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Nicholas likes to think there's a room inside every single person in the world, covered with everything they have ever liked. Nicholas' rooms is so full it feels like there's no more space anymore. But, still, he continues furnishing it and decorating it with every new things he tries and loves. The thing is, when Nicholas met Euijoo, his entire room stopped being his, and started belonging to Euijoo instead.
Nicholas used to like strawberries, trendy and stylish clothes, RnB songs, good overplayed movies, and most of all he adored badminton. But now, everything he loves brings him back to Euijoo. He started enjoying tangerines so he could give some to Euijoo, cardigans and comfortable baggy pants so Euijoo could borrow them, jazz songs to play with Euijoo, niche movies only Euijoo will know, and he even switched his sport's club for fencing to help Euijoo train his parry, riposte and lunge.
Nicholas' inner room is plastered with Euijoo all over, because in the end, there's nothing he loves more than Euijoo.
They met on the first day of the spring semester, in their now shared dorm room, and Nicholas knew none of the blossoming trees had a chance against the flowers sprouting in his heart the minute he saw Euijoo for the first time. It felt like spring itself was sending him the most beautiful gift, in the shape of cute lip corners shyly upturned and big bright brown eyes.
They didn't click immediately, the only apparent similarity they shared being their foreign accent when speaking japanese. It took Euijoo a while to open up and let Nicholas makes small steps in his direction. Language was the first barrier, but Nicholas tried really hard, mixing the last korean bits he remembered and the new roots of japanese he was learning, and Euijoo eventually followed, picking up some mandarin on the way. They started building Babel together, a giant burning tower of every dialect they've ever known. They harvested a path, a fragile line between two mountains, a bridge threatening to give out at any moment because of Euijoo's ever so unsure and suspicious demeanour. Later he confessed to Nicholas he had just been very scared of him at first. But since then, their boats had been floating steadily. At least on Euijoo's side.
On Nicholas' deck it's a bit more complicated. Forever experiencing storms and crushing waves, he's scared the cockpit will give out one day. He's so desperately in love with Euijoo it hurts him more than anything. It's an obsessive craving he can never ever feed. He's willing to take anything Euijoo will give him, even if it's reduced to just being best friends living together.
Sometimes, being contempt with the little bits and pieces he can gather from Euijoo’s attention is not enough. There’s a bunch of reasons on why Nicholas isn’t particularly proud of himself, like that one time he missed each and every classes from a subject he didn’t like, or the time he fought so hard with his bigger sister she didn’t speak to him for an entire week, or even when he’s drinking too much and wakes up sticky from a mix of sweet liquor, sweat and a bit of vomit. But nothing compares to the shame he feels every time he tries to date someone else to get Euijoo off his mind.
It started out innocently, trying things out with a guy from his year, but as the guy turned into another guy from a different major, and then into the girl from the coffee shop next to their university, to another girl from a random bar he was drinking at —all this in the span of a month and a half— Nicholas found it hard to stop. Living with Euijoo is nice. He can stare all he wants and Euijoo never says anything even when it gets too much. But the problem resides there, he can only ever stare, never touch, never feel, never breathe, never bask in Euijoo’s warmth. He’s so close Nicholas can almost feel the heat emanating from him, a forbidden fire he can never approach to try and see if the flames would devour him alive or engulf him in a sweet embrace.
It became unbearable, this fierce greed he can never tame, and the only solution he found to get the attention he so desperately wanted —even if it isn’t from the one he wants it to— is the morbid way Nicholas piles up relationship after relationship. It never last long, he just likes the way his pride swells when people desire him, but the minute it gets too serious and he’s faced with the painful truth that the person in front of him will never be Euijoo, he can’t stand it anymore and always ends up breaking things.
Euijoo never showed any interest in love and in relationships other than friendship, and Nicholas prays every night for him to never find out his one and only best friend is secretly hopelessly in love with him. He thinks Euijoo might know and just ignores it. He's not sure, but it's a possibility that never leaves his mind.
It hurts to not be able to even hope Euijoo will ever reciprocate, but it's a relief to not have to go through the terrible heartbreak of seeing him going out with someone that isn't Nicholas. He's grateful he never had to see him holding hands or sharing kisses with somebody else.
The only thing Euijoo actually pursues is fencing. His studies come second, but fencing is the one thing he likes more than anything. During a very vulnerable evening, Euijoo confessed to Nicholas he had to like fencing. Under the stars’ light that one night, Euijoo’s shoulders looked heavy, crushed by the pressure of his parents far away in Seoul. They never talked about it again, Euijoo acting like it never happened, and Nicholas respecting his silence. Deep down, he’s sill not sure if Euijoo’s fervour for fencing is genuine, igniting the bottom of his heart with passion, or just the result of his endless longing for parental validation.
The two of them are fundamentally different, craving for divergent things. While Nicholas yearns for love and attention —for the way his skin tingles and fizz with happiness every time he gets a compliment, never fully satiated, from the one person he absolutely cannot have— Euijoo is hungry for academic recognition, for world approval, for the ego stroke he needs to feel alive and seen.
Nicholas wishes he could tell Euijoo he sees him. Fully and entirely. And he knows he sees him better than anyone else will ever do.
°
Nicholas tries to concentrate on the feeling of a hand stroking his hip, the delicious pressure against his lips, the weight pushing him more and more against the wall, the sweet warmth boiling in his stomach. Anything to stay grounded in the reality of the furious make out session he’s having with the quiet university librarian. Anything to make him forget the shoulders his arms are wrapped around aren’t Euijoo’s broad ones. Anything to not think about the fact that the waist his hands were resting on a few minutes earlier isn’t the slender one he so badly wants to hold. Every time his best friend’s face —or worse, his body— comes scratching the back of his brain, Nicholas has to deepen the kiss, pulling the other man a bit closer to him.
