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Silence stretched between the two teenagers as they continued to walk along the side of the main road. The only constant sound came from the soles of their dress shoes scraping against the asphalt lightly every so often.
"It is rather unfortunate that your friend had to bail on us for the evening."
Stanley inclined his head in acknowledgement, then focused back on the dirt path in front of them.
“Could be worse…could be rainin’ or stormin’ right now. We’re not too far of a walk from our houses anyhow.”
Xeno hummed softly in agreement and smoothed down the fabric of his tuxedo jacket.
"The moon looks b…magnificent tonight.”
The blonde looked over in question, taking note of the slight pause in the white-haired boy’s statement. The sable eyes shifted from his and swiveled upwards before Stanley could address the moment of oddness.
“Look, Stan, how elegant it appears!"
The said boy followed the other’s gaze and looked upward.
Indeed, the moon was luminous--full, round, and fortunately casting enough illumination so that they were not walking completely in the dark. There was also a good amount of cumulus clouds scattered throughout the sky and so Stanley stared for a bit, surprised that he'd never considered that an enchanting sight could happen during nighttime.
The blanket of the night sky was not entirely pitch black, but more of a dark, deep blue that was blended with black. Overall, the color reminded Stanley of the eyes of the boy that was currently walking beside him…
Shit, don't think about things like that.
But after he shifted his eyes toward the clouds, the young marksman found that even then, they too reminded him of Xeno. In those moments, they were not as brilliantly white as their daytime counterpart (more of a faded gray color), but the juxtaposition of the ash-colored clouds against the deep midnight of the evening sky...
Stanley swallowed and lowered his gaze back to the path in front of them. From the corner of his eye, he realized that Xeno had been observing him with an expression of soft concern.
"Are you alright, Stan?"
"Ah yeah," he exhaled, dispersing the multitude of thoughts from his mind, "just thinkin' about things."
"Hm."
Another bout of wordlessness passed between the two teens as they glanced about before continuing through the crosswalk. Once they had reached the other side of the road, Xeno gave a little laugh of contempt:
“...What an inelegant notion that I had even agreed to attend Miss Corbin’s party…It was rather chaotic, filled with mindless chatter and a few obtuse people. The only saving grace was the food and your company…what was I thinking? I suppose that even I have moments in which all logic evades me.”
“Really? Ya don’t like her, not even a tiny bit?” Stanley teased, “...I reckon I may have caught her eyein’ you the entire evening. She was all gussied up and hell, the way she kept leanin’ toward you-”
The blonde yielded to a small fit of chuckling as he recalled the exact moment that the expression on Xeno’s face had slid from discomfort into distaste at the situation.
“I suppose I can agree that she looked pretty,” the young scientist grimaced and bobbed his head as if he were mentally debating, “...but finding someone attractive and being attracted to someone are not necessarily mutually exclusive things.”
As much as Stanley wanted to fight down the words, they spilled out anyway:
“If she wanted ya to, would you have kissed her?”
Xeno shot him a look of bewilderment.
“No.”
A feeling of reassurance slid over the blonde teen but he quickly held himself in check.
“So ya like looking."
“Regardless of the gender, elegant is elegant.”
Now what did that mean?
Stanley found the phrasing a little vague and he wasn’t sure if he had imagined a certain tone in the way Xeno had just spoken the words he’d just said. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he decided to be bold.
Unashamedly bold.
“...Ya like girls and guys?”
Xeno looked at him then, inky eyes passing over his face as if he was trying to read something, and then turned his gaze toward the various houses that they began to pass as they continued along the familiar sidewalk of Xeno’s neighborhood.
“I suppose the female sex is nice to look at. Admittedly, I do appreciate beauty and elegance in the ladies of our age group.”
The blonde-haired teen swallowed, cognizant of the flutter in his chest. He perceived it first–an air of awkwardness was slowly manifesting between them. Fuck, I should have kept my mouth shut. Like I usually do. Xeno gave a rather laborious sigh, straightening his stance as they strolled and slid his hands into the pockets of his dress pants.
“...But I think that I may have a preference toward...”
Stanley understood instantly, steeling himself from showing any sort of outward jubilation.
“You’re…”
Even then, the word died within Stanley’s throat. In choking down any sort of emotion, he also inadvertently prevented any words of acknowledgement from coming out. The black-eyed boy blinked and Stanley regretted the inflection of hesitancy in his own voice, but Xeno shrugged slightly.
“Yes…I suppose that I am a homosexual,” he quoted with his fingers, “...does that…bother you?”
“N-no,” the blonde stammered, “...not at all.”
