Love Better Left Unspoken [SKEPHALO]

--3--

Zak

Zak took his seat grudgingly at the table, his arms folded childishly over his chest. It was starting to get hard for him to ignore the confused and offended glances of Darryl's family, but he tried his best to keep his eyes planted firmly on the table cloth. He held in a sigh as Darryl's mother cleared her throat, standing up and gesturing to the full table. There was some food inside of a covered platter, the other platters covered in various dishes. 

If he was going to be stuck here, he figured he might as well take advantage of the food. "Everyone, help yourselves, we'll soon be family as it is. Make yourselves comfortable," Darryl's mother, Mrs. Noveschosch, told them, her voice laced with what Zak told himself was false sweetness. In all seriousness, he was pretty sure she wasn't that bad. But that was something he'd never admit to himself.

Darryl leaned over to begin serving himself, and Zak's family followed suit. Mr. and Mrs. Noveschosch seemed to be patiently waiting for their turn, and Zak was trying to force himself to move at all. His eyes flicked over to Darryl, examining the boy as he scooped potatoes and gravy onto his engraved glass plate, and Zak rolled his eyes. Of course the boy had fancy plates, fancy silverware, fancy clothes, fancy everything. He was probably unbelievably full of himself.

Zak wouldn't deny that Darryl was attractive, nor that he had seemed perfectly mature and...nice enough so far. The other man had beautiful eyes, that Zak had desperately fought to ignore from the moment he saw him. They seemed to glimmer upon seeing him, and Zak's heart had immediately picked up speed, and he had to try much harder than he had expected to control himself. Admittedly, Zak had practiced his 'tough' attitude for a while before coming here, hoping that it was possible to scare away Darryl's family entirely. It hadn't been going...entirely to plan, since his dignity held him back from doing half the things he had imagined in his head.

Darryl had finally finished serving himself and sat back down, the chair creaking awkwardly loud, and his eyes darted to Zak's parents before to Zak himself, his cheeks lighting up bright red. Zak blinked in surprise, not expecting the sudden eye contact with him, but he didn't look away. Darryl was surprisingly...adorable, though it pained Zak to admit. He was never what Zak had imagined to be his "type", but yet staring into those emerald eyes made his stomach ache with the weight of the situation. Darryl's blonde-brown hair was beginning to frizz with what Zak could only assume was the humidity in the house, which never seemed to go away no matter what season it was. His cheeks were beginning to lose their red color, going back to the fair pink in contrast to his uncommonly pale skin. Zak hadn't quite realized how long they were staring at each other until he blinked, causing his mind to jolt back into reality and take in the mildly astonished expression on Darryl's face.

Zak felt the embarrassed rage bubbling up in his chest. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to show them, and they were supposed to see just how...unworthy of their time he was, so he could go back to his life the way it was. No matter how awful that life currently was. He was so unwilling to change that for some stranger forcing him into something he didn't want. 

He stood up from his chair so hard that it flew back and smashed onto the floor with a loud thud, one of the chair legs snapping off on the impact. He threw the napkin he had folded on his lap, onto the table, and stormed out the fancy glass doors, slamming it shut far too loud to be necessary, and he didn't look back.

He didn't hear Darryl stand up to follow him.