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Julian stands in the corridor, looking at the murals that adorn the walls, his hands in his pockets with a list of goodbyes that burn the back of his throat. He sees himself in some of them, a fresh faced teenager celebrating goals that he used to lie in bed thinking about for hours afterwards. He sees Kai in others and finds himself there too, usually in a tangle of limbs as they celebrate the way they always have— did— together.
Like most things, wherever Julian went, Kai wasn’t far behind.
Julian knew that leaving was going to hurt, to say goodbye to the team that gave him his professional debut, the team that gave him five of the best years of his life, the club that allowed him to grow into a player that a team like Borussia Dortmund would want.
He almost laughs. Almost.
The hallways feel smaller than they did when he was seventeen, when the red that coloured the walls seemed a lot more intimidating than they do now. He’s grown up with this team, he’s made and lost friends and teammates and found something more than that.
He found—
His shoulders tense slightly when Kai steps up to his side, never one to care for personal space, at least not where Julian is concerned, their shoulders brush and Julian can’t help the way his greeting catches in his throat.
“Everybody’s waiting for you,” Kai whispers, untrusting of his voice and weaves his fingers together in front of him.
“You’re not,” Julian points out, the corners of his mouth tilting up, knocking into Kai’s shoulder in a futile attempt to lighten the tension that still suffocates them.
“I was sent to find you,” Kai explains with a half-shrug, looking up at the mural and letting his eyes graze across some of the greatest players for the club over the years and lands on one of the photos of himself and Julian, having jumped into his arms, clutching onto him as their teammates huddled around them.
“I wonder why,” Julian swallows but he knows, because Kai could seek him out in a crowd of thousands, able to find him no matter what obstacles stood in his way.
It’s not a crowd though, it’s an empty hallway and memories stinging the corner of Julian’s eyes as he braces himself for a goodbye that he’s not sure he’s ready for. It’s Kai’s unsteady breathing at his side and five years packed into growing up together and intertwining their lives until the line blurred into something else entirely. It’s Julian leaving and Kai staying. It’s—
“We should go,” Kai says, cutting through his best friend’s thoughts.
“Kai, wait,” Julian calls, coming out in a breathlessness of sorts as he reaches for him, catching his wrist, his thumb pressing to Kai’s pulse which races underneath Julian’s touch.
Kai looks down at his wrist encased in Julian’s hand, at the way his best friend’s fingers flex against his skin, disappearing underneath the cuff of his hoodie. Julian holds on a little tighter, fighting against the words that burn the tip of his tongue. It’s never been like this, Kai pulling away, just like he did when Julian broke the news to him.
He remembers the silence that had dripped through the apartment and the way Kai had looked at him, his train of thought ending with a stillness that had put a distance that had never really been between them there. Julian remembers the way the colour had drained from his best friend’s face and the crack in Kai’s wobbly voice, replaying in his head as the nights slipped away into dawn.
“Jule,” and his name tumbles from Kai’s lips like it kills him to say it.
“I know,” Julian echoes because he can’t bring himself to say anything either, his grip on Kai’s wrist lapsing until it slips from his grasp completely. “Let’s go.”
Julian’s hand finds Kai’s shoulder, squeezing once before pushing him towards the dressing room, conversations overlapping each other as they get closer.
It’s chaos but in the same way that family get-togethers with cousins and Aunts and Uncles that you haven’t seen in years is. It’s celebrating Julian with hugs and teasing remarks that cause him to flush under the harsh spotlights on the ceiling. It’s Julian’s laugh catching above the sound of everybody else’s and Kai’s heart lurching in his chest, threatening to burst out.
He sits on the bench, one leg propped up and his head back against someone’s cubby, he’s not sure who it belongs to but Julian’s is opposite and Kai stares at it, like his best friend’s belongings will suddenly reappear and his shirt will suddenly be hung back up and he won’t be leaving.
Leaving him. He squints and sees the sticky residue against the wood where the photo used to be stuck.
Kai had noticed it a few months ago, catching a flicker of something taped to the inside of Julian’s cubby at a skewed angle, a picture of them taken by Jannis but one that didn’t make it to either of their Instagrams. It was one of the less serious ones, a tester shot of some kind but he noticed the way his eyes shone as he gestured something in the picture against the backdrop of the bright smile Julian was wearing.
Julian had shrugged and given him that stupid secret half-smile that he sometimes does when Kai asked about it and tried to ignore the scrunchy feeling that coiled in his stomach every time he caught a glimpse of it afterwards.
