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“...Fine. I’m sorry for zapping your eye, Emilia. Truly.”
“Hmm…” The leather-clad warrior sitting across from Jun gives a warm, sunny, shockingly genuine smile. “Nah, I get it. Protecting yer friends and all. I’da done the same. He just looked so official, I had’ta knock’im around a bit, yanno?”
“If you touch him again I’ll rip the other one out with my teeth,” the alchemist snaps with ice-cold impartiality, the muscles of his jaw tightening up around the threat.
Emilia, however, does not seem impressed. She waves a hand around like the menace is nothing but a puff of smoke, dissipating through her fingers. Jun would show offense at her dismissal had he not begrudgingly squeezed out an apology for her, seconds ago.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it, I won’t pluck a hair off his pretty head. What even is he to ya for you to get so cranky about him, your wife?” she chuckles. “The great flame wizard Jun, defending his 7-foot tall innocent bride from the big bad criminal stalking through the woods?”
She stops short when she realizes Jun is not laughing.
“Oh my god, wait, are you guys actually married? I thought you were like, roommates or something, have I been completely misunderstanding y—”
“No,” Jun interrupts, his cheeks coral-pink, his features frozen in fabricated indifference. “N-no, it’s nothing of the sort.”
“But you aren’t just friends.”
“No, well— I suppose not.”
“Are you just fucking him, then?”
“What in the hells is wrong with you? No! I am not fucking Nikita!”
“Mm, but you sure wish you were, dontcha?”
Jun looks up at Emilia with something like fury congealing behind his irises, finding her face illuminated by an unusually smug grin.
“Jun, you’re more see-through than the water in your cup. If ya want him that bad—”
“If you keep talking I am going to do so much worse to you than blind your sorry ass.” She giggles, but he doesn’t relent. “This time’s not a threat, it’s a warning. I’ll bury you.”
“Whateeeever. You’re so pissy. I didn’t think a magic bomb engineer would be this boring.”
“I’d love to see you in my shoes, with some strange, clearly mentally deranged woman pestering you for details about your private life. And implying you’re— ugh, forget it, I don’t even wanna talk about it.”
“Fine. Suit yerself. Find another wingman.”
“Fine!”
Jun crosses his arms not too unlike a pissed-off adolescent would and looks to the side, leaning back in his chair, his cheeks still not quite as pale and colorless as before. Emilia, unbothered, picks her toast up from her plate and bites into it with a resounding crunch.
A long silence follows, punctuated by occasional creaks of a chair—Jun shifts in his seat, doing all he can to avoid the barbarian’s gaze, seemingly unaware of the fact that she’s not even looking at him, having completely moved on to the matter of her feast. By the time Jun deigns to look at her again, she’s finished two cheese-topped toasts and started on a third one.
“...Even if I was in love with him—which I’m not, by the way—we wouldn’t need to get married. My relationship with Nikita transcends the need for idiotic wedding vows and grand, showy ceremonies,” he spits out.
“So I was right! You are in love with him!” she says, mouth full.
“I said if, numbskull. Did you lose your brain somewhere in your plate?”
“My skull ain’t numb, it’s yours that’s thick as mud,” she protests, then takes another bite. “And you said ‘if’, but then you also literally said you guys transcended marriage, and if that ain’t you admitting you’re in love with him, I dunno what is.”
“He is my soulmate. I am not in love.”
“Oh my god, listen to yourself! Are ya hearing what you’re saying right now?” She drops her toast in indignation. “So what then, ya wear matching rings, braid each other’s hair in the morning, blush like a rose when I ask if you’re married, he talks about you like you’re a god, you don’t even deny you want him when I say ya do, and now you’re saying he’s your soulmate, and you want me to believe you’re just best chums or something? Is that how you treat all your friends, then? When do I get my ring? Do I get’ta match with Nikita, too? Can I join in on the haircare or does that come after the making out?”
“We don’t wear matching rings, they’re leather bands,” is all he finds to reply.
“Denial is a river in Ezypt.”
“It’s Egypt, stupid. And cry me one, if me upholding mine and Nikita’s privacy is so terribly offensive to you.”
“Jun?”
Emilia’s digging for another reply is interrupted by the sound of a door creaking open. In a rare act of unity, both turn their heads towards the sound, their eyes meeting Nikita’s soft, gentle gaze peeking out from behind the door.
“Is everything alright in here? I heard Emilia shouting,” he asks.
“Jun wants to get married,” Emilia pipes up before the alchemist can stop her.
“I do not.”
“He does, he’s just being all shy about it.”
“O-Oh. Is… is that what you guys were talking about..?”
“Yeah.”
“No!”
“Jun, if you really do want to get married, I don’t see the issue. I just didn’t know you’d met someone... I can help arrange it, if you want,” Nikita suggests. Jun is too flustered to notice his tone has softened even further.
