Work Text:
“I feel bad for Zeal,” Kaelix sniffles, “He already kicked 3 people, and he’s currently dragging the fourth one out. Why are these people looking for trouble when I currently can’t do my job properly?”
Freodore sighs as his eyes unconsciously goes to Kaelix’s bandage feet, the one he broke because he was too excited dancing around and he bumped into the metal set of their stage. Fortunately, the injury will be healed in no time, but in the meantime, he’s stuck on checking IDs while sitting down obediently in order not to stress his foot too much.
Which also means if he needs to drag someone out of the premises, he has to ask someone else to do it for him.
“I’ll do it, just call me if you need any help,” Zeal has volunteered willingly, and although Freodore knows how capable Zeal is, he still politely excuses himself and walks towards the way Kaelix points him to, which leads into the dark alley behind the livehouse.
He peeks from behind the wall just as the drunk patron lashes out to Zeal, his words jumble out, and Zeal? He simply grabs the man by his shirt, lunges him forward easily as he has a bigger and taller figure. He can barely hear what Zeal says, except the very last bit when he raises his voice, “I better not see your face again. Now, get lost.”
The man wobbles as Zeal loosens up his grip on his shirt, then he walks away like a dog with its tail tucked between his legs.
Zeal sighs heavily, his tense shoulder slugging down for a moment. When he turns around and meets Freodore’s eyes, he lets out an awkward chuckle—one habit he does when he’s trying to get away from something.
“Hey, Freo. Is everything okay?” he asks.
“I should be the one asking you that. Are you okay?”
“I'm good. Nothing to be worried about.”
Zeal is not usually hard for Freodore to read. When he barely talks, Freodore can always discern what he’s thinking about just from the raise of his eyebrows, the movement of his pupils, the expressive line of his mouth, his body language—Freodore can read Zeal Ginjoka like a book, but tonight is different.
For once, Freodore sees nothing in Zeal's gaze.
“But I want to,” Freodore settles to say, “To be worried, that is.”
His stares still continue to be unreadable as he mutters a reply, “Do I look different? Do I… scare you? I must be, huh.”
Freodore is never one to make a dramatic reaction, afterall he has his friends to fill in the air with their theatrics, but for once he lets out the heaviest sigh he can mutter before saying, “Come here.”
Zeal says nothing as he obediently does what Freodore told him, his tall figure now stands a little bit too close but that’s exactly what Freodore needs.
“Lean down.”
The moment the bartender matches Freodore’s height, he uses that exact moment to flick his forehead. Hard.
“Augh! What’s that for?!”
Freodore rolls his eyes. “Silly, you know I would never be scared of you.”
He still remembers vividly when they met for the first time. The tall stranger was looming over Freodore, but instead of being scared, he catched the way Zeal shyly smiled as he introduced himself. From then on, Freodore got to know how much of a softie Zeal was, and it was precisely why it was so easy for him to sneak into Freodore’s heart. It was pretty obvious what his feelings was all about, but he was not brave enough to admit it—not yet, not now.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” Zeal says, “I’m just in a really weird mood, I think. It just reminds me of the bad times from the past. Silly, right? I thought I wouldn’t let the past control me anymore, that in this old age I would be wiser and more capable in handling my own feelings.”
Still with his hand up in the air, Freodore wonders where the courage is coming from as he gently brushes away the stray hair from Zeal’s face and rubs his finger soothingly on the crease that starts showing on Zeal’s forehead.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that again because of us.”
Zeal hums lowly. “Don’t apologize for that. You know I’m always happy to be helpful to you guys, and whatever this is… I just have to face it.”
“You know you don’t have to face it alone, right? We’re here.”
I’m here.
“Thank you for saying that. I needed to hear that," Zeal says as he stares back at him with such fondness in his eyes.
Sometimes, just sometimes the way Zeal meets him in the middle gets his hopes up a little bit because what if Freodore, the quiet one of the group, the one with constant 'mad' face, that Freodore is not as unreadable as people say he is?
What if Zeal sees something in his eyes too?
Freodore suddenly feels like running away as he abruptly stops the movement of his finger and starts pulling away for a bit, when Zeal suddenly catches his hand.
"You can keep doing that."
"...We're still in working hours."
"Then we can continue after By The Beat is closed?"
"...Let's get back to work," Freodore replies instead, not once mentioning how tight Zeal is holding his hand as they are walking back together, as if he's telling Freodore that it's indeed too late to run away now.