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arin stands before a beautiful woman, head to toe in the flowing white drapes of her gown and veil. she clutches a bouquet of red and black roses to her chest, thorns threatening to catch on the thin lace of her dress. mina ha is beautiful, arin thinks, but they've not felt attracted to her. if this were anything more than an obligation, more than an arranged marriage for the betterment of fairfax industries, things might have been different.
in another time, arin may have loved her. but do they now?
no. at least, not yet.
a priest stands beside them, drowning on in ceremony, but arin doesn't hear his words. instead, memories flash in their mind. and ultimately, they hear the words of their father, one year ago to the day.
they were fourteen when they first started questioning themself, when arin was still a young boy at blackmore. they were incredibly smart, sitting at the top of their class, but they fumbled through the most minor of interactions. the academy was the place for children of the rich and powerful, and while they were no exception, wealth was far from their defining trait. if anything was, it was their tender skin that anyone could worm their way under while barely lifting a finger.
perhaps that was what made what few friendships they had so special to them. there was a girl in their courses that brightened every time they spoke to her — they would help her with classwork, or even just talk to her while walking in the halls, and she would beam. in this memory, her name eludes arin. yet she looks so similar to their soon-to-be bride in front of them, despite the almost permanent scowl that has been on mina's face in private for the past several months.
the girl at the academy, they liked her. or, they thought they did. they liked talking to her, liked how she laughed at their jokes, enjoyed making her smile when the world seemed to be focused on breaking them down.
there was a boy, too. arin definitely liked him — tall, brunette, handsome in every sense. he had more muscle than arin could have ever dreamed of having. he was a little older than them, two years their senior, and a bit more mature than them in turn. he was athletic; he ran track and field at blackmore, being both a star runner and a vaulter that could soar a dozen feet in the air.
they met in the locker rooms during their gym class. arin was one of the youngest of the group — they had skipped a grade when they were younger — and it was painfully obvious by how they were still a good few inches shorter and smaller than the other boys. it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as the academy's fitness standards were based on age, but it wasn't a good thing, either. the boys' class was a pack of rabid animals, and arin was the runt of the litter.
needless to say, gym days were arin's living hell.
they were constantly berated, belittled, reduced to a stain on the boys' perfect uniforms. they weren't beaten — the boys knew not to strike the fairfax heir, especially not in sight of school staff — but they knew how to mentally bend and emotionally break poor arin till they were a husk. it only took a month before they were completely silent and sullen in the locker rooms, in and out as fast as they could muster, purposely changing in a toilet stall rather than the locker area itself for some respite. but that only gave the boys another reason to ridicule them, so that couldn't stick for long.
so they steeled themself, and changed with everyone else. they tried to stay quick, but each change felt like an eternity. and to make matters worse, they could feel the gaze of one particular boy on them, burning holes through their skin.
they eventually found out who it was when the class was running laps on the track. arin's pace was miserable, but everyone was off that day as the sun burned hot overhead and baked the boys alive. even so, the athletes at the head of the pack were so far ahead of them, they were going to lap arin.
the first boy breezed past them, and it caught them off guard. then followed one, two, three more. the fourth nudged them as he passed, and that was enough weight to send arin crashing to the ground. the coach noticed, though, and he was immediately blowing his whistle for the group nearby arin to stop before jogging over himself. the culprit was laughing with his buddies, stopped a few yards ahead of arin by the time the coach finally came over. he helped arin to their feet and started to send them off to the nurse, but their ankle had sprained or strained in their fall, and they winced and groaned upon taking their first step.
the coach pulled the boy at the front of the pack — not even the one who caused arin's fall — and told him to help walk arin across the campus to the nurse. once he looked at arin, they felt the sun double in heat.
this was the boy whose gaze burned them.
while the boy did as he was told, he didn't seem happy about it. at least to arin, at least while they were still within sight and earshot of the class. once they were back inside the academy and beginning to roam its halls, the boy seemed to change.
"sorry about them," he said, "they're a bunch of dicks." a beat, a pause long enough for arin to respond.
they didn't.
more silence.
they decided to respond. "what, and you're not?"
the boy sighed. "i only am so they like me. and they only like me 'cause of my dad."
"you're the coach's son?"
"yeah. i'm —" arin couldn't remember his name.
"arin."
the two were quiet. they were still only halfway to the nurse.
the boy broke the silence again, a few moments later. "seriously, i'm sorry about them."
