Love Hurts (Teruyama)

Chapter Seven

  Terushima leaned over to him, and whispered in his ear: "You."

 Yamaguchi blinked, then shook his head. "No. No, you don't like me!" He said, squeezing his eyes shut. "If you liked me, then I wouldn't have the disease, and my parents wouldn't be trying to convince me to get the surgery! You're just saying that because you feel bad!"

 Terushima wrapped his arms around Yamaguchi, and rested his head on his shoulder. "No, I'm not. I do like you, Freckles. I like you lot. The thing is, I don't know if I love you," He said, a tear rolling down his cheek. "Maybe, if you give me some time, I'll figure it all out," He offered, tracing patterns onto Yamaguchi back. Terushima let out a small sigh, and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry if I sounded like a dick just now. I shouldn't say things like that, but I do anyways," He muttered, refusing to let the tears fall. Not here. Not now.

 Yamaguchi pulled Terushima closer, breaking out into a silent sob. "Y-you re-real-really do?" He asked quietly.

 "Why would I lie about something as big as this?" Terushima asked, moving one of his hands up to play with Yamaguchi's hair. "I may be a flirty idiot with a tongue piercing, but I would never lie to you about anything."

 Yamaguchi blinked, more tears falling as he thought about all the times he'd lied to Terushima because of this whole stupid disease. "I-I-I'm sorry."

 "Don't be sorry, Freckles. It's not your fault."

 "Y-ye-yes it is!" Yamaguchi wailed quietly, paranoid that one of his parents would walk in upon hearing his sobs.

 Terushima pulled out of the hug, and gripped Yamaguchi by the shoulders. "Why?"

 "H-huh?"

 "Tell me why you think this is your fault, and I'll call you out on your bullshit."

 Yamaguchi opened his mouth to answer, but heard footsteps outside his door. "Go hide!" He whispered urgently.

 "Where?" Terushima asked, throwing his arms up in annoyance.

 "The closet!" Yamaguchi quickly shoved Terushima inside of his closet, and closed the door.

 "Tadashi?" Yamaguchi's mom asked, opening his door. "Are you alright? I thought I heard some- Tadashi, are you crying?"

 Yamaguchi quickly wiped away his tears. "N-no..." He muttered, avoiding his mother's eyes.

 Terushima did his best to peek out through the closet door without making too much noise, and he only caught a glimpse of what was happening. He mentally cursed himself when the door made a slight creak as he tried opening it a bit more. He panicked, and backed up to hide behind the clothes that were hanging up, praying that he wouldn't get caught.

 "What was that?" Came the voice of Yamaguchi's mother.

 "Uh, nothing!" Yamaguchi shouted, a little too quickly. "I-I mean, uh, that door has been a little weird lately," He said, quickly recovering, "I've been meaning to talk to you about it, but I never really got around to it..."

 His mother's face fell. "Oh. Well, there seems to be a lot of things you never get around to telling me." She gave her son a small, sad smile, and walked out of his room. "Make sure you don't stay up too late. You do have school tomorrow." And with that, she closed the door and walked away.

 Once Yamaguchi was positive that she had left, he flung open the closet door. "What the hell was that?" He whisper-shouted.

 Terushima gave a small shrug, and gave Yamaguchi his signature smug smirk. "I wanted to get a closer look, is that so bad?"