“Come on, you have to see this!” I move closer to him, but I still can’t see anything. My shoulder touches his, as it has so many times before, but I’ve never felt this tingling sensation in my body before, not this intensely. Thousands of tiny electric shocks race through my nerves and my cock wants to get involved again. We’re friends, damn it, you don’t react like that to a friend.
I’d love to slide an inch away, or ten, but I still can’t see Jannis’s screen. Hesitantly, I rest my head on his shoulder. His long curls tickle my cheek softly, but they don’t bother me.
“Look at that! I think the drawing was supposed to look evil, but the proportions are so bad it looks like an overbred lap dog.”
Reflexively, I press my hand to my mouth. “Oh, shit! That’s really awful.” Tears well up in my eyes as I try to hold back my laugh. “Is that even a dog?”
Jannis turns his head and his phone. “You might be right. Make a suggestion.”
I’m still laughing. “I don’t know. A...” Phew, this is really difficult. “Maybe a panther?”
“With the face of the Cheshire Cat on drugs?” Jannis turns to me. With my head on his shoulder, we are suddenly terribly close, his nose almost touching mine, and I can feel his breath on my face. He looks directly at me, and I’ve never had the chance to see his eyes so close before.
Different shades of brown and green blend together, the sun making the lighter colors glow, and his gaze holds me captive, binding me to him. A hint of freckles dances on his nose, so light that they’re probably only visible on his pale skin in the summer. So pale, almost like porcelain.
I want to touch him, caress his cheek. I want to gently press my lips against his. Full and rosy, almost a little too dark for his pale complexion. He is so extraordinarily beautiful. The smile around Jannis’s mouth changes, his expression is still soft, but there is a vulnerability I have only ever seen when we talked about Danny.
His gaze falls on my lips, just for a fraction of a second. I know what that usually means, but what does it mean for us? Does he want that? Do I want that? With a man? With him? My heart almost leaps out of my chest.
Jannis takes such a deep breath my head wobbles on his shoulder, and that’s enough to break the spell of the moment.
He opens his eyes wide in alarm. “Oh, shit, I didn’t mean to.”
I dramatically roll my eyes and stick out my tongue. “Concussion from inhalation—sounds like a great headline.”
I’ve seen Jannis laugh a few times, but I mean it, never like this. Tears roll down his cheeks. We both laugh, but neither of us changes position. We take turns picking new songs. Funny, trashy songs we love, songs that should never have been written.We lose all sense of space and time. At some point, we just let a random playlist play, singing along or rolling our eyes.
An electric guitar plays a few chords and Jannis falls silent. So silent, it’s as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water over him at minus ten degrees Celsius.
“What’s wrong?” I don't get an answer. “Does it have something to do with the song?”
Jannis nods, very slightly, almost imperceptibly. I listen closely to the melody, the lyrics. There is warmth, power, melancholy, pain, farewell. Farewell.
“What do you associate with the song?”
“Danny’s funeral.”
Oh. Fuck. “Should I turn it off?”
I reach for my phone, which is playing the music, but Jannis silently shakes his head as the first tear rolls down his cheek. To give him some space I slowly sit up. When Danny comes into play, I’m scared shitless of doing something wrong. It’s not making it any easier that I have no idea what’s going on between us right now.
I gently place my hand on Jannis’s shoulder. He grabs it firmly and decisively before turning on his side and curling up into a little ball. I can’t see his face anymore, but his body is shaking. Only slightly at first, but it’s getting stronger and stronger. He’s crying. Without thinking, I lie down behind him, pulling him close to me with the hand he’s already holding, and Jannis follows, leaning into my chest and seeking my closeness. At least that's how I perceive it.
Jannis is so much taller than me that I rest my forehead on his neck, skin on skin, but he doesn’t flinch. His breath catches briefly, but that’s it.
Now that I know what the song means to Jannis, I pay even more attention to the lyrics, and my eyes start to fill. What a strange choice for a funeral, and then again, maybe not.
Everyone understands music differently, I know that, but all I understand is closeness and farewell, the agony of having to let go of a loved one, knowing it’s forever. Knowing all you have left is this one last moment and the hopeless desire to stop time. I hold Jannis as he cries for his love, not knowing what to feel myself.
Chapter 17
Jannis
I firmly grab a hand, and it grabs back, holding me tight—but it’s not his. It feels warm and soft. I feel the little hairs on his fingers, knowing they’re black, not blond. A song I haven’t heard in three and a half years plays in our earbuds. I see his face in front of me, Danny’s face, see him laughing. In my memory, he is well, he is happy. I see the empty grave, the light wooden coffin, I remember how the emptiness felt back then, so dark, so deep, so hopeless.
It's different now. I feel a warm body behind me, Dayyan’s breath on my neck, coming at a frequency that’s become so familiar to me over the last few weeks. His hand in mine. I want to let myself fall and I hate myself for it, still I don’t break free from his embrace. Not immediately, not when the song is over, and not after the next one or the one after that.
At some point, my tears subside, I remember that, then my body gives up. The first thing I notice when I wake up is Dayyan. I’m not quite conscious when I turn in his arms to look at him. My gaze flicks briefly toward the blue sky, then I search for his deep brown. What the hell am I doing here? Why is my stomach tingling again? We’re friends. Platonic friends. No feelings. Myheart doesn’t belong to Dayyan. Danny took my heart with him. It’s his and that will never change. He can’t give it back to me, he’s gone. Gone, gone, gone.