It’s one of those days where the emptiness of his heart is a bit too painful. Euijoo is working harder than the usual, preparing for the next fencing competition their club asked him to participate in, and his absence is too hard on Nicholas. The hole in his chest is too hollow, and the carnivorous desire to fill it to the brim, to make it overflow from something, whatever it will be, took over his brain the minute his eyes crossed the shy student on library duty. He doesn’t even remember his name, or his major, and he honestly doesn’t really care about it.
His mind is about to travel once again towards someone’s missing presence when the librarian bites and pulls at his lips, not even trying to be soft. Nicholas snorts, pulling away just enough to breathe against the other man’s lips. “You’re quite fierce for a nerd. You looked so shy when i asked for your number earlier, look at you now …” He isn’t fully done with his sentence that the other man’s mouth comes crashing against his again, soon followed by a tongue licking the inside of his mouth, and Nicholas chuckles in the kiss.
Their little make out session started in the school bathroom, after the librarian followed him there, paper with the number Nicholas just gave him gripped tightly in his hands. Nicholas wanted more, he always does, and ended up bringing the other guy to his dorm, knowing Euijoo wouldn’t be there anyways. A part of him, deep down, hoped for his best friend to be there. He knows he shouldn’t bring this man back, they talked about it, Euijoo doesn't like it. But Nicholas is so desperate for attention from Euijoo —any kind of attention— that he just ignores the multiple nagging he got from his best friend. The man caging him against the wall of his living room made Nicholas forget about his best friend for a few successful minutes, but he can never last long without the ghost of Euijoo’s slender figure haunting his closed eyes again.
Nicholas’ right hand is tangling a few strands of hair between his fingers, left hand trying to take off the black sweater the librarian is drowning in. Every move from the man against him is like a breeze on his mind, scattering his thoughts away like fallen leaves on the ground in Autumn. Even the most untamed wind eventually comes to a halt at some point, and Nicholas can’t help but spiral back on all the wrong things about the body grinding on him. He can feel the other man’s desire against his thigh and wants to indulge in it, but it doesn’t feel right enough, he’s not quite where he wants to be.
As Nicholas is about to go down yet another train of thoughts about how bad he wishes the hands running up his back and the strong body caging him against the steady surface were Euijoo’s, the familiar beeping of the door passcode rings faintly in his ears. Before he can actually process the noise, the door is already wide open, Euijoo standing tall in the frame, mouth open, words stuck in his throat.
Nicholas pushes the other man away, hurriedly wiping the spit on his lips. His face is red and he’s not sure if it’s from the heated kiss or the shame at being caught by Euijoo. He can feel Euijoo’s eyes stuck on him, focused on his swollen lips, but he’s too embarrassed to look back, and his gaze travels endlessly from every corners of the room.
Finally, Euijoo speaks first. “I… I can come back later if you want…”
Nicholas can hear the glimpse of hesitation in his voice, and a new shard of guilt comes straight into his heart, next to the nail of shame already deeply buried in it. Euijoo must be tired, endlessly practicing his parry and advance since early in the morning, and Nicholas doesn’t have the heart to forbid him the bed Euijoo probably dreams about right now. “No, it’s okay.” He says, voice sounding a bit too strangled to his liking. “He was about to go anyways.” And to prove his words, Nicholas grabs the librarian’s bag, throwing it against his chest and pushing him towards the entrance in one singular movement. Without a word or even a look, he’s out the apartment and Nicholas closes the door back on him, head coming to rest against the steady and cold surface. Euijoo’s gaze is still piercing through his back and he can feel the headache coming.
“So … What was that, Nichol ?” There’s a silence, Nicholas unable to answer. He wants to melt to the ground and disappear forever. Euijoo’s fingers pinches the bridge of his nose and a sigh leaves his lips. He’s annoyed and Nicholas can feel it. “I thought we agreed.” Euijoo starts again. “You can’t keep on bringing your dates at home all the time.” Nervousness is tangled in his voice, Nicholas can hear it in the way he insisted on the word ‘dates’, trying to make a point that they both know it’s not serious dates. The attack doesn’t miss his target, and Nicholas whips his head around, vexed. He’s met with distress and anxiety screaming inside Euijoo’s eyes, before he scholars his expression and everything’s left on his face is annoyance. His perfectly rehearsed self control is not enough to hide the fear in his voice when he speaks again. “I told you so many times, it’s distracting. I can’t afford to have my focus broken every week just because you cannot keep it in your pants.”
"Euijoo. Stop. Don't cross the line." Nicholas hiss through gritted teeth. He knows Euijoo isn't acting like himself —the panic of failing at the one thing he’s wearing himself out to the bone day and night too deeply rooted in his brain to react like he usually would— because this is borderline mean. Euijoo can be blunt at times, but he's never mean. Never on purpose. Nicholas can't even bring himself to use Euijoo's nickname, the rage getting to his head as well, and he switched to japanese the minute his tone turned to anger, looking for a common ground.
The words hit Euijoo like a cold shower, and Nicholas sees it in his eyes. Euijoo looks away, shoulders dropping. He doesn’t apologise, but Nicholas knows he’s regretting his words. He opens his mouth to say more, to ask for a proper apology maybe, but Euijoo is already running away to his room. Their fights always end like this; unfinished. Euijoo locked in his room, remorse eating away his stomach, while Nicholas stays there, limbs hanging, tears stuck in his eyes.
°
“Why do you never apologise first, Juju ? Sometimes it feels like you only know how to stab first …”
Nicholas is drunk, so drunk Euijoo’s not sure he can walk straight if he ever asks him to get up.
