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I love you.
The words mean nothing to you. When you hear them, at least, they're nothing special. They hold no weight, carry no feeling. You've been told 'I love you' many times before, by your parents, by your friends, by fleeting lovers and even hookups in a moment of weakness. I love you, your mother says as you nurse the bruise on your cheek. I love you, your friend says after you've spent lunch hour hiding in the bathroom because they laughed you away from their table.
You've only said it to one person, and one person only.
You're always careful with your words, when you speak it quiets the room, which is why you don't do it much. Not unless you need to. You're so careful that even a 'good job' means so much to the nurse you pat on the back, because you only nod at them when you seem slightly impressed.
But I love you.
It's something special, but something so worn out. Every time you hear it you feel yourself slip further into that uncaring mask, slowly begin to untangle yourself from the threads that bind you and the person confessing their feelings. The words feel like a hot iron, sizzling against your sensitive skin, and you instinctively pull away.
You never say it back, and you can see the hurt in their eyes when you don't. You just nod, you say 'oh, alright', you do anything but parrot the phrase. Because every time you've said it, nothing good came of it.
-
I love you.
The boy sitting next to you blurts the words out, his face painfully red as his eyes flicker from you to the grass between his folded legs. His hands wring together, a nervous habit you've picked up since you've started to become friends with him.
You're only six, you don't know the meaning of the phrase past it being an apology for when your mother takes her anger out on you. When she screams until her face is red, sends you off to your room just to invade it hours later. I love you, sweetheart, she says, her eyes brimming with tears. I know, mama, you reply, and she stands in your doorway.
You never say it back.
Why? Is your response, fingers still picking at the flower in your hands. It's bright yellow, a dandelion, that the boy next to you has gifted you. It had gotten him a resounding chorus of 'ew!' as he handed it over to you, looking as bashful as ever.
You took it and burst into a grin, hugging him as tightly as you could and telling him how pretty it was, gushing about how this must've been the first one because you had been looking for them all over. You don't realize why your other classmates avoid you and the boy as you hold his hand in yours, tug him outside when you're allowed.
You just know he's given you a flower, and that's all that matters. He likes you, though there's no concept of 'like like' in your mind yet. He just doesn't mind you as much as the other children do, and you don't mind him either.
Well, my papa says if you really like someone, more than anyone else, you love them, is his answer, his eyes flickering up to you as you fluff the petals of your gift. And I like you. A lot more than anyone else, so I love you!
You look at him, the wheels in your tiny mind turning. Maybe that's why you don't say I love you to your mother, you don't really like her more than anyone else. You don't love your teachers, and you don't love your friends. You just like them, not any more than reason.
You smile at him, and he rubs his arms like it's cold.
Then I love you too!
He looks like you've just given him the best thing a child could ever get. His face lights up in a big grin, something you don't get to see very often, as quiet as he is. He looks overjoyed, even though neither of you really know the weight of the phrase yet. It just sounds nice, it means something a little bit more than 'I like you', and so you exchange it on a pretty spring day behind the school.
You say it often, though it feels more like a secret. When you see him first thing in the morning, you call out his name and he returns yours. Teachers think it's a sweet gesture when you both run up to each other, joyous at the fact that your shy friend is seemingly breaking out of his shell.
You hold his hand on the way to class, swinging it between you until you break to find your seats. It's innocent, it's childish friendship, one of the few- one of the only ones he has. He doesn't seem to mind it, though, and you don't, either. You like being his friend, like picking him out in a crowd and plopping down next to him so hard it hurts your legs just for the effect.
It's not pity, you're not old enough to pity someone that is just beginning to be pushed outside of the 'circle'. You're aware that your classmates don't like him for some odd reason, but you do, and it's enough for you. He's sweet, with that odd, lopsided smile and those bright bluish-green eyes. You don't care that when you sit so close, when you hold his hand in yours for no reason other than you like it, or when you tackle him from behind to hug him that your other classmates turn up their noses or let out some variation of a disgusted noise.
He's your friend, and you're his, and that's the only thing you care about.
-
I love you.
