Tyed

chapter fifty four

They don't really speak that night, and the morning isn't tense per se- it's just that constant feeling between them of things unsaid, but a touch stronger than usual. Tyler kisses him and narrowly bites his tongue on words of love, before being dropped off at home and promising himself, silently, that he'd sleep in his own bed tonight. His own bed, that was starting to feel alien. It was certainly cold.

Tyler walks into the kitchen in yesterday's clothes, not even noticing that his collar is around his neck (he doesn't remember when he put it on), heading straight for the coffee pot without paying attention to who else is in the kitchen. He reaches for it, to realise it's not sitting where it usually is.

He turns and Chappie is standing in his kitchen. Tyler connects the dots a little slowly, nods, and pats Chappie on the shoulder. He's dressed, at least, in his black uniform, although he is barefoot. At least Tee got home alright. Presumably.

"Were you looking for something?" Chappie asks, as though the situation isn't odd to him. Tyler supposes he's reacting the same way.

"I'll just get coffee later," Tyler says, instead taking an apple from the fruit basket on the other side of the bench. "Have a good day."

He walks out into the hallway, passing the living room, in which he sees a stiff-backed Shouto in front of the TV, next to an equally stiff Nancy staring at her phone. He stops and leans into the room.

"Everything alright?" he asks.

Shouto looks at him, and Nancy tilts her head like she heard him, but doesn't stop reading whatever's on her phone. Shouto says, "I'm alright."

"Are you actually?" Tyler raises his eyebrows.

"Yes, legitimately. I'm just on edge with strangers in my house," he says, but when he meets Tyler's eyes properly there's a sincerity in them as he says, "but I don't have the problem you may think I do."

Tyler takes a few steps into the room, and now Nancy's looking up, but watching this before she speaks. "What problem do you think- that I think?"

Shouto sighs. "I'm fully of the opinion that people should be able to do whatever they like. I struggle to empathise, perhaps, and I don't personally enjoy strange people in my kitchen, but I don't judge your choices or think you're wrong for making them."

Tyler had kind of assumed that Shouto didn't think he was doing the right thing, but he attributed no malice to it. "Why're you saying this now?"

Nancy answers him instead. "You haven't been home much recently, that's all. But I did try to tell him..."

Tyler finishes her sentence. "It's not that I don't want to be around you. It's just that I want to be with Colby. You haven't been one of our friends as long as anyone else, so you don't... remember Kevin, and what I was like with him."

It's so much easier to say his name than it was yesterday. Like Colby carried a portion of the weight now. Tyler feels inexplicable guilt for that.

Shouto shrugs. "As long as you know I don't judge."

"Thank you," Tyler says, words hanging loosely in his mouth. Nancy looks like she wants to say something, and the knowledge of what she's about to bring up pulls him back to her. His mouth is dry, and he can taste anticipation before she says a thing.

"Sorry," Nancy says to Shouto, "but I asked Kali if she had time to meet me in real life. We haven't actually, like, met, so I didn't want to just invite her over, because you know, don't meet people on the internet at their house. But she told me the building she's starting her new job at, and she told me it's okay to meet her there when she finishes at three. So, if you want to..."