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Axel watched the movements closer than he should, his gaze transfixed on the lips moving against each other. Jakob was still counting, each second seemed longer than the previous one.
The competitive part of him protested when Kevin pulled back before the time was over but as Axel watched his friend lean in once again an ugly feeling recoiled in his stomach and he had to look away. Faintly, he heard Kevin thank the girl and cursed the people behind the cameras for pulling Kevin aside afterwards. He wanted to forget the whole thing even happened.
Yet, Axel couldn’t stop tearing his eyes away from him for the rest of the day.
He had tried to focus on the game mostly but what was he supposed to do when Kevin sent him an encouraging smile for the next challenge or paid for the pizza afterwards because Axel forgot his wallet or sat directly next to him on the way home with the tram.
Suddenly, Axel was all too aware of his friend and how close they moved next to each other whenever they were together. He found himself staring at Kevin’s hands fidgeting with the hem of his jacket, a nervous habit he had since Axel had known him. He thought back to how he held the girl’s neck, how gentle he had been, wondering how it would feel…
“Axel, your stop”, Kevin said then and pulled him out of his head. Axel felt heat rush up to his face and averted his gaze to the front, where his stop was coming up.
“Right, I- uh- see you tomorrow”, he mumbled and then basically barged for the door. He could not start thinking about these things around him. Axel had done a pretty good job to hold any affections to himself in the past and he was not about to blow this up just because Kevin kissed some random girl instead of him.
He scratched that last part from his mind and groaned into his hands when the tram went off.
Tomorrow was another day and they would finish up this stupid game and he could forget that it ever happened. If Jakob tried to rope them into watching the episode should it air, Axel would simply pretend to be sick or something.
However, his brain seemed to have a different opinion on that when he was lying in his bed that night and got haunted by the events of the day when he closed his eyes. Kevin kissing that girl played like the worst loop in existence in his head. He couldn’t even say it looked bad because it hadn’t and that was the worst. Kevin had been so gentle and said stupid endearing things like here it comes and Axel wanted to rip his hair out.
—
A week had passed since and Axel was actively avoiding sleeping. Not like he had gotten much of it before but now his dreams were actively working against him and he was not in a mood to wake up sweating or worse.
He couldn’t move through his day when the first thought of the day was his best friend's lips, seeing his flushed face underneath him or above, about messed up hair and running his hands through it, about kissing him places he shouldn't even dare to think of.
It was not the first time this had happened. The first time he had been seventeen and pushed that thought so far back into his head that it remained there until they moved to Helsinki. Since then it had happened before and he always blamed it on over-working himself and being so buried in assignments that he hadn’t seen his best friends in what felt like forever.
That it was only one of them that reappeared in his dreams like that was not his fault.
So, he avoided sleeping. Only logical conclusion if he wanted to get anything done. He worked on writing new texts for his job and crammed through stuff for exams, while doodling new song ideas on scrapped papers. He deep-cleaned the bathroom of his flat in the middle of the night like anyone would if they couldn’t sleep and buried his nose into any book he could find in between.
Except that was when it got worse. Axel had been running on a few hours of sleep after two weeks and put the next book from his to-read pile without much thought into his bag. Mistake number one.
He started reading it on the tram to uni, expecting some light storytelling with a few parts to chuckle about. The book wasn’t very long and he barely scanned over the cover text. Mistake number two.
The first pages were a bit as he expected, except with a quieter tone and softer words. They turned into beautiful prose and Axel was surprisingly entranced in the way the story built up into something different than he thought. A story about watching life through the lense after death.
The tone shifted and then, after the first thirty pages, he saw the first note with a pencil scribbled at the side. His third mistake was to forget where he got the book from.
Months ago Kevin handed it to him, saying he enjoyed it and thought Axel would too.
Beautiful flower imagery.
Those were the only words written down next to a longer paragraph with beautiful prose and Axel couldn't stop staring at them. Or maybe they were staring at him. Burning past his thick glasses and into his mind. It was undoubtedly Kevin's handwriting, he had seen it enough to notice it at first glance.
How did he not remember this was a borrowed book. Kevin hadn't even asked about it once the past months. Had he mentioned notes? Did he forget about the notes before he gave it to Axel? Was he overthinking this?
The tram came to a halt at his stop and with that Axel's day at uni was spent barely paying attention to class and reading the book whenever he could. He wandered from note to note, ranging from simple appreciation to deeper thoughts and they equally gnawed on his mind.
What a kind way to describe winter, don’t you think? I have always loved winter the most.
