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Ollie slides open the door with a yank, stepping out into the cold. “What the hell, Kimi?”
Kimi, to his credit, doesn’t flinch as Ollie slams the door shut before marching over, towards where he’s sat in the metal deck chair.
“No, seriously. What the hell?”
Kimi doesn’t respond, just continues to admire the view of the waterfront. It’s a nice view, even with it being close to midnight, the waves below dark as they lap calmly at the sand. In the distance, the bright lights of the city shine, telegraphing where the fireworks will soon fly out from.
When Kimi finally does chance a glance back up, it’s to the other boy looming over him, arms crossed over his chest. Ollie’s already tall enough when they’re both standing, but with Kimi in the chair? The difference is practically comical.
Ollie’s staring down at him expectantly, and Kimi can only shrug. “I needed some air.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Ollie scoffs. “Fucking freezing air you’re getting, though.”
“It’s nice. Calming, even,” Kimi says, drumming his fingers on the armrest. Then he pulls out the deck chair beside his, gesturing at it. “If you’re going to yell at me, you may as well do it sitting down.”
Ollie eyes him, before taking the seat with a huff. The worn metal creaks under his weight, as he relents, “I’m not going to yell at you, Kimi. Gabi might—I think you ruined his favourite shirt—but I’m not going to.”
Kimi stiffens, hand tensing into a fist, and he stares back out over the coastline. He doesn’t say anything.
“I just want to understand what’s going on,” Ollie tries, some of the irritation bleeding out of his tone. It’s replaced with something softer, something rawer, something more delicate. “You know, drinking games are supposed to be fun.”
“No,” Kimi replies, flatly, “they’re meant to make you drunk.”
“Which is fun,” Ollie counters, chuckling a little. “But even if it’s not, then…” He thumbs towards the door. “…it’s still pretty hard to get drunk when your champagne’s all over the front of someone.”
“It was an accident, okay? I didn’t mean to, and I will apologise to Gabi.” Kimi shuffles in his chair, muttering under his breath, “Next year. Even though he started it.”
There’s a brief pause of silence. Then, Ollie says, carefully—
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“I like him.”
“You don’t act like you do.” Ollie points a finger at Kimi’s chest, who swats it away dismissively. “Your mood shifts when you’re around him. Or even just when I mention him. I’ve noticed, he’s noticed, we’ve all noticed. So what the hell’s going on, Kimi?”
“Nothing,” Kimi grits out. “Nothing is happening, Ollie. I like Gabi. He is your friend. He is our friend. I just spilled my drink. My bad.”
Ollie’s face betrays that he clearly doesn’t believe that. He leans forwards, hands steadied on his legs, and sounds almost wounded as he whispers, “Is it— Is it cause of what he said? Do you, like, have a problem with him and me—?”
“No,” Kimi answers, quickly, his pitch high. His eyes are still focused on the distant city lights. “No, it’s fine that you two— Whatever. That is fine.”
“Cause you should know, it didn’t mean anything,” Ollie insists. “Seriously. It was just us messing around, it was ages ago, I mean— I don’t even remember it, Kimi. I’d forgotten all about it until Gabi brought it up again.”
“Of course,” Kimi says, the reflections off of the water playing over his face—curving under his clean-shaven jaw, stretching across his tan skin, sinking into the dark of his eyes.
Ollie takes it all in, then swallows. “There’s— There’s nothing between me and Gabi, Kimi. You do know that, right? We’re just friends.”
It’s Kimi’s turn to scoff, turning in his chair to face Ollie. “Yes. That’s why you are always talking to him. Always busy with him, being on call with him, or off to visit him in his apartment, or— Or—” He falls back, throwing up his hands in front of him. “And it’s fine. You are allowed to do all of that. You want to spend all your time with him, always be with him, it’s— It’s fine.”
“Doesn’t sound fine,” Ollie comments, laying his elbow on the armrest, laying his chin on his fist. “Sounds kind of like you don’t like Gabi.”
“I like Gabi!” Kimi exclaims.
“So what is the problem?”
Kimi shakes his head at him, before turning right back out to the view. “Impossible,” he spits out. “You are impossible. Everything about you is just—”
“Oh, I’m impossible?” Ollie repeats, incredulous. “You walk out here, after almost starting a fight over Never-Have-I-Ever, and—” He lowers his voice, drains the anger out before continuing, “Kimi, you’ve just been— You’ve been distant, lately. You haven’t been around as much, and it feels like when you are, you’re just… not present. I mean, I had to drag you to this party. You love Lando’s parties, especially his New Year’s Eve ones!”
