By Your Side (ioriku)

11

Two weeks.

That's how long Iori and Riku have gone without each other. Their altercation (which was less an altercation and more of an unspoken mutual misunderstanding) kept them from seeing each other. Iori was fully convinced that Riku did not like him, and it just so happened that Riku thought the same thing.

Riku doesn't like you.

He's sick of you.

He doesn't want you around.

Iori can't help it. He can do nothing but overwhelm himself with these thoughts. Even if they make him feel light-headed and dizzy. Even if these last two weeks without Riku had been a blur. Even if the only thing that kept him going was thinking about making Riku happy and seeing him smile, even though it was impossible now.

"Ugh," Tamaki complains, hitting Iori over the head with a notebook after the class ends. Iori is too distraught to care. "How long are you gonna be like that?"

Iori clicks his tongue and stares at Tamaki with stern but distant eyes, "Like what?"

"Like that," Tamaki says. "It's all because of Rikkun that you're being like this, all weird."

"I don't think I'm being weird," Iori proclaims, crossing his arms over his chest in a protective manner. Tamaki stares at him as if he's just heard the most bizarre statement, and to him it was exactly that.

"Huh? You don't participate in class anymore. You're quiet all day. And when you do talk it's all about Rikkun!" Tamaki scoffs, speaking aggressively with his hands to get his point across. "And when I asked you for the homework answers, you said you forgot to do it! You forgot. You never forget! You see now? You're definitely being weird."

"I..." Iori looks shamefully out the window, wishing he were outside instead of here. "I didn't realize."

Tamaki pulls up a chair, sitting beside Iori. "Well, it's fine. Just make up with him already."

"I can't," Iori frowns, his chest starting to feel heavy again. "He doesn't want to see me."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"You probably annoyed him," Tamaki says, fully experienced in the act of annoying people. "Just apologize already."

"But, I didn't do anything wrong," Iori murmurs, pressing his lips together in doubt. The thought of him ever doing wrong was impossible. He was a perfectionist. He was concise. He would never hurt anyone. Especially not Riku.

Tamaki sighs, closing his eyes as he does so. He points an accusatory finger at Iori and says, "If you didn't do anything wrong, then why doesn't he wanna see you?"

For once, Iori doesn't have an answer. And even if he did, he wouldn't know what to do about it. Apologizing isn't exactly his forte, and admitting that he was wrong was worse than actually being wrong.

Iori tugs at the collar of his uniform, it closes in on him like a trap, tightening around his neck; an anxiety he's felt for days. He asks the questions he fears most. "What if I actually did upset him? What would I do then?"

"You apologize, duh," Tamaki says, as if the solution were as simple as he was. "Bring him something, hug him, I don't know."

"I suppose I could but..." 

"But?"

"But what if he doesn't accept my apology?"

"Well, he doesn't have to," Tamaki shrugs, slinging a supportive arm across his friend's shoulder. "And so what if he doesn't? At least you'll get to see him. That's what you really want, right?"