Face Reveal

 

@4liceRaven 4 days ago
“Our future kids” yeahh right lol you mean the kids that you’ll have TOGETHER

▴ 1 reply
@quartercube 4 days ago
lmaooooo so true breastie they’re gay af

 

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The lights of the other flats in the building flickered on and off to my left as I ran besides them. I had started moving before I could think twice. My rapid steps echoed down the stairwell before landing on Amaury’s floor. I took a quiet breath and turned my head to the left. And then, just behind the central pillar of the stairwell that was partially blocking my view, I saw the moonlight revealing a silver earring on his left ear. He was there.

My whole world could change if I took one more step.

His hands were firmly attached to the railing, and I saw tears running down his face. He wore a big burgundy sweater and tight jeans which, I had to admit, frankly looked good on his legs. I was still peeking from behind the pillar, waiting for my brain to make a decision. Despite my loud steps coming down earlier, he didn’t seem to have noticed my presence, or had actively decided to ignore it.

I took the terrible noise of several big cars speeding up our street, combined with several people yelling playfully at a party next door, as a good opportunity to take a step.

When I felt sufficiently close, I drew another breath and spoke a single word. “Sorry.”

“Wh—” he sniffed, wiped his face with his arm quickly, and turned towards me. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you there. Who are you? What did you say?”

“I said sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Erm, sorry for… eavesdropping? Sorry for your loss? I don’t know, I heard you crying, and I came down. I was curious. I wanted to help. I’m sorry.” I played with the hem of my sweater. “I don’t want to invade your privacy.”

“Ah. It’s fine. You don’t have to apologise.”

“Yes. I think I have to.”

“Hm. Okay.” He blinked. “You know, your voice sounds familiar.”

Fuck. I stopped midway between him and the nearest escape. “I hear that a lot. Someone once said I sounded like a YouTuber…” Technically, not a lie! I scratched the back of my head and nervously squirmed.

“Ah yes. And your name is?”

“S— Erm… Julien. Julien Peeters.”

“Ah well, I’m Amaury, for what it’s worth. But you knew that; we met earlier in the week, didn’t we?” He smiled.

“Really? Must’ve forgotten, with all the people I met...” That’s it, paint yourself a new life, someone Mandel wouldn’t recognise as Screw.

He laughed. “Right. Yeah, of course.”

Was he doubting me? I certainly hoped not. But there was no room for hesitation, I had to maintain a straight face. After an awkward silence, I walked over to him, put my hand on the railing, averting his gaze — gosh, he was handsome — and asked, “So, what’s the issue?”

“Oh? You sure you want to hear me ramble about my problems? I’m sure you’ve got better things to do tonight.”

“I really don’t. I'm free. If you feel comfortable telling me what’s bugging you, I'm here to lend you an ear.” 

As he collected his thoughts, I latched onto a couple walking down the street that was giggling and probably a bit tipsy. Their precise appearance wasn't really distinguishable from afar, but their voices were distinctively feminine. And the sight of them seemingly enjoying themselves made my heart shrivel a small amount. I wondered briefly what my life would’ve been if I wasn’t so single-minded on YouTube.

“There’s a guy,” he started, and my body tensed up. “I like him, I think. I met him on the internet — I know, it’s weird — we spend so much time chatting, working, and playing together, but this past week, he’s been so distant, and that made me realise… Yeah… I think I just might have developed a crush on him. But I actually don’t know if he likes guys. I mean, I remembered he said he was straight, and he was very adamant on liking girls. And at the same time, he does this thing, you know? I know I shouldn’t take it seriously, but sometimes he says compliments or little jokes; he goes all Schrodinger's flirt. Of course, it probably doesn’t mean anything, and I should just ask him to stop, and yet, I’m left hoping he’s not entirely joking. Because I like him very very much. He’s funny and smart, very talented, and his…” He paused. “And he’s so pretty.”

He had to be talking about me. The story matched perfectly. He liked me? Pretty, me? Why was I feeling so weird about that? Not bad weird. Weird weird. Weird I hadn’t a base reference to compare to. Weird it would be preferable to not think further about it lest I crumble into a somewhat cubic pile of gravel.

