Guess who's backkkkk
In all seriousness though, sorry for the long wait again. As promised though, not giving up on this story, and I hope this chapter makes up for it >:3
I don't have to pretend to be annoyed when we walk in the café and I spot Goh, with Bede and two other guys I don't recognise. Goh and Bede are sitting at one side of their table, and under it Bede's hand is resting on Goh's knee. The casual possessiveness of it makes me bristle, makes me want to break all of his fingers one by one, but I make myself look away like I don't care. My own hand is intertwined with Serena's. She's probably pissed off that I'm so clammy.
"Oh, hey," Serena says to Goh, waving. He doesn't bother smiling back, but waves back, his eyes never leaving our joined hands. Serena leads me to a table far enough from them for us to be able to speak freely. I sit beside her in a booth, our shoulders brushing each other's, with a view of his table, and Bede's hand, tracing lazy circles around Goh's knee.
"Jesus," she mutters. "Does he realise how obvious he's being?"
"Probably," I grumble. "This was a bad idea. I don't know how much of this I can watch."
"We can't leave now. It'll be too obvious," she whispers, then grins up above me, and I realise the waitress is there, waiting for us to order. I order a mocha, and Serena orders an iced coffee and a side of sweet potato fries. I try not to look over at Goh's table, but I can't help it, especially when I notice the guy sitting opposite Goh and Bede glaring at them, his eyes cold like stone.
"That guy has nothing on you, by the way." Serena crosses her legs and bumps her shoulder against mine. "And what is that coat?"
"Right?" I laugh. Goh's eyes flick over when I do. I pretend not to notice.
"It's giving pink Inspector Gadget," she whispers. I choke back another laugh. "I think I have the perfect hat to match that."
"Shut up," I hiss, but I'm smiling, and she's making me feel better. Serena starts humming the theme tune as the waitress returns with our coffees, and Serena's fries. I'm not hungry, but I still steal a couple.
"He's looking," she says urgently. "Quick, share my drink."
I scoff, but she lifts the drink to me, smiling sweetly, and I make sure to give her a warm smile before sipping from the same straw she's using. The coffee is sweet, and makes me want to gag a little, but I pretend to like it. "That's awful," I say when I swallow. She laughs.
"I like sweet coffee. Sorry." Her eyes cut over to Goh suddenly, and mine follow. The guy that was sitting opposite them is standing, saying something down to them. Goh looks terrified, like a deer in headlights, and I feel myself starting to rise, but Serena puts her hand on my arm, stopping me. The guy, who I overhear is called Hop, storms out then, leaving the three of them sitting there. A moment later, the other guy with them follows, chasing him down the street.
"Wonder what that's about," Serena comments, sipping her overly sweet coffee. I do too. I see Goh frowning, saying something to Bede, but Bede just shakes his head, his usual smug smile spread across his face again. Goh stops talking, but still seems uncomfortable, and does for the rest of the time we're there, until I indicate to Serena that I've had enough, and we stand to leave. I slide out of the booth first, then hold my hand out to help her up. She takes it, smiling up at me, and when I pull her up, I slide my hand around her waist. She blinks in surprise, but doesn't pull away until I let go, keeping hold of her hand and leading her out of the café. I don't look in Goh's direction once.
— — — —
I spend the night with the others, drinking in the kitchen. May invites her new boyfriend, Drew, and while I find him pretty annoying at first, I quickly warm up to him. I let myself enjoy their company, and I don't think about Bede, or Goh. I decide I'll let Goh come to me, if he's jealous of Serena and I.
But he doesn't, even though Serena reports that he's cold at their next practice too, and won't speak to her. He doesn't message me, and I don't see him around, and soon a week has passed with no contact. I feel him slipping through my fingers as more and more time passes, and a strange panic starts to set in. The longer he's with Bede, the more likely he is to never speak to me again, especially if Bede asked him not to. By now, he probably likes him a fair amount.