“You’re drunk, Nichol. Enough for tonight, let’s go home.” Expected of Euijoo, he ignores the question and slides Nicholas’ arms around his shoulder to lift him up from the table he’s slouched on, determined to get him home safely.
“I wish you could apologise first, at least once … It would make me so happy …”
Euijoo doesn’t answer, guiding them both in the dim-lit night streets.
°
Euijoo is the first to flee, and Nicholas is the first to come back. He’s always the one making amends, always the one asking for forgiveness even when he didn’t do anything wrong.
Today is no exception. A few hours passes before Nicholas is standing in front of Euijoo’s door, his fist hanging in the air, internally debating on whether to knock or not. Before he can settle on an answer, Euijoo’s face appears in the frame. If he’s surprised to see Nicholas in front of his door, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t say anything, looking like he’s waiting for Nicholas to speak first.
Nicholas gives in. “Do you want to have diner ? We can order something, you choose the menu.”
He hates the way he’s always the one folding, always the one reaching out and tending broken pots he didn’t throw on the ground. It’s tiring and he so badly wants to stop begging at Euijoo’s feet, but every time Euijoo comes back around and smiles at him again, he forgets about it all, until the cycle repeats itself. Euijoo’s attention is worse than drugs for his brain, and he’s willing to do anything just to get it.
“Okay, but you can choose.” Euijoo tentatively offers, coy, mixing the few chinese words he remembers to his korean. Nicholas’ eyes lights up with a glimpse of hope. In his way, Euijoo is trying to meet him halfway. It’s the bare minimum, the smallest effort Euijoo can possibly make, but it’s enough for Nicholas to forgive. Euijoo takes a step and Nicholas runs the remaining meters.
Every time they fight Nicholas feels like they’re bouting just like during their practice rounds in the old gymnasium. Euijoo always lunges first, on the piste and in their shared kitchen. He takes the lead, he’s the one to advance —to get Nicholas in a corps à corps— his épée aiming for Nicholas’ target in the middle of his chest. The heart is always the goal, with his words just like with his pointe d’arête. Nicholas is the one having to par, riposting every attack, every hit, the best he can. He’s on guard at all time, épée held in front of him, a defensive point in line to which Euijoo always responds with a beat. A sharp tap, strident noises echoing from their blades clashing or their hurried voices crashing against each other. When Nicholas can finally breathe again and return to his initial en garde position, Euijoo is already running away, not giving him the opportunity to fight back. He’s the best offensive of probably all of Japan, but when he’s faced with his own mistakes, cornered against a wall, Euijoo never knows how to defend himself, and his only option is to dodge the attacks by backing away.
Nicholas knows Euijoo understand he’s in the wrong, but the issue resides in admitting he made a mistake, admitting he essentially failed at something. This is the problem with Euijoo, he would rather ignore the matter at hand than accept that, for once, he didn’t succeed in something. His pride is too big, filling his heart to the point it overflows and drowns him in a fake reality where he can convince himself he’s not the one who messed up. He’s always the first to throw a punch but always the last to apologise.
“I should’ve told you I was bringing someone over. I’m sorry, Juju.” Nicholas ask for forgiveness first, palms open towards Euijoo, hoping he will take it and close the fight with his own apology.
Euijoo nods. “Me too, I shouldn’t have gotten angry like that, the exhaustion made me loose my temper. I’m sorry too.” He offers a tentative smile to the other man, reaching for peace. Nicholas smiles back and the bout is settled on a tie, blades abandoned on the floor.
°
Life went back to their usual once the fight settled, like it always does whenever they argue. Euijoo wonders if Nicholas will ever stop folding first, and how long he can still hold. Nicholas’ presence is an anchor in Euijoo’s life, something that never changes and stays the same through it all, even when he himself changes constantly. Maybe Nicholas changed a lot through their times together, but if he did he never showed it, at least not to him, making his person a constant in Euijoo’s world. He’s willing to make amend and, for once, go in Nicholas’ sense in order to keep the security of having him in around, but every time he’s given the chance to do so it’s too hard and he backs away.
Euijoo’s phone dings, getting him a few annoyed looks from the other people in the university library. The student who was in his house a few days ago, hanging at Nicholas’ lips, is the one that stares the most, but Euijoo just ignores it and pulls his phones out. It’s a text from Nicholas asking him if they can eat together tonight. It’s something he does a lot, even though they live together. Euijoo is often busier than him with fencing, and even if Nicholas practices really hard, he doesn’t indulge in all the supplementary training session Euijoo plans for himself. Because of those hours he adds to his schedule, Euijoo often stays very late at school and Nicholas took the habit to ask him if they can eat diner together, as a way of knowing if Euijoo will stay out late or not.
Euijoo quickly presses the keyboard on his phone, typing a short positive answer. He’s deep in his last minutes studying for the midterms approaching, and since he spent most of the day in his books and notes, he’s planning on staying a bit late at the gymnasium, but he’s sure he can make it home for diner. I’ll be home by 9pm, Euijoo hits the send button before locking his phone and putting it away in his bag. His books, papers and pens soon follow his phone in the mess of his bag before he leaves the library towards the sport’s hall.
The salty smell of sweat greets him once he enters the university's sport locker room, mind still fuzzy from calculus rules and variations. Exams are close, but his next fencing match is closer. Euijoo puts his training clothes on, clearing his thoughts from the last persisting numbers and formulas. The soft fabric of his old worn out white practice pants —now almost grey from time passing— helps him settle in the familiar mindset of fencing bouts. Everything else flies away. His exams, the guy from the library, Nicholas kissing people left and right, their stupid fights, Nicholas as a whole. When he steps on his mark, his mind is fully blank, only swift moves and over practiced position running around in it.