He can’t even remember what he was telling him but he’d kill to go back to that day, when transfers and feelings he can’t put a name to didn’t cloud his vision.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Kai murmurs, his leg straightening and foot hitting the floor with a heavy thump, looking up at Julian towering over him, a want to make a joke about their height difference dying immediately on his tongue.
Julian’s hands are in his jacket pockets and for a split second, he looks away, his bottom lip tugged between his teeth as he fights for what to say. It’s never been like this, not this awkward, not since the first days of knowing each other when it was all curious looks and blushing when they caught the other staring, when all they wanted was to know the other.
He fucking hates it. It’s Kai, his best friend, his best friend who can barely look him in the eye for longer than a few seconds. He doesn’t know what to say, everything he wants to makes him tongue-tied as he searches Kai’s eyes for something— a sign, a promise that despite everything around them changing, they haven’t, they won’t.
“Kai—”
But his words are swallowed by Kai’s arms winding around his shoulders, holding onto him like it’s the last time. It’s Kai’s face buried in the groove of Julian’s neck where it meets his shoulder and it’s a shuddery breath exhaled against warm skin.
Julian lifts his arms tentatively, wrapping them around Kai’s middle and sinks into the hug, closing his eyes and desperately ignoring the way his heart rattles around in his chest, hoping that Kai can’t feel it thumping, trying to escape his ribcage.
Kai’s hand finds the back of his neck, brushing through the hairs that are at the nape, letting the noise in the dressing room slip away, letting the world belong to just them, if just for a fleeting moment.
Julian’s hands remain on Kai’s waist even after he’s pulled back, all glossy eyes and lips bitten from chewing on them anxiously when he looks at Julian.
“Promise me something,” Kai whispers, leaning in just close enough that Julian can’t avoid the shiver he manages to elicit. “Don’t let your ego get any bigger, your head’s already massive.” He whispers like it’s a secret only for them.
But, it’s almost normal and Julian breathes for the first time in days.
“Dickhead,” he laughs, pressing his teeth into his bottom lip, shoving Kai back with one hand pressed flat to his chest.
His heart races, fluttering like crazy in his chest when Kai just smiles at him, catching Julian’s hand in a squeeze between his fingers.
*
Julian toes the line on the edge of the pitch, scuffing his trainer into the chalk and letting the breeze blow through the sides of his jacket. He remembers his last training session, he remembers how Kai had tackled him to the ground after he’d spent most of the session trying to force through a nutmeg and how the damp turf had soaked through his training jersey.
Julian remembers Kai’s palms pressed into his sides and how he’d reached up and flicked away pieces of grass that had stuck to his forehead. Julian remembers how Kai’s breath had stuttered, he remembered how his own heart had stumbled at the sound.
A stray ball sits just outside the centre circle and Julian walks over to it, rolling the sole of his trainer over the top of it and moves towards the penalty area. The sun warms the back of his neck and he squints as he looks at the goal, the Sudtribune encasing it in a warmth tinged with homesickness for a place that he once belonged to.
He takes the shot and watches it rattle against the crossbar, spinning out and landing on the edge of the six yard box.
“So that’s why Dortmund bought you,” Kai’s amused lilt flitters across the pitch and Julian turns towards it.
Kai stands on the touchline, his arms crossed over his chest as a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, squinting at him in the sunshine. Julian ducks his head and can’t help the small laugh that comes out in a shaky exhale of sorts.
Kai hesitates, looking out at his best friend, the frown that pulls at the corners of his mouth as he takes in the surroundings, locking them in the box inside his mind, photographing the memories that have clung to his body over the last five years and sliding them into a snowglobe, to shake, to keep.
Kai hopes he’s one of them. He selfishly hopes he’s all of them.
He crosses the pitch to stand beside Julian, close enough that their fingers brush at their sides, Kai’s twitch— as though he’s going to intertwine them together. He almost does.
“You okay?” Kai asks, letting the breeze carry away his words with a slight shiver in the hunch of Julian’s shoulders.
“Are you?” Julian asks him, ignoring the question, looking up at Kai to study him, the way he looks into the distance, his face suffused with a nostalgia that nearly floors him.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, “but I asked you.”
Julian goes to nod but shakes his head instead. It shouldn’t feel like this. A new chapter, an exciting chapter awaits him, a chance to further his career, to grow as a player.
But his life is tangled up in Leverkusen. In Kai. In some ways, it always has been. In most ways, it goes beyond that.
The line was always there, scrawled and wobbly and with too many gaps but they never dared to cross it even if temptation was there, when alcohol lined their systems and rid them of their inhibitions. It was there when the adrenaline threaded through their veins and their hands shook as they struggled to keep a grasp on each other underneath their teammates crowding them. It was there when they were injured and self-loathing wracked their bodies and it would’ve been so easy to push through, to blame it on something else entirely.