It's well into November now, and on Saturday night, a flurry of snow appears out of the blue. The numerous throws that my mom forced me to bring come in handy, and I keep the heater in my room on, two of them thrown over my knees as I lie in bed. On a Saturday most students are probably out, but we all decided to stay in, and after a half an hour video call with Dawn, on which she forced me to find Serena so they could chat, I find myself alone in bed, watching Netflix. I don't close my curtains so I can watch the snow drift past the window, settling in a fine layer on the road outside.
Is it snowing where you are? I text Dawn, and then shoot off texts to Brock, Misty and Gary. Before I can get her reply, though, I drift off to sleep, the TV show playing away to nobody.
I jerk awake hours later to a vibration in my hand. Disoriented, I'm jolted back to reality by panic, and I rub my eyes, trying to see what's going on. I realise, with dread, that it's my phone ringing. I hold my phone up, sitting upright, and my heart sinks deep into my stomach when I realise it's Goh calling, and it's half one in the morning.
For a brief moment, I consider ignoring it. We haven't spoken in a week, and I'm still mad at him, but he could be in trouble. And in the moment, all the anger rushes right out of me, and I accept the call, bringing the phone to my ear. "Goh?"
"Ash," he chokes out weakly, and a cold rush goes through my heart. It sounds like he's crying. "Sorry. I- I didn't know who to call. I t-think I called you by accident."
I've never heard him slur his words like that. He is, without a doubt, wasted. "Goh, where are you?" I ask, already pushing up out of bed and grabbing my pants. "Who are you with?"
"I don't know. No one." I can hear music in the background. "I can't remember."
Fuck. My pulse is racing with panic. "Which club are you in, Goh?" I ask softly, using my shoulder to hold up my phone as I pull the pants on. "Is Bede there?" For once, the name doesn't make me feel angry. There's no room for it amongst the fear.
"He left me here," Goh says, his voice trembling. "I don't know where he is- I feel sick." I hear a strange noise, almost like he's sitting down. I grab for my keys and jacket and step into my shoes. Outside, I can see it's stopped snowing, but there's at least a layer of a few inches settled over the road and pavement, making it hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. There's zero chance of finding a taxi to bring him home, so I'm going to have to get him myself, if Bede has abandoned him. There isn't even a single bit of hesitation as I start to push out of my room.
I ask him which club he's in again as I step out into the freezing cold, sinking into the soft snow. This time, he manages to answer. I haven't heard of it, but when I type it into maps, I see it's just a ten minute walk away.
"Alright. Stay where you are, okay?" I say, and hang up, breaking into a jog despite the snow. A pain shoots up the side of my body, and the cold makes breathing a bit painful, but I don't stop, and I reach the doors of the club in less than seven minutes. There's no one on the door, so I step inside, instantly getting blasted by a fog machine. I glance around wildly, trying to see between gaps in the crowd, but I can't see him. I look down at my phone again, but I have no service here, so I can't call him.
I push through the crowd, muttering apologies as I go, my eyes darting back and forth, until I spot him, sitting on the edge of the dancefloor, his head in his hands. I race over, the breath rushing from my lungs. I crouch down beside him, taking his jaw in my hands, and tilt his face so he's facing me, but his movements are slow and delayed. He blinks. "Ash? Wh- What are you doing here?"
"You called me, silly," I say as calmly as I can manage, but my heart is threatening to burst out of my chest. I don't care if he has another boyfriend- right now he's my responsibility. "Come on. I'll take you home."
He shakes his head, pressing his palm into his forehead. "Mmm. I think I'm gonna throw up."
"Okay," I say calmly, and stand, reaching for his hand. "Can you stand?"
He reaches out and takes my hand, and lets me pull him up. I hold him upright and look around, spotting the sign for the bathroom, and start to walk him to it, ignoring the judging looks being shot our way. Luckily, there's barely anyone inside, and no one seems to notice when we slip into a stall together.
I hold Goh's hair back for him and gently run my hand down his back while he throws up. I have no idea how this ended up happening to me, and I almost feel like an idiot, rushing to him the second there's something he needs, but...
"Did someone make you take something?" I ask when he stops throwing up. He shakes his head.
