Kian & Ascian

chapter 6

~ Ascian

When he heard how the door opened again he just turned his head. His body hurt too much to stand up or at least put his t-shirt back on so he wouldn't make Kian worry too much. The second the doorbell rang after his parents drove away he knew that it was Kian. And it hurt him in his stomach to know how worried Kian would be if he saw him like this. But when he waited for a short amount of time, long enough to be a conversation between his brother and Kian, his anxiety got less. Kian probably would get to know from Zak why he looked like this. And because of who. He was a little bit glad about that, because he wouldn't have known how to say it himself. He heard how his brother came up the stairs, followed by a second pair of footsteps, the ones from Kian. They stopped in front of his door for a few more seconds, before it opened. 

Ascian could see the shock in Kians eyes, while his best friend closed the door behind him, shutting Zak out from the conversation that had to follow. "Hey", he greeted Kian weakly. But Kian didn't react at first. He just stared at Ascian blankly. "Asc", he then whispered, remorse slightly shimmering through his words. "if I knew-" But Ascian cut in with a harsh shake of his head which made himself flinch a little bit. It reminded himself that the pain was still there and didn't even fade the smallest bit. "You didn't knew. And even if you did, you wouldn't been able to stop him from doing it." Ascian knew that his voice sounded resigned and depressed and he also knew that he probably had the right for it. But he still didn't felt good about the sound of his own voice. All hope seemed to have left his body, not even the slightest bit was left in his bones. 

He saw how Kian was slowly, carefully coming over to his bed, trying to not move too fast, as if to not waking him up. It somehow was a soothing feeling to him, that at least one person cared about how their actions would take effect on him. Two if he counted his brother in. What he still wasn't feeling ready about. Of course he had helped him, but it didn't feel right to him up to now. Maybe he still had to accept that his brother wasn't all bad. Kian carefully took place right next to the bed, not wanting to bother Ascian on his bed. "Can I ask why?" he quietly said, without making eye contact with him. Something seemed to be off between them. "I...don't know if I'm ready to tell you yet.", Ascian whispered, his gaze going up to the ceiling of his room, as to pray that Kian wouldn't ask anymore questions about that. "I'm sorry", he added, because he knew how much it could hurt someone to know about a secret being kept and not trusted enough to get told. There was a silence between them for a while, but not a comfortable one. It was a long time since there was something so obvious between them, something unsettling that made them uneasy and stopped them from having open conversations. The last time was after Kian losing a bet and having to say what he least liked about Ascian. They now couldn't even remember what it has been, but when Ascian heard what Kian had said about him, he lost a little bit of his trust to him. When they finally talked it out, they promised each other to always be honest, even if honesty could hurt them sometimes. But now? Ascian was too scared to lose his best friend; that one time of Kian laughing about the gay couple of their grade, sharing a short, innocent kiss in the hallway, had been a great impact on him. 

When Kian broke the silence between them, his voice was a little uneasy. "I, um, was going to tell you about something that was bothering me quite a lot for a bigger amount of time. But I don't know if this is the right time right now." Ascian turned around to face his friend, hissing, when a wave of pain flooded his stomach and slowly crawled up to his chest. He closed his eyes for a second, concentrading on how to breath again. Wehn he opened his eyes again, Kian was looking at him worriedly. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly. Ascian laughed bitterly. "What does it look like? But anyways, I'll be fine, what did you want to say?" Kian looked at him, unconvinced but took a deep breath. "Well, you know when I showed up last time because I didn't want to be at home?", he started and Ascian could feel how relieved Kian was to finally be able to talk to him about it. In that moment he heard, how his brother came up the stairs. Not even a second later he bursted into his room, pure fear on his face. "They came back earlier! You have to go, Kian. Now!" Zak then began to pull Kian out of Ascians room, Kian's face showing a mixture of fear, confusion and worry. "You know when you can come back next time.", Ascian heard Zak telling Kian. "And you have to leave through the back - quick!" 

They both were too much in a hurry that they remembered to close his door behind them. Ascian wasn't ready to even hear his fathers voice let alone see him walking by his room without bothering to look at him through the open door. But he also knew that he wasn't able to stand up and close it, his body was hurting too much just like his soul. After being that attacked he just wanted to leave and not come back anytime soon. He remembered how he collapsed after going down the stairs halfway and he flinched at himself. He wasn't even able to walk down stairs as a normal human after his father came up to his room. That was very depressing to him. When did his family get to that point of being homophobic? And why didn't he notice earlier and just didn't come out to them? It would have been so much easier for all of them. He sighed and looked back to his room door, his thoughts coming back to how to close it without collapsing again, when he saw his mother standing in the doorframe, her eyes full of worry but her body showing disgust towards him. It terrified him to not have heard her coming up the stairs and stopping by his room. "Who did this to you?", she whispered and her voice made a cold shiver run down his back. He couldn't tell her that it was his father. He just couldn't do that to her. "Um..."