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There were many ways that today wasn’t normal. There were weird glances, postponed laughs, and held breaths that were everywhere—or at least they seemed to be. Fyodor could easily ignore this any other day, but today was the only day he seemed to care that everything was off. That also seemed to be the day that no one would tell him why everyone was acting weirdly.
First, he went to Sigma, who wouldn’t utter a single word to Fyodor, which was painfully inconvenient. He knocked three times on the door and then entered.
“Hello, Fyodor,” Sigma said.
Fyodor nodded his head and sighed.
“Is there a reason everyone’s acting so strange?” he said, laying it out bluntly.
Sigma hummed and clicked his tongue. Fyodor could feel himself getting irritated by the second. All of this dancing around was tedious, especially because now that he was engrossed in finding the reason everyone was so stiff around him—not like they weren’t before, but this time it was different and he knew it. Sigma’s reaction only made his head hurt.
“Well, I’m not entirely sure,” Sigma replied.
Fyodor stared at him. He could tell it was a lie, but it was a simple one and there were many things it could mean. It then clicked in his head that whatever occurred happened at the drinking party everyone but Fyodor had at the Sky Casino yesterday night.
“Is it something about the party?” Fyodor asked.
Sigma stilled for a moment, then relaxed as if he had been started by an old friend.
“Don’t most things happen at parties?”
“Sigma,”
“Fyodor,”
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere,”
“I’m quite aware of that,”
“Could you at least tell me what happened?”
“Could you at least get out of my office?”
Fyodor’s gaze bored into Sigma’s skull as if trying to read what he so desperately wanted to know.
“I’ll take my leave then,” Fyodor said, waltzing out of Sigma’s office and closing the door behind him.
He swore he could hear Sigma's sigh of relief. He walked down the hallway, eyes pointed at the floor and chewing on one of his fingernails. This was the one time he decided to care about something and nobody would tell him. He couldn’t believe it! He passed by Bram’s office, knowing he was asleep and didn’t want to entertain a conversation that would only get him more irritated. He was left with two more people he could burn through. He decided to go with Fukuchi. He took out his phone and punched in the numbers.
“Hello?” answered a tired voice.
“What happened at that party at the Sky Casino?” Fyodor asked, his voice an aggressive plea for answers. Fukuchi laughed, which broke out into a quick cough. Fyodor grimaced and his eyes narrowed.
“What’s so funny?”
Fukuchi cleared his throat and started to speak in a raspy voice.
“I don’t remember much, but if I’m correct we played a shit ton of drinking games. Got me knocked out cold on one of the booths,”
Fyodor broke off a piece of his nail and sighed.
“You truly don’t remember? What a pain,” he said, closing his phone in the middle of Fukuchi’s reply.
He truly didn’t want to speak to Nikolai at the moment, but he was left with no choice but to ask for answers from the jester. He walked to his office and knocked three times, hearing Nikolai jump up from his chair to run to the door.
“Fedya!” Nikolai said, opening his arms to hug him.
Fyodor moved out of the way and stared at him with a displeased expression. Nikolai raised an eyebrow at his face and moved out of the doorway. Fyodor walked in and sat down in a spare chair. Nikolai sat down and rolled his chair over to the dark-haired man.
“What’s with the face?” Nikolai asked.
“No one in this entire building is telling me what happened at the party,”
Nikolai sighed and rested his face on his hand.
“Is that seriously it? You just cared too much about what happened this time?”
“It looks foolish when you put it in that manner,”
“That’s because it is,”
Fyodor tapped his finger on the armrest and sighed.
“Everyone seems to be avoiding the question. I’m tired of dancing around the subject when all I wish to do is stand still,”
“Quite the metaphor,”
“If you’re going to stay quiet, then I will take my leave,”
“The door is right there,”
Fyodor left and was left alone with his thoughts yet again. He found himself irritated with the situation and the lack of answers he had for his cluttered mind. He went back to his office and sat on his chair. He was irritated and confused and simply didn’t care to talk to anyone. He turned on his PC and looked at his monitors. He clicked on camera footage to see what was going on in the city. Certainly, there was something more entertaining than an untold secret. He clicked his tongue as he saw the Sky Casino footage. It was simply all there in front of his face with just the single click of his mouse. He rewound the footage to the night of the party and watched in pure satisfaction. They were playing cards and all had drinks in their hands. Nikolai caught his attention specifically. The man seemed so energetic while in a drunken state, it was almost humorous. Almost.
Then it came time for the drinking games. Fyodor rolled forward the footage and then paused, slowly rolling back to what looked like an awkward scene. He sat up in his chair and went to the minutes before everyone went silent. Fukuchi was laughing and Sigma was glaring at him. Nikolai set down his glass and crossed his legs.
“Would you shut up already?” Sigma asked, his tone showing his annoyance. Fukuchi calmed down after a while.
“Alright, never have I ever, right?” Fukuchi asked.
Sigma nodded and Nikolai grinned, seemingly excited for the next question.
“Never have I ever had a crush on a co-worker,”
Sigma’s finger stayed pointed up, while Nikolai and Fukuchi’s fingers went down.
“Nikolai, you’ve told me you’ve never really worked anywhere else enjoyable until now,” Sigma said.
Nikolai froze before shifting in his seat. His face had a slight color to it and he seemed embarrassed, though it could’ve been the alcohol.
“That’s true, yes,” he replied.
“So who did you like?”
“Ah, that’s the complicated bit, I’m afraid,”
“Was it at a former workplace?”
Nikolai stayed silent.
“Oh, I see,”
“You know him,” Nikolai said.