Euijoo gets lost in his blade work, in his faint and flèche, and in the way the air hits his face with every steps he takes on the piste. Time flies away and he forgets about Nicholas waiting for him.
When Euijoo finally reaches home, three hours later than planned, Nicholas is curled up on the couch, eyes stubbornly fixed on the TV playing an episode from an old sitcom. When Euijoo tries to catch his gaze, to explain himself or even try to apologise, Nicholas ignores him. Euijoo swears he can see tears in his eyes.
°
“Nichol, your lunges need to be more direct! Your aim is off, you need to target my torso, not my arms!” Euijoo shots, getting back to his en garde position.
Nicholas snorts, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m trying, you know. You’re just too fast …” He holds his épée in front of him, shortening the distance between them through the extended arm. “Let’s go again. This time, I’ll be the one to hit you.” Nicholas smirks, he’s convinced he’s going to win this round.
°
"I'm sorry Juju, but I just don't understand why you're so hooked on your fucking assignment you forget everything else. Don't get me started on fencing practice! You're already the best in the top five school in Japan, you don't have to spend all your nights perfecting your riposte and lunge. All you ever think about is your studies, your teacher, your classes, your assignments, your stupid épée, and I'm out there looking like a fucking idiot waiting for you every damn day and I'm not even asking for a lot, you make me feel like I'm asking for a lot but I don't! I just want a text to tell me if you're not coming in the end or to just, I don't know man, keep me updated on what you're doing. I get worried and i look pathetic in this dumb couch waiting like a dog for their owner to come home just because you won't tell me shit."
Nicholas is out of breathe, panting, the lack of air in his brain is making him a bit light headed, but it's exalting. He kept those words inside the comfort of his chest for too long and they came out a bit more hurried —voice slightly too high, sounding a tad too miserable— than he planned. He doesn't care. The needle buried deep in his heart hurts too much for him to even think about what he might look like, what he might sound like throwing up his feelings on the carpet. He originally planned on ignoring Euijoo until he came begging to his feet for forgiveness, but the pain in his heart spreading through his entire body made him snap first, once again.
When he finally looks up at Euijoo's face, it's like ice water being poured on his face. The expression sharpening his usual round features is so foreign to Nicholas' it feels odd and his hearts clench. He is looking frenetically into his mental library on Byun Euijoo to understand what is going on inside his head to look so distraught and maybe slightly mad. Nicholas loses his earlier confidence and his shoulders drops at the same time his fervour deflates.
"Nicholas ..." Euijoo starts, and Nicholas shivers hearing his full name coming out of his best friend's mouth. Even when they’re arguing, most of the time they still use each other’s nicknames, it comes out first, by habit. Euijoo is deliberately drowning any warmth left. His voice sound serious, cold, almost distant and Nicholas can feel the hollow gape in his stomach. "You're talking as if we were dating each other. I'm sorry you were worried and I'm sorry i bailed out, I really am, but i don't owe you a check up on my life every five minutes. We're best friends, not ..." He pauses for a second, words hanging in the air, the next one on the tip of his tongue and still struggling to get out. He settles for another word in the end, and Nicholas can tell. "Not together."
It's crushing. It's like the nail in his chest just got hammered even deeper inside. Nicholas wants to collapse to the ground and cry until he's all dried up and dead. Of course they aren't together and of course he knows it. It is expected of Euijoo to answer like that, to react that way. But being thrown to his face that the overwhelming love he has been feeling for the other is nothing but a fire blocked by ice cold water feels like being beaten up with a spiky stick. Fencing swords aren’t supposed to physically hurt, but Nicholas is sure he can feel the sharp blade piercing the tender beating flesh of his heart.
"Right. My bad. Forget it then." Nicholas' words are dry and bitter, his face torn apart by sadness and a bit of disgust too. Disgust at himself, disgust at the way Euijoo is treating him and disgust at the unsaid words between them. "Good night, Euijoo."
Poisonous anger is flowing through his veins. In two steps, Nicholas turns away from Euijoo and leaves the room, then the apartment, slamming the door behind him. He doesn't know where he is going and he doesn't really care, he just knows he can't stay in the same space as Euijoo.
The streets are still soaked and inauspicious from an earlier storm. They say the brain isn't really good at discerning coldness from wetness. Nicholas isn't sure he's awfully drenched or just terribly cold, but his body shivers all over. It feels like the rain still pours on him even though it stopped hours ago. His brain is rotten from frustration and pain, acting as thunder in the drizzle of his mind.
°
It's been three days and Nicholas hasn't come back home. Euijoo wants to worry, but the anger taking over him thinking of the other man probably staying at one of his many 'friends' is too overwhelming and overshadows the anxiety tugging at his nerves. He should probably send a text, but Nicholas didn't, so he won't.
In front of him the stripe where he's supposed to bout in about 5 minutes is starring dead at him. His red mark is waiting for him to step behind it. Euijoo raises his head towards the crowd seated on the gymnasium benches. Some familiar faces from university are holding boards and posters with his face and name on it. His brain doesn't want to admit it but his heart is desperately looking for a specific face. His eyes never meets the reassuring features. Nicholas isn’t the type to miss any of Euijoo's match, even when they fight. Euijoo feels his heart crush behind his ribs. He breathes in and it's like his lungs are trying to asphyxiate the beating organs between them. Maybe this was the one time too much, maybe Nicholas doesn’t have the will to hold and fold anymore.