“Yes, well.” Kimi glares down at his lap. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?” Ollie asks. “I just want to help you, and— Kimi, I’m sick of this.”
“I am too,” Kimi answers, kicking back, combing his fingers through his hair roughly. “I am too.”
The sounds of the party still raging on inside bleed out through the walls as silence creeps over them. It’s nothing but the muffled yells of someone—probably Isack—belting out the lyrics to a song, mixing with the lapping of the inky water, overlayed with both of their unsteady breaths.
Kimi’s the one to finally break the quiet. “You never— You never noticed it, did you?”
“Noticed what?”
Kimi sneers. “No, of course not. How could you have noticed? I have known you for how many years, now? And it’s been the same, for every single one. There wouldn’t have even been a difference. No wonder you did not notice.”
“Noticed what, Kimi?” Ollie demands. “What did I not—”
“You never noticed how I looked at you?” Kimi interrupts. “Not once? Like you were the only person in the world? Because everybody else sure did. I think it was Charles who made a game out of it, ‘how many times can Kimi give Ollie heart-eyes before he notices?’ He lost count in the hundreds, by the way.”
Ollie’s mouth falls open, is left open dumbly as Kimi continues.
“You never noticed how I talked to you? Always laughing, and smiling, because oh, everything is just so much better with you around. Parties, late nights, plane rides—which you know I hate. So you just… hold my hand the entire flight to Bologna, when we went to my cousin’s wedding, and you never noticed how sweaty and flustered and nervous I was and merda, it was embarrassing—”
The edges of Ollie’s lips twitch. His hand does too, as it falls against the metal. “Kimi, I—”
“You never noticed how I felt about you?” At that, Kimi’s voice breaks a little, and when Ollie looks, it’s to the beginning of tears in the other boy’s eyes. “You never noticed how I was all stupid and butthurt when you were not around? Spending all your time with Gabi, while I was just left at the apartment—at our apartment. You never noticed how I just fucking wanted you, every second of the day?” He shakes his head again, and then stands abruptly. The chair scrapes against the deck behind him as he walks over to the railing, gripping it with white-knuckled fists, and he hisses, “Of course not. It’s stupid. All of it was stupid.”
Ollie also stands from his chair, moving over to Kimi’s side, who this time does flinch—and ignores Ollie, instead biting his lip as he watches for where the fireworks are meant to start.
“All of it, stupid. I’m stupid. I was always going to end up back here— Back on this fucking deck, at Lando’s fucking New Year’s Eve party. Even after last time, when I came out here before, because I had to get away from you before I did something that ruined everything. When I told myself, in the fucking cold, that I had to finally let you go, move on at last— Who was I kidding? I was gone the moment I met you. A single year of barely trying was never going to undo that.”
Ollie half reaches out his arm, but pulls it back. His eyes stare intently at Kimi’s silhouette, and his body is practically shaking—and not just from the chill. “Trying… to do what?”
“My New Year’s Resolution, last year,” Kimi admits, staring out across the water, “was to get over you.”
“Oh,” Ollie says. Then he blinks, as if struck over the head. “That’s— That’s inconvenient. Cause mine was to get under you.”
Kimi freezes, before slowly turning his head to look at Ollie—who cuts him off before he can protest.
“I stood in there, last time,” he recalls, nodding towards the door. “I was feeling sick, but George was already throwing up in the bathroom, so I had to hug a bin in the kitchen instead. Gabi tried to comfort me, but I was just asking where you were, I was sad I couldn’t find you—”
“I was on the deck,” Kimi utters, blankly, eyes wide. “This deck. Ollie—”
“Cause I’d realised it, by then,” Ollie barrels on. “Why I was at my happiest around you. Why I always felt so drawn to you. Why I felt so safe, and comfortable, around you. Christmas, when you got me that dumb shirt with your face on it, and—God, I can’t believe that’s what set me off—I realised that I only wanted you. Just you. Forever.”
Kimi stares at him, intently, and his hands ease off railing. “Ollie—”
“But you were out here, on the deck, apparently, and all I could think was I missed you. Everyone was counting down to the new year, and I didn’t know where you were. You weren’t with me, and I couldn’t get to you, because I was throwing up in a bin. So I garble some nonsense to Gabi, something like ‘I’m gonna get him this year, He’s gonna be mine. Cause I love him.’ And then I think I threw up again.”
Kimi laughs, but it’s silent and choked. He wipes a little at his face, as Ollie carries on.
“And I tried to do that. I really tried,” he explains. “I bought you all of those flowers for your room, told you it was just to brighten up the space—like it needed more brightening. I organised your whole birthday dinner, cause I knew that you wanted to do something but thought you’d be too busy. I flew out with you to see your family when your cousin got married, and begged you to let us stay for a bit longer, so we could enjoy ourselves in Italy for a little.”
