Euro High: A Eurovision High School AU

Chapter 7: At It Again

"R-Robin?" Benji stood with his head hung down shyly as his friends stared in awe and worry. Robin looked up, the blood running to his cheeks once he realised who was talking to him. "Hey pipsqueak." Eduard said, unaware of the events that occurred in the men's bathroom and the tension between the once best friends.
"Now's not the time, Ed." Muttered Robin as he gritted his teeth.
"Look. I hope you're alright after..." Robin glared at him menacingly. "...after you hurt your hand."
"Yeah, I'm alright." He mumbled, his eyes blank and unmoving.
"Are you sure?" He asked. He was both curious and worried as he noticed him change. The blush in his cheeks had long since disappeared, leaving a pale-faced, emotionless being behind.
"Yes. I'm okay, thank you for asking." He turned back around to face Ed, a signal for Benji to stop trying to talk to him; in which he did so.

"I just don't know what's up with him." Ari pandered. They were wandering up the high street, clueless about where to head next and uncomfortable from the awkward interaction.
"Do you maybe not recall the fact that I literally broke his heart? We aren't recovering this time, this time is the actual end of everything we used to have."
"I wouldn't say that..." Ari smiled, attempting to be comforting despite it seeming very out of place.
"What do you mean?" Benji groaned.
"I mean like maybe you could look past this."
"Do you not think we've looked past things a little too much to ever be friends again? Anyways, how could I ever be friends with a guy like that?! He's a massive narcissist and a dick and he doesn't deserve shit from any of us!" He began to raise his voice, turning heads all around them- Ari was desperate to calm things down.

"B-b-but-"
"Forget it Ari! I was never meant to tolerate him in the first place, never mind even try to interact with him or patch up a relationship with a so called 'friend' who made fun of us and kicked the shit out of Kostya for standing up to him. And he expected me to like him? To love him!? I hate him, I hate him so much!"
Ari just stared at him, wide-eyed and astounded in silence.
"I-i'm sorry." He uttered, barely managing a whisper.
"No no no, Ari, I'm sorry I shouted. I just... I just need to forget about it. Fuck him, let's have fun!" He smiled at the group but they were all unconvinced, there was hurt in his eyes and he covering it up with an imitation of his usual energetic character.
"How about we talk about this over dinner?" Mikolas suggested. "I'm starving."

The guys sat in Ari's bedroom- a common spot for hanging out in their free time. They chowed down on BLTs as they tried to address the situation.
"So you never wanna see him again?" Ari gasped
"You and me both." Kostya scoffed in between bites of his sandwich.
"Why should I? He's an awful person."
"But I thought we did the whole apologizing thing after the homophobia incident." Nikita said puzzledly.
"Well right now I don't feel like accepting that apology. I don't feel like accepting any apologies from him at the moment, especially now that he totally pretends nothing happened in that bathroom. But things change, maybe he'll realize that his reaction to me rejecting him was a little over the top and quite traumatizing."
"Good point..."

After heading home at the end of the day, Kostya stared at the calendar on his wall. It took him back to the talent show- excitedly counting down the days- but now he didn't exactly know wether what he felt was excitement at all. He was so happy to be taking Nikita, but it felt wrong knowing that Niki didn't know the real reason why. It dulled out all of the excitement for him in fact, he knew for sure that all night long he'd be silently suffering as the missing piece plagued his mind. He just wanted him so badly, he wanted him to know how he felt and for him to feel the same but Robin and Benji's situation seemed to side track the both of them. Was he going to get the happy ending he was looking for? He could only hope.

His alarm clock chimed the next morning, waking him up and dragging him into a bleak, early Sunday morning. He rubbed his eyes sleeping before gazing emptily at the ceiling, drowned by thoughts that hadn't left him since the night before. It appeared that these thoughts became more and more frequent as the hours and days went by, the constant rush of compassion but dread teased him endlessly. The fear of rejection was at it again.

As he poured himself his daily cup of rich black coffee, he opened his phone at the kitchen table- assessing his messages that he'd missed the night before, it all blended into a typical, over-done morning he was likely to have on uneventful weekends like these. That was until he checked his call history: (1) MISSED CALL: NIKITA 01:24. Strange, why would Nikita call him at 1 in the morning? He did tend to suffer from insomnia and ponder to the group chat to whoever remained awake but calling them? Kostya hadn't awoken from the sound of the call, his phone being on silent, but in some ways he wish it wasn't. He wanted to know what Nikita had to say to him that was so urgent it had to be right there, right then.

He threw on a black hoodie before shutting the door behind him and slowly walking down the street. The sun had barely just risen and the only other beings awake in sight were the birds whistling quietly in the trees surrounding the neighbourhood. His feet seemed to lead the way without his mind even considering a sense of direction, they just did their thing. It was all muscle memory now, the turns, the steps, the lefts, the rights; etched into the back of his mind whenever he needed it. Before he could acknowledge it, he was there, he'd arrived.

Knocking on the door loudly, he waited behind the freshly painted, white wooden door: A young woman answered.
"Can I help you?" She stood steadily in a dressing gown, a morning newspaper rolled up under one arm and a soft, polite smile meeting her lips.
"Is Nikita in?" He asked. The woman turned to the staircase.
"Niki darling, there's someone here for you!" She called clearly. Soon enough, footsteps could be heard pacing the stairs as a sleepy Nikita stood in the doorway.
"Kostya? What are you doing here?" He enquired, the sight of his friend waking him up slightly.

"Just thought I'd drop by, I felt like hanging out again."
"Oh, uh, okay!" He let him inside, shutting the door behind him. They went up to his room, Kostya met the sight of an overall tidy bedroom- ignoring the crumpled bedsheets. They sat down together, watching the TV as Nikita slowly finished his toast.
"So..." Niki began, putting his plate on his bedside table, "How are you?"
"I'm good, you?" Kostya replied, averting his attention away from the TV screen and on to the short teen next to him. The conversation all seemed a little too familiar- that awkward small talk that always led to the real questions the pair were waiting to ask; the soul purpose of Kostya's visit.

"Oh I'm fine thanks!" Niki responded, laying back onto his pillow. "Is there a reason you wanted to stop by or-"
"No no, nothing I was just-" He caught Niki gazing at him from the corner of his eye as he stayed facing the TV. Kostya turned to him slowly. "...lonely."
"Oh! Well I hope I'm good company then." Niki smiled.
"Well, you're doing a good job so far, hopefully I won't get too tired of you before the Formal." The boys laughed before Kostya came to address the main question. What he'd been waiting for.
"So, I noticed you tried to call me last night." Niki raised an eyebrow.
"I don't think I did. Maybe it was an accident, maybe I pocket dialled you."
"At 1 in the morning?"
"I tend to walk around my house at night when I can't sleep so maybe it was then?" Kostya sighed at this, his excitement that something important was going to be said was washed away by a simple accident.

"Do you ever wish there was...something more?" Nikita looked at him, puzzled by the odd and vague question.
"Do I what?"
"Do you ever feel like we could be...more?" By now he was almost shaking with anticipation as Nikita sat beside him, oblivious.
"Kostya you don't mean-"
"Never mind." He knew that this wasn't going to work at all, Niki saw him as a friend and a friend only so trying to explain how he felt seemed useless. "I was just checking you know. Like obviously we couldn't be anything more, that's quite dumb but it's just that I've been thinking about it. I mean how could you ever see love in a mere friend like me?" As those words spilled from his mouth practically on their own, Kostya froze. Nikita jerked up from his laying position.
"Oh my God."
"W-what?" Kostya didn't even need to ask, he already knew what was happening.
"You wrote the letter didn't you?"