in silence ᴰᴼᴵᴸ

２７.

☁️🌘☁️

I'm sorry for keeping you waiting and I'm sorry in advance for this crappy chapter :/

-

The loud music was sticking onto his skin like glue, trying to pull him into the crowd of adolescents tightly scattered around. There were a few dancing crazily here and there in the dim light of the room but he had no intention to join. The boy with hair of night sky colour was currently looking for his friend who dragged him there in the first place.

"Hey!" In the middle of a kitchen, someone tapped on his shoulder, making the boy wince.

"Oh hi." He greeted politely back although he didn't recognise the face of the stranger that approached him.

It was a girl in a shorter black dress and big eyeliner shaping her eyes perfectly. She seemed nice as she began talking as if they have been friends for years and he suddenly felt at ease. It was a casual talk about everything and nothing but amid so many people it was like a small escape—although it lasted only a few minutes and the girl apparently named Jennie had to go on with her life.

At least he wasn't feeling as terrible as before when he carried on searching.

The dark-haired boy hated the valentine's day but what he hated the most was any high school party ever since they became more tiresome than fun. Today's party was like any other—suffocating. Clubs he went to lose himself had a lot better atmosphere, the majority of people acted mature and there was smaller, almost zero chance that someone would recognise his face. High school parties are full of kids that pretend to be friends but as soon as he disappears from their sight, their kindness disappears as well.

It wasn't as colourful as before but he didn't miss those fake interactions anyway. The times they used to be fun passed a long time ago and now he was left with emptiness only.

All of that because of one stupid game.

He was thankful though—it just erased the rotten fruit he was made to supposedly feed off.

Just then Ten realised that looking for Sicheng meant he would probably run into Yuta as well. The two has been recently sticking together outside of school but he didn't mind. Sicheng and Yuta seemed happy and Ten actually found the japanese cool—he always has.

At that point, it wasn't even about the party and the dare, rather about the aftermath—how people treated him because he was a new, easy prey to hunt down or throw away just like that. And Ten feared he would run into someone else he tried to avoid as much possible as he could.

Out of all people that pretended to be nice for the sake of him being new and good-looking he trusted only a few. Sicheng has always been there, in the school and in his life. However, it seemed like everyone he made friends with at the beginning dropped him as soon as first gossips started going around two months into the school year. Including the boy, he fell out with over stupid argument a few months ago and was now trying to hide from.

Yet there he was, standing shoulder to shoulder with the japanese, Sicheng listening to their conversation despite the noise around them. Ten took a shaky breath. All kinds of curses ran around his head but rather than being angry, he just felt pathetic for actually feeling sad.

Johnny was an asshole and so was he. However, he just didn't have the mood for acting nice that day.

It was valentine's day after all—the romantic day for lovely couples, the day nice spent time with family, the day when his life got fucked up. He didn't need two different universes that sucked the same collide at that moment.