Archive of Our Own

The muffled voices and murmurs of the party’s guests are enough to strike an inexplicable fear in Sigma that he doesn’t dare move from his place on the patio’s staircase. He contents himself with watching the faceless moon, high up in the sky like an eye of a blind man, spilling its light all over the copse of woods stretched beyond the walls of Gogol estate. 

His parents adore parties, adore being adored by fellow wealthy people congregated in the spacious party hall of the estate, adore boasting about their current pricey possessions from auctions that are as useless as a ten-inch high heel. Every time the heads of Gogol estate announce parties, Sigma’s parents cram about the house, frantic on what to wear that will instantly give away their notorious social status, as though their lives depend on the perfect attendance. 

Sigma might be the only child and as an only child, people always assume he gets all the attention from his parents. The truth is far less delectable than what most expect because, at home, he’s more or less rejected. The only living souls he interacts with are his maids, butlers, and other house-servants who talk to him only when he needs to get dressed or taken care of. Outside friends, such as kids in their neighborhood, are also out of the picture once his parents decided he’d be homeschooled, only attended by either too strict or too anxious tutors. His parents are nowhere to be found at most times and he happens to get answers like they are at meetings or at parties, as though their reputations in the face of the wealthy congress matter more than their son, who is always left out in the shadows.  

No wonder Sigma grows up to be timid and shy. 

Although, he’s always been curious about the other child in the Gogol estate. He doesn’t see him much but he feels a sort of camaraderie in whoever he is, he has a hope that someone out there, at least one , understands the burden and grief that comes with being born in an ignorant aristocracy - an aristocracy only in the face, not in the blood. 

Sigma hopes the party will end sooner than he can afford to wait. 

Out of the blue, something hit him on his head, soft and bouncy. A ball of crumpled paper falls inches away from his feet. Curious, Sigma turns around but he sees no one. He squints at the ajar door behind him, a slit of light from inside spilling out into the patio. Another something hit him again, but this time the crumpled ball of paper hit him on the face and he saw a boy his age - but too tall for a ten-year-old - who hopped out behind the door right when he threw the crumpled paper ball at him. 

Sigma throws the disturber a glare, who freezes in a seemingly throwing-a-baseball position at the knowledge that he’s caught in action. 

The boy stands up straight, scratching at his nape bashfully, his sheepish smile frozen in his face. “Sorry,” he manages to speak through an insincere grin. 

Even with a glare retained in his somber face, Sigma only turns back to the wall with the moon dipped behind it, completely ignoring the newcomer in the personally converted space in the patio. He holds up an intimidating air in the hopes of driving the boy away as he remembers from one of the instructions in the Rich Kid Guide In Social Situations taught poorly by his parents. 

So when the boy takes a seat beside him, Sigma is thrown off his loop of intimidating aura. He seats too close to him, almost pushing half of his body to him. Sigma physically recoils, being uncomfortable with people and skin contact, edging away to a safer side in his imaginary personal bubble. 

“And just when I thought I’m the only kid in the bunch of awkward adults, I finally found you!” The boy, who Sigma notices has silver hair and an equally silver-haired braid cascading halfway along his back, squeals in unconfined delight. “What adults talk about is so boring, you know. New townhouse. Shares in the sock market - was it?”

“It’s stock market,” corrects Sigma meekly. 

“Stock market, sock market, or whatever! I don’t care because I don’t know what they are! And then whenever I ask them stuff like what makes them happy, they will brag about their new bags, new necklaces, new ships-” 

He’s….. He’s a chatterbox, Sigma observes. He accidentally zones out in the midst of the boy’s talk that when he blinks back to present, all Sigma hears is a sigh and, “They know a lot of stuff, a lot of useless stuff . They think they’re serious but nothing about what they do is meaningful.” 

Sigma tries to ingest how the boy beside him came from throwing crumpled paper balls at him to sounding philosophical. But everything about the boy said rings true in Sigma, his imaginary personal bubble floats close to the boy as though it’s saying, “Let’s let him in. Let him in!” 

“Nikolai Gogol!” The boy stretches out a hand, but Sigma takes too long to take it. Shock is written all over his face. 

“Gogol? Like- like the owner of this estate?” Sigma is too flabbergasted to shut his mouth from hanging open. Just when he was thinking about the son of the Gogol estate heads. His expectations were far from a silver-haired taller-than-his-age chatterbox, it was along the lines of a reserved too-quiet-for-nonsense-noise boy who carries himself highly and intelligently. 

Nikolai does sound intelligent, but he doesn’t present himself like one. 

“ Not actually the owner, but the son of the owner.” 

“Oh, yeah. Pardon me,” Sigma bites his lower lip with a slight force that can redden it. 

“How about you? What’s your name?” Nikolai sounds earnest, too earnest even. 

“Sigma.” 

“Sigma?” 

“Just Sigma.” 

Nikolai frowns at him, baffled. “You don’t have a family?” 

“I-” And there it goes again, Sigma can feel it building up, the pressure of having to explain why his parents opted to not birth him the family name, the precious family name that signifies you belong somewhere, you belong to someone, that he stammers before he can protest defensively. “I have, of course. I wouldn’t be here if I don’t have a family.”

“But-” 

“My parents don’t think it’s safe for me to go around using their family. They said it will only set me up for danger whenever I would go outside because some people are always after the rich,” Sigma explains clearly, despite his previous reservations, not out of secrecy but out of strangeness that he’s talking with someone his age. Not a maid, not a butler, not a house servant, but a ten-year-old boy like him who also came from the same descent of aristocratic rich families.

“Yeah, eat the rich , they said,” Nikolai ponders pensively out of the blue. 

At the mention of ‘eat’, Sigma’s stomach grumbles audibly, much to his flustered cheeks upon the embarrassing sound of it. 

Perking up, Nikolai stands in his place, surprising Sigma again with how tall he is even when they’re both ten years young. “Do you want me to get you something?” he asks, one foot forward in the staircase. 

“Uhm, no.” Sigma waves his hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” 

“Okay! I’ll go get some cookies!” But before Sigma can protest for the second time, Nikolai has already darted through the oak doors, vanishing after a turn in a second. 

He doesn’t even listen. Sigma sighs, putting his hands back on his lap, as he ponders on whether he likes his unexpected friend or not. His robust energy doesn’t match his calm and occasionally anxious demeanor, and differences can result in clashes. 

Two faint shooting stars ago, and an uninterrupted song of a nightingale, then Nikolai is back at the patio carrying a bowl of cookies, but noticeably dishevelled. Where the neat braid was is tangled knots of hair, where a pale skin was is a charcoal stain slashed through his cheek, dusty shoes and a bent bowtie. Sigma is trying to guess if he’s from a kitchen or a jungle quest. 

“It was wild back there in the kitchen!” Nikolai catches up to his breath, panting. He wipes some sweat beads off of his forehead with the thick sleeve of his navy blue coat, before he settles to his previous seat. “Our cook is a meanie! He tried to lock me up for stealing cookies.” 

“You should have asked then,” supplies Sigma nonchalantly, though his eyes are glued sophisticatedly on the cookies. 

“He won’t give it to me even if I would have asked nicely.” Nikolai lets out a disdained huff. “Don’t you want it?” He pushes to Sigma the bowl. “If you don’t, I can always go back and steal something you’d like.” 

“No!” Sigma protests excitedly, quick on his tongue when the prospect of being deprived of cookies comes looming darkly on the horizon. “This is fine,” he meekly adds, fighting back a blush from dusting off his cheeks. 

Nikolai hands him the bowl and Sigma dips his hand down in it indecisively. “Thank you,” he mutters, the tip of the cookie touching his pale lower lip. 

“Didn’t you think it was lonely being out here all by yourself?” 

“I’m fine with it,” Sigma responds nonchalantly while munching on his supremed cookies. 

