Chapter Text
Long, slender fingers traced down the spines of color-coded notebooks. They delicately situated a brand-new set of highlighters, freshly removed from their packaging, in a perfect, neat row, arranged by color order. Tidy stacks of index cards and sticky notes were lined up along the edge of the desk, and each new ballpoint pen had been meticulously tested, caps secured back in place, ensuring each would be ready for the onslaught of notes sure to come from the upcoming semester.
Nothing strayed too far out of order before it was caught by a scrutinous eye, adjusting it back into its place with a contented sigh. Everything was absolutely perfect. It had to be. Everything about this year would be nothing short of absolute perfection, if Akk had anything to do with it.
Akk sat back in his dorm’s desk chair with a satisfied exhale. He loved things that could be organized, laid neatly in their perfect order, things that could be assigned a purpose, things he could control.
Because before now, before he’d been granted the freedom and anonymity of being just another face in the crowd of his university’s freshman class, his high school life had been anything but under his control.
It wasn’t due to a lack of trying, either. Oh no, Akk had tried. He had always tried to maintain order, to uphold rules, to hold onto his vicelike grip of control that was promised to him along with the Head Prefect arm band he had always worn so proudly.
But over the course of his senior year, that control began to slip.
It started just a few weeks into his final year of high school, when he ran headfirst into a pair of bright, beady eyes and a mocking smirk shrouded by the worn-out fabric of a hoodie that was most certainly not within the confines of the school’s dress code. He should’ve confiscated it when he had the chance.
He’d soon come to learn that the owner of that ugly hoodie and that infuriating gaze had a name. Ayan. Ayan was the name of the ghost that haunted the spaces of his thoughts, the creature that destroyed every carefully-laid plan Akk had ever made. Ayan was the name of the boy that would soon become the bane of his very existence.
Along with Ayan’s arrival to Suppalo seemed to come a whole new fresh wave of chaos, one that Akk was expected to clean up the aftermath of. The protesters got louder, and Chadok did, too, until the warring pressure that had built up inside Akk’s mind seemed too big to bear, seemed like it could implode at any given moment, if he was poked or prodded at just the right angle.
And Ayan just loved poking and prodding. Any time Akk allowed himself even a split second of weakness, a moment to pause and catch his breath, Ayan was there, too, lingering in the shadows and seeming to relish in Akk’s suffering, always wearing that damn hoodie, always wearing that same defiant smirk that possessed the innate ability to crawl beneath Akk’s skin without even trying.
What was worse still, was the fact that Ayan wasn’t just some washed-out, academically deficient, underperforming delinquent. If that were the case, Akk never would have even spared him a second glance, secure in the knowledge that someone like that could never truly threaten the security he had in his school, in his life, in his future.
No, Ayan was smart. Scary smart. Wickedly, maddeningly smart. The kind of smart that didn’t even need to try. Akk never once saw him study, or even crack open the spine of the many textbooks they were assigned, and still, he’d managed to climb his way to the top of the class ranks in a matter of weeks. The first time he’d spotted his name just below Akk’s, securely in the #2 spot, he had turned to him with that cold smirk playing across his face, and muttered, just low enough for Akk to hear, “Catch me if you can.”
Akk hated the way it sent a shiver down his spine, hated the way it set every last nerve ending ablaze with some sort of electrified fury he had never felt before. He hated the power Ayan held over him. He hated how indifferent Ayan seemed to feel about wielding that power.
And, weeks later, with the distraction of the school’s politics and several lengthy scoldings and reprimands from Chadok weighing heavily on his mind, Akk’s carefully-maintained control had managed to slip just enough for Ayan’s grades to overtake his own. He’d stared at the board in disbelief, never once in his academic career having seen his name anywhere else besides at the very top of the ranks. Someone had called from behind him, “Aye, look! You’re #1 this week!”
Infuriatingly, as if it didn’t even matter to him at all, Ayan sleepily raised his head from his desk, hood still pulled over his ridiculously gelled hair, and pulled out a single earbud. “Oh, cool,” he had responded, disinterested, before returning his head back to its place on the desk, far more invested in the nap he was taking between passing periods than he was in his own academic prowess.
That day, Akk made a vow to himself to never let his focus slip like that again, to do whatever it took to ensure Ayan would never beat him at anything again.
