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“Your total is $10.73. You paying with Campus Cash or credit, honey?”
The bored-looking campus worker stared at him with only a slow blink, her wrist flicked out and hand held open expectantly. The activity at the tiny campus eatery was lulled for the moment, the dredge of a wintery Sunday evening keeping most students huddled in the dorms.
A few of them had braved the weather to trudge to the library or to find food. Roderich belonged to the former category. He was already anticipating a long night ahead with his theory paper due the next day. Grabbing a snack for later had seemed like a good idea when he’d left his room, but as he reached into his bag to fish out his wallet, his hands turned up empty and his stomach dropped.
“Um, sorry,” he said, feeling embarrassed as he turned to start digging through his messenger bag, its scattered contents rustling and crinkling with the effort. The worker popped a bubble and dropped her hand back to the counter.
Roderich glanced briefly over his glasses and to his horror, found that a line had started to form behind him. The girl behind him had already pulled out her phone and was texting away impatiently.
A deep flush began to appear on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he said after another frantic search through his bag. “I must have left my wallet in my room. Um, is there any chance that if I give you my student ID number—“
“Gotta see some identification first,” the worker cut him off. She wasn’t even bothering to look at him by this point, the measured smacking of her gum equivalent to a foot tapping in impatience.
Roderich thought desperately. He already had all of his stuff with him—if he went all the way back to the dorms that would be another twenty minutes before he got anywhere near the library. And all this for a stupid sandwich!
“Um,” he began just as someone else down the line spoke up.
“I can pay for him.”
Roderich looked behind him. Stepping between two students a little ways down the line was none other than Gilbert.
The pale-haired German had an almost sheepish look on his face, though he hid it quickly as he stepped forward to pay. Roderich watched him hand over his student ID without really registering it. He was still trying to process the fact that Gilbert Beilschmidt was standing in front of him for the first time in weeks.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Gilbert raised an eyebrow at him. “Getting something to eat, like everyone else here,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Roderich opened his mouth to respond, but the clerk was already handing Gilbert’s card back and calling “Next!” in the same apathetic manner. Gilbert nodded for them to move out of line and Roderich numbly followed.
They shuffled over to one of the aisles and for a long moment, just stood there, Roderich still staring at the other with some mixture of disbelief and conflict twisting his features. Gilbert shuffled his feet and cleared his throat.
“So…” he began.
“I haven’t heard from you in weeks,” Roderich cut in before he could begin.
“Was I supposed to be checking in with you?” Gilbert frowned.
Roderich’s feature’s scrunched even more. “No, I just mean—“
Gilbert cut him off with a shake of his head. “Look, Roderich…” he began, hesitating before rubbing the back of his neck and looking to the side. “Let’s just go back to being friends, okay? No agreement or anything, I promise. This is just getting too weird.”
Roderich blinked, visibly taken aback. This…certainly wasn’t how he’d imagined this conversation going. Part of him had honestly thought that they would go on ignoring each other for their rest of their lives—they could both be rather stubborn individuals. But for Gilbert to be the one admitting defeat first….
“Uh, hello? Roderich?”
A set of pale fingers snapped in front of his face. Roderich jerked back hard.
Gilbert regarded at him for a moment with an unreadable expression before shaking his head. “Whatever,” the other muttered. “This isn’t worth it.”
Somehow, that caught his attention. “Excuse me?” he frowned.
Gilbert stared at him in disbelief. “This time you decided to listen?” he ask exasperatedly.
Roderich’s reflexes immediately readied themselves to fire back. “If you’re going to insult me like that, then yes!”
The other student made a frustrated noise and threw his hands up in the air, attracting the attention of a few of the other students at the store. The clerk watched over them indifferently and popped a bubble. “What the fuck, Roderich! Why are you always so fucking difficult to deal with, Jesus Christ!”
Roderich’s eyes darted to the small crowd of onlookers and he felt his face grow hot. A few other students had walked into the store and immediately stopped to see what all the commotion was about. “Can we please talk about this somewhere more private?” he gritted out between his teeth.
