Ran walked. Well, that was not entirely true. Sure, his legs were going through the motions and his body was moving in a forward-like direction, but he wasn’t walking. Ran was thinking. Walking was more of a side-effect, although it did help distract him from, well, everything. And there was a lot to be distracted from. 

First and foremost was the noise. The rushing noise of his heartbeat was practically deafening, but it was nothing compared to the exceedingly loud static in his head. All of that would be so, so much easier if he understood why it was happening in the first place. Not knowing, not understanding, made the whole thing so much worse. It wasn’t just Rachel, although her face, the look of worry, was definitely front and center. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying until she’d pointed it out. He hadn’t realized how hot and uncomfortable his skin had felt until he’d seen her look at him the way she had. 

But there was more than that. The whirlwind of emotions, of sounds and colours his mind came up with, was almost enough to blow him off his feet. Fear, anxiety, guilt, even a hint of anger, all got together to, it seemed, beat him up. Fear of where the thoughts he’d entertained could lead him, like a breadcrumb trail into a mist-covered forest. Anxiety, because those very thoughts couldn’t just be wished away. He felt like he’d slipped down a muddy hole and couldn’t climb his way back out, and now the rain was filling it up and he had nowhere to go. Guilt over how envious he felt. Because he’d imagined himself in Amelia’s place, doing the things with Rachel she’d alluded to, and how much he felt like a creep for imagining himself there, and for how good it felt to imagine himself like that. 

And rage. For not having stopped it sooner. If he’d just said no, if he’d stopped the thoughts in their tracks, he would have just remained blissfully unaware of the impact something like that could have on someone like him. Almost like he’d spent his whole life sitting comfortably in a little nest. Sure, it was boring, and he had forever idly wondered if there was more to it, but he was safe. And now he’d taken a single step forward, and he was falling. The safety of solid ground was high above him and seemingly getting further away by the second. Freefall was not something he’d been even remotely ready for. 

He thought his way down the street, letting his feet walk while his mind raced. Ran didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t much care to, either. He needed to… He needed to something. To think. To calm down. To rest. Thinking he could do, at least. So all he could do was walk, past the dürüm place, through the park, past the school building. It was late, he realized. What time had it been when he’d put his laptop down? It had been close to midnight, hadn’t it? He hadn’t really seen the school building after dark much, and it looked suitably different and imposing, although it was hard to properly appreciate the older structures. 

Any other day, he probably would have appreciated the liminal spaces, the hidden nooks and crannies, the easily imagined faces in the windows, but there were ghosts in his own attic that were far more distracting at that moment. He sat down on a bench and rubbed his face. Maybe it was time to take stock. Maybe if he kept walking, his mind would try to keep pace. Maybe sitting down would help, letting him put things in order. Starting at the beginning, taking a deep breath. Relaxing his shoulders. 

So. Why was he feeling like this? Was that a good place to start? Actually, what was he feeling? ‘Aaa’ was hard to define, after all. So he decided to start there. What was he feeling? Sure, the whole cocktail, but there was probably a single source, right?

Ran took a deep breath. Something someone had told him once. Deep, slow breath. Hold it for a few seconds. Let it go. He did that a few times, and then turned inwards. Beneath the anxiety, the guilt, the tingling skin, the desire to crawl out of his own skin. 

Ran was scared. That was at the core of it, probably. Under all of it, he was terrified. Every avenue of thought seemed to come down to that. To being absolutely distrought. But of what? Nothing had happened to scare him like that, had it? Sure, he was worried about not being accepting enough of his roommate, about being bigoted towards people like Amelia, but that wasn’t it. That was low-level anxiety, the desire to be a better person and the worry that he might not be. That wasn’t at the root of it. There had to be more to it, right? 

He stood up again and began to pace back and forth. He was scared. What was he scared of, and why had helping his roommate coordinate her outfits set that fear off? It had to be something internal. Rachel had always been nothing less than amazing. Was it the fear of being alone, of ending up alone? It was certainly something he’d worried about throughout his life. That he just wasn’t good or interesting enough, some days. On others, it had simply been the fact that he wasn’t the most outgoing person, and that meeting new people was scary. But he knew he didn’t want to be alone forever, and maybe that was the fear. That he would live and die alone. He knew that, for a lot of people, being single was entirely fine. That this was a deliberate choice made by many. But it wasn’t his. 

So was that it? Was he scared because he was a fucking incel? Ran stuck out his tongue. It had better not be that. He thought for a moment, the gravel path crunching under his feet as he began to walk again. No, it wasn’t. He wasn’t angry at the world, he wasn’t disappointed in something he felt he was owed. He simply… didn’t have something he wanted. That wasn’t the source of existential dread, just a low level… sadness, maybe. 

But there was something underneath that. He couldn’t imagine himself with someone else. Or rather, he absolutely could. He could imagine himself waking up with someone, holding hands with someone, kissing someone, being kissed. But he couldn’t imagine someone wanting to do that with… well… him. Why would anyone? Sure, he wasn’t bad looking, but there wasn’t much to him, was there? He could make food, but by that logic, one might as well date a fast food restaurant. 