To his own credit, it had, in fact, never happened again, but just barely. And it came with a price. The price was sleepless nights, Akk hunched over textbooks in the early hours of the morning until his writing hand cramped and his eyes were unable to hold themselves open for a second longer. It wasn’t fair, the way he had to fight so hard for everything he had, everything he wanted, while Ayan sauntered into class each day looking disturbingly well-rested, leaning over to ask Akk in a whisper what chapter they were on today, as if he needed to prove to him that he was excelling simply on his natural talent alone. As if Akk needed to be reminded that if he were to lift even his pinky finger in the slightest bit of effort, he could easily overtake Akk’s pace that had him ripping himself apart at the seams to keep up with.
But the worst part of it all, the part that Akk didn’t even dare admit to his closest friends, Kan and Wat, the part he hardly even liked to think about himself, was the fact that the day at the beginning of the year was not the first time Akk had seen those dark, beady eyes staring up at him.
Ayan didn’t seem to remember him, so Akk didn’t dare bring it up, and for a time, he’d even thought that he had gone certifiably crazy, that something between Ayan’s quiet indifference and Chadok’s merciless yelling had completely fried his brain cells, warping his memories and plunging him into actual insanity. But no, Akk’s hazy memory hadn’t betrayed him.
He had dug out the old yearbook from the depths of his parents’ attic during one of his weekend trips home. It was dated from the year before he’d entered high school, from before he’d become assimilated into Suppalo, earned his scholarship there, before the pressures of adult problems had hammered his teenage brain into something submissive, fortified, unbreakable.
No one ever cares to remember their middle school years, that’s why the yearbook was buried beneath old suitcases and broken dining room chairs his dad swore he’d fix someday. But as he thumbed through the glossy pages, his heart slammed to a stop in his chest, and the blood drained from his face.
There, amongst the headshots of smiling students, was Ayan’s unmistakable smirk, taunting him through the page of the yearbook.
Akk was right. He hadn’t misremembered. He’d met Ayan before.
Back then, Akk was much shorter, more frail, less assured. It was his first year attending a school in Bangkok, so far from his home near the shore, and because he was on scholarship, attending a school for ‘high-achieving students,’ his parents had assumed his peers there would be better behaved than the unruly crowd that gathered at the school in his rural hometown.
They were wrong, and Akk seamlessly became an easy target for some of the cliques of pompous, stuck-up rich kids with the affinity for kicking someone while they’re down.
Everything he did seemed to be wrong; the way he dressed, the way he spoke, and even when he’d tried to fix those things about himself, tried to train the seaside drawl out of his voice, that was wrong, too. Ignoring them and giving in to them seemed to garner the same results for Akk. Those kids just wouldn’t leave him alone.
Then, one day, after gym class, when a pack of boys decided to make a game out of tossing Akk’s school shirt just out of his reach, a calm, confident voice echoed off the steel lockers around them, making the crowd dissipate.
“What, you all have nothing better to do with your time?” the voice scoffed. “Pathetic.”
“You want a problem, Aye?” one of the boys shot back at him, but it didn’t make the intervener back down for even a moment. He just shrugged.
“Not really,” he said, an expression of genuine nonchalance written across his sharp features. “But it seems like you do.”
“I’m warning you, Aye, don’t get involved,” the boy spat. It just made a wicked grin appear on the intervener’s face.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he stated simply, and didn’t seem the slightest bit shocked when the boy stepped up into his space, fisting a handful of his shirt collar.
“Oh, you fucking asked for it, you—”
The boy was cut off by the sound of his own yelp cutting into the air of the locker room. He stumbled backward, clutching his nose, blood dripping onto the concrete floor below. Akk hadn’t even seen the movement, or heard the impact, but he pieced together that the intervener had just punched the boy square in the face.
The boys scrambled away from their row of lockers, huddling around the boy who had been punched, muttering something like, “crazy bastard” as they ushered him toward the infirmary. The intervener, Aye, if Akk had heard correctly, just smoothed out the wrinkles of his own school shirt, bending over to pick up Akk’s that had been discarded on the locker room floor.
“Here,” Aye offered the shirt back to him, as Akk stared, wide-eyed in disbelief.
“Why did you…” Akk stammered, tentatively accepting his crumpled shirt and pulling it over his arms.
“Because they’re assholes,” Aye shrugged. “They deserved it.”
