#nano things

He’s shaking, hair gripped hard in his near-black hair down to the root. At this rate it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for him to rip the strands clear from his scalp. Christian’s body is curved over itself, elbows on his thighs and head practically between his legs as he sits on the bench in the men’s locker room. He’s lucky it’s so far after taekwondo practice, lucky that all of the other members of the club have left so I can get dragged in here without fuss. Maybe it’s selfish of me to think so, but I have trouble imagining how he could handle this alone, maybe because it’d break my heart in two if he had to.

“Hey, hey,” I whisper, squatting down low to try to get a look at his face. I just barely do and my chest aches. Christian’s eyes are puffy and red, his skin a splotchy mess as he near hyperventilates. He’s trying not to cry. I hate when he does that. “Chris, it’s okay.”

He shakes his head, his gaze glued to the floor. I watch as his Adam's apple bobs in his throat, constricting any words he could possibly want to say. Instead, he hisses in a breath, his whole body trembling on the exhale. “’S not —“ he tries, but his voice catches and his entire face scrunches to keep the bottle of his emotions from tipping over.

“Okay, well,” I reach up, my fingers coming to his wrist to try to remove one of his hands from his hair. He resists for a second but eventually lets me, his other hand coming to wipe down his face. His eyes on the floor, however, don’t move. I take his hand in both of mine, soothing my thumbs over his knuckles, and his lip quivers. Oh, yup, there’s my heart spilling over, flooding my chest with warmth and empathy and, God, I love him. “Then talk to me. Why isn’t it okay?”

Christian’s eyes squeeze shut and a tear or two roll down his cheek. I can tell by the twitch of his upper lip that he hates himself for it. It takes him a minute to speak again and, when he does, it’s a hoarse whisper. “They saw me,” he rasps. “I tried to get his head and he knocked me off and —“ he has to stop himself, his teeth gritting and I can practically see the shame crawling up him. “It was so loud.”

He’s referring to his body hitting the floor. He’d lost balance. Falling wasn’t a particularly unusual thing in this sport — points were awarded for spinning kicks, after all, and a human can only have so much balance — and fouls happen. But Christian doesn’t make fouls, and he most certainly doesn’t make moves that he doesn’t know he can land. So he almost never, ever falls.

“It really wasn’t,” I assure, reaching up to wipe at the tear threatening to drop from his cheek. “I promise you, people were way more concerned when he tried to get you with his knee after you got back up.”

Christian shakes his head, disbelieving, pushing away my hand in the process. “Doesn’t matter. They saw. They know.”

My brows furrow and I tilt my head further when his face dips further down, almost to his chest. “Know what, Chris?”

His body trembles again, and his next words are so quiet that I barely hear them. “That I messed up.”

That tears it. I get up then and plop myself down on the bench next to him. I’m smaller, definitely below his weight class, but when I pull him to the side to hug him to me he doesn’t even try to resist, only moves to catch himself and allow his head to rest on my chest. My arms wrap around the expanse of his shoulders and one of his finds my middle, pulling me to him like a teddy bear.

And he cries. I bury my face in the crown of his head, and he cries.

“I promise,” I whisper against his hair, “nobody thinks you messed up. Not a single person. Not me, not the audience, not your sabom. Nobody.” I want to kiss the top of his head. Hell, I want to kiss every inch of his face to get rid of the tears and to comfort him and show him this love and compassion that is radiating so far out from my heart that it feels like it’s buzzing in my bones.

One of his hands grips at the fabric of my tee shirt — part of which is now soaked with his tears — and he shakes his head again. It’s all denial in his brain right now; I know it is. Whatever his inner monologue is doing is way worse than anything an external critic could muster. He’s so childlike, like this, vulnerable and cracked open, and scared shitless. Scared of the possibility of his own failure. “Yes they do,” he exhales, any chance of properly voiced words long gone.

“Mm-mm,” I assure. “They don’t. Cross my heart.” The heart that’s all yours, will always be yours. My darling Christian. My love.

A few more minutes pass in silence before he finally collects himself, body squirming as the reality of his own vulnerability catches up to him. So I let him sit up, sniff, and once again not look at me for a long moment. His fists clench and unclench in his lap and I can almost hear the anxiety in his brain battling with his best attempts at rationality. But I don’t say anything. I know he needs the time.

And finally, he speaks. “…Swear?”

I sigh and nod, tilting my head to rest it on his shoulder. “Swear.”

His straighter than straight posture falters back into something comfortable, relaxing at the weight of my head on him now, the grounding force. He huffs, wipes a hand down his face again as if that’ll make it reset. “…Okay. But only because you say so.”

I peer up at his face from my tilted angle. “And have I ever lied to you.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Damn straight.” Then, when I’m sure the last of that self-effacing tension has left his system, I shove him. “Leave it to you to take a three-for-three win and turn it into a panic attack.”

“Fuck off,” he replied, rolling his eyes and shoving me right back. He took it easy on the action, though, I can feel it. If he had met me with equal effort I would have been on the floor. Still, I got him rolling his eyes and smirking, and that alone makes me feel like I’m floating clean off of the bench. “Those first two barely qualified for my weight class anyway.”

“Oi. Only one of us can talk shit on themselves and it’s absolutely not the one who is going to be getting the regional trophy in two days,” I argue.

That has him grinning. “I appreciate your confidence but,” and then he squints, “if you talk shit about yourself I’ll have to take you out on the mat to get your head back on straight.”

“Oh, please. You freak out if you accidentally elbow me on the bus.”

“It’s not my fault you’re so little.” He reaches over and pinches my cheek, wiggling the skin a bit before I manage to slap him off. My face goes about as red as the belt around his middle. I don’t know what it is about him calling me ‘little’ in that fond tone, but it has my insides going molten and gooey.

I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs. “Whatever.” I point at him, make a note to change the subject for the sake of my heart not palpitating. “Just get that damn stripe next week. I put money on you getting a full black belt before the typical three year mark and I will not be losing that.”

He raises his brow. “Against who?”

I grin. “Your cousin Ji-Ho.”

“Bullshit!” Christian guffaws. “With what money? She’s twelve!”

“She’s betting six month’s allowance on it.”

“Oh, whatever,” he responds with another amused roll of his eyes. “She just wants to get en pointe first, little brat.”

I smack his arm. “Takes after your competitive streak, jerk-wad.”

“Ohh, ‘jerk-wad’,” he teases. “Sick burn, Lots.”

“All right, that’s it,” I finally stand, eyeing him down with a raised eyebrow, crossing my arms under my chest. Then, after a beat: “Are you good?”

He sobers and takes a breath, looking up at me earnestly. “Yeah.” The corner of his lips turn up and it takes the entirety of my willpower not to swoon on the spot. “Thank you.”