BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ TWENTY-FOUR ✗

Rainy days reminded him of funerals.

Mainly, because it was raining when his grandfather died. He was five years old when his grandfather died but he could remember the details of that so clearly.

The weather was miserable but it always was whenever you lived in England. It was gloomy and dark with the skies were grey, the streets desolate with no sign of cars and the shops were closed in the early morning on the Sunday his grandfather's funeral was held.

Now Niko hated his grandfather when he was five. He hated visiting him. He hated how his grandfather's house always smelled like burned incense and he hated how he was always forced to drink green tea that tasted like bitter water to participate in his grandfather's cult-like Shinto rituals when he wasn't really religious, somewhat agnostic even at such a tender age. He hated how his grandfather reminded Niko of his confused ethnicity since his grandfather was Japanese, who spoke limited English and fluent Japanese and married a Scottish-born Filipino woman and whose daughter went off to marry a white man. He couldn't exactly really pin down what he was- was he Japanese, Filipino, Scottish or English? (These days Niko classify himself as English.)

However, Niko came to tolerate it. Until his grandfather died and there was no need to tolerate anything in relation to his grandfather. No more Friday nights holed up in his grandfather's musty living room and screaming and kicking at everybody so they would just go home. For three months after his grandfather died, Niko kept asking why didn't they go to their grandfather's house to visit his grandfather anymore. No one had the heart to tell him why.

Except for Miko.

Nine-year-old Miko was mature. Mature for his age and heaps responsible, definitely more responsible than Niko ever was. Like Niko, they both shared dark hair, dark eyes, rounded features but Miko had more of a white prominence in his features, taking over his English father. While Niko had a flatter, rounder button nose, Miko's rose out sharply, jutting out high and mighty. Niko's mother, Cecil, would often joke how Miko was the white version of Niko.

"Why aren't we going to Grandfather's house anymore?" asked Niko, wide-eyed and innocent. Niko was lounging on the kitchen, legs swinging from the high chair as Miko played on his Gameboy, filling the quiet and empty apartment with explosion sounds.

"Because we don't," Miko said shortly.

"But why?"

"I don't know," Miko roused, pausing his game and irritated that he had to do it, "Because. Ask Mom. God, now leaves me alone and stop being annoying."

"But I already asked Mom and she couldn't tell me."

Miko sighed, running a hand down his floppy hair and setting the Gameboy onto the kitchen counter. He looked at Niko fiercely, dark eyes intense. "Okay, you know why we don't visit granddad anymore? He's dead, Niko. D-E-A-D dead. Six feet under the ground. Now bugger off or annoy Rae or something."

It had been so blunt, like a slap in the face, leaving Niko with tears in his eyes and running off to Rae, crying about how Miko had been super mean to him for no reason. But the thing was that death was blunt, a slap to the face, unexpected, unseen, unknown but inevitable.

"I'm sorry," whispered Sebastian as he slipped into the empty white chair beside him. Niko had numbly, without hesitant, asked- more like begged Sebastian to accompany him to the funeral. Niko couldn't think of anyone else to bring. Niko trusted Sebastian more than anyone else- because he felt Sebastian understood and wouldn't mock him for feeling so fucking vulnerable. Guys like Roger would've roasted him and asked him to man the fuck up without any consideration to how Niko actually felt.

"It's not your fault," said Niko, swallowing hard. There was a lump in his throat. It wouldn't go away. 

Sebastian squeezed his fingers and placed his chin on Niko's shoulder, looking up at him with these sad eyes. They were alone. Rae and his father had retreated indoors to the funeral parlour for the wake, along with the rest of the guests. Now Niko was perched at the foot of his mother's grave in the mind-numbing cold, legs crossed on the frozen grass.The stillness of the morning matched Niko's mood. 

Niko's mind was etched with the image of his mother's dead body lying in a coffin, lying dead on the floor and foaming at the mouth while her body shook with seizures. It was nought but wickedness to see such an immaculate display of damage and drugs; to look upon a woman, who Niko trusted and loved and adored collapsed into a shell of herself. Ever since Miko's death and her husband running out on her, she was reduced into shambles. Mixing Valium with red wine,  smoking oxycontin with cheap beer and spending their rent money on alcohol and prescription meds like nothing. He hated and loved and pitied her. 

Now she was dead. In an open coffin ceremony, he took in her appearance; black dress and black shoes. Naturally bronze skin and lily-white brows, once creased with worry and pain, now smooth and cold; elegant fingers on folded hands, which made him ache for times when everything wasn't shit and he could just hold them. His mother's face was still beautiful, soft in death, expressionless and still and sparked memories of when she smiled, which was forever ago; memories of how her smiles could turn even the darkest winter into springtime. 

But now she was dead, and despite everything, there was anything to feel but grief. Grief to feel, of course, a deep, gnawing pain, as if wolves were upon him, macerating his ankles.

Sebastian's chin was sharp and dug into his shoulder. He didn't mind. "Still, you can't be okay."

Niko chuckled hollowly. There was no point in putting up a front. There was no point in bullshit. Sebastian would see straight through him. "No, I'm not."

Sebastian tilted Niko's chin so they could face each other and gently kissed him on the lips- so soft and so quick and barely there it felt like a peck. But it was all Niko needed. 

"I'm really not okay." Sebastian's gaze was blue. So beautifully blue, like purity, like brightness, and they were so genuine, like melted chocolate on a tongue after a harsh winter day. What did I do to deserve you?

"You will be."

Niko almost believed him. 

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i'm actually adding some extra finesse on some of these chapters; because from the moment they get together, things get so fkin shit and sad. also writing this while listening to cigarettes after sex is so depressing wtf. this scene reminds me of this:::::

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cries in pain because skam is now overrrr