Of course you do, Axel wanted to answer. Listening to him talk felt like watching gentle snowflakes falling outside the window as a kid. Watching him ski made it look easy even though Axel had always felt clumsy trying to get down a hill. Kevin’s calmness mirrored that of a snowy landscape, the only sign of life being little tracks of rabbits. He could be as quiet and warm as christmas eve and perform like fireworks at the beginning of a new year.
Do you think of Vörå often?
The book didn’t mention Vörå. It talked about home. A place to come back to and that brings comfort in a way that nothing else could. Axel missed their home, missed the wide fields and deep forests, he missed when life was running around outside and coming home to warm meals. He missed the quietness of the countryside that was never actually quiet.
But then again, a part of Vörå was always with him. Kevin and Jakob came with the feeling of home. Simply talking to them felt like a language of their own in this place, sharing jokes about the past and making stupid videos wasn’t much different from sitting in Jakob’s parent’s living room and brainstorming new ideas.
Would you follow your loved ones after not being able to be part of their lives anymore?
Axel wasn’t sure if he could bear not talking to him. Axel could not imagine existing without him.
Kevin had always been a kind of quiet but philosophical person. He wasn’t like Axel and Jakob who said out loud whatever came to their minds, which was good since who would like to handle three of those. But when he talked it was always worth listening to. If he asked you something, you wanted to take your time and think of a proper answer. Axel had hung onto his words since the first time they had met.
He had always listened carefully to each word he said.
You, you, you.
Axel had not stopped thinking about the choice of words. Was it meant to be passive? Had these questions belonged to someone? Did someone else have this book before him? Were they meant for him?
He took the first tram back home and kept reading of strange feelings and warped perspectives and aspects of the world Axel had never paid attention to. He watched the different kinds of lights flickering through the streets on his way to get groceries, never having thought of how overstimulating they could be.
He had finished half of the book after dinner and for the first time in weeks he stopped working on his assignments late at night and instead sat on his bed, unable to put the book aside.
Back to flowers again... I never thought as much about flowers until reading this. I’m not even sure if I have a favourite one.
What an interesting thing to point out, Axel thought. Why would he need a favourite flower?
Two pages later, two words, not connected to any of the lines, were written in the far right corner.
maybe freesias
The notes and questions had stopped. A part of Axel almost felt sad about it, to read of Kevin’s thoughts, of things that caught his attention, was like catching glimpses of his beautiful mind. Still, when Axel caught his handwriting again, he felt a strange determination to keep going.
forget-me-nots
Classic, Axel thought, but fitting.
lily of the valley
It wasn’t written down, simply marked in the text without anything else attached to it.
tulips
sunflowers
peonies
Randomly scattered across pages, Axel tried looking for a pattern but there was no system. Axel almost grew frustrated at the randomness yet he couldn’t help searching for connections to Kevin. He had known him for years, they had never talked about flowers.
Axel knew Kevin had always been softer than he had ever been able to, paying attention to the things he would overlook too easily. Axel overthought every plan, made sure everything would work just like he wanted to, but Kevin noticed small details in a way he always admired.
He could notice when Axel was nervous and took his hand to calm him down. He automatically offered to take care of his glasses should Axel have to take them off and put them back on his nose without even thinking about it afterwards. Kevin would take a song suggestion from him in a heartbeat and compose a melody to it that captured the idea beautifully.
His chest tightened at all those things.
He was almost at the end of the book when he read the only other thing besides names of flowers.
primroses, they start blooming in February
That was a fact. Axel knew because his mother would always point it out when he was younger. Why would Kevin keep those for last? Why did he add that little note to it?
Then just as he put the finished book aside, he noticed the sky turning into a mix of light blue and grey at the horizon and groaned. His eyes landed on his alarm clock, which only confirmed that he had to get up in an hour for class. Great, another sleepless night.
While the book served its purpose of distracting him from that damn kiss, Axel found himself thinking of the notes every free minute of the day. He went through the book again and scribbled them down, looked at them, not knowing if they were for him or not.
Maybe he just really wanted them to be. It was like Kevin handing him a piece of his beautiful mind.
Axel's thoughts had been surrounding his best friend to a point where denial had become impossible. He wanted to be close to him, closer, wanted to talk about books and music and joke about anything and everything in the world, he wanted to run his fingers through the messy hair and kiss him until their lips turned numb. Axel wanted his best friend more than he was allowed to and it became harder to hide.
He would stare at the way his fingers danced over guitar strings during practice and forget to answer when Kevin asked him a question. Axel’s breath would hitch when he brushed his fingers while handing him some notes. His heart skipped a beat when he called out Axel’s name when they would meet each other on campus. All these things he had been so good at hiding and shoving away were now haunting him more than ever.
