this isn`t awkward at all
cnxren:
(…)
As he descended the first flight of stairs, he caught a glimpse of a still life painting. He was so distracted by the fact that he couldn`t tell if the round objects were meant to be badly misshapen, oddly angular oranges or very squished carrots that he missed a step and tumbled down onto the ground. He let out a little squeak of alarm and froze, hoping that no one had seen him.
it’s almost dinner time, but it seems the staff aren’t around or in the mood to set it up yet. the standards have fallen; he thinks his aunt and uncle would definitely have trained the staff to do their duties even in the event of a homicide, that absolutely nothing could get in the way of doing their jobs. or perhaps it’s this precise training that’s led them all into this.
speaking of other ways that the place has fallen far beneath his memories of grandeur — his cousin’s eye for aesthetic has certainly deteriorated. the paintings are disappointingly strange, even for the place. at least the ballroom is still intact, little of it has fallen prey to his cousin’s paranoia, retaining everything he remembers. the grand staircase twists up from his room to the ballroom directly, and he glides fingers over the railings, plated with bronze and inlaid with pearl. for all that his cousin has tried, this house is still beautiful, if you close an eye or two.
at least, it would be, if not for the constant gloom and doom of this place. it is quite literally dark in here. he ventures out to find the switch for the hanging chandeliers when suddenly —
thump.
he ends up yelping despite himself, arms braced out and in front of his face as if expecting an attacker. but the figure on the ground is recognisably ren, even if his features are obscured by the fact that he’s currently just a tangle of limbs on the ground. their relationship wasn’t quite strained the last they’d met, but then the affair had happened and he’s not too sure how the other would react to him, sensitive soul and all.
”oh, christ.”
he frowns at the lump on the floor, and is immediately rewarded by his imagination with a painfully vivid image of someone cloaked in black pushing his friend down the stairs, boy bleeding out onto the tiles. he practically falls over his own feet in a rush to check on the other boy, all thoughts of possible awkwardness fleeing from the rapid worry that jumps his mind.
“ren, ren, shit, are you okay, ren, dude, ren.”
For a moment, Ren hopes that if he stays very still and keeps very quiet, no one will have noticed his embarrassingly clumsy fall. His hopes are of course dashed when he hears someone frantically calling out to him. He closes his eyes momentarily to compose himself, then slowly opens them once more.
It’s Bambam, of all people, who had to be there. Ren can think of a hundred people he’d rather have as a witness of his mortifying lack coordination that has no doubt brought even more shame and dishonor to his already shameful and dishonored name. His roommates, his friends, his friend’s neighbors’ cats, his classmates, his father...not his mother. He would decidedly rather be found by Bambam than by his mother. With that thought in mind, he slowly gets to his feet.
”I’m fine,” he says, humiliation roaring in his soul despite the fact his face was as expressionless as ever. “I know, a good dancer should never be as clumsy or stupid as me.” Bambam, he knows, never trips or loses his balance. It’s why Ren lost the last dance battle to him.