Akk just nodded, choosing not to question his savior too much as he fastened the buttons with shaking fingers.
“You have to fight back sometimes,” Aye added, leaning a shoulder against the lockers. “Otherwise, they’ll think it’s okay to keep messing with you.”
“Got it,” replied Akk, quietly. He didn’t know how to fight, but that wasn’t something he cared to share with the stranger.
“My uncle says violence is never the answer, but for some people, it’s the only language they know how to speak,” Aye continued, undeterred by Akk’s clear discomfort. “So you should learn how to land a punch. Just one really good one will get them to back off, usually. Lets them know you’re more trouble than it’s worth.”
Akk just stared back at him, appreciative of his advice, but unsure of the reason he was giving it.
“I’m Aye, by the way,” he grinned, stretching out a hand between them to offer a handshake. Akk accepted it cautiously. “If you ever need my services again, just let me know.”
Akk didn’t respond, didn’t even offer his own name, just stared, and nodded. Aye seemed to take that as his cue to leave, and released Akk’s hand as he spun on his heel and exited the locker rooms after giving Akk one final, studious once-over.
Akk would not, in fact, end up needing his services for the rest of the year. He’d taken his advice, learned how to punch, and hard, too, and managed to avoid most of the bullying for his remaining time at that school. What lingered in his mind, however, was the feeling he’d gotten deep in the pit of his stomach the day that Aye had punched that boy in the locker room for him. It was a completely new emotion, one he couldn’t name, one that fell somewhere between respect and admiration, perhaps. It was one that festered deep in his gut long after the boy had left.
He didn’t know why he’d felt so nervous as Aye lectured him on the importance of self-defense. He didn’t know why the words he wanted to say seemed to get caught somewhere in the back of his throat. He didn’t know why his skin felt like it was on fire as he’d held his hand in that lingering handshake, leaving behind a heat that smoldered beneath the surface for hours after their encounter.
He didn’t know why, and thankfully, he never had to figure it out, because after that day, he never came across Aye again at that school, and he thought he never would again.
Until that day at Suppalo, when Ayan’s eyes bored into him with the indignation of a stranger, leaving Akk to wonder what the hell happened to the kind, brave boy he’d met all those years ago.
After that, all he’d ever felt toward Ayan was annoyance at best, and downright rage at worst. Those, at least, were emotions he knew how to name.
Akk had finished his senior year as the valedictorian of Suppalo, and had received the coveted ‘Best Boy’ award that came with a scholarship to the school of his choosing and a framed certificate, signed by the school’s superintendent. He’d achieved all his goals he carried at Suppalo, but Akk was haunted by the fact that Ayan was so close on his tail, that he’d only surpassed him by a hair’s width, far too close for comfort.
He had done some things he wasn’t exactly proud of to maintain the orderliness and discipline that the previous Head Prefects that came before him had built. But he’d done it, he survived the year without so much as a scrape or bruise or disciplinary hearing to prove he’d been anything less than a perfect student, the ideal candidate to represent their school. His actions had lessened the chaos on campus, had made Chadok’s aggressive scoldings and disappointed glances more infrequent, and with those results, Akk knew the risk had been worth it, as much as it weighed on his conscience.
But all of it was behind him now… The protests, Chadok, the suffocating pressure, the weight of expectations, the constant thorn in his side named Ayan. Never again would Akk have to look any of them in the eye. He was free to start a new beginning to a new life in which the weight of the world no longer rested on his shoulders alone.
He was finally free to start over, and everything would be absolutely perfect.
“Guys, please, you have to go with me. This one’s even in English, so you’ll understand some of it, and there’ll be captions…”
Wat was begging Akk and Kan to accompany him to the university Film Club’s first meeting, where they’d be screening some foreign indie flick that no one but Wat would ever have any interest in sitting through.
“No way, man, you’re on your own,” Kan said, shoving him lightly. “Last time you dragged me into a theater, I watched some lady dance in front of a mirror for two hours. Not happening.”
“That was art,” Wat protested. Then, he turned his attention to Akk, hoping he’d get more favorable results from pestering the taller boy. “Akk?”
“This’ll be good for you, Wat,” Akk said, patting his head condescendingly. “Going alone will help you branch out. Make some friends who share a common interest.”