Ran was about to go down a self-deprecating rabbit hole, when he paused. He put a pin in that thought. He was onto something: not that he was unlovable (although the screaming little monster in the back of his head tried to reassure him that he most definitely was unlovable), but that he was scared of being unlovable. 

Not the bottom layer yet, but at least he was approaching bedrock. He could feel it. A lot of the stuff with Rachel boiled down to that. He couldn’t allow himself to pretend to be Amelia (or Lily, god forbid), in a relationship with Rachel, because he wasn’t  those people, he was Randall, and someone like Rachel would never love Randall. 

Why was that? He noticed that he’d been slowly picking up pace, the gravel making way for cobblestone and then just paved sidewalk. He was almost running, his breathing shorter, like he was trying to outrun thoughts catching up on him. What was wrong with Ran? Nothing. Because Randall was nothing. Randall, Ran realized with the slow dawn of realization that is usually reserved for nineteenth century gothic horror protagonists, didn’t exist. 

Sure, he was there, and he had thoughts and he had feelings, but he wasn’t real, was he? Those were just actions. The person underneath seemed duct-taped together from mannerisms and expressions picked up from various role models throughout his life, things he thought would work well together. There was no person there. Randall didn’t exist, not really. He was less real than the imaginary Lily he’d pretended to be for just a moment. Ran didn’t have romantic feelings because Randall wasn’t a person. Lily could be in love with Rachel, could be a fun roommate or a good partner, because she was a real and full person. His footsteps echoed off the walls of the buildings around him as he sprinted past them. 

But he couldn’t be that person, because he was Randall, and Randall didn’t exist. And Randall didn’t exist because… he didn’t want to. He stopped running, in part because his legs were getting tired and in part because he needed to catch his breath, both literally and figuratively. 

Did he really not want to exist? Really? He leaned against a wall and closed his eyes, let the burning in his lungs momentarily eclipse the burning in his head. No, he, Ran, right there, did want to exist. But Randall didn’t. So what did that mean? He couldn’t just be someone else. Fun as it was, as a thought experiment, to dream up someone else, to consider the thought of being Not Randall, that wasn’t possible, was it? That’s what he was so scared of, wasn’t it? That’s where everything else came from, too. 

He felt guilty, because the fantasies he dreamt up weren’t possible, weren’t his to have, weren’t Ran’s to have, because that wasn’t allowed. The thought of Randall kissing Rachel was abhorrent (and not just because Rachel was GayTM and had explicitly stated not being into men), and that he wanted to be there, to be kissed by her, held by her… that carried a guilt with it. Because the latter wasn’t possible without the former. 

He felt anger, because he was forced to be Randall and he didn’t want to be. 

Anxiety, because every day he realized he was steering Randall around like a puppet, going from place to place, barely existing if at all. 

Did he have to be? Was this going to be his life forever? That was it, wasn’t it? The horror, the terror, that this was going to be all there was. That Randall — god, what a stupid name — was all there was. 

But was there an alternative? Could he not be? He started to walk again. He’d calmed down a lot at least, if only because he’d worn himself out. The only sound that rang through the dark, empty streets was his own breathing and the distant hum of the highway. 

What was he without Randall? Ran let that thought play through him for a moment, let the distant nest of Randall fall away without worrying about that for a moment. Weightless in freefall. What was Ran without Randall? 

What did he want? 

He tried, really, really hard, not to think of Rachel. The way she smiled, talked, and laughed. The way she seemed to know when something was up and put him at ease. The way she made tea or hummed to herself without realizing it. He very, very much wanted her to look at him the way she looked at… well… but she wouldn’t, would she. 

He shook his head. That wasn’t the way forward. He had to remove Randall from the mental image, or it wouldn’t work. He tried again. Rachel, looking at someone. Someone who felt a little bit jealous when she wore a skirt, but who nonetheless did nothing less than admire her. Someone a person like Rachel could look at and sigh wistfully. 

He wanted that, he realized. Not Rachel. Well, yes Rachel, but not only. Not entirely. He wanted to be seen, not as Randall, but as that other person. The kind of person someone as eminently GayTM as Rachel could look at and fall in love with. 

Someone like…

He stopped. He realized he was in front of a door. It wasn’t his door. Almost mechanically, he knocked. It took a few seconds, but the light in the window had been on. Under the door, he saw the light in the hall turn on, too. 

The front door opened. 

“Thought you might show up,” Amelia said. “Come in.”

Elamimax

No Title. For reasons. 

The story is finished and available to read right now for Patrons, who will also have exclusive content and chapters (like a smut chapter after the main one for this story), so consider checking out my Patreon, along with a lot of other as-of-yet unpublished stuff (like an entire secret in-progress story!), and even some exclusive chapters. It's not expensive, and it really does help me out a lot!

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Heck,

Ela