Your arms are looped around his neck, though with his height, it's getting hard. He sniffles into your shoulder, wraps his arms around you as well and lets out a shuddering sob that makes you want to cry as well.
You're only thirteen, not old enough to realize the full weight but old enough to know that it means more than what you thought it did as little boys sharing flowers picked from the sidewalk. You say it because you think you mean it now, because you know it's more than 'liking someone more than other people'.
He cries into your shirt and you let him, swaying gently side to side because it's all you know how to do. Like maybe it can help him. You've read books, more books than you can count, and try to calm him down in the way you've seen from those wonderful fairy tales. Patience and kindness, something your schoolkids seem to lack.
It's not bruises, not yet, but it's words. Words that cut deep and scar, words that erupt into laughter when all he does is try to be nice. Try to make friends, be included from where he's been pushed out.
You're left to pick up the pieces when they shatter him.
I love you, you repeat, because you can't do anything else.
He wipes his tears on your shoulder, sniffles, tries to compose himself. They'd tear into him for that too, like vultures circling. Already left for dead after they laugh him out of the room, call him names you hate to even think about, poke and prod and ask questions you know are meant to stab. And then snort at the fact he's so soft, such a 'big baby', because men don't cry.
You hate it, hate all of it, but you can't change it. You can only offer him open arms and a place to try and build himself back up just to get punched down again.
I'm sorry. He mumbles into the fabric of your shirt, sniffling again. He tries to pull away, but you don't let him, not really- you know him by now, smart enough at your big age to know that he'll try to retreat into himself before he's fully ready to start trying to put himself back together.
He doesn't want to be a burden, and you know that no matter how many times you reassure and insist he's not, he's too far into his own head to listen.
Don't be, you sigh, patting his back as he leans back into you. He doesn't fight, just rolls over like a dog showing their belly. He knows you know him, know him better than he even knows himself. You make habit of watching him closer than even his bullies, committing every piece of his schedule to memory, every like and every passing comment. Every habit, every pattern.
You never use it against him. You would never, and you will never, that's what you promise yourself. You hesitate before you even think it, but it refuses to be ignored. You love him too much to hurt him, even if he hurt you.
-
I love you.
Sweet sixteen, the best year you can think of when you think of him. You're in his arms, swaying to the music he has playing in the background in the peace of his room. His safe space, somewhere you would never invade, not even if you are his best friend.
His best friend.
Somewhere along the way you knew it was more than that, felt it in the way your heart jumped when he'd smile at you. Something he'd always done, something he'd always saved for you, because it was weird and crooked and ugly by his and everyone else's standards. To you, it was gorgeous, but you never told him in such strong words. It's fine, you'd hum. It fits you, in a good way. A very good way. In a 'all the ladies want to fuck me way'- you begin to trail off just to see him crack it again, pushing your shoulder and telling you to piss off.
You knew it in the way you comforted him, how it'd stopped just being hugs and started being soft reassurances. Murmurs of it's alright, and I've got you, things he never protested but you never spoke of when he was done. Your fingers in his hair, petting, as you both sit on the floor. Your hand rubbing his back and telling him that it's okay, to let it out, he'll feel better afterward.
But you didn't tell him.
You didn't want to, you couldn't. You were both boys, growing into men, and yeah, maybe when he was six he talked about you and him like the way a boy would about a girl, and maybe he was seven when he said he'd marry you, and maybe he was ten when he said he wanted to live with you forever.
But you were older now. He looked at girls the way you looked at him, even if he never said anything about them. You could see it in his eyes, your immersion with those gorgeous eyes broken when you followed his gaze to someone else across the room, talking with her friends. You'd look back down to your work, begin writing as he stared, ignoring the hot shame you felt crawling up your spine for looking at him like that.
It was wrong, it was bad, it was something you could never have. It would risk it all, put those years, those wonderful years of friendship on the line. You could deal with him not being your lover, but not having him in your life at all was so much more terrifying.
You'd both snuck a few drinks, something light that you were sure wouldn't affect you that much.
Being sixteen and lightweights, you were wrong.