Nikolai looks at him like he’s a whole new species worth wondering. “I’d be lonely though.” 

“I figure you would.” 

With the moonlight bathing every living thing like each is made of marble, shiny and silver and luminescent, even the conversation feels surreal and fantastical, like something made out of marble. Sigma’s words flow easily, he notices, as though his social skills become malleable upon Nikolai’s molding. His easy-going flair becoming the artist in carving the marble-like social skills of Sigma into something flowier, more real, and more tangible. 

“Don’t you have friends though?” Nikolai also picks up a cookie from the bowl placed between them now. 

“I don’t,” Sigma answers under his shaky breath. “My…” He composes himself before he can trust that he won’t become an anxious mess by the next second. “My parents don’t make me go outside unless I’m with them. And I don’t go to school as well.” 

“That’s..” Nikolai’s tone drops down to a doleful low. “That sucks.”

Sigma doesn’t say anything.

Silence enshrouds the patio, disturbed by the occasional loud munching of the kid beside Sigma while he critters on his stock as demure as a posh rat. His parents may have been neglectful of him, but when it comes to establishing a quaint reputation in their social status, they are way more meticulous than a designer. Etiquette tutors were hired to guide him through the life of a wealthy kid. From the way he dresses to the way he holds his teacup, he parrots what his tutors instructors. When he eats together with his parents, which happens once in a hundred blue moons, even a slight cantankerous brush of the spoon against porcelain plates is worthy of side glances from his quiet parents. Even now that he’s munching on his cookie, the teachings of his tutors and the subtle berate of his parents jump out. 

Sigma glances at his seatmate, his critters through his cookie getting more sporadic the louder Nikolai chews on his, as loud as a broken machine. He notices the lopsided bow tie on Nikolai’s neck, one nudge and it will fall off of him. He decides to pick on it instead.

Stammering, Sigma points out, “Your bow tie.” 

Nikolai’s loud chewing subdued when he perks up with attention. He eyes Sigma expectantly before he notices the finger pointed at him. Following its line of direction, his eyes brought him to his sloppy bowtie. 

“Oohhhh,” his eyes widened in recognition. “Just forget that. I don’t know how to fix it anyway.” 

“Let me,” Sigma mutters too quietly Nikolai almost can’t hear it. 

Nikolai responds with a thoughtful hum, looking up as though his thoughts are scattered in the air above his head. But he allows him a moment later. 

“You need to turn around though, and pull down your coat.” 

Nikolai frowns but he’s docile, following Sigma’s instruction, though it wasn’t blurted out with the confidence of someone who’s used to getting his way around. It isn’t that way with Sigma at home, at least not with people around. But when he’s by himself, boy does he have a lot of control over his things and himself. Even his room is a manifestation of the control he wants to be reflected - tidy and organized, not relying on maids to do it for him. 

Revealing white long-sleeves fixed in its place by suspensions, Nikolai stops pulling down his coat halfway through his hips. He turns around, his back now facing Sigma who edges closer to him carefully, his nervous hands hovering in the air like leafless branches. Even when they’re seated, Nikolai’s obvious tallness is apparent with how Sigma needs to reach up to the boy’s shoulder before he needs to have access to his loosened bowtie. 

Sigma pulls towards him the loosening ends, not too tight or it would choke his new friend, and fixes them firmly on Nikolai’s nape. One of the things that allow Sigma to have control is having to dress his own self at home. He started when his night-past five years old. 

“Done.” 

Nikolai shrugs on his coat and returns to his old position. 

“Also, your hair. And there’s a charcoal stain on your cheek.” Sigma goes on with the flow, pointing out the mess in Nikolai before he can stop himself. 

His nitpicking, control, and cleanliness started when he thought it would get the attention of his parents. Two years of hardwork and his parents are still nobodies, faceless people in the house, regarding him only when they introduced him to their equally wealthy friends. What seems to be a wish becomes a habit and a personality, and now he’s shoving it on strangers. Sigma can only berate himself mentally. 

“Can you fix it for me?” Nikolai grins at him silly. He crouches down when he measures Sigma can’t reach the messy top of his head. 

“Don’t your parents get angry when you're dirty and all?” Sigma tousles the wayward strands back in place. 

“They do." When Sigma’s already done, Nikolai straightens himself up in his seat. “They even beat my ass with a stick when I come home mudded and messy. You saved me this time.”

Nikolai flashes a cheeky grin, which Sigma can only receive in utter deadpan. 

“You still have a charcoal stain on your cheek so I bet they’ll still beat you up,” quips Sigma flatly. 

Nikolai whines, “Hey! Take it off, too! Pleaaaaaseeeee~” 

“And get myself dirty? No thanks.” Sigma teases, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. 

“Meanie!” Nikolai throws a playful punch on Sigma’s shoulder. He doesn’t budge, still putting up a cold facade that breaks into a fit of laughter upon watching Nikolai sticking his tongue out at him. 

*************

Sigma doesn’t complain anymore when his parents bring him to parties, not when they’re attending another party in the Gogol estate. For the first time, he gets the feeling of having something or someone to look forward to. And tonight it will be doubled.

“Sigmaaaaaa!” Nikolai calls from across the hall. The adults in their bloated gowns and clean-cut tuxedos turn to Nikolai, murmuring inaudibly but knowing better to badmouth him when he’s the son of the host. He darts across the hall to reach Sigma on the other end, all the while dragging a new friend with him. 

As meek as a mouse, and like Sigma, is the boy standing beside Nikolai. He’s pale and the black accents of his overall suit only emphasize how pale as snow he is. His black hair looks so smooth, perhaps even smoother than the velvets in the gowns of Sigma’s mother. And his purple eyes look cutting in their sharp and piercing gaze. 

Sigma almost shivers when the glass-shard gaze of those eyes train in on him. He looks scary, but he forces a kind smile to adore his soft features. 

“Sigma, this is Fyodor.” Nikolai gestures to Fyodor and then switches to gesture at Sigma. “And Fyodor, this is Sigma.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Fyodor hoarsely. His voice sounds like he shouted at the highest and coldest place in Russia but he doesn’t look like he’d be the type to scream. Maybe it’s only his default voice color. 

“Nice to meet you too,” Sigma bows slightly. Now that he does, he notices Fyodor didn’t do it. He shrugs it off as something the kid only forgot. 

Facing Nikolai, Sigma asks, “So how did you two met?” 

“He’s a friend in primary school, and only now did my parents invite him and his family,” Nikolai explains as matter-of-factly as he would if he talks about the weather or a household chore. Turning to Fyodor, his beams at him. “Do you want to eat cookies, Fedya?” 

“I’m not into sweets but if that’s all you have.” 

Sigma observes he and Fyodor are so different. What is it with Nikolai that makes him gather weird people? Crazy people beget crazy friends. But wait, I’m not crazy, Sigma begs to differ. 

“Woah, you don’t like sweets? You’re really mature!” praises Nikolai eagerly. Sigma steps on the free side of Nikolai as the three of them walk among the guests, weaving their way out of the hall to slide into the dining room. Pointing to Sigma, Nikolai adds, “Sigma here likes cookies a lot! He’s such a baby, isn’t he?” 

“I’m already eleven years old!” 

“I think he has an appetite for sweets, that much I can say,” explains Fyodor eloquently. He does sound like someone with college-level reading comprehension. Not that it’s surprising for people born in aristocracy. Wealthy and highly educated parents want to see their children prosper in any aspect - arts or academe - and so puts them in art lessons and advanced tutorials. 

He can’t quite make an opinion about the arrival of a new friend. On the outside, Fyodor seems civil. Sigma can’t go as far as describing he’s kind when he looks at things with a deeply scrutinizing gaze like he’s planning for your murder at an early age as seven years old, but he seems willing to get along without scruples. Or so he hopes. 

