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"I need a date for a party" Horangi had said, and König hadn't known what to say.
"It's not a real date, of course, but I told everyone I was bringing one so they'd stop trying to set me up with people, and you're the only person who fits the bill. Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," he had appeased, even though he didn't want to do it at all, "I'd be happy to help you out."
Which was how they had ended up here, at a party in Soap and Ghost's house, music thumping all too loudly and far too many people surrounding them. König had always thought these kind of parties only existed in movies - the kinds that painted American college life as an endless string of parties, where no one seemed to have a job or classes to attend - but it turned out that they were real and they sucked just as much as they seemed they would.
But he had promised Horangi he would come, to keep up the cover, so he could put up with it for a little while longer. Even if Horangi had stepped away a few minutes ago to go grab something to drink and König was getting more overstimulated by the second.
He decided to take a step out into a hallway, where it was slightly quieter and there were less people. König had no idea that Soap and Ghost knew this many people, but it seemed they must, because even Horangi, who wasn't even running the party, seemed to recognise almost every person they had seen when they first arrived. There must have been a hundred or so people there, all spilling out across the house, and it was almost haunting to König. Crowds like this were terrifying to him, and it was difficult even to look at the size of the crowd now that he was somewhat free from it.
"Hey," said Horangi, voice a little softer than it had been when they had last spoken. "How're you holding up?"
"I am fine." Said König. It wasn't strictly the truth, but he didn't want to ruin things for the other man.
"Fuck," said Horangi, seeing right through him, "I shouldn't have made you come here, I'm sorry, you're all stressed out now and it's my fault."
"It is fine, really, Horangi." Said König. It was, really, even if König wasn't.
"No it's… hold on, actually." Horangi turned then, walking away from König and further down the hallway. "Do you wanna take a breather with me?" He asked.
"Yes please." Said König, and Horangi gestured for him to follow.
"There's a skylight in one of the rooms upstairs that opens up onto the roof," he explained, "and when you're up there, you can barely hear anything happening inside."
König had to admit it did sound appealing.
As they made their way upstairs, they didn't pass anyone else, and König began to worry that Soap or Ghost - and if he was being honest, it would be Ghost - would get mad at them for this. They were just walking around like they owned the place, and were going to just climb out onto their roof? It didn't seem polite.
When he expressed this fear to Horangi, though, the man just laughed.
"Don't worry, König, we're their friends. It's not like we don't spend enough time here as it is. Besides, I've been up there loads. Sometimes Soap joins me. They don't mind, I promise."
König wasn't totally convinced, but his mind was put a little more at ease. They were at the skylight already, anyway.
Horangi wrenched it open, having to go up on his tippy toes to reach the latch, before grabbing onto the ledge and pulling himself up. König followed, and as he did, Horangi offered a hand down to him. It was wholly unnecessary - Horangi had been able to get up himself no problem, and he was a foot shorter than König - but it was a nice gesture.
As he emerged on the roof, König had to admit that Horangi had been right. The view was lovely, the stars fully on display, and he couldn’t hear a thing from the party. Horangi was already sitting on the shingles, and König took a seat beside him, settling in to the silence.
“You can’t see the stars like this in most places,” observed König after a while.
“It’s one of my favourite parts of coming up here,” said Horangi, “getting to see all the constellations.”
“It’s nice.”
“Yeah.”
They stayed staring up at the stars for a while, and König realised that his heart rate was slowing down. He hadn’t even known that it was up until now.
“Do you know the names of any of the constellations?” asked König.
“Yeah,” said Horangi, “a few of them.”
König scanned the sky, although he didn’t even know which stars were parts of constellations and which weren’t.
“There,” he said, after a moment of searching, “that really bright star under the moon, what’s that part of.”
Horangi followed his gaze, studying the sky for a moment.
“Ah, that’s Betelgeuse. It’s part of Orion - see, if you look further down you can see the three bright stars in a row? That’s Orion’s belt.”
König hadn’t been expecting Horangi to actually know all that much, but now he felt like he had to test his knowledge.
“What’s Orion even supposed to be?” he asked, “I thought it was just the belt.”