Axel had never really questioned the why or how of it all. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Kevin? He had struck Axel as someone he wanted to know better from the very first second they had met. And each new thing he learned about him over years of friendship had only ever confirmed his first thought.
He was never surprised by the fact that he caught feelings but then there was this important thing that he feared losing more than anything else. Kevin was his best friend and Axel wouldn’t risk that for anything in the world, certainly not because of his own feelings.
He had wondered in the past, when he allowed himself to sit with those feelings for a moment, what would happen. Kevin wouldn’t hate him, he wasn’t that kind of person. But Axel could not bear getting his heart broken by someone who would try to be so gentle and careful doing it.
With a heavy sigh Axel went back to his laptop and typed up some report for an assignment. This wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t know what the flowers meant, he couldn’t confess his feelings and uni work was piling up as always. So he was back to square one by ignoring the whole thing and hoped that he could somewhat get back on track before he decided to just kiss Kevin.
—
Axel didn’t have a living room, so whenever someone came over it was either the kitchen or his bedroom that served as a place to sit. Kevin always went for his bedroom that was crammed with his bed, a desk and closet and a bookshelf by the end of his bed.
Kevin flopped down on his bed like usual and took out some note sheets that he wanted to talk about. Axel sat by his pillow and leaned against the headboard, sighing deeply. The day had been long and uni was stressing him out and Axel had never been more relieved to see Kevin catch him by the bus stop, asking if he wanted to hang out. He had needed a distraction and despite him wanting to ignore those thoughts, Kevin had always been the best distraction to him.
So now they were sprawled out on his bed like a million times before, while it was raining outside and Axel was sure he never wanted to be anywhere else again.
He hadn’t thought about the damn book, he had honestly tried to push it away, but Kevin was too observant for his own good.
“Oh, did you read it?”, he said all of the sudden and Axel felt his shoulders tense.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Kevin grab the book he had put on the windowsill after he had finished it last week. He had wanted to give it back to Kevin, but something held him back. The notes inside circling back to him more often he liked to admit.
“I- uhm…” Axel cleared his throat. “Yeah. It was good.”
A soft smile appeared on Kevin’s lips and it had Axel’s heart skip a beat. Kevin laid down on his stomach and flipped through the pages mindlessly, unaware of Axel’s eyes on him, of the way his arm pressed against Axel’s leg.
“I hope the notes didn’t bother you”, he said then, voice growing a little quiet. He looked up to Axel with his doe eyes and he almost had to bail out of the room, not prepared for this conversation at all.
He watched him for a long moment, the pale green eyes seemimgly digging into his soul. Axel shook his head. Maybe honesty was the best way to go about this.
“Not at all”, he answered. “I liked the anecdotes and questions.” His voice was turning disgustingly soft and he almost feared it was revealing too much.
Instead a small blush spread over Kevin’s cheeks as he looked down on something in the book. Axel couldn’t tell exactly what from where he sat, so he continued.
“Although I didn’t know you were this invested in flowers”, he teased slightly, because it was easier that way. He cocked his head and watched Kevin roll his eyes.
“They are nice”, he only said. “I’m not even sure if I remember each one I wrote down.”
Without thinking, Axel opened his mouth. “Freesias.”
The small note in his drawer, not even a meter behind him, burned into his back. Axel knew the list, he had stared at it so long he could recall each single flower. He felt his face burning up.
Kevin huffed a laugh. “Mom brought me a bouquet of those when I got my flat here.”
Axel watched him flip through the book, taking in every word he said like dry soil soaked in water. “Forget-me-nots and lily of the valley.”
Kevin looked up to him with a thoughtful expression. “Interesting names, I thought. Forget-me-not when it’s a flower that grows on every field. How could you forget something you are seeing so often?”
There was a time, the very first time they met, he had wondered if he would see Kevin again, if their paths would cross again. Now he could not imagine a day without him.
“Tulips.”
“My mom’s favourites”, he said with a gentleness in his voice he only had reserved for her.
“Sunflowers.”
Another chuckle escaped his lips and Axel wanted to bottle it up. “They remind me of Jakob, bright and always facing the sun.”
Of course, that smile radiated the same kind of warmth.
“Peonies.”
Kevin frowned for a moment and stopped his movements. “I’m not sure…” Axel didn’t continue, he wanted to know. Kevin wouldn’t write it down if it didn’t mean anything. “I remembered the book when I was walking past a floral shop, they had a gorgeous array of peonies… This sounds silly now.” He buried his face in his hands.
It was, a little. But Axel couldn’t help the chuckle spilling from his lips. It was also endearing.