“Oh. Oh my, God, is it-?”
Nikolai cleared his throat and proposed another question, changing the topic quickly.
Fyodor paused the footage and laid back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He replayed it over and over, trying to see if there was some name uttered under their breaths, but nothing was found.
“You know him,” Fyodor repeated.
Who does Sigma know? Well, he knows Fukuchi, Bram, his clients, and his staff, nothing was checking out. Nikolai doesn’t work at the Sky Casino and everyone else in the Decay of Angels were their subordinates. Certainly, he didn’t have an interest in them, did he? Fyodor sat up in his chair and replayed the footage once more.
“You know him” he muttered.
Him. Who was ‘him’? Who else could he possibly know that was that close to Nikolai, or was it a mere hallway crush? Who else was he close with?
Oh.
Oh.
Suddenly it hit Fyodor that Nikolai liked him.
It made him wish that he never cared in the first place. That he never cared about whispers or stupid rumors. How foolish of him to care. He started to bite his nails, suddenly stressed about the whole situation. What were his feelings on Nikolai? He knew he was annoyed and irritated by him, but also there was confidence between them. He didn’t trust Nikolai—at least not completely—but he didn’t distrust him either. He was reliable, both as a pawn and co-worker. He simply didn’t know what to think.
The next few days, he was faced with a terrible assignment that was avoiding his co-workers as much as possible. He didn’t want them to know that he knew the very thing they’d been hiding from him for a rightful reason. He bit his nail and leaned onto his desk. At that very moment, Nikolai swung open his door and smiled. Fyodor jumped out of his thoughts and turned his chair to face him.
“Here’s that report from yesterday’s mission,” Nikolai said, handing him a yellow packet with thick papers inside. Fyodor took the envelope and put it on his desk silently. His monitor made the dark room light up along with the light pouring in from the hallway.
“What have you been up to in here?” Nikolai asked.
“Looking through footage of the cafe under the detective agency,” Fyodor said, turning to his monitor.
“Sounds boring,” Nikolai whined.
“It can be,”
“You’ve been canned up in here forever, Fedya,”
“I have everything I need in here,”
“Everything but social interaction,”
Fyodor quickly pulled up his notes and started typing. Nikolai stands behind his chair and watches as he writes.
“Already started with the next plan, I see,”
“It’s hard not to when they put so much plain evidence,”
“Have you seen anything else lately?”
“Just some random crimes in the Sky Casino and on the street. It’s interesting seeing them be executed by those who have no idea what they’re doing,”
“People commit crimes in the Sky Casino?”
“You’d be surprised how often they happen,”
Nikolai watched as Fyodor typed on his computer and watched the cameras.
“Do you watch the Sky Casino a lot?”
“Only under the request of Sigma, which isn’t often but I suppose today is one of those days,”
Nikolai hums and rests his arms on the back of Fyodor’s chair.
“I haven’t watched through much of it,” Fyodor says, waving off the thought of looking through the footage of the party.
“Makes sense. We only have so much time, after all,”
Fyodor nodded and rested his head on his hand as he rolled through the footage.
“I’ll take my leave now, have fun with your footage, Fedya,” Nikolai said before going out of his office, dropping a piece of paper as he left.
Fyodor turned his chair around and eyed the paper. He picked it up and unfolded it.
“I know you know. Meet me in the Sky Casino,” it read.
Fyodor sighed and threw the note onto his desk. It now made sense why the casino looked like it was being cleared out. He stood up and trudged through the hallways.
Once he made his way to the Sky Casino, it seemed to be clear. He walked through the empty casino and dragged his hand across a deck of cards. Nikolai was sitting in a booth, and a glass of wine sat in front of him.
“About time you made your way over here,” Nikolai said.
“No need to waste your breath on trying to act like you don’t know,”
“So, what do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,”
“Then, where do we go from here?”
Fyodor sighed and slid into the booth.
“Where do you want to go?”
“You know where I want to go,”
An uncomfortable feeling settled in his stomach. This isn’t how he was thinking he would feel. Maybe, just maybe, this was the fluttering feeling romance novels talked about. He stayed silent, hoping it would fill the emptiness that was his heart. He looked down at the table and fidgeted with his fingers.
“Are you even willing to try?” Nikolai asked.
“I’m not sure this even feels right, Kolya,”
Nikolai grabbed a hold of his hand from under the table and held it gently. Fyodor did not hold it back, instead, he rested his fingers and hoped it would suffice. This isn’t how love was supposed to feel, and he knew that, but maybe if he tried hard enough, it could be. The uncomfortable feeling crawled deeper into his stomach as if it were trying to find a way to escape only to get lost on the way. He had never felt so closed off yet so vulnerable. Fyodor made eye contact with Nikolai.
“Do you like me?” Nikolai said quietly.
“I don’t know,”
“That’s alright,”
For the first time, Fyodor’s mind went quiet. He didn’t know how to respond or react. He could try to love Nikolai, he would love to love Nikolai, but he’s not even sure he can, let alone if his morals would let him.
“I love you,” Nikolai said.
Those three words were enough to make him cry, but he didn’t. He sat there and held the hand of someone he could never love back. As he held that warm hand, his chaotic world went quiet. He didn’t know what to say or what to think, so he sat there and hoped his lack of words could fill in the silence all it needed to. Maybe the silence was calm enough for the two in the violent world that was the Decay of Angels. Fyodor didn’t know how to feel, but maybe that was enough for Nikolai. Somehow, their breathing had filled the silence, and maybe that was better than any love confession, just to hold each other’s hand and hope they could figure out what the feeling in the pit of their guts was.