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Silence.
Keith was hearing absolutely nothing. He had finally decided to rest.
The previous day had been a roller coaster. These past few Friday nights had been absolutely perilous, thanks to his girlfriend’s father.
Last night felt more like a personal attack, however.
…
Riing… Riiiiiing..
Keith awoke to the sound of his phone, which happened to be on the other side of the room, ringing incessantly. He opened his eyes.
Complete darkness.
He let out an annoyed groan. Who would be calling in the middle of the night like this?
Disregarding the call, he rolled back over in his bed and attempted to go back to sleep after being so rudely awakened. A very short time later, however…
Riing… Riiiiiing..
That ring really set into his soul this time. He knew it was probably something important if he received two phone calls. He reluctantly pulled himself from his bed, and went to go grab his phone.
The first thing that he noticed was the time. It had just passed three o'clock in the morning. The second thing he noticed was whom he had received the call from.
His girlfriend.
He immediately cleared his throat as his head began to spin with possibilities of what this could be about.
He unlocked his phone, and proceeded to return her call.
It didn’t take her long to answer.
“Keith! God, I didn’t know if you were gonna pick up! I’m sorry to call you this late, but… it’s important!! You know that guy you rap battled last night? You seemed to know him well?
There was a chill and fear in her voice.
“Mm…mhm…what…about him?”
“He… he just got really hurt!!”
He was immediately very concerned. Instantly, the adrenaline rushed through his system, and he became much more alert.
“What the fuck do you mean, he’s hurt?! Like, is he okay at least?! And, do you know what the hell happened?!!”
“I don’t know! I just brought him to the hospital because he was pretty much not awake!!! I was super worried!! I’ll tell you what I know later… Just, ugh… please, get here as soon as you can! I’ll meet you at the entrance!”
She hung up the phone, and instantly he rushed to get himself together so he could make his way to the hospital.
It was all so surreal. Pico? Hurt? He never got hurt! He was one of the strongest people Keith ever knew!
The emotions were overwhelming. Keith felt himself on the verge of tears prior to even getting into the hospital, but he kept it together. He stepped into the entrance, where he saw his girlfriend waiting for him.
“Keith!” She cried out. “Thank you for getting here so quickly!”
He felt ever so slightly calmer, now that he was in Grace’s presence. Keyword, slightly. “Hey! Where is he?!”
She clearly heard the urgency in his voice. “Come with me. I was just up there!”
Time felt as if it was moving at a snail’s pace during that five minute walk to the hospital room. The anxiety welled up further and further with each step.
Then, they made it. The nameplate next to the door read “Pico Fulp”.
Keith stepped into the room, and was at a loss for words.
Pico was there, the bed at a slight angle. Keith was very relieved just to see him. The worst had gone through his head in the past thirty minutes, so it was reassuring to see that he wasn’t obliterated.
He did look pretty battered, however.
Keith looked closer. He saw the deep scratches on his cheek and on the top of his chest. The bruises and gashes on his knees. He was sure there were probably more wounds that weren’t visible to him.
It was all too much for him to take in. He took one step closer to the bed.
Pico immediately clenched his fists, gripping the sheets tighter.
“You really… are hurt… huh?”
Keith was unable to utter any other words. He couldn’t think straight due to his shock. As he was attempting to gauge Pico’s level of consciousness, a single word left the ginger's mouth.
“…Sorry.”
Something about that response made the blue haired boy feel a rush of pain through his body.
“The fuck ya mean, sorry?! Who did this to you?!!”
Pico did not hear anything really. His ears were ringing, loud as ever. Everything else was just in searing pain, pain worse than he’d ever felt before. Every body part hurt, down to deep within his bones. The voices in his head only made this worse. Through everything, he comprehended a single word of Keith’s. “Who”. He didn’t have the strength to respond with more than one word.
“Monster…”
“Pico, that ain’t a name. Tell me. What bastard DID this to you! I’m boutta go and give ‘em a piece of my fuckin MIND, goddamn it!”
Keith was fuming. Seeing Pico’s injuries filled him with a primal rage. That was someone he cared about deeply, injured. He wouldn’t stand for it.
He wasn’t aware that he raised his voice, however. Pico put his head down, waiting for something to kick in. At that moment, in response to hearing Keith raise his voice, Grace came into the room and pulled him out.
He was surprised by the sudden jolt back. Once he gained his footing, he turned around to see his girlfriend.
“Ay! Babe, I was tryna have a co-“
She cut him off. “Shh! You’re raising your voice babe! He’s having trouble talking right now, in case you didn’t notice. I haven’t even gotten the full story, but I’ll tell you what I know! Listen please!”
She paused for a moment as the blue haired fellow listened attentively.