“I find it curious that you sound…nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Then why won’t you look at me, Stanley Snyder?”
At the utterance of his full name, the young marksman finally did look at his best friend, silently taking in the flush on Xeno’s cheeks. Several sections of hair had slipped from the pompadour that he’d styled hours earlier. Even with the darkness around them, Xeno’s pale face caught the light of the moon in an unexpectedly alluring manner.
To Hell with it.
Let me kiss you. Right now.
Instead, Stanley allowed his eyes to slide toward the walkway in front of them, “...Didn’t wanna make ya uncomfortable.”
“I am not uncomfortable. Unless you are the one that’s uncomfortable?”
“Doesn’t bother me that you like men, Xe,” he asserted as calmly as he could, “I mean it.”
After a few moments of studying Stanley’s face, Xeno decided that he was satisfied with the response and nodded as they continued to walk. A short distance away, the Wingfield residence had come into view.
“...What about you?”
“Huh?”
Xeno audibly scoffed and rolled his eyes in a playful manner, “What kind of…what kind of girl do you like?”
“Hmm,” Stanley hummed out and pretended to think about his response. In all honesty, it was more of a mental debate on whether to finally confess to his best friend or not.
Was this the right setting? Was this the right moment?
The blonde turned his head to finally confess but found that once again, Xeno had crooked his head upward at the night sky.
“The moon is beautiful tonight…Isn’t it?”
He had stopped walking altogether and something undecipherable in Xeno’s tone of voice caused the young marksman to cease in his movements as well. Stanley looked up too for a brief moment, then swallowed down the knot of apprehension that had begun to rise in his throat.
“...You’re beautiful…and elegant, Xeno.”
As soon as the words had left his mouth, Stanley’s eyes slid shut as the wave of embarrassment began to rush over him. Exhaling a rather ragged breath, he lowered his head and returned to chewing on the inside of his cheek as he began to silently reprimand himself for even daring to have spoken what he’d held in for so long. Holy shit, I need a sucker right now…or a cigarette.
Had he been reading the entire situation wrong?
Beneath the watchful moon, the stillness between them grew into one that was uncomfortably long, and so Stanley forced his eyes open, cautiously turning his field of vision toward the boy that he hoped was still next to him. Xeno wasn’t looking at him directly, but from what could be observed, he understood that the scientist had heard and understood him entirely.
Finally, Xeno turned his wider-than-usual eyes toward his best friend. He was wearing an awestruck sort of expression and Stanley held his breath, eyes noting the swallowing motion in Xeno’s neck before his voice came out in a quiet murmur:
“What…what did you just say?”
The blond-haired teen gulped down the lump in his own throat, forcing himself to keep his eyes locked on the boy in front of him. Doubling down, he repeated, “I said…that you’re beautiful. And elegant.”
The young scientist’s face reddened and he looked away instantly.
“...I am not a girl, Stanley.”
“So?”
The jet-black eyes flicked toward him fleetingly, then returned to gazing elsewhere. By then, the blonde was well-versed in the tell-tale signs that Xeno was in the middle of deep contemplation. In the moments when he was quietly thinking, the scientist resorted to considering his immediate surroundings–as if he could simply grasp answers from the air around him. The words that followed were mumbled, but Stanley discerned an undercurrent of disquiet in the utterance.
“...I was under the impression that you like…the female sex. After all…you have dated a few girls.”
Xeno had forced out the words with the most neutral tone that he could muster along with an artificial facial expression of “I’m unbothered,” causing the young marksman to wince inwardly. Xeno was not actively directing anything hostile his way, but nonetheless, his ebony gaze was undauntedly piercing.
“They were excuses.”
“Excuses for what?” Xeno challenged.
“For…what I was tryin’ to deny all this time, Xe.”
It’s all coming out now, isn’t it.
Stanley chewed on the side of his lip, still trying to manifest a candy sucker or cigarette in his mouth so that he’d stop himself from saying anything else. Maybe Xeno would formulate a hypothesis, theorize out loud as he usually did, and take the lead in speaking for him by proposing the very thing that he wanted to desperately say out loud.
But maybe Xeno had read his mind entirely because he didn’t take the bait.
“And what is that, Stan?”
The marksman cringed further, realizing that he was going to have to be the one to take the lead this time. Stanley heaved out the remaining anxiety in one long breath and he began to speak:
“My feelings for you, Xeno. I’ve been tryin’ to deny that I have feelings for you. I had ‘em since we were thirteen…I’m like you, in that sense.”
The stoicism etched on Xeno’s face began to crumble, replaced by comprehension. The blonde teen hadn’t even noticed the gradual flush that had begun to creep across the pale haired boy’s face while he was speaking, but at that moment, it flared in its entirety.
