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Malim shouldn’t have agreed to help his grandparents.
They’d come to him pleadingly. Their caregiver was out on vacation, and without the help the tasks were piling up. They’d promised to pay him for just visiting and cleaning up a bit.
He shouldn’t have said yes.
He’d thought– it would’ve been fine. An easy job, a few days of skipped school. Should’ve been fine.
And it was, up until the evening of the second-to-last day, when his grandmother had asked for a cup of tea and he’d said “Sure, one sec.”
And he’d foolishly ducked the TV remote that was hurled at his head for his latency.
And it had shattered the window behind him.
And it had been his fault– and he’d kneeled over shards of broken glass, tightening his fingers to not let them fall through– apologizing, promising to pay for it even as his hands bled.
And then it wasn’t just an easy job anymore. Because a four-day trip to help them turned into five days, then six.
And his phone died before he could even text a ‘Happy Anniversary’ to Rosco or even call his friends.
A week passed. He’d done everything they’d asked. Because they were family. And it was his fault the window broke.
They made him do anything and everything, to the point where he’d felt like he was acting on autopilot, stuck waiting for another command.
They’d found someone to fix the window and it had left him frantically counting the bills in his wallet, in his bank account, panic slowly seeping into his skin.
They had it fixed by the end of the eighth day, and at the an hour past midnight on the ninth Malim was walking back to his apartment, bandaged fingers gripping his backpack tightly.
It was a long walk.
He couldn't waste money on a cab and his phone was dead.
His head was pounding.
They were his family. His grandparents. Of course he took the job.
His knee throbbed.
His grandmother sat in a wheelchair. His grandfather carried a thin wooden cane.
It had broken while Malim was there.
Snapped.
The walk to his apartment is long, but somehow it feels almost like Malim blinks and he’s standing in front of the door.
He forgot to buy flowers. For Rosco.
He blinks and the door is swinging shut behind him.
“Happy Anniversary,” someone spits, sourly. “Why aren’t you answering my calls?”
Rosco doesn’t turn around from where he’s hunched over his study desk.
Malim wants him to. He really, really wants him to.
To see his face, even if it’s twisted in anger.
To crawl closer and bask in his boyfriend’s presence.
To let himself fall into Rosco’s arms, bruises be damned.
He doesn’t. He can’t. He can’t deal with it right now– the inevitable outrage, the pleas not to see his goddamned grandparents anymore. The reminders of how they ask, and take, from him over, and over, and over again. And he can’t deal with how Rosco feels about it, because that would be a betrayal to his family. He owes his family. For everything.
“My phone’s dead,” Malim mutters. The exhaustion weighing him down is invisible in his voice. “M’ gonna go shower.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rosco dismisses. “You probably have old people smell all over you.”
He doesn’t turn around, still.
He’s mad. It’s okay. Malim missed their anniversary. And ghosted him, practically.
He’ll tell him about it later.
After the shower.
The water is cold. He doesn’t feel like adjusting it. The chill shakes him, brings goosebumps to his skin, slowly making the hairs on his arms rise and suddenly awareness is spreading across his body with the introduction of the sensation and the cuts on his fingers burn, his bruises burn, his lungs burn, he’s gasping for air but it’s swallowed by the rush of the water.
The tears are sudden and violent, and Malim hunches over himself under the cold stream of water, fingers digging into his arms.
The effort of breathing feels like fighting to stay afloat in an ocean storm, each gasp like breaking the surface of the water before he’s drowning again.
He gets out of the shower. He towels off. He changes into sleep clothes. He lifts the covers.
Malim curls up on his side, away from the door, so that Rosco has no chance of seeing the tear tracks on his face when he goes to bed.
He’s still awake when footsteps pad into the room, when Rosco’s breathing softens at the sight of him.
“Why’re you so far across the bed, huh?”
The bed dips.
“Idiot, your hair’s still wet.”
Malim pretends to be asleep.
Rosco is silent for a moment.
“I missed you.”
He kisses Malim’s cheek, just once.
“I don’t know why you were gone for so long or why you let your phone die.”
Fingers brush his hair away from his face.
“I don’t know why your hands are wrapped up like that.”
Soft lips land right in the corner of his eye and Malim knows that Rosco knows.
“I’d ask in the morning but sometimes I’m scared you won’t tell me.”
Malim has to remind himself to keep breathing steadily.
Rosco carefully tucks the blankets up to his chin.
“I love you.”