Chapter Text
"You're chewing on your pen again. Stop it before I throw my bottle at you."
Aaron rolled his eyes and took his pen out from between his teeth, effectively wiping it into the fabric of his sweatpants to dry it.
"How do you even hear that from over there, shouldn't you concentrate on your game instead of babysitting me?"
The TV illuminated half of Nickys face as he turned his head to properly speak to him.
"I am trying to concentrate but a certain someone is gnawing on that pen as if his life depended on it so can you, for the love of god, just let it go. I tried this quest for the third time now!"
"Not my fault you lack the skills to do that mission."
Maybe he had nibbled on the pen but in no way would his mind have drifted off as far as to chew on it. That was a habit he thought he had left in elementary school, but apparently he had not.
Nicky huffed but didn't say anything against it, turning back to try the same mission for the fourth time now. Aaron wasn't sure he would get it this time but at least then Nicky could not push the fault onto him.
But there indeed was something occupying Aarons mind, getting him too distracted to even focus on the homework of his favorite subject. That was saying something.
"Nicky?"
Named only gave a grunt in return, followed by a curse word as his car crashed against a lamp pole in his game and the screen tinted the room in a variation of loser red.
"What is it now?"
"I am just.. I am curious about something and want your opinion on it."
While speaking his own brain was fighting against him even finishing the sentence. He did not want to talk about his love life, even less so with someone as nosy as Nicky. But who else was there?
Andrew wouldn't give two shits and probably leave before he even listened to his problem and then there was only Neil left. He wasn't sure how much advice he could take from someone who was dating his brother. Like for real.
"That's something new, is it some special day or why do i have the honor of helping future doctor aaron minyard?"
He huffed and debated just leaving the room and refusing to even speak with anyone about anything close to this topic again, but that wouldn't help him with his problem.
"I got a drunk confession the last time we were at Eden's twilight. How do you deal with something like this?"
Aaron left out that it was indeed the one and only Kevin day who had confessed his love to him in one of his drunken rumbles. Originally he would have brushed it off as just drunken rambles, Kevin was known for that after all.
But then again, he had never heard of Kevin in any context with the topic of love or romance. Now he was at a loss between believing that the confession was real and believing that it was all due to the alcohol.
"Oh?"
Nicky turned around fully for once, the controller long forgotten and thrown onto the little coffee table in front of the beanbag the curly haired was sitting in. He seemed to be more than interested, all to aarons dismay.
"Who is it? Do we know her?"
Like hell would he tell Nicky that it was Kevin, so he bit his tongue and looked to the side, as if to will up a lie convincing enough to please a gossiper like Nicky. Something inside him held him back from otherthinking the fact that Kevin was not a ‘her’.
"It was Kaitlyn wasn't it? Matt owns me a twenty."
Apparently had Aarons hesitance been taken as shyness and Nicky had jumped to the next best person to guess. Well maybe the thought of it being Kaitlyn wasn't that far fetched. Aaron had known that she was crushing on him for some time now, but he never made any advances towards her. At all.
Kaitlyn was very sweet and a genuinely nice person to talk to and share homework and study sessions with, but that was about it again. There was nothing inside Aaron that made him think that a relationship between them would work out or even make sense.
"Why were you betting on that?"
Not that he cared if Matt lost a twenty or not but then again it was his damned love life the bet was settled on.
"Because Kaitlyn has been tiptoeing around you for like.. months? I felt it was only a matter of time till she made the first step because you for sure have not a single romantic bone in your body."
Aaron huffed in annoyance over that very blatant lie.
"And what makes you think that now? Maybe i am very romantic and just don't like showing it?"
His pen tapped against the paper laying on his desk. He needed something to do with his hands or he was going to start pacing the room soon.
"I know it for a fact. Do I have to remind you of that one time where a girl had tried to confess to you with self made cupcakes? You tried one and before she could even start talking you told her how disgusting they tasted and walked away. I think assuming that you aren't the next Romeo is not that far fetched."
Aaron threw his pen at Nicky's head, hitting somewhere closer to his shoulder due to miscalculation though.
"Ouch, i have been wounded!"
Nicky was so dramatic at times it was starting to get annoying. Watching him sprawled over the bean bag as if someone had shot his shoulder for real.
"Can we get back to my original question before I consider never asking you for advice again?"
"How do you deal with it? Well, that's up to you."
In that second he knew that asking Nicky must have been one of the worst ideas he had ever had.
"Forget it."
Aaron stood up, almost making his chair tip over with the momentum but catching it before it hit the ground. This was getting too stupid for him. Maybe he just needed to do his homework at another place. Maybe it was just the noises from the video game distracting him and not the voices in his head that played Kevin's confession in a loop.
He was already halfway through the room as Nicky held him back by his shoulder.
"Hey, I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that I can't help you much. Either you accept the confession or you don't. It's either one or the other."
The fact that he knew that very well himself did not help him in the slightest and so all he did was shrug Nicky's hand off his shoulder and leave the room with the door falling shut behind him.
The air was cooler in the hallway, less stuffy and less filled with the smell of coke and popcorn coming from Nicky's side of the room. It felt nice, like he could take a deep breath without having to worry about Nicky's eyes on him.
He loved Nicky as much as family goes, there was no way he did not, but sometimes Nicky felt more like a babysitter than a cousin. At those times he disliked him from the bottom of his heart.
The sheets of homework felt heavy in his hands, reminding him of the upcoming deadline and that he should really get to it now. His place of choice fell onto the empty kitchen table downstairs as he sprawled his things over the wood mere minutes later.
Aaron really tried to concentrate, but his mind would not even let him remember the beginning of the sentence he thought of as he came to the ending of it. No his mind continually circled back to fucking Kevin Day.
Kevin Day in the light of Eden's Twilight.
Kevin Day with his two top buttons undone.
Kevin Day who leaned in close enough for Aaron to taste the vodka he had had in the air surrounding him.
Kevin Day who seemed to be the singular thing that was keeping him from being the academic weapon he usually was. Stupid Day.
The wood felt cooling on his cheek as he propped his head onto the table, eyes looking around the room lazily, not really focussing on anything.
In his mind he had two options going forward with it now.
For once he could just forget that anything ever happened, push the confession onto the alcohol and be done with it.
But with that he knew that there would always be a voice in the back of his head telling him 'what if?' and probably holding him back from being the academic weapon he was born to be.
The second option was less appealing to him, although it might be the one with the best outcome for him. He could just ask kevin if it was a real confession, get the truth and be fucking done with it. No little voice in the back of his mind, only clarity.
He shoved the sheets of paper away from him and stood up, determination written in his eyes as he made his way up into the first floor to a certain someone's room.