Right, he thought I was the friendly feminine neighbour; I couldn’t let my mask slip. I bit the inside of my cheek to ground myself. “I’m so sorry, that sucks. Sounds like he didn’t realise it could be seen as flirting.” I chuckled. “He probably doesn’t have a clue what flirting is — I’m the same. But he shouldn’t’ve left you hanging like that, Mand— um, man…”

He sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But the thing is, I just asked him if it was intended as flirting, like, ten minutes ago. And he said no. So yeah, woe is me, my heart is broken; clueless about flirting or not, the straight dude I like is straight.”

“Maybe— Maybe he chickened out.” What was I saying? I shouldn’t be rooting for someone who was obviously me and obviously straight.

“Oh? You think so?” There was some weird tone that had slipped into his voice, like he sounded amused. I expected him to be a bit hopeful perhaps, but not amused.

“I— I mean, don’t get me wrong. He should’ve asked you how you feel, especially if he knows you’re gay. That was just irresponsible of him. But I also think sometimes people are big dumbasses who use jokes to test things. I’ve seen it on the web, people who use humour to test shitty takes and see what sticks. Depending on how people react, they say it was a joke or not. But often enough, it’s not a joke, even if they back down. It’s just a way for them to afford plausible deniability. Maybe it’s like that, but gay?”

He laughed. “Maybe you’re right, yeah. That would be very him. But he said no directly. That’s what I’ll be sticking to, I don’t want to bother him about that further, and I don’t want to hurt myself further.”

I hadn’t realised he’d nearly closed the gap between us. I turned my head to look at him again. His hands gripped the railing harder for a second before letting go and using them to push himself upright. He clapped them lightly, blowing and rubbing them together. Then he looked me in the eyes. As I felt a blush rise in my cheeks, he cracked a little grin. “Want in?” He tilted his head towards his door. “I have a waffle maker. Do you like waffles? Also, it’s getting really cold.” 

That had to be it: the cold was forcing my body to rush some blood to my face. That’s where the heat was coming from. “I— I don’t want to intrude. I only wanted to make sure you were okay. And now that you’re feeling better, I think I should get… Erm. Running. I was going for a jog.”

He opened his door, then leaned on the side jamb. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. Suit yourself.”

“Okay, yes. I’m going to do exactly that.”

“Nice, have a good muscle wiggle.”

“Yes. For the… muscles. I have to be big.”

He nodded, then did a little finger wave. “Bye, Screw.”

“Bye, Mandel.” I turned back and started walking.

Before I could reach the stairs, I stopped and replayed the last two sentences in my mind. As the realisation finally dawned on me, my eyebrows equipped their elytra, took off, and used fireworks to flow beyond the height limit. “You…” I groaned and did a complete 180. “You! You absolute twat! How long have you known?”

He lifted himself from the door frame. “Since you insisted on apologising, I made the link and found it suddenly very funny.”

“This is torture. You were playing with me!” I whined while pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“I think you owe me that much,” he said, then winked.

I approached him and let out a big breath. “Fuck. Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Please. Come in. I can feel I’m turning into a stray skeleton." He chuckled, then showed me his shaky hand. "Look, my hand is trembling.”

I grumbled and followed him inside his flat. The view that ensued had me a bit shocked, but not surprised. The room was full of posters of French and Belgian punk bands, there were big spreads of rainbow linen hanging on the ceiling, and he had a turntable. Of course he had a turntable. I walked beside his collection of flannels — lots of blacks and reds, and a fair amount of purples — and followed his sign telling me to sit on his bed.

I flopped onto the bed and propped my hands behind my back to steady myself. Damn, his sheets were soft.

For the first time, I could see Mandel’s setup. Two screens, a standard gaming mouse, a very fancy mechanical keyboard with a little screen — he’d always been a big mechanical keyboard nerd — another keyboard for music on one side, a microphone stand on the other, and even some soundproofing foam on the wall behind. The ridiculousness of the situation hit me: he’d been living here for months, maybe more, just under my floor. And I hadn’t made the connection. He hadn’t made the connection. I wasn’t sure our love of noise-cancelling headphones was enough to explain that. Either the soundproofing foam was not a hoax, or the sound isolation in this building was totally on point because I’d screamed big time more than once and he’d heard nothing. Alternatively, we were very dumb.

