“You ran,” Kenji said, the words flat, devoid of accusation, yet they pressed down on Art’s chest like a cinder block. His voice, usually a low rumble, felt like it had been scraped across concrete. Art didn’t need to look up to know Kenji’s eyes, the color of wet river stones, were fixed on him. He just knew. That heavy, insistent weight.
Art clutched the strap of his backpack, knuckles white. The hall was dead, the kind of forgotten stretch of linoleum where the fluorescent lights flickered erratically, casting long, wavering shadows. It smelled faintly of stale floor wax and something acrid, like cheap cleaner trying to mask a deeper rot. He’d chosen this route specifically for its emptiness, a path rarely trod, especially with senior year bleeding into its final, chaotic weeks. Figures. Of course, Kenji would find him here.
“Ran from what?” Art managed, his voice a pathetic squeak, not the confident, sardonic drawl he usually affected. He hated how small he sounded, how easily Kenji could reduce him to this awkward, stumbling mess. His throat felt dry, like he’d swallowed sand. He could feel the blood thrumming against his ear canals, a hot, frantic beat.
Kenji didn’t move. He just stood there, leaning against a locker dented with years of adolescent rage, arms crossed over his chest. His posture was deceptively relaxed, but Art could sense the coiled tension underneath, the quiet strength that had always defined him. Kenji, the unshakeable. Kenji, who everyone seemed to gravitate towards, like iron filings to a magnet, even when Art had made it clear he was off-limits.
“Everything,” Kenji finally supplied, the single word hanging in the air, heavy and blunt. “You’ve been dodging me since… forever. Since the play.”
The play. The stupid, humiliating, beautiful disaster of the winter showcase. Art winced, a phantom ache blooming in his chest. He’d poured everything into that student-directed mess, convinced it would be his grand comeback, his triumphant middle finger to the suffocating apathy of senior year. And for a moment, it had worked. Until the whispers started. Until the snide remarks in the cafeteria. Until the anonymous notes tucked into his locker, all because of one scene, one improv gone… too real.
He pushed a hand through his perpetually messy brown hair, trying to look nonchalant. “There’s nothing to dodge. We just… drifted.”
“Drifted,” Kenji repeated, a hint of something unreadable in his tone. Not quite a question, not quite a statement. More like a challenge. He pushed off the locker, taking a single, deliberate step forward. It wasn’t aggressive, but it felt like the world was tilting on its axis. Art’s breath hitched, a tiny, involuntary gasp he immediately swallowed down.
Art’s eyes darted around, searching for an escape route, a fire alarm to pull, anything. But the hall stretched empty, the kind of empty that felt deliberate, isolating. The faded posters for last year’s prom, peeling at the corners, felt like mocking sentinels. He could feel the heat radiating off Kenji, even from a foot away, a strange, electric current that made his skin prickle.
“Look, Kenji, I’m busy,” Art said, attempting to sound dismissive, to summon that cool, detached persona that usually shielded him. It felt like a flimsy paper shield against a battering ram. “College applications, finals… life, you know?”
Kenji took another step, closer this time. Art could smell the faint scent of old books and something metallic, maybe the graphite from his art pencils. Or maybe it was just the static charge in the air between them. Kenji’s shadow fell over Art, making him feel even smaller, trapped against the unforgiving beige paint of the wall. Art’s heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. It was stupid. He hated this, hated the way his body betrayed him, hated the blush he could feel creeping up his neck.
“You’re busy avoiding,” Kenji corrected, his voice still low, but now with an edge, a steel beneath the calm. “Tell me, Art. Is it working for you?”
The question, so direct, so lacking in the usual adolescent maneuvering, stung. It punctured the carefully constructed facade Art had maintained for months. Was it working? He’d been more miserable, more isolated, than ever before. He’d retreated into himself, into the cynical observations that felt like armor but really just kept everyone out. He’d watched Kenji from afar, seen him with his new friends, the easy way he laughed, and the bitterness had grown, a knot in his stomach.
“It’s fine,” Art mumbled, his gaze fixed somewhere on Kenji’s left shoulder, the worn seam of his dark jacket. He couldn’t look him in the eye. Couldn’t face the intensity he knew would be there. He remembered the last time he’d really looked into those eyes, backstage after the disastrous play, the raw hurt in them that mirrored his own, and how he’d flinched away.
