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When Jesper comes jogging to his apartment that afternoon, he’s still a bit sweaty and tired from the gym session.
Hell, it’s not even his fault if Inej and Matthias have basically tricked him into joining the gym with them. He hardly cares about building muscle, but he has to admit that he can use some exercise, considering his unhealthy lifestyle.
Gym, though...it's not exactly the way Jesper pictured it. For starters, Inej and Matthias never chat with him — the disrespectful bastards! — so it's never any fun anyways. He's just left alone to do boring exercises in silence, his only company being Taylor Swift's 1989 blasting in his ears. On top of that, everyone else is just busy doing their thing and focusing on exercise, no slacking off, so Jesper can't even try to socialise a bit with strangers. Truly depressing, if you ask him.
When his friends do grace him with their presence, it's usually small talk with Matthias in the boys' changing room. Matthias Helvar, of course, approaches his workout with the same diligence and religiosity with which he does everything. Jesper's not mad about it, truly — well, maybe a little bit — but he knows that Matthias isn't ignoring him. He's just extremely dedicated, and doesn't like to chit chat for the sake of it. The times he talk with Inej, though, they usually exchange the town's newest gossip. She always manages to know more than him, anyways.
The thing is, Jesper likes the adrenaline, really. He knows his friends pushed him to join the gym to "build better habits " (it happened after a really bad episode of his gambling addiction), but he could never, ever be as driven and dedicated as Inej and Matthias. The only reason why he hasn't quitted yet is because everyone — including Wylan — seemed so happy about it, and Jesper certainly doesn't like to disappoint them.
But hell, does he get bored.
So he’s here, music loud in his earphones and fumbling for the keys, cursing his stupid brain for always forgetting which one is the apartment’s. It’s raining outside, and he’s also wet and annoyed and possibly catching a cold, if the way he sneezes is anything to go by.
But also — he hasn’t seen Wylan the whole day, and that is making him all the more good-natured. He might just be a sap, but there's very little he loves more than coming home to his best friend in the world.
That's what he’s thinking about the moment he opens their shared apartment’s door, already throwing his coat and backpack on the floor. (Wylan will probably complain about it later, but Jesper is as stubborn as he is, really.)
He wastes no time heading towards the kitchen, where he can hear footsteps on the hardwood floor.
“Wy, wy, did ya know that Anika and Pim have started dating, and Roeder gave—“
He stops the exact second he catches sight of Wylan, mouth hanging stupidly open like he’s a fish. He keeps closing it and opening it again, like he’s about to say something, but words won’t come out of his mouth.
Oh.
The thing is...there’s a lot of skin exposed. More than what he’s used to seeing from Wylan — always covered in sweaters and cardigans, button-ups, sweater vests. Even in Summer, he never wears something too revealing, too bold: he’s always sober. Jesper thinks that’s partly why he’s so taken by surprise, but he would be a lying motherfucker if he said that’s the only reason his mind is short circuiting at the moment.
“You’re…you’re wearing a crop top,” he utters, dumbly.
Wylan raises an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
There’s a red flush and a petulant frown on his face, and Jesper thinks that he’s probably on the defensive — although he wouldn’t be able to tell why. But then again, as much as he thinks he knows everything about him, Wylan Van Eck is still a mystery to him from time to time.
“No, Saints, kid, I just…didn’t think you were the type to wear that.”
Wylan shrugs, and leans his back against the wall.
All that tiny movement does is lift the fabric of his top infinitesimally higher, and show more of that delicious, soft skin.
Fucking hell.
Jesper thinks — maniacally, stupidly — that if he actually knew how to draw, he would paint nothing but this: the soft lines of his body, the intoxicating expanse of his stomach, the pretty moles scattered around smooth, pale skin. Even, embarrassingly, the place his trousers sit low on his hips.
Jesper is pretty sure he’s staring, but he thinks he doesn’t care one bit. It may be the fact that it’s physically impossible for him not to stare, when presented with a sight this gorgeous. Or it might just be Wylan.