It’s there now, Kai looking at him with a thoughtfulness that colours his eyes, hanging onto him— literally, metaphorically, it doesn’t matter.
“I’m okay,” Julian hears himself say, but he doesn’t believe a word of it.
Kai nods, dragging his tongue over his bottom lip. He doesn’t push but Julian wishes this once, he would.
He watches, hands curled into fists in his pockets as Kai jogs to retrieve the ball, kicking it up a couple of times before passing it into Julian’s feet, sort of, it skims over the top of his foot and bobbles away to his left.
“One last dance?” Kai suggests, shaking something nameless from his shoulders as he waits on the edge of the penalty area, searching his best friend’s eyes.
Julian looks at the strewn ball again, flecks of grass painted over the wet leather before back at Kai, tilting his head to the side but when he catches his best friend’s eyes, there’s a flare of challenge in them as though he’s trying to appeal to his competitive side.
“Okay. One last dance,” Julian agrees, swallowing down the way his voice cracks slightly with a small smile that tilts at one corner of his mouth.
Julian retrieves the ball and passes it to Kai, watching the way he kicks it up with perfect ease before giving him a look that says come at me.
Julian does. With little seriousness and blindly sticks a foot out to dispossess Kai in a futile attempt that his best friend sees coming from a mile off.
Kai pulls out all of his favourite tricks, the tricks that he pulls out at the end of training sessions when he’s trying to show off and looking around to make sure that Julian is watching. He is, he always is and he’s been the victim of enough nutmegs from Kai to last a lifetime, or at least a hastily put together video compilation.
Julian marks him, pushing Kai slightly when he crosses the ball over the edge of the six yard box, blocking his path to the goal. Kai skips, dodges and flicks the ball high over Julian’s head with a smile that could stop his world completely, passing the ball into the empty goal.
Julian closes his eyes, listening to Kai’s did you see that flick and for a second, as fleeting as it may be, he can smell the freshly cut grass and hear Bosz’ voice in his ear yelling at him and Kai to start being serious. He can hear his teammates— former teammates’ mocking voices making jokes at their expense.
He can remember the way that they would always be put on separate teams because they couldn’t play on the same team during the practice game they would play to draw in the session. He’d remember the team traipsing off the pitch and Kai hanging around in the centre circle with a ball underneath his arm knowing that Julian would stay with him. He remembers the lazy passes and the one-on-ones that ended with their muscles screaming at them, their hair matted to their foreheads and invisible marks on their skin from where they had held onto each other too tightly. He remembers the grass streaks staining their knees and more time spent throwing cheating accusations around than scoring goals.
He remembers it all.
When he opens his eyes again, Kai is already looking at him.
Sort of.
It’s like he’s looking straight through him and the ball of anxiety that had been steadily growing for the last few days expands in real time in Julian’s chest.
“Kai?”
He snaps out of the haze, chewing on his bottom lip and it forces Julian to look away again, something warm coiling in his stomach. It’s not going to end like this, it can’t end in vacant stares and unspoken words.
“Your turn,” He says, his voice coming out lower, huskier than he expects and he turns to grab the ball, throwing it out towards Julian.
They should talk about it. They need to talk about it.
Julian curls his foot around the ball and lets it still between his legs.
He wants to bring it up but he can’t bear the same look in Kai’s eyes again, the shock that had slowly coloured his gorgeous eyes, dulling them and the way he’d turned away, unable to even look at him.
Julian slowly passes the ball into the empty space to his best friend’s right, glancing up at the goal and trapping the ball, spinning away from Kai’s half-attempt at a tackle and the ghost of his hand grazing Julian’s hip as he dances past him.
He wants to apologise, stupidly so. He wants to apologise for breaking the news to Kai in a breathless tumble just so he found out from him first.
He takes the shot and it goes in, hitting the side of the goal before settling underneath a tangle of loose netting.
It does little to sate the dull ache in his chest, like a gaping hole where his heart used to beat, full and happy. He wants to grab Kai, he wants to force him to look at him properly for the first time in days and part of him, one that he’s desperately tried to lock away, wants to spill all of the feelings that have tied themselves up in knots around Julian’s heart.
He wants Kai to tell him that he feels the same. He doesn’t want it to end.
“Jule—?”
“Next goal wins,” Julian says, ignoring the way his heart jumps at the confused lilt to Kai’s voice.
He rolls his shoulders in a futile attempt to shake the tension away from his body, walking towards the ball and forcing himself to not look back and hates the way it’s becoming second nature to just avoid.
