i am so sorry for updating so late, i've been so busy with school and my internship i haven't found any time to write at all ;-;

but yes pls leave ur comments ilysm thank u for reading <3

*

Nick Peterson looks out the single window from the living room. It's sunny.

It's a sunny day when Kaia leaves the apartment, boxes all over their living room.

Ah, no. His living room.

Like in movies, or like apples falling from a tree—the beginning of its existence also means moments leading to its end. Sometimes, they're good, sometimes they're not. Nick and Kaia talked about it last night, and they both agreed this ending was good.

But brushing past each other now, loading her boxes into her friend's truck, they both move away so subtly, and that's also an end.

"You're good?" he asks with a small smile, placing the last box on the flatbed and dusting off his hands.

Kaia nods, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Yeah. Thanks for helping." She sucks in a deep breath, wringing her hands together, and asks him, "It's not...it's not going to be weird, right? You're still my best friend, Nick."

Nick didn't know when he'd stopped loving Kaia. He didn't know when she did.

They're young, they're still in college, they're just about three years into a relationship—Nick's first relationship, and they moved in together too quickly, too hastily, too hopeless and blind to think about it more, too tied to each other—but they loved each other. Fiercely. Faithfully.

It was the only thing they never fought about, but that seemed like such a weak thing under the rest of their weight and exhaustion. There were the fights about whose turn it was to get the groceries, the fights about Kaia seeing more of her friends than him, coming home too late, the fights about the strangers they talked to in every party, and the fights about not making efforts to come to lacrosse games or to photo exhibits. There were fights about wanting to see and experience new things that Kaia wanted and Nick didn't, there were fights about wasting their college years, and fights about graduation, and what Kaia wanted to do after it, and why she didn't want it to still be this.

From today, things that have always been no longer are, and Nick is just...he's tired of fighting. With Kaia and for Kaia.

Kaia's tired, too.

He gives her a smile and a nod. "Yeah. We're both adults, we talked it over last night. It's not going to be weird, I don't want it to be."

They did talk it over last night. If either of them get the Disease after this, the plan was simple: stay away. That's the only plan for victims, too—when it's hopeless for the beloved to return their feelings. Stay away, move countries if you have to, don't look back, fall out of love before you're blind and losing fragments of memory and yourself.

So that was the plan—stay away once one of them starts crying stars.

Otherwise, they stay friends.

Kaia's shoulders slump in relief, and she exhales, grinning. "Yeah. Yeah, me too."

"Be safe," Nick says. He doesn't say goodbye because it isn't, they're still going into finals, and then there's summer—days of getting used to this—and then they're back in school, and it's not goodbye. Not now, not ever.

Kaia steps forward and gives him a hug, snaking her hands around his neck. Nick feels her lips on his skin, and he breathes in, hugs her back. "You too, Nick," she whispers, and then she kisses him on the cheek, and gets in the truck.

In his apartment, it feels emptier. Half-empty shelves, half-empty fridge, half-empty closet. Part of him wants to hate Kaia for that, for invading his space, for making space for her and her things, but it's not Kaia who asked to move in. It's Nick, and it's Nick who willingly put aside his things and his clothes and made space for her.

It was also Nick's fear that made him numb, he supposes. Orion was nearly blind, his brother was dead, and when he said "I love you" to Kaia, it began—he's not sure exactly when—to lose all sound and vibration to his voice. Kaia noticed it, too. She knows his face, his body, his breath sounds, the beats of his heart—and it was impossible not to see the shift in his expression, the dull ways in which he greeted her, the shying away from her touch in bed.

It's not always, but it happened a lot. Mostly from their arguments and screaming and crying—but it was always water when they cried. No stars.

So he thought it would pass. They both thought it would, so Nick didn't really notice how much time did pass, but Kaia did. It moved on too slowly, but she became more herself again. More cheerful, smiling more often like she had been before their fights—but not at Nick. More at her phone, at a distance and at a person Nick couldn't see.

And every time he tried to bring it up, his tongue got tied, and his throat closed up. He didn't know when talking to Kaia, his best friend, became so difficult.

It was one day—one day, after his shift at Mo's, that he decided to come home with her favorite meal and drink and Young Justice ready on the television with their blankets on the couch. They hadn't done that in a while, and Kaia was still at lacrosse practice, and so Nick waited, deciding to get some of his homework done while he did.

But nine came and went and it's been an hour since the end of her training, and there was still no sign of her. Nick banged his head with a hand, cursing himself for not thinking that she might've made plans with her many, many friends—except he was so used to Kaia constantly updating him on her whereabouts that he forgot to ask. That's also one thing that ended, Nick realizes. Kaia had stopped messaging him so regularly.

