All The Ways I Hate You [Solangelo]

Chapter 1

Nico hated Will Solace. He knew absolutely nothing more about the guy than what he was like at school, but that didn't stop him from hating him with every fiber of his being.

Maybe it was the way Will walked, or the way he dressed or the way he was so undeniably nice to everyone he met. A ray of sunshine? Far fucking from it, but that didn't stop him from being a good person. He helped people pick up the books they'd dropped in the hallway or tell them if their mascara smudged. He told people when he genuinely enjoyed the charcoal drawings they'd worked on in art class, even if the artist thought it was gross and disproportioned. Will Solace stood up to bullies and complimented the stupidly bold fashion choices the kids at school made. Will Solace would smile at you in the hallway for no other reason than you looked like you were having a bad day. Nico would know.

They had had six classes together since freshman year and Nico loathed every minute he had to sit through them, Will Solace only feet away, sometimes inches away, being a good person despite wearing flipflops in Winter and being a good student through all of the lessons Nico couldn't bear to pay attention to.

And Will Solace would smile at him and he would smile at their mutual friends and he would smile when someone told a joke at their table at lunch, because, oh didn't he mention? They ate lunch together, too. There was no escape from the freckled mess that was Will Solace.

By the middle of Junior year, Nico couldn't take another day of what he'd dealt with since middle school, the glossy blue eyes that looked like the ocean could cut his heart out and the teeth that poked from the good-hearted grin, ready to tear open his throat. Maybe Will didn't mean any of this to affect Nico the way it did, but there was nothing either of them could do about it now.

"Why do you hate me, Nico?" He would ask occasionally, when they were paired together randomly for a group project or when all of their friends were absent from the lunch table for one reason or another. And Nico would narrow his eyes, spit a snarky comment his direction, pick up and move entirely, request a new group or none at all because that was how he liked things. Because that's how things went in the life of Nico di Angelo.

Because no matter how many boys Will Solace dated, no matter how many times Nico's heart swelled in his chest at the mere sight of him in the hallway, Nico would never be the person that Will wanted to come home to at night or to build a life with or be the first person on his mind in the morning. Will would never want to wake up on the same pillow as him, with their legs intertwined and the comforting shared body heat trapped under the comforter.

If Nico wasn't allowed to love Will Solace, he would hate him.