I rubbed my eyes, then turned to Mandel. “Can I help you with something? I feel like I should help you with something?”

“Yeah, can you take the waffle thingie? It’s under the bed. I don’t have a lot of space here.”

I lowered my head to glance under the bed. “I know, right? I’ve been trying to create the illusion of space by placing a shelf to separate the kitchen area from my bed, but still, this shouldn’t qualify as housing. Ah, found it.” I grabbed the appliance and carried it to the worktop. “Ok, shoo, shoo, now. Let me do the rest.” 

“You know how to make waffles?”

“Yes, I know how to make waffles. Now, you're the one who’s been crying, just put on some music or something and relax. Let mum Screw make you waffles.” I extended my hand to demand the dough he’d been preparing.

He admitted defeat, and I made him waffles.

As he put a vinyl disc on the turntable, I chewed on my thoughts. My mind was a battlefield. There were two wolves inside of me at that moment: a huge scary wolf labelled ‘Mandel is so hot i’m starting to think heterosexuality was invented by psychologists to sell more couple therapies’ and a little cute puppy labelled ‘but i’m straight tho… pleading face emoji, point right emoji, point left emoji.’ Those two metaphorical canine entities were engaged in a ravaging struggle to either destroy or uphold my heterosexuality for what felt like an eternity.

Who am I kidding? I was not

that dense. The big one won in an instant. I’m gay. Or bi? Or something else. But whatever it was, it included Mandel. Schrodinger’s Flirt has collapsed, the cat is alive, and he's crushing bad.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

“You know, I really do think we should non-ironically defend Minecraft as being created by Hatsune Miku. Like, this is the Correct Opinion. Notch is a pitiful little cheap excuse for a man. And I can’t believe there’s still people defending him. Even in the CC group, I think there was that one guy — you know, the one who's a fan of vikings, McGavin or something? — he’s always like, ‘Notch is the creator of Minecraft, we shouldn’t take that away from him’ or something, I don’t remember, I just saw a clip of him saying that the other day. Anyway, did you know his account — Notch’s account, not the viking guy’s one — the account which he originally posted the first Minecraft download on a forum with? It has been hacked and replaced with an Hastune Miku profile picture! It’s perfect. Let’s erase him from history. He can go eat a bag of dicks!” I munched a waffle. Mandel had given me a little stool he usually used to pile records on.

He was sitting on his gaming chair. “Don’t threaten him with a good time! He doesn’t even deserve that,” he observed.

“Right. True, sorry.” I frowned.

“Hah, don’t worry.” He took a bite of his waffle. “Hmm, waffle so good~ Ah, Julien, you’re good at this! The sugar is just perfectly melted. How do you do that?”

It bugged me that he’d switched to my meat name instead of my alias like that, but I didn’t find it appropriate to mention it. It was his night, after all. “Fank youuu. My gad kaught me. I fink I got ghem to just ghe right kemperature, hmmm.”

“Heehee, you know you can swallow before talking? Though actually? Don’t. It’s adorable.”

I coughed, and the waffle bits danced against my palate. The way he said that, the way he looked at me while saying it, and the way I wanted him to say it again, I couldn’t help but blush furiously.

I took some seconds to recover, wiped my mouth of any waffle remnants with a tissue, then made a possibly terrible decision. “Erm. Mandel?”

He cocked his head slightly.

“I think I like you.” It was his turn to turn red. “Like, not just from today, and don’t get me wrong, you’re hot and stuff, but like, you were asking if the jokes were flirting earlier, and yeah, I’ve decided they were. I was flirting with you. Sorry for ever having made you think otherwise.” He displayed a block of redstone kind of red. “So, erm. I’d like to—”

“God yes, Julien. The things you said earlier, that was so... You’re so… Ugh! I— I like you too," he stuttered. "Would it be alright to kiss you right now?”

I nodded fiercely. He took my hands in his, and all the feelings I repressed this past hour — this past year, frankly — started bubbling up my stomach. The way he moved was so attractive, the shape of muscles a little hidden behind chubby skin was so attractive, the rough feeling of his hand now cupping my neck was so attractive, the curls falling in front of his ear as he approached to kiss me were so attractive.

I shut my eyes.