Sigma has never been good with strangers. 

***************

Hence, it becomes hard for Sigma to invite Fyodor in a baking session with Nikolai at his house. Not because he still doesn’t know Fyodor, he’s known him plenty now, he’s a genius, a prodigy at his young age, and he’s a lot less serious than he lets on and they’re lucky the silly side of him shows when he and Nikolai are around. They seem to be the only safe place for him to drop down his guard. Once he shows them a rat he’d picked at the back of the nursery and kept under his clothes for the duration of the nursery class, fed it bread crumbs when the teacher wasn’t looking and brought it home with him - of course - bypassing the scrutiny of his parents. Sigma doesn’t expect he has a soft spot for rats. 

But that’s the thing - Fyodor is only comfortable to drop his cold civilness to Sigma and Nikolai. To other people, he’s as hard-looking as a stone. He’s stoic that he doesn’t care whether whatever comes out of his mouth hurts other people. He’s too truthful to be taken lightly. If his crass of parents are around to scatter insensitive comments here and there, he doubts Fyodor can control himself from scolding them from the get-go. 

“Uh, Miss Maria,” Sigma calls out the attention of one of his maids. “Where are Mama and Papa?” 

“They are out for tea time at their friends’ house, dear.” 

Sigma doesn’t know he’s been holding his breath until he sighs loudly, as though the whole world of a burden slips off his shoulders. He goes back to the main door where, outside, he has left Nikolai and Fyodor waiting. 

“Come inside!” He invites them as he peeks his head out of the oak door. 

Nikolai runs inside eagerly, as though he’s at home, while Fyodor, the typical cautious type, steps inside observantly as though he’s scared there are lasers at the entrance of the estate. 

Sigma leads them to the kitchen where bags of flour, boxes of cream, bottles of milk and more than dozens of eggs lay in wait for them to play around with. He suggests a baking session to them, a skill Sigma is proud about. It’s not anything special to have learned it at the age of twelve, but somehow his parents being negligent of him give him a lot of time to practice skills that may be of help in the future. And he’ll be imparting that knowledge now to his friends who might have been unwilling at first - Nikolai complained it’s too much work while Fyodor was passive-aggressively pointing out it’s dirty and tedious - but they give in, ushered by the lack of any things to do. 

And indeed, the baking session is only a quarter productive. Fyodor picks up the manual mixing of the eggs and flour. Kneeling on a stool, he’s mixing the ingredients more slowly than Sigma needs, especially that he’s about to knead the dough. He opens his mouth to call Fyodor out on it, but decides against it as he doesn’t really want to get his own share of Fyodor’s wrath. Nikolai is enjoying rather too delightfully the act of beating and breaking eggs and separating the yolks from the whites that he’s doing it entirely wrong, some eggshells got mixed up into the cream and there are still pieces of broken yolks tainting the whites that are supposed to go under the mixer. But hey, at least, they’re learning in their own ways. 

Sigma takes out the first batch of cookies, the one he has full confidence in because the eggs weren’t beaten and separated by Nikolai, and the dough wasn’t mixed by Fyodor. Nikolai follows the trail of sweet aroma, it brings him to the newly baked cookies Sigma puts beside him on the table to cool off for the designing process - the only art he’s mastered. But before Nikolai can take one, Sigma catches his hand hovering over the cookies that he slaps them off. 

“Ow!” 

“Not yet! I still have to design them,” reproaches Sigma. Pointing towards the bowl of yolk-spotted cream of whites left unattended, he commands, “Back to your eggs!” 

Dejected, Nikolai obliges, dragging his feet wearily back to his assigned spot. 

Fyodor watches the commotion with a conspiring smile in his face, one would think he’s plotting an accident to happen. He’s merely observing and deriving conclusions and inferences from it that he finds interesting.

Sigma catches Fyodor’s conspiring and scrutinizing gaze that chills run like mice along his spine and he stammers as he knocks on Fyodor’s attention, “Uhh, Fyodor….” 

Fyodor shakes his head and responds, much alerted at the moment, “Yes?” 

“Are you okay? Did we do something wrong or?” The concern is subtly laced in Sigma’s try-hard neutral tone. 

Fyodor blinks unwarily. “Oh, yes. Everything’s okay.” He dismisses Sigma’s worried accusation with his hand after he wipes it off clean. Looking back at Sigma clearly, he delivers his astute observation of Sigma’s good qualities, “I was just thinking that you, Sigma, are good at managing stuff that you can even get someone as stubborn and crazy as Nikolai to submit to your instructions.” 

Sigma blinks, once, twice, and then more, not quite believing what Fyodor said. Admittedly, he’d always known Fyodor to be a keen observer, but on others and not on him. Yet he’d always wondered what Fyodor thinks of him, more and more as each day passes when Fyodor’s own opinions of him have not surfaced up. Before, he guessed Fyodor must have picked out his self-concept issues much earlier on the friendship so decided not to say anything to preserve the friendship he and Sigma have, which is a hundred-eighty-degree different from Nikolai who always gets people’s opinions of him but slap them aside as soon as he hears them. The boy simply has a thick face, that’s what he is. 

And those words, coming from Fyodor, is the closest he gets to a compliment. 

Perhaps Fyodor thinks of him as a friend after all. 

“Well…” Sigma looks down, a shy blush dusting his cheeks, as he scratches the side of his cheek, oblivious of the flour from his fingers now sticking on his face. Bashfully, he mutters, “Thank you.” 

“Hey, look!” 

Both their attention is caught by Nikolai’s voice that they turn to him, only discovering he drew makeshift cat’s whiskers on his face with the flour. He pulls up his hands which he crooked like claws and makes a cat’s sound, not demure but a fierce and aggressive one, with a little hiss at the end. 

“You look dumb,” Sigma quips, completing the I’m-so-done vibe with a deadpan look. 

Nikolai whines and fake-cries, “Fedyaaaaa! Sigma is so mean!” 

“You do really look dumb, Nikolai.” Fyodor chuckles and it’s the first time Sigma hears it, so soft and squeaky like a rat’s laugh. 

Gasping theatrically, Nikolai puts a hand on his chest and acts out. “You guys are so mean! I’m so hurt!” Then, as though a lightbulb clicks on inside his head, he picks up a handful of flour and throws it Sigma. “Haha! Revenge! Now you look even dumber than me!”  

“Wha-” It stuck on the purple side of Sigma’s hair and more than half of his face, dying the parts white. “That’s unfair!” He also picks a handful and returns the favor. He laughs out heartily as most of the flour got on Nikolai’s nose but when he calls out Fyodor to boast about his triumph, Fyodor throws him a handful of flour without any notice. Now the entirety of his face is covered in flour and he’s as white as a ghost. 

“Fedya takes my side!” Nikolai sticks his tongue out. 

“No, I don’t take any side,” Fyodor expresses before he manifests his betrayal by throwing two handfuls of flour. 

“ WHAT?! I thought you’re on my side!” Smirking, Nikolai buries his hand deep on his own bag of flour and warns them, “So this is how the game must be played huh?” 

By the next second, Nikolai is manically throwing flour at Sigma and Fyodor, each handful of flour to each person, while the other two follow suit, picking up the signal to start the War of Flours. Sometimes Nikolai tactically crouches low to avoid getting hit on the face, his gray hair growing even paler the more flour is poured on him. Fyodor is somehow intelligent enough to cover his face with his hands all the time that most of the flour blots his ink-black hair with hazy white patches here and there, while Sigma, enjoying the moment, can’t care less of how much a flour disaster he becomes. 

Good thing Sigma’s parents are out with their friends, and for the first time ever, he wishes they would be wherever they are longer than they planned to so they won’t spoil the happiest moment he has bathed himself in.

