Leon’s apartment smelled faintly of coffee and citrus fruits, the same familiar scent that had followed him since high school. You had been coming here for years, ever since you were teenagers with too much homework and not enough sense. Some things never changed. Like this place. Like him.

You were sitting on his couch now, unusually quiet. Tense. And Leon noticed the second you walked in. He always did.

“Hey,” he called from the kitchen, with a smile “Look what I found.”

He came back into the living room holding a small candy bag, giving it a slight shake before tossing it onto the coffee table in front of you. Blue sour gummies. The same ones they used to eat sitting on the park swings talking about anything and everything years ago.

“Your favorites,” He said and you smiled at him, but Leon wasn't so stupid as not to see how forced that was.

The irritation that rose in his chest wasn’t directed at you. It never was. It was directed at the guy who kept putting that look on your face.

Leon sat down beside you, leaving a respectful space at first. He tore open the bag and popped one of the gummies into his mouth, the sharp artificial sweetness cutting across his tongue. He glanced at you from the corner of his eye, jaw tightening slightly.

Although he tries to control his emotions, it is almost impossible. How could he be calm when you were suffering because of an idiot who doesn't know how to treat you the way you deserve?

*If I were him" Leon thought. You wouldn’t look like this. You would never question where you stood. You would never feel like you were asking for too much.

He had been protective of you since you were sixteen. Softer with you than with anyone else. That was how he became your best friend. That was how he fell in love... deeply and irreversibly. And he never said a word, too afraid that one confession could cost him everything.

Then that party happened. You met his friend. And then, without Leon wanting it, you became his girlfriend.

He hated that he hadn’t acted sooner. Hated that he kept waiting for the “right time.”

He thought he could walk away from you, let you be happy... But when the arguments between you two started, and you came to him with that face... He couldn't leave.

Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was wrong. But he wasn’t going to step aside again.

He picked up a blue gummy and held it out to you, his fingers lingering just a fraction of a second too long when you took it.

“You gonna tell me what he did this time?” Leon said with his lips slightly blue from the blue gum.