Ollie turns a shade redder and, scratching the back of his neck, confesses, “I, uh— I even fell on top of you that one time at the club? Then didn’t let go? All so that girl who was totally going to ask for your number would back off, which, uh— Sorry. About that.”
Kimi gasps. “Bastardo! I knew that you did not ‘just trip onto me’!”
“Yeah, I know, I wasn’t very convincing. I was pretty drunk.” Ollie hugs his chest, his arms covered in goosebumps. “Gabi told me as much. Cause I told him everything, he helped me plan all of this stuff—it’s why I talked to him so much. He was the only one I could tell about me and you, and—” He stares down at the wooden boards beneath his feet. “After a while, I started to think that maybe it was pointless. Cause I was no closer to you than I was in Lando’s kitchen, last year, hunched over that bin. I thought maybe you just didn’t want me back.”
Kimi grabbing Ollie’s hand with his own makes him startle, but he smiles as he lifts his eyes back to him. They’re both grinning, as Kimi says, “If it was not obvious, you were wrong.”
“Yeah, well.” Ollie interlocks their fingers, wanders his gaze down just to marvel at their joined hands. “You were wrong to try and get over me.”
“I agree,” Kimi replies. “You know what? Resolutions are overrated—” An alert goes off on his phone, and they hear their friends begin to chant inside, a steady chorus counting down. “—though on that note, I do have a new one.”
The countdown is sung out in unison, from ten, to nine, to eight—
“Yeah? What is it?” Ollie asks, as Kimi’s other hand falls on his shoulder. His own free hand moves to the other boy’s hip.
—to seven—
“To kiss you.”
—to six—
“Kiss me?” Ollie echoes.
—to five—
Kimi shrugs, beaming. “If you say so.”
—to four—
Kimi removes his hand from Ollie’s and cups his jaw, forced to crane his neck up to accommodate the difference in height. Ollie goes easily, and their noses bump, so he places a hand in Kimi’s curls and tilts the angle.
—to three, to two, to one—
Then their lips finally meet, perfectly fitting against each other. The cries of “Happy New Year!” from inside fade away into white noise, the rest of the world flickering out—it becomes nothing but fingers twirling in hair, hands smoothing over a jawline, palms fanning across the fabric of a dress shirt with its two top buttons open. It’s only the fluttering of lashes, the taste of champagne and salt and sweat, the heat of one mouth on the other.
Ollie slides his tongue over Kimi’s, who whines in the back of his throat as he pulls the other boy in closer. There’s distant pops, and bright flashes beyond the black of his eyelids, and Kimi breaks the kiss just so he can see the distant fireworks paint colour over Ollie’s face. Blue, green, red, gold, pink, all booming and strewn in sparkling streamers above the city lights, shining in the other boy’s eyes—and the glisten of his lips, which Kimi quickly reattaches his own to.
It's not until the fireworks have died down, and there’s a final cheer heard from across the water, that they pull apart. They don’t go very far, keeping their foreheads together, as Ollie laughs.
“What?” Kimi breathes, fondly.
“You were jealous of Gabi,” Ollie states, and smiles brighter as Kimi huffs.
“You were jealous of some random woman at a club,” he points out. “That I wasn’t even interested in, if you care.”
“I do,” Ollie hums. “And you were jealous of Gabi. You stormed out of the party because he admitted, during Never-Have-I-Ever, that we drunkenly kissed one time. Ages ago. Literally so long ago I don’t remember it—”
Kimi’s squeeze on Ollie’s shoulder tightens. “You also talked to him,” he nearly growls, “all the time. Instead of me, who would do anything for you, this whole year. You chose him.”
“I talked to him about how badly I wanted you!” Ollie croons, delight obvious in his voice. “God, I would just monologue to him for hours about your smile, your laugh, your hair, your accent, your hands, your eyes, your ass—”
Kimi leans in to kiss him again, just a small peck. “You ever shut up?”
Ollie grins. “Nope. I didn’t shut up then, and won’t now. I think Gabi’s sick to death of me talking about you, at this point.”
“Good,” Kimi decides, giving him another kiss. “Only talk to me about me from now on. Got it?”
Ollie laughs again, promising, “I’ll make it my new resolution. Not as good as yours, though.”
“I think it’s just as good,” Kimi mutters.
“Even if resolutions are overrated?”
Kimi’s nose scrunches. “I guess. Now help me work on mine a little more?”
Ollie’s already leaning back in. “Gladly.”