color me in gold (lips like petals on my throat)

divisi.

(a/n: This chapter contains mentions of Toni Wei (and all that that entails) as well as explicit M/M/F content. Please skip the letters and the part immediately after the second letter if this subject matter is uncomfortable for you.)

*

Again, just a reminder: wishful thinking is a bitch. She's enchanting and alluring and shamelessly forward, but she's also wholeheartedly cruel. Brett should know, okay; he's an expert on the subject. Still, she's there: intruding on his personal space, spilling unspeakable things into his ear. It's horrible. He can't do anything about it.

Again, it all comes back to the point. The matter of dispute.

Hypothesis: Brett Yang is the subject of Eddy Chen's letters.

There's a possibility. Yes, fine, he allows it. It's perfectly logical to assume it's possible, even if every inch of him is screaming foul, screaming disbelief. It's safe to consider, in light of the clues he's gathered so far.

And yet. Here: an obstacle. A variable that cannot be ignored.

—because what about her?

*

When he first meets Toni Wei, her fingers are curled around the shiny curvature of her instrument, and she's just finished an impromptu performance of Zenzenzense. There's not much of anything to hate or find fault in her, really. She's beautiful, talented, her dry wit as sharp as her kindness is gentle. He's never seen a flautist smile as bright as she does.

Eddy's friends with her; it's how Brett and Toni are introduced in the first place. They're colleagues in the orchestra, and they've even started branching out beyond those hallowed halls in the Twoset-adjacent project they've dubbed the Konoha Collective. Brett finds out that Toni likes maid cafes (or rather: any cutesy cafes in general), anime, Animal Crossing, mukbangs, peanut butter, and camo hoodies.

He doesn't know why he knows so much about someone he's only ever spoken to once, but there's something about the way Eddy keeps feeding him these little factoids. Something suspiciously like asking permission, which is kind of ridiculous. He's no one's keeper, let alone—let alone his best friend's. Of course.

And so he doesn't think much of it.

*

The next time he meets Toni Wei, her fingers are curled around Eddy's arm, and he's kissing her cheek with the kind of gentleness reserved for precious things. Beloved things.

Brett doesn't even need to hear the announcement to know.

It takes him a self-ordained slap to the face and half an hour in the bathroom to calm himself down enough to congratulate the new couple without flinching. As you do, when you're trying to be fucking happy for your best friend.

*

It feels a little bit like betrayal, I'm not gonna lie.

The incredulous laugh is wrenched out of his throat without so much as a warning. God, you and me both, buddy.