I HAVE NO EXCUSES

NONE

Chapter 12

Not Exactly As Planned

Teuffel inhaled deeply through his lungs and back out again. He was currently pacing outside in the schoolyard, thoughts running a mile a minute.

It was gym class right now, and he'd been permanently excused from attending due to his narcolepsy. The teachers usually allowed him to go to the library to study (or in his case, sleep) during this time, but today was different. Because right here, right now, he was coming up with a plan.

He wasn't sure whether to break the news to Alba gently or outright. Maybe being gentle would work better, since Ros wasn't exactly a gentle person...at least, on the outside. So if Teuffel was cautious about the entire thing, Alba would notice something was off about him and maybe realize he wasn't Ros after all.

Heart thundering in his ears, Teuffel continued to walk back and forth, gnawing down on his lip nervously. He really hoped this wouldn't backfire. Though, knowing his tendency to end up in trouble all the time, it probably would.

But he'd already made his resolve. There was absolutely no going back now. His mind was set; he was going to tell Alba everything.

He stopped in his frantic motions and let out another heavy sigh.

It'll be good to go back to being me again, he thought, gazing up at the clear blue sky. I can't wait to have my sense of self back.

He jumped slightly when a loud ring echoed across the school grounds, signaling the end of class and the start of lunch. Alba would most likely be changing back into his regular clothes by now. Teuffel knew that this would probably be his only chance to confess before he lost his nerve again.

The wind suddenly picked up and blew his hair away from his eyes. It really was a beautiful day. It was almost like the world was encouraging him, telling him everything would be just fine.

Alright, he thought, steeling himself, here goes.

He headed off in the direction of the locker rooms. Those who knew him greeted him with casual smiles and hellos, but Teuffel paid them no mind. He was on a mission.

When he turned the last corner, he was met with the sight of Alba buttoning up his shirt. Teuffel paused and stared at him, blinking rapidly.

Oh...my...he's so...

He caught himself staring and shook his head back and forth wildly. No, no, no! Focus, Teuffel!

"A-Alba," he cleared his throat and stepped forward as Alba finished putting on his sweater vest.

The teen promptly lit up at "Ros'" appearance. He hurriedly grabbed his bag and trotted over to meet him.

"Ros!" He exclaimed, beaming. "What's up? Did you want to eat lunch together?"

Teuffel paled slightly. "A-ah, no, not...listen. I really need to talk to you."

Alba noticed his seriousness and frowned. "Why? What's wrong?"

The taller teen glanced around nervously. "Uh, not here. Come with me," he said, taking a hold of Alba's hand and dragging him out of the locker rooms.

Once they'd arrived at a more secluded area within the school, Teuffel finally stopped. Alba almost bumped right into him.

"Hey, Ros? What's up? You're acting weird..." He said, peering into Teuffel's swirly eyes. They held each other's gaze for an awkward amount of time before the brunette promptly flushed and murmured, "You've, uh...never held my hand before."

At this statement, Teuffel squeaked and jumped back, hands held out in front of him defensively. Why hadn't he noticed that he hadn't let go of Alba's hand yet?!

"Ros...you're starting to scare me," Alba told him quietly. "What's the matter? Unless it's..." His eyes widened and seemed to gain a panicked gleam. "You...you're not leaving, are you? You're not going anywhere, right...?"

Teuffel swallowed and cut him off before he had an honest panic attack, "No, that's not it. It's just..." He suddenly froze, completely rigid.

Alba took a step towards him. "Ros...?"

"N...no," Teuffel gasped, starting to sway. The corners of his vision were beginning to fade. "This...can't...why n-now...?"

"Ros?" Alba leaped forward and grabbed his arm as his entire body began to totter back and forth.

"N-no...dammit...why..." And with that, he passed out.

"Ros? Ros?! Ros!"

"...re gonna be alright, Ros..."

Fuzzy voices seemed to pass in and out of his half-conscious mind, further lulling him into a state of confusion. What happened? Where was he? Why...?

