Chapter Text
Wille bumps into Simon outside the main steps, a few days after their return to Hillerska from the winter holidays.
"Oh, Wille," Simon says. "I was just looking for you. I've got to tell you something."
Wille takes a breath and steadies himself, eyes roaming Simon's face. Simon is right there, just as real and beautiful as always. As he was the last Wille saw him, before the holidays, when he hugged him and told him that he...
"What is it?" Wille manages to say, after a moment.
"Not here. Come," Simon says, gesturing for them to stand closer together near the fountain, where there are fewer people standing around.
Just for the brief time that they're walking together to a spot by the circular bench around the fountain's pool, Wille allows himself to enjoy taking in the details of Simon's face again, the sun shining off his dark glossy curls, and the way he moved. Instagram photos really couldn't compare.
Quickly checking their surroundings again for anyone close enough to overhear, Simon says in a hushed voice, "Felice told me who leaked the video. It was August." He spits out the name like something rotten. "Because of course it was."
It takes a moment for the words to permeate Wille's brain, but then he snaps out of his reverie staring at Simon, and starts feeling his face warm.
Oh. Oh shit.
Simon must see something in his frozen expression, trepidation or a lack of surprise perhaps, because his brows make a tiny furrow and he says, "Wait, did you know? And didn't tell me?"
He'd been caught out. Simon had always been able to read him like an open book, even when they'd barely known each other.
"I..."
"Since when have you known?"
"Since before Christmas. But..."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I –" Wille hadn't wanted it to play out like this. His plan was already in motion. He was going to make it right. He just needed more time.
But it wasn't going to happen on his terms now.
"I just – I didn't want to upset you or burden you anymore," he says, trying his best to keep his voice down and the pleading note out of it. There were more people walking around them now, and nearer, as it was getting close to the next bell. "I was going to take care of it."
Simon looks at him with disbelief. "You don't get to make that decision for me. It's my life – I deserve to know something like this. The video affects me more than you now because of your statement."
When Wille doesn't respond immediately, mouth opening and closing on different responses, Simon backs away a few steps, staring at him with an all-too-familiar expression and shaking his head back and forth slightly.
And it's happening again. Wille can see it in his mind's eye: Simon turning and stalking away from him in that classroom after Wille had made a selfish bid for him to take the fall for the prince and the crown. Simon walking away from their relationship while tears streamed down Wille's face.
He can't let it happen again. He had promised himself he wouldn't repeat his past mistakes with Simon. In desperation, he raises his voice and calls out, "I'm sorry! I should have told you. Please, I love you!"
Jag älskar dig. Wille had always planned to say it again, but he had hoped it would be in better circumstances than this. He doesn't know why he's saying it now; it didn't really make a difference to his case. He was just blurting out what he felt.
He feels on the edge of tears again, but Simon has paused mid-step, which gives him a ray of hope. Wille puts the hand that he's reached out into empty air down and in a softer voice, pleads, "I love you. And I just – I just wanted to protect you. Please don't leave. Just let me explain. Talk to me."
It has the desired effect. Simon stops walking completely and turns around. But he's looking at Wille with shock, and that's when Wille realizes what he's done.
Wille had been so caught up in his heartbreak and desperation that he'd forgotten they weren't alone at all. Like the first time he said those words, they're outside the school, surrounded by scattered clumps of Hillerska students, but this time, Wille had been loud, and everyone in close vicinity has now turned to stare at them. Many of them have their mouths hanging open in little circles, and a slight hush has fallen as the students who heard him strain their ears to listen in on the newest drama.
Wille's entire body flashes cold, and he freezes where he stands. He can see the other students' eyes darting between him and Simon, like piecing a puzzle together.
Not wanting to make their relationship any more of a spectacle, Simon sighs and jerks his head minutely to the side, silently indicating with his eyes that they should move somewhere more private. Curious eyes follow them as they traverse the grass and slip around the corner of the building.
Once they're alone, Simon crosses his arms, faces Wille, and says, "Well?"
Wille takes a deep breath. "Felice was also the one who told me, a few days before I left for Christmas. I went to confront August about it, but he didn't say anything except that he was sorry."
Simon narrows his eyes at that, distrusting. "No reason why he did it?"
