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“Nik, wait. Slow down please,”
“Nik! Can we talk?”
“Why are you ignoring me? Hey, wait up!”
“There's nothing for us to talk about, Ran. How about you go back to your perfect boyfriend that you've been with together for a long time,”
Ran stops in his tracks and later on, so does Nik. He waits for something. Any kind of words or noises, but the longer he stood in his place- anticipating for a reaction, the more he felt necessary to look back at the older.
And when he turns back, much to his demise, Ran wasn't even there with him anymore. Figuratively speaking. He is still there- just a few metres behind him, but Nik could see how Ran was dissociating in his place. Heavy lumped shoulders, his head hanging low, the grips he has at the side of his winter coat and the eyes fixated to the ground. He felt a pang to his heart. Nik feels guilty all of a sudden.
“Hey, Ran. Look you're fine,” he walks towards him with a worried expression and concern in his voice. Tone drops low but hangs high at the same time- desperate to make this look on Ran go away. His heart could barely handle seeing him like this and to think that it was him who caused it? Nik panics and flails his hand around before cautiously grabbing Ran by his shoulders. He was close to crying, Nik could tell. Nik doesn’t want that.
“Hey, listen. I'm not mad, okay? Let’s just forget that shit. I'm fucking tired… I don't want to even think about it,”
Ran doesn't respond. Nik can feel his body shaking from his grip. “Ran. Ran. Ran. Look at me. Look at me. There's nothing for you to cry about,”
“You hate me,”
He closes his eyes before he breathes out, eyebrows furrowed intensely that he can feel his mind spinning. It felt like steam coming out from both Nik's ears. “I- I don't. I don't hate you,”
And suddenly, somehow and with so much force, Nik could feel his body pressed against Ran’s dainty, covered in padding, ones in a succumbing manner that their faces are just centimetres apart away from each other. With no space for him to move, and their noses pressed and brushed within any slight movement, Nik could feel the heat rising in his body as it pools on his cheeks.
“You don't?” Ran is looking into his eyes. There, Nik can see the slight visible freckles on his cheeks- across his nose. His own reflection is clear to be seen in his eyes and Nik is sure, that if it weren't for the tone of this situation- straining, nerve wrecking, breathless and ample with fear of what’s next? He would've already pushed Ran down to the ground and messed him up, right here and there. But then he remembered about his boyfriend. His boyfriend. He turned sour in an instant.
“I despise him. Not you,”
“If you hate him- then you hate me, Nik,” he persuades. It didn't work on him. “Cut me some slack, Ran. you lied to me,”.
“When? When? I didn't tell you anything about him. You were too absorbed with finding him out. You brought this upon yourself,”
Nik clenches his jaw and roughly tears himself away from Ran- pushing him and letting him stumble backwards. “I did this? You're telling me I was the one who caused this shit? Ran, you- you!”
Ran gets defensive and holds his hands close to his chest as he backs away, timidly yet sharply. With a quivering lips and blurry eyes, he tries to calm him down without caring how meek and hesitant he sounded. His voice shakes with every word. “N-Nik. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to say that! You know that right? I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t expect for you to react like this,”
He chokes out once again although this time, Nik had a look of stopping him on his words before he scowls and looks away from him again. Ran can feel the weight in his throat. “It’s alright. You- you'll be fine, Nik. It's okay,”
“It's not Ran. And you know it too. Actually, did you plan all of this? Did you… Did you think I was just another one of your ‘favourite collection of dicks’ for you to bounce on?”
His heart shatters, the tears finally fall. Ran bites on his lip before screaming harder than he did before. With every breath he took, his whole body shakes in anger. “Wh-What!? No! no! What the fuck? Nik? Wh-What makes you think of that? Why would you say that shit? Take that back you’re out of the line,”
Nik throws his hands to the air and lets out a loud, mocking scoff- one that pierce straight to Ran's heart. “Me? Out of the line? Oh. I don't know, Ran… Maybe it's because you came up to me, seduced me, made me think that I was finally yours and that you were finally mine when in reality, you didn't even fucking think of me at all! We had sex, Ran. We had sex. I was inside of you that night and guess what? you were thinking about your fucking Yuki-san!”
“No! I wasn't. I didn't! Nik! Nik- Nik… I didn't think of him while we're having sex together…”
He sniffles. Ran can see the redness underneath his eyes and how messy the snow looks from his disarray footsteps- pacing back and forth, left and right, literally everywhere but nowhere near Ran. “Yeah well, you're still his, Ran. It's not going to change the fact that you used me to compensate for the lack of dick you're getting when he's away. Fuck- You used me, Ran. I thought… I thought I finally had you…”
There was nothing to be said anymore. Nik thought- that even behind all the anger there was inside of him after he had confessed to Ran in a state that he has never been before, he couldn’t bring himself to fully hate him. He knew the risk of being in an unrequited love even at the beginning, and yet he chooses to go on with his silly little crush, hoping that somehow Ran might see him as the better person in his life. Even when Nik knew about Yuki and how they’re both equally in love with each other, he still continues to put himself in between them.
It wasn’t even Ran’s fault- the poor boy looked like he was being thrown to the ditch, and yet, Nik couldn’t even admit to it.
“No, Nik. You know that’s not it. Why did you look at me in such a cheap way? Have I not been good enough to you?”
Ran tries to reach out for his hand but backs away once Nik swatted them in full disgust. The younger regretted it later, seeing the hurt in Ran’s eyes and how hard he’s trying to not sob in front of him. His body shakes like a leaf in this cold weather, Nik wanted to get down on his knees and hug him close. Hug his legs close- closer than the sun has ever been with him.