***************

Both Nikolai and Fyodor are three years into senior school, while Sigma cannot gauge what level his learnings are. His tutors always assure his parents that they’re following the general curriculum and syllabus given by the Ministry of Education. He turned out not dim-witted so perhaps, his tutors can be trusted after all. 

But certain envy sparks up in him when Nikolai and Fyodor visit him wearing the same uniforms, they’re enrolled in a high-end private school that is uptight when it comes to uniforms. Nikolai pledges he hates them and sure enough, Fyodor shares stories of Nikolai being called to the Prefect of Discipline for not wearing his uniform the right way, sometimes stubbornly opting out to wear a different shirt on top. 

Now being in Fyodor’s room, with Nikolai and Fyodor himself, after his parents permitted him to join the sleepover Nikolai has been festering him about, Sigma is a whetstone on which the blade of envy sharpens itself. Watching his two friends fuss about an assignment due after the weekend makes him wish he’s also doing the same thing, fussing school stuff with friends and going to school with them where there are a lot of people he can meet. Surprisingly he doesn’t grow up into a misanthrope with thirteen years of isolation. 

But just because he can’t relate to what they are doing, he can’t be of any help. Sigma decides to walk over to the desk where the two are hunched over their projects. He sits between the two of them, peaking into whatever they are doing. “Can I help?” 

“Yes, Sigma! Please help me! Fyodor won’t teach me how to do it!” Nikolai fake-cries dramatically, holding up his assignment for Sigma to see. He leans in and sees that it’s Mathematics, no wonder why Nikolai is having a hard time. He hates it. 

“It’s really easy, Nikolai. You just don’t want to do it.” Fyodor comments, not looking up from his work. 

Nikolai grumbles, “For you, it is!” As if giving up, he lays his cheek on the table and huffs, “If only this is theatre… Drat, why are they freezing club activities?!” 

“Because it’s one week before the exam,” Fyodor answers matter-of-factly.  

“Fuck exams!” 

“I’ll try to help,” Sigma inserts in, doing his best to alleviate his friend’s stress. 

“You’re such a good friend, Sigma~” Nikolai fawns and then, he turns to Fyodor, sticking his tongue out, “Unlike Fedya!” 

“I only agreed to be your friend, not a good one.” It didn’t seem to faze Fyodor, even a bit. 

Sigma cannot trust his math skills either, but he doesn’t hate the subject itself, which makes it easier to deal with, unlike Nikolai who seems to have anxiety over it and, to put the sour cherry on top of leaking ice cream, hates it. With the help of his tutors, it isn’t as mind-boggling and energy-sapping as Nikolai deems it to be. 

“I’m shocked.” Nikolai scans over his assignment with wide-eyed astonishment. “You’re actually pretty intelligent, Sigma!” 

“Well, thanks.” Sigma shyly acknowledges the compliment. He goes quiet for a moment before he starts off, “I have always been curious. What does school look like?” 

“You get damned assignments like this!” Nikolai complains, rather energetically that he shoves his paper to Sigma’s face. 

Sigma chuckles. “Aside from that, of course. I’m sure there are fun sides to it.” 

“Fyodor hates it, too. Right, Fedya?” asks Nikolai, turning to Fyodor. 

“The teachers are clueless. Most of them don’t know what they’re teaching about,” Fyodor supplies a very candid answer that it stuns Sigma. For someone who is good at studying like Fyodor, it doesn’t seem that he hates school at first glance. But he gets reminded just how much of a genius is Fyodor, to even surpass his teachers. It must be hard to be a teacher who has him directly under their watch. Sigma cannot even begin to imagine the pressure. 

“But the school also reveals your talents!” Nikolai begs to differ. “If it weren’t for school, I wouldn’t have discovered I love acting and I have a knack for it.” 

“School makes you popular, too.” Fyodor adds and, snatching a glance at Nikolai, continues, “Nikolai is popular with the girls.” 

“Well, that isn’t something I should be surprised about,” reasons out Sigma. He’d seen it too, how Nikolai looks like a dashing prince in a once-upon-a-time book with his ash white hair, blessed height, and insane body proportions. He’s skin is not too pale, unlike Fyodor’s, and there’s a certain muscularity in his arms and thighs that Sigma can only attribute as something he developed from years of past ballet. Even the scar on his face, something he got from falling out of a tree when he was seven, Sigma can guess it fuels the fervent desire of girls who love boys that dress like danger and princely in one. 

“It’s annoying though.” Nikolai is twirling his pen between his fingers. “You know I don’t like girls, Fedya.” 

Something in Sigma wakes up that, quickly, he clarifies, “You hate girls in ‘I-hate-them-so-much-they’re-dumb’ way or ‘I-hate-them-because-I-like-boys way?” 

“The latter,” Fyodor answers it on behalf of Nikolai. 

The information is all too much on Sigma, not because he’s ignorant about the various kinds of genres and sexual orientations, not because it sounds big for someone as handsome as Nikolai, but because, and only because, it seems to finish a puzzle where some pieces didn’t quite fit. Sigma’s puzzle, not Nikolai’s. 

“I hope you won’t rat me on my parents.” It’s the only time Nikolai sounds meek and quiet. 

“Why would I?” Sigma gives him a confused look. “What I’m more surprised about is how Fyodor knows and not me.” And if Sigma is going to admit it to them, it does hurt a little. 

“No, I didn’t mean that-” 

Fyodor interrupts Nikolai to give Sigma a pointed explanation, “Nikolai didn’t tell me first. I guessed it and he said ‘yes’.” 

“Oh, sorry.” 

“Nah, it’s okay!” Nikolai waves his hand at him. Standing up, he runs quickly to Sigma’s side and guides his head to his tummy as he hugs him, “I’m sorry for not telling you earlier, too. I hope Sigma will forgive me.” 

“I- well, of course, do I have a choice?” Sigma lets out a small chuckle. 

Fyodor looks at them meaningfully, a warm smile laden on his scrutinizing features. He shakes his head and, putting his attention back on his paper, he mutters, “Fools.” 

Neither Nikolai and Sigma hear any of it, nor they are prepared for what lies ahead of them. 

****************

“We will miss you,” Sigma mutters quietly, trying to fight back tears. He hates being a crier in public places, he hates showing to everyone his soft side and how mushy it gets when partings happen. 

“It’s not like I’m going away for good,” Fyodor spouts out logically, as he usually does. He isn’t even trying to alleviate the sombreness of the moment, he’s only stating facts. 

Factually, he only moves to Moscow, but it’s more than an hour drive for St. Petersburg and neither, Sigma, whose parents are too strict for their own good, and Nikolai, whose remaining two years in senior school has a grip in his schedule and in his life, are free enough to visit him anytime. 

“But really, we will miss you,” Nikolai casually supplies. Sigma envies how casual he is, either because Nikolai has a lot of friends he can’t imagine the loss of losing one of the two as in Sigma’s case or he just doesn’t let it get to him. It’s hard to be the only feeler type in the bunch, Sigma mentally sighs. 

They’re cowered together in the front of the Dostoyevsky’s mansion in St. Petersburg. Their main estate is in Moscow and Fyodor will be returning there. Both Sigma and Nikolai watch the tapering view of the car as it speeds up down the street, taking their friend to a new place they can only visit after years. 

“Guess it’s only the two of us now.” Nikolai perches his arm across Sigma’s shoulder. 

“Why do I always have to be stuck with you?” groans Sigma, looking up at Nikolai with a glaring squint. 

“Hey! You should be thankful you still have me!” defends Nikolai. He follows Sigma, running, as the guy already wriggled away from his arms and walks back to his family car. 

Neither of them anticipates the weight of being the only two left in the childhood friendship together. 

