exposed to his bare chest and half of his thighs.
So, of course Jesper decides to show up in… that. Wylan’s mouth feels dry. He’s incredibly aware of just how swelteringly hot it is outside right now. Has it gotten ten degrees warmer in the last five minutes? It definitely has.
He spent hours last night lying awake in bed, planning exactly what he would say to Jesper when he saw him—something casual enough to not scare him off while meaningful enough to let Jesper know how much he wanted this. He rehearsed the speech over and over in his head but somehow, the second that he laid eyes on Jesper looking like that, he forgot every word of it.
He’s genuinely afraid of whatever nonsense might come out of his mouth if he talks to Jesper right now. Thankfully, Matthias grabs him by the shoulder and spins him around so that he’s facing him and Nina instead of Jesper, which helps.
“Take a breath,” Matthias instructs gruffly and Wylan does as he’s told, the frantic buzzing of his brain settling down to a quiet hum as he does.
Nina is watching him with a steely look of determination in her eyes, like she’s the one who’s about to have the hardest conservation of their whole life. “What are you going to say?”
What is he going to say to Jesper? At the thought of him, he instinctively goes to steal a look at him over his shoulder and Nina snaps her fingers in front of his face to regain his focus. “I’m going to tell him I’m excited to get drinks with him tonight.”
“Good. And then what?”
“And then I’ll tell him that I’ve thought about it a lot and I don’t want to get drinks with him as a friend because I want to get drinks with him as something more than that.”
Nina beams. “You’re ready.”
But, of course, when Wylan turns back around toward the direction where he had last seen Jesper, he finds him already fully engrossed in a conversation with Kaz. “Yeah, but he’s not.”
Matthias gives him a look of poorly-disguised pity and claps a hand against his shoulder. “Take a lap, buddy.”
Unfortunately, it goes on like this for the rest of the day. Whenever he comes anywhere close to getting Jesper alone, someone or something interrupts them—Jesper remembering there are jello shots in the fridge and sprinting inside mid-sentence to retrieve them, Kaz finally finding an opening to launch Jesper into the deep end of the pool after walking around with his scheming face on for an hour, Nina screeching “This is our song!” and pulling Jesper in to dance.
The last one, in particular, earns a very nasty look from Wylan as Nina realizes what she’s done too late and mouths ‘Sorry!’ at him.
He sits on the side of the pool glumly as dancing turns into a spirited pool volleyball match—Nina and Jesper versus Matthias and Inej—unable to stop himself from wondering if maybe this is a sign. If he was meant to have this conversation with Jesper, wouldn't it be easier than this?
He's halfway talked himself into canceling their plans altogether when he's interrupted from his deeply catastrophic thoughts by none other than Jesper himself.
“Hey tiger,” He grins as he swims up to where Wylan is sitting, propping his elbows on the edge of the pool. “I feel like we’ve barely talked today.”
“I know,” Wylan says, unable to make any other words come out.
“Good thing I’ll have you all to myself tonight,” Jesper says with a smile so wide it shows all of his teeth.
Wylan’s stomach lurches and before he can stop himself, he hears the words “About that…” come out of his mouth.
Jesper’s smile fades a fraction. “What’s wrong?”
“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
Jesper’s expression shifts into something that’s equal parts confused and hurt. Wylan wants to scrub it all off his face. He wants to kick himself for saying that when it’s not at all what he’s thinking.
“No, that’s not—” He tries again, only to come up short. He exhales a frustrated huff of air and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I had a whole speech planned out and this is not how I wanted it to go.”
“Hey,” Jesper says, and Wylan didn’t realize he had closed his eyes until he opens them again to find Jesper standing directly in the middle of his line of sight. He tentatively reaches to set a hand on Wylan’s knee and Wylan’s entire body relaxes in response. “Why don’t you start from the top?”
Wylan nods, takes one more breath to steady himself, and does just that. “I’m excited for tonight.”
“Me too.” Jesper is smiling again, so that’s a good sign at least.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot and… your friendship is one of the most important things in the world to me, Jes.”
“Ditto,” Jesper nods and Wylan is vaguely aware that Jesper’s thumb is rubbing little circles into his knee but if he stops to think about it for too long, he’ll definitely lose all hope of finishing this speech.
“And when I think about a life without you, I feel the same way that I did when you dragged me to that parking-lot carnival and made me get on that horrible ride after eating all that cotton candy.”
Jesper raises an eyebrow with a look of quiet amusement on his face. “World-ending nausea?”
“One of your worst ideas,” Wylan nods. “But even with all your terrible ideas included, I still think that I would be genuinely lost without you.”
“I definitely wouldn’t be surviving the engineering program without you, that’s for sure,” Jesper teases, but then his smile flattens into something more serious and he reaches to grab Wylan’s chin between his fingers. Jesper has this habit—touching someone whenever he’s trying to say something important to them, like the physical touch will make sure that they don’t look away—but it’s kind of futile when it comes to Wylan. He’d never look away, regardless. “But you don’t have to be without me, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“That’s what I’m getting at,” Wylan says, willing all the momentum he built up not to fade away now. He’s so close. “I don’t want to do anything to do anything that might end with me losing you.”
Jesper’s face falls. He pulls his hand away from Wylan’s face and drops his gaze toward the pool.
“But…” He continues, reaching out to touch Jesper’s face in an attempt to regain his attention the way that Jesper had only moments ago. “I don’t think I can, in good conscience, go to get drinks with you tonight as your friend.”
Hope flashes in Jesper’s eyes. “Oh? And why’s that?”
It’s now or never. “Because I want to get drinks with you as way more than just your friend.”
“Wylan Van Eck, are you saying you want to be my boyfriend?” Jesper asks, and though the words are teasing, the way he’s smiling tells Wylan that Jesper feels the exact same way that he does.
So, instead of being embarrassed or shying away from him, Wylan slings his arms around Jesper’s shoulders and hauls him in closer. “I’ve only been trying to tell you that all day.”
“I knew this bathing suit would do the trick,” Jesper says, wiggling his eyebrows at him suggestively.
“And I knew you were trying to seduce me,” He counters, and Jesper beams.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Now prove it.”
As Jesper leans in to (finally) kiss him, Wylan can faintly hear the sounds of Kaz complaining about the public displays of affection and Nina shouting at them to get a room but he doesn’t care. They can make fun of them for the rest of their lives if they want, as long as Jesper doesn’t stop kissing him.
“Want to get out of here?” Jesper asks as he pulls away, and if the way his hands are slowly making their way up Wylan’s thighs isn’t convincing enough, the way that Jesper is looking at him right now definitely seals the deal. “I think we have time for a quick detour on our way to drinks.”
Wylan takes one last, long look at Jesper’s ridiculous green bathing suit and grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”