“Fuck me, you’re nearly as bad as he is,” Emilia sighs.
“Don’t listen to a word that demented woman says, Niki,” Jun huffs. “She’s been having delusions since this morning and keeps blabbering about marriage. I don’t know what’s got into her head. Maybe my fire bolt made it all the way through to her brain after all. Emilia, you might be running a fever, d’you want me to check your temperature?”
“I am not deluded and I’d rather die than let your gross little weasel hands anywhere near my head.”
“Great!” he sneers, clasping his hands together and adorning a deceptively charming smile. “Go right ahead and die, then.”
“Don’t say that to her, Jun, you can’t blame her for not trusting you. And besides, she’s with us, now. You’d better treat her kindly,” Nikita reprimands, with as much authority as he’s able to muster, which is to say quite softly.
“She is with you. Not us.”
“Jun, stop it! Oh, please don’t listen to him, Emilia, I’m sure he’ll change his mind in a few minutes...”
“Give it a few days, this tantrum’s serious.”
There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. Nikita shifts his weight on his feet, Emilia picks at the crumbs on her empty plate. Both stare quietly at the alchemist with varying degrees of worry, pity and irritation—that is, until he sighs deeply and gives in.
“Y’know what? Fine. Niki, come sit with us. I need to talk to you.”
“Ooh, finally some bravery! I like it.”
Although puzzled, Nikita obliges, pulling a chair closer to Jun and docilely sitting down by his side. After another short hesitation, during which Jun makes it a point to pinch the bridge of his nose in dramatized frustration, he speaks.
“Emilia has somehow deluded herself into thinking that you and I are in love. She thinks the leather bands are wedding rings. She’s also certain that if not my « wife », as she puts it, you must certainly be my lover. I am trying to explain to her that we are soulmates, you and I, not lovers, and she is stubbornly refusing to listen to me, which, to be fair to her character, shouldn’t surprise me. Would you please tell her that she’s got it wrong? And that you’d sooner watch hell freeze over than bed me? She’s not relenting and it’s starting to make my head hurt.”
There is a strangely tense beat of silence. Nikita, too, has turned his eyes away. He stares quietly at the empty plate left on the table for a few long, long seconds before he nods—slowly, as though the motion itself is strenuous.
“Yes, he… um… He’s right, Emilia,” he stammers. “We’re friends. Soulmates, actually. But not in love with each other. You’ve misunderstood. As… as Jun puts it, I’d rather… uh…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Emilia looks at him expectantly—Jun watches with worry as his friend seems to choke on his words, eyes vacant, brow furrowed, though he exercises such restraint it’s barely noticeable; but Jun notices, because he knows him. And because he knows him, he can also tell that something is wrong. There’s a trace of hurt burned into his forest-green eyes, a glint of guilt, too, and just that seems to be enough to flip Jun’s jaded, incendiary temper right on its head.
”Hey, Emilia. Leave,” he orders, dead serious all of a sudden—so serious, in fact, that the warrior gets up from the table immediately and with very little objection, save for a sigh.
“W-Wait, Emilia—” Nikita tries, but she shoots a nod in Jun’s direction and slips right past him.
The door closes on a room overflowing with so much tension, it’s a wonder it doesn’t immediately burst.
Both men sit still at the table. Nikita fiddles with the edge of his sleeve and picks at a callus on his palm, fear emanating so palpably from him it might as well have swallowed and replaced his entire body. Jun sits opposite from him, anxious as well, but for reason of confusion rather than… whatever is happening to Nikita.
It takes him a few seconds to speak.
“Niki. What’s wrong?”
Nikita jumps at the sound of his voice, almost as if he’d forgotten he was there and Jun’s words had summoned him back into his chair from wherever he’d wandered off to.
“N-Nothing,” he replies normally, like a normal person, with his voice’s normal pitch, and definitely without stuttering whatsoever.
What a joke. He should apply for court jester next time he’s called in to work, he thinks.
“You’re not fooling me. Is it Emilia? I understand, she’s so nosy and indelicate and stupid—”
“No! Um— No. Don’t say that, she hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s not… it’s not her.”
“Who, then? Or what?”
Nikita feels as if he’s been nailed to the wall for a flock of crows to feast on. He wonders if Prometheus ever did get used to his sentence—in a way, he does wish he could become a piece of hanging decor for the gods, morbid as that would be. Anything to get away from this. Anything to never hear him speak again, to never feel his eyes peering softly into his face with so much tenderness within them.
“Is it me? You can tell me, I promise.”
There he goes. With that stupid, mellow kindness spilling out from his throat, this careful affection nobody else can ever manage to tear out of him—
“You— it’s not you. It’s fine.”
“Tell me.”