Geez, I had really been missing out. I’d put so many things aside for work. At that moment, I understood it had been a mistake. The past week trying to shove aside everything had been a mistake. I should be doing more of this instead of stressing over my videos. This didn’t ask me to churn out content, just a bit of saliva. This was making me happy.

Joke's on me, I liked him. I'd liked him for a long time. Why that had been so hard to figure out, I'll probably never know. But now that I understood those feelings, it felt so simple. I liked him, and that too was making me happy.

Well, making me happy, yes, until the moment I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the other kisser’s eyes.

At that moment, guilt washed over me. I wasn’t good enough, was I? I didn’t look as good as him. He deserved so much better than me. He was hot, but me? I was a mess of a boy: my body was really average at best, shaggy hair, sharp stubble, constantly slouched. How could he ever find me attractive?

I pulled back. “I don’t think…” I stammered. “I’m feeling weird. I don’t know how you can like me. It’s like you see something I never have, and I’m afraid I never will. Oh god. I’m sorry, I’m dumping my mess on you again. Forget that.”

“Hey, trust me. You’re everything to me. I like you just the way you are, Julien. Come here.”

“Thank you,” I said, tearing up and melting in his hug. “Thank you so much, you’re incredible.”

He held me like that for a while, and I couldn't help but be drawn to those insecurities again. There was something off about everything, but I couldn’t pinpoint its origin. Why was it suddenly appearing? I’d never really felt like that before — but to be fair, I’d never had a serious relationship before either. Was it just me being clueless about relationships, clueless about being gay? Would it fade with time? I shivered when I imagined it wouldn’t, ever. Trying desperately to sway off this sentiment, I took a deep breath and felt a sweet scent. It smelled like a whiff of air coming out of a candy shop, with an accent of raspberry. Mandel’s scent. I tried to focus on that, on him, and on how to make him happy. I squeezed him harder, and the butterflies came back.

“Oh, you really needed this, eh? Touch starved much?” His laugh was confirmed to be even better IRL than online. I felt the rumble run through my own body and his breath in my neck.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

For once, I praised my past self for never having taken the time to cut my hair as he gently started playing with it. Starting at the roots each time, he let strands flow between his fingers again and again, and that felt really good.

I shuddered before finally talking again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mandel, you’re so sweet, I want this moment to never end. Oh, fuck. The recording session is tomorrow, right?”

“It’s in two days, I think.”

“Nah, it’s half past midnight.”

“Nerd.”

“No but really, how are we gonna handle us being… boyfriends?” I asked.

“Boyfriends,” he confirmed, and big smiles took permanent residence on our faces.

I let out a little squeaky sound and hugged tighter for a second before facing him again. “Like, should we talk about it? Make things public?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t be against it. But aren’t you the one who doesn't want to share anything personal?”

“Yeah, exactly. I don’t want to share that, but at the same time, I want you to be able to express things freely, you know?”

“We’ll see. I’m a bit anxious about that. Justin — RockDivine, I don’t know if you know who that is?” I nodded. “Right. Well, we’ve known each other for a while, we did a few collabs and chatted a bit. And I don't know how to put it mildly, but I’m starting to think he’s a bit of a prick. He never said anything offensive to my face. But earlier today, I wanted to do a content check on him, just to be sure, and turns out he’s pretty tame on video, but not on stream. It's not him, directly. It's more his chat that's spewing nonsense, and like, plain homophobia. But he doesn't do anything about it; he even laughs at some of those jokes. The vibe is bleh." He rolled his eyes and stuck out an annoyed tongue. "And Dulip — his girlfriend — would probably side with him no matter what. Both of them have a really huge audience; their opinions are bound to be listened to more than ours. I wouldn’t be comfortable making you face that kind of bullshit. But we could talk about it with Fortybees? I think he’d be chill. Let’s simply not make anything public… yet.”

“Wow. ‘Kay, fair. God, you’ve got the whole YouTuber network figured out. I’m barely aware that sofa is the grandpa one and Rock the popular one.” I gave him a peck on the cheek. I could do that now!

“W— well,” he said, obviously trying to preserve his cool but failing miserably, “I don’t know that much, but if I can help you figure out this group in any shape or form, I’d be glad.”

“Cool. My boyfriend’s cool. Hey, wanna go on a date Saturday night?”