He had put on some music, gotten up and pulled you with him. You'd laughed, edging a wheeze as fuzzy as your brain was, asking him what he was doing. He grinned at you, that lovely lopsided grin that showed off his canines, dimples forming in his cheeks.
Dancing, he replied, wrapping his arms around you and wriggling around like a worm on a hook. You put your hands on his chest and actually wheezed, throwing your head back at his antics, tears beading in the corners of your eyes as you struggled to breathe.
You are not! You snorted, patting his chest and moving your arms up to his shoulders to still them.
Who says? He sassed back at you, and you looked at him in the dim lights. His eyes were trained on you, slightly glassy and not all there but still breathtaking.
Me, you laugh, already picking up a rhythm and swaying your hips. He moves with you, unquestioning, happy just to see your smile. The one who knows how to dance.
You dance?
Of course.
Well then show me!
You don't stop short, but you raise your brow. He smiles wide, like a smug cat, knowing he's gotten you. You roll your eyes, but begin to move your feet in the way you'd taught yourself. It's simple, you're both leaning on each other for support and stumbling a bit, but it's precious moments. Precious moments you know you'll treasure for the rest of your life, holding them close and dear when you look at him from afar the same way he'll look at his wife.
Adoring, loving, everything sweet and beautiful and everything you won't share.
That's when he says it, when you're more focused on the feeling of his arms on yours, committing the way he moves against you to memory like you'll never see him again.
Oh, how little you know.
I love you.
Three simple words between drunk kids, something he says first and you repeat back with no hesitation. He pulls you in closer, chest to chest, no longer dancing but simply swaying to the soft music. You squeeze your eyes closed, feel the way he breathes under you, try to fight back the itch in your throat and the tears in your eyes.
His best friend in the whole world, a title you hold so dear to your heart.
One you'll never give up. Not even if you long for so much more.
-
I love you.
The last time.
He's leaving.
Seventeen, nearly a year later to the day of that wonderful night in his room.
He didn't tell you until now, just hours before he's gone.
I didn't want to make you.. freak out or something. His voice is soft and pacifying, he stands in the middle of the room rubbing his arm and avoiding your gaze. Your gaze that turns from adoration to betrayal, trying to process what he's saying, what he means.
German Armed Forces.
Volunteered.
The words swim in your head, prick tears into your eyes and stutter your breathing in your chest. He wasn't forced, wasn't coerced by his father, wasn't pressured by peers. He volunteered, he wanted to go, apparently more than he wanted to stay with you.
Your heart cracks.
And this won't? It already sounds hoarse, and you cross your arms like you're trying to physically protect yourself from the answer he gives you. He sighs, sighs, like he's irritated, like you're making this bigger than it is. It's not, you don't think it is at least. He's your friend, your best friend, your world. And he's giving you up like it's easy just to go into the army.
I just know you-
You do? Your voice snaps, breaks in the middle but not pathetically. You don't know why it's so easy to let anger in, like it's been clawing at your door for years and you finally tire of the scratch of nails on the wood. It's poised for attack already, and all you have to do is be too tired to fight it.
Yes! We've been friends for years!
Exactly. Years. And you don't tell me?
I didn't want you to worry.
But I am worried! You're leaving to the army! You're frustrated. Maybe you didn't sleep well- you haven't been, not lately- or maybe you ate something bad- you didn't, you haven't eaten recently. And you didn't at least tell me a day before! Just a few hours. Is that what a friend does?
Does a friend constantly smother me and try to keep me away from people? He bites back, squaring his shoulders and taking a step forward like he's challenging you. Like you're dogs getting ready to fight, like he's getting ready to draw first blood. I didn't tell you because I know you don't like this kind of thing! This change! You can't handle it!
For the throat.
Your brows knit together and you know you're scowling, the only expression you can make without breaking into tears. Another crack.
I can! I'd just like to know, damnit! Preferably at least a day before my best friend is shipped off to god knows where to do god knows what!
No, you can't! You never can! You know it! Every time it's something new, it's a new girl that I talk to, or someone else I try to be friends with! You freak out and argue with me, just like now!
You swallow, thick and heavy, dig your nails into your arms. You hate it when you fight like this, as rare as it is. It always erupts into who can get closest to the sore spot first, who shies away and runs off with their tail between their legs and who remains the bloody victor.
