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 Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 7:23 pm
It happened on a normal evening.
They were at their favorite Mexican restaurant, a half eaten basket of chips and a bowl of salsa between them. Their entrees were set before them by their usual waitress, who smiled at both of them, but who, Lovely noticed, paid particular attention to Ilian.
Lovely stared across the table after she left and truly understood, for the first time in the eight years they’d known one another, that Ilian was attractive.
Not the generic sort of attractive he’d been as a teenager — all boyish good looks, with a friendly smile and a generally personable nature, awkward the way most teenagers are — but actually, legitimately attractive. Grown up attractive. The sort girls giggled about and boys flirted with.
For a long, drawn out moment, Lovely didn’t touch his food. He gaped at Ilian’s dark curls and his orderly facial hair, the dark freckle near his eye and his thick lashes, and he realized that he was one hundred percent <******** people were going to be flirting with Ilian — if they hadn’t been already and Lovely simply hadn’t noticed — and Lovely had absolutely zero redeeming qualities to keep Ilian interested in him.
He felt a crisis coming on.
An awful, aggravating, no doubt excessively dramatic crisis.
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:07 pm
Whatever dramatic crisis Lovely was suddenly going through, Ilian was completely oblivious. At least for the moment.
He hadn’t been doing anything different than usual. He’d been sort of testing to see if he minded leaving his face unshaven or not, and while Lovely hadn’t made any specific comments about it, he hadn’t said anything against it, which Ilian took to mean that Lovely liked it, or at least didn’t mind it. He washed his hair the same, used the conditioner Lovely insisted that he needed to maintain his curls, but other than that, it was all the same.
Oh, and he needed new clothes again, because apparently growing two inches over the summer wasn’t enough. He had to grow two more and now got glared at by Lovely for being taller than he was.
He’d just taken a large bite of his taco when he noticed Lovely’s gaping. He froze, glanced around to make sure there wasn’t anything else that could have caught his attention, and when he was fairly certain it was him Lovely was looking at, he held a hand up to his full mouth to ask, “What?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:35 pm
Of course Ilian had no idea what Lovely was looking at, or gaping about, or having an internal crisis over. Ilian probably wasn’t even aware of his own attractiveness. He didn’t seem the type to care about those things. No one had ever bred vanity into him. There were always far more important things to worry about, like keeping a job and paying rent and making sure they didn’t die in service to the Negaverse.
Lovely made a strangled noise at first. It sounded a bit like, “Nnngggnnnn.” Proper speech eluded him; he couldn’t seem to form the right words. His brain simply refused to function.
Eventually, he managed to tear his eyes away, but he couldn’t decide what to look at instead. His gaze dropped to his food, then flicked to one of the other booths, where their waitress was taking orders, then up to the TV mounted in the corner, which seemed to be playing random music videos with the subtitles on instead of the sound; the images didn’t match up to the music playing overhead.
When he swallowed and got his tongue working, Lovely looked back at Ilian.
Only for his brain to immediately short-circuit again.
“You’re just…” he said, forcing himself to speak. “... Did you not notice… how the waitress was flirting with you?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:41 pm
Ilian watched Lovely as he slowly chewed his mouthful of taco. And then took another bite as Lovely tried coming to terms with… whatever he wanted to say.
What he wasn’t expecting was for Lovely to comment on their waitress, and even less about her apparently flirting with him.
He stopped chewing again, his brows knitted in confusion.
“No?” he said after a moment, and glanced over to where their waitress was. She didn’t seem to act any differently than usual. Just polite and nice and obviously working for tips. Which they were always generous about anyway, so he didn’t see why she wouldn’t be nice to them.
“I think you’re imagining things,” he said as he took a sip of his water, and then grabbed for one of the chips that was left in the bowl. “Your food is going to get cold.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:05 pm
“I’m not imagining anything,” Lovely argued, finding his voice now that he had something to be annoyed about. He leaned over the table and lowered his voice into a hiss, “She was flirting with you.”
Maybe it didn’t seem obvious, but Lovely knew. It was the way she smiled at Ilian, the way she paid just a bit more attention to him, even though Lovely was always polite to her. It was the way she laughed whenever Ilian said something mildly funny, which wasn’t often, but it happened. It was the way she lingered at their table perhaps a second too long, reserving her last look before leaving for Ilian.
Lovely knew how to flirt. He hated it, but he still knew. It was one of the few things his mother bothered to teach him. The best flirting wasn’t overt. It was subtle, not so overdone as to be sickening.
Not that her flirting with Ilian was the point. It was merely a symptom.
“Did you know that you’re…” And here Lovely paused, his tongue so thick and clumsy he thought he might choke on it. He had to swallow again before he could force out, “attractive.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:13 pm
Ilian continued to watch Lovely over the table, staring at him with growing disbelief. First he was talking about how the perfectly polite waitress was flirting with him, and now he was talking about him being attractive.
“Yeah, okay,” he decided not to argue, although he had a feeling that Lovely was just trying to get him to… do something… he didn’t know yet. Was this some kind of foreplay thing? He wasn’t used to Lovely getting all affectionate with his words, especially while they were eating tacos, but he knew getting into an argument with Lovely was even worse.
“Did you know you’re attractive? Wait, yes you did,” he answered for Lovely, unable to stop himself from grinning in amusement. Really, if Lovely was fishing for more compliments Ilian didn’t mind giving them to him. He just didn’t think Lovely liked being showered with compliments, but Ilian had plenty he could use.
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:25 pm
Lovely scoffed and made a disgusted face.
“I go by Lovely,” he said. “Obviously I’m aware of how I look.”