He tried calling when there was no reply—and Kaia replied to messages quickly, and worry began to take over his body when his calls couldn't go through. Her phone either died or was switched off, and Nick didn't know who she was with—Kaia could be with a million people from campus right now. He called Cassia, he called her study group friends, her classmates—none of them were with her, and Nick realized he didn't have a single number of any of her lacrosse teammates.

Yves was quick to assure him that. "Maybe they just went out for a team building," he said. "Kaia's close with her team, man. I'm sure she'll be back soon, but, uh, you want me to come over in case? Cassia and Orion are here and it's...it's awkward, she just ignored me and they're locked up in his room."

Orion's only been blind a few months. Nick sighed. "No, it's fine. And he might need you, don't leave. Thanks."

It was nearly two hours later that her Benz finally pulled up. Nick let her insert her key into the door, body shaking with anger, all traces of worry burned by it, knowing she was safe and sound.

Her eyes were wide as she stepped in through the door, blinking, taking him in. "Nick, hey. You're still up, I thought you might've gone to bed already."

"Where were you?" he asked quietly, standing up.

Kaia figured out he was mad in a heartbeat. Her brows furrowed and she answered, "Out. With friends. Why are you mad, Nick?"

"You couldn't tell me?" he muttered, hands fisting into balls behind his back. "I was worried." His voice shook.

"I'm sorry for worrying you," she said, dropping her bag on the couch, cutting her gaze back to his. "But my phone's battery was dying so I switched it off, and I turned it on just now—"

"And you couldn't borrow any phone—one phone—from any of your teammates and called me?"

"Nick." Kaia's jaw set. "I didn't think you'd wait, but I'm sorry for worrying you. What were you—why were you waiting, anyway?"

Nick took a deep breath, looking away, gesturing to the couch and the food on the table, now long cold. "I wanted to spend the night together. Have a date. I don't know, we haven't had one in a while."

Kaia looked around. Nick saw her hand clenching around her key.

"I don't know if having one date again is going to fix everything from the past few months," she finally said, staring at him. "We have this, and then what about tomorrow? Are we going to fight again?"

Nick swallowed thickly. "Kaia, I'm sorry, I know it's been difficult, and we're exhausted, but I'm trying, and I just—it's not going to fix everything, but it can be a start, so can we just—"

Kaia's phone rang. In her other hand, she raised it, blinking at the screen, hardness in her face gone.

All the smiles directed to her phone. He bit his lip and asked in a small voice, "Who's that?"

"Just Jordan," she replied, glancing up at him, fingers tapping quickly. "From lacrosse, he just asked me if I got home okay."

So they had spent the evening together. They were doing that a lot the past few weeks.

Nick didn't know what makes him say it, but he does, and it's easy to do that when he's hurt, and exhausted, and just...unhappy. "So you enjoy spending more time with him than me," he says quietly, "and spending time with your friends than me."

"You don't get to do that," Kaia said, setting her phone down on the counter. She stares at him with blankest expression on her face. "You don't get to do that, because when I'm with him, or when I'm with my other friends, they don't tell me they love me and don't mean it. And Nick." She breathed out a humorless laugh, gesturing around the living room. "This feels like living with a stranger instead of my boyfriend."

"I mean it," Nick argued, voice even, still small, a little bit shaky, but he didn't yell. He never yelled. He did, once, and Kaia flinched, and he never did it again. "I do love you. Don't you?"

It was a question he expected she'd answer right away.

But she didn't, and she whispered, "Have you eaten? I'll reheat the food. I already ate but I'm going to make tea and keep you company."

And then Nick watched her go to the kitchen, and he realizes now, when Kaia didn't answer his question, it wasn't because she didn't love him anymore and she didn't know how to say it.

It was because she heard his voice. Heard his fear that she'd stop loving him first.

So he did it first.

And because Kaia knew herself, loved herself enough to know this wasn't what she deserved, she stopped loving him, too.

*

"Cassia said I should look into some support groups," Orion says, downing his shot. "D'you think that would help?"

Yves bunches his hand in his pocket and brings out a brochure. "Here. It's why I do what I do."

"Coward," Nick says.

"You wouldn't last a day blind," Orion agrees, turning to look at Nick, but his gray and colorless—once lively and blue—eyes only land behind Nick's head. "Sorry, man. Where are you?"

"Here." Nick guides his chin to his. "You're good. Hey, can I have two more shots over here?"

Yves rolls his eyes and sets the brochure in front of Orion. "Knock yourself out."

Orion takes the paper with one hand, palm spread open, and slides it back to him. "Can't read, dumbass."

"Right, sorry." Yves clears his throat, taking it back. "So. We have the North Aiken Foundation for the Blind. Mm, sounds fun. Oh, EyeCare WeCare Foundation Inc., very considerate, kind of witty if you ask me. Hilde Perkins Program, Brickerton International Council for People with Visual Impairment..."