“So like… I got home and I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, hearing rustling, and my dad screaming. I’ve never heard it like that before! He sounded so pissed! After all that was done, he slammed the door and he was nowhere to be found. I went out to the kitchen to see what the aftermath was, and there I found Pico! There was blood all over him, and the scratches looked really bad! He was also pretty much not awake, so I decided to take him here!”
This left Keith positively enraged.
“You can’t be fuckin serious! Your dad? Like, the one that’s been after me?! For fucks sake! He’s even more of a bastard than I fuckin realized! Like oh my god. Dude’s been up my fuckin ass! I’on know how much he knows about y’know, the past that I got with Pico, but like. He prooobably looked into it, cuz how could this be just by fuckin chance!? Just. How petty can this dude get?! Just- ugh!!”
He stormed back into Pico’s room. Many questions bubbled in his mind, but he knew he would get to the bottom of this somehow. He started with the simplest of them all.
“Aight, Pico. Listen. Ya gotta tell me what the actual fuck is goin on here. Like, what the FUCK did ya get yourself into?!”
Pico picked his head back up, turned, and stared blankly at Keith. He could tell his medicine was working now, but it still took him a moment to process what the other had said. He knew his lack of response was less than ideal, however. He tried his best to find the strength to speak. After another moment, he got it.
“…He hired me to kill you, B.”
Those words had a heaviness to them. They filled the room with a suffocating air, so thick one could cut it with a knife. The blue haired male’s mind went blank, rage melting away as those words left the ginger’s lips.
“W…What?”
“…Kill you. He… didn’t give me much of a description, so I… took the job. Then… I saw it was you, and I… I couldn’t, B. Not to you.”
Keith was, to say the least, lost. This situation was a lot to take in. He was feeling so many different emotions at the same time. He didn’t even know where to start to digest it all. There were so many things he had questions about as well, but one question in particular stood out in his mind.
“Why?”
Pico remained silent, staring blankly at the other once more.
Keith felt his eyes begin to well up with tears. They were tears of pain, but also tears of frustration. Every emotion he had held up to this point came out in a flood.
“Wh-Why are you so stupid?! You c-coulda just killed me… a-a-and you wouldn’t be here n-now! You’re here cuza m-me!”
It hurt Pico to see the blue haired boy cry. He still did feel very strongly for him, and he would do anything to make him feel better.
“B… Come here.”
Keith wiped his eyes, and stepped closer to Pico’s bed. The ginger took a breath, and attempted to get his head as straight as possible in order to be reassuring.
“Listen to me. I love you, B. That’s why I couldn’t… kill you. You don’t need to feel… guilty. I made this choice… I’m here… because of me.”
“Th-Thanks, Pico. I love you too, man…”
The blue haired male continued to cry. It felt… good, in a weird way. He was able to clear his head. Much of what he was feeling were long overdue emotions that he had been holding inside since their breakup.
There was so much he didn’t have the chance to say back then…
Pico essentially ghosted him, and when he tried to confront him about it, he wouldn’t talk. The ginger just walked away, and pushed Keith out of his life with a minuscule explanation. They went from being extremely close to being almost strangers. Multiple attempts at communication failed, so he just decided to move on with his life and get over it. Shortly after, he met Grace, and the rest was history.
Pico never meant to do that, however. His mental health was just incredibly bad back then, and he was unsure of how to communicate that he was struggling. It was just an incredibly huge mess that left the both of them hurting.
Keith attempted to pull himself together. He had been crying for a good while at this point, and he felt like certain open wounds were closing through this experience. It was beneficial. He wiped the tears from his eyes, and with them, the negative emotions.
He sniffed. “Well Pico… I guess I should get goin now. Ya gotta rest up so ya can get better.”
The ginger started to get a bit loopy from all the medication racing through him. He needed to rest, he knew. He gave a nod to acknowledge the others' statement.
“Before I bounce though, thanks a million. I think I’ve needed that cry for a while, pffft-“
The blue haired male paused, smirking slightly before turning to leave. Before stepping out, however, he realized he forgot something.
“Shit, right, ya probably don’t got my phone number anymore, do ya? Well, Imma give it to ya-“
He quickly wrote the number and his name down on a piece of scrap paper in the room, and placed it on the nightstand.
“There- call or text me if ya need anythin, got it? Probs will swing back by here to check how your doin before you’re out, so I’ll see ya soon!”
Pico gave a nod as he laid his head down and closed his eyes. Keith left the room, his face stained with tears.
He felt a major amount of relief. It was over. Everything was okay.
Grace, little to her boyfriend’s knowledge, was outside the door for most of that conversation. She felt like she needed some context, probably because she wasn’t listening for most of it. She would ask him about that later however. There were more important questions to ask first.
“Hey Keith- you okay?”
“Huh? Y-Yea, I’m aight.”
She didn’t believe he was lying, but she knew she probably needed to pry a bit to get information out of him.
“Why’re you so red then?”
