|Weak Hero| Falling For You [Gray X Stephen]

Chapter 6

Stephen couldn't stop thinking about Gray. During class, he couldn't help but glance at Gray multiple times throughout the lessons. He just could not get Gray out of his mind at all. Gray, however, still seemed indifferent to him and treated him like the rest of his classmates.

One day after class had ended, it began to rain. The sky was dark and cloudy so it didn't look like the rain was going to let up anytime soon. Gray was one of the last ones to leave, having stayed back a bit to ask the professor a question. He noticed that Stephen was waiting at the entrance and not leaving.

"Here," Gray handed his umbrella to Stephen after noticing Stephen's lack of one.

"What about you?" Stephen asked.

"I live nearby," Gray said. "Besides...it's your umbrella. I haven't been able to return it to you," 

Before Stephen could ask what he meant, Gray ran off into the rain. Stephen stared at the umbrella. 'I never lent him my umbrella...' He noticed that the umbrella was at least a few years old, given how the color had started to fade. 'Did I lend this to him before I lost my memories?'

He recalled another blurry memory.

Stephen was about to walk home in the rain, umbrella in hand.

"STEPHEN!"

He turned around and saw Gray's blurry figure catching up to him. Although his facial features were blurry, Stephen could tell by his body language that he was concerned.

"Gray..." Stephen said. "What are you...next target...classmates...behind our..."

Even the audio in his memories were unclear and he could only understand ever couple words.

"I don't...mean you...avoid me—"

The rest of the memory was mute. Stephen and Gray walked in the rain while chatting, although the present day Stephen couldn't tell what they were talking about. When the two's routes split, Stephen tossed the umbrella to Gray.

Stephen fell to his knees. His head was in so much pain. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes. 'Gray...'

"H-Hey, are you alright?" A student his age with dark orangey-brown hair and glasses knelt down beside him. "Wait, Stephen Ahn!?"

"Do...do you know me?" Stephen asked through the pain.

"It's me, Jeremy Park from Byuksan Middle School," The young man answered. "Um, do you want me to call an ambulance? You seem to be in a lot of pain,"

"I'm fine," Stephen claimed as the headache began to slowly subside. "I..." He took a deep breath. "Jeremy...can you tell me what happened to me in middle school?"

XXX

Stephen and Jeremy sat in the cafe. "You lost your memories?" Jeremy asked after Stephen had told him.

"Yeah," Stephen nodded. "There's this guy, Gray Yeon, in my class. I feel like he and I used to be close before I lost my memories, but he seems to want to keep me at a distance. Do you know if he and I got into an argument or if I wronged him in the past that made him not want to be my friend?"

"Gray doesn't want to be your friend?" Jeremy was surprised. "That's strange. I thought for sure he'd definitely want to get close to you again,"

"What exactly was mine and Gray's relationship? " Stephen inquired.

"You and Gray were boyfriends," 

Those words shocked Stephen. "W-What?"

"The two of you were dating," Jeremy revealed. "After Oswald Yang and his gang shoved you off the roof and you became comatose, Gray didn't come to school for two whole months. The day he returned was the day he got revenge against the bullies,"

"He and I...were dating?" Stephen whispered. "But then why wouldn't he tell me that!?"

"I don't know," Jeremy shook his head. "I wasn't close to either of you so I didn't know Gray as well as you did. My guess is he might've felt guilty over not being able to save you. He was away at the Olympiad when you fell,"

'Gray...it must've been extremely painful for you when we met on the first day of class and you realized I had lost my memories...'

XXX

The next morning, Gray woke up feeling ill. He checked his temperature and saw that he had a fever, most likely from walking home in the rain yesterday. He opened his medicine cabinet and saw that he was out of fever medicine.

Gray knew he wouldn't be able to attend class today in his current state. He tugged a hoodie on and then headed out the door. He'd buy some medicine and some quick meals from the nearby convenience store.

He arrived at the convenience store within a few minutes but he was already starting to feel worse. He made his way to the medicine aisle but his vision had started to become blurry so he struggled to read the names of the medicines. 'Shit,'

"Gray?"

Gray stiffened when he heard Stephen's voice. 'Why is he here? Of all the convenience stores he could've been at, why is he here at the same time as me!?'

"Gray, are you alright?" Stephen asked, concern showing on his face. "You don't look so good,"

"I'm fine," Gray backed away from him. A wave of dizziness caused him to stagger. 'I'll just go home and rest...I'll buy medicine later...' He attempted to turn around and leave only to end up losing his balance and losing consciousness.

"GRAY!" Fortunately, Stephen had caught him in time.

XXX

Stephen didn't know where Gray lived so after paying for some fever medicine, he carried Gray all the way back to his own apartment. He gently woke Gray up and tried to get him to take some of the medicine and drink some water. Gray complied without any resistance.

As Stephen was about to leave the room, Gray reached out and weakly grabbed Stephen's hand. "Don't go..." His eyes were still hazy so Stephen was sure that Gray wasn't aware of what he was doing. "Stephen...don't go..."

Stephen brought his chair over to the side of his bed and sat down. "I'll stay, Gray. I'm not going anywhere so go ahead and sleep,"

"Love you..." Gray closed his eyes and fell asleep while still holding Stephen's hand.

'You sound so heartbroken...' Tears began to fall from Stephen's eyes. 'You obviously wanted to be with me again. So then why did you keep your distance? Why were you putting yourself through so much heartache?'

Word Count: 1026

Next chapter will most likely be the final chapter.