Euijoo prepared too much for this competition, he can’t let his thoughts run free and get distracted. He spent hours and days, and even full nights on the piste in their fencing club at university, missing meals and minutes of sleeps. He remembers more vividly the sweat and blood he shed those past few weeks than the home-made meals his mom used to make him when he still lived in Seoul, or even the comfort of his bed. The nervousness eating his stomachs away is not the usual one mixed with adrenaline, buzzing through his fingers, when he's about to compete. A glimpse of annoyance is peeking through the walls of his mind, he can't let the last bits of anger from their fight and the fear of having probably lost his best friend over something stupid get in the way of the victory he craves so much. Euijoo is mad. Mad at Nicholas for once again distracting his thoughts. Mad at himself for feeling guilty about his best friend instead of focusing on the competition. Mad at Nicholas, again, for not sending even one single text, when he’s been pestering Euijoo for the exact same reason. And, finally, he's mad at the knot twisting his insides, compromising his entire pre-bout routine. He doesn’t want to let rage take over, he can’t afford to loose his temper usually so well behaved. Fencing is a sport where calm and peace are keys, you need the perfectly tempered amount of energy and a clear brain to calculate your own moves but also the one of your opponent. Euijoo is scared of finally falling down the cliff he’s been keeping at distance so well all this time.
The club coach shots a glance at him and Euijoo can catch the spark of uncertainty in it. Getting closer, he breathes out. "I'm fine coach, don't worry. You know how much this counts for me, i won't disappoint." Euijoo finds it harder than it should for his voice to not tremble slightly, and the anxiety still busy with his stomach, slowly makes its way to his heart.
"Okay, then. I trust you." Euijoo can tell the coach is saying this more for his own mind than for Euijoo's nervousness. They're both betting a lot on this and he knows the coach is holding back to not pressure him too much. He can't fail, not this time, not ever.
Euijoo steps inside the piste, behind his mark.
"En garde."
Silence in the room. Polite usual salute from the two athletes. Mechanically, Euijoo's hands adjust his helmet on his head before feeling for the reassuring wire clasped on his back. All those movements are natural, he doesn’t even need to think anymore, he just does them. Once he's ready he raises his head against his opponent.
"Prêt."
A nod on both sides. Euijoo's grip on his épée tightens. A big breathe in. Quiet and peace. He's confident, he believes in himself. He knows he's going to win this match like every other bout he's ever played. He's ready.
"Allez."
His opponent lunge, not wasting a single minute, and Euijoo steps back, out of the piste. He's not ready. Panics takes over his brain.
°
"Nichol?"
Nicholas hums as an answer, averting his gaze up to Euijoo.
"Why did you left the badminton club?"
Nicholas shrugs his shoulders, suddenly looking away. "Don't know. It was boring, i'm better in the fencing club." He wants to add 'I'm better with you.' but he doesn't.
Euijoo looks at him weirdly but nods nonetheless. “Anyways, you can’t leave now. I’m always better on the piste when you’re watching from the bleachers.”
°
Euijoo throws his helmet against the lockers, the strident noise breaking the peacefulness of the room. A scream should follow, but it stays forever stuck in his throat. The space falls back quiet once his helmet hits the ground and Euijoo hates how the silence is at the complete opposite of the uproar in his mind. Everything is so loud and incoherent up there and he wishes the World would follow and collapse on itself the same way his brain is crumbling. He can feel the tears rushing to his eyes and his entire face feels hot. Anger and guilt are mixing in his veins, fuelling his brain with adrenaline he can hardly control, adrenaline he didn't success on containing on the piste a few minutes ago.
Euijoo feels stupid. How could he let his feelings and the remorse he don't even want to have get in the way of the one thing he absolutely cannot fail ? Loosing a match so stupidly is something the perfect fencer Byun Euijoo would never do, and he's more mad at himself for that than for actually loosing.
He's still not sure what came over him on the stripe. The minute he understood he wasn't ready and his focus was somewhere else, the minute he lost the first point for stepping out of the piste, blind rage washed over him. Euijoo, ever so calm and collected, lost his temper and let his fury explode, lunging always more violently towards his opponent.
When he got his first red card —the first ever in his life— for being too brutal, it only made things worse. Euijoo argued restlessly with the referee, calling him biased and stupid, something he would never ever do. His coach broke them apart after a few seconds, not hiding the deception in his eyes. The referee stopped the bout right after, Euijoo disqualified.
He falls down on the bench placed in the middle of the small locker room. His head hangs low, held by his hands on both sides. Euijoo's fingers comes pressing on his eyes, holding back the threatening tears. His breathe is shallow, and his heart is beating in his ears. His white suit contrast with the dirty grey paint on the walls and furnitures, it makes him feel like a bird trapped in a storm. His head is spinning with unstopping thoughts and mental replays of the match. He bites his lips when it gets to his last attack, too brutal, somewhat off, in the wrong trajectory. A messy flèche all in all, a lunge he couldn’t control. Not only did the tip of his épée hit his opponent in the arm, point automatically invalid, but his body followed way too fast, and he crashed a bit too aggressively into the other athlete.
Euijoo winces. Another mental image makes its way to his closed eyes; the absence of a way too familiar face. Nicholas never came.
Euijoo is thinking of all the time he went home to Nicholas making out with someone new, of all the time they fought because of said people, of all the time his focus faltered because of Nicholas. He hates it. He hates the way his chances of victory now rely solely on Nicholas. He can feel his blood boiling, pumping around in his entire body.
When he finally gets up after what could be minutes or hours, his face soaked from the tears he couldn't repress, Euijoo is determined to make things right. He can't afford another loss, he can't afford to disappoint his coach and his parents again. He's got too much on the line to let a stupid distraction get in the way.
°
"Can you just stop doing all .... This!" Euijoo's hands are flying around in the air, he's motioning towards something that isn't here, like pointing repetitively towards it will magically make it appear.