Teuffel's eyes fluttered open to meet the blank white ceiling of the nurse's office. Dizzily, he lifted up a hand to his face, frowning when it seemed to waver in and out due to his blurry vision. Ah. He passed out again, hadn't he? Dammit! And he'd really been watching himself this time...

When he thought about how the plan to tell Alba his identity would possibly backfire, he didn't think it would happen like this! A groan of annoyance escaped his lips, but any further complaints were cut off when he felt something warm grasp onto his hand.

"Ros?! Ros!"

Teuffel glanced over and spotted a very concerned Alba sitting at his bedside, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Oh, thank goodness! I was...I was so worried about you...!" He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. Teuffel couldn't help but soften up a bit at his obvious distress.

"I'm okay, Alba," he told him quietly. "Really. I'm alright. I'm used to it."

The brunette wiped his tears and frowned at him. "Huh? What are you talking about? Has this happened to you before?"

Teuffel winced. Ah, right. The kid still thought he was Ros. Ros didn't pass out due to narcolepsy. He was a normal human being. Teuffel...wasn't.

...Not really, anyway.

"Excuse me," a nurse popped her head in. She smiled at Alba sweetly. "Sorry, Fruhling-kun, but I need to speak with my patient alone."

Alba nodded and stood up quickly. "Oh, of course! I'll, um, I'll come back in twenty minutes, if that's okay?"

The nurse nodded. "That's perfectly fine!"

"Right!" Alba passed her on the way out, but not before turning to Teuffel and saying, "I'll bring you some lunch, okay, Ros? So please don't be stubborn and just listen to what the nurse has to say."

"Y-yeah...sure," Teuffel mumbled as Alba left the room.

He let out an enormous sigh, one that relaxed his tense muscles and let his crazy thoughts calm down a bit.

The nurse looked him over. "Stressed?"

Teuffel massaged his temples and sighed again. "You could say that."

"...Is this about Fruhling-kun?" She asked while checking his pulse.

Teuffel grimaced, but he nodded anyway.

"I've heard about his condition," she continued softly. "You're very brave for helping him out like this, Diabolos-kun."

"It's not being brave," he shot back, grinding his teeth. "It's being selfish. I should've told him straight away that I wasn't Ros, but I..." He covered his face with his hands. "I wanted...I wanted to know what it felt like to be with him like that. To be..." He trailed off with a pathetic whimper.

The nurse shook her head slowly. "You're right. It is selfishness. But it is courage, too. You may think it's all about you, and how selfish you're being because of it, but you're wrong. Fruhling-kun has made a miraculous recovery, both physically and mentally. And that's only because you've been helping him like this."

"But I'm going to break him all over again!" Teuffel choked, sitting up to look her in the eyes. "I'm going to destroy him once I tell him that I'm not...I'm not..." He curled in on himself and let out a quiet sob.

He hated himself. He was pathetic. A good-for-nothing. He couldn't believe that he'd let this go on for so long. Why, why hadn't he just worked up the courage to tell Alba right off the bat? It would've hurt, yes, but not as much as it was hurting now. Because now it was so far along that it was hurting both Alba and himself.

He truly was living up to his name, wasn't he? Teuffel Diabolos. The devil. The person with the darkest heart of them all; darker than Elf's, even. His soul was corrupted, his emotional state utterly turned on it's head. He honestly didn't know what to do anymore. He couldn't take much more of it before he...!

Teuffel let out an audible yelp when the nurse gently pinched his arm.

He stared up at her through his eyelashes, glaring slightly.

She gave him an innocent smile. "Just testing your reflexes."

Teuffel puffed out a breath of air and slumped. He really wasn't cut out for this, not at all. Why couldn't it have been Foyfoy who Alba mistook for Ros?

It wasn't that he regretted saving Alba from Elf. He was thankful beyond words that he'd managed to find the teen in time before it got worse. He just wished that things hadn't turned out this way. Even if he admitted his feelings to the brunette, the pain of rejection still wouldn't compare to what he was feeling right now.