Nobody ever wins, but at least you make up. He goes to cool off and you find him. You apologize for not calming down, and he does as well.
It's not a big show, but you're alright.
Now you won't have time. This is the last one, and apparently, only you're thinking about it.
Fine.
He stops, not immediately, but rather slows. Confusion flits across his face, and you see regret in the mix for a moment as well.
Fine. I won't argue with you. I'm sorry.
You breathe in sharply, shove your hands in the pockets of your jeans. You'll be responsible if he wants you to be. You can stop acting like a child, clinging on like he says you do. Maybe you do, maybe you grip on to the only person that's holding you together day by day when he begins to wander. But you don't want it to be the last thing you talk about with him.
What?
I said I'm sorry.
You scratch at the stitching, turning your head and breaking eye contact. The fight is over as quickly as it's started and it's left him visibly reeling, used to snapping and biting for weak points for a good hour before one of you falters and leaves.
I don't want the last time we talk to be an argument.
He realizes.
You shrug, almost subconsciously answering his silent question of if it really is the last time.
Some vicious part of you hopes it is, hopes that you never see each other again and he lives with this. Another part wonders if it's really going to hurt him as much as it hurts you, or if he'll move on quick enough and leave you to rot in your misery, decay in his absence.
But I can't be around you.
The words taste vile, and you're not sure if your subconscious is telling the truth, or a bitter lie that'll help keep you stitched together so you don't fall apart in front of him. You can't, not now. If you shatter, he'll want to pick up the pieces, just like you always did with him. And the result is you'll only fall deeper in love, and it'll only hurt more when you get home and have time to let the fact that you'll probably never see him again sink in.
His mouth opens, but you block out his words.
Goodbye.
You drive the final stake into his heart.
You go for the throat, dig your fingers into the softest part of him before you leave just in a petty hope that maybe it'll hurt him as much as he hurts you. It's childish, it's playing into his words, his accusations of you not being mature enough. But you don't care, he won't be around you anymore and he probably won't care.
He hates goodbyes. He hates goodbyes like you hate I love you's, and you know both of you will feel it in that moment.
I love you.
You don't know when you got to the door of his room, but he says it softly.
And he gets you back. Your heart shatters.
You grip the doorknob like it's the only thing keeping you from breaking, turning back and running into his arms, begging him to stay with you at least for a little while longer. It probably is.
You don't look at him.
You don't say it back.
You step out of his room and shut the door on him and all the memories you share.
It leaves a hole in your chest, far surpassing just your heart, something you know you'll never be able to fix.
You cry for hours that night.
-
You don't say I love you anymore.
You join the military as well when there's nothing left of civilian life for you to enjoy. You tried it, tried friends and jobs and feeding the strays and reading books. It brought you momentary happiness at first, but when you were alone, nothing felt real.
The darkness of your shitty apartment swallowed you whole and you could never escape.
It stopped working, you stopped talking to your friends and you stopped visiting the library. You laid in bed but didn't sleep through the night, made mistakes and got sloppy at your job.
The thought of joining the military stuck a knife in an open wound and twisted, but you had nowhere else to turn.
You never truly stopped loving him, never stopped hoping that maybe you'd see him again. You were twenty now, and hoped he'd show up at your door. Write a letter, find your number, fuck, any and all ways you could think of that he could get back to you.
He didn't. It'd be insensible for him to even remember your address anymore, let alone know your email or your phone number or any other ways you could think of him contacting you.
So you would go to him instead.
That was your line of thinking, at least, as you volunteered like he had those few years ago. The military was vast, branches both known and unknown sporting thousands and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It was a needle in a field full of haystacks, but you had nowhere else to go and nothing better to spend your time on. Maybe it'd help you in some way, make you feel less useless, give you a new world or at least patch it where he'd left it in pieces. It was a far-out hope, but it was something you'd try.
-
You're a combat medic. You aren't sensitive to blood and gore, you don't get squeamish. You've got enough fighting force in you to bark orders and keep up morale of dying men, but not enough that it dims when you feel the soldier's feet stop moving.