He came home to find Nicholas frenetically packing shirts and socks in a travel bag. Euijoo didn't let him talk, didn't ask him why he left and came back just now, didn't ask why he wasn't in the audience watching over him during his bout, didn't ask why it looked like he was about to go again. Instead, he only voiced out that one question.
"What's 'This'. What do you mean by 'all this', Juju. I don't get it." Nicholas' jaw is clenched, his teeth sinking hard into the flesh inside his cheeks. He automatically switched to japanese, frustrated, trying the best he can to be fair. The creeping feeling of annoyance can't beat the fondness in his voice when he says Euijoo's nickname. Nicholas is a bit destabilised by the way Euijoo jumped on him with a question he's not sure he understand. He can feel his stomach turning and his heartbeat pounding in his throat, like he's going to throw up.
"This. The thing you do with other people. Hugging. Kissing. Holding hands. Hell! Even fucking." Euijoo's cheeks gets slightly red, and Nicholas doesn't know if it's from the anger bottling up in his chest or his usual shyness breaking through his annoyance. "All of this! It's distracting, and you know it. I don't want to fail this semester and i can't fall behind at fencing practice. I need to concentrate and you need to stop. You keep distracting me to the point where it's affecting my performances. I lost my bout, today."
Nicholas sighs. He doesn't want to answer, it's going to ruin things forever and he knows he can't take it. The glimpse of reproach lingering in Euijoo's voice when he mentions the lost tournament —and the way he stubbornly sticks to korean when Nicholas tried really hard to built a fair foundation on them both— wakes up the anger sleeping in his blood. He's stubbornly staring right into Euijoo's eyes, trying to go past it, to reach his insides. Maybe somewhere between Euijoo's lungs and heart, his true feelings are hidden, neatly folded against his ribs. He doesn't understand why this resentment is so brutally directed towards him and he doesn't understand why he's the sole responsible for Euijoo's falling grades and bout defeat. Nicholas knows his best friend is mad, but he's not mad enough. Even right now when he's finally letting himself go, letting himself be heard, Euijoo is too considerate of Nicholas and holds back —maybe not even on purpose— and he doesn’t say enough. He’s keeping the important parts inside.
“Nicholas.” The name rings in his ears, it's weird when Euijoo doesn't use his stupid nickname for him. “Tell me. Why are you doing all this?” Nicholas still doesn’t answer and Euijoo sighs, finally switching to japanese too. “I failed most of my last exams because of you, and now you're also polluting my focus during competitions. Are you purposely trying to make me fail everything that is important to me ?”
Euijoo is probably the smartest one of them both, always been the academically gifted one, but right now Nicholas thinks he might be the stupidest man on Earth. His fixation on his grades is shattering his trust for his best friend to the point he's accusing him of deliberately going against him. It makes Nicholas' blood boils, and the rage is overflowing.
“What the fuck, Euijoo.” He barks out his name the same way Euijoo did a few seconds earlier, leaving sweet nicknames behind. It comes out a bit more spiteful than Nicholas had planed it to be and he regrets it immediately seeing Euijoo flinch, pain and sadness wavering a few seconds in his eyes. Nicholas wonders if Euijoo even understand how hurtful his words just now were. “Who do you take me for? What do you even see me as? You're once again thinking only about you and your stupid grades! I'm not doing 'All This' to distract you, i'm doing 'All This' because you will never ever do it with me and I need a way to forget about it.”
The end of his words come out strangled, his throat closing up. If Nicholas speaks any more he's probably going to throw up for real. He's feeling nauseous and the tears he's trying really hard to not shed are growing too big to be held back. Euijoo freezes in front of him, seemingly unable to move anymore. He doesn't say anything, just looks right at Nicholas, mouth slightly agape from the shock. Nicholas inhales deeply, pressing his palms against his eyes to chase the tears away.
“Shit, Euijoo. I can't believe you would say this. I'm so stupidly and desperately in love with you, I think of you so much i sleep with all the willing people out there to try and miserably fail at forgetting how much I love you, and you ... You don't even trust me. And it's so stupid, this is such a stupid fight I hope you realise that! It's so stupid that you would even think that I, your literal best friend would try to make you fail. And for what, ah? What reasons you made up in your brain would be rational enough for me to fuck with your studies, and even worse, fencing ? Why would i even try to mess up fencing for you?”
He’s almost screaming now. It’s a lot, but it feels so good. The minute Nicholas started talking he felt a weight he didn't even know was there leaving his chest. It's liberating and it makes him feel like he could try right here and now to fly and would succeed with no troubles. But Euijoo's expression brings him back to Earth. He looks gloomy, but like every facial expression from Euijoo, it's hard to tell exactly what he is feeling. Nicholas bets on a mix of sadness and anger and probably betrayal too, it must feel really weird to know your best friend has been secretly in love with you. But Euijoo still obstinately doesn't speak, he doesn't even utters a single sound.
Nicholas' hands that were dancing around to the rhythm of his words and anger, fall back along his sides, his shoulders dropping. His head follows soon, eyes darting to the floor. He can feel the tears coming back, stronger and bitter this time.
“Are you not gonna say anything?” Nicholas hiss through his teeth, fist clenching.
There's another moment of silence, and right before Nicholas is about to give up and leave the room and probably the apartment too, for good this time, Euijoo finally shows sign of life again. It's small, just a shift of his head. From the top of his eyes, Nicholas can see he turned his head toward to side.
"I didn't make up any excuses." Euijoo mutters in one breathe, words hurriedly pressed against each other. It's soft and weak, and Nicholas would have probably missed it if he wasn't so focused on Euijoo.
"What?" He sounds a bit angry still but he tries his best to control it. Euijoo never tries to be mean to him, even when he's mad he never sounds cruel, at least not on purpose, and Nicholas wants to meet him there.