Kai. His impending transfer. His feelings. All of it.
He almost doesn’t hear Kai’s sure, whatever you want. Almost.
*
Julian looks up from his phone at the sound of his front door being thrown open, the familiar voice of his brother blowing in with the breeze before Jannis’ face appears from behind the wall, mouth tilted upwards as he lets his bag slip from his shoulder with a dull thump as it hits the floor.
“Miss me?” He asks in lieu of greeting, leaning against the wall, loosely folding his arms across his chest.
Julian looks up, his mouth ticking upwards slightly in a confused smile that his brother is none the wiser to, the flash of surprise gone just as quickly as it appears.
“‘Course,” the smile stills at the corner of his mouth, “but, what are you doing here?” He asks, lowering his phone to his lap and ridding himself of the self-inflicted cricks in his neck.
“You could have just stopped at you missed me,” Jannis whistles and pushes himself off the wall to cross the apartment in a couple of strides, settling on the arm of the couch, swinging his keys around his finger. “Anyway.” Jannis picks up one of the cushions from the couch and holds it against his chest. “You know why we’re here, we’re going out for dinner. With Kai.”
Julian’s eyebrows raise at the mention of his best friend, masking it behind an impassive flicker of his eyes— he had forgotten all about that. Something unpleasant swirling and coiling in his stomach as he thinks about a packed restaurant with his best friend at his side pretending as though there isn’t an unspoken tension between them. And there hasn’t been, for days now.
“You forgot,” Jannis says, it’s not a question and the subtle crease in Julian’s forehead is answer enough.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” Julian brushes it off, twisting his mouth up into a frown and stretching his legs out in front of him, standing up. He doesn’t really want to get into it, he doesn’t want to have to explain how he doesn’t want to do this. But. It’s just dinner, he reasons immediately after, he can survive that. “Where’s Jascha?” He asks, patting his pockets for his wallet and his keys, finding the both of them on the coffee table.
“He’s in the car,” Jannis answers, already heading back towards the front door.
“You left Jascha in the car?” Julian asks, spinning around and scowling slightly at his brother, his wallet and keys in one hand and his phone in the other.
“I thought you’d be ready,” Jannis replies, shifting the blame and gesturing to where Julian is still standing in the middle of the living room. “I cracked a window?”
Julian’s eye roll follows his brother all the way downstairs.
The restaurant ends up being the same Japanese restaurant that they always end up in because why break the habit of a lifetime when it’s going to be the last time anyway. Probably. Kai is leaning up against the wall beside the entrance when the car pulls up nearby, Julian watching him through the window as he scrolls absently on his phone, having not noticed them yet, and his heart squeezes slightly, like it’s being pushed through a juicer.
Julian trails behind his brothers, watching the way Kai’s head lifts at the sound of Jascha’s voice, looking at the way he pockets his phone and meets him halfway to bring him into a hug, forcing Julian to turn away because the sight of the tilt at the corner of Kai’s mouth and the tension disappearing from his shoulders is too much to see, to feel.
Kai’s always loved his brothers, sort of like Julian’s always— always.
Julian toes the edge of the curb as he makes his way across to the restaurant, passing by the coffee shop next door and inhales deeply at the smell of freshly cooked noodles that filter out from the alleyway. Jannis hugs Kai and Jascha is retailing something to him, gesturing wildly in the way that his younger brother does, never able to explain things with just words.
Kai’s eyes drift away from Jannis and Jascha and fall on Julian, softening despite the thread of iciness that still holds, dulling how bright they usually are. He hates it, he hates feeling like his feet are stuck to the pavement beneath them, that he can’t just reach out and drag Kai into his body like it’s a reflex.
He waits. Kai eventually moves towards him.
“Hello,” Kai murmurs, standing toe-to-toe with Julian, close enough that Julian can feel his best friend’s breath carry to his cheek.
“Hi,” Julian echoes, his hands in his pockets as he shifts his weight from foot to foot.
The distance remains between them, afraid to approach the elephant in the room, one wrong move, one wrong word and it feels like everything will tip and fall apart and they won’t be able to stop it, their friendship running through their fingers like grains of sand.
Kai still has that haunted look in his eyes when Julian looks back at him, like he’s replaying the night that Julian broke the news to him. He was always an open book to Kai, but the transfer that clung to their skin in the suffocating aftermath in the living room felt like the first time something had snapped between them. Kai pulling away in the silence, and Julian being unable to hold on. And he keeps pulling, like a loose thread in a jumper, they’re unravelling too.
But. He can’t stop himself, he’d lose everything he’s ever owned, wanted, kept if it meant that he didn’t lose Kai too.
