It was Friday, and there had been radio silence between the two men.

Flug had still not called Black Hat back, and Black Hat had not called him again. As a matter of fact, where has Black Hat been? Flug typically saw him in between classes Tuesday and Thursday, that was fairly usual. He wanted to rationalize that he'd just been missing him, a few seconds too late or too early for their paths to cross.

But even ignoring those days, Flug still used to see Black Hat around.

He used to see him in the library, sitting on the tables while he read. He would see him out in the benches lining the campus walkways, staring menacingly at passersby. He had once or twice seen him in the cafeteria eating some disgusting looking sandwich (and from the looks of the other students, he wasn't the only one who thought so), but no! He hadn't seen top hat or coattail of the man in an entire week!

He had asked Demetra, the Cafe Triste waitress who'd seen them before, if he'd stopped by. He had asked her this every time he'd been in and seen her. So much so that by Wednesday afternoon she just immediately greeted him with "Hey Flug-Bug! Still haven't seen your man-crush! I'll keep my eyes open, though!"

"He is not-" Flug stopped himself before he could scream at her. "It's not like that."

"Then what's it like?" She asked, twirling her long ponytail around. She must've thought the whole thing was pretty ridiculous, given that snarky grin on her face. "You come in everyday asking if he's been here. And then you just mope around with your coffee when I tell you he hasn't. You should've asked for his number last time you saw him."

Flug wasn't even going to begin to get into that.

"It's...complicated." Well, how else do you phrase He's a supervillain that approached me about a job building weapons and security systems for other criminals and then popped out with the fact that he dug into my past and taunted me with the fact that I killed thirty people three years ago, which to him apparently means I have pure villainy in me, and while I was masturbating late Sunday night he called to ask me about spending the weekend together, which I still haven't gotten back to him on, without giving away the supervillain-ness, the murder, or the fact that they've sort of exchanged numbers already?

Yes, very complicated.

"Oh, what's complicated about it?" The perky neon haired woman asked.

"Is it like you're childhood friends who did everything together, but you buried your deeper feelings for him down until your eventual move and separation for years? And now that he's resurfaced and is even hotter, you can't bear to be apart even though you don't know if he feels the same way about you as you do him? Is that it?"

Flug blinked. "Not...not even close." Was that a show? A movie? A book? It sounded so much like the plot of some gushy romance aimed at lonely teenagers.

Wait, did she say Black Hat was hot?

"Damn, I own Marietta ninety pesos." She said, looking disappointed. "Ok how about this, this was her theory, is he the new guy in your class? Your study-buddy? He struggles in the subjects you're good at so you've been spending more and more time together trying to help him, which became romantic at some point, and now that he's disappeared you feel an emptiness in your life that can only be filled by…" she paused dramatically. "Caffeine?"

Is she getting these from shoujo animes? Flug thought.

Wait, did she say that was someone else's theory?

ARE THESE PEOPLE TAKING BETS ON OUR RELATIONSHIP?!

Flug shook his head slowly. "No,that's...that's actually farther from what's actually going on."

"HA!" Demetra laughed. "So she's wrong too! Perfect! Now she owes me ninety pesos back! We're even." She said with a grin.

Flug would've loved to hear more about what the cafe staff thought of his and Black Hat's relationship (and for the record, they didn't have a "relationship"!), but Demetra really had to get back to her job. That thing Flug was constantly distracting her from.

Come Thursday, he learned that the girls on shift with Demetra, Marietta and Esme, started a betting pool to see just what the deal was with the two of them. Apparently ALL THREE saw it as romantic! How? They showed up twice, and since then it's just been him asking obsessively if the other's showed up at all!

Not to mention one time ended with Flug having a mini-panic attack from this guy offering him the damn world on a silver platter and the other ended with Flug being dragged out by a very angry Black Hat.

Where does anyone see any romantic connection in that?

The baristas on duty around the same time, Mike and Samuel, got in on the betting pool as well. Apparently nothing else is going on here and they have to entertain themselves betting on other people's love lives!

Which is NOT what's going on!

Anyway, Esme's theory was that they met through online dating, chatted a lot together online and just barely met in person for the first time. Flug fell in love, Black Hat didn't, they met a second time where Black Hat broke things off, and Flug, heartbroken, has been drawn back time and time again hoping to see his "love" (gag) one last time and try to make things work.

Mike bet that they were exes and one of them (Flug), wanted to get back together but was rejected. While in the gripes of depression he's been returning to the last spot he saw him just to catch a glimpse of his lost love.

Samuel bet that Flug just owed Black Hat money and was way behind on his payments, so he's been asking about him to see if the cafe is still "safe".

Apparently Samuel thinks Black Hat is into some shady business.

Well, he's not wrong.

Oh but that's just the afternoon-to-night crew! The rest of the staff, who have never even seen either of them, have a whole OTHER slew of theories they bet on!

Flug guessed that Demetra spread the word around to get as many people betting as possible.

And, wouldn't you know it, everyone was wrong.

Kim (who works the opening shift), theorized that they went to high school together and were besties while Flug hid down his deep, repressed, romantic feelings towards his friend. He recently confessed to him and was shot down, and Black Hat hasn't been answering his calls. He's asking if Black Hat's been around so he can tell him in person he understands and hope they can still see each other around without it being awkward.

Sofia thinks Flug and Black Hat work together, no clue as to what they do, but their relationship became more than just friendly coworkers recently and they've just sat down to have the talk. Do they continue their work relationship while also dating? Do they break it off before getting too serious in order to maintain their coworker-friendship? Does their job not allow employee dating and they risk losing their jobs? Sofia thinks Black Hat decided to end things for some reason like that, and Flug was far more attached than he let on, so he's been sulking around, hoping that out of work they can at least hang out.

Hector, morning barista, theorizes that they witnessed the end of an on-going one-sided relationship. Flug was an obsessive boyfriend, Black Hat finally decided enough was enough and broke up with him. And blocked him on all social medias along with his cell number. So Flug's been stalking the Cafe since it was the last place he saw his ex-boyfriend.

Maya's big theory is that Black Hat is a new foreign student at the Universidad that Flug has been showing around recently. They've been getting close and Flug made a move. Black Hat wasn't interested, which Flug could handle and accept, but now he's disappeared and Flug is trying desperately to keep hope alive by frequenting this Cafe they went to twice before in as many days!

Slightly close to actual events, with Black Hat being a foreigner, but still wrong.

Josue, one of the few male waiters, seems to be the only one who thinks the roles are reversed. He bet over 300 PESOS that Black Hat was the one who was into Flug, and that Flug was the one who shot him down, and that since he broke his heart he's been asking about him just to make sure Black Hat didn't kill himself.

What the hell.

The only other employees for Demetra to get in on this were the part-timers. They come and go doing menial work like cleaning and restocking, so no one goes out of their way to be friendly. Except Demetra, of course. So the three of them, Brian, Paola, and Esteban came together and worked out a theory that encompassed all their collective ideas:

Friends with benefits. The three of them put their heads together and came to the conclusion that Black Hat and Flug screw each other casually, but now one of them (probably Flug) wanted to be exclusive and have a serious relationship. Which