Penguins /Fyogol/

♤♤

On Monday, when Fyodor arrived at school, he expected anything but a letter from Shibusawa in his locker, along with a bouquet of roses.

"See you after school at the butterfly garden."

He didn't have time to ask Sigma, who had been avoiding him since he arrived at school. Plus, his alarm didn't go off in the morning, and he barely made it in time before the doors closed, so he had to live with the uncertainty.

He felt strange, with a growing excitement about seeing Nikolai after their not-so-disastrous date, during which they briefly held hands (a moment when he was dying from the spiciness of the sauce). He was nervous about how to act or what Nikolai would think of him and a bit sad about feeling distant from his best friend.

He felt like he would vomit butterflies at any moment, and they would keep repeating Nikolai's name until he threw up again.

Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to go to study without having breakfast yet, but he was so excited that he decided to skip the meal.

The plan was to go with Gogol, apologize for ruining the "friends' outing," cough, cough, date, and then invite him to the mall to play at the arcade or do other things like that.

According to Sigma, this would be the perfect plan now.

However, the teachers had other plans for him.

Without even reaching the door, the teacher stopped him and asked him to deliver a note to the math teacher. He went to the corresponding department, and the other teachers told him that the teacher in question was not there and was in a classroom on the other side of the school.

When he found him, the math teacher asked him to help him carry a stack of notebooks he had collected in class. With all that, he forgot to give him the note, and he was happily walking towards Nikolai when he remembered and had to turn back.

With all that, he had no time for anything, and it was only when he finished all the favors from one teacher to another that the bell rang, indicating the end of the break.

For some reason, time that day was passing terribly slowly. But when it seemed like he had a free moment to approach Gogol, suddenly time sped up, and he couldn't catch up.

When the school day ended, he intended to talk to him, but then Shibusawa approached him.

"Hi," he greeted. "Did you see the letter I left you?"

"Y-yes..."

In the distance, he saw Nikolai walking away with his friend Mushitaro, chatting cheerfully. He sighed.

"So, to the butterfly garden?" Shibusawa asked, not very pleased.

On the contrary, Tatsuhiko seemed unable to stop smiling.

"Yes! Let's go."

He had to admit that the idea of bugs with big, colorful wings didn't appeal to him at all, but he wouldn't dare tell Shibusawa because he looked so happy, and he didn't want to dampen his spirits.

He wondered if this had anything to do with Sigma's strange behavior in recent days. After that fight with his brother, he refused to tell him anything about what had happened, changing the topic every second. In two minutes, they talked about like twenty different things, everything except what had happened or how he was feeling.

He wondered if Sigma might be angry with him. Maybe he had been too selfish asking him for help with Nikolai and talking about him and himself all week. What if Sigma had already grown tired of him and his love problems, but just didn't say it to avoid being a bad friend?

"What do you think?" the albino asked with a butterfly perched on his finger. "They're very beautiful, don't you think?"

"Y-yes, beautiful..."

Fyodor was just praying that none of those bugs would come near him.

"Hey, have you talked to Sigma?"

Tatsuhiko frowned.

"No. Why?"

"Didn't you guys fight last week?"

He looked away and shooed the butterfly away from his side.

"Listen, Shibusawa, Sigma seems really affected."

"Pfff. Don't make me laugh. If he's affected, it's for anything but me. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not really brothers. We don't treat each other as such. We wouldn't even be like friends or colleagues. And you say he's affected because he argued with me? That's impossible."

He clenched his fist.

"I know why he's affected..." he added. Fyodor looked up.

"Do you really know?!" he asked, a bit more excited than he should be. Then he regained his composure. "You're not lying to me, are you?"

"I... " Shibusawa hesitated. "I'm not sure if I should tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's about you."

The Russian was dumbfounded.

"About me?"

Tatsuhiko nodded.

"Fyodor, you're gay, right?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" he exclaimed, blushing from head to toe.

"And you like a boy, don't you?"

"Get to the point, Shibusawa. No beating around the bush."

"Alright," the albino sighed. "I owed Sigma a favor. He's the one who set up this date with you."

"Why would he do that?"

"Don't you get it?" Tatsuhiko raised an eyebrow. "Fyodor, Sigma likes Nikolai."

It felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him. He couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it. It was impossible, nonsensical. It simply couldn't be.

But it still felt real, like Tatsuhiko wasn't lying to him. Suddenly, everything clicked in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece that he had finally found. In the end, it all made sense.

Sigma likes Nikolai.

How could he have been so stupid not to realize?

He had spent so much time thinking about Nikolai, about what it would be like to be together, whether he would like him, whether he would accept being his boyfriend, that he had stopped paying attention to his friend. To his gestures, his eyes, his voice when he talked about how he would help him get together with Gogol, how he bit his lower lip, his way of avoiding him whenever he was going to discuss something about Nikolai.

He felt dizzy, but when Shibusawa offered him his arm, he rejected it and ran to find Sigma and demand an explanation. He didn't hear Tatsuhiko shouting after him, calling him to come back.

He needed Sigma to tell him it was a lie, that it wasn't true, that Shibusawa was just trying to slander him because of their argument.

But his worst fears were confirmed when he saw Sigma chatting cheerfully with Nikolai while they ate a spicy taco, sitting on a wall and smiling tenderly at each other.