“You guys are the actual fucking worst,” Wat groaned. “Maybe I’ll make some new friends who actually support my dreams.”
“Of course we support your dreams, buddy,” said Kan, slinging an arm over Wat’s shoulders as they walked toward the campus student center. “Wasting three hours of my Saturday, however… that, I can’t support.”
Kan and Akk broke into laughter, Wat shoving Kan’s weight off his side with a heavy push, even chuckling a bit himself.
“I’ll remember this next time one of you asks me to do something,” Wat muttered, though there was no real bitterness in his tone.
It was honestly a miracle the three of them had ended up attending the same university. Akk had received the best scholarships here, so much so that it even covered the cost of his housing, and he would have to be an idiot to turn that down in favor of accumulating student debt anywhere else.
Kan’s parents didn’t trust him to stray too far from home, and they liked being able to keep an eye on his whereabouts... and his bank account. Akk couldn’t blame them, either; he knew his friend’s impulse control was never his strongest trait, and he didn’t want to imagine the chaos Kan could get into if not for the promise of weekly visits from his parents.
Wat’s parents had surprisingly come around to the idea of letting him study film, but if you asked Akk, he thought they were most likely secretly hoping Wat would get burned out in his first year and eventually decide to switch to a more ‘sensible’ major. Akk knew they were wrong, though; he had never seen Wat’s eyes light up about anything the way they did when he was describing the plot of the latest indie film that had caught his attention.
The three of them strolled past an area equipped with picnic benches, each with groups of strangers huddled around the stone furniture. Some of them laughed loudly, some buried their noses in textbooks, and some seemed to be having heated debates about something just out of Akk’s earshot. It felt good, Akk thought, to walk through an area where students gathered, and to not know their names, not recognize their faces, not have to wonder at the back of his mind whether they were up to no good. Here, if those students had nefarious intentions of breaking some asinine campus rule, it was absolutely none of Akk’s business; it was someone else’s problem to deal with.
To Akk’s right side, Wat’s footsteps slowed to a halt.
“Holy shit, I think that’s…”
Akk looked in the direction he stared, but saw nothing other than the crowds of nameless students coming and going. Kan, however, seemed to lock eyes with whatever it was that Wat had spotted. A wily grin spread across his face.
“No fucking way… that’s Aye.”
It was at that moment Akk’s eyes finally settled on the figure his two friends had been gawking at. Across the seating areas stood a familiarly tiny frame, though now dressed in the white button-down and black slacks that were required for first years, but still with the same beaten-up black hoodie Akk had spent the past year and a half despising. His blood ran cold.
“Don’t you fucking dare…” Akk warned, already seeing the way Wat was stretching his arm up, waving to the boy.
Wat just grinned at him, a flash of pure evil dancing across his features. “Remember when I said what would happen the next time you asked me for a favor?”
“Wat, seriously, don’t—”
But Akk’s protests were too late.
“Aye! Over here!” Wat called.
Much to Akk’s horror, those beady, round eyes glanced up and flashed with recognition. It was hard to tell with the distance that stretched between them, but Akk could have sworn he saw Ayan smirk directly at him, that infuriatingly smug look that always told Akk that he had won, that Akk had lost to him, yet again.
Ayan leisurely jogged over to where the three of them stood.
“Hey guys,” Ayan said, sparing the two of them no more than a glance before his eyes settled on Akk’s horrified expression. “Hi, Akk.”
His voice seemed to lower two whole octaves as he greeted Akk specifically. It sent a shiver down Akk’s spine, and the taller boy did his best to hide it, but he wasn’t so sure he’d concealed it all that well, because Akk recognized that quick glimpse of victory that passed through Ayan’s eyes every time he was unable to stifle his bodily reactions of irritation around him.
Akk just rolled his eyes and stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, giving a stiff, firm nod of acknowledgement. “Ayan.”
Ayan’s face twisted in a pouting look of mock injury. “Oi, Akk,” he whined. “Still calling me that after all this time? I thought we were closer than that. All our friends call me Aye.”
“I’m not your friend,” Akk glared. “And I don’t want to be close to you.”
Akk ignored the way Kan elbowed him in the ribs, instead continuing to stare daggers down at Ayan’s smug face, never once willing to yield to the shorter boy.
“I didn’t know you decided to go here,” Wat said, shifting the conversation away from the building tension between the two.