Euijoo sighs, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "I didn't make up any excuses." This time it's a bit louder though he still sounds like he lacks confidence. "I couldn't... I couldn't find one. I tried, and tried again to find the reason as to why I was so angry at you for seeing other people all the time, and I guess, instead of accepting my own feelings, I egoistically thought you were trying to get to me with it. I needed a reason to be mad at you for all this anger i had when in the end it was just my own jealousy, but i couldn't find any because ... Because you have no reason to do this to anger me. You never do. You're never mean to me and you're always going along with everything i want because you hate hurting me. I needed to make you take the blame for my own emotions."
It's Nicholas' turns to be stunned to immobility. His breathe is stuck in his oesophagus like he suddenly forgot how to breathe. His head shots up the minutes Euijoo started talking and he's looking at him with incomprehension. Euijoo turns to him again and Nicholas can see the glittering tears slowly falling down his cheeks towards the floor. Euijoo harbours an expression of despair so intense Nicholas feels his heart tightening. Guilt is plastered all over Euijoo's body, from the way his face is torn to the way his hands are aggressively gripping the loose thread of his shirt. It wasn't anger or betrayal on his face, it was guilt all along. Nicholas doesn't know what to process first, the spark that ignited in his stomach when Euijoo admitted being jealous of the other people he fooled around with, or simply the fact that Byun Euijoo, The Man That Never Express Anything, is crying from culpability in front of him.
"I'm sorry Nichol, I'm so, so sorry... I didn't want to hurt you I- I was so selfish ... I'm so sorry ...." More tears come crashing down and soon Euijoo's face is completely soaked and he's struggling to speak through the hiccups. It’s the first time he apologises first. Nicholas had to throw his blade away first, as always, but this once, Euijoo followed him right after, even taking the first step in his direction.
Nicholas' body moves first, faster than light and sound and the entire star system, and in a second he's holding a crumbling Euijoo in his arms. Euijoo's hands tightly wraps around Nicholas torso —fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, trying to reach for skin and maybe even bones through the clothes— using him as an anchor to not fall in the sea of his emotions.
"I'm sorry I never told you, or I'm sorry I never showed you. I love you too, Nichol, I love you so much you can't even imagine."
It's enough for Nicholas' last remaining rampart to fall and his own tears are mixing with Euijoo's ones, sliding down their cheeks pressed against each other.
°
“What would you want to do if you didn’t take on fencing ?” Nicholas ask, the question sounding foreign even to him — Euijoo not doing fencing just doesn’t make sense.
“I don’t know.” Euijoo lets his words linger before talking again. “Probably like… School teacher, or something. I guess I could see myself working with kids.” He looks at Nicholas and there’s another silence. “What about you Nichol ?”
Nicholas holds his stare, a strange confidence he doesn’t know the origin of taking over him. “No idea. I just hope you would still be there around somewhere.”
°
They stayed in each other’s arms a long while, Euijoo’s limbs tightly gripped around Nicholas’s shoulders, Nicholas’ hands soothing his back. Euijoo apologised over and over, yearning for reassurance. Every forgiving word from Nicholas —heartfelt response to his desperate plea— drew tears out of Euijoo, and every loving phrase sweetly whispered against his ear, like the purring of an adoring cat, made his heart clench.
Guilt and anger washed over him, directly aimed at his own self. All the repressed emotions Euijoo kept bottled up all this time finally exploded, a wave crashed against the boat, drowning it deep in the sea. Crushing exhaustion followed, and Euijoo fell sound asleep in Nicholas’ arms, his face soaked and puffy, but his heart no longer heavy.
When Euijoo wakes up, later in the evening, neatly tucked in his own bed, he’s met with Nicholas’ closed eyes, still sleeping peacefully. For the first time in a very long while, the inside of Euijoo’s brain is soundless, like put on mute.
The air around them is light with love and absolution, Euijoo feels so complete and free. He feels whole. He’s in love with Nicholas and Nicholas loves him bak. Nothing else matters anymore. Even the nail of guilt and the need to answer the call of responsibility, usually taking over all his thoughts, are gone, asphyxiated by the perfect quietness of the room and the few chirping of birds outside. The silence is so pure, so comforting, that every trace of anything else gets shoved away at the back of Euijoo’s head, so far back he’s not sure he wants to dig it back later. Even if he did end up bringing back everything at the water surface, most of his worries where met with solutions and explanations while deep in the storm.
Everything make sense now, everything clicks. The tingle of jealousy at the tips of his fingers every time he saw Nicholas with another person, the knot in his throat, tangling his vocal chords, making him spit nonsense at Nicholas’ face when they argued, the hole in his chest when Nicholas left, when Nicholas wasn’t there, the aching pain in the pit of his stomach when he tried to forget about everything he was feeling, even the annoyance at every move Nicholas did, everything has a reason now, and the worries are all gone.
It’s just like fencing. Euijoo has been feinting, fake lunging forward, but instead of pretending for the opponents, for the entire world, Euijoo pretended for himself. You can’t win a fencing bout with feints. It can lead you close to victory, but you still need to take a few blows and ultimately score real points yourself for the bout to be finished. All his fake attacks only got him white light from the electric scoring board, white light and strident noise, points invalid. Euijoo’s done with feinting. Back to his mark, mask on, he’s just waiting for the ‘allez’ to start the match again, for real this time. No more bluff, no more ‘as-if’. He’s waiting, blade extended straight in front of him, but instead of the usual serious determination behind the wire mesh of his helmet, Euijoo is smiling.
Euijoo’s hand move on its own, meeting Nicholas’ face, fingers slowly tracing its features. He’s trying to be the most gentle about it to not wake up Nicholas, digit travelling on the hill of his nose then the plump valley of his lips, eventually finding comfort in the soft plender gap between his collarbones. His palm comes resting right against Nicholas’ skin, above his first ribs, melting into the warmth of his body.