Kenji moved again, closing the last remaining distance between them. Now, Art could feel the warmth of his body, the faint friction of their clothes. It was too close. Too much. Art instinctively pressed back against the wall, but there was nowhere left to go. His entire body felt rigid, ready to bolt, but also… strangely frozen. A shiver, not of cold, ran down his spine. This was the 'electric shock' they talked about in bad novels, and Art hated that it was happening to him, with Kenji, of all people.
“Fine? Art, your grades are dipping, you barely talk to anyone anymore, and you look like you haven’t slept in a week.” Kenji’s voice was softer now, the edge gone, replaced by a concern that felt like a physical caress, disarming and dangerous. “This isn’t ‘fine’.”
Art wanted to snarl, to lash out, to tell him to mind his own damn business. But the words caught in his throat, a pathetic tangle. He hated that Kenji saw through him so easily, hated that he still cared, even after Art had effectively pushed him away with a decade’s worth of unspoken resentments and clumsy betrayals. The thought of those betrayals, the minor slights, the big, glaring silences, made his stomach clench. He’d let peer pressure, the subtle, insidious kind, dictate his actions, especially when it came to their shared history, their quiet bond that others deemed ‘weird’.
“What do you want, Kenji?” Art finally whispered, the question ripped from him, ragged and raw. He finally risked a glance up, and his eyes immediately snagged on Kenji’s. They were even more intense than he remembered, a deep, unsettling grey that seemed to see right into him, past all the cynicism and the carefully constructed defenses.
Kenji’s jaw worked, a muscle twitching. He lifted a hand, and Art tensed, his entire being bracing for… he didn’t know what. A push? A tap? But Kenji’s hand didn’t touch him. It hovered, just an inch from Art’s cheek, his fingers slightly splayed, as if debating whether to reach out or pull back. The proximity was excruciating. Art could feel the heat radiating from Kenji’s palm, a silent promise or threat. His breath hitched again, shallow and fast.
“I want to know why,” Kenji said, his voice barely a murmur, intimate in the deserted hallway. “Why you let them get to you. Why you let them separate us. Why you… why you stopped talking to me.”
The simple honesty of it was disarming. Art felt a fresh wave of panic, a desperate urge to flee, to curl up in a ball and disappear. He’d spent months concocting elaborate justifications, constructing a narrative where Kenji was the one who’d changed, the one who’d abandoned *him*. But seeing Kenji’s face, the genuine hurt in his eyes, made all those flimsy excuses crumble to dust. It was Art. He was the one who’d succumbed to the pressure, the fear of being seen as ‘too much’, ‘too intense’, ‘too… gay’ for the jocks and the popular kids. He’d been an idiot, a coward.
“It wasn’t…” Art started, then stopped, swallowing hard. The words felt like sawdust in his mouth. “It wasn’t you. It was… everything. Everyone else. They kept… looking. Kept talking. After rehearsals, when we’d stay late. The way we’d… improvise. It wasn’t part of the script, was it?” His voice was barely audible now, filled with a shame he hadn’t known how to articulate before.
Kenji’s eyes softened, and the tension in his hand, still hovering near Art’s face, eased slightly. “The scene where you confessed your character’s fears to mine? That wasn’t in the script. The way you looked at me… that wasn’t acting.” His thumb twitched, barely brushing the air next to Art’s temple, sending a jolt straight through Art’s nervous system. It felt like a silent stroke, an affirmation. Art swallowed, his chest tight.
“It felt real,” Art admitted, his voice cracking on the last word. “Too real. And then… people started calling me names. Whispering. About us. And I got scared. I just… shut down.” He finally looked at Kenji fully, shame burning his cheeks. “I thought if I pulled away, if I ignored you, they’d stop. They’d forget. That we’d… fade.”
A wry, bitter laugh escaped Kenji. It was a harsh, humorless sound. “Fading is the last thing we’re doing, Art. Every time you walked past me in the hall and pretended you didn’t see me, it hit harder than any insult they could throw. You think I didn’t notice? You think I didn’t see the way you’d clench your jaw, or how your hand would tighten on your bag?” He paused, his gaze unwavering. “You were the only one I ever felt… understood by. And then you just… cut me off.”