“You and your fucking propriety,” Gilbert rolled his eyes before muttering “fine” and, before Roderich could protest it, he grabbed Roderich’s hand and dragged them both outside of the store.
Roderich expected them to stop once they were outside the doors, but to his dismay, Gilbert kept walking. He also kept a tight hold of Roderich’s hand and no matter how hard the brunet tried, he would not let go. A few students looked their way, although it was getting harder to see with the sun nearly set. Roderich’s short breaths came out in little clouds in front of him.
“Gilbert!” This was starting to feel annoyingly familiar.
Gilbert kept walking and finally Roderich decided he’d had enough. He set his lips to a firm line and dug his heels into the concrete, refusing to walk another step. Gilbert looked back at him, his mouth open in surprise.
“Just what has gotten into you?” Roderich demanded. His glasses had started slipping down his nose but he refused to break the moment and push them back up again.
Plus, Gilbert still had hold of his hand.
“First the party, now this? Is there something wrong with you?” he asked in exasperation.
For a moment, Gilbert looked like he didn’t know what to say or how to say it. The blond opened and closed his mouth a few times before giving a frustrated shake of his head and dropping Roderich’s hand to walk away a few steps, his back still turned to the brunet.
“How do you still not get it?” Gilbert asked. Except that he still hadn’t turned to face Roderich, and he sounded like he wasn’t expecting an answer.
“You might be some musical genius or whatever, but you’re one of the densest people I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know how you’ve survived this far in life without someone killing you for it yet.”
Roderich opened his mouth, about to take offense, but Gilbert cut him off with another shake of his head, as if he had sensed Roderich about to speak without even turning around.
“You are the most frustrating person I know and yet I still can’t bring myself to give up on you completely. No matter what you do, I know I’ll always be there to back you up.” For a moment Gilbert sounded pained and Roderich saw the other’s hand squeeze into a tight fist by his side. The streetlamps had finally flickered on and Gilbert’s pale hair was illuminated in the fluorescent light. Campus had become oddly deserted around them.
“I don’t think you know how much it hurt to see you choosing all those other guys over me. Even after you knew that I had a thing for you, you still….”
Gilbert’s voice broke off thickly. Roderich wanted to fill the space, but his mouth wouldn’t let him think of what to say. He never had been good in these kinds of situations. It was why he had always avoided relationships in the first place. But Gilbert looked so vulnerable standing there that he knew he had to say something. Explain why things had happened the way they had, or, or….
“Gil…” he ventured.
“If you’re just going to give me some excuse, then I don’t want to hear it,” Gilbert cut him off bluntly. “I don’t need you telling me why you slept with everyone else even though you knew. That’ll just make it worse.”
Roderich’s stomach clenched. “Then what do you want me to say?” he shot back. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That’s just it,” Gilbert sighed. If you don’t know what to say without me telling you, then I don’t think you ever will. So I’m getting out of this cycle. We can still be friends, but…I’m done with chasing something I can’t have. It’s clear you never wanted it in the first place.”
The brief feeling of indignation in Roderich started to fade. “Gilbert…” he tried.
For one last time Gilbert shook his head slowly, like an aging dog. His shoulders were tense, but his fists had slackened at his sides. “If we want to stay friends, then I recommend you drop this subject, Roderich,” he warned, tone heavy.
Roderich frowned but decided it better not to answer. For a long moment they stood there, neither speaking or moving. Gilbert still hadn’t turned to face him and Roderich’s face was getting cold with the sun no longer out. He shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other.
“So then what?” Roderich finally asked. His breath came out in little puffs and his arms were hugged tightly around himself. The heavy clouds above them threatened snow.
Gilbert shrugged once—slowly—with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets. For a moment, Roderich thought he would not say anymore, but Gilbert seemed to have kept to his silence long enough and he finally said, “Things just go back to the way they were, I guess. You and I are just friends and everything’s normal.”
“Normal,” Roderich echoed. “Right.”
His mouth slanted into a thin line but Gilbert didn’t reply. Roderich hadn’t expected him too, anyway, and the first few flakes of snow had started to fall, thick and unhurried from the sky. Roderich shivered.