“To be fair, it was a pretty last-minute decision,” replied Aye, finally breaking the staredown happening between him and Akk. “I thought about studying in England, but I decided not to stay too far from home.” His eyes drifted back to Akk’s. “But now that I’m here, I can see it was definitely the right decision.”
“What are you studying?” Kan piped in, not allowing Akk the chance to respond to that little dig. “I’m studying business, and Wat’s in film, of course. Akk’s doing political science.”
“What a coincidence,” Ayan smiled widely at Akk, revealing a perfect set of straight, white teeth that his plump, rosy lips curled around. It set a fire burning beneath Akk’s skin. “I’m in political science, too. Guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, Prefect.”
Akk balled his fists against his sides, knuckles turning white with the exertion. He would have preferred Ayan to sneer at him, glare at him, anything other than the look of absolute delight written across his punchable face that was currently directed his way.
“I’m not a Prefect anymore,” Akk corrected from behind gritted teeth. “So you can stop with the condescension. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
The pout returned to Ayan’s face. “Aww, but where’s the fun in that? Isn’t it nice having a familiar face on campus?”
No, it most certainly was not. The sea of unfamiliar faces was what Akk had been looking forward to the most about university. But of course, Ayan always seemed to be best at worming his way into situations he was unwanted, always possessing some freakish, otherworldly ability to crumble all of Akk’s plans to the ground on which they were so carefully built.
“Fuck you, Shortstop.”
Akk’s fists were trembling at his sides now, the rage inside of him rapidly nearing its boiling point. Ayan just smiled wider, took a step forward into Akk’s personal space, and for one, barely-noticeable moment, his eyes flickered down to Akk’s lips that were curled in a grimace.
“Only if you ask nicely, Bigfoot.”
Oh, that did it. Akk felt every nerve in his body catch fire, the heat climbing from head to toe, smoke filling his senses and clouding his ears until all surrounding noises sounded distant and muffled. He opened his mouth to speak, but it quickly snapped shut again as he felt both Kan and Wat take each of his arms and drag him backwards, away from the challenge written so clearly in Ayan’s sparkling, amused eyes.
“I think that’s our cue to go,” Wat said, then turned to call over his shoulder. “Later Aye, see you around!”
If Ayan responded, Akk didn’t hear it.
It had been a week since Akk had the misfortune of seeing a glimpse of Ayan, thankfully enough. His first week of classes had gone off without a hitch, and they were blessedly Ayan-free. After that serendipitous meeting on the quad, Akk had begun to think, or hope, rather, that he had never even seen him at all, that the vision of Ayan was merely a nightmare, a hallucination conjured by his own conscience’s affinity for inventing worst-case scenarios.
It was a Friday afternoon, and Akk sat patiently in the middle of a long row of desks, about three quarters of the way towards the back of the expansive room, waiting for the professor to arrive to begin the first lecture of his international politics class. It was the perfect spot in the room; Akk had the perfect vantage point, the perfect distance away from the board, and it was the perfect way to begin the class for a successful rest of the semester.
“Good afternoon, class,” the professor began, strolling in from the side of the room, setting down a briefcase before taking his spot on the podium. Akk eagerly examined his demeanor. He was middle-aged, with grey hair peppering the sides of his pompadour, and he was rather skinny, with a wiry, exhausted appearance. A thick pair of bifocals dangled around his neck from a silver chain.
“Welcome to International Policies 101,” the professor continued. “I am Dr. Song Rattanakorn, but you can call me Dr. Song, Mr. Song, Professor Song, I’m not picky. I will try to learn all of your names, but there are nearly a hundred of you, so please don’t hold it against me.”
Quiet giggles tittered across the lecture hall. Akk chuckled, too, some of his nerves quelled upon discovering that Dr. Song seemed to be fairly laid-back.
“This class will be largely discussion-based,” Dr. Song continued. “For some of you, that may seem daunting, but don’t worry just yet. I operate under the philosophy that there are no wrong answers, only misinformed ones.”
Akk felt his stomach settle, and his body relaxed into the hard plastic of the desk chair. He was confident this class would be a breeze.
His moment of placidity was short-lived, doomed from the start. Akk should have known better than to think he’d be rewarded with peace of mind for any longer than one fleeting moment.
Dr. Song’s eyes focused toward the back of the classroom, where there was a quiet commotion happening at the door.