Art’s vision blurred slightly. The words were a punch to the gut, but also, strangely, a relief. Kenji *had* noticed. He hadn’t been oblivious. He hadn’t just moved on, carefree and unburdened. The thought, a fragile, hopeful thing, made a tiny crack in Art’s cynical armor. He looked at Kenji, really looked at him, and saw the faint circles under his eyes, the almost imperceptible tension around his mouth. Kenji wasn’t as unshakeable as he’d always seemed.
“I… I didn’t know what to do,” Art said, the apology forming in his throat, thick and difficult. “I was a mess. I still am. I just… I couldn’t handle it. The pressure. Everyone watching. And I thought… I thought you’d be better off without me. Without the drama. Because I always seem to attract it.” He laughed, a short, self-deprecating bark. “Always have, always will.”
Kenji reached out, his hand finally making contact. Not on Art’s face, but on his shoulder, a firm, grounding pressure. Art flinched, a full-body tremor, then forced himself to relax into the touch. It felt solid, real, like an anchor. The heat from Kenji’s palm seeped through his thin shirt, directly to his skin, making every nerve ending sing. His breath hitched, this time with a strange mix of fear and something akin to a desperate longing. He didn’t pull away.
“You don’t ‘attract’ drama, Art,” Kenji murmured, his voice now a low, steady current that flowed directly into Art’s ear, making the fine hairs on his arm stand up. “You just… are. You’re bright. You’re intense. And some people are just too damn afraid of anything that shines too much.” His thumb began to rub small circles on Art’s shoulder, a slow, hypnotic rhythm that chipped away at Art’s resolve, at his carefully cultivated detachment. Art could feel his rigid posture softening, his muscles loosening without his permission.
Art closed his eyes for a split second, trying to regain some composure, trying to push down the overwhelming rush of sensation. He could feel Kenji leaning in closer, the faint rustle of his jacket, the warm breath ghosting over Art’s ear. It wasn’t a kiss. It wasn’t even a hug. It was just… proximity, amplified. A thousand volts of it. He wanted to push Kenji away, to tell him to back off, to stop making him feel things he wasn’t ready to feel. But his body refused to move. It wanted this. He hated that it wanted this.
“And what about you?” Art whispered, his eyes still closed. “Aren’t you afraid?”
The hand on his shoulder tightened, a reassuring squeeze. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Kenji’s voice was a soft rumble now, so close it vibrated through Art’s bones. “I’m not the one who ran. Not then. Not now. And I’m not going to run, Art. Not from you.”
Art slowly opened his eyes, looking directly into Kenji’s. The river stone eyes held a depth he hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge in months. A fierce loyalty, a quiet determination, and something else, something vulnerable and raw that mirrored his own unarticulated feelings. In that moment, the sterile, forgotten hallway, the peeling posters, the flickering lights, all faded. There was only Kenji, his solid presence, and the unspoken weight of everything that had passed between them.
“So… what now?” Art asked, his voice still shaky, but with a flicker of something new, something almost hopeful. The cynical part of him wanted to scoff, to dismiss it, to say this was all pointless. But the other part, the part that was tired of being alone, that longed for the connection he’d so foolishly discarded, was listening. Listening with a desperate, thrumming anticipation.
Kenji’s lips curved into a slow, almost imperceptible smile, the kind that never quite reached his eyes, but held a world of unspoken meaning. His thumb continued its steady, soothing pattern on Art’s shoulder. “Now, we talk. Properly. No running. No hiding. And then… we figure it out.” His gaze dropped to Art’s lips for a brief, intense second, then flickered back up to his eyes, a silent question, a powerful pull. Art felt his entire body flush, the heat spreading like wildfire, from his chest to his fingertips. He could barely breathe. The air in the hallway, once stale and acrid, now smelled faintly of autumn leaves and something fresh, something like a new beginning.
“Okay,” Art managed, the word a soft exhalation, almost a sigh. His own hand, as if with a will of its own, lifted slowly, hesitantly, and rested on Kenji’s arm, just above the elbow. It was a tentative, fragile touch, but the connection was instant, solid. Like finally plugging into a power source he’d been disconnected from for far too long. He felt the firm muscle beneath the fabric, the warmth, the undeniable, overwhelming presence of Kenji. The touch sent a jolt, not painful, but deeply resonant, right into his core. It wasn’t just about clearing the air anymore. It was about rebuilding something, piece by painstaking piece, under the harsh, unwavering scrutiny of senior year. And for the first time in a long time, Art felt a tremor of something other than dread.