“Orion’s the hunter!” said Horangi, clear enthusiasm in his voice, “See, if you follow the bright star opposite Betelgeuse - that’s Bellatrix - then that’s the start of his arm, and he’s holding a bow.”
If he was being honest, he couldn’t really see it at all. He could find the bright star Horangi was talking about - or at least, he thought he could - but he had no idea how to make out the arm or the bow that he was being shown.
“Ja,” said König, because he didn’t want Horangi to stop talking about this, “I think so.”
“Are there any others you want to know?” asked Horangi, and König didn’t know how to tell him that he just wanted to listen to him talk about stars and constellations for as long as he’d let him.
So instead he asked “Which one is the North Star?”
“Uh,” said Horangi, “hold on, we’re facing… West? I think. Which means that North is to the right of us. So then the Little Dipper and Polaris must be…” Horangi pointed up past König, towards a bright star. “That one.”
“You found that so easily.” he said, a little shocked, “How?”
Horangi shrugged. “Practice, I guess. I come up here a lot to just… look at the stars.”
“Well,” said König, “I am glad that you brought me up here too.”
They lapsed back into silence for a while, just watching the stars. It was nice, and König was very happy that Horangi had chosen to show it to him.
After a while, it began to drizzle, and that drizzle turned into a rain. It was cold, and wet, and coming in hard, and so König figured that was their cue to leave. Horangi must have closed the skylight back up after he had joined him, but that shouldn’t be any issue. The latch was only on the inside, which meant that he couldn’t have locked it behind him.
So König pulled at the skylight, not expecting any resistance. Which was why it was so surprising to find that the window wouldn’t budge at all.
“What’s the issue?” asked Horangi, “Can you not get a proper grip on the frame in the rain or something?”
“Nein, it’s not that,” he explained, “I think that it’s locked.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Horangi, “the window only locks from the inside.”
“Well,” said König, “that may be the case, but someone has locked it. And we can’t unlock it from outside.”
“Fuck.” said Horangi. He wasn’t wrong.
“What do we do?” asked König, because there had to be something they could do.
“We… what do we do?” echoed Horangi. “Do you have your phone on you?”
“Ja, of course,” said König, fishing it from his pocket.
“Great,” said Horangi, “I left mine inside, but we can always call someone for help from yours.”
“Scheiße.” It seemed as if they wouldn’t be calling for help after all. “It’s dead.”
“What?”
“My phone. It’s dead.”
“What do you mean it’s dead?”
“I mean there’s no battery left. It’s dead.”
“Shit.”
Horangi was starting to look panicked himself, which was not comforting to him in the slightest. If Horangi was panicked, that meant that something was actually wrong. And that meant that König was going to panic. He could already feel his heart rate increasing again as he thought about all the ways this could go wrong.
He wondered if there was another way out that they were just forgetting about because they were starting to panic, if maybe this wasn’t as dire a situation as he had previously thought.
“Can we call for help from up here?” he asked, “Shout down for someone to come let us out?”
“No,” said Horangi, “the downside of it being impossible to hear the party from up here is that they can’t hear us either. We’re stuck up here until someone notices we’re gone or sees us on the roof and comes to get us.”
“Scheiße. ”
“Indeed.”
They sat down again, no point in them standing up when they were stuck here for who knows how long. The rain was coming in even harder, and König was trying not to let it get to him. It wasn’t working.
It was his fault they were up here, anyway. He had been the one to freak out. To need to escape the party. He had done a shit job of being Horangi’s fake boyfriend, had barely done anything to play the part before he was escaping altogether, and now they were stuck up here, the rain soaking their clothes and probably going to leave them sick.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I was a horrible fake boyfriend.”
“Don’t say that,” said Horangi, “you’re a perfectly fine boyfriend. I shouldn’t have invited you here, I know you don’t like these kinds of events. It’s not your fault that you’re too nice to turn me down.”
“I should have just sucked it up,” said König, suddenly aware that rain wasn’t the only liquid covering his face, “I’ve dealt with worse, I don’t know what overcame me.”
“You shouldn’t have to do that,” said Horangi, “you’re allowed to have bad days. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But I have! ” he almost shouted, “I’ve screwed this up, like I screw up every other social event I ever go to. I don’t know why I bother. I don’t know why people invite me anymore. I just kill the mood.”