“Ah, welcome in,” Dr. Song called out, as the students tracked his eye movement, looking to where the sudden interruption was coming from. “I’m glad you’ve found my classroom. Take a seat, we were just getting started.”
Akk’s eyes followed in the direction of the other students’, some twisting their bodies around in their chairs to get a better view. Akk’s pulse slowed to a near-halt. He cursed under his breath, whipping his head back towards the front of the room, praying to whatever higher power may be looking down on his misfortune that he could just, for once in his life, go unnoticed by the small figure currently bowing in apologetic wais for the disruption.
He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that maybe, if he couldn’t see it, that it couldn’t see him, either. But his pleas to the heavens, of course, went unanswered, and he imagined that at least several religions’ deities were currently laughing in his face. He heard the seat next to him groan with the weight of a body sitting in it. An all-too familiar sun-baked smell filled his senses, and he couldn’t bear to crack open his eyes, afraid that his worst nightmare would be staring back at him if he did.
The smell grew stronger, and he felt the warmth of a pair of lips radiating off his ear. A hot breath ghosted his neck, and he could hear the smirk that it came from, although he didn’t dare look directly at it.
“Miss me?”
The warmth retreated as soon as it came and Akk shuddered. His eyes snapped open in his rage, confirming what he already knew to be true: none other than Ayan, his greatest mortal enemy, was sitting in the spot directly next to him, looking smug as the day he met him.
In a flustered, hurried motion, Akk gathered his notebooks in a pile and hastily grabbed the pen that had been resting on the desk. No sooner than his rear end had lost contact with the chair, a determined hand wrapped around his wrist, dragging him back down into his seat with an audible ‘thunk.’
“You can’t leave. Don’t distract others.”
Akk huffed, knowing Ayan was right, as much as it pained him to admit. He couldn’t just flee, as much as every nerve in his body was screaming at him to do exactly that.
“Then don’t distract me,” Akk whispered back, rolling his eyes at the way a pleased grin curled Ayan’s lips. He fixed his gaze toward the front of the room for the remainder of the hour and a half that was left of the class, and he was proud to say he didn’t turn and look even once, even when he felt the simmering heat of Ayan’s eyes boring into his side.
Then, finally, finally, the minute hand of the clock signaled his merciful release.
“That’s all for today, class, please make sure you—”
Akk didn’t stick around long enough to hear the tail end of the professor’s sentence, although he really would have liked to know what it was he was supposed to make sure to do. But there wasn’t time, not now, not when he needed to make as quick of an escape as possible from the classroom, from the tension building in his head, from Ayan.
He burst through the doors without looking back. He had to elbow his way out of several of his disgruntled peers, but it didn’t matter, he’d apologize later, if he had the chance. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be back here. He’d transfer out of the class immediately, if he could; and if he couldn’t, he’d find a way to transfer schools, transfer countries, transfer lives, if it meant never running into Ayan again.
Akk didn’t even reach the end of the busy hallway when he felt fingers curl around his wrist, his own momentum being used against him to pull him stumbling into what appeared to be an abandoned, unused office.
“What the fuck—” he protested, moving to push his way out of the space, but Ayan stood defiantly between him and the door, unmoving. “What the fuck is your problem, Ayan?”
“No, Akk,” Ayan spat back at him, shoving his arms away as he tried to grab onto the door handle just behind Ayan’s back. “What the fuck is your problem? When are you going to talk to me?”
“Never, if I can help it,” Akk muttered, lunging again to get at the handle. Ayan caught his wrist, backing him away from the door altogether, until Akk’s back was pressed flush against the wall behind him.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Ayan asked, his eyes searching the taller’s face, with something in his voice giving way to an exhausted quality, a hint that this was a genuine question, that he really didn’t know the torment he’d been plaguing Akk with these past years.
If he really, truly, couldn’t guess, Akk wasn’t about to tell him.
“Why did you come to this school?” Akk shot back, answering the question with his own question. “You’re rich enough. You could’ve gone anywhere. Why here?”
Something shifted in Ayan’s eyes, just the quickest flash of vulnerability before it was replaced once again by the steely hardness Akk was used to.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Ayan retorted, mirroring Akk’s unwillingness to give any real answer. “You don’t own the school. Kan and Wat go here. Why can’t I?”