Euijoo isn’t really fond of his hands. He’s used to looking at them holding his épée, and it always looks off to him, messy, almost tacky, like they don’t belong there. But, right now, spread out at the top of Nicholas’ torso, Euijoo quite likes them. They don’t look out of place anymore, almost at home. It feels natural, and Euijoo thinks his hands belonged on Nicholas all this time.
His eyes run back to Nicholas’ face, and once he reaches them, they’re open. Nicholas smiles softly at him. “Enjoying the view, Juju?” Euijoo groans at the tint of amusement in Nicholas’ voice and hides his flushing face away in the pillows. Nicholas grabs him gently by the wrist, chasing away his hands that came covering his face. He pulls Euijoo towards him, cupping his face carefully, like he’s holding the most precious jewel in the world. “You can stare all you want, you know. I’ve been starring at you so much since the day we’ve met, you have to catch up to me.”
Euijoo looks at him, feeling like he’s melting under Nicholas’ touch. It feels like his skin tingles and fizz against the skin of the fingers caressing his cheek. A sweet warmth starts from the contact and travel throughout his entire body. Euijoo feels good, he never knew he could ever feel this good in his entire life. His eyes closes and he nuzzles his face closer to Nicholas’ hands, leaning in the touch.
“I don’t really want to stare Nichol, I would rather kiss you all over …” Euijoo isn’t sure where the confidence comes from, maybe the delicious way his stomach twists and turns, the gentle pressure against his cheeks, the fact that his eyes are closed acting like a kind of protection, or even maybe the heat emanating from Nicholas right in front of him, moving closer when the words leave Euijoo’s lips. When his eyelids flutter open, Nicholas is looking so intensely at him —like he wants to jump in his eyes and drown in the ocean inside his body— it makes Euijoo’s heart skip a beat, and maybe two.
There’s a certain eagerness in Nicholas’ gaze, the same hunger he harbours right before a bout, the same fervour he shows every time he knows he’s about to win. Euijoo thinks he’s going to go crazy if they don’t kiss in the next few seconds. He’s burning all over from impatience and desire, the waves crashing around in him, getting hotter and hotter. The usual polar-cold tempest ruling his insides turned into a boiling tropical storm, and it feels like it was always meant to be that way. Euijoo hates the cold.
“Kissing me all over ?…” Nicholas whispers, his face so close now, his breathe hits Euijoo’s lips with every words. “That could do it, yeah …” His mouth curves in a malicious grin, and his lips brush lightly over Euijoo’s, teasing, never fully touching. “Where exactly do you want to kiss me, Juju?”
Euijoo can’t take it anymore, his hands finds their place in Nicholas’ hair, and he closes the gap between them. He never dated anyone before, let alone kiss, except maybe a few pecks when he was in middle school, so the kiss is messy. The angle is off, and his lips crash too brutally against Nicholas’ mouth. He leans back slightly, eyes opening to study the almost inexistent distance between them and find a better approach, showered by Nicholas’ loud laughter.
“You gotta do it gently, Juju. Like this.” And to seal his words, the gap is closed once more, this time by Nicholas. It’s a small pressure on Euijoo’s lips. Then another one, that lingers longer. A third one, with more fervour. By the fourth one, Nicholas tilts his head to deepen the kiss, and Euijoo can feel something hot and wet sliding against his lips. He opens his mouth mechanically, like he just knows how to react under Nicholas’ touch. Tongues are meeting, sometimes teeth clash, and Euijoo loves the way it all feels inside his mouth. He loves the way Nicholas feels against him, the way he’s always moving closer and closer, the way their legs tangle, the way his fingers get lost in the softness of Nicholas’ hair, the way Nicholas’ hands are softly caressing his waist, but most of all he loves the way Nicholas’ taste. Kissing him is the best thing Euijoo ever experienced in his life, and he thinks he will never be able to live again without getting kissed like this at least once every minutes.
Euijoo tilts his head just enough to break the contact from their lips, pressing kisses against Nicholas’ chin first, then his cheek, three on the right one three on the left one, three more kisses on his nose, the same count as a fencing match. A kiss on Nicholas’ left eyelid, two on his right eyebrow, four on his forehead and the start of his hairline. Nicholas’ needy mouth calls him back on his lips, and they’re kissing passionately again. Euijoo whines and pull back, burying his head in the crook of Nicholas’ neck.
“I told you I want to kiss you all over, just let me do it.” Euijoo says, between two kisses against the skin of Nicholas’ neck.
Nicholas is about to protest, to ask for another kiss on the lips —Euijoo thinks he probably likes it just as much as him— but Euijoo can feel the pulsation of his jugular vein, and softly sucks at his, changing the complain ready to leave Nicholas’ throat into something more close to a moan. Satisfied, Euijoo busies himself again, determined to kiss Nicholas all over, and Nicholas lets him. He has no chances against the determination of Fencer Legend Byun Euijoo, and the only noise he can mumble anymore are just strangled breathe and soft hums of happiness.
°
Deep in the night, way later, Nicholas wakes up again. Clothes are scattered around the room and everything is basked in the soft glow of the moon’s light. Euijoo is sleeping peacefully next to him, breathe long and calm. He looks so beautiful, haloed in the dim white light coming from the window.
They say the human heart isn't really good at discerning warmth from love. Nicholas isn't sure if it is the heat emanating from Euijoo's bare body embracing him and enveloping him in something mellow and soft, or if it is love in itself, at its rawest shape, but his brain is fuzzy and his body comfortable, safe. It hasn't rained in a while.