aroceu's ficlightning in a bottle
by aroceu
Summary:
what if when they’re in high school pran gets the idea to send pat little anonymous notes, hidden in delicately folded pieces of origami
what if when they’re in high school pran gets the idea to send pat little anonymous notes, hidden in delicately folded pieces of origami
it’s overwhelming having all these feelings and thoughts about pat and not being able to tell anyone, not his friends or family or anywhere where his mom could possibly see. and he can’t tell pat, that’s for sure
so he writes these little notes, and they start off simple—”i like your smile” “you’re a good drummer” “i wish i had the courage to talk to you”—hidden in paper cranes or flowers or butterflies, tucked into pat’s backpack or desk when he’s not looking
the first time pat finds one he’s stunned, thinks about showing it off to his friends, to boast about it loudly. but the way that the notes are anonymous, that the handwriting looks a little distorted like they’re trying to disguise their identity, makes pat decide against it
so he doesn’t, but pran watches from the corner of his eye when pat finds another paper crane in his desk and smiles at it secretly when he unfolds it. and pran smiles too, hiding it behind his hand
they’re fourteen and pran glares at him from across the football field or when pat scores higher than him on a test. when pat breaks into his room like usual and he smells and pran complains about how gross and smelly and sweaty he is
the notes are like catharsis, being able to write all the things pran can’t say out loud. knowing pat likes them, seeing him start to open his desk eagerly, or search his backpack at the end of the day for one of his anonymous little notes
only once does pran ever hear pat mention it out loud—”what are you looking for?” one of pat’s friends ask him one afternoon while he digs through his desk for pran’s note. (it’s in his backpack; pran decided to make it harder and tucked the paper star into one of his folders)
“i have a secret admirer,” pat says, grinning.
his friend laughs. “hasn’t your secret admirer seen the way you date girls? if they confessed to you i’m sure you’d date them too.”
“what are you trying to say about me,” pat laughs.
another friend asks, “but what if the person writing the notes is a boy?”
and it’s not something pat’s ever considered, since the handwriting is so neat and tidy like a girl’s. but it could be a boy’s—pran’s handwriting is also neat, after all. so he says, “so? i could like boys”
what pran doesn’t know is that pat keeps all of these notes—he tried to fold them back, at first, but origami’s always confused him and he’s always too curious to not read the note. it’s a little bit of a sacrifice, but sometimes when pat’s feeling down, when his dad seems disappointed in him, when he’s stressed and tired and just needs to breathe for a moment, he looks through the notes, reads them again, tries to imagine the boy or girl on the other end of them wanting to make him happier, and smiles.
he’s also glad that he’s always the one that goes into pran’s room, because—because if pran ever came into his room and saw the notes, maybe he’d make fun of pat. or maybe he’d ask questions. or maybe he’d want to read them. and the thought of showing them to pran feels—wrong.
so pat keeps the notes and the secret admirer mostly to himself, and they finish year 9 of high school. and then they start year 10 and the origami notes keep coming. they’ve already turned from careful flattery and compliments to funny things that make pat laugh—things like: “okay but you could eat a little quieter” “do you snore when you sleep?” “you looked ridiculous spinning in front of the school today, why were you late” pat thinks maybe he should feel weirded out, but—it’s nice, that someone sees him, and likes it. likes all of him
pat wants a way to write to this person back, but they’ve left no clues; their handwriting doesn’t match anyone in his class (or his year), deliberately cryptic; and he’s not going to write it on the blackboard or make a sign and embarrass the person (and himself)
when ink transfers and pat starts hanging out with her a lot, a little puppy crush, he doesn’t get any notes for a few days. but pran sees him check his backpack/desk those days, the little frown on his face, and feels bad. not even his own jealousy can stop pran from this
so pat gets notes again, but the tone seems off: “i’m happy for you” “i admire the way you like people so easily” “i like to get my iced tea less sweet too”
ink is never mentioned in these notes, but pat feels—self-conscious, suddenly, that this person sees him with ink so much. maybe they’ve sussed out his little puppy crush. and pat does like her, but he wants to find this person and tell them that it’s—it’s nothing, really
(and if he had to choose, he would be far more invested in this person continuing to send him notes than spending more time with ink) (sorry ink lol)
the smiles that pat gets when he sees the notes, the little folded hearts in his desk—those smiles are as big as the ones pat gives ink, pran thinks selfishly. maybe bigger. so it’s okay. he—or rather, this anonymized version of himself—is still special, to pat
pat spends plenty of time thinking about ink—but also his secret admirer too. maybe more. wondering who they are, wanting to hold their hand since they send him a note saying they want to hold his hand, maybe someday they’ll get the courage to confess to him face to face. thinking of his secret admirer makes him giggle, makes him want to punch his pillow with how happy it makes him. it’s weird that maybe—maybe he has a crush on this person too, their way with words, the delicate way they fold paper, the way they like him.
maybe they’ll do something special on valentine’s day, he wonders. he wishes he could ask. maybe pat will do something special for them—he doesn’t know what to do yet, but it has to be something they would recognize, that no one else would know, that it would just be for them
and then the christmas concert happens.
pran gets transferred, pat doesn’t give him a chance to give him his guitar and—suddenly, the notes have stopped. no apology, none after a few days, none after a week. none after weeks and weeks and months and months and the window outside pat’s room has been dark.
and. and it doesn’t make sense. but it’s the only thing that could make sense. that maybe the notes were coming from pran all along. pran would be clever enough to disguise his handwriting. pran would never say the things in the notes out loud. pran likes origami. pran likes his iced tea less sweet.
it makes no sense the first time the thought occurs to pat. it has to be a coincidence, right? pran, liking him? sending all these notes when he was smirking at winning against him at football, at getting a higher grade than him in literature, complaining pat’s smell in his room?
it can’t be pran. but one day pat lays out all the notes, finding patterns, piecing all the little clues about his secret admirer together, trying to find *some* way his secret admirer could be someone else, anyone else.
but there’s nothing. in fact, seeing all the unfolded notes together makes it even more obvious that it was pran, so obvious that pat, who knows pran like the back of his hand, should’ve seen it before.
pran’s bedroom is still dark on valentine’s day; his parents go to his boarding school to pick him up when they leave for vacations. (pat has figured this out from not so subtly eavesdropping by their trash cans.) pat is so fucking sure that pran is the one who wrote the notes, is so sure that pran might’ve liked him even as guarded as he is, and that maybe—maybe pat likes him back. maybe pat had fallen in love with him through the notes. maybe it makes more sense than anything else—who else would he have fallen in love with anonymously, so easily?
but pran still doesn’t come back. pat has no one to tell, no one to talk to about this. and he’s not sure if he could.
//
three years later, he sees pran again with a swift kick in the chest.