Your colleagues don't mind you, the older ones treat you like one of their own in the way they avoid you and only talk to you when necessary. The younger ones look for conversation and find none in someone their age, only met with nods or grunts of affirmation. You keep your head down and do your job, you train and sign paperwork and cut bullets out and stitch gashes.
It's work. It's something they don't allow you to fail at, something that gives you a bit of purpose, something that occupies your mind instead of letting you roam freely and think about him for what seems like an eternity.
You bounce stations, pick up scars and tricks and knowledge. You help countless men and bury countless more, write them up either in an injury form or a death sheet. Years slide by, too fast and too slow at the same time.
You do the impossible.
You begin to forget.
He doesn't occupy your mind every minute of the day, your teenage one-sided romance clouding your vision and holding you hostage.
You sleep easier as the months pass and drag into years, and his face is no longer crystal clear.
You don't remember the song you danced to, you don't remember the first time he cried on your shoulder. His voice washes away and his words follow, become meaningless and silent compared to the way they held you so tightly before. You focus more on work than on memories, you begin to live again. It doesn't make you feel more like a person, but it makes you feel less like a shell.
-
You end up at KorTac because of your skill. Unmatched, and they need someone medically trained to patch up wounds. You like to entertain yourself with the thought the former had a bigger hand in your choosing than the latter.
They all say their names, brought in together to introduce themselves. Horangi is distant, but Aksel seems to delight in your humor, a wide grin across his face as you shake his hand firmly. Conor, you can't much understand, but nod along and shake his hand as well.
The meeting in total doesn't go the worst it could've, and you'd even call it successful; better than you expected. Everyone seems nice enough to a newcomer, and you aren't exactly some doe-eyed newbie just getting the feeling for a new team. You're used to being the outsider.
The thought doesn't bring back memories of him. Just new platoons, new privates, new captains.
Even he doesn't, not immediately. König, the big Austrian, who stares at your face for a solid few seconds before you tilt your head and hold up your hand, wondering if maybe he doesn't like handshakes.
He grips your hand with both of his and shakes it, though not to the point where you can't feel the shake of his palms on yours. Nervous, maybe- you just smile at him and tell him it's nice to meet him. He nods, and you catch a passing comment by Stiletto that he's still nervous as ever.
He's familiar, the stance and the red and white country flag on his arm make you think of something but you don't know what. You just think he's another one of your new teammates and don't dig further into your memories than that.
-
Months go by. Missions pass, you patch up your comrades countless times, from burns they got on the coffee pot to life-threatening gunshots just barely whispering against vital organs that would've dropped them where they stood.
König is the only one that stands out.
He seems like he's trying to spend time near you without you noticing. You'd picked up that he was anxious, always standing towards the back while your teammates huddled up in the common room. His words quiet, answers short. He's a different person back at the base, shy and soft instead of an adrenaline-fueled animal.
But he hangs around you, and you specifically.
It begins to unblock memories, peel back layers and layers of bandages over a wound you'd mercilessly scraped the infection out of and then plastered medical tape over until you couldn't see it anymore. Memories of that boy with the pretty blue-green eyes, the boy that found nice rocks and put them in your hand without a word, the boy that hung around behind you despite always being just that bit taller.
It doesn't hurt like a fresh one, but it hasn't scarred. It's still hesitantly tender, aching as you remember his soft pale skin and the way he'd hum along to the songs on the radio.
You don't mind when König's explanations as to why he's standing over your desk, doing nothing, hold no water. He's a sweet man, hesitant and gentle in the way you remember him when you were first friends.
-
"You remind me of an old friend," you begin, swirling the drink in your flask idly. König is sitting in a chair across from your desk, writing something or drawing something on a pad of paper. He looks up curiously, like a dog whose just heard it's name. "Not in a bad way."
He makes a little noise, but it gets stuck in his throat. You purse your lips around the cold neck of the flask and swallow, any chill wiped away by the burn of alcohol. Your guilty pleasure, something that's filled in the cracks of you when work or memories chipped away dutifully at you.
"Before I joined the military. Years, actually. Friends since almost as long as I can remember. Six years old."