“Red? Whatcha mean, red?”
“Like… maybe not red, but your face is definitely like. Puffy. Were you crying?”
“Uh-“
Keith knew he had no reason to lie. He trusted her.
“I… kinda was, I guess. Like, ooh man. It was a lot-“
This piqued Grace’s interest. She had a lot of questions, but she knew she had to take it slow.
“What’d he like. Tell you?”
“Welp… basically like. Your fuckin dad hired him to kill me. That whole thing fuckin pisses me off so much ya know?! He had to’ve been readin into me!!”
“Reading into you?”
“Yea. Like, readin into my past, diggin through my dirty laundry. Ya know?”
The girl understood what he was saying, but she was still utterly confused. She wanted the context.
“What do you mean by that, babe?”
“Whaddaya mean, what do I mean?”
“Like, you’ve been like. There’s just something I didn’t get, and I’ve been wondering about- How do you know Pico? I was thinking about it, and I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him. When you guys were rapping last night, it seemed like you guys were close. Are you two like. Good friends or something?”
Keith felt a pit form in his stomach. That seriously caught him off guard. Did he really forget to tell her? He probably did. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks after all. He took a deep breath, and formed the words.
“U-Uh… well, ya could say we were… more than that-“
“Best friends?”
“Nah, uh, he’s my ex.”
“Ex what? Ex best friend?
Keith couldn’t believe she wasn’t getting it. He never liked talking about this, but he knew it had to be done.
“Nah, babe. Ex boyfriend. He’s my ex boyfriend.”
This threw Grace for a loop. She had no clue that was the extent of it.
“E-Ex boyfriend? You mean like. You two-“
“Y-Yea, we dated. I’m sorry, I guess it like. Never came up-“
“So you… ohhh, that makes so much sense now!”
The male was very confused. He had no idea what she meant! He could feel his face beginning to turn red.
“Uh. Y-Yea? I like guys too? What ‘bout it?”
“At first like. I thought you were straight, no buts about it. Then, I got to know you better. You act real feminine sometimes. And, you think I didn’t see your nails? Also like… remember when I used your laptop last week?”
“Mhm?”
“Well uh.. I mighta seen a thing or two in your search history- I clicked on it by accident, I promise!”
That statement put the final nail in the coffin for Keith’s embarrassment. He wasn’t ready to be called out like that. He couldn’t control his desires-
“I-I! U-Uhhh heheh..y-ya know how guys are- j-just can’t. Like. W-What else am I ‘sposed ta do, ya know! If I get all like. Hot and bothered, and you’re not around, that’s uhh- the next best thing heheheh-“
The blue haired male was absolutely burning up, face beet red. Grace could see he was extremely uncomfortable with this conversation. She thought she should reassure him.
“Listen, Keith. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you out like that. It doesn’t matter that you watch that stuff. I just was gonna say, I don’t care. You like guys, that’s fine. You can’t control that. I’ll still love you for being you. You’re great, no matter what. Got that?”
Keith took a breath. Hearing that made him happy. His tastes really didn’t matter to her.
“Babe, it’s aight. Ya just really like. Punched me in the face with that, pfft-“
He paused momentarily as he placed his arm around the girl and pulled her closer. He really just wanted to give her a hug.
“Grace, I love ya so much. Thanks for bein here. I mean, just for everythin really. I’m glad ya were there for Pico, cuz if ya didn’t find him, who knows how bad it woulda got. Also just, thanks for like. Accepting me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, one more time- I know I probs shoulda-“
She was happy to hear him say that. It felt… good.
“I love you too, and it’s alright. I can tell you guys care about each other a lot. I’m just glad he’s okay. I’ll talk to my dad whenever he’s like. Actually back, and I’ll try to get it through to him one more time to fucking stop messing with you. It’s honestly pissing me off, like seriously-“
“Ya can fuckin say that again! I literally don’t even know how the fuck he actually found Pico! Like bruh, I haven’t talked to him for like… let’s see. At least a year? Had no idea this is how we were gonna like. Meet again-“
“And also, for him to literally beat him up and then run away?! Like, come on-“
“Yea, for real tho. Is he always like a quick… hell, what was I thinkin of-“
“Uhhh… fuse? Cuz, yeah, he for sure is. He gets angry literally so easy-“
“Yea, that’s what I was gettin at.”
“He’s still my dad though, no matter how insane he might get-.”
Silence fell for a moment. The hospital corridor was very quiet at this time of night. Soon, Keith’s stomach began to growl.
“Ah shit, I’m hungry-“
Grace was also a bit hungry, and she honestly just wanted to get out of this hallway.
“Same here. What do you say we get outta here, and go get some breakfast?”
“Oooh, yo, sounds great! Kinda wanna walk around myself, heh”
And with that, the couple left the hospital, ready to eat and take a well deserved rest after their long night.