*****************

Walking briskly along the marble-floored hallway, gritting his teeth and muttering ideas of why Nikolai called him at such a godly hour, at a scorching three in the afternoon where it’s more suited and more relaxing to stay in rooms than drink in the glaring sunlight, it’s only correct to judge that Sigma is fuming with irritation. Being stuck as Nikolai’s only confidant and friend is a two-sided coin, the tails representing bad, the heads representing good. The tails is, such as while ago, whined on about how much Nikolai needed him to be at the backyard of their estate right away, bribing you with cookies to make you do what he wants, and the heads is - the heads is something Sigma can’t wrap his head about. It means more alone time with Nikolai that he never had for the past few days because he was busy with theatre and school, more chance to be with him, to just see him and talk with him and being touched by him. The last one is totally unprecedented. 

“What is it now? ” Sigma grunts through gritted teeth as he refuses to step into the lawn and get himself burned by the sun. 

“Aw, come on! Don’t be angry!” Nikolai is standing under the shade of a tree, his head almost touching a low-lying branch. It’s a statement to how tall he grew up. He’s still in his pajamas, which can only mean one disgusting thing : he hasn’t taken his bath ever since this morning. Pouting, he pleads, “I really really need you right now so I can practice some lines. I can’t quite get the feel of them and I was thinking maybe someone who can pretend a character for me can help. Please, Sigmaaaa! My grades rely on the success of this play!” 

“You’re just saying that because you’ll be exempted from tests if the play will hit well.” But Sigma has walked across the lawn, arriving under the shade. 

Nikolai clasps his hands together. “Help a friend.” 

Rolling his eyes, Sigma can’t help but give in. “Fine.” 

Energy spikes up Nikolai that, enraptured, he instructs Sigma what to do. He asks him to sit on the lawn, leaning on the tree, and he follows suit after Sigma begrudgingly does as he says. Before speaking out his lines, he grabs first his script and reviews his words to see if he memorized it right. 

Nikolai clears his throat and starts off, “O, take the sense-” 

Sigma looks at him confused at the stoppage. “What’s wrong?” 

Nikolai gazes at him sternly and says, “Please don’t get shocked or anything when I would do things like touching you or something?” 

Sigma’s heart jumps in its place, his eyes widen for a moment before he realizes he has to minimize his frenetic actions to not give away what he feels. Stammering, he replies, “Okay.” 

And on, Nikolai continues. His eyes, which were grave and dim awhile, just sparkles and looked dreamy when he gazes at Sigma, as if magic, when he evokes his lines, “O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!” 

He puts a hand over Sigma’s before turning around, facing the lawn as if they’re the audience. He shoots his attention to the sky, gazing at it like a dreamy prince on top of a lighthouse. “Love takes the meaning in love’s conference. I mean-” 

He turns back to Sigma once again, the almost-innate starry-eyed languor in his eyes still present, characterizing fully a robust young man in love. “-that my heart unto yours is knit. So that but one heart -” He taps his index finger right on Sigma’s lips and Sigma swears, his world is almost spinning. “-we can make of it.”

Sigma can’t hear the other words in his line after, as the world around him fades away, carrying him bit by bit, pieces by pieces, in some faraway space in the sky where you only get to bask in your emotion for as long as you want. When he zeroes in back into the moment, a puckish smirk plays on Nikolai’s lips as he evokes the rest of the words, “For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.” 

If Sigma needs to be honest, Lysander doesn’t fit Nikolai. He might be playful but more often than not, he doesn’t find the right words in everything he’s feeling. Where Lysander excels, Nikolai fails. He’s as mischievous and clumsy as Puck, pouring love potions over wrong people, and he’d accidentally poured one over Sigma at some point in their friendship. 

Warm lips bring Sigma back to reality. Nikolai’s eyelashes are so close that they’re practically touching Sigma’s crimson-dusted cheeks. The wind gets knocked out of him, and he’s left breathless - figuratively and literally. Nikolai is kissing him, right at the moment, his lips warm and wet against his unmoving stunned ones. When Nikolai breaks away, his eyes widen, only realizing what he has done. 

“I- Sigma, that’s- it’s not what I-” Nikolai struggles to find the words, and struggles, even more, when Sigma stands up, shock written all over his reddened face, and walks away briskly. 

“Sigma, wait!” Nikolai calls out but Sigma keeps walking, and he himself cannot find a valid reason if he’s actually allowed to follow. He’d ruined it, their friendship, their six-year-long friendship, in just a minute, and Nikolai doesn’t think there’s going back to what they were before it. 

*******************

His thoughts might have confirmed his intentions but Sigma can’t merge the reality and the ideal. He doesn’t know what to think of the kiss. Did it mean Nikolai likes him? Or was he only carried away by his lines? Or was Nikolai only playing along? Were the hormones of a sixteen-year-old made him do it? Or both and some hidden feelings towards him? 

Sigma doesn’t know the answer, and he’s scared to know. 

********************

With Nikolai’s upcoming graduation and the lots of school preparations it entails together with perfecting the last play for two months, Sigma and Nikolai never met each other again ever since the accidental kiss. True enough, Sigma is grateful that Nikolai’s busy or he has to face one thing he can’t face, losing their friendship in the name of love. For the rest of the days, he busies himself with the lessons of his tutorials, drowning in the homework his tutors give him. Nikolai must have sensed he needed space and time because texts from him were nill and he almost didn't call. Sigma is torn between missing the constant annoyance from him or relieved that they don’t have to deal with the awkwardness that awaits them. 

Three days after the graduation, something Sigma didn’t visit Nikolai for and now, he’s suffocating in guilt, he receives a text from Nikolai. Guilt comes close to drawing him out of breath. Carefully he picks up his phone, lit-up with the notification, and opens the text. 

From: Niclownlai 

Sigmaaaa!!!! I’ll be going to Italy in two days. ☹️☹️☹️ Won’t you come to my sending-off party tomorrow~? I’d love to have my only friend there~ 🥺🥺🥺 Fyodor can’t come. 😣😣😣 He’s got finals, and you know how he is when finals come. 😒😒😒

Sigma supposed he can go, after ditching his graduation. It might be too much avoidance to even avoid him now, and while Nikolai can be patient to his friends, Sigma doesn’t want to try the bad side of him. Flopping on his bed, he throws his arms against the mattress, his phone flinging out of his hold. When he sleeps on his side and closes his eyes, he will himself not think about how to act later, when they will see each other again. 

************************

Sigma is hanging out on the patio, just like the old days. When Nikolai wasn’t behind the main doors to greet him, only his parents received him and his mom and dad, he couldn’t help but let out a shaky breath of relief. And just like in any parties he’d been in, all he never voluntarily wanted to partake in, he’d always dredge for the blind spot, like a cowardly warrior in search of a hiding place, away from the dagger-felt eyes. Seventeen years and he’s still a coward. Sigma exasperatedly sighs at the thought. 

“You’re here again.” 

When he turns around, Nikolai is standing by the threshold of the door leading to the patio, a fond smile plastered on his face. He takes the empty space beside Sigma, just like the good old days, but now they have to pretend an insurmountable invisible Wall of Awkwardness stands between them, making each space they occupy in each other a foreign one. Instinctively, Sigma scoots away to give a space between them, which only made their first meeting after two months the more out of place. 

“I’m really glad you came though.” Nikolai’s smile is more perfunctory than genuine. Sigma feels sorry. 

“Well, I ditched your graduation. I’m sorry.” His voice comes out smaller than a mouse. 

“Nah, it’s okay! At least you’re here, right? That’s what matters!” 

Sigma offers him a contrite smile, and while Nikolai can be a good actor, he also tries to convey what he really means by playing a genuine delight in his eyes. 

No one says anything after, the invisible Wall of Awkwardness accentuating its presence between them. Sigma folds his hands on his lap to still his almost-visible shaking legs, watching his fingers uninterestedly. If the silence continues on longer, he can faint at any minute now. So he decides to speak something, anything. 

“Are you really going to Italy?” Good thing that what he said was relevant and not weird. 

