(Potential TW/CW: Mild symptoms, drinking and smoking)
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What is the matter with him? He couldn't understand why he keeps getting hung up on this. It wasn't even such a long relationship. It wasn't even the best. They often had arguments and the ending of it was ugly, messy, and even destructive. He knows that it was definitely for the best. He knows he is better off without Arthur.
So why? Why does it hurt this much? Why is he looking at pictures and feeling a dreadful isolation within him? Why does it feel as though he would never love again?
Maybe it was because he knew that he wanted this to be the last one that he will ever have. He really hoped that this would be the last time. The last time that he had to go and get to know someone and love them this purely. The last time that he had to open up his walls again to someone and have them see him for who he is. He has been vulnerable so many times before. He bared his heart out for so many people to see, even the wrong ones. He got taken advantage of and used.
He just wanted this to be the last time.
Maybe it was.
He took another sip, or a gulp of whatever it was that he was drinking. He doesn't even know what it was that he was drinking. The last time he checked, he was drinking wine but somehow the liquid that was in his glass right now was clear. It was strong and tangy. Vodka? Maybe.
He sighed and found himself reaching for another cigarette when he stopped himself. What is the matter with him? He has worked hard for years to be clean and sober and to not be abusive with his habits of smoking and drinking. He stared at the photo that was on his phone.
It was Arthur a couple of hours after he picked him up from the airport on the first day that they met up again in France. Arthur was fresh off a flight from England as he was only coming here to visit him and to attend to a few minor businesses. It was as if he had found a reason again to look forward to going to airports.
He insisted that Arthur stay over at his place as long as this whole business thing is still ongoing so that Arthur can save himself all of the hotel fees and unnecessary expenditures, but Arthur had been adamant in staying at a hotel to avoid having to explain to people who was the person that he would be staying with in a foreign country.
Now that he was looking at it from afar, he should have seen all of the red flags or the little subtle signs that Arthur had been displaying from the early moments of their relationship. He didn't blame him though. He knew that Arthur had a reputation to uphold. He had an image to keep clean. He was the ever-composed leader type who is always appropriate and is always the type that sticks to the rules. He was pristine. He just couldn't compromise this image of himself to risk having people question his association with some other person, especially the likes of Francis who was, definitely not any of those things that would be used to describe Arthur.
He turned the screen of his phone off and sighed before discarding the cigarette and throwing into the sink the last of the drink in his glass. He groaned.
"I am pathetic." He mumbled to himself, realizing what a mess he had become in such a short span of time. Over an ex. Typical.
His phone buzzed and he groaned. What timing!
He sighed and decided that he might have to have a look at it as it could potentially be important. Grudgingly, he opened the screen again.
It was another message from Matthew.
"Fran please I really need to talk to you. I have something important to say! I'll be really quick."
He sighed. He answered Matthew's message hours ago, saying that he wasn't feeling well enough to see anyone. He thought that would be the end of that but apparently the younger one had other plans. It didn't look like Matthew was going to budge this time. He pursed his lips and smiled a little bit.
Whatever. It was Matthew anyway.
He groaned before he poised to text him yet again.
"Fine papillon but excuse the mess."
He made a move to clean a bit of his house so that at least Matthew didn't have to face the mess that he had made around here. He picked up a couple of litter on the floor and finally made a move to clean those dishes and scrubbed pans that were left laying there on the sink. He just did whatever he could get his hands on. Usually, he would have done this in a certain order that he does it at all times but recently, he has been throwing aside the routines that he has established.
He did notice that though. He has been losing sleep from the nightmares, he had been losing his appetite due to the alcohol and the steady comeback that his smoking has been doing, he's lost motivation to go and do the things that used to be very interesting to him in the past, and he has also lost…passion for anything. He had to drag himself out of bed every morning and his work had become almost triple the burden that it initially was.
He frowned. He was probably just suffering from breakup blues. He just needed to get his shit together, that's all. He needs to stop thinking about the whole breakup and start just…doing things more. He must be crazy. This was just a slump.
At the back of his mind however, he was thinking to himself that he had never been this hung up over a breakup before. Not once. Not ever.
His chest ached with something. He didn't know what.
A suppressed thought? A subconscious feeling? A sadness that he couldn't explain.
Whatever it was, his chest hurt, and he had the urge to just lie down and sleep. He couldn't do that though as he needed to take a shower and get ready for a visitor. Somehow, his usual joy of seeing and talking to people has also dissipated and was replaced with a mild resentment. He didn't let it get to him though, or at least he tried not to wallow in it. He didn't like not liking being around anyone. He's always been a bit of a social butterfly.
He also had the urge to cry but, he couldn't.
He really wished he didn't have to see anyone right now. It felt tiring before he's even arrived.
What is happening to him?
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