"Bede-" He chokes out, and the one word sets my blood on fire. I'll kill him- "He said I wasn't keeping up. I didn't want to drink anymore-"
"Where is he?" I ask, trying to keep myself calm.
"Gone," Goh says, and starts crying.
"Okay," I say calmly again. "Come on. You're gonna be okay. Let's get you out of here." I help him up, and he seems a bit steadier on his feet, but he's crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks. Even crying, even completely wasted, he's still the most gorgeous person I've ever seen. The sight cracks my heart in two, but I ignore it, and sling his arm around my shoulder and guide him out.
When we step out, it's snowing again, lighter this time. I pause just to pull my jacket off and sling it over Goh's shoulders, because he's wearing a short sleeved shirt and has no jacket of his own with him. He's still shivering, but it's an improvement. I keep hold of him as we stagger down the street, me keeping most of his weight up. I know that tomorrow, I'm going to find Bede and kick his fucking ass for leaving Goh in this state, but for now I just focus on getting him back.
"I miss you," Goh slurs, sniffing.
His words make me falter, and I choke on the lump in my throat, butterflies rising up in my stomach. "I'm here," I say, knowing he wouldn't be saying this if he was sober. He probably won't even remember this tomorrow.
"You're my best friend." He turns to look at me, his eyes red from crying. "You're Blue."
My heart carries on breaking, but I swallow back my tears. "Yeah, I am." I force myself to smile at him. "You're my best friend too."
It takes us fifteen minutes to reach our building. "What flat number are you in?" I ask gently, knowing I'm going to have to escort him to his room. I can only pray that Bede isn't there, and doesn't hear me coming in with Goh. If I spot him, I'm not sure I'll be able to hold myself back. Goh starts shaking his head, his chest rising and falling heavily like he's beginning to panic.
"No," he says. "I can't go in there. He..." He drifts off, like he forgot he was speaking.
"I have to take you up, Goh."
"No," he insists, crying again suddenly. "I can't."
I take a deep breath, considering. I can't leave him out here in the cold. He can barely stand on his own. I put my arm around him again and start to guide him towards the stairs. It's probably a bad idea, and God knows I'm going to suffer in the morning when he wakes up angry at me again, but I don't know what else to do.
So I take him into my flat, and try to be quiet as I unlock my door. Goh practically falls through the door, looking around. Despite his drunkenness, he seems... nervous. It's making me nervous, too.
"Here," I say, gesturing for him to stand still. He does, and I reach around to take the hair tie from around his wrist. I pull his hair, still crazy soft, back and tie it for him.
I hear his breath catch, and pray he's too drunk to notice how my hands are trembling. He takes his shoes off, and I can tell in his eyes that he's barely registering where he is. I lead him into my bathroom, and pass him a toothbrush.
"It's a spare one. Don't worry."
I watch him brush his teeth, his movements slow. Then I help him out of my jacket and lead him back into the room, and to my bed. Quickly lifting the laptop out of the way, I watch him crawl into my bed. At first, I think he's asleep before he's even settled, but then he starts to cry again, his tears staining the pillowcase dark. I sit on the edge of the bed, my hand twitching towards him. I'm so desperate to hold him, but he's drunk, and if he were sober he wouldn't even want to be within ten feet of me. Still, I let myself reach out and wipe his tears away with my thumb gently. "Get some sleep," I say, and lean down to press a gentle kiss against the side of his head.
I shut the bathroom door when I get inside and fall back against it, blowing out a breath. I have no idea where I'm supposed to sleep now. I could go along to the empty bedroom, but I think the door is locked. Besides, then Goh would wake up in my room alone and panic, wondering what happened. So I brush my teeth too and splash cold water on my face before emerging again.
Goh is asleep in the bed, his face peaceful. I sigh, relaxing. Even if it is a big bed, I can't get in beside him when he's drunk. So I sit in the desk chair and pull the two throws over me, pulling them up over my chest. I sit and watch him for a moment, and surrender to the fact that I'm probably not going to get any sleep. Slowly, my heart rate starts to slow down, and I finally relax, knowing he's safe now.