As though surprised, Nikolai turns to Sigma abruptly. “Yeah! I- I have to because the art school I planned to get into will be starting their applications in the middle of the month.” Nikolai reaches out to his cheek and scratches it indecisively. “So I think it’s best to give myself time to settle in the hustle and bustle of Italy.” 

“Fyodor, Moscow. You-” Sigma points at him. “Italy. Me-” And he points at himself. “Stuck here.” A bitter laugh escapes his sorry lips. 

“Aren’t they going to send you to college or something?” Concern dips in Nikolai’s tone. 

Shrugging, Sigma says, “I don’t know. I think they’re going to teach to manage the estate and their wealth to continue the lineage and family tradition, you know.” 

“I think you can do well.” Sigma looks up at Nikolai, astonished. His reaction doesn’t faze Nikolai in the least that he continues, “Remember when Fyodor told you you’d make a good manager?” 

Sigma chuckles. “Yeah, I remember that. Do you really think so?” 

“Of course!” Nikolai stands up cheerily, pumping his arms up into the air. “You’ll be the next irreplaceable owner of Sigma estate!” 

“You sound silly, you know.” 

“I know, and I have no plans in changing myself because I wanna be you and Fyodor’s silly friend!” A ridiculous grin matches his ridiculous declaration. 

Sigma can see a light peeking through the cracks of the invisible wall as it crumbles between them, now swapped with the usual noise and warmth of their friendship. Internally, he sighs with relief. 

Suddenly, Sigma finds himself being dragged by Nikolai. They hop off the remaining steps of the patio’s staircase and run along the side of the estate, in between the tall walls and lit windows and expanse of birch trees just outside the vicinity. 

“Nikolai! Where are you taking me?!” demands Sigma, almost tripping over unturned stones in the trimmed lawn that the servants overlooked in their landscaping duties. 

“Just relax! I’ll take you somewhere fun!” 

“But the party-” 

“You’re already bored with it, right?” Nikolai shouts over his shoulder. Sigma considers it, he’d grow mosses the longer he’d stay there. 

When they reach where the line of brick walls ended, joined by the other fence design of half-bars-half-bricks, they finally take a stop, catching up to their breaths. 

“Are we there yet?” Sigma asks between breaths. 

“Not yet!” Nikolai walks towards a shadowed part of the half-bars-half-bricks fence, enshrouded by trees on the other side of it. Gesturing to the fence, he announces, “We have to climb this up.” 

“ What?! ” Sigma is still catching up with his breath. “ Are you crazy?! Don’t your walls have sensor alarms or something?” 

“I know where they install them. We just have to be careful not to budge them.” 

“You’re insane.” 

“Well, I’m your silly friend, after all.” Nikolai casually throws him a wink. 

As lithe as a Siberian fox leaping over rocky snow-capped mountains, Nikolai hops off the ground easily, guided by his strong hold on one of the bars, and lands on the ledge where the brick wall stops and the barred-half continues. He heaves himself up over a horizontal bar, enough that half of his body is over the sharp-pointed ends of the vertical bars, and swings his leg outside gingerly. 

“You’re going to tear your pants!” Sigma bets he’s the only one who is nervous for Nikolai. His friend lands perfectly on his feet on the littered ground at the other side of the fence.

“See? No problem!” Nikolai only shrugs, dusting off his scarlet-heavy coat and black pants. Looking back at Sigma, he gestures at him, “Your turn.” 

“I don’t think I can do it, Nikolai.” He stares at the bars with a pained fright, as if it’s a giant that’s going to attack him if he tries to touch it. 

“Come on! You can do it!” 

“What if-” A lump in his throat hitches his breath. “What if those sharp bars are going to tear off my pants?” 

“It isn’t like they’re alive, Sigma. They won’t hurt you.” 

Left with no choice but forward and over the bars, Sigma pushes down the brewing anxiety in his gut. He follows what he’d seen Nikolai do, grabbing hold of two bars before hopping off the ground. He landed awkwardly on the ledge, his butt hanging in an empty air under him. Despite knowing he isn’t a foot off the ground, he can’t help but think he’s hanging along the edge of the cliff. Sigma wills himself to look up, swatting away the inner primitive instinct of a human to look down. Another hurdle is ahead of him, and it tempts him to jump from the ledge and back on where he came from. Sigma physically shakes his head to refresh his courage. 

Although not as swiftly lithe as Nikolai, Sigma grapples purchase with bar, slowly creeping his hand up and pulling him up in a repose against the bars. Cutting inches of distance from his fingertips to the horizontal bar Nikolai used earlier as a cornerstone to balancedly swing himself to the other side is a sweaty job that his palms almost slip at the initial grip. And by the next second, he finds his feet hanging far above the ledge, touching empty air that sends chills from his toe up to his spine. 

If climbing a seven-foot brick-and-bars fence already feels like throwing himself into the endless void, Sigma can’t begin to imagine the wall climbing where the grips and cornerstones you have are tiny, slippery rocks. 

“You’re doing great, Sigma! You can do this!” Nikolai sounds like an exhortative parent who took his seven-year-old scared child to a rock-wall climbing facility. 

Either it’s because of Nikolai’s pep talk or Sigma’s sheer will, he doesn't know how he makes it over the sharp-pointed ends of the bar to the other side. It seemed like he did it in a dream. When he feels the concrete underfoot, Sigma heaves a relieved sigh. All he has to do is jump backward and all will be well. No more of the seemingly insurmountable brick-and-bars. 

But that is only what he imagined because as soon as Sigma put his right foot on the ledge, the shiny sole slips up, the impacted shock sending his hands off the bars which he trusted with his life, and now he waits for the hard ground to welcome him with a cracking sound and broken spine. 

Sigma falls on someone’s chest instead and wakes up to a groan. 

“I-” Nikolai tries to break through gritted teeth. “I got you.” 

Realizing that the soft ground he landed on is Nikolai, Sigma frantically stands up. “I- uhm- I’m sorry.” 

Nikolai follows, dusting off the dried leaves sticking to his pants and coat. He throws a reassuring smile on Sigma’s way, “It’s okay.” And as he starts walking, he looks over his shoulder and offers, “Let’s go now.” 

They navigate through a few trees until they arrive by the pavement along the highway. Speeding cars pass by, most of them going to their homes. There are a few people walking down the street, possibly towards the same destination as the cars. Nikolai calls for a cab and Sigma hesitates after Nikolai gets in. 

“Come on,” Nikolai persuades quietly. 

“Okay.” Sigma gingerly steps in, forgetting to close the car door. But Nikolai reaches across him and closes it for him. After, he gives the cab driver the address, a place Sigma is totally unfamiliar with. Soon enough, the cab already rushes down the road. 

“Really though, where are we going?” asks Sigma, disliking the anxiety that comes with surprises, clinging to him like a nasty bug. 

“You’ll see when we get there. There’s no point spoiling the fun.” Sigma rolls his eyes upon seeing Nikolai’s mischievous grin. 

Sigma spends the later minutes of the ride by glancing outside the window. They pass by well-lit grand hotels and crowded parks, the city is still alive at past nine in the evening. The moon watches over the city gently, the stars an audience to the Earth’s show. When they pass the opera house, Sigma swears he can hear the music bouncing past the walls and spilling into the streets. 

It’s not his first time to see the city at night. He’d seen a handful of them behind limousine windows. But he wonders when he will be able to go around the city all by himself, free from any bounds or parent-sent securities. It isn’t like he’s a son of a president but then, he understands why his parents are uptight. It’s not easy to be the only son and the only heir of their estate that has been flourishing from past centuries passed down to them like a treasure by their foreparents. And of course, Sigma is expected to treat himself as a treasure, along with estate and everything in and around their wealth. 

