If Damien were to split open his heart now, the way one breaks a pomegranate in half, and part its chambers with his fingers, perhaps inside, right at the center, a tiny version of Aksel would be revealed.
Damien hadn't met Aksel, everyone's darling, just yesterday. They had been best friends for years. And again, Damien was not someone who had ever hidden the fact that he loved Aksel: sometimes tender like a mother, sometimes genuine like a friend, and most often… warm like a lover.
Yet it was a confession that had never once escaped Damien's lips. And… one Aksel had never once tried to notice, nor to return.
Damien knew that in order to stay friends with him, Aksel always parried his every attempt with a gentle smile, brushing them aside like a soft breeze. And of course, Aksel knew Damien had never once confessed, just so he could keep staying by his side.
"Enough! Damien, please…"
This was no ordinary 'enough.'
Damien, with everyone's eyes suddenly on them, flushed from head to toe. His eyes brimmed with tears when he heard the words aimed straight at that small yet fierce love hidden in his heart. "Stop acting like this, you know what I mean. I'm begging you."
And just like that, the unspoken confession, dangling harmlessly between them all this time, made Damien finally lower the hand it had been extending for years. I must be a fool, he thought, pressing his palm secretly against his heart, even as he laughed. I know you don't want me.
He was good at acting. Damien was very good at pretending he wasn't hurt, that being pushed away didn't wound him, that he didn't care about the world at all. "Haha, okay… Okay. I'm sorry."
But what was that look of horror on Aksel's face? Why? Ah… that too was Damien's fault.
He had tormented someone who clearly didn't want him for years, and in the end had ruined their friendship.
"I'm sorry!" Damien apologized again, as though he had taken a joke too far and was embarrassed. Even swallowing was hard now. "I won't ever act like that… again."
"See you later."
When Damien clutched his bag and walked away from Aksel with slow, casual steps, as if nothing had happened, the truth that something irreversible had just taken place struck him so hard that he collapsed at the corner of the very first street he turned onto.
There, after crying for what might have been minutes, like some pitiful wretch, Damien realized that if he split his heart open like a pomegranate now, he would find that the little Aksel inside was unhappy.
All he could do was lock that little one tightly inside, bury his love so deep that no one, not even Aksel, could ever sense it.
Knowing what the right thing is doesn't mean you can do it. With a bitter smile breaking into sobs once more, Damien managed to stand. He owed it to Aksel to at least do the right thing now.
"Haha…" Damien laughed and wiped his tears. Perhaps he was the only pathetic soul in the world who could be rejected without ever confessing.