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Aventurine already knew that Sugilite was in the closet.
But it’s better than him being straight… right?
Aventurine remembers the first time he saw Sugilite, in the front row at the first lecture of their joint economics class. One of the only hot finance students Aventurine thinks he’s ever seen.
But finance bros, as Topaz likes to call them, are usually assholes. They’re usually bigots, they’re usually horrible people, and so Aventurine tried to stay away-- he really did.
...He really did.
Somehow, they fell into bed together anyway.
A chance encounter at a club far off campus. Chosen so neither of them would ever risk meeting another student and being recognised. Aventurine realised that as soon as he saw Sugilite, in the flashing lights of the club. Looking stupidly sexy in the plainest clothing ever.
But it was the hand settled on another man’s waist that actually convinced Aventurine to shoot his shot.
Because Sugilite was not straight.
They fucked in a nearby hotel room that night-- some of the best sex Aventurine has ever had, by the way-- and after it was over, Sugilite lit a cigarette by the window (despite the no smoking sign).
“Look-- this was fun and all, but I’m not gay, okay?”
Aventurine had been half curled up under the sheets when Sugilite had spoken. “That’s… fine? You can be bisexual?”
Sugilite had scoffed. He remembers it all too clearly. “Thanks, idiot. I know I’m bi, that’s not the point I’m making—”
“What point are you making then?”
“No one else knows-- none of my friends, okay? They can’t know this ever happened.”
Aventurine had understood, he still does understand. Some people aren’t as accepting, sometimes people prefer to keep things private, and that’s fine!
It was fine at the time, and it’s fine now…
At least he thought it was fine.
But Aventurine is just as much of a finance student as Sugilite now (he wasn’t at first, he was still flitting around, trying to find the subject he worked with best). He’s integrated into their group, at least partially. Because he doesn’t really like them, they’re a bit weird about how feminine he is (and that’s not exactly something he can avoid, he hasn’t been on hormones for too long, he’s still adjusting, okay?) and they are kind of bigoted, but he hangs out with them when he has to, and they kind of like him.
And that means he gets invited to the parties.
To the house parties, to the birthday parties, to the strip club parties, to the new years parties.
Which is what he’s at today.
With Sugilite.
Or at least, they arrived together. Showed up at the same time because they left Aventurine’s apartment together. Because they just slept together and now Sugilite is acting like they’re barely friends.
His hands are on someone else even though they’ve talked about it and they both like each other and they’re kind of together? Aventurine thought they were at least kind of together. But maybe he was wrong.
Because he only left for a few minutes to buy himself another drink from the bar, and Sugilite has a girl standing between his thighs. In front of the bar stool he’s sat on. And it could just be a coincidence, everyone is crowded around the same little area, watching the screens as a live countdown plays.
Except Sugilite is very clearly flirting with her, holding her closer by the waist and Aventurine’s heart is in his throat and he wants to be sick.
But it’s fine, because he gets it, Sugilite is pretending to be straight. Aventurine wasn’t expecting to have Sugilite all over him tonight. He wasn’t expecting Sugilite to kiss him at midnight, not while they’re out in public.
He just wasn’t expecting Sugilite to kiss anyone else at midnight.
But that’s exactly what he does. With Aventurine standing barely a few steps away, drink in slightly trembling hand.
Sugilite kisses her. He doesn’t meet her for the kiss, he doesn’t just accept a kiss-- he initiates the kiss. Grinning as it deepens.
And Aventurine has to step outside while everyone is distracted with their own new years kisses just so he doesn’t gag.
He doesn’t know how to feel about it. It’s freezing outside but that’s not why Aventurine is shaking as he hovers by the entrance to the bar.
“Rinnie?” Sugilite’s voice startles him, out on the side of the street, away from the cheering, drunk crowds inside as they welcome in the new year. “What are you doing out here? Why did you leave?”
A hand finds his shoulder, warmth at his back as Sugilite stands behind him. Pretending he doesn’t know what’s wrong.
“I just didn’t want to be in there,” he says, shaking Sugilite off. Fingers going numb as he stuffs them into his pockets. “That’s all. Got tired of it.”
“That’s not like you?”
“Yeah well-- I don’t know…”
Sugilite doesn’t believe him. “Come on, what’s really wrong?”
“Just…” he trails off, not sure what words to say to really express how he feels-- how is he supposed to express it? “I just didn’t expect you to kiss someone else here, you know?” Aventurine keeps his voice down. It might be the worst kept secret that Aventurine is gay, but he doesn’t want to out Sugilite. That’s not fair.
