His purple sweater. It's hanging on the back of your chair, mocking you with its presence every time you look in its direction. It stands out, just like he did.
Reki's purple sweater, his favorite sweater. It became your favorite too. The large gear printed on it etched itself into your mind. Reki found a new sense of pride when you told him gears now reminded you of him.
Reki's favorite purple sweater that haunts your mind day in and day out just by collecting dust at your desk. It's only been a few days.Why are you so worked up about it? Because Reki has never disappeared without telling you the reason, and even when he did, he still texted you.
Your phone doesn't buzz once to tell you Reki's back.
You wonder for a bit if something bad has happened to him, but you remember you're friends with Langa, and even he doesn't know what's going on.
He brings you to a secret skate gathering, S, they called it, but you never understood why. There's a competition, and Langa asks with pride if you could cheer him on—in place of Reki. You agree and stand back to watch the large screen.
And then you hear him.
Adorning that awful colorblock corduroy jacket you gave him as a joke because he wanted to steal it from your closet, and a hat that was straight out of a skate magazine. He sees you, you know he does by the way he ducks down in fear of being caught but you both know it's not doing him any good.
He's gotten this far in avoiding you, how is it now when he's in the deepest pit he can't get out of, you manage to find him?
"Reki." He jolts at your voice, earning confused stares from the people he joined to hide from you.
"Y/n." He looks at you and he wants to cry.
You're wearing a purple sweater. A purple sweater with an all too familiar design, with all too familiar wear and tear patches and holes, with tears in your eyes.
"Where have you been?"
The three guys excuse themselves, not wanting to be in the middle of your– whatever it was– and scurry off in another direction.
Reki's not very smart in these situations. He tries to run. You yank him back by the hood of his jacket, your jacket. He chokes back a sob, then pulls away from your grip and looks at you. He's upset.
"It's none of your business." He says, straightening himself out as he takes a step away from you. "Leave me alone." He hates himself for pushing you away but he needed to do it.
"Did I do something wrong? Did Langa do something wrong?"
He flinches at the thought. "Of course not." He says, it's painful, his voice is shaking, and he can't look at you. "I just need to be away from you guys."
"Then tell us you need space, Reki." You whisper, hesitantly reaching out for his hand. He pulls away, you do too. "What happened to you?" He shakes his head, and all he sees is purple.
The purple sweater he gave to you after you said it was your favorite one. The purple sweater he sprayed his cologne on every time you asked. The purple sweater he wore the first time he kissed you. The purple sweater he gave you the last time he saw you.
"Just–"
That damn sweater.
"Just leave me alone."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A/n: shout out user toast for reminding me of my bi-monthly posting schedule 💀 ran through the drafts and cleaned this one up a bit 😼
And I was listening to Maple Syrup by The Backseat Lovers when I wrote this <3 shout out purple sweaters ☝️