Your sentences are short as you press your tongue to your teeth, choosing your words carefully. It's a deep cut, one that hit a metaphorical artery and left you near death's door before you fixed yourself, one that will never fully heal. One you thought you'd never show to anyone for fear they'd pry and ask, far beyond what you felt comfortable with.
But you do, you show it to König. Sweet König, who you know would never push for answers. Gentle König, who has scars of the past he carries with him as well that you've heard in short comments or in the tone of his voice when he answers a question about where he came from. He's safe, you think, safe enough to show.
You stare at your reflection in the flask, hardly the man you were those ten odd years ago, and yet still all the same.
"I was in love with him."
You sigh, already three more swallows into something you forgot the name of. You told him an overview, laughing at stories from your childhood, talking about all the wonderful moments and guarding those you didn't think you were ready to touch yet. König says nothing, only watching you with those eyes that started the whole thing. Those wonderful eyes that look so similar both in color and simply the way he stares. Like a deer caught in the headlights, though not surprised.
Enraptured.
He nods. You decide to throw your caution and your reservations to the wind.
"Madly, as the poets would say. I'm not one myself but.. Jesus. He was the sun to my moon, though a lot of people would tell you the opposite. You know the moon actually reflects the light of the sun?"
He shakes his head, rubs his arm like he's slightly ashamed of not knowing. Everything he does reminds you of that boy with the crooked smile and dark hair, the boy that danced with you and told you I love you over and over through the years.
You rub your eye with the heel of your hand, trying to prevent tears. Alcohol always made you emotional.
"Yeah. It's what I felt like. Even though he didn't get out there, he was everything to me. I wanted to be everything he needed. And that's.." You suck in a breath, curl your hand into a fist and rest your forehead on it. "It's how I lost him. I loved him so much I couldn't stand the thought of him needing anyone else. You know? I just.. I feel like I was the reason he left."
He finally speaks, and it's quiet, urgent.
"No."
You pause, letting your hand fall and looking at him in confusion.
He looks terrified, his eyes wide, hunched over your desk like he was going to lean in to tell you a secret. But he doesn't, he stops short, seemingly frozen.
It stays like that for a few seconds.
"I don't think so," he starts again, still quiet enough that you almost don't hear it. "Just from working with you. I don't think he would, the way you describe him. Not because of you."
It's the most you think you've heard him speak at once, and it's a mix between confusion at his words and another strike of familiarity. König and that boy from so many years ago begin to blur at the edges, you feel like you're seeing double instead of two different people, assisted by the warmth of alcohol in your system.
"Yeah?" Is what falls from your lips first, autopilot. He doesn't react, only staring at you for an eternity.
You swallow, leaning back in your chair instead of over your desk. He mirrors it, though with a far less relaxed position. He looks nervous, but holds your gaze almost uncomfortably intensely. Like he's trying to stare into you instead of at you.
"Maybe," your voice falters, and you clear your throat. You look away, you can't keep doing this. "But he can't tell me now."
"Why not?"
It sounds innocent, childish. Like he genuinely doesn't know why you can't simply ask your teenage love that left you for the military why he left, if it was truly a problem with you or not.
"He's probably dead by now," your tone begins to settle from it's emotional state, that instinctive lockdown starting again. You're closing up, just like you did during the argument back then, shutting it down so you don't get ripped apart from the inside out because you were too foolish. "And if he's not, I don't know what I'd do if I saw him again. If I ever saw him again."
You finish off the liquor in your flask, draining it and intensely aware of König's eyes on the bob of your throat as you swallow. You get done and set the flask on the desk, amidst broken pencils and paperwork, hesitating to look away. To look at the giant sitting across from you, staring at you with something unreadable in his eyes.
It's the long silence that prompts you to speak but not to look, flitting your gaze from your flask to your computer screen instead; dark and dead, sitting idly by until you needed it again. You focused on the keys, the white paint on the dark caps.
"I'd like to slap him, I guess." You snort, trying to bring some humor into the tension that's settled. "After everything, you know.. he just up and left. Left me thinking it was something I did. That I wasn't worth sticking around for. Made me think I was.. broken, or something. Wrong. As if the world didn't do that enough already because I loved him like I 'should've' loved a woman instead."