He tries again. Nik is on the verge of breaking down right in front of him had it not been for the most diabolical words Ran was spewing out. You know I love spending my time with you, right? I’m more than happy to be playing with you on the same court. Were the hugs meant nothing to you? I think about it all the time. I think about you all the time.
“Yo, Ran. You know you don’t actually have to say that shit to cheer me up, right? Seriously, you’re such a bad liar- you almost made me laugh,”
Ran blinks a tear away. He looks to the ground, fiddling with his fingers. “Then should I… lie more?”
“NO. What part of it don’t you get? I’m tired of this shit, Ran. I just want to go back now and get some sleep and here you are, bothering me, trying to get me to fucking understand that you’re the victim and I’m just another guy who walked into your life, pitifully so fucking in love with you that I even try to push through with my delusions even though I knew about your one true love and that made me your scandalous rendezvous! You’re trying to act like all of this, everything- didn’t happen?”
Nik throws his beanie to the ground and runs his hands through his hair, pulling the strands apart in anger- screams similar to thunder that breaks through the sky. His breathing starts to quicken and he understands that he was on the verge of breaking down right in front of Ran. He's going to tell this thing to the others. He's going to make fun of me- he's going to tell this to his boyfriend. Ran is going to realise that he was a pathetic person all along.
He picks the last pieces of his sanity and walks away from Ran, again, only that this time he doesn't stop even when the older calls out to his name- albeit more desperately this time, even when his voice cracks and wavers, even when his tiny hands are pulling him to a stop and that he was shaking his head and crying, begging for him to listen and settle down.
Nik doesn't care anymore. Deep inside, he still does. He always does. When a pair of hands caught him in a back hug and made him stop in his tracks, Nik realized that he wasn't breathing at all. The air punches into his lungs like a crackling fire spreading across his body that makes the poor man unable to resist anything that's happening to him. Ran turns him around so that they can face each other. Nik looks like a blank note in a crumpled piece of paper, one that Ran tries so hard to smoothen them out.
He wipes his tears first, testing the water by inviting Nik for an eye contact. He doesn't bother- his nose is red and his eyes soulless as he looked into Ran's glossy ones. Ran carefully reads him first before he places his hand on Nik's cheeks, caressing them and letting the younger take his time with the warmth of his palm before settling in deep with heavy eyes. He trembles, and then he finally breaks.
“Oh, Nik… oh god… you poor thing,”
He thumbs away the tears falling down on his cheeks and caresses him again and again. The hands that guide their foreheads to rest against each other are wet with tears- it felt heavy on his hands, as if every drop corrodes his skin and hurts him deeply. Their breaths mixed up with the visible smoke from their mouth- only that with every breathing they take, they slowly sync with one another.
“You're going to be okay,”
“I'm already far from okay,”
“It's not the end,”
“Well, it's a terrible first,”
Ran grimaces with such guilt inside of him. He knows. He understands and he had been there before. Not with Yuki. Never with Yuki. Back then, he couldn't fully express himself with how insecure and unsure he was with himself. But then again, even during this time where he would look back from his shoulders and recreate the scenario that happened in his mind, Ran had always wanted a kiss goodbye as a sign that this won't be the end of anything. No words were needed- it felt like his heart was heavy that It dragged his throat down to his stomach too. A kiss. Maybe. Yes.
He kisses Nik on the lips, a quick one just to unbind himself from the ground. Then, another one at the corner of his lips where Nik chases Ran's. They looked at each other. Hesitant, cautious, hoping, crying. When Ran fully settles on kissing Nik, he cradles the back of his neck and pulls him closer for a deeper connection with their mouths. Ran moans into the kiss as Nik scavenges what's left of his dignity by letting his tongue explore the inside of his mouth. Just like their first night together, how he'd explored his body with all the hickeys on his body and hands feeling how complete it feels to have Ran's bare skin closing the space of his palm.
He pulls away with a frustrated groan before pushing his body away from Ran's. “Stop it… you're making this so much worse, Ran,”
Confused, Ran doesn't try to stop him from leaving as he was too stunned to be saying anything. He awkwardly laughs and tightly clutches onto the beanie in his hand. “You won't listen to me at all,”
Nik makes it firm with his standings. His words pierced sharply through his heart and Ran was close to yelling at him. The distance between them does nothing to stop the pulling attraction from going. With word after word exchanged, yet another moment ticks in the air where they thought, what went wrong.
“There's nothing to listen to. You're his, not mine and that's something you should prioritise first before putting someone’s feelings into this matter of yours,”
“But I'm so happy with you, Nik. I truly do. I get you're not going to like hearing those words again, but that's what I feel when I'm with you,”
“How are you so sure that your feelings aren't just another figment of what you'd see when you're with him?”
“BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO LOSE THE THING WE HAVE FOR EACH OTHER!!”
“WHAT? WHAT- what… What thing do we have for each other?”
It's a rather cold night by the end of everything. Ran was sitting on the nearest bench he could find, contemplating over something empty after he had watched Nik walking away from putting out the obvious question he had not yet found the answer for. Even with the beanie in his hands and the footsteps of Nik's presence slowly gets covered up by the snow, Ran silently drifts away with his imagination of a child getting coddled up by their parents and pretended that maybe, just like how Ran had been through during his first years away from home, Nik also wanted to be held by someone he can call home and the reason why everything fell apart was that Ran, took his feelings for granted and sabotaged him. Because in the end, no matter how many times he said that he was happy with him- a truth, a fact, a reality- it's not going to change anything once you have truly destroyed the home you had built together with them.