He was about to call out the last one, when the word got stuck in his throat. The one that he couldn’t place at all. The only one with a note.
Axel gulped and watched Kevin carefully, wanting to see his reaction. “Primroses.”
Kevin didn’t look at him immediately, instead he smiled down to the book that was closed now. It was the kind of smile he reserved for specific moments, painfully tender and saying more than Axel could ever fathom. The warm feeling inside his chest became painful to ignore.
“They start blooming in February”, he finished quietly and then, when he finally looked up into his eyes, it felt like an arrow piercing through his heart. Or soul, Axel couldn’t tell anymore. There was a moment of hesitation before Kevin continued in the same gentle way. “Your birth month.”
This didn’t mean anything. Axel wanted it to mean something. He wanted to lean down and capture Kevin’s lips and forget about that damn kiss he shared with that girl and that book with cryptic messages which have been haunting him for a week.
His voice was slightly shaky when he spoke up again. “Why did you write them down?”
Kevin avoided his gaze again. “I knew I wanted to give you the book after reading the first two pages. I guess, I just wanted to share my thoughts. Hope you might wanted to answer.”
He wanted to. Axel wanted to answer every question he had, talk to him for hours and hours on end if it meant he could listen to him. The jealousy about a stupid kiss seemed so ridiculous now compared to the fact that he got something from Kevin so few could get only a glimpse of. The heart inside his chest beat too fast and too loud for his thoughts to stay rational.
Axel did the very thing he had been thinking of for weeks, for years if he admitted it truly.
He had to lean far down and crane his neck into an awkward position to capture Kevin’s lips. It was not like he had imagined late at night or while getting lost in thought. Their teeth clanked together and for a quick moment Axel feared he made about the stupidest decision in his life.
Until he felt a hand hold his neck, thumb brushing through the hair at the nape, and lips moving against his. Axel’s breath hitched and his brain stopped thinking for once.
It took about five seconds for Kevin to sit up and press him back against the headboard, pushing Axel’s glasses up and cradling his face like he would vanish if he let go. It felt like his breath got sucked out of his lungs only to be filled with life again with each kiss.
It was nothing like the kiss on the stairs in front of the cathedral, it was hungry and needy and yet he could feel the gentleness in the way Kevin took his time as if this was the precious moment in his life. That’s how it felt for him.
Axel pulled Kevin down on his lap, his long legs folded next to him, not quite thinking through how much closer that brought them. One hand landed on Kevin’s thigh without much thought while the other held him around the back. He sighed a little too loud when the weight settled onto him and Kevin wrapped his arms around his neck, deepening the kisses.
He would have felt embarrassed if his stomach wasn’t filled with too many butterflies and his face wasn’t already burning. Instead he settled into each kiss, parting his lips and forgetting anything else when he felt Kevin’s tongue brush past them.
It was a shame they needed oxygen.
He felt dizzy when they parted, hot breaths mixing in the small space between them while he looked into blurry wide eyes. Axel pulled down his glasses, wanting to see Kevin’s flushed face and beautiful eyes and the messy hair. He swallowed hard, unable to really process the very thing he waited for for far too long. So he said something stupid.
“You could have told me, you know”, he said, out of breath and unable to look away from his pink lips. This only confirmed that he had every right to be jealous of that kiss weeks ago. “The damn book was driving me mad.”
A big smile spread over his face, he kept playing with the hair at Axel’s neck and he felt light-headed. “Hey, at least I did something”, he defended himself.
“I-” Axel stared at him, looked at that stupid smile and the way his eyes seemed to glow even if the weather tried so hard to make everything look bleak. “What was I supposed to do with flowers?”, he asked a little desperately.
After a moment Kevin shrugged, the smile spilling into laughter and Axel was sure he never wanted to hear anything else in his life but that.
He shoved his face away playfully. “You are stupid.”
“Well, I don’t know but to me it seems like it worked”, Kevin countered back not moving a centimeter from his position. “Except you want me to go?”
It was supposed to be teasing but Axel could hear the subtle plea to stay. Like he could ever say no to him.
“Not a chance”, he mumbled and leaned forward to kiss him again, because now Axel could do that without thinking of ruining everything.
Kevin hummed into the kiss and he could feel a smile curling on lips, which made his stomach flip. Axel took off his glasses fully this time, discarding them somewhere to the side. Then he could feel Kevin’s hand travel from the back of his head to his jaw and chest and stomach, fingers slipping underneath his shirt. His heart dared to jump out of his chest and he couldn’t care less for it, humming softly against Kevin’s lips.