You lick your lips, trying to ignore the prickle of your skin as you feel his eyes on your face instead. Watching you, silently, waiting for you to be done. Maybe you misjudged him. He does push, he pushes for more words, more answers, more of the feelings you hated to bring up, more of the memories of wasted moments and meaningless words. He doesn't pry with words, but the heat of his gaze is enough to force your hand.
"I.. I think I'd kiss him. Fuck it, you know? We're not teenagers anymore, and in this line of work.."
You heave in a shuddering breath, shakily exhaling and blinking tears away. God damn you for thinking it was alright to drink and tell him about this, all this, everything you kept hidden and buried for so goddamn long that even you forgot about it.
"..You never know when you'll see each other for the last time. I think.. even if he hated me for it, I could live with it. I could live with it better now than living with knowing he'll probably never know. It's the maturity- the age, I guess. When we were kids- really, kids, when he left. I thought the worst thing in the world would be him knowing how I felt about him and being rejected. Hurt just to think about. But now.. I think it'd be better if he just knew. It'd make it easier for me to sleep at night, at least."
You finally look at him, and startle at what you find.
Tears are gathered in the corners of his eyes, slipping down his face and streaking trails in his paint. His hands grip his arms and it pains you to immediately liken him to the very person you'd been talking about, but you know that habit. Any time he'd cry, he'd wrap himself up in his own embrace like he was the only one who ever bothered to comfort him.
"Shit, König, I'm sorry-" your voice is breathless as you stand up like it'll do anything. Like it'll break the casualty and get him to stop crying miraculously, but it doesn't. He stands with you, grabs the hood with one hand as he does.
It takes you a moment too long to realize what he's doing and the black sheet is gone.
He grabs your shoulders and pulls you closer, meets you halfway across the desk and kisses you.
You freeze for a moment, shocked, eyes wide- you're not sure what to do, not sure what prompted this, and he takes your stillness for rejection.
He rips away from you like he's been burnt, his eyes wide, and you finally get a full view of his face.
You feel like your jaw drops to the floor.
"You."
Your chest tightens with fury and your heart explodes with joy, your mind runs circles trying to connect the dots that already have lines drawn between them. He looks terrified, flinches back from the word like you're going to hit him. You feel like you could, and you feel like you could never lay a hand on him either. His knuckles are paper white where he raises the fabric of his hood back up to his face, a few noises making it past him as he tries to form proper words under the heat of your gaze.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" his voice is squeaky and panicky, and you know why König, the gentle giant, reminded you so much of him, the boy that cemented your love with a simple dandelion.
They were one in the same.
You grab his wrist, squeeze hard enough that he yelps and flinches. You want to squeeze harder, until it cracks, make him hurt- and you want to jerk him forward into a proper kiss, one like you've been longing for since he left all those years ago.
"You bastard!"
"I'm sorry!"
"You left for over fifteen fucking years and all you can say is 'I'm sorry'!?"
He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head, like he's waiting for the impact of the slap you'd mentioned earlier, before you knew you were actually talking to your childhood crush. You drop his wrist, still trying to wrap your head around the fact he's been right in front of you for months now and you chalked it up to mere coincidence.
"I tried to find you- I did, I swear to god!"
Your jaw tenses and he holds the wrist you dropped close to his chest, covering it with his other arm. Your hands clench into fists by your side and you wait for him to explain himself. It's your turn to stare him down and make him choke out the answers you want to hear.
"But you were gone by the time I could get out."
"Holidays?" You prompt, like your peaceful conversation has turned into an interrogation.
"I was always contracted. I didn't have anywhere to go home to, everyone else did!"
You wish you had more liquor in your flask, but he looks at you with those big doe eyes and you're back in his old room, staring him down as he looks at you with regret. Your heart cracks just like it did before, and you feel tears brimming in your eyes, like the universe itself is taking pleasure in making you relive the debatable worst moments of your life all over again.
