Chapter 39

Joshua stopped at the door only a few down from where their families were gathered, stabilising his balance on one foot so he could open the door. Before he had the chance, however, Henry leaned over him, turning the handle and pushing the door open. Joshua nodded slightly before limping into the room, arms finally tired of holding himself up. He might have lured Henry in so he could rest before collapsing, but Joshua did recognise he was on the verge of doing so himself. The man made a mental note to work on his upper body strength once he got the chance to.

Without a word, he went straight to his bed and fell sat down, discarding of the crutched and taking his shoes off so he could elevate his ankle. As he did so, he watched Henry out of the corner of his eye. The blond man had finally ceased his crying, now acting as if he had never been in the first place. He closed the door behind him and looked around the room, eyes going from the shelf of certificates and trophies to the floor to ceiling window before finally settling on the wall covered in bookshelves. It seemed the latter interested him the most.

Taking his eyes off the other man, wondering why he was suddenly pretending to be fine, Joshua focused on rebinding the bandage on his ankle. It did not need a cast but when the family doctor came to check on it, he was told to keep it compressed since he was not taking it as easy as he should.

It wasn't the sheer number of books that had attracted Henry towards the bookshelf, in fact nothing in particular had. It was just that, out of everything in Joshua's room, this looked like it would distract him the most.

Just as Marcus had thought, Henry recognised that normally now would be when he planned to meet or video call someone and unload his feelings to sort through it. That someone normally being Caleb, who was obviously no longer a choice. In fact, just the thought of him made Henry's heart ache.

Personally, he did think his way of sorting through his own feelings was a little childish; normally one would simply digest their emotions, they didn't have to lay everything out to someone else to face it. However, it had never been so much of a problem before, because even if he did not feel like telling any of his other friends, he did always have Caleb there. His friend, ex-friend, could recognise when Henry was ready to talk even before he himself was aware. If Henry didn't initiate it, he would receive prod after prod before he finally did spill.

But that was no longer an option, even though this time Henry was ready to talk at his own accord.

Henry shook his head, looking back at the bookshelf he had been idly moving his eyes across.

The first thing he noticed was a certain collection of books with cringey titles. They looked like novels, but something was bringing his attention to them. To quench his curiosity, he took one off the shelf, almost falling back at the illustrated cover. It was not that the cover was particularly shocking or inappropriate, the reaction was all down to the man's recent trauma.

On the cover there were too men in an embrace, and after reading the summary, it became clear what he had come across: a gay romance novel.

It slowly registered he had found it in Joshua's room, and from the looks of it, there were not a small number of them. In fact, now that he looked closer, there were a few long serials on the shelves. The entire thing seemed surreal, it did not seem like the kind of thing that the ever stoic and perfect Joshua Lore would read, or even associate with. But it was a fact that the book was the said man's.

"I didn't think you would be one to read boy's love."

Joshua winced at the teasing tone. Truthfully, he had forgotten about how vast his reading material stretched. It was a little embarrassing that Henry had found out. However, he did not want to give into the tease and decided to fight back by not showing even a drop of shame on his usually thin face.

"Hm, it isn't that I like or dislike BL. I really only care for whether the story and characters are good. The genres are rarely an issue."

"It's a good point. I'm more of a non-fiction reader myself, although I do enjoy comics from time to time. But I just never expected you to be so big on romance novels. It doesn't really fit your image."

He pulled himself up against his headboard, putting a pillow under his rebound ankle, before looking back over to Henry. He had a few different books in his hands now, flicking through them.

"What image is that?"

Henry turned back to see Joshua had also taken his blazer off as well as loosened his tie. Even he had to admit the man was quite the sight sitting like that in his bespoke waistcoat, shirt relaxed. Was there a need to ask what image? Henry felt the urge to throw a mirror at the man.

It was only when he took a second look at Joshua's face did Henry notice the signs of his usual teasing face. He was the one who had started making fun of the other, how had it flipped back on him?

"You know exactly what I mean, don't try and make fun of me." The words were not meant to come out so bitterly, but it was already done before Henry realised how childish it made him sound. He really did feel like he always made a fool of himself when it came to Joshua; it was frustrating.

Joshua's usual blank expression broke as he found himself chuckling at Henry's behaviour, making the subject of his amusement huff with irritations.

Joshua kept watching Henry, not entirely aware of what he was doing until he realised the other man was sending him a confused look.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"More like your knees, they look like they might give away."

He watched as the blond man became aware of his own bad condition, clearly disliking that it had been pointed out shortly being teased. Nonetheless, slowly but surely did Henry put the books down and slowly staggered to the other side of the bed from Joshua. It was amusing to watch as Henry acted as if him sitting down had nothing to do with Joshua or his condition; Joshua bit back a smirk as he silently watched the scene unfold.

After a couple minutes of silence, Henry keeping his back facing the other man, he was reminded of what Joshua had said when inviting him to his room.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Nothing. It just seemed like you weren't going to take the offer to relax without some reason or coaxing. You looked ready to collapse yet were being so stubborn."

Joshua's honesty was not appreciated. Henry felt that not only was he acting a bit like a child, but Joshua was also treating him like one. The worst fact of all was that he had been perfectly read; he would have kept refusing the offer to rest if Joshua hadn't lured him into his room. It was only that he was now here that he considered it.

"Tch, you've been reading too many trashy BL novels, what sort of reason is that."

In the corner of his eye, Henry saw Joshua shiver, making him look back and be met with a face of disgust.