Bede can't possibly care about him. No one would push someone they cared about into this state and then leave them alone in a busy club. As angry as I've been recently, the defensiveness that rises in me when it comes to Goh is overwhelming. I hope that, when I finally get to see Bede, he takes one look at me and knows I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.
I wonder why he decided to call me. I don't dare think about that tonight, though, so I push the thought away, and rest my head back on the chair, sighing. My eyes are so heavy, and despite the chair being uncomfortable, I feel like I'm sinking back into it. Before long, black gathers in the corners of my vision, and sleep pulls me under.
— — — —
When I wake up, I'm freezing. The blankets slipped off me through the night, and are lying in a heap at my feet. Across the room, Goh is still sleeping. My heart soars as the night before comes back to me, and then the panic washes in, because what am I going to say when he wakes up?
Through the night his hair seems to have come loose from the ponytail, and is falling over his face. I see his nose scrunch like it's tickling his nose in his sleep, and I start to move, when his eyes flutter open. I freeze, my limbs going stiff, and in a split second he's wide awake, sitting upright so fast he nearly whacks his head off the wall behind him.
"Wha- What am I doing here?" He asks, bringing his hand to his head.
"You called me last night," I say, rubbing my eyes. I don't think I've ever been so tired. "You were wasted and on your own, so I came to get you, but you wouldn't tell me which flat is yours, and you wouldn't go up there."
Goh looks like he's seen a ghost- his face pale and shocked. He looks down at himself, no doubt realising he's in the same clothes as the night before. "I... I slept in your room?"
"I'm sorry," I say genuinely. "I didn't know what else to do."
"And you slept... on your desk chair?" He asks, frowning and furrowing his brows. I shrug.
"It's fine. You don't have to feel bad. I'm just glad you're okay."
"Ash..." He furrows his brows. I'm so tired, mentally and physically... The sight of him in my bed, the thought of him having a boyfriend, someone that's not me... It's too much. I made sure he was safe, but now he's sober, and the anger comes back. I stand, feeling dizzy.
"You can go now," I say, maybe a little harshly. Goh frowns up at me, hurt flashing in his eyes. He looks like he's going to argue, but then his jaw clamps shut, and he stands. I look away, not able to face him. I just want him out of here, so I can sleep and forget this happened. But he's not moving, and when I turn to see why, my heart drops out, my stomach going with it.
The letters. I forgot to move them in the commotion last night, and the box of them is sitting at the end of the bed, full of the envelopes. Goh is staring at his own handwriting, his jaw hanging open. "Those- Those are my letters," he says. "You kept them all."
"Yeah, I did," I say, running a hand through my hair. I really don't want to be having this conversation right now.
"Me too," he says, turning back to me. His eyes are sparkling, and there's barely two feet between us, and I choke up, my breath catching as I imagine how easy it would be to kiss him. It would take less than a second to cross the distance between us. This isn't fair.
"Look, Goh, you should go," I sigh. He looks at me like I've just stuck a knife in his chest.
"Ash-"
I shake my head. "I can't play these games anymore, Goh. I'm exhausted. Can you just go? Please."
"Okay," he says quietly. "I... I remember last night now, I think."
I raise an eyebrow, surprised. "Really?"
"Yeah. I- I wouldn't have made it back if you hadn't come for me. Thank you, Ash."
"Bede's probably worried about you," I say, my tone dripping with venom. I know instantly that it was the wrong thing to say, because Goh's face crumbles, and for a second I think he's going to cry again.
"I doubt it," he mumbles, starting to head for the door.
"What happened?" I call out before he can get very far. He stops, turning to frown at me, his blue eyes seeming a little duller than usual. I wonder, with a silent curse at myself, if he remembers me brushing away his tears and kissing his head.
"I found out that he was using me to make Hop jealous," he says. "I hadn't even realised they'd dated."
Oh. My heart starts to speed up, rising into my throat. Does that mean...? "You broke up with him?"
"He was never my boyfriend," he says, exasperated. "It was just... It was a stupid thing. It was never serious. I-" He shakes his head. "This whole thing has been so stupid, and now-" He closes his eyes. "Now you're with Serena, and-"
My heart lurches forward. "What?"
