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HIS BODY SHUDDERED as he covered his eyes with a hand. Reo kept biting his lower lip, pitiful little sounds slipping past his lips, resounding all over the room no matter how hard he tried to keep them inside.
Nagi was powerless to stop him. "Don't say that..."
Reo shook his head, trying to inhale deeply. However, his efforts didn't work. He couldn't put himself together and Nagi couldn't pretend he didn't see the cracks in his spirit. More and more tears appeared and Reo crumbled further. Nagi felt Reo's sobs all the way to his chest, they tightened Nagi's throat as if they wanted to come out from his lips, and while Reo shook, Nagi trembled like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
Nagi could only breathe again when Reo wept, "...I- I wish I could quit," he muttered, all wet. "But I can't s-stop... the mere idea of ending it here... I don't know what to do anymore. I don't—"
His voice cracked layer by layer, increasingly unstable and high-pitched. "I wish I had been invited... that's all I ever wanted," he sniffed, "it was our dream..."
"I get it," Nagi tried to assure.
"No, you don't," Reo curled onto himself, pulling his legs against his chest and hiding his face against his knees. Mikage Reo wasn't supposed to be small. "You're a winner, Sei, and you're going to the Olympics. But I've been mediocre... for three years. I've wasted money on classes and teachers and this is ridiculous..."
His knees muffled part of his voice as he said, "I'm done with this. I just want everything to quiet down and stop, I want everything to stop because I can't think..."
Nagi crouched so he could be at Reo's eye level. "You're drunk," he said carefully, "you got to sleep it off."
What else was he supposed to say? He wasn't an expert in how to comfort others. Reo's been competing for a longer time, he should know shit happens. One can't win every single time. He was only bummed and disappointed because he had never been told no before.
And Nagi understood. It was the Olympics, no one wanted to miss it. Reo would have to make peace with it tomorrow.
But Reo didn't agree. "No, this isn't shit I can sleep off, this has been here for months," he looked up, the shiny purple pulling at Nagi's heartstrings in a sad, broken melody.
"What are you talking about?" Nagi pushed Reo's bangs to the side, trying to see his face. Reo winced at the contact. "Reo, what-?"
"Chris has been trying to help and I want to get better, but I can't. It's like I'm wasting his time, too because I can't do the fucking routine and he's leaving to Canada in two months and it's like- like a countdown, or a reminder that—"