“Oh…I see.”
“Oh?!”
Xeno, what the hell…
Face burning, Stanley sighed and pressed the palm of his hand against his own face, sweeping the cowlick upward and back in an attempt to blend it with the rest of his hair.
Jesus Christ.
“Y-you like me.”
The statement was delivered in a flat, detached sort of manner, but Stanley caught the microexpression of guilt on the other teen’s face as he resorted to looking elsewhere again. Considering the circumstances, Stanley couldn’t help but laugh out in endearment at the sight.
“Yeah, genius. I’ve liked you for the longest time.”
“Then…I would not mind if you would k…iss me.”
Stanley whipped his head, in shock.
“Hah?!"
For a few moments, Xeno appeared frozen, entirely in disbelief at what had just come out of his own mouth. After blinking twice in an effort to recompose himself, he directed a guarded look toward the taller boy:
“...It has always been you, Stan. I realized a long time ago that I was more than fond of…I just…didn’t think that you could ever reciprocate such feelings in that way…When you were dating those girls, I simply pushed everything down…But hearing these words from you now, I…would not mind it."
Taken aback by the outpour of words, Stanley could do nothing but stare. Even though Xeno could talk endlessly about astrophysics and science in general, he knew that his friend wasn’t entirely a walking encyclopedia and must have some sort of sentimental side. He had been witness to the blatant, outward displays of excitement and joy and even moments of fleeting, carefully-guarded poignancy when something had quietly affected the ashen-haired boy in a deep way. He wondered then just how much Xeno had swallowed down, when it came to their friendship overall.
“...But it sounds like I…might have hurt ya.”
The raven-colored eyes darted upward to retrieve yet more words from the atmosphere around them.
“...If you mean what you are saying now…and they didn’t mean anything…This is rather embarrassing, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. Nevermind-”
“No!” Stanley’s hands flew forward without restraint and fixed upon Xeno’s shoulders, “...I want to do it, I’ll do it.”
Xeno tilted his head and Stanley instantly detected moisture accumulating in his eyes.
“...You cryin'?”
“I am not crying,” the white-haired boy mumbled out in a muffled, unconvincing tone.
With a shaky inhalation of breath, Stanley angled his head as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Xeno’s own. Upon feeling the sensation of fingers weaving through his hair, the blonde took it as a sign of encouragement and heedfully waited until the other boy’s mouth became pliant before deciding to deepen the kiss. Not wanting to overwhelm him, Stanley drew away after an ample amount of time had passed.
“Wow…” Xeno breathed out in a dazed and dreamy fashion, “that…that was quite pleasant.”
Stanley chuckled lowly, taking in the other’s flushed face, “Y-yeah…that was nice. I-uhm, wanted to do that for awhile now…”
“Could we-”
“It is rather late, in case both of you weren’t aware–”
The abrupt manifestation of a third, clearly female voice startled both of the formally-dressed teens, causing them to spring away from each other and snap them out of their reverie entirely.
How had they suddenly ended up on the front steps of the Wingfield residence?
In shared shock, they stared at the pajama-clad figure of Astrid Wingfield.
Her inky eyes were narrowed as she tilted her head.
“Xeno? Stanley? Did you…walk all the way here?”
Temporarily stunned at how quietly the front door had opened and wondering how long she had been standing there, the two boys seemed to have trouble getting their mouths to provide any coherent response.
Had she seen them?
Astrid’s sooty eyes rolled between the two of them in what appeared to be an assessing sort of manner and even in the darkness, Stanley swore there was a curl playing at the end of her mouth. Xeno was the first to finally speak out:
“Yes. Our mutual friend that we managed to hitch a ride with earlier was unfortunately called away for an emergency. Stan accompanied me back.”
“...Mmhm. I see.”
The woman’s eyes settled upon the taller boy and a suspiciously saccharine smile stretched its away across Astrid’s mouth. He swallowed thickly.
“How charming and very gallant of you…Well, I will quickly grab my purse and keys so that Xeno and I can drive you back home–”
“You don’t have to do that, ma’am,” Stanley choked out, wanting nothing more than to just flee the awkwardness of the scene and begin his own trek home, “my house isn’t far–”
“Precisely.” There was a finality in the woman’s tone as she disappeared from the doorway entirely to retrieve her things. Xeno sighed out, wrinkling his mouth in foreboding before slipping his hand over his own face.
“...Guess we can assume she saw all that.”
Even from behind his hand, Xeno nodded in full agreement.
“Yes…I imagine that the drive back should be interesting.”
“...Worth it.”
[fin]