He opens his eyes to give me a cautious look. "Forget it."
"No," I say, reaching out and wrapping my fingers gently around his wrist. He tenses up under my touch. "What did you mean by that?"
"Sorry for being a burden last night. I have to get back." He tries to tug his wrist away. It's like he's shut his feelings off again, going back to being cold. I hate it.
"I've been so pissed off at you, Goh," I say, shaking my head. "You... Is that really all I am to you? Just your old flatmate? Not someone you've known for twelve years?"
He winces, like my words are physical blows. "You don't understand."
I drop his wrist. "You're right," I say, my voice rising slightly. "I don't understand you at all. I thought I did. I thought I knew you better than anyone, but I don't. If you hate me, you-"
"I don't hate you!" He yells, so suddenly it freezes me to the spot, making the words die on my tongue. "Are you really this fucking dense, Ash?"
"What-?"
"It's not that I don't want to be your friend. It's not that you're 'just my old flatmate'. It's nothing like that at all. It's that I can't be your friend. I can't- I can't handle it." Goh's face twists like he's going to cry again. I can't move, can't breathe, can't think as he carries on, his voice rising. "And I don't give a fuck about Bede. The only thing that bothered me was when he stormed in furious that he'd seen you in the courtyard and you said... You said that to him. Because you were just saying it to get under his skin, you just threw that comment around like it was nothing, like it meant nothing, but I am." He's shouting now.
I am. I am. I am.
The words repeat themselves over and over again in my brain, drowning out all of my thoughts, clouding everything. Your boyfriend is in love with me. That's what I'd said. I am. I am.
"We've already been friends," he says, quietly. "Best friends. But then we weren't." He takes a step towards me. It feels like the ground is swaying underneath me. "We were more than that. We- We fell for each other. That's what I want to be to you, Ash. I want to be that friend that you can't help falling in love with." He chokes out a sob. "I thought I lost you. I thought- I thought I'd never speak to you again," he says, and I know that something's broken open in him, in both of us, that has been bursting at the seams for a while.
I take the final step towards him and let him fall against my chest as the sobs shake his body. I wrap my arms around him, feeling him melt into me. "I'm here," I say into his hair, running my fingers through it. "I always will be."
My words just seem to make him cry harder. Despite his tears, my heart is piecing itself back together, and starts to soar. Finally, we're on common ground, and- Goh wants me to love him. He wants me to feel the same. It's that thought that has me speaking into his hair again. "You are the friend I can't help falling in love with. You could never be anything else to me."
He pulls away to look up at me. "But, Serena-"
"It was her idea, she thought it would make you jealous. I'm sorry."
"So you're not actually dating her." It seems like he's holding his breath.
"God no," I laugh.
He moves beneath me, pulling away just far enough to lean up to kiss me, our lips crashing together finally. He tastes like tears, but I don't care, because I get lost in him. We've kissed before, yes, but this time I know I'm kissing Red. This time, I don't just think I'm falling for him, I've already fallen so hard I don't think I'll ever be able to get back up. There's no word that could describe it. He steps back, his back coming up against the wall as I push my hands up into his hair. There's barely any space between our bodies, and that's the way I want it to be, forever. But there's something I have to make clear, so I pull myself away just enough to speak, my lips still brushing against his. "I love you."
Goh blows out a breath, sinking back against the wall a little. "I love you too."
There's a fire ignited inside me that I don't think will ever go out. "There's no one else for me, Goh. There never has been. I want to be with you, so badly it's been killing me. I'm yours, until you don't want me anymore."
"I don't think that will ever happen," he murmurs, already moving to kiss me again.
We kiss for what seems like forever, until my jaw starts to hurt, and the only sound is our heavy breathing and the rain on the glass, until Goh moves away, wiping his eyes, and looks at me, reaching out to run his fingers through my hair. "If fourteen year old me could see us right now, he'd scream."
"It's been that long?" I ask. I could get lost in his eyes, especially when he's beneath me like this, staring back up at me.
"Longer."
I smirk. "Looks like I finally found my water sign."
And we kiss again, and again, and again.