“Rinnie, come on, you know what they’re like—”
“You didn’t have to kiss me, but you didn’t have to kiss someone else.”
“I’ve slept with her before, Rinnie, it’d be weird if I just turned her down for no reason.”
“So you didn’t want to kiss her?” Aventurine asks, but he already knows the answer. Sugilite has, and always will be, one of the biggest fuck boys he’s ever met.
Aventurine thought he had tied him down, thought they had something special…
He guesses he was wrong.
Sugilite doesn’t respond.
“I think I’m gonna go home,” Aventurine says, after a few minutes too long of awkward, painful silence.
“Rinnie, don’t—”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow or something.”
“Rinnie.”
Aventurine doesn’t talk to him tomorrow. He curls up in bed, feeling no better than the night before. In fact he feels worse.
A new year. Almost two years since they first hooked-up. Almost two years since they talked about dating. And Aventurine has gotten his heartbroken.
Were they ever really together?
He stays in bed all morning and lunch.
Scrolling through his phone, over and over again. Until the posts he reads begin to blur together and his phone buzzes in his hands with a text notification.
It’s a toss up between whether it’s another from Sugilite, or another from Topaz, wondering where he is and whether he’s going to join her for lunch like he promised he would.
He sighs, burying his face in the blankets cocooning him, before he checks the notification and promptly turns off his phone. It was Sugilite.
Another worried question.
‘R we still good?’
It follows up the read, but unanswered: ‘Rinnie???’ and ‘what tf is going on??’.
Aventurine doesn’t know either. He really doesn’t know.
Fresh tears well up in his eyes, heart aching and broken and uselessly still in love with Sugilite. He wants to respond, tell him that they’re fine and it’s fine and he still wants to be with him-- but were they ever together?
Was any of it real?
There’s a knock on the door of Aventurine’s shitty little studio apartment. And then another knock when he doesn’t answer immediately.
And then--
“Aventurine what the fuck is going on with you today?” Topaz.
Topaz is at his door.
Wrapped in a blanket and still dressed in pyjama’s, he answers the door.
“Oh,” she says, stunned at the sight of Aventurine’s tear stained cheeks and terrible appearance. Is he still wearing last nights makeup? Probably. “Well… you look like shit.”
“...Thanks. I feel like shit.”
“I guess this is why you weren’t ready for lunch?”
“...Yeah…”
“Can I come in?”
Aventurine nods slowly. “...Yeah.”
Almost as soon as Topaz is settled on the couch, Aventurine spills everything.
About sleeping with Sugilite. About keeping it quiet. About knowing that Sugilite was in the closet. About watching him kiss someone else. About maybe sort of dating him.
By the end he’s crying. In tears, sobbing into his hands, rambling nonsense to Topaz as she awkwardly pats at his back.
“Shit, what have you gotten yourself into?” She says finally, and Aventurine agrees. What has he gotten himself into? “You’re an idiot, you should have known not to get involved with someone like him.”
Topaz doesn’t stay too long. Just long enough to make sure that Aventurine isn’t about to do something stupid (and he is, he’s going to do something very stupid as soon as she leaves, he’s just very good at hiding it) and then she’s out the door. Promising to check in as soon as possible.
And then he does the stupid thing. He texts Sugilite.
>> come over
The response is instant.
[Sugilite]: omw
He’s at Aventurine’s door before Aventurine is able to prepare himself. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say. He wants to cry again. But he’s sure he looks pathetic enough as he opens the door again.
Sugilite, at least, doesn’t even look like he’s lost a minutes sleep. He looks exactly like he always does, sort of uncaring, emotionless and unreadable. But he perks up ever so slightly, the way he always does, when he sees Aventurine-- and it makes him feel so much worse.
“Hey,” Sugilite says at the door. “...Can I come in?”
And Aventurine can never say no to Sugilite. So he lets him in. Shuts the door. And joins him on the couch. The exact place where Topaz told him how much of an idiot he had been not even an hour earlier.
“Look, I’m sorry about yesterday, baby, I really am.”
“I thought we were together?” Aventurine asks, tucking himself and a blanket into the corner of the shitty couch.
Sugilite falls quiet, dark, bottomless eyes awkwardly flicking away from Aventurine. “We are. I’m—”
“Why did you kiss someone else then?”
“Because if I hadn’t kissed someone, the guys would have thought it was weird. You have to get that.” Sugilite throws his hands up, standing up from the couch to pace in exasperation.
Aventurine’s heart pounds, but he still has the guts to inspect his nails like he doesn’t care. “Maybe you shouldn’t be friends with them then? If you can’t come out to them, why are you friends with them?”
“Don’t.” Sugilite hisses. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Am I not worth that?”