"why are you even talking to me?" arin's voice was harsher than they meant it to be.
"because you don't deserve it. the way they— i— treat you. not your fault. you're just … different."
"and the fuck is that supposed to mean?" their voice cracked in the middle of their sentence. but they were harsher, and at least they meant it that time.
he paused, stopped walking. arin was forced to stop with him, as one of his arms was over their shoulder, supporting them as they walked (or stood, now). he looked down at them. "i'm different too."
they were only a corner away from the nurse's office. arin broke off of him. "i can walk." they took a step and braced themself against the wall. then, they kept going, rounding the corner and leaving the boy behind.
by the time arin left the nurse's office, the bell rang for the end of the day. they trudged back to the gym and the locker room to gather their things and go home. when they opened the metal door, they were greeted with a note card on their bag, folded in half. they had half a mind to throw it out, then and there.
they read it anyway.
i can show you. pierre academy, 5 PM today.
they were reluctant. but damn, they were curious.
turned out, pierre academy was a ballet studio. arin was still in their blackmore uniform, still walking with a limp because of their ankle. they watched through the windows. inside was a group of young men in skin-tight leggings and tanks, pointe shoes on their feet, one hand on a barre as they stretched.
the boy saw arin, and waved them in. before they could even think about it, they were inside the studio, and the boy was excusing himself to the other side of the room, where a bag hand-stitched with his initials sat against the large mirror. he rummaged around it for a moment, then came walking — no, practically prancing — over to arin with something in his hands.
"i, uh— didn't think you'd come." he held the item out to them. "it's an ankle brace. should help with walking."
a light flush spread across arin's cheeks. they took it, and their hand brushed his for a moment. "thanks," they mumbled.
"you're welcome," he smiled. gods, he had dimples. arin didn't think they could find another boy appealing, let alone did they think they would find the entire exchange cute, right down to the dimples on the boy's cheeks as he smiled.
"so …" arin cleared their throat. "is this the different thing?"
the boy chuckled a bit awkwardly. "yeah. the guys, they— they'd eat me alive if they knew."
arin was stunned. he was being so vulnerable with them. no one ever did this. not the girl he helped and spoke to in the halls, not his family. not even mina, who stares arin down in the present. she's smiling, but they know it's fake.
"you can stay if you'd like," his voice pulled arin out of their head. his smile shrank, but hadn't completely left. "or you can go. i really just wanted to give you the brace."
arin considered it for a moment. they were already an hour late going home, and they didn't want to keep their father waiting any longer. but gods, they wanted to, more than anything they'd felt before. "thank you," they said eventually. "maybe another time?"
it seemed the boy expected a rejection, not a promise of anything else. his smile grew again. "sure. i'd like that." then, the class was starting, and the boy rushed back to his place at the barre.
arin quickly put the brace on their ankle, then made their way home.
the next time the two met intentionally, it was during a weekend. they had one other class together, an english literature course. the teacher had assigned a project in pairs the friday before a three-day weekend — arin knew that boy wouldn't ever pick them as their partner of his own volition, hence arin's surprise when the teacher announced the pairs and called their names together.
outwardly, the boy groaned, keeping up his facade as he moved across the room to plop down at the desk next to arin. they had to bite back a smile and a chuckle at how he played the entire thing up.
once all the pairs were announced and split off, the two started chatting in soft voices, hushed tones. "want to come to my place tomorrow so we can knock this out in one day?" he asked.
"sure, might as well," they replied.
"cool. i'm at my mom's this weekend." he tore a sheet out of his notebook and scribbled down an address, then slid the paper across the desk to arin. "come by around 11?"
arin nodded, slipping the sheet into their own pocket.
arin told their father the plan when they got home that afternoon, pointedly leaving out any details on just where they were going and with whom. they were scared he'd ruin this for them, like he'd ruined so many other things.
like their life. he even sat in the front row of the wedding, arms crossed. expectantly, but simultaneously like he didn't want to be there, like he had something more important to do.
the next day, arin approached the building at 11 AM, like clockwork. there were a few dozen buzzers, each labeled with different numbers. they glanced at the note in their hands again, double checking, then pressed the button for apartment 6B. it buzzed from the second they pressed it to the second they let go. a few moments later, they heard a series of thuds, and the door swung open to reveal that beautiful boy.
"hey, come on up! there's an elevator in the back, i'm not gonna make you take six flights." he took a step back as he spoke, urging arin inside. they followed.
"what, you think i couldn't make it?"