But what he’s doing now is totally a breach to that silent agreement. His parents are going to be real angry if they do not find him back at the Gogol estate. He crumples his pants at the thought of it. 

Nikolai notices Sigma clenching and unclenching his hands on his lap. Out of nowhere, he puts his hand over them and looks at Sigma in the eyes reassuringly. To console him, his voice is soft and mild, “Hey, we’ll be fine. If your parents know that I’m with you, they won’t get as mad as you expect them to be.” 

Sigma lets out a shaky breath. “I hope so.” 

“My parents will convince them and when I can bring you back in one piece, they won’t bat an eye on what we did.” Nikolai winks at him. 

“Sure, they won’t.” Sigma scoffs, turning his attention back to the scenery behind the window. Something as painful as an ant bite stings his cheek when Nikolai pinches him. He whips his head around to glare at Nikolai, “What was that for ?!” 

Nikolai only giggles. “Now you don’t have to think about your parents.” 

“That doesn’t change anything.” 

“You wouldn’t be fighting me right now if it didn’t.” Sigma gives him a deadpan look. Nikolai giggles more. Rolling his eyes, he turns back to the window. 

Past the buildings, right in the center of the busiest places in St. Petersburg, Sigma can make out the cables of countless bridges in the city sprouting out into the cabbage grey skyline. Their route to whatever Nikolai is thinking of going covers bridge passes and it follows along the opposite bank of the river. 

“You can stop over there,” Nikolai points to a roadside and the cab driver follows, the taxi motioning to a stop. 

“We’re here,” Nikolai announces in the midst of Sigma’s undisturbed solitude. He blinks to himself a lot of times before recognizing the taxi had already stopped. When they step out, Sigma discovers they’re outside of a port. 

“We’re going to Italy now?! You’re taking me with you?!” Sigma almost can’t take a step out of fright. 

Nikolai laughs at his paranoia, which Sigma doesn’t look at approvingly - he hates when people make light of his worries - but it’s a usual scene with Nikolai, he always laughs at his worries. Sometimes it’s reassuring but it’s annoying more often than sometimes. 

Nikolai catches the grave aura coming off of Sigma that he chokes on his laugh, stops and clears his throat. “No. Of course not,” he manages to spit out before he finds himself guffawing uncontrollably once again. As if it wasn’t enough of salvaging, he adds, “We’re just taking a tour along the river. You’ve never tried this, right?” 

“Of course not. My parents will never try to travel with commoner folks, heaven and hell be damned.” Sigma falls a step behind Nikolai who leads the way to the entrance of the port, now crowded with nightly passengers. 

“Not even cruises?” 

“I think they tried in one but they didn’t bring me with them.” 

Sigma’s guard drops like a surprise when Nikolai grabs him by the shoulder. “Poor Sigma~” croons Nikolai, tousling his hair into a messy whipped of tangles that earned him Sigma’s admonishing grumble. 

Surprisingly, Nikolai knows how to navigate through the place. Their first stop as soon as they enter is a box-type office which Nikolai calls “ticket booth”. They fall in a line and never in Sigma’s life did he feel more self-conscious than he usually was in front of his parents. But Nikolai has no problem blending in, despite that both of them are wearing expensive-looking suits and some other folks in the line are staring at them, assessing them from head to toe. 

“You’ve ever been in places like this?” mutters Sigma to Nikolai, careful lest people think he’s being high off his boat. 

“Yep! Sometimes I skip school and me and my friends go here.” Nikolai answers as though he’s only merely asked about the weather. 

“You skip school?! Do your parents know about that?!” 

“ Geez, Sigma. You’re so prim and proper, I bet you can never survive in the wild,” teases Nikolai before he ducks into the small circular hall on the only glass window of the ticket booth. 

“Well, considering the kind of person you are, I shouldn’t have been surprised,” Sigma mumbles but Nikolai doesn’t hear any of it as he’s busy buying tickets for two. 

When Nikolai has the tickets, he grabs Sigma by his wrist and they both run their way to the riverboat. Nikolai sets a foot in the plank first, and how the boat wobbles in the little waves of the river set a creeping anxiety inside Sigma that he physically takes a step back. 

“Come on, Sigma!” Nikolai calls out, his hand outstretched to him. 

“I-” Sigma steps on an adult woman’s foot. He whips around and apologizes profusely, sweat beads drip dripping down his temple and his neck, more so when he realizes a band of people is waiting to step into the boat and the only thing keeping them from it is…. him.

Not this again . Sigma feels their eyes like walls closing him in. His breath starts to hitch, the sounds fading away from him as if he’s enclosed in a glass box where everyone has pinned him inside with their stares and outside is a hundred miles away. If Nikolai is calling him, he can’t hear him. 

“Sigma-” 

Something cold and heavy touches his shoulder. He turns around and sees Nikolai, hovering over his side like a lighthouse, like his presence is an assurance to a lost sailor in the midst of the storm. 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.” Though Nikolai’s voice is far from comforting and instead, authoritative, the storm inside him ebbs away gradually. “We’re sorry,” he proceeds to apologize to the people behind Sigma. 

“It’s okay,” the woman who’s foot Sigma has stepped on reassures them, while others just shrug it off, telling them they're not in a hurry. 

Nikolai holds Sigma’s hand tightly, and Sigma copies the security within their hands in return. When they cross the plank and step on the wobbling riverboat, it’s not half as scary as Sigma imagines it would. 

“See? You’re fine as a lamb,” Nikolai reassures him. Sigma responds with a small smile of tangent relief. 

They walk down the aisle between the seats and choose the pair of seats in the middle of the array on the left. Sigma sits beside the window, Nikolai taking the space next to him. When the boat is already filled with passengers, the engine turns up and it pushes against the current of the river, going upstream. Most of the passengers are tourists while some of them need to get to the other side. Where bridges are too far, riverboats take care of the job. 

Definitely, Sigma and Nikolai are on the whole other demography. They’re neither tourists nor trying to pass, they’re simply in there to enjoy St. Petersburg above the river waters, the glades of light down River Neva reflecting the lights of bridges. As Sigma sees everything for the first time, he notes every detail of the world he’s lived in but never explored, while Nikolai is savoring the last bits of the hometown he’ll leave behind for Italy.  

“I usually drag Fedya to skip classes and go on a stroll around the city with me,” Nikolai shares, in the midst of the silence.  

Whipping his head around, eyes wide and stupefied, Sigma exclaims, “ Really?! And Fyodor goes along with it.”

A playful smirk plays in Nikolai’s lips.  “Too shocking from someone who’s study-conscious, isn’t it?” 

“Wow,” Sigma gasps, the thought of it still swimming in his brain, unable to fully absorb it. “That’s…. That's a side I never get to see.” 

“Ugh, that’s too bad!” Nikolai whines playfully. Laughing, he starts off a short storytelling, “You should have seen the transition of his face from a glare, when I keep dragging him towards stores and bridges, to a smile - though it was only a small smile because you know how he is. Ah, I miss teasing him.” 

“You tease everyone.” 

“But teasing Fyodor is no fun. He almost doesn’t react,” complains Nikolai. “I love teasing you more because your reactions are priceless !” He grins at Sigma cheekily. 

“Oh, really?” Sigma gives him an uninterested look. “Is that the reason why you stick with me all this time?” He makes sure his glare would send chills to Nikolai. 

Gasping, Nikolai salvages, “Of course not!” 

He scoffs, whipping his head pointedly, his hair swishing along with it. Nikolai’s apologies scramble frenetically out of his mouth, and he smirks at how he can have Nikolai’s emotions wrapped around his finger that he can play with it, hook it, or turn it around in his own will. Fyodor wasn’t wrong when he said he can maneuver someone like Nikolai. 

After the roundtrip, crossing over the river from one side to back where they come from, they step out of the riverboat and walk out of the port. 

“So where are we going now? Home?” 

