Love Better Left Unspoken [SKEPHALO]

--4--

Darryl

The moment Zak rose from the table, Darryl was standing too. The slam of his mother's back door echoed through the room like a gunshot, and Darryl couldn't help but shiver, just a little. His feet were moving to follow the other boy before he could even tell himself to move. "Wait, Darryl," His mother called anxiously, standing. "Maybe you should just-"

Darryl opened the back door and ran out, closing the door gently behind him. 

"Leave him be..." His mother finished, but the words never graced Darryl's ears. Darryl was immediately met by a warm summer breeze, rustling the bushes of his mother's back garden. Her roses, bright red and standing out even in the darkness, caught his eye and he quietly walked over to them and picked the shortest one from the flower bed. He narrowly misses pricking himself on a thorn, moving his finger down to rest on the smooth stem instead.

He takes a moment to admire what he's holding, twisting it around in his fingers and marveling at the way the moonlight seems to bounce off the petals in all different directions. "What do you want?" Zak's sharp tone interrupts his moment of peace, startling him back into the heavy reality of tonight. Darryl looks over to where the voice came from, spotting the boy sitting on a chipped white painted, backless bench. His eyes were narrowed menacingly, and his arms crossed in a protective tightness across his chest. Darryl instinctively raises his hands in a 'surrender' motion, holding the rose with his left hand. 

Zak doesn't remove his arms, but he does lower his frown a bit, and Darryl wonders what he could be thinking. Darryl clears his throat nervously, walking over to sit beside him. Zak scoots to the very edge of his end of the bench, looking straight ahead instead of at Darryl, but he doesn't move away...and for Darryl, that's enough of a win for now. "Um...why are you so angry?" Darryl asks, before laughing at his own bluntness. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to seem...rude, I just," He pauses. "I haven't done anything to you."

The words appear to register with Zak, and the boy pulls his arms away from his chest to let them drape on either side of his body loosely, exhaling. "I know," Zak admits, more to himself than to Darryl. Darryl tilts his head, the rose still held in his lap, and Zak takes this as a sign to continue.

"I guess I just." Zak doesn't speak for a moment, thinking over his next words carefully. "I never wanted this. This life. My family is really only putting me in this marriage for the money and the fame- exposure as they put it," Zak tells him, finally turning to Darryl, but not meeting his eyes. "I kind of always wanted better for myself."

Darryl nods along, punctuating with an "uh-huh". When Zak finishes, his eyes planted unseeingly at the dirt pathways through the yard, Darryl inhales to begin speaking but finds himself not knowing what to say. He'd always imagined, in these past few days, that Zak would be as optimistic as he was...and he was beginning to see just how selfish that was. Of course Zak would want better for himself, any normal person would. Darryl had accustomed himself too much to having a life forced to be and act a certain way, and have to deal with everything his family decided he should do as if it was the law of life. Not many other people around him had to deal with that, especially not at this age.

"I'm really...really sorry, Zak," Darryl whispered sincerely. "I know it wasn't my idea but. I'm still so, so sorry. I can't help but feel responsible for...trapping you in this." Darryl gestured to the scenery around them, with the neatly trimmed rose bushes and the tall, three story house with neatly carved decals, sculpted perfectly. Darryl couldn't even fathom how much it must have cost. 

Zak's eyes scanned the area, and he subtly frowned. Darryl noticed his lack of answer and searched desperately for something to change the subject, before handing Zak the rose. He assumed Zak had already noticed the rose, but the other man still feigned surprise as he hesitantly took it. "Still not a girl," Zak commented, a false harshness to his tone and a mock frown on his face, before quietly laughing at the anxious expression that had instantly appeared on Darryl's face.

Darryl caught on quickly, laughing as well. He took a moment after they had both calmed down to stare at the small, hidden smile that remained on Zak's face. Just minutes ago, Zak had been glaring at him with what Darryl had only assumed was hatred. Even then, Zak was gorgeous, everything about him perfect in Darryl's eyes. But Darryl decided he liked Zak smiling much more, with the way just a small tilt of his lips seemed to light his entire face up with sunshine. He could see Zak's teeth, white in contrast with his pale pink lips. Darryl smiled to himself.

"Um...if it makes you feel better," Darryl forced himself to say through the midst of his childlike infatuation, and Zak's smile was instantly hidden with a solemn expression. "We can just...try to make the best of all of it. We could still have fun and everything. We don't have to actually love each other," Darryl finished with a shrug. He pretended the thoughts of Zak...never being able to love him back was perfectly fine. Like it was nothing.

Zak half smiled, nodding along. "Yeah, you're right. Thank you, Darryl."

Darryl pretended that didn't hurt him either.