"no offense, but i literally lapped you on the track that day you fell," he smiled.
that got a chuckle out of arin. it was embarrassing, so horribly embarrassing, and if it were anyone else, in any other context, arin would want to hide in their jacket and pretend the offending speaker didn't exist.
he was different, though. they knew his words didn't come with harm. just a genuine warmth, almost soft, almost shy, affectionate and endearing. "touché," arin replied.
the elevator was already waiting for them when the two arrived at its doors. the boy pressed the call button and the doors opened with a soft ding.
once inside, an awkward silence echoed through the air. arin looked anywhere but at him — their eyes darted across the dirty beige floor, lingered on the elevator's buttons to the right of its doors, and just for a moment, they stole a glance at his reflection in the dull, scratched metal of the door itself. he looked just as nervous as they did.
"so … you live with your mom?" arin asked. way to state the obvious, they thought.
the boy jumped for a moment, caught off-guard. "uh… yeah," he said. "sometimes. my parents are divorced. i'm with my mom here for two weeks, then with my dad."
"sorry for asking."
"don't be. i'm used to it." the elevator dinged again, and the doors opened. the boy started walking down the hall, and arin followed.
being used to it doesn't make it normal, arin thought then. between them and mina, the priest nears the end of his speech. even being used to this show makes nothing about it normal.
"anyways, this is it," the boy smiled at them again, and then the door to apartment 6B was opened and he was leading them inside. "leave your shoes here," he said, neatly toeing out of his slippers, arin hadn't noticed the slippers, they were blue felted and seemed so cozy, before heading further inside.
arin clumsily toed out of their loafers and left them next to the door. the apartment was small — not at all what arin would've expected — yet homey, surprisingly delightful and comforting. there was a smell of fresh-baked something, they couldn't quite put a finger on what, but it reminded them of home in a way their own bed in their own house never did. inside, past the doorway and past a hall that shot out to the right, they walked onto a plush carpet and behind a sofa, in front of which laid a coffee table stacked high with books, photo albums, and trinkets, and beyond that, a gramophone spun a jazz tune softly in the corner, and behind that —
arin's lower stomach collided with a table, bringing them to a halt and bringing their mind back to the present. they groaned softly with the sudden force and slight pain and took a step back.
"careful there," a woman's voice called, "i've done the same thing a dozen times. you alright…?"
a pause, arin supplied their name in the gap. "yeah, i'm okay."
"good." the woman, his mother, probably, appeared behind the boy. she grabbed him by the forehead and pulled him close enough to peck him on the ear before ruffling his hair. "holler if you need anything, sweetie. i'll start lunch in an hour" then she was off, going down the hall with soft padding steps.
"that's more than my mom's ever done for me," arin thought. or did they?
"she's better than my dad by a long shot," the boy chuckled. arin's face flushed, realizing that thought was voiced rather than kept inside. he pulled out a chair at the table, which already had a few pads of paper and pens strewn across it, and sat. arin followed suit, taking a seat in the chair next to where they'd collided hip-first with the table.
the two already made decent headway by the time the boy's mother returned and started in the kitchen. as it turned out, that baking smell arin noticed when they first came in was fresh bread — a timer rung by the stove in the kitchen, which was next to the table where the two worked, and the woman came in again, turning off the timer and opening the oven. with that door swinging open came a rush of hot, yeasty air that filled the space as she set the hot loaf pan on the stove's irons.
as the two at the table came to a stopping place a bit later, she set a plated, steaming sandwich in front of each of them. "croque monsieur," she explained upon seeing the mild confusion on arin's face.
"or french for fancy ham-and-cheese sandwich," the boy laughed. "thanks, mom."
the love, the genuine care this woman had for her child made arin's heart ache. "thank you," they mumbled.
"you're welcome. anytime, hon," she said before disappearing again.
there was barely even a pause between the two halves of the phrase. it could've been one statement, you're welcome anytime, and arin wouldn't even know. they liked that, held it dear. they wish they could escape to there now.
some time later, after their lunches had been eaten and their plates whisked away, the english project was complete. it was barely mid-afternoon; there was nothing left to do, yet the last thing arin wanted to was leave.
so, the two talked. and talked, and talked.
the boy explained his life, or as much of it as arin wanted to hear. "my dad pays for school," he explained, "on the condition that i keep running track. but my heart's not really in it. i love ballet. boys don't have to be super tough and 'macho men' at the studio, we can just be boys." as he spoke, his lips pulled into a soft smile. "and boys can be elegant and delicate and actually show emotions."
