If You Miss It

37. blink

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

BLINK

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tariq :) -
do u wanna hang out tomorrow 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

tariq :) -
my bad, *😌

dmitri🖤 -
those emojis aren't even next to each other lmaooo

tariq :) -
blocked :P

Dmitri grinned, quickly scrolling through the rest of the conversation that they had had yesterday, going through approximately three hundred and twenty eight messages. And that was only till eleven p.m., he hadn't even gotten to after midnight yet.

Getting into his car, he began to drive to Tariq's house since he had said that he wasn't really feeling up to going out, the only thing keeping him company the soft hum of an artist that Tariq had told him to listen to the other day.

The number of times Tariq had apologised last night about not wanting to go out left Dmitri feeling genuinely upset, because it sucked to see Tariq think that it was his fault that they weren't going out.

He always did that— blamed himself for his body. The blaming himself and the guilt had evidently lessened, there was no denying that, but still, from time to time, it would shine through.

And no matter how many times Dmitri told him that it really was okay that he was tired, and that he, too, preferred staying in to going out, Tariq never fucking listened.

So, when Dmitri reached his house, he wasn't surprised to see the apologetic, almost guilty smile on Tariq's face as he greeted him with a small, "Hey. I'm sorry. About this."

Lips shifting from his welcoming smile to a frown, Dmitri entered the house, routinely removing his shoes as he always did when he went to Tariq's house, placing his own car keys and house keys in the bowl near the door because the last time he had visited Tariq's place, he had forgotten to take his house keys with him.

"You don't have anything to apologise for, Ri," Dmitri muttered, not even flinching when the nickname left his mouth, because at this point, he couldn't care less. "You're tired, that's not on you."

Tariq just shrugged, but Dmitri could tell that he was still bothered by it. The clench of his jaw, the tenseness of his shoulders, the moderately sad look in his eyes that Dmitri wanted to wipe away, because if anyone deserved happiness, it was Tariq.

"Hey," he murmured as he made his way upstairs to Tariq's room. "What's wrong?"

Crashing down into Tariq's bed was almost second nature at this point, Dmitri taking his side of the bed while Tariq sat on his own side, a position that the both of them were all too familiar with after days of spending time together.

"I mean—" Tariq started, huffing. "It sucks for you, right? You want to do things that require going outside, but most of the time, I'm tired, either because of work or because of my own body, or both. And because of me, we can't do anything outside. Like, it's only logical for you to be pissed about it, considering—"

"Woah, woah," Dmitri breathed out, an incredulous laugh leaving his mouth. "Pissed? Why the fuck would I be pissed?"

The confusion was evident on Tariq's face when his head cocked to the right, eyebrows pinching together as he said, "Why wouldn't you be? I mean, Quentin always got mad when I had to cancel on plans because of my health."

Quentin. If Dmitri ever met him, he wasn't sure if he would be able to hold himself back from committing a murder.

"You know that I cancel a fuck ton of plans too, right?" Dmitri asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything. "I cancel plans so often because of my own mental health, you've seen it. If someone can't handle that, then... Fuck them," he decided, and the smile that cracked on Tariq's face was worth it.