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It was late in the afternoon as Diego and Gyro walked together in the lonely park. Gyro had invited him to dinner, and things had gone pretty well. Now, in the cool spring breeze, they found themselves prolonging the encounter.
Diego slowed and sat on a bench on the outskirts of the grassy area of the park, stationed by a tree and the trail they'd been following. He gave Gyro a quick look, and Gyro sat too. There was an amicable distance between them. Distantly, cicadas could be heard calling out to each other.
For the first few moments, it was quiet; It had been ever since they left the restaurant and began wordlessly following each other through the night, like two particles of dust twirling around each other within an enclosed room. But now with no sensation of movement to accompany it, the silence became much louder. Belatedly, Gyro cut through it:
“I really enjoyed going out with you tonight, Diego.”
Gyro sat with his elbows planted on his knees, leaning forward. His long hair fell back from his shoulder and obscured his view of Diego, though neither of them had been looking at each other anyway.
Diego hummed, “I enjoyed it too.”
…
And continued, “Is there anything else you want to say to me?”
His voice held that characteristic sharpness that Diego always carried with him— one of the things that excited Gyro the most— though now it held an underlying exasperation, but Gyro chose not to address that.
“I would like to go out with you again.”
“Is that right?”
Finally, Diego turned his head to look at Gyro directly. His expression wasn't outright unhappy, but it was not pleased.
“I want to be your girlfriend, Gyro.” He said.
Gyro shrunk into himself a smidge at those familiar words. Diego only got closer.
“Are you going to ask me?”
Gyro swallowed down a lump that had formed in his throat, “Ask you what?”
Diego inched closer again, and Gyro could feel his eyes and his breath burning into his neck. Cicadas buzzed and chirred and called louder and louder as the night grew darker and darker still…
Nimbly, Diego’s finger pierced the veil of long brown hair that Gyro had been hiding behind, and pulled it back behind his ear. In the same motion he dragged his carefully sharpened nails through Gyro’s hair and scalp, and then the nape of his neck, then rested on his shoulder. His other hand creeped towards Gyro’s knee– Diego now being pressed against him– and traced patterns on the fabric of his pants. Gyro could feel how Diego’s finger circled perfectly, felt how it rotated and chased its own tail.
“This isn't the time for jokes, Gyro. You already know what.” Diego whispered. His finger stopped tracing anything. Gyro’s heart was pounding now.
“I don't… I don't know, Diego–”
Diego’s voice interjected, “Why?”
“Well,” Gyro hesitated as his mind scrambled for an answer, anything to drag out the moment before he would have to look at Diego, “...you know, Johnny– I mean, Johnny would freak out if we were together. I’d never hear the end of it.” He barked out a chuckle, shaking his head out and looking at the ground.
Diego waited for Gyro to stop laughing and backed off. He did not find any of this humorous.
“Are you serious? Is that really your excuse now?’
“It’s not an excuse, Diego– I just,” Gyro glanced at the person next to him for a moment before looking away again, “I’m not ready.”
“Well, when will you be?” Diego’s voice was louder now, his patience dangerously nearing its end.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
The cicadas had quieted down now. Gyro’s hands stayed painfully clasped together. Diego uncrossed his arms and shifted away from Gyro before crossing them again. His face was smothered in anger and packaged into a neat and fragile scowl. He exhaled sharply out of his nose.
“You must think I’m stupid. Or a saint.”
Gyro closed his eyes.
“To think that I would wait around for you to stop being childish and treat me like a person, or like anything at all.” He stopped for a few moments.
“Gyro.”
A hesitant voice answered, “...yes?”
“Look at me when I speak to you.”
Gyro didn’t move, until he felt two cold hands grab his face and forcefully turn it. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel that Diego’s hands were trembling.
“Gyro, open up.”
He refused.
“What do you want from me?” Diego sighed, and his breath lingered over Gyro’s eyelids. He could tell he was close.
“I,” Gyro began, “I want you.”
Diego’s hands began tracing over his features, barely grazing his skin. He ghosted over his cheeks, then down to his chin, then back up towards his eyes. Diego looked at him closely and pressed a finger against Gyro’s lacrimal. It was wet, yet not a single tear fell.
“You always say that. You flirt and you joke with me, you buy me things, take me to all these nice places,” Diego’s mouth twitched and his grip tightened, “and yet when I say I want you back you tell me no. You take me home and make love to me, and lead me out the door before morning.” Diego’s voice trembled with his rage, “You talk about how much you adore me, but you won’t even look at me when I ask you to.”
Diego’s hands slipped off of Gyro’s face. Gyro lifted his eyelids to see Diego stand and dust himself off before reaching for his bag. Much too late, Gyro spoke again:
“Dio, I swear it’s not like that, you’re not listening to me–” Gyro reached for Diego’s hand, only to be struck across the face.
He met Diego’s gaze and saw just how much frustration and disgust had built up in his eyes; It was the look Diego gave to the rest of the world.
“I don’t want to see you anymore, Zeppeli. You don’t get to treat me like something temporary, and I find it quite insulting that you expect me to take it.” His voice was stern and authoritative now.
Gyro pressed his hand over his cheek as the sting had begun to spread from where Diego had hit him. He felt how his frustration broke into anger, irrational and insurmountable anger, and how it tore through his chest and spread down his limbs. But by the time he had gathered his thoughts to formulate any sort of response to Diego’s icy words, he noticed that he was already walking away. Gyro did nothing to stop him.
The cicadas started up again.
Once Diego was long gone, Gyro finally broke down. He sat down on the bench again and leaned forward, dragging his hands through his hair and tugging at his scalp whenever his anger burned up again. He was completely alone now, except for the sound of cicadas romancing each other in the night. The noise was so irritating, he had no idea how he hadn’t noticed it before. In his frustration, he thought about kicking the tree next to the bench just to get them to shut up.
He stayed like that for several minutes before he finally cooled off. The indignation that had flooded over him had burned through his emotional reserve and left him feeling quite lost. Then, he walked home. He performed his usual routine of showering and changing, and turned the lights off. Laying in his bed now, he tried to forget about what had happened, hoping that Diego would calm down and call him the next day, or the next week. Gyro shifted and tossed and ended up on his side. His eyes wandered around his room, as sleep refused to console him in the way he had wanted. The room was obviously dark, but a large window allowed the moon’s blue light to wash over everything, highlighting all the possessions he had but didn’t care about. Eventually his gaze, which had been blurred and unfocused, honed in on the small stuffed bear he kept on his nightstand. Theoretically, it should’ve been the first thing he settled on, but Gyro Zeppeli’s mind had never been all that logical when he felt especially constipated. Gyro hesitated for a moment before reaching out and gently taking the bear from its designated spot in his room. The bear itself was old and deformed and small, something he had stubbornly kept since his childhood. He petted its little head and rubbed its ear between his thumb and forefinger, and poked its nose; That managed to elicit a small smile out of him, stupidly enough. His other hand that carefully held the bear grazed the side of its fabric arm, and ran over a set of stitches that were more prominent than the rest. He remembered how upset he had been when one of his siblings accidentally tore her open, and how she had stayed like that for years afterwards. Gyro didn’t know how to sew, and he was too embarrassed to admit how attached he was to the damned thing to ask, so he had let its torn body collect dust in his room. It wasn't until Diego came along and expressed his displeasure with the state of the toy that it was finally fixed. Gyro had watched how deftly his fingers manipulated the needle and thread, and how what had been a thorn for so long was resolved with such ease.
Sadness washed over Gyro again at that thought. He wished Diego would come back and fix him again, but he wasn’t so sure now; He wasn’t sure if he was even thinking about Diego at all.