Axel didn’t know how long they kissed, he didn’t really mind his lips going numb or his thoughts becoming loose strands in his head. Kevin kissed him along his neck and drew small circles with his thumb over the skin by his lower waist, while Axel played with his hair, pressing soft kisses all over his face and catching Kevin’s eyes glancing at his lips.
He had never thought he would fall asleep so easily after getting to kiss him senseless but he drifted off easily with long arms wrapped around him and a head resting against his chest.
—
It felt like the first proper rest in weeks despite his limbs aching in the morning from the position he was in and Kevin half on top of him. Axel was rational about things so if it hadn’t been for Kevin still very much in his bed, he would have thought last night was a dream. But it wasn’t and his heart skipped a beat at that implication.
Helsinki was still grey, rain drops still hung to his window, his flat laid still quiet except for the humming of the fridge in the next room. Everything was the same. Kevin slept on top of him, Axel had kissed him, they had kissed – a lot. That was new. It had him laugh in disbelief.
Kevin groaned and Axel almost felt bad about the fact he woke him up. Almost because as his friend raised his head and leaned on his hands, he blinked a few times and then leaned forward to press the most gentle kiss in the corner of his lips before settling down again.
Axel knew Kevin was no morning person, he needed time to wake up. However, a question gnawed at the back of his head and he couldn’t help but ask. “Do you want to talk?”
Kevin nuzzled further into the crook of his neck and Axel was sure he wouldn’t get any sentence out if he continued to act like an affectionate cat. “Ask me again in an hour”, he only mumbled.
“Okay.” Axel wasn’t necessarily a patient person, but Kevin had always been the one to show him to take things slower, to enjoy moments before he could overthink them.
So they rested for another hour or so, before he felt Kevin move once more, stirring awake properly, stretching himself in a way that Axel would call exaggerated if it wasn’t for the way his sweater slid up.
Kevin settled next to him with crossed legs, knees bumping against his thigh and Axel missed the feeling of having him on top of him. He didn’t say that. Kevin reached for something and in the next moment a pair of glasses laid on his nose, world becoming clear again.
Axel caught Kevin’s gaze for a moment before his friend looked to his lap. He did the nervous thing with his hands again and Axel took his hand without thinking about it. Kevin’s body stilled and a shy smile appeared on his lips.
“I really like you. I have for a long time”, he confessed and it was followed by an amused chuckle. “This is way easier, when you know the other likes you back.”
“I haven’t said anything yet”, Axel said like a fucking idiot. "Technically."
Kevin laughed at that because he knew his humor and the fact that he always needed to be right. And because he could be a little shit sometimes, Kevin took away his hand and leaned back, looking out of the window. “If you want me to leave you just need to–”
Axel basically leaped over to kiss him again. “I really like you, too. Have for an embarrassingly long time.”
“Anything else you wanted to talk about?”, Kevin asked slightly unfocused, eyes wandering down to Axel’s lips.
He didn’t think much about it when he pushed Kevin down on the bed, capturing his lips again. “Maybe later.”
They had an eternity to talk, to joke how stupid they acted, to think about literally anything else. Right now, Axel had to catch up on every single kiss he had imagined in the past years.
The morning went by in a blur of Kevin’s lips and touch and anything Axel ran his fingers over. He intertwined their hands and pressed his lips and tongue against Kevin’s jaw, feeling light-headed at the vibration of his throat. For a second Axel wondered how else he could sound and heat rushed to his face quickly before he decided that those thoughts were for another day.
Eventually, they settled against the headboard again, Kevin leaning against his drawn-up legs. Axel could see his gaze settle to something at the edge of the bed, the book daring to all over the edge.
“What’s your favourite flower?”, Kevin asked as he turned his head to Axel with that kind of curiosity that he wanted to find an answer for.
Except he had no clue about flowers.
“I don’t know, roses?”
Kevin snorted.
“What?” He felt his cheeks burn up. “I don’t know anything about flowers.”
“No, they fit you pretty well.” Axel couldn’t tell what that meant and was not about to embarrass himself further by asking. “Also you know my favourites now.”
“Oh, you want me to ask you out with a bouquet?”, he asked teasingly. “Was that your plan all along?”
Kevin sat up a bit and leaned forward, face so close, Axel’s breath hitched. “I wouldn’t mind you asking me out.”
He shouldn’t be blushing, they had been making out and Kevin fell asleep on him. His mouth felt dry when he gulped and tried not to look down to Kevin’s lips again. “I’m free tonight.”
Or whenever but that was a lie and over the top.
“Me too.” Kevin leaned into him with a kiss and Axel stopped thinking about anything else. Screw flowers and books and street games, he got to kiss his best friend and take him out on an actual date.