His mother was vain and loved to shower her sons with compliments; Lovely had no choice but to grow up very aware of his own looks. He used to hate his features, thinking them too soft and pretty. As a child and a young teen, he’d wanted to look more like his older brothers. It wasn’t until leaving home and moving in with Ilian that he finally embraced the way he looked, probably because Ilian obviously liked it without making a big deal about it one way or the other.
But this wasn’t about him. This was about Ilian leaving his awkward teenage years behind and not just looking generically attractive, but full-on gets-flirted-with-by-waitresses attractive.
“When the ******** did you get like this?” Lovely asked, though he didn’t expect Ilian to answer. He was more or less talking to himself at this point. “Why didn’t I notice until now? You have… hair,” he waved at Ilian’s curls, “and… a face.”
Yes. A face.
Clearly his brain still wasn’t working well enough to offer a better explanation.
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:33 pm
Ilian decided to keep the comment to himself that Lovely making that face didn’t exactly add to his attractiveness. Not that it would have mattered, apparently. Lovely was already going off the deep end, talking nonsense about his hair and having a face.
He paused once more in his chewing and set the rest of his taco down so he could give more attention to Lovely, who was clearly going through some crisis. Should he be concerned? Lovely was obviously getting worked up about something and Ilian just couldn’t figure out what or why.
“Would it be better if I… didn’t have a face?” he asked with a cringe. He could tell that Lovely was struggling for words, but he didn’t understand why. Ilian had no idea what he was getting worked up about. His hair? Was it his facial hair?
“Oh…” he said as though he suddenly realized what was bothering Lovely. “Oh, I mean, if you don’t like it I can shave. I thought it made me look more grown up or something. But I guess it could also make me look lazy…” Ah, great now he was going to worry about looking lazy.
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 7:26 am
“Don’t shave,” Lovely demanded, before he could actually think it through.
The truth was, he hadn’t really thought too deeply about Ilian’s facial hair. When Ilian grew it in, Lovely’s first thought was, Lol he’s being silly and it’ll probably be gone in a few days. His second thought was, It’s actually sort of cute. And his final thought was, Okay, well, I guess this is normal now.
But beyond those surface thoughts? Nothing. He wasn’t the type to daydream or fawn over his partner or shower Ilian with compliments. He accepted the new look and moved on, because at the end of the day, the way Ilian looked didn’t have much to do with their relationship, other than the fact that Lovely was sort of fond of Ilian’s curls and had at least one sketch book full of drawings of Ilian’s hands.
That wasn’t weird.
Not at all.
Now it was really sinking in. Ilian was an adult. They were both adults. They’d grown up. They were the same as they’d always been, but different, too. Ilian was attractive. Maybe not ruggedly handsome, but cute. If Lovely was the gushing sort, he might gush. Since he wasn’t, all he could do was sit there and stare like a moron.
“It looks… nice,” he tried to continue. “Just don’t grow it out long because that would be too much, but… what I meant was… You’ve been attractive to me,” and that took a considerable effort to admit; Lovely almost choked on the words, “but I didn’t know you were attractive to other people.”
That… didn’t sound quite right. Did that come off as insulting?
“I mean… <********>, I don’t know what I mean.” Lovely looked away again. Was his face going red? It felt a bit warm in the restaurant all of a sudden. “I thought you were attractive, but I didn’t know you were attractive? I have no idea what the ******** I’m talking about anymore. ******** this. I’m shutting up.”
And he grabbed his food to take a large, unattractive bite of his taco. If his mouth was full, he wouldn’t be able to say so many stupid things.
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:48 pm
Ilian’s eyebrows raised with curiosity when Lovely immediately told him not to shave. Not only that, but Lovely actually gave him a compliment. He said it looked nice.
Ah, now this was a little weird. Lovely was not the type to care much about how he looked, other than commenting on how he needed to take better care of his hair, and got him new clothes when his old pants were getting too short. But it wasn’t like they bothered complimenting each other. Lovely obviously knew he was lovely. And Ilian just figured he was good enough.
But now Lovely was saying he looked attractive, which was still strange to hear from Lovely’s mouth. Even when it came out as somewhat insulting. Luckily, Ilian had known Lovely long enough to not take offense to the comment.
“Thanks…?” he said after a little while, still not entirely sure how to take Lovely’s little meltdown. Not that it was a horrible one, just… unexpected. At least he was eating now.
“Well… I’m not interested in anyone else, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said with a shrug and picked up what was left of his own taco.
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:18 pm
“I’m not worried,” Lovely said through a mouthful of food, thwarting his own attempt to keep his mouth shut.
(His mother would be horrified by his poor manners. Lovely didn’t particularly care. His family gave up their rights to have an opinion when they let him leave home at an early age.)
Was he worried? Maybe a little. It wasn’t like Ilian went around checking other people out. Lovely certainly would have noticed that. But if someone approached him and was persistent with their flirting, what would Ilian do? Not notice? Notice and pretend not to? Flirt back?
That last option seemed unlikely, but Lovely also couldn’t be sure. He didn’t know. There’d never been a situation like this before. He’d just… moved in. And then they’d started making out for fun. Then they were together without actively acknowledging it. And after that, there were the rings and the piece of paper they signed and joint tax returns. They didn’t really think any of it through. Not completely. Not the way normal people thought things like that through.
What if Ilian came to regret it one day? What if someone else came along who was nicer and more interesting and cuter than Lovely — who might be pretty on the outside but who felt and thought ugly things sometimes.
“Right,” Lovely eventually said. “Whatever.”
He took another large bite of his taco, crunching loudly in the hopes of drowning out the frenzied thoughts swirling around in his head.
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