“I wanted to—”
”We can’t keep—”
They both try to speak at the same time but their words overlap in a comical nonsensical noise and they abruptly stop, waiting and watching the other in a silent invitation to carry on.
“Sorry.”
”It feels like we’re always sorry lately,” Kai chuckles, it’s warm and has Julian feeling gooey inside despite it all, his mouth half lifted in a smile that could bring Julian back from the brink.
“Yeah,” Julian murmurs, lifting his hand and resting it at the back of his neck, barely able to bring himself to meet Kai’s eyes, terrified of what he’s going to find looking back at him.
”You two coming?” Jannis calls out, his arm resting on the open restaurant door, looking over them with thinly concealed interest.
Kai’s shoulders shake slightly, his mouth curved up in a half-smile before he unexpectedly slings his arm around Julian’s shoulders and tugs him towards the restaurant, His body warmth sizzling against Julian’s side as he leans into it. He holds his breath but Kai doesn’t pull away.
*
For a moment, fleeting and familiar, everything feels the way that it used to be.
Arguments ensue over their menu choices, straw wrappers are thrown when somebody isn’t looking and their table becomes a cacophony of noise as they catch each other up on their lives (as if they don’t speak to each other daily) that only stops when a waitress comes over to take their orders.
Jannis and Kai have pushed their chairs together and are looking at something on his brother’s phone, distracting Julian from his conversation with Jascha but not as much as when he tenses at the warmth of Kai’s knee touching his own underneath the table.
Jascha’s anecdote goes unheard as Julian tilts his head towards Kai, sweeping over the curves and edges of his best friend’s face and how the pinch in his forehead has disappeared giving him his carefree air back.
Jannis’ thumb stills on something and he nudges Kai in the side, Julian inhales and tries to ignore the subtle pressure against his knee, raising his eyebrow in Jascha’s direction but more often than not, his gaze sways towards Kai and he doesn’t realise he’s lingering, not until.
“You’re staring,” Kai murmurs, his voice light and full of mirth as he knocks his knee against his best friend’s, snapping Julian out of his stupor. “Do I have something on my face?” He asks, with his mouth half-tilted upwards knowing damn well that he doesn’t.
“No you’re…” Julian trails off, rolling his lips together and pressing the pad of his thumb against the back of his phone case, “you’re fine.” He breathes out unconvincingly.
“Fine,” Kai repeats, like he’s testing out the word, leaning forward on the table with loosely folded arms. “Couldn’t even stretch for a compliment?”
His teasing doesn’t go unnoticed, or unpunished, Julian reaching out to smack Kai’s arms until he pulls them back towards his body, slouching in his chair, his eyes still locked onto his best friend’s, pausing for a few seconds until their waitress approaches with a tray of drinks.
The conversation flows freely as their table piles up with dishes and for a while, Julian foolishly lets himself relax into the jovial atmosphere and warmth of being with three of his favourite people in the world without the cloud of his transfer hanging above their heads, settling into the feeling of it being like any other one.
They steal off each other’s plates, they play a game on Jascha’s phone in the middle of the table to decide who is going to pay the bill and just when Julian feels like he can finally breathe again—
His brother opens his fucking mouth.
“Admit it, Havertz,” Jannis snorts, barely suppressing the smile at the corner of his mouth as he leans over the table, “you’re not going to cope without him.”
Julian stills, the glass he’s holding almost slipping between his fingers as his eyes blow wide, looking between both Jannis and Kai whose own stunned expression is mirrored, suddenly finding himself unable to meet Julian’s.
Not for the first time in the last few days either.
“Jannis,” Julian mutters warningly, gritting his teeth as he tries to catch his brother’s eye, don’t go there, he wordlessly pleads.
Julian shifts and presses his thigh to Kai’s trying to draw his best friend’s attention to him, noticing the blush crawling up Kai’s neck as he nonchalantly crosses his arms, trying to laugh off Jannis’ words but it comes out more like a stutter, almost a cough.
“As if,” Kai scoffs, his tongue darting out to the corner of his mouth, drawing Julian’s gaze to it, “Jule’s the one who isn’t going to cope.”
Kai means it as a lighthearted joke at his expense, Julian knows that but he can’t do anything but just exhale, his chest rising and falling as he presses the tip of his nail into a chip on the edge of the table. He feels his best friend’s eyes on him, a single impassive flicker of his eyes as Kai trails them across Julian’s face searching for something that he isn’t sure he’s going to find.
A confession, an apology, the expanse of his heart swirling in his eyes, something, anything.