“Not yet.” Nikolai objects.

Sigma gives him a concerned look. “You know my parents will get even madder at this point.” 

“Nah, I doubt so. They’d be too busy talking about the stock market and whatever they find worth boasting about to each other to even notice we’re gone.” 

Sigma chuckles demurely, “I guess, you’re right.” 

They take another cab ride far from the port and into another street. When the cab turns right, it pulls to a stop in front of a 24/7-open convenience store. Nikolai pays the fare for the both of them, just like for the first cab ride and for the tickets. 

A chiming sound reverberates in the whole store when Nikolai opens the glass doors. “Just pick whatever you want to buy. It’s on me.” 

“Okay,” replies Sigma. Not knowing what other things to say, he falls a step behind Nikolai and falls him all over the store, scared that he’d get lost in the maze of shelves, even though the store is relatively smaller than their estate’s library.

Not many people are in there except the woman in her early 20s behind the cash register. She throws a glance at Nikolai and Sigma before resuming cleaning the microwave behind the counter. 

“You’ve never been to places like this, haven’t you?” Nikolai smirks as he asks something he already knows the answer. 

“Of course.” Sigma huffs out indignantly. “My parents only buy stuff straight from the manufactures and want every single thing in the house tailored to their tastes.” 

“It’s really a shame they didn’t send you to a proper school. You could have a lot of much wilder experiences.” 

“Yeah, you’re right.”  

They don’t go back home right away after buying chips, sodas, and colas from the store. Across the street is a line of intricately carved rails, overlooking the still River Neva. Not so far away from it is one of the beautifully lit bridges in St. Petersburg that the place across the store is perfect for standing by while admiring the majestic beauty of the river and the bridge at night. 

Time passes by like the fastest runner in a marathon, but the two boys take their time as if they have infinities of it in just a night. At some point, Sigma stops checking what time it is, content in being swarmed by the crisp city wind and Nikolai’s presence. The soda burns warmly in his throat, the biting coldness ebbing away the longer it stays inside his mouth. River Neva looks enchanting when it’s adorned with the moon’s curvy reflection and the glades of light. 

When Sigma turns to Nikolai, he squints disapprovingly at the lopsided mess that has become of his friend’s necktie, even more so when he only witnesses it now. He guesses he was too carried away with the string of events that he only got to take a breather at this moment and observe his surroundings. Pointing to it, he calls Nikolai’s attention, “Your necktie. It’s all over the place.” 

Nikolai looks down at his chest and sees it for himself. Turning to Sigma, he gives him a sheepish look. “Can you fix it for me?” 

“I’m not your mom,” protests Sigma weakly as he still takes a step nearer to Nikolai’s front. He grabs the tie gently, knotting it neatly in place. 

While he does so, Nikolai seemingly finds it the perfect time to break through the comfort zone Sigma is gradually settling in as the night stretches on. He starts off, nervous, “Sigma, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” 

Sigma doesn’t like that sentence that he stops mid-knot. His parents say it before telling him something they deem important but turns out disappointing, like that time where they told him they can’t send him off to the school Nikolai and Fyodor are in because they don’t want to risk his safety. Their intentions are easy to understand but it doesn’t make it any less disheartening. Sigma doesn’t have a positive experience with that kind of sentence. It’s a catalyst for his anxiety. 

Crossing his fingers that it won’t lead to anything disappointing, Sigma cautiously replies, “What is it?” He keeps his stare to his current business with Nikolai’s tie, busying himself with the accessory as though having his hands work will somehow alleviate the nasty gurgling of his stomach. He can sense his voice as placid as the deepest part of a river, as chilly as an abandoned cabin in the middle of a frosting moor.

“That thing two months ago,” Nikolai says, “That one.” 

Sigma doesn’t like where the conversation is going. 

“Do you-” Sigma patiently waits for Nikolai. He has done tying his knot, neat and prim against the white undershirt, but Sigma still can’t take his eyes off of it, staring at anything else except up at Nikolai’s face, who is beet-red as he struggles to form the words of what he’s about to say. “Do you… Do you still hate me for it?” 

For a moment, Sigma thinks it won’t do any of them bad if he’d be honest. For a fleeting moment, he senses that only an agonizing regret is in store for him in the future if he won’t fix the loose strings of his friendship with Nikolai. Although whether they will continue the string of friendship or cut it and tie it into something new or cut it forever, leaving the ends to someone that got away, Sigma isn’t sure and he’s scared where this fated conversation will lead both of them. 

“It’s not that I hate you.” Sigma is cautious with his words right now as he is when he is arranging his things in his room. “I don’t hate it either.” 

“What do you mean?” There’s a look of hope shimmering in Nikolai. 

“I was confused.” Sigma looks at the stones along the river wall, melted together, sticking to each other closely. “I didn’t know what to feel about it that time but I think that- I think…. I think why I avoided you was because-” He realizes his word-vomit and so, he halts, looking at Nikolai timidly. 

Nikolai doesn’t say anything but looks back at him expectantly. 

“I realize that I… I could have felt something for you.” 

A dejected sigh escapes Nikolai’s lips. His brows hang down like lonely puppets. “So it was all in the past?” 

“No-” Sigma interrupts abruptly, looking up to Nikolai who eyes him furtively through his gray locks falling over his eyes. “I mean, I could have and still have.” 

“You do?” Nikolai looks as expectant as a kid waiting for his Christmas gift to be given to him during Christmas Eve family dinners.

Sigma swallows the lump in his throat and declares, “Yes.” 

The truth is bubbling up between them and they have no way of stopping its ascendance. 

Breaking the momentary silence, Sigma asks the question with the highest stakes, “So was that a fluke, or did you actually mean it?” 

“I-” Nikolai bites his lower lip. “I actually did mean it.” 

Sigma doesn’t know he’s been holding breath until he exhales a huge ball of one. It’s clear as crystal between them now, Nikolai likes him and he likes him back, but one thing still stands between them: how are they moving from this revelation, especially when Nikolai is going to Italy? 

Sigma opens his mouth to ask about their plans, about what will happen to their friendship, and what they will do in their new relationship but Nikolai beats him to it. “Can I do it again?” 

“Do what?” He squints back, confused. 

“I-” Nikolai buries his face on the surface of the stone rails. He mutters quickly, “I want to kiss you, Sigma.” 

Sigma blushes. He stares intently at the river in front of him, unable to move any part of his body. Even his mouth is being stubborn that he stammers, “I think- uhh, I think it’s fine.” 

Then he feels a hand on his arm so he lifts his head up, and Nikolai catches his chin under his fingers and by the next second, he’s facing is too close to Sigma and his lips are on top of him. 

Nikolai deepens the kiss tentatively as if asking permission to a gate only Sigma can open. And when he does, Nikolai slips his tongue in, kissing Sigma fully. He holds Sigma by his waist, preventing him from falling back with the languid spellbound he puts him in. 

They part with a contented sigh, with Sigma looking down on his feet to hide the furious blush tainting his whole face in crimson. Nikolai coughs over a fisted hand, clearing his throat. 

“You’ll visit me in Italy, right?” asks Nikolai, sounding hopeful. 

“I’ll try.” Sigma still hasn’t looked up. “You know my parents-” 

“I’ll tell them that I want you to visit me. They can’t turn that down, could they?”

Looking up, Sigma chuckles. “You’re a sneaky bastard.” 

Nikolai gasps, covering his ears. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that word from you!” 

“I- What?! I’m a person, Nikolai. Of course, I know how to curse.” 

“No! You don’t! You’re supposed to be a precious baby!” Nikolai persists, still covering his ears. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” 

Nikolai gasps again. “This is madness!” 

“I’m not crazy, damn it!” Now Sigma is cursing out of wanting to elicit the stupid kinds of reactions out of Nikolai rather than out of expressing his feelings.