Chapter Text
“Have you ever had a crush on someone?”
Xiao looks up from his phone, eyes wide at the question. Does he know? He can’t help but ask himself, heart hammering harder in his chest. Maybe, he takes too long to answer, finding himself lost in Aether’s mesmerising honey eyes, and he swallows away lingering feelings that stick in his throat like nectar. “No,” he says as confidently as he can.
“You hesitated,” Aether grins, “liar.” He leans closer, the bed they sit on creaking under the shifting weight. It’s Aether’s own bed, in his own room, in his own house, and Xiao isn’t sure he should be as familiar with Aether’s bed as he is.
“I-I’m telling the truth,” he stutters, but Xiao has always been a terrible liar, especially in front of Aether.
Aether elbows him, winking. “Who was it?”
“It’s nobody, it doesn’t matter,” he hushes, turning back to his phone, but the words on his screen scramble into incoherencies in his tangled mind, reading the name of his friend where it most certainly isn’t written.
Aether puts a hand over his screen, forcing Xiao to look back at him — they’re too close like this, and Xiao pulls away. Aether pays no mind to his shyness, a stupidly smug expression on his face. “You used present tense.”
Xiao blanches, quickly says, “no I didn’t.”
“You used present tense,” Aether repeats, “you like someone, I can’t believe you like someone!”
Xiao turns his face away. This can’t be happening, he thinks as he’s bombarded with questions about who his crush is.
”Do they go to our school? Have I met them? Are they pretty? Are they cute? Are they older or younger than you?” Aether pours out the questions, uncaring for the silent treatment he’s given.
Yes, Aether, they’re pretty, Xiao does not say, biting back his replies with a straight face. He can’t afford to give anything away. He does well avoiding every question, until he hears Aether pout with a sad sigh — because how could he ever ignore that? He turns back to Aether, exhaling slowly.
“I’m not telling you,” he states firmly, and Aether finally relents. Xiao thinks he does, at least, when the boy falls silent for a few peaceful seconds.
“At least tell me… what colour their hair is?” Aether pleads. Xiao stares at him, at his braid that falls apart over his shoulder, in desperate need of a wash, yet it’s still Xiao’s favourite colour. He kind of wants to confess it all, but he knows that’s a stupid idea.
“Blond,” he admits instead, because the both of them know so many blondes that it might as well be saying the person he likes has legs.
Aether’s brows pull together in thought, before his whole face lights up, a knowing glimmer in his eyes. “Oh!” He exclaims, leaning close to Xiao, smirking as though he was able to read his mind. For a brief moment, Xiao believes he could.
Maybe, revealing his crush is a blond was too obvious, when his eyes never leave Aether’s hair, maybe having this conversation with Aether in the first place was a mistake, maybe Aether would hate him when he finds out that he likes—
“So it’s Lumine, then?”
Xiao breathes a shaky sigh of relief, the panic fading from his system. He can go another day pretending everything is normal between them, everything is fine. A quiet, calm moment passes, before Xiao flinches away. “Wait, what? No, I don’t like Lumine,” he utters in a hurry, tumbling over his words, because he doesn’t want Aether to think he likes his sister. Everything is not fine.
Aether only takes the desperate denial as a poorly disguised lie. “You like her, you like her,” he teases, poking Xiao’s cheek and shoulder and waist and hips, trying in vain to tickle the stubborn boy.
“I do not!” Xiao protests, stiffening his body to avoid crumbling under Aether’s touch. He’s really not ticklish, but when it’s Aether who touches him, who’s hands are all over his face and waist and legs, he might just fall apart and cry.
Aether tackles him down to the bed, all but falling on top of Xiao with his charming laughter ringing in the air, his undone hair pooling over his shoulders. Xiao curls up into a protective ball under him, glaring over his knees at the blond until Aether finally relents, flopping beside him on the plush bed. Eventually Xiao unfolds his body, making himself comfortable, too — on Aether’s bed, where he’s spent so many of his weekends doing just about anything, ever since he met the boy. Are they pretty? Echoes in his mind, and when Xiao turns his face to Aether, taking in his dishevelled, unkempt appearance that was usual for a Saturday, he kind of wants to disagree.
They’re beautiful, he confesses silently, and hopes Aether cannot hear.
Entirely oblivious, Aether blows a breath on his face, chuckling when Xiao screws up his nose at the feeling. When Xiao blinks open his eyes again, Aether is looking at him with a soft seriousness. “You should tell her,” he says quietly, and Xiao knows he means well — he always does, because he’s Aether.
Xiao allows himself a long minute to admire Aether’s features: dark brown eyelashes that fall over his eyes every time he blinks sleepily; messy blond hair cut by Xiao’s own hands when they had decided to play hairdresser in a school bathroom a month ago, much to their parents dismay; splatters of freckles across his cheeks because Aether spends so much time in the sun, while Xiao prefers to watch from the shade. He has a million memories with Aether, from when they were stumbling children about to begin middle school, until just yesterday when they had skipped Friday afternoon class to play the new update of a game Aether likes as soon as it dropped. Xiao didn’t even like the game, but playing it with Aether was never so bad.
“I guess,” Xiao finally replies, but he doesn’t ever want to tell Lumine he likes her. Because he doesn’t, and he probably never could.
Aether gives him an encouraging smile, before he rolls over to grab his phone, directing the conversation back to the game that’s almost gotten them grounded several times. Just like that, it all returns to normal, and Xiao lets out a quiet sigh.
He’s not sure he could ever tell Aether that it’s him who he’s fallen in love with.