And then Jun’s palm is covering his hand and he is gone. He pulls his hand away like Jun’s fingers are wrapped in hellfire. He might as well have been singed by his touch, with how hot he’s running—he’s probably brighter red than the freshly-picked redcurrants sitting in his basket. Jun shoots him a quizzical look, but the questions in his eyes overwhelm him so fully they might as well not have been asked at all, and he stands up to leave. His hand is already resting on the door handle when he turns to make a last attempt at an explanation of some sort:
“It’s nothing, Jun. I promise. Nothing. Just, just— work. And things. Nothing! Nothing you need to be worrying about, anyway. Uh, I, I’m— I’m busy. Very busy. So, I’ll be seeing y—”
Click.
Nikita looks down in horror at the door handle. He pushes down again. Click. “Click”? Click.
“Nuh uh!” a voice from the other side cheers. “You guys have some talking to do together. Ye’ll be leavin’ when I say so.”
“Emilia, let me out of here.” His voice quivers with dread.
“As much as I hate to do this to you, Nikita, I don’t think I will.”
“Please,” he begs.
“No.”
“What’s going on?”
Nikita’s panic expands in his chest like mercury in a glass thermometer when he hears Jun’s voice behind him. Of course—of course he’s still here, of course he hasn’t vanished by some undeserved miracle. He’s here, with him, in this room that is locked. Talking to him. Looking at him.
“N-Nothing.”
“Niki…”
Touching him now—his hand on his arm, pulling him back towards the patchwork couch. He sits down and this time, Nikita follows instead of pulling away, like their skin is melded where he holds him; Jun is so close that his lovely hair, all silk and silver waterfalls, mingles with the feathered split ends of Nikita’s braid. He’s letting his head settle comfortably on Nikita’s chest, gazing up at him, almost longingly. Almost.
“You’re acting like the world will end if you tell me what’s wrong,” he says, his voice all quiet and a little creaky.
Because it might, he wants to say, and Jun’s hand in the crook of his elbow is still made of heat and sharp edges, all mellowed out by the softness of his honeyed eyes and voice.
“I just… I don’t really want… I don’t really want to tell you,” he admits. “Because… you’ll hate me.”
“I can never hate you and I never will.”
“You don’t… know that.”
“I do, actually. Are you plotting a genocide?”
“What? No!”
“Well, see, that reaction tells me it’s nothing as awful as you’re saying it is,” Jun chuckles, cocking his head to the side. “Niki, I’ve got you, alright? I’m not gonna leave. If you don’t wanna tell me what’s wrong, that’s okay, but at least tell me how to help. I don’t want you struggling all alone, in the dark… Not ever again.”
There’s a long beat of silence. How to help. Nikita can tell Jun doesn’t only want to solve his problem; he needs to. So he thinks, racks his brain for a suitable answer. Well, for starters, don’t do this, he thinks. Your hand still on my arm, your chin tilted back, your deep V-neck tunic. Easily, his thoughts slip past his body: stop talking to me and pretending you love me, too. Either say you do or act like you don’t. A few further, and the doubt coiled in Nikita’s chest finally shapes itself into just one selfish, shameful request: stop giving me hope.
“It…” he starts. He has to talk. His mouth is desert-dry, the knot in his throat tightens. “It’s just that it hurts when I see you… treating me differently than you do other people.”
Jun frowns, so Nikita rushes to clarify: “Like just earlier—when you were arguing with Emilia… You were quarreling, insulting each other, then I came in and…” he quiets down, can’t bring himself to finish. His eyes are glued to the floor.
“I’m—I’m sorry, I can try to get along with her, for you, but—”
“You don’t have to! That’s exactly it, I… I know you’re both very different, I can see you’re trying your hardest. I’m not saying you have to get along with everyone. What I’m saying is that it would… help, a lot, if… if you would stop being so… kind, to me.”
Something in Jun’s gaze changes, prompting Nikita to unceremoniously blurt out the rest of his thoughts.
“Or if you won’t, then… then at least treat me like— like you do everyone else. With the scorn and the contempt and the grudges, and all. Berate me when you want to, I can take it. I promise. I want you to. Because I can’t do this, Jun. I can’t— I can’t keep pretending like I don’t… like I—”
—like I’m not in love with you—
“...Like I’m worthy of you.”
Silence. Doom.
Jun looks at Nikita with wide, surprised eyes. There’s a tinge of something else there, too—horror.
“I— I don’t understand. I…”
Worried furrows of the brow crease his skin like crumpled paper, his pupils widen, his fingers tremble, his scarred hand slips away from its place on Nikita’s forearm. He tries so hard to conceal it, but Nikita can see a trail of dread feathering through Jun’s delicate features. He’s considering his request, turning it over in his mind like a ciphered scroll or an artifact of alien origins.
“You want me to hurt you,” he finally squeezes out.
“I wouldn’t… I won’t be hurt.”