Utter hopelessness. Huh. This was the first time he'd really felt such an emotion. It wasn't exactly fun, either.

"Diabolos-kun," the nurse hummed softly.

"Yes?" He responded tiredly. Couldn't the day just be overwith already?

"Why did you suddenly pass out? I know about your narcolepsy, but seeing as this hasn't happened to you in quite a while..." She gave him a questioning look. "Is it because of Fruhling-kun?"

Teuffel looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes this time. "I guess...maybe. I don't know."

She continued poking and prodding him, but he didn't mind it. It was something he was accustomed to, something that happened so often that he stopped noticing. "Did you do anything different today?"

Teuffel blinked at her. "Like what?"

"Like what you ate for breakfast, for instance. Or maybe you forgot to take your pills and supplements. Did you perhaps take a different route to school that was longer? Did you do some kind of physical activity that made you run out of breath? Anything like that?"

Teuffel mulled over her questions for a moment, and then he shook his head. "No...I did everything the same as usual. Nothing about today was different, except..."

"Fruhling-kun," the nurse finished for him. "That must have been what triggered it. You're so stressed about talking to him that it's affecting your body negatively." She stood up and handed him a bottle of water that was sitting nearby, still ice cold.

"I'm not going to lecture you about watching yourself. I already know that you're perfectly capable of handling your condition. However, please keep in mind that if you keep getting upset like this, your body isn't going to like it."

Teuffel closed his eyes. He was so tired...he wanted everything to be over, so he could just go to sleep and never wake up. Sleep...sleep sounded really nice...

"Diabolos-kun?"

Teuffel jumped, eyes flying open again. His cheeks flushed a light shade of pink for almost falling asleep in the middle of an important conversation. Not that this was the first time it happened, but...

"I can see you're pretty sleepy," the nurse laughed. "You know, I've noticed something. When you used to come in here before, you were always so tense and nervous around me. Not only did you have problems with your narcolepsy, but you had problems with talking to other people, too! It was borderline people anxiety. But now...you seem much more confident about yourself. You probably haven't realized it yet, but while you've been curing Fruhling-kun, he's been curing you. And you've been curing yourself."

Teuffel gaped at her in complete shock.

He hated to admit it, but she was right. He'd always been extremely timid around other people, mainly because he'd been bullied a lot as a kid due to his illness. He retreated into himself, afraid to talk to other people because he feared they'd figure out about his narcolepsy and bully him like all the others did. He developed a slight stutter and had a difficult time looking anybody in the eye. It didn't get much better as he went into highschool, but then Ares dragged him out of his shell and thrust him out into the world. His stutter went away after a while, but he still preferred to be by himself.

And then...that's when Alba came in.

The boy was absolutely stunning. He was just like Teuffel, he realized, remembering the conversation with Alba's mom from not too long ago. Alba had been bullied a lot, too. And Teuffel noticed that Alba seemed to be bullied all the time by that one teenager named Ros.

But instead of cowering or running away like Teuffel would've done in his situation, Alba stood up for himself. He defied Ros' insults and defended his pride with no fear whatsoever. And that's when Teuffel really began to admire him.

Once their group of friends had been formed—himself, Alba, Ros, Rchi, Ares, Hime, Foyfoy, Janua and Sanejima—that's when Teuffel really started to open up. He spoke more often and wasn't as afraid to talk to other people anymore. These people, his friends...they were curing him. And Alba, he...

Without even meaning to, Alba gave him a strong sense of bravery and courage. When he was trapped inside Elf's apartment building, that's when Teuffel knew he'd have to step up to the plate and face his fears head on. The boy really had changed him. That was probably one of the many reasons why he was so deeply in love with him, he supposed.

I guess...there's a good side and a bad side to everything, he realized, taking a sip out of his water bottle. Even in this situation.