He looks sorry, pitiable, regretful. You wonder how much he wishes he'd have just kept the hood on and left the topic well enough alone, and the thought goes down bitterly. You've flipped the coin, with him now the one wishing he'd never said anything to provoke you and you the one flying into anger.
It's what tore you apart in your last moments, and you- you, the one he accused of being childish, you won't let it happen again.
"I can't believe it."
He still looks petrified, even as you say it. You shake your head and move your chair back, circle around your desk like a predator closing in on their prey. He doesn't move, doesn't run away or stop your advancing. He just watches you move until you're toe to toe with him, staring up at him.
You're kids again, him so unsure and you so curious. You look at the wrist you grabbed, the immediate regret washing over you. You look back up to him, and he follows your gaze, lagging behind by only a second. His grip around his own hand loosens, arms slowly falling until you can see the palms of his hands.
You take the hood he's hidden himself with and he lets you, watches you put it down on the desk.
"I.. I spent years looking for you."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't," you say, cupping the back of his hands with yours. You still feel furious that he walked out on you, but you remind yourself that you were still kids. Young, stupid kids, so full of and so afraid of love when you realized what it truly meant. That you were still hiding and he was running, that you never got the chance to stop him because you were so scared of what he'd say about you. "Don't apologize. I just.. I never thought I'd find you again. It was a shock."
He makes a noise, and stops it. Undoubtedly another apology, something he's seemingly never been able to shake, not in the fifteen years you've been separated.
His hands are almost the same. Bigger, of course, still bigger than yours. But he's still got the scars on the heels of his hands from being pushed on to the concrete, the little cut on the inside of his left thumb from his carelessness with a kitchen knife.
All the little things on him that cement his identity.
But his eyes do you in.
They're wide, nervous of what you might do. Watching every move, every twitch of your muscles. Even the black paint around his eyes, as streaked as it is and only continuing to smear- he hasn't stopped crying, you realize, you just stopped noticing- does nothing to dull their color. A soft sage green, with blue as bright as the summer sky around his iris, something you had never seen before him and hadn't seen since.
"But I should." You rub your thumbs over his wrists, still drinking in his features. He's grown, of course, not seventeen anymore. His features aren't as soft anymore, instead sharper and more angular. Dark stubble coats his face, and his hair is longer, shaggier. A scar stretches from his chin to about his mid-cheek, intercepting another one that cuts from just below his inner eye to the edge of his jaw.
He's still as beautiful as the day you last saw him.
"I'm so, so sorry."
You let his hands fall, reach up and cup his face. Pull him down, tilt your head and slot your lips against his. It's gentle, careful, giving him plenty of room and time to pull back or resist. Tell you that you'd missed your chance, that you'd lost the opportunity yet again to have him be yours.
But he doesn't. He leans into it, lets his hands rest on your shoulders. He tastes like salt and coffee, though the former was probably because of his tears- but you wouldn't have him any other way than the way he is. He makes a noise like a sob, and you feel the first of your own tears spill. No matter how furious you were at him for leaving and then suddenly ripping open the wounds he'd left and digging into them- no matter how hot your anger ran, you couldn't hate him.
"I love you," you breathe as you part, breathing heavily. He looks at you, his lip wobbling as he tries to take in a shuddering gasp. "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."
You kiss him on every inch of skin you can reach, his cheeks and his nose and his jaw and his chin. You kiss his lips again, let go of his face to wrap your arms around his waist. You squeeze, bury your face in his chest and sob in relief.
"I love you a thousand times over and I'll never love anyone but you. I swear to god, I'll swear to anything I need to if you'll believe me."
He squeezes you back, buries his face in your hair and laughs. It's broken but not disheartened, it's catharsis, it's years of feelings held back finally being released and met with equal energy.
"You don't have to," he sobs. "I believe you. I love you too, I've always loved you."
You both hold each other, crying and laughing and reveling in each other's presence, in each other's love.
I love you.
You know what it means now, you both do. You say it to each other over and over but never exhaust it, you mumble it into his chest and he murmurs it into your hair, and yet it doesn't lose weight.
You love each other, and it feels right to have the words on your tongue again. It feels more right than anything in the world, and you love it.