“Don’t fucking ask me that, Aventurine.”
Aventurine takes that as a no, then.
“I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have kissed her, I get it.” He stops his pacing to kneel down in front of Aventurine. On the floor before the couch. But Aventurine doesn’t know how sincere he is. He doesn’t know if he can believe the apology. Aventurine doesn’t know what to believe anymore. “Look, it’s fine, she doesn’t mean anything to me, baby,” Sugilite tries to tell him, reaching out to take Aventurine’s shaking hands into his own.
--But he looks at Aventurine like he does love him…
Does he really love him?
Aventurine’s lip trembles as he tries not cry.
“We are together, I never lied to you about that, I just… you know what it’s like for me…”
Aventurine does. God, he does. He knows he has issues-- but somehow Sugilite has more.
He knows all about his parents, and the way they act and the lifestyles they dislike-- and Aventurine knows how they’ve tried to control Sugilite all his life, and he knows that he hates them, but this fear of being different has driven so much of Sugilite’s life, and Aventurine wishes he would take the first step to be himself but he understands.
And he hates it, he wants to be mad and he is and he isn’t and it’s so confusing.
But…
“I don’t like being a secret…” Aventurine whispers. “I can’t do it… it hurts so much to have you pretend you barely know me as soon as we’re in public…”
But Sugilite doesn’t understand that because he’s been in the closet his whole life.
Aventurine has been out for as long as he can remember. He’s been flamboyant and bright and visibly queer since he was young and he’s gotten used to the way some people try and alienate him and he can deal with it because he doesn’t want to hide-- but Sugilite doesn’t know what that’s like. He can’t understand why Aventurine would find it so hard to hide who he is now because he’s always been hidden.
“Soon, I promise, baby. I’ll… I can try and talk to them, I can—”
“No, I can’t,” Aventurine sighs, pulling his hands from Sugilite’s even though he misses the warmth dearly and he wants nothing more than to accept it and keep going-- it’s good, what they have is good, why is he doing this? Can he really not be good and keep it a secret? Can he really not put up with it a bit longer? “I won’t force you to come out… but I don’t want to be a secret.”
“Rinnie, look-- I—” Sugilite actually stumbles over his own words, Aventurine has never seen him look so distressed-- he hates it. “Look, I’m sorry okay, I really am, but we can work through this, we just need to take a break and talk about this tomorrow. When you’re feeling a bit better, yeah?”
“...Maybe you should go,” Aventurine whispers, entirely against his own will. He doesn’t want to kick Sugilite out. He can’t bear the thought of being alone here, but he knows he’d stay forever if it meant Sugilite looked so desperately at him.
Sugilite shakes his head. “No, no, we can talk, alright, we just need to talk properly-- Rinnie, come on, you know how I feel about you, I’ve never lied. I love you, okay?”
Tear prick at the corners of Aventurine’s eyes-- it sounds so real, and it might be, but even if it is… is it enough? He’s been in this relationship for two years now. They’ve never celebrated an anniversary. Aventurine never told Topaz just in case she did what he’s always known she would never do and tell another. He’s had to hide his feelings and hide the way he so desperately wants to be the one at Sugilite’s side. The one who his friends know about.
“I think you should go…”
Sugilite swallows, throat bobbing. He doesn’t want to. Aventurine can always see it, how he wants to argue and fight and bully his way into being right. But for once he doesn’t.
He nods shallowly. Tongue darting out to wet his lips as he nods again, absentmindedly. “Okay,” he mumbles. “Okay, if you want me to. I uh… we will talk though. Properly. I’d do anything for you, you know that, right?”
Aventurine thought he did.
“Sure,” he says with an unconvincing nod of his own. Aventurine doesn’t know if this is the right thing to do. He doesn’t know if he’s making the biggest mistake of his life. But he knows he’s going to regret it as soon as Sugilite walks out the door.
Sugilite hesitates still on his knees. Desperate to reach out for Aventurine. “I love you,” he says again.
And for the very first time, Aventurine doesn’t say it back.
It seems to take Sugilite a few minuets to process that. To realise that Aventurine didn’t say it back.
But when he does he lets out a trembling breath. “I guess I’ll leave you alone then… but we’ll talk, okay? We can sort this out?”
God, Aventurine hopes they can. He really does, but right now he doesn’t know. All he feels is the betrayal and the heartache and the headache that comes with feeling like crying.
“Right…” Sugilite stands up. “I’ll message you, okay?” But he doesn’t wait for Aventurine to respond before he leaves.
God what has Aventurine done? Is he just always destined to ruin every good thing that happens to him?