���As big a guilty pleasure reading them is, I like them only like that, for reading. I never want them as a reality." Saying that, the man frowned. "That being said, our lives have almost become one of the biggest tropes of the genre with this whole fake relationship."

"What! Really?"

Henry was met with a regrettable nod. "Fake relationship, fake marriage, pretending to be gay, they whole thing. It honestly feels like a big joke."

At the mention of pretending to be gay, Henry found himself remembering everything from his lunch break. The tired yet playful expression on his face dropped into one filled with pain.

Without warning, kicking the guest slippers off, Henry fell sideways onto the bed and took hold of the pillow above his head, squeezing it tight to his chest, face half buried. He curled up on the bed, finding himself near tears again. He wanted to sort out his feelings but he lost the one who would usually hear him out so he could do so.

Joshua found himself feeling a similar pain to which he had felt while listening to Henry's performance. The curiosity was back; what had made him cry, why was he so upset? He looked like he was in pain, that made Joshua's chest uncomfortable. Normally, most emotional expressions of Henry made him want to tease the man, but this one just made him sense how much pain the man was in.

But he had already decided he was not going to ask. It was not his place to do so. Besides, it was not as if he cared.

What he hadn't expected was that his curiosity would be fulfilled even without him enquiring.

Henry, after thinking about it for a bit, realised that it didn't really matter who he talked to, as long as it was not family. That must be the case, at least, because when the idea of talking it through with the infuriatingly perfect man who had laughed at him not even minutes ago, he did not hate it. He didn't feel strange talking to a man he had known only a week and a half, so that must mean that he did not need to be particularly close to whoever it was. What was important was that his family did not see this embarrassing side of him.

Once again, Marcus had perfectly predicted what his son would do. The young man hadn't realised the reason he felt no resistance talking to Joshua was because, after all the events they had been through together, they had built an unshakeable trust. This was something neither of the second sons were aware of; most probably, even if they were made aware of it, they would both vehemently deny it due to the jading of their first encounter.

But whether they were aware of the faith that they had built for one another or not was not what was important. All that really mattered was that Henry had found himself deciding that he would tell Joshua so he could sort out his emotions.

Henry turned to the other side, peeking up at Joshua from behind the pillow, which calmed him with its mellow scent.

"You know, I got my first rejection today."

It was clear that Henry was trying his best to keep his voice nonchalant, so Joshua decided to leave any reaction until he was done.

"Since the day we 'came out', I've been getting all sort of reactions, most of them good or at least tolerable. The few who turned on me had never really mattered to be anyway, so I never really counted it. But today… it was different.

"I've known Caleb for years. We didn't act like it, but we were super close. Even if we went weeks at a time not talking, he was always there and I was always here, you get me? I… I didn't expect him to cut ties with me over this. I-I…I…

"Fuck! He really fucking ditched me because he thinks I'm gay!"

Joshua flinched back at the sudden angry cry, not expecting it. Even though Henry had already buried his face into the pillow, hiding while muffling the sound, the raw emotions rang clear through the room, through Joshua. It was the same pain and frustration he had felt from the performance. Worse, in fact. Before he knew that Henry was upset and most probably hurt, but now he knew he was hurting; Joshua could practically feel it. Even if he had decided not to react before, now he didn't know how to even if he wanted to.

"He really cut ties with me!" Henry continued venting, an anger he hadn't allowed himself to feel earlier suddenly bubbling through the pain. "He was meant to be my best friend! He even had an idea of my one night stands! The bitch really just up and left! It doesn't even matter if this whole thing's a lie, how could he! Our whole friendship was about how we knew we were there for each other when needed. And he had the gall to tell me to never contact him! I-, fuck! He knows me! It doesn't matter that I'm not really gay! He knew! He knew how much that would fucking hurt! Dammit! How could he do that? Especially over something like this? I-I-I… I didn't even do anything to him, dammit."

As Henry's voice started cracking and losing its power, a quake became prevalent, making the young man bite pillow. Because he had stayed hidden, no one could tell, but his face was once again filled with tears, soaking the pillow, the only difference now was that the pain and frustration was directed at the friend who had rejected him. Henry knew it had hurt, but to of loyalty to his friend, he didn't want to get angry at him for it. But as he had been talking, he found it was truly impossible to do so because he was angry, unbelievably angry; it was that anger that had made the pain of the rejection so much worse than the couple others before.

Acknowledging all of this seemed to make the pain in his chest worse. He no longer wanted to talk, he had sorted his emotions and vented as much as he could in words. At that moment, no matter how childish it was, all Henry wanted to do was cry the pain, anger and frustration away.

And that was exactly what he did. Hugging the pillow so tightly that one could almost think it would burst, he kept his face buried away from the outside world and quietly cried.

But no matter how quiet he was, Joshua was sat next to him, and the room was silent. It was impossible for the man not to hear.

For some reason he could understand the pain. It was not as though he had ever been in the same situation, not even close to it. But somehow, Joshua really could translate every single emotion Henry had let out while venting. And while it shouldn't have, it hurt. It hurt seeing someone in that much pain, he had never witnessed something to such an extent before, at least not in adulthood.

What Joshua did not consciously realise, however, was that if had been someone else, even if he could feel and understand the pain, the great discomfort in his chest would not have been so strong.

However, none of that was of importance to either of them in that moment.

It didn't matter that neither of them had realised how well the two had come to trust. each other.

It didn't matter that both were completely naïve to just how strong a connection had slowly formed between them; so strong that sharing the pain of recent events felt almost too natural.

It didn't matter that they were unaware of the fact that they truly did understand each other.

All that mattered was that they did.