"i think my father would kill me," arin spoke without thinking.
"trust me, i think mine would, too." the boy sighed. "there's a reason mom pays for the ballet studio. he doesn't want me doing it. thinks it'll turn me into a homosexual." he stole a glance at arin. he seemed to carefully analyze their face, as if questioning if he should continue the thought.
"but you know," he finally, finally broke the silence that fell between them. "what he doesn't know won't hurt him."
silence washed over them again.
it was agonizing. everything was.
arin couldn't take it anymore. they started, quietly, "you looked really happy there. like …" they paused, trying to find the words. "like you were at home. at peace."
he breathed out a sigh. one of relief? "i was, i am. there, and here with mom, i am."
arin looked at him, really looked at him. his cheeks were a soft pink, almost made brighter by his light brown hair framing his face. they glanced at his lips; a soft, genuine smile pulled them tight to his cheeks, the line leading up to two dimples.
for a moment, arin's mind was filled with nothing but the thought of pressing their lips against his. just for a second, long enough to feel their softness, to get caught in the sail of his feeling.
"you know, you look happy here, too," he said. it snapped arin back to reality, both in memory and at their own wedding, but they dared not look away from him, his soft eyes, his soft smile. "you can come here whenever."
"i am," they said. "and i will."
for two weeks, whenever the boy was at his mother's apartment, arin would visit during the weekend. then, for the two weeks following that, and during the school days in between, arin would play along in his act, being the pathetic loser all of his 'friends' deemed them to be.
it stopped getting under their skin, at some point. they took it in stride and stopped caring what those boys said.
since behind closed doors, in apartment 6B, arin knew they saw the real him.
mina never saw the real arin. they knew it would be nothing that she wanted.
they had their first kiss there, in apartment 6B, with soft jazz playing from the gramophone, barely any space between their thigh and his as they sat on that couch.
they were going to kiss mina, arin knew. they really didn't want to.
arin knew they were different, but at that moment, when his soft lips pressed against their chapped ones, they had found one piece of their puzzle.
it was preparing for their seventeenth birthday when arin found the next piece.
it was at their birthday dinner with their mother and father, as well as several other faceless barons and baronesses and business moguls and richest-of-the-rich when their father announced their betrothment.
"arin," their father had started, "you've already been well-acquainted with the family's business. to foster its continued success, and to promote our growing partnerships," he motioned for one of the butlers to approach, and the worker placed a small red velvet box in front of them. "we've arranged your betrothment."
the double doors at the far end of the hall opened as if on queue. through them walked a young woman, dressed in shades of red and accented with sleek black, and behind her, a man in a black suit and a woman in a red gown.
"you're familiar with the ha family," arin's mother, to the left of them, spoke. "this is their daughter, mina." their mother nodded to them, to the box in front of them, to mina ha.
arin glanced at the box. it was the same deep red as the fabrics on mina's skirts. they opened it, two rings nestled inside. one was a plain silver band, the other a collection of small diamonds nestled atop a similar silver ring.
arin glances at their left hand, silver ring on their finger, then at mina's, diamonds dancing across her digit between her knuckles. they're holding her hands, now, bouquet gone. they don't remember when they started doing that, or when the roses left her hands.
arin stood from the table, ring box in hand.
someone comes down the aisle, a pink pillow in their hands, two golden bands atop it.
mina walked down half the length of the hall. arin met her in the middle. they awkwardly reached for her hand, and she gave it to them.
the pillow is beside them, now. arin takes one band, mina takes the other.
arin pulled the diamond ring from the box, and mina reached for the other. slowly, carefully, arin slid the jewels onto her left ring finger. shortly after, the band was placed onto their own.
arin slides the band onto mina's finger, gold now resting atop her engagement ring. mina does the same for arin, gold atop silver on their own finger.
everything was far too real.
"and now, by the power invested in me by the state of new york…" the priest speaks.
arin is struck suddenly in the chest.
they take a step back, jostled from the force.
pain begins to sear through their skin, their tissues, their organs.
they stumble, and fall to the ground.
mina screams.
their vision blacks out.
arin fairfax is dead.
pocket jolted awake and upright, clutching their chest, their hand directly over the scar where their would-be assassin's bullet missed their heart.
they sat on the pavement with adrenaline rushing through their veins. their heart pounded in their ears.
they were cold, and they were alone.