Rivals 🌈 ✔

4 - Spark

And there it was – that horrifying ping.

The elevator stilled, the doors sliding open.

Taking a deep breath, Juice looked at Raine. Searching for words, without finding the smallest tone. It felt like there was something stuck in his throat as they looked at each other. His eyes, brown like coffee beans. He thought of the Rubik's Cube which the man had given him, and he reached into the inside pocket of his kutte.

"Thanks," he said, holding out the toy to Raine.

Their fingers brushed slightly as Raine took it from him. Juice had no idea what happened, but a paralyzing feeling traveled through his arm, and his heart seemed to falter for a second.

His eyes shot to Raine's, wondering if he had felt that too. When there was no evidence of that, he suddenly felt intensely heated. Time to leave...

"Uh... Well, uh, I gotta go..." he muttered, nervously running a hand across his Mohawk.

It felt like Raine was startled out of his thoughts, as his head shot up. "Yeah..."

An awkward silence. A horribly awkward silence.

If Raine hadn't been wearing a kutte, Juice would have asked him if he felt like hanging out some day. However, he couldn't ask him now, and it was harder than he had imagined. He took a deep breath.

"Good luck with your sister," Juice said softly. Something stirred inside him; he wanted to hug the man – just as a way of goodbye.

"Yeah, thanks. Hope your brother feels better soon." He held out his hand. "Could've been stuck with worse people," he grinned.

Juice was reluctant to shake his hand, since he had felt that weird jolt just a minute ago. He however, couldn't leave him standing there like that, so he briefly shook his hand. For some reason, his heart was slamming in his chest.

Raine pressed the button when the doors started to close. Juice nodded at him, turned around and left the elevator. His shoulders slumping down when he heard another ping.

Don't be a baby. It's not like you don't have any other friends.

But he knew that whatever had been there between them differed from his other friendships. There had been an openness he only experienced with Mouse – and Mouse was his best friend. This felt like he was walking away from another best friend – one who was able to understand him even better than Mouse, since he knew the club life inside out.

. . .

"Juice... Juice!"

A cushion hit his head, tearing him out of his thoughts. "Mouse," he said annoyed when the cushion ended up on his plate with macaroni. "Ugh, those stains are awful."

"Toothpaste works wonders. Really," she stressed, as he rolled his eyes.

That was typically Skye; coming up with all kind of weird tricks which actually worked. As if she knew Google by heart.

"What is it?"

"That's what I was asking you. I've never watched an episode of Big Bang with you, without hearing you chuckle. Where's your head at? Even calling your name three times couldn't snap you out of your thoughts."

He shrugged his shoulders, shoving his food around on his plate. He wasn't hungry. "I just don't feel well. Had nothing to drink for almost six hours, I think that's why."

He kept his glance aimed at his plate. He had no idea where his appetite had gone. ; He was too consumed by his thoughts; shreds of the conversations with Raine kept echoing in his head. He had been grumpy all day; he didn't even stay long with Chibs.