'tis the season (to love you)

CHAPTER TWO

Here's the thing, the first and foremost thing one needs to know about Eddy Chen: he's too kind, too willing to please for his own good that it's probably unhealthy.

"Brett asked me to be his fake boyfriend for Christmas and I said yes," he rattles to his phone with machine-gun speed, and yes, he probably deserves the stunned silence in reply to his sudden outburst.

Here's the second thing one needs to know about Eddy Chen: he's maybe kinda a little bit in love with his best friend. Has been for years now. A whole decade, even. There, he's man enough to admit even that to himself, in the deepest pit of his brain where Brett will never find out.

"You did what?" The shriek comes unbidden, and really, it's only par for the course for his sister to be shouting at him even from the other side of the world.

"I know, I know," he tells her wearily, like a soldier about to get dragged out into the war-torn trenches again. "I'm an idiot."

Call him dramatic, but Eddy's ready to throw himself off a cliff in the name of emotional self-preservation. He's really dug a grave for himself here, accepting Brett's offer, and with the plan they're going to enact, Eddy's got no one else to turn to but Belle. He's telling her about it partly because she's going to find out one way or another anyway, and partly because if he doesn't talk to anyone about this, he's very likely to explode.

"Hey bro, I wish I could say otherwise, but then I'd be lying." Belle's response sounds like it's caught somewhere between laughing and cringing, and Eddy's pretty sure he doesn't appreciate that. "Did you even put up much of a fight at all?"

"Of course I did," Eddy scoffs, but his words sound weak even to his own ears. Belle knows about the crush thing anyway, so. Time to change the subject. "I mean. It might be fun? Nana Helen might give away some original manuscripts to us, and Brett said no one has to know, so we don't have to do much on the public side. We'll be fine." Like we always have been.

There's silence from the other side of the line for a moment. "It's really sad that you think this won't change anything between you two." His sister sighs, and—fine. Okay, it might change some things, but it's nothing Eddy doesn't know how to handle by now. Probably. "But anyway, he said no one has to know? What does that mean?"

"That's it: no one has to know it's pretend." For some reason, something about that fact causes an unspeakable amount of disappointment in his gut. Eddy shoves it down and moves onward. "Nana Helen lives in Lamerra, population one-hundred-something, I think. The town's an isolated bubble in the middle of nowhere in Victoria, so I'm guessing we don't have to tell anyone else but Nana Helen that we're, uh, together."

"It doesn't sound like you're too approving of that," says Belle, sounding entirely too smug for her own good.

"Well, whether or not I approve of it, none of that matters." Eddy raises his gaze to the ceiling, tilting his head back as he considers his next words. "I said yes to the plan, so there's no backing out of it now. I may be an idiot, but I can handle this."

"If you say so, brother." She doesn't sound particularly convinced. "But you have to tell him at some point, you realize?" Eddy breathes out deeply, like a punctured balloon slowly leaking air. "Eddy. You've been pining for years now," Belle tells him, and he's brought back to that moment of Brett saying the same thing when he explained this whole plan to begin with. Pining: for such a simple word, it carries so much weight. "You have to tell him you love him. What better time and place than this opportunity?"

He swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. "No. There's no point in telling. He won't—he won't ever look at me the way I want him to."

"But what if he does?" Eddy doesn't answer that; he can't. Belle hums thoughtfully, seemingly taking a moment to gather her thoughts before she continues. "You never know, little bro. It might just work out. You'll never know if you don't try."

He isn't quite sure about that, but Belle won't let him end the call without at least a promise to consider the idea. "Thanks, sis. I'll think about it."

"Good. Take care, Eddy. Let me know how things go. Maybe it'll help take my mind off stressing over the show here—you know how difficult working with Maestro De Vries can be, especially when it's December and the snow keeps you locked in with him."

"Sure, sis," Eddy laughs; no matter where she is in the world, his sister can always make him smile. He's so grateful for her, and he tells her as much before he has to end the call and go back to the empty silence of his bedroom. Brett isn't home, so Eddy had taken the chance to make the call in the first place, but the distinct lack of background noise is altogether unsettling. Whatever Eddy might say about Brett's practice hours, he's always enjoyed listening in. It just means that the other is nearby, within reach.

He'll never tell Brett about that, though. He won't ever let him live it down.

"So you're really doing this, huh," Eddy mumbles to himself, pacing back and forth across the room. Honestly, he really could just call this whole thing off, no matter what he's told Belle otherwise. The longer he thinks about it, the more he's starting to realize that the oh-so-precious manuscripts aren't worth throwing himself into the lions' den of his own emotions for.

But then: his eyes catch on the framed picture of himself and Brett on his nightstand, two boys clinging to each other with bright smiles on their faces, and his chest aches. Brett would do anything for him, he knows this. If Brett had been in his position, Eddy knows his best friend would've packed a suitcase by now, fearless and ready to face whatever challenges might come their way with this chaotic deception of a plan.

Brett has always been the braver one of the two of them.

Eddy straightens his shoulders, nods to himself as he makes his decision: he can do this charade. For Brett. Anything for Brett.

(He only hopes it won't hurt too much when it has to end.)