"Yo, Teuf! You'd better not be dying in here!" All coherent thought was interrupted when Ares burst through the door, blue hair as messy and wild as always.

"Well, hello, Strahl-san," the nurse giggled.

"You still half-asleep, Teuffel?" The girl questioned as she plopped down onto his bed. He let out a squawk when she landed on his legs.

"N-no," was his wheezy response.

"Strahl-san, I leave him to you," the nurse said with a bright smile. "I have other things I need to attend to. But if anything comes up, call me, alright?"

Ares gave her a winning grin. "You got it!"

As the nurse disappeared from the room, leaving the two only with each other's company, there was hardly any time to enjoy the silence left behind before Ares leaned back on her hands and let out a breathy, "Soooooo."

Teuffel watched her warily. "So?"

"Whatsa matter with you? It's been a while since you've had an attack," she said, suddenly serious. "When I heard that you'd done a face plant into the dirt, I got super worried."

Teuffel hid a smile at this. Even though she was acting casual and nonchalant about it all, he was glad she really cared.

"It's nothing, A. I'm fine, really." He told her softly. She stuck out her lower lip in a pout.

"Liar, liar," she sang. "You can't hide it from me. It's because of Alba, isn't it?" When Teuffel flinched, she knew she'd hit the nail right on the head.

"Look, Teuf," she began, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I know that I don't really have a say in what you end up doing, but I'm still gonna give you my advice."

Teuffel stared at her for a moment before shrugging. "Uh...okay."

She gave him a smile before she began slowly, softly, "I can't really understand what you're going through right now. I mean, this is some pretty crazy shit we're dealing with here. But even so, I know how you must feel about telling Alba the truth. It's not gonna be easy. But you need to do it, for his sake and yours."

Teuffel looked down, shame making his cheeks burn.

"If you keep going on like this, everything's just gonna get worse and worse, you know. If you don't grow some balls and tell him what the hell is going on, I'll seriously make you do it." She declared.

"I...I know. But...i-it's hard." Teuffel murmured, shoulders slumping. "I-I...I'm...I'm scared, Ares. I'm scared how he'll react. What if he breaks even more because of me? What if he doesn't believe me? What if he tries t-to..." He didn't get to finish this thought before Ares slapped his shoulder, jolting him.

"Yo can't think like that, Teuf. Come on. You know Alba. He's not exactly hero material, but he always bounces back. He's just a little shaken up right now...but give him some time, and he'll get over it. Besides, you have to stop thinking that you're facing this alone. Alba has a lot of friends who care about him, ya know? And all of those people care about you, too. No matter what, we're gonna support him, and we're gonna support you." She stared deep into his eyes, and for a moment, he found himself lost in their endless deep-sea depths. Ares' eyes were really pretty, he noticed. "It's gonna be okay, Teuffel. Trust me."

Teuffel stared at her for a long moment, and then he nodded. She was right. Ares was always right, wasn't she? He needed to stop getting so riled up over something so simple. He was going to talk to Alba and confess everything, and that was that. He had to face the music. And if everything came crashing down...

Ares would be right there beside him to pick him back up.

"...Thank you, Ares." He told her sincerely, wiping at his wet eyes. He watched in amazement as the blue-haired teen turned away with a scoff, pink dusting her cheeks. Ares was blushing? Since when did she ever blush?

"Y-yeah, well, if I don't look out for you, I don't know who will." She mumbled, eyes darting about the room.

"Really, though," the spiral-eyed boy continued, reaching out to gently take her hand in his. "Thank you, Ares...for everything. It's because of you that I—" He was cut off when she punched his arm. Hard.

He reeled back, hissing through his teeth. "What was that for?!"

Ares' face was brighter than a cherry. It was kind of endearing. "Just—cut that out! God! I hate all this sentimental talk, it's too mushy for me to deal with. Hell, this entire conversation was really hard to get through."

Teuffel glanced at her, amused. "But you did get through it."

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Only for you, Teuf. Only for you."

