Black cats and broken mirrors - [HIATUS]

04 - The flying napkin

Coward. Pussy. Scaredy cat. Thomas kept cursing at himself inside his head for not going after the ginger that day, it has been almost a week. After that poor excuse of an argument, Tom couldn't bring himself to go to the cashier pay for his coffee, he stayed on the table, struggling to know if he should give Matt space, or go talk to him, what should he say anyway, a simple 'sorry' was just too bland to go with. Firstly he avoided Matt at the café, which just caused a series of awkward events.

 For Tom. 

 Matt was just confused, and kind of upset that Tom was avoiding him. Of course he would never pass the boundaries (that he didn't even know what exactly they were), but was he being intrusive by simply wanting to say hello? After that day, he met Tom in the street when going to work, but as soon as he raised his hand to wave, the other one panicked, stumbled on a trash bin and left sprinting to the other side. The next day, Matt looked through the window of his apartment, and saw Tom eating a hotdog, when Tom looked up at the window, he choked on a bite and then ran away. The other day, they stumbled onto each other, but Matt decided it would be better if he didn't say anything, he just looked back at Tom, but as soon as he did, Tom was already running, he almost got ran over when crossing the street, but Matt believes he is okay now.

 Matt knew he was just going to get upset because of a guy he met a week ago, and spent about a hour or two talking to him. Just forget about him, he didn't like you anyway. Matt then took a deep breath with his eyes closed and then… Gone! ...He wished. Try again later maybe. All this thinking had distracted him from serving the customers that were in line in front of the counter, and from seeing who got in and out of the place. Just a hour until he had to go home, it was late in the afternoon, maybe he could take a walk to empty his mind. It is stupid, he thought, to get attached to someone that you barely know. 

 After a hour or so of confronting himself and struggling to decide whether to undo or not this whole mess he had made, Tom came to the conclusion that he should go there, except that he wouldn't talk to Matt directly, leaving a small letter sounded better for him. He took two pens with himself in his pocket, and a piece of paper, the plan was to give it to Matt when his shift ended. Tom walked to the place, he checked inside his pocket for the items, only to find out one of the pens leaked out and ran out of ink, the other was still fine though. Tom stopped to take off his sweatshirt, so that he could cover the ink that bled through the fabric of his pants, throw away the pen, and the piece of paper that got dirty too, then back to walking. 

 The brunet saw some tables that still weren't taken into the store, and took a napkin from one of them, that should do the work. Tom walked to somewhere farther from the cafe just so Matt wouldn't see him just yet, sitting on the sidewalk, Thomas wrote the first word. 'sorry' Then he stopped and tapped his chin, what else should he write? Only that word was just so bland, it was like saying it and walking away. When the tip of his pen dared touch the piece of paper again, it flew away. Thomas groaned and rolled his eyes, of course, it was just seeming too easy. He went after the napkin, stumbling on a few things on his way: A crack on the ground, a rock, and a person's foot, not to mention that the random airflow that was making the paper do bizarre movements in the air was totally not helping, he went back and forth trying to get it.

 Eventually it laid somewhere, under someone's foot. He stopped, and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then went to pick it up. "Uh- Excuse me, can I–" Before he finished, the foot was moved, Tom crouched to pick it up and stood straight again, the color flushed from his skin when he saw who that foot belonged to. He froze with wide eyes and shoulders glued to his neck.

 Matt, who saw the entire scene of a short man chasing vigorously after a napkin, just looked confused, his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes were slightly narrowed but he didn't say a word. Well, not for a long moment. "...So…" He started, but didn't know how to continue.

 Thomas moved, at least a little, Tom let out a breath he forgot was holding in, hid his hands and the napkin behind his back, and looked down, quite ashamed of what happened, a few seconds ago, and some days ago too.

 "I… I think I won't get an explanation, right?" The ginger scratched his neck, in a sheepish way, he tried smiling, but Tom wasn't looking up at him to see him trying to hide all of his awkwardness.

 The shorter one inhaled, exhaled, and relaxed his shoulders. He looked up. "Look, I'm sorry." As he would have guessed, only one word wasn't enough, Matt's silence said that. "Sorry for avoiding you, I, I thought you would forget about me when you left me that day and I wouldn't feel bad but I did."

 Matt only grew confused. "What are you talking about?" 

"...You don't remember? The day you paid me a coffee."

 Matt nodded to himself when he remembered, then laughed. 

 Now Tom realized he messed up somewhere. "What? What's so funny?" He felt embarrassed in anticipation, and crossed his arms.

 "Oh, silly, I didn't leave you." The ginger waved it off, a smile still there. "You must have been so caught up on our little argument, that you didn't notice me taking your croissant back to the kitchen. You said you didn't want it, remember?"

 "Oh." Tom said in the quietest and shiest tone possible, his pink cheeks were easy to see under the light of the lamppost that was just a few feet away from them. "Well then, what took you so long to come back?"

 "The fact that you sat on the table that was the farthest from the kitchen, and I am not a sprinter."

 "Uh… Why didn't you just text me?"

 "Check your WiFi, Thomas."

 "I don't have–" The shorter one said while taking off his phone, but stopped in his tracks.

"You don't have WiFi, right." Matt said with a small grin, he pretended not to see Tom looking down in embarrassment.

 It fell silent again. "So," Tom looked up at the ginger. "That means you aren't mad at me, right?"

"I could never get mad at someone, honestly, so don't feel special." He nudged the other, and the both of them chuckled.

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Word count: 1198