Orion takes the brochure, moves one finger along the paper, eyes blankly staring ahead, and then stops. "There. Which one?"

"Hilde Perkins," Nick tells him, leaning over and nodding.

Yves pouts. "Really? But I liked the EyeCare WeCare."

Nick rolls his eyes. "Good reviews. Counseling involves training in independent travel and mobility, use of technology—"

"Other than calls?" Yves cuts in curiously, grinning, looking at it, too.

"Lessons in Braille reading and writing—all to help you become a functioning member of society again," Nick finishes, pushing one shot glass to his friend.

Orion takes it, and he laughs, forehead resting on his hand, swaying the shot around. "I can't believe I'm looking into support groups because I'm blind. I'm fucking blind."

"You're stupid. Fucking stupid," Yves corrects, clinking their glasses together, and then he throws his head back and takes the shot.

In the middle of the space between tipsy and wasted, Orion's phone rings, and he fumbles with it, almost falling off the stool, and hands it to Yves. "Who's it?" he grumbles, leaning on Nick.

Yves squints. "Oh, it's your firlgriend. Ah, girlfriend. Yeah. Cass."

"Oh." Orion begins to laugh. "Give it to me. She hates you."

"Clearly," Yves mutters, handing it over.

"Hello," Orion slurs. "It's my love. Hi. Yes. Kinda drunk. Yves—oop, sorry, he who must not be named is here. Nick is here. My two best friends, oh, sorry. My one best friend." He looks at Yves, then swirls around to look at Nick, eyes half-lidded. "She wants to talk to you."

Nick sighs, taking the phone clumsily. "Yello."

"He has a final in two days, we are in finals week, why are you out getting drunk?" Cassia snaps on the other line.

"He can't read," Nick says smartly.

"I know, which is why it's recorded—anyway, the point is, he's not supposed to get wasted. You, too. Did you guys forget we're college students?"

He breathes out, rubbing the nape of his neck. Orion's tugging on his sleeve, slurring, "What's she saying?"

Nick sighs again. "No. And I'll bring him home. Safe. We'll get a cab."

Cassia lets out an exasperated huff. "Okay."

"Later. After we get a couple more shots in him," Nick adds. "And in me."

"Nicholas Peterson—"

"Did you hear that?" Nick asks Orion, raising an eyebrow. "How she said my name all threatening-like?"

Orion hums, nodding. "With murderous intent. You're dead. Drinking to Nick's memory," he says, pushing his glass to Nick's glass and to Yves's. "I'm gonna miss you, bud."

"Drinking to me," Nick tells Cassia, and then hangs up.

Yves groans, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. "I wanna dance. Single ladies choreo to a song that's not single ladies. It won't be the first time I'll start an unintentional flashmob."

"No. Let's go home after our last round," Nick says, pushing his glasses up his nose, gesturing the bartender. "I have that...thing tomorrow morning."

"What thing," Orion murmurs.

"The thing." Nick gestures around with his hand, face scrunching together. "That makes me an adult. That...thing."

"A job," Yves supplies.

"Yes." Nick nods, raising his glass to him, bringing it to his lips. "Yes. And we are in finals week, Cassia said."

The brunet sighs. "Alright. Time to call Kaia. She'll drive us all home."

At the mention of the name, Nick's brain wakes and his drink burns more in his throat, but he lets it flow from glass to his mouth, savoring it.

Then he snatches Yves's phone from his ear and almost smashes it on the bar.

"Dude!" Yves yells, indignant, eyes wide. "The fuck was that?"

"Don't bother calling," he mutters in a low voice, turning around to lean against the bar, facing the dance floor. His eyes adjust to the light, and he says, "We're done, we broke up."

Orion's hands slip out from under him, and he ends up with his head on the surface, and a loud laugh escapes his lips. "Ah. I can help you. We'll be a little group, then, like the blind leading the blind." He stops, thinks about what he said, and he heaves another breathless laugh, clutching his stomach. "Oh, God, that's not supposed to be funny but it is. I heard Hilde Perkins has good reviews."

"Are you serious," Yves says, staring at Nick, and it sounds more like a statement rather than a question.

"Yep. Moved out. Few days ago."

"I meant, are you serious? My phone is brand new," he snaps, grabbing it off the table. "And one more round after this. It's on me. Then we'll reflect on the only thing both of you offer to this friendship—stupidity. Poverty of intellect. Imbecility."

Orion reaches out to hug Nick, patting his back. "You dying?"

Nick takes a deep breath. "Kind of."

"Okay," he says, then goes back to laying his head down on the bar, and closes his eyes.

Yves brings them all home, and Nick wakes up cold and alone in their half-empty apartment.

Ah, no. His half-empty apartment.

This ending is fucking shitty.