“Hey,” said Horangi, shuffling closer to him on the roof and taking his hands in his own, “don’t say that, okay? You didn’t screw this up, just like you don’t screw everything else up. The person who screwed this up is whoever locked the window - probably Soap, and we all know that if anyone screws everything up, it’s him. Just take it in stride even if you think it’s your fault. Soap already does, and he’s actually the one responsible, so if you do it, no one is going to complain.”
“I still- I can’t just- I can’t just not feel bad for screwing everything up, Horangi.”
“Then…” Horangi looked troubled, as if something König had said had upset him, “Okay. Shifting tactics. What are some good things about you?”
“What?”
“You’re blaming yourself, and I clearly can’t stop you from doing that, but you can still find some good to balance out the bad. So. What do you like about yourself?”
“Ähhhh …” Horangi had asked him a question he wasn’t sure he had the answer to. Which was ridiculous, because surely he did have some good qualities.
“Alright,” said Horangi, saving him from himself. “You’re struggling. That’s fine. I’ll go first then. I like how much you care. About other people, and that everything goes well, and just… Well, I like how much you care. You’re a very kind person, König.”
König could feel himself blushing.
“What else? I like how stubborn you can be. You can set your mind to something and just keep trying to do it even when it goes badly. You don’t take no for an answer, you just go out and try harder the next time.”
He didn’t know what to do with this. It was all too much.
“I like how much you pay attention, even when it’s something you don’t care that much about. I like that you asked me questions about the constellations even though you don’t really understand. I like that you didn’t feel the need to tell me you didn’t care.”
Horangi was looking at him, was smiling so wide that König could almost forget that it was raining. Not quite. But almost.
“I like you very much, König. Please don’t forget that.”
“I-” König didn’t know what to say. He felt like he had to say something.
“I like your scars too.” said Horangi. König hadn’t expected him to continue. “I love them, actually.”
A finger traced over one that marred his jaw. “I know you don’t like them, but they’re one of my favourite parts of you. Reminders that you’re not dead yet. That you lived and whoever gave them to you didn’t.”
Horangi laughed a little at that, and König started to wonder how much he had drunk at the party. He hadn’t thought he was drunk, but maybe he was, if this was how he was acting.
“Are you drunk?” asked König, a little afraid of the answer.
“No,” said Horangi, “just feeling a bit sappy, I suppose. I like your company.”
König didn’t know what to say to that. He thought that maybe it would be better if Horangi was drunk. If it was just the alcohol talking.
“C’mere,” said Horangi, “I’m cold, and it’s still raining. You’re big. Come warm me up.”
König complied, tense at first, but then soon Horangi was cuddling up against him, and he couldn’t help but let himself relax. It was nice, like this. Horangi was warming him up a little too, so it was well worth it if they had to wait out the rain for someone to come get them.
He must have fallen asleep, at some point, because the next thing he remembered was Horangi tugging his arm, pulling him towards the skylight. The open skylight.
“You two lovebirds find a good use for our roof?” asked Soap, who had evidently been the one to let them back down.
“We didn’t- I mean- We would never- That’s-” began to stutter out König, a little horrified by the implications. Even if they had been a couple, it would be far too rude to do something like that where everyone could see them.
“I don’t have sex in places that you already have, Soap.” deadpanned Horangi, leading König away by the hand.
König felt a little uncomfortable knowing that Soap and Ghost had had sex on the roof - and he knew that they had now, because Soap didn’t flush that bright red on false accusations.
“I’m sorry about him,” said Horangi, as they reached the man’s car. The rain was starting to let up a little, but König was glad that they had parked so close by. He was already wet enough as it was. “You don’t need to be my fake boyfriend again, I can just tell them that we decided we were better as friends, or whatever. They won’t push it.” Horangi paused for a moment. “Well, not to you, anyway.”
Something in König’s stomach dropped at that comment. He didn’t want to stop being Horangi’s fake boyfriend, even if it was only at parties he didn’t want to be at.
“It is okay,” he said, “I think I can deal with being your boyfriend again.”