“I don’t get it! What am I supposed to do?!” Suddenly, Ryan dropped his head onto the counter, making Erina flinch beside him. As it was most of the time, the convenience store they worked at was completely empty, fully stocked, and simply boring.

“What is your problem now, jeez?!” 

“Eli! I don’t understand him, at all! Nothing makes sense, nothing!!” 

Erina, with one of her eyebrows lifted in confusion, stared at Ryan. “You still haven’t gotten anywhere?” 

“No!!! We were having a good time playing, until I bought him a skin, and he got all weird about it and left! And I haven’t talked to him since! We’re back to square one, he ignores my messages, and I practically don’t exist anymore!” 

“Dude, it’s been weeks. You’re going at the pace of an innocent love drama.” 

“H-Hey! You’d understand if you knew Eli! If I go too fast, he’ll just run off, and I’ll never see him again! He might just switch schools if I told him I liked him!” 

Erina laughed, and bought herself a can of soda she’d been craving since the beginning of her shift. “He might be weirded out because you keep buying him all this stuff, but you’re never making a move.” 

“Huh … ?”

“All the coffees and sweets, and now skins in a video game … You’ve mentioned he started crying around you multiple times, now, and just being melancholic and stuff, and you never even asked him about it.”

“B-Because he keeps telling me to shut up!” 

“Well, if he’s crying, he clearly wants you to comfort him!”

“Huh? Seriously?! I mean, I tried, but he was totally ignoring me!” Ryan frowned in confusion. That couldn’t be it, could it, with the way Eli tried to hide his tears as much as he could, only for them to burst out of his face when he couldn’t hold it any longer … Was he weirded out by all the gifts, with no motion behind them? Because Ryan kept pushing, without the direction being any clearer? 

“Just be direct. He probably hates how you’re beating around the bush.” 

“But, how … ? He always looks so terrified, and his voice got all shaky after I bought him the skin, and he told me not to do stuff like that. I—I don’t understand …” 

“Just go for it! It’s not that hard, Ryan! You’re making it way more complicated than it has to be, and I can’t stand you going at this snail pace, seriously … No wonder he thinks you’re a virgin.” 

Just go for it — was that truly the solution? Ryan wasn’t convinced, but it remained on his mind for the remainder of his shift, and even beyond that. 

When he found himself stuck at school on a rainy day without a car to drive home in, he thought it was the day to break the awkward silence between him and Eli. In a hoodie, hood wrapped tightly around his head to keep his face and hair dry, he ran over to the arts faculty with a little too much excitement, and for the first time, he didn’t find Eli in the atelier he usually worked at. 

Instead, Ryan found him sitting on some stairs nearby, which would lead up to the second floor. But he sat there, hunched over, listening to music while he sketched in a brand-new sketch book. He must have thrown his old one away after ripping all those pages out, and now sketched on these new pages; once again, there were hands, and bodies, all out of his memory. 

Ryan gulped, and tried himself at a smile. Just go for it. 

He approached Eli with cautious steps, and allowed himself to sit right beside Eli, who barely even reacted. His eyes did glance over, and he shimmied away just a bit, but that was all he did. 

Only after Ryan allowed himself to steal one of Eli’s ear buds out of his ears did he react by slouching, and sighing all the louder. “Why are you bothering me?” he grumbled.

“I came to bring you coffee,” Ryan mumbled, pushing Eli’s ear bud into his own ear, instantly met with emotional, classical music a few decibels too loud for his liking. It blasted Eli’s ears so loudly, he probably couldn’t even hear his own thoughts! 

“Yeah? Where’s the coffee, then?” Eli hissed, and Ryan blushed and turned into a stuttering mess, as he usually did around Eli, whose presence made him so much clumsier than he usually was.

“Ah, uh, well—“ He chuckled. “It started raining like crazy, so, uh … I forgot. Of course, it had to rain today, when my dad took my car for maintenance. I won’t have it back until I see him on Saturday.” 

“Not my problem.” Eli grumbled, continued on sketching hands, but instead of starting a new sketch, he drew over the ones he already had, as if he wished to perfect them. The music continued on playing inside both their ears, and it honestly surprised Ryan that Eli didn’t snatch the ear bud away from him, or made any comments about burning it after Ryan finished using it. 

“This sounds really familiar,” Ryan mumbled, tapping against his headphone. “What’s the name of this again?” 

“Of course, it sounds familiar. It’s Beethoven,” Eli hissed. 

“Oh, yeah! For Elise, right?” 

“…” 

“It’s nice. I like it.” 

Eli only grumbled, and didn’t respond, continued on drawing invisible lines onto his already existing sketches. At this point, Ryan thought he pretended to be busy. 

The next song entered their ears and heart, opening them up all the more. Ryan gulped as the slow melody reached him, goosebumps following as the emotions packed inside each note hit him like one truck after the other. And Eli’s pencil shivered, his fingers clenching around it all the harder.

“… What’s the name of this one?” Ryan wondered in a whisper, inching closer so slowly, he hoped Eli wouldn’t notice. 

“…” Eli’s breath escaped him rather shivery, and he avoided looking at Ryan as always. 

What else is new? You never look at me. 

Eli knew these songs by heart, and didn’t even need to check his phone to tell Ryan the title, but it seemed he somehow didn’t want to. Only his restraint didn’t last as long as he himself would have liked, and his quiet, almost shy voice, finally responded. “Liebestraum … Liszt. Love Dream.” 

Ryan gulped. “Do you speak German?”

“No,” almost instantly, Eli spit it out. “I don’t, no.” 

“Oh … It sounded so natural the way you said it,” Ryan chuckled. “Honestly, I think I could have guessed the title just by hearing this melody … it’s like I know exactly what that guy was feeling when he composed it.” 

“That’s the point,” Eli whispered, eyes darting towards Ryan, only to dart right back. 

And Ryan’s mouth turned dryer and dryer, to the point of cracking. His heart raced louder, almost making it impossible to hear the classical piece inside his ear. His nerves killed him, and with this emotional music to hear, his mind was completely overtaken by just one thought alone.

Just go for it. 

You’re taking way too long.

Just go for it, just go for it, just go for it.