"No. And when I called my mom to tell her, I found out she already knew. They'd investigated, she'd known for days, and she covered it up to protect the reputation of the crown."
Simon slumps with his back against the white brick wall, staring at the grass. "They knew already."
"Yeah."
"And covered it up." Simon is suddenly glad he was too wrung out at the time to file a police report. All he would have likely accomplished was to bare this raw, intimate trauma to uncaring strangers and make himself relive it over and over again. And they would have listened dispassionately, already knowing who the culprit was and having resolved to do nothing.
He meets Wille's eyes. "And there's nothing we can do about it, because she's the queen, and she has all the power. But why didn't you just tell me? I would have understood."
"I just didn't want to hurt you any more than I already had. I wanted to tell you once I had dealt with it myself."
Simon's face softens. "It wouldn't have been you hurting me, Wille. We didn't do anything wrong, remember?"
Wille nods slowly, relieved. "So… you're not angry with me?"
His voice is so small as he looks up at Simon through the soft blond fans of his eyelashes, and it tugs at Simon's heart like a rope. He loves this boy, loves him, and had never been able to stay mad at him for long. Or wanted to. So when he says, "No," he means it.
"I really am sorry. That you had to find out like this."
"I believe you."
"And I have a plan to fix this."
"You what?"
Wille glances around them once more to make sure they're still alone, and then leans in close to outline the machinations he had put into play.
As they're heading back into the school, Simon smirks sidelong at him and says, "I can't believe you shouted that you love me in front of the entire school."
Wille feels himself flush red as a tomato from cheeks to chest. "I didn't shout it," he protests. But damn this pasty light skin that contradicted him.
Simon only laughs at him, rubbing his nose with his knuckles, but it's a gentle laugh, not a mocking one. He's not going to say it back right now either, but Wille can tell that he's pleased, and his heart lights up at the sound of Simon's laughter. He's missed that sound.
Plus Simon is teasing him like before. And this definitely wasn't Wille keeping them a secret.
Wille smiles and gives his shoulder a playful shove. "Dumbass."
"But you love me."
They're approaching the entrance now, a steady stream of students flowing in around them for the bell. It doesn't occur to Wille until later that being seen playfully interacting like this right after that display will only reinforce the rumours.
"You already knew that. Now shut up! People will hear you."
~~~
"...And then they disappeared around the corner," a girl's voice whispers.
"I wonder what they were doing," another feminine voice says, dripping with implication.
The giggling stops abruptly when they see Wille round the corner of the lockers. He keeps his face carefully blank with the control of all the royal publicity training he possesses, and looks straight ahead, not passing any of them over with his eyes. The girls, meanwhile, watch him with theirs.
He's so tired of being watched.
He wonders what these gossiping girls think from an outside perspective of the conspicuous, contradictory back-and-forth he and Simon appear to be caught up in, in which a supposed video of them having sex leaks, only for him to publicly deny any relationship with Simon, then hug him desperately in front of everyone, and then shout that he loves him in the midst of an obvious argument. It must seem like some kind of real-life soap opera.
The flip-flopping nature of it, at least, isn't too far from the truth, he thinks morosely.
His face burns hot with embarrassment whenever he remembers his declaration in front of the school a few days ago. Something that serious should not be done in front of other people like that. It should have been private and sacred. He had hoped to do it right the second time around, intimately and romantically, somewhere when they were back together and alone. But the best-laid plans, and all that.
Maybe the third time he'll get it right. And Simon will actually reciprocate. Wille doesn't know if he could handle the heartbreak of not hearing it back a third time, the vulnerable crushing feeling in his chest when he bares his heart in such an enormous way only to be left hanging.
It's a small relief, at least, that just like no one dared to ask him directly about the video, no one seems to dare ask him about his little love speech to his face.
"So it must have been him in that video…like, for sure now."
"I thought it was just some kind of hookup though."
Two boys' voices this time, before Wille enters his next classroom. He waits outside for a moment, and then takes a bracing breath and enters.
Some boys sitting near the doorway stare at him, but he just goes straight to his seat and sits down.
He meets Simon's eyes from where he's sitting at the back of the room. Although Simon won't show it on his face, Wille knows it made him happy, at least, so maybe he can bear a bit more humiliation.