Teuffel chuckled a bit to himself before he regained his serious composure. "Alba should be back any time now..."

Ares nodded and stood up. Teuffel felt strangely cold without her there. "I guess that's my cue to leave."

Teuffel took a deep breath. Trembles seemed to shoot down his arms. Ares gave him a reassuring glance, and he relaxed. It was going to be alright. He just needed to keep telling himself that...

If he couldn't do it for his sake, he was definitely going to do it for Alba's. And Ares'.

"Good luck, Teuf. Remember all the things I told you." Those were Ares' last words before she left the room.

Teuffel felt empty, alone, scared, and extremely frightened of what was to come. But he certainly felt much more emotionally prepared than he had ten minutes prior.

Okay.

Let's do this.

Author's Note: Well hello there―

Alba: Don't even start.

Shima: I'm SORRY, okay?! Things have been really...stressful lately. I'm two days away from graduating highschool, I'm studying for finals, I'm trying to manage three social accounts (DevART and my two tumblr pages), I'm getting ready to go on vacation, I'm also getting ready to go back to work, I'm dealing with the anxiety of college and being separated from my best friends―

Ros: Alright, Alba. Give her a break.

Alba: -mumbles- Fine. I guess you deserve it. But anyway, congrats on graduating!

Shima: Thank you. That and I...also fell out of this fandom.

Alba: WHAT?!

Shima: Only temporarily, though! I swear! Starting this Saturday I have around two weeks off (though one of those weeks I will be in Florida), so I should have time to write more...but seeing as the next chapter's gonna be a BIG ONE, I'll probably need a little more time. Can you give me that, Al?

Alba: ...Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Shima: Awesome. Thanks, love. Oh, and TEUFFEL! -glomps him-

Teuffel: H-huh...?!

Shima: Babe, I'm so sorry, I really don't want to hurt you like this...but I LOVE YOU, okay?! Always remember that! NO MATTER WHAT, I LOVE YOU!

Ros: Why does it seem like I'm the only person who ISN'T having problems?

Shima: Ohhhh, you'll get yours. As for Teuffel, I hope you guys liked the whole backstory and tragicness that I decided to add into this chapter. Teuffel's such a sad baby, I just―I feel for him so much. Ghhh. It physically pained me to write this chapter. Angst feels combined with writer's block=ABSOLUTE HELL.

Okay, on to reviews and then I need to sleep. Biotech final is tomorrow. -shudders-

To all of you who were hoping for an update, here you go! Sorry it took so long. I really hope you can forgive me for this. Of course I had to go and do the ONE THING I said I WASN'T going to do to you. I...am a failure. -sighs-

And I know, I KNOW you all want to see Ros again. Don't worry, he'll be coming back. But he probably won't make his grand return until the next couple chapters. I need to keep him out of the picture for a little while longer. The climax of this story needs to hit its peak before he can come back.

Ros: You can all just pine for me from afar.

Shima: Exactly. 'Sides, I want to keep him to myself for as long as I can. ROS IS MINE!

Alba: Excuse me?

Shima: Uh...just kidding! Anyway, moving on...I believe I addressed most of your reviews, but I have one more.

fuyuharu18: CALM DOWN, CHILD! XD Just kidding. Your excitement and fangirling/boying has made me very happy. And reminded me of this story's existence. So, thanks for that! Anyway, I'm glad you like the story so much! Sorry, but there shall be none of the smexy steamy scenes in this story (even though I am very tempted to throw one in somewhere lol). It's all just ANGST and SADNESS. Luckily for you, there is more Alba whumpage coming your way!

Alba: Why is it always me? Why can't it be Ros for once?!

Shima: Like I said, he'll get his turn. But you're first in line. Just remember this, Ros is probably going to suffer more than you.

Ros: ...Shit.

Alba: -smirks- I am okay with that.

Shima: -clings on to Teuffel- Alrighty, I believe that's all I have for you. Goodnight, my lovelies! See you next chapter!