“That’s different,” Akk replied sternly. “They’re my friends. You’re not.”
“So only your friends are allowed to go here? I pay tuition, just like everyone else. I have the right to be here just as much as anyone.”
Akk huffed an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. “I told you to stay out of my way.”
“When have I ever done what you told me to do?”
The smirk that had been burned into Akk’s memory by now crept into Ayan’s face once again as he gazed up at him. Akk recognized that look. It was the same as the street cats that roamed the alleys of his hometown, toying sadistically with their injured prey until they were satisfied, before finally biting down and finishing the job with a merciful death.
Akk said nothing, choosing not to dignify that question with a response. His jaw twitched with anger, feeling electricity climb in bursting sparks up his spine. His hands moved to push past him, but Ayan was faster, his arms darting out to box Akk in against the wall, where he had no hope of escape.
“Doesn’t it get exhausting, being you?” Ayan asked softly, dark, beady eyes raking over his features like he would find some vulnerable confession there that Akk was unwilling to give him. “You’ll explode one day, being so emotionally constipated. Wouldn’t it feel good to let it out, just once?”
Akk glared down at him. “Not everyone is so shameless,” he gritted out. “Some of us have dignity. I’m not like you. I don’t want to be like you.”
Ayan’s eyebrows furrowed, that mocking pout pursing his lips.
“But you haven’t even tried.” His voice dropped, and it felt like the air pressure inside the darkened office did, too.
Suddenly, Akk was far too aware of their proximity. He could feel the heat of Ayan’s body getting closer to his, the small puffs of air from Ayan’s lungs against his windpipe. A bead of sweat tickled the hairs at the nape of his neck as it rolled down beneath his shirt collar. Akk’s breath hitched, begging for escape from the smell of Ayan, the smell of a burning hot sidewalk in the middle of a summer afternoon, the smell of a sun-bleached blanket after being left out to dry for a little too long. It was suffocating him.
Akk’s heart clamored in his chest, echoing against the walls of his ribcage. What was happening to him? What sort of witchcraft or hypnosis was Ayan using that made him lose his focus, made him unable to think, breathe, even move? He had never been able to identify this burning sensation in his heart, so he had named it hatred, and it became something that lived there, tucked beneath his sternum, only ever reemerging whenever Ayan dared to force his way into Akk’s proximity.
It was suddenly all too much. Akk felt the burn of infuriated tears stinging behind his eyes, and he’d be damned before he ever let Ayan see him cry.
With two hands and all of his remaining willpower, Akk pressed his hands against Ayan’s chest and gave a mighty shove, sending the smaller boy stumbling back into the forgotten, vacant desk behind him. Ayan’s eyes were wide, looking genuinely surprised, and he didn’t try to fight back against Akk, not this time.
Akk slung his backpack over his shoulders and his fists trembled where they gripped the straps so tightly it was like he was afraid they’d fall off. He moved past Ayan, who sat blinking up at him, still braced against the desk he’d been pushed into, and Akk’s fingers stilled over the door handle.
He inhaled a shaky breath, still not turning to face Ayan, unwilling to risk spilling a tear that was threatening to breach his eyelids.
“Just… stay away from me. Please.”
It wasn’t a command, given with the authority he’d masked himself with back at Suppalo, but rather, it was a plea. It was Akk begging for mercy.
The words came out shakier, more broken than he’d intended them to, but their meaning was clear.
Akk didn’t know what happened to him every time Ayan was around, and he hated it. He hated feeling like this, feeling so out of control, feeling unable to predict his own body’s reactions to the boy’s presence. Ayan had some unnamed power over him that not even the Suppalo protesters did, not even Chadok, with all of his insults and yelling and thinly veiled threats to his future. He didn’t know what he’d do if Ayan got too close, and it was that uncertainty that terrified him right down to the core of his being.
Akk swung the door behind him shut with a reverberating slam that echoed into the hallway around him, but he didn’t look back. He couldn’t look back.
Whether Ayan had followed him out after his dramatic exit, or whether he’d stayed behind that shut door, blinking dumbfounded into the space of his absence, was none of his business. Akk had no idea of Ayan’s reaction, or whether there was one at all; whether he was wearing that dumb smirk again, or if his face showed any semblance of being affected by Akk’s rare display of weakness.
And Akk didn’t care to ever find out.