“Nina bought it,” Wylan says, casually, bringing him back to reality. “Said it would look nice on my complexion.”
And she’s damn right, Jesper thinks. Now that he thinks of it, it wouldn’t be far from the truth to assume that Nina plotted all this just to make Jesper have a crisis — and hell, is it working. He has a feeling she always knows, somehow, although he hasn’t admitted anything about having a crush— not to Nina, nor properly to himself.
He blinks when he realises Wylan has stepped closer to him, crossing his arms defiantly.
When Jesper keeps not saying anything — because he can’t find the words to form a coherent sentence — Wylan narrows his eyes, cocking his head to look at him suspiciously.
“What’s up with you? You’re acting weird today.”
“Must have caught a cold on the way home, y’know, it was raining like crazy.”
His own voice sounds foreign and weak to his own ears — a nervous, breathless laughter laced to words he doesn’t really mean. He barely has the time to hope against hope that Wylan doesn’t connect the dots, that he can’t read through his lies, because if he did, Jesper doesn’t know what he would do with himself.
Then — and it’s a glorious, glorious thing — Wylan comes even closer to him, eyebrows still raised and expression still gorgeously stubborn, until they’re almost pressed close. From this close he can practically count the freckles on Wylan’s nose and cheeks, now growing in number with the warmer season. His eyes are a bit wide, and it’s impossible to look away.
In fact, Jesper does the opposite of looking away — he gets lost into that clearwater blue. He feels his knees go weak.
Jesper has always known that Wylan Van Eck was pretty — ever since the very first moment he laid eyes on him, with his innocent baby blue eyes and his perfect red-gold curls. But right now Jesper feels a bit like he’s been struck by lightning, and the sight of Wylan’s stubborn little face mixes with the image of his bare stomach into a cocktail that fills him up with want.
Jesper thinks a lot of things, but most of all, he thinks Wylan looks really fucking hot.
His stupid, traitorous brain offers him an image — him, trailing kisses down Wylan’s stomach, maybe even hickeys, drawing out soft gasps from the other man. He imagines Wylan: flushing pink, fluttering his eyelids, maybe biting his lip. He imagines kissing down his stomach until the obscenely low waistband of this trousers, fucking worshipping him.
Jesper is pretty sure he’s blushing, and he’s glad that it’s not all that visible on him, or he would be mortified.
“Jes,” comes Wylan’s voice, possibly a bit too vehement, like he’d already tried to speak but Jesper was far too lost in his own head. “Jes,” he repeats, “if you’re cold I can heat up some milk with honey, or—”
“No,” Jesper interrupts him. One thing is for sure — he is not going to spend any more minutes in this room while Wylan looks like that, lest he does something stupid. He does not trust himself right now. “I’m going….” He pauses. “Taking a shower, I probably smell a bit. No need for milk, Wy,” he chuckles, offering him his best grin and hoping Wylan will buy it.
“Yeah, you really do smell,” Wylan murmurs, and hell, the sweet teasing smile he gives him is an awfully addictive thing on his own. He elbows Jesper, too, and Jesper would normally stay, he would normally tease and joke, but right now, he is a bit too overwhelmed and unable to unpack why he's feeling like this in the first place, that he can't trust himself to act normal, really.
"I'm...I'm gonna go, yeah," Jesper breathes, fighting the urge to stare at Wylan's soft looking lips. He finds it awfully hard all the same.
Silently, Wylan nods, staring at him suspiciously like he's still trying to figure out why exactly his best friend is acting weird.
But Jesper leaves him no room for further inquisition, scrambling to hide in the bathroom like the coward he is.
He’s actually going to take a shower — he really is sweaty and smelly, after all — but for now, he settles to literally hiding in the bathroom, steadying the thrumming heartbeat in his chest. Fucking hell, this is going to be a long afternoon.