“Don’t lie to me. Why? Why do you want me to act like I hate you?”
Silence. Nikita hesitates for a moment before settling on an admittedly cagey reply.
“You don’t hate everyone else, everyone you scoff at, though. Do you?”
Suddenly, something sparks in Jun’s tender gaze—indignation. “You want me to— you don’t— you’re not everyone else, Nikita!” he stutters, voice straining. “I can’t treat you like I do Emilia, or those pompous city alchemists, or whoever, I can’t— we’re— aren’t we friends?”
“Of course we are, but—”
“Aren’t we eternal, Niki? You said that, you meant it, right?”
“Of course I meant it,” he reassures, but emotion washes his words over, and now it isn’t only about his request anymore.
“You’re the only one who matters to me, you’re the only one I don’t have to put the— the brave, confident, insufferable bastard act on for, you’re my only friend, why? Why do you want me to treat you with disdain? You are worth everything to me, have you gone mad? I’m so sorry if I made you doubt yourself, Niki, I really didn’t mean to…”
Jun’s hand is slipping back out to touch him, but this time he’s wrapping his bandaged fingers around Nikita’s wrist and holding his hand as he speaks.
“Please, just ask for anything else. Anything at all but that. I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I can’t even try. I don’t want to. I won’t treat you any worse than you deserve. You’re the only person I care about… you’re the only person I could ever love.”
A sharp inhale.
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?”
“No, I— sorry, it’s just…”
Confusion warps his perfect porcelain face, again. He needs to stop. Right now.
“I…” Stop.
His breath shakes. He swallows dryly, as though his shame has congealed into a stone lodged tightly in his throat.
“Nikita…?”
“Jun, I— I can’t talk to you. I will not risk our, our friendship, our— I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t, I’d rather die.”
Silence.
“I can’t take this anymore. One day you’ll find out and you’ll hate me and I can’t take it. It’s shameful. I’m shameful, a degenerate, I’m not worthy of you—”
Jun squeezes Nikita’s trembling hand in his own, leans in closer towards him. His face, perfectly serene save for a knot in his brow, is inches away from Nikita’s as his hands come to rest on his cheeks and coax him into holding his gaze. He sifts through the canopy of Nikita’s eyes, softly, gently, hoping to unearth the worries he keeps hidden away.
“Calm down, Niki. Look at me. It’s okay… I promise.”
“I’ll hurt you. You’ll hate me,” he insists.
“Do you want to hurt me,” Jun asks flatly, as though he already knows his question is insensate.
“I… no.”
“See? You don’t want to, so you won’t. Tell me what’s bothering you—please.”
“You don’t understand.”
“So explain it to me.”
“...You’re not making it easy.”
“How so?”
He’s staring up at him, two pools of gold, of sunlight. He could drown in his eyes. There’s a tense beat of silence during which seconds stretch into years, into infinities. Slowly, as Nikita melts into his touch and closes his eyes with a sigh, the world is washed away by a shroud of comforting darkness, illuminated only by Jun and his radiance. The patchwork couch and creaky hardwood floors have given way to spiraling webs of twinkling stars and nebulas, and in this moment, in this sliver of starlit peace, Nikita feels as though his very own imperfect soul could smooth itself away into Jun’s, until nothing of him remains but light, his sins washed clean, his being purified. All his shame falls away, all his guilt—he wants to touch him, wants to hold him, wants him to know just how deeply he is wanted, and for just a moment, it feels possible, it feels okay, it feels allowed—
“Have… Have you ever thought about what life could be like, if… if you had someone to love?” he asks, his breath shaking. “Someone to be with?”
“Where’s this coming from? Is this still about what Emilia said?”
(—he chuckles—light, airy, delicate and fairy-like, nothing like the abrasive, mocking laughter he offers everyone else—)
“No, no, I believe you, I just— I just think a lot of people would find you beautiful. And very kind.”
(—his eyes narrow with a smile, he’s smiling, he made him smile—)
“I’m burnt up to my elbows, wrapped in rags and covered in soot. And I’m a snide arsehole, you know that.”
“Not to me, you aren’t. And you look like an angel.”
“An angel?”
“With your snowy hair, your eyes like fire…”
“What is this, are you trying to seduce me?”
(—the gift of his voice, of his breath, nobody else has had the privilege of being so close to him, only he has it, only him—)
“Would you let me?”
(—please—)
“I— what?”
He frowns.
All at once the starry sky shatters. The patchwork couch and hardwood floors burst into reality with a violence that knocks the air from Nikita’s lungs, the air around him heavy with fear again.
“Oh, gods, I’m sorry. I mean— I didn’t— I’m sorry, I thought—”
This time, Jun is still and quiet as he panics.
It’s over, Nikita realizes.
For the first time since he met her, he curses Emilia and her terrible ideas.