He’s not going far yet the turmoil inside him has been spinning out of control for days. The patterns and routine he’s spent years falling into and making them feel as easy as getting up in the morning, as the sun rising and setting, the familiarity of the life that was comfortable, that was perfect won’t be his anymore.
That for some inconceivable reason Kai won’t be his anymore.
Kai’s thigh presses tighter against Julian’s under the table, silently grounding him as the storm inside him threatens to spill out.
I won’t, flares in Julian’s eyes when he tilts his head towards Kai.
Neither will I, blinks back at him in a forest green that nestles itself somewhere deep in Julian’s chest, making itself home there.
“I’m not that codependent,” Julian whispers eventually but it lacks any, all conviction, his fingers trembling as he loosely folds his arms.
Kai’s mouth turns up in a wry smile, desperate to retort with something along the lines of you are which even Julian would find himself hard to disagree with. It’s not that— it’s just that somewhere along the line, Kai became a part of him, a piece of him that he took wherever he went, to the point where you couldn’t mention Julian without mentioning his best friend too.
Julian holds his gaze for a moment, his heart beating stupidly and erratically in his chest, powerless against trying to stop it. It's as simple as breathing in some ways, how crazy Kai can make him feel.
But, he’s still leaving and when Kai turns his attention away, Julian feels the pressure against his ribs, threatening to clean-break through his chest, leaving fragments of what-ifs and unspoken whispers in its wake.
The sun beats down against the pavement much later into the afternoon, warm and unforgiving as Julian hovers on the edge of it, his hands in his pockets, watching Kai out of the corner of his eye as he talks to his brothers.
For as long as Julian can remember, wherever he’s gone, Kai’s always seemed to follow— even back when Kai was just starting out in the senior team and was unbearably shy and quiet, he hovered in Julian’s space and Julian let him, he still does, his personal space hasn’t been his own for a long time now.
Julian snaps back to reality at Jascha punching his shoulder, nodding towards Jannis who is already skipping down the street towards his car, silently asking him if he’s coming but Julian’s eyes are drawn in the opposite direction to Kai hovering in front of his car a little further down the road, swinging his keys back and forth.
“You two go ahead,” Julian says, his eyes never leaving Kai’s figure as his best friend looks hopefully back towards him, “we’ve got some stuff to do first.”
Julian doesn’t wait for an answer, already feeling himself move towards Kai whose mouth twitches imperceptibly, releasing a breath as his shoulders relax underneath the tension that had almost touched his ears, following Julian as he approaches the car.
“You could’ve just asked,” Julian says as he pulls at the seatbelt.
“Yeah, but,” the corner of Kai’s mouth tilts up, “where’s the fun in that?”
*
Kai’s apartment is like home, warm and familiar when Julian trails in after his best friend, kicking his shoes off and leaving them upside down by the door.
He falls onto the couch, dropping his head back to the top of it as he settles into the cushions watching Kai out of the corner of his eye hovering by the doorway between the living room and kitchen.
“Make yourself at home,” Kai mutters and crosses the room in a couple of long strides to drop into the empty space beside Julian, their legs almost touching but not quite.
The journey back had been quiet for the low hum of the radio, the rumbling of the engine and Julian tapping his fingers against the base of the window but there was a comfort in the silence, something achingly familiar.
Kai falls muted after that, thumbing at the inside of his hoodie sleeves as the silence stretches between them with only the hum of traffic passing the main road outside, and the occasional sound of a dog barking.
“Jannis didn’t mean anything by it,” Julian says, suddenly breaking the silence, needing to “you know.” He breathes out slowly, unable to meet Kai’s waiting gaze even though his chest squeezes with something that is on the verge of spilling out of him, a confession that’s never really been a secret.
“He wasn’t wrong though,” Kai admits.
“What do you mean?” Julian asks him, whipping his head so quickly in the direction of his best friend that he’s unsure how he doesn’t end up with whiplash.
“Dunno,” Kai shrugs helplessly, inhaling as he feels his ribs tighten, wrapping around them and crushing them against the inside of his ribcage.
Except he does know.
He’s known it for years, maybe since he stumbled onto the training pitch as a scrawny teenager and met Julian and for the first time in his entire life, everything made sense. Maybe it’s because Julian had smiled and introduced himself and lit up Kai’s world in a way that nobody else ever had before.
Maybe it’s because Kai met Julian and fell in love with him without even trying.
“You’re all I’ve ever really known, Jule,” Kai feels the words tumble out of him before he can stop them, wringing his hands together in front of him, leaning forward on his knees and feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. “It’s just going to be really weird without you here, and I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. I don’t want to be without you.”
The corners of Kai’s mouth turn downwards and he presses the pads of his thumbs against each other as he lets the sound of his rattly breath fill the silence that his confession can’t.
“Kai.”
His name falls from Julian’s lips in a gasp that feels like it echoes around the room, brushing the back of Kai’s hand with a tentative touch of his fingers, lingering like he might thread them together.
“You’re not going to lose me,” Julian promises, a desperate rush dizzying as it flows through his body, trying to catch Kai’s eyes but he only averts them, frowning deeper.
“That’s not what I meant,” and there’s a snap of frustration in Kai’s voice as he says it, scraping a hand over his jaw.
Julian blinks, the anxiety that’s been coiling around his every breath unfurls again, unsteadying his hands from where they rest in front of him, because this is the closest they’ve come to talking about the transfer. And Julian just wants to run, because the unease winds around his ribcage and pulls like it could drag itself out of his body, kicking and screaming.
“What did you mean?” Julian asks cautiously, swallowing down the real question that burns the back of his throat.
“I— nothing,” Kai sighs, swallowing down the ache inside of him, tilting his mouth up in a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s not important,” he continues, hoping it sounds more convincing than it sounds between the blood thumping in his ears.
“It’s obviously not nothing,” Julian says, leaning forward on his knees and flicking his eyes between one of his own matchworn shirts that hangs in a frame behind the television, beside Kai’s debut shirt, a poignancy about them always being together washing over him.
“Forget it, Jule,” Kai mutters and moves away from the couch, chewing on his lip, his shoulders hunched towards his ears.
“No.”
Kai spins and levels him with a glare.
“I’m serious.”
“Me too,” Julian echoes and steadily gets to his feet but doesn’t move away from the couch, keeping the small distance between them that feels like it’s growing with every second that passes in the erratic but unmistakable matching beats of their hearts.
“Is it because I’m leaving?” He asks and it’s the question that he’s wanted to ask pretty much since the news of his transfer became a reality. Is it my fault, remaining unspoken still.
Kai shakes his head, his hands in his pockets as he toes at the edge of the rug separating the living room and the kitchen.
“It’s not— not everything is about you leaving,” Kai murmurs, all trace of irritation gone from his voice as he blows out a breath, rolling his lips together.
“Is that right?” Julian asks, biting back a scoff, throwing his arms out wide like he can’t believe it, “is that why things have been weird between us the last few days? I didn’t want you to find out like that but what was I supposed to do, Kai? There was no fucking way I was going to let you find out from anybody else—”
Kai groans, barely resisting the urge to bury his face in his hands.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Kai asks him, his voice void of any emotion as he lifts his eyes to meet Julian’s, pleading wordlessly with him to understand but all he sees is the flare of confusion staring back at him.
And for one single moment, Kai falters.
They’ve always been on the edge of something more, standing on the precipice in an otherwise frustrating game of will they, won’t they to those around them, everything between them was deeper, more profound, more real than anything they had ever had with anybody else.
Football was always a certainty, neither of them able to imagine doing anything else, making debuts, scoring their first goals, finding each other under the tangled limbs of their teammates as the crowd roared in their ears, they were inevitable too.
“What don’t I get?” Julian asks, searching his best friend’s eyes for something that he isn’t sure he’s going to find.
Kai flicks his eyes up to meet Julian’s and realises the gap between them has slipped away into inches, maybe less, Julian hovers close enough that Kai can see every single fleck of colour in his eyes, the way his eyelashes barely touch his cheek and the slight redness to the tips of his ears. He’s stupidly beautiful like this, unaware that he leaves Kai breathless with a single look.
“Jule,” Kai tries desperately, his voice a faint whisper tangled with the dull ache that he can’t fully conceal, turning around and starting to pace between the living room and kitchen, feeling his fingers flex at his sides. “This was never about you leaving—”
“— Jesus, Kai. Then what is it about?”
“It’s about me being in love with you!”
Julian staggers back, the words hitting him like he’s been struck in the chest, the apartment around him starting to spin like it’s just been catapulted off its axis and for a second, he feels like he can’t breathe.
He’s heard those words a thousand times in his head, when sleep eluded him and the covers were twisted around his body and he couldn’t settle, he heard those words, and now they’re hanging between them and all Julian can feel is his blood turning to ice.
It was so easy to wonder in the lingering looks and silent conversations that would drive their friends crazy and the need, longing as it might’ve seemed, to always be within touching distance of the other. The grabs of their shoulders, the brush of their hands, their chairs that were pushed so close together they might have just shared one. It was so easy to hope that it meant something more, yet.
Yet, Julian feels like he’s drowning underneath it all.
Kai can only stare at his best friend helplessly as his heart threatens to lurch out of his chest with every awkward shift of his weight from foot to foot. Then, he blanches, the fear paralysing as it is real as he realises he’s just laid his entire heart on the line to the one person who can break it. Irretrievably.
“You what?” Julian stumbles over the words, letting them fall in a breathless tumble that barely lands.
“I love you,” Kai repeats slowly, his emotions clawing at his throat, and he kind of wants to throw up.
I love you too, Julian thinks, his feet already moving towards his best friend before he can stop himself, before he can think it through. Kai braces himself when Julian stops in front of him, he doesn’t know what for.
Their breathing matches, their bodies close enough that they could press together without really trying but neither one of them makes the first move, terrified that a wrong one could shatter this facade, that one will wake up and the other will be left with an emptiness that time couldn’t heal.
I love you, Julian thinks again, and I’m sorry, he tries to say, his voice failing him as he lifts his hand towards Kai’s cheek half-expecting him to flinch away but then his fingers are grazing the warm skin there, grounding and welcomed and he’s forcing Kai to look at him, to see summer sky reflected by forest green.
Kai will say he’s the one who moved in first, drawn in by Julian’s cologne and how overwhelmingly familiar it is, Julian will argue that he’s the one who closed the gap, accepting that if he couldn’t say it in words, he could show him instead. In the end, neither of them know, and the kiss is gentle, warm lips slanting over chapped with a soft but insistent pressure that makes them both feel a little insane.
Kai rests a hand on Julian’s shoulder, letting his fingers slide along until his thumb is pressed against Julian’s collarbone, losing himself in the kiss as he feels Julian’s hands slide to grip his hips, pulling Kai closer like he could somehow fuse their bodies together, and Kai would let him, if that’s what he wanted.
In a single movement, Julian has Kai pinned against the kitchen counter, his arms bracketing him on either side and the kiss breaks, accidentally, Julian’s eyes dropping to Kai’s mouth and the slight tilt of a smirk at the corner of them.
“Kai, fuck,” Julian giggles, a sound so unbearably soft, so heartstoppingly perfect, “I love you too.”
Between catching his breath, Kai’s fingers twitch at the hem of Julian’s shirt, unable to believe his luck.
“You do?” Kai whispers, a ghost of something that releases the tension inside him, relieving the constriction on his ribcage allowing him to take a breath, full, free and holding a promise of something more.
“So much,” Julian murmurs, his expression softening, one hand coming to rest at Kai’s hip, thumbing over it with a gentleness that nobody has ever given him before.
Kai pushes against Julian, moving them back from the kitchen, blindly navigating them towards the couch as Julian falls on it, Kai falling on top of him and sliding his arms around his best friend’s neck to steady himself.
Julian pulls back, tracing his thumb across Kai’s lower lip and Kai’s brain short-circuits at the sensation, his lips lightly bruised and still tingling.
Kai kisses him this time, desperate to taste his lips again, ready and willing to drown in Julian completely, inescapably, because if this is what falling in love with him feels like, he never wants to love someone else.
Julian’s thumb rests lightly on Kai’s jaw, guiding their mouths together, he’s still leaving tomorrow and the world will feel a little emptier without his best friend by his side but he’s leaving with a reason to keep coming back and that eases the pressure that squeezes inside his chest just a little bit, and he presses his mouth more forcefully against Kai’s revelling in the feeling of being loved wholly.
But most of all, everything just feels unequivocally right.
*
It’s a little after two in the morning and there’s a small scatter of stars in the sky as Julian lies on his back, one arm behind his head and the other in the small space between himself and Kai, his thumb brushing the back of his best friend’s hand.
“What do you think you’ll miss most?” Kai asks, breaking the silence as the floodlights continue to flicker over the main training pitch.
“You,” Julian chuckles and tilts his head towards Kai, his mouth curving up into a smile that shines brighter in his eyes than the stars above them.
“I’m being serious,” Kai groans, rolling his eyes but the blush crawling up his neck betrays him, and if Julian could hear, so does the scampering of his racing heart.
“So am I,” Julian says, earnestly and props himself up on his elbows, “or wasn’t that clear when I told you I loved you too?”
“I love you,” Kai echoes, it’s almost instinctive, as easy as breathing because the fear has long disappeared with the sun beyond the horizon. “So, me?”
“It’s always been you.”
Kai’s breath catches in his throat at the words but Julian doesn’t retract them, he just lets them dance in the empty space around them, filling them with a promise of a future that doesn’t sound so scary now.
Because no matter where they end up, Julian is in love with Kai and Kai loves him back, and somehow it’s the simplest thing in the world.