Fixing Nico [boyxboy / yaoi]

Ch 18 - Plot Your Vengeance

Besides me, Nico's tiny body stiffened. 'M-Melanie?' he stuttered nervously, ripping his fingers from mine - my hand suddenly felt empty.

The girl - Melanie - crossed her muscular arms, her blackened eyes travelling up and down as she regarded Nico. 'Wow,' she remarked after a moment, 'It's been… what? Two years? You haven't grown an inch.'

Nico flushed nervously - I noticed his hands were clenched so hard that his knuckles had turned white. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath as he gnawed at his bottom lip.

'So why'd you leave so suddenly?' Melanie pressed - despite her height, the roundness of her face and her soft, sweet and high voice made me sure she couldn't have been any older than Nico; maybe sixteen or seventeen. 

'Oh - uh - I - I…' Nico choked on his words, his eyes wide - he looked shocked, terrified, like a deer caught helplessly in a halo of headlights. 

'Leave?' I questioned, glancing between a nervous-looking Nico and the butch girl. 'Leave… where?'

'K-mart,' said Melanie as if it should've been obvious - she screwed up her lips and glared at me with an are-you-some-kind-of-moron expression. 

I blinked. 'K-mart…' I glanced over at Nico, who, if possibly, looked even more severely petrified. 'What were you doing at K-mart?'

'I used to work there,' Nico muttered. He wouldn't look up to meet my eyes. 'I told you that already… didn't I?'

'Uhhh…' I wracked my brain, desperately thinking back to the hazy, mid-summer conversations we'd shared. 'I - I dunno…'

'Yup,' Melanie confirmed with a speedy puff of her cigarette - the greyish smoke flitted across the chilly air, slowly dispersing. Her cigarette balanced between two red-pained nails. 'Although nobody could ever figure out why this nerdy, antisocial little kid was working at K-mart, eh?'

'I wanted some money,' murmured Nico, almost silently.

'The Boss sure liked you. Everyone missed you when you left,' Melanie confessed.

Nico shot her a half-perplexed, half-repulsed look - 'Why would they miss me?' he demanded in a whisper, 'I barely ever talked…'

'You were nice enough,' Melanie shrugged. Suddenly, he turned towards me, waggling her eyebrows - 'So… who's this? Your boyfriend?'

Nico blinked, gaping at the girl like he'd just swallowed a lemon; 'N-n… Ah… I -'

'Yes,' I confirmed smoothy. 'Nico's my boyfriend.'

The look of Nico's face was priceless - his cheeks turned bright red.

'Ohhh,' Melanie cooed. 'Cute! You two make such a cute couple! The Boss'll be disappointed,' she giggled.

Suddenly, Nico's body went rigid - 'Why would you say that?' he demanded scathingly, all the flush that's previously adorned his cheeks had instantly disappeared: his face was as white as a sheet.

'Oh… I just…  Well, you know - he'd always taken a liking to you. Don't you remember? He always gave you the shifts you wanted, never yelled at you if you were late - and he never underpaid you. Ha. Favouritism, I guess - I never like him much, he never liked me.'

Nico swallowed slowly, painfully. His bottom lip trembled slightly. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again as he struggled to reply; but only a low whistle and a incoherent mumble escaped the quivering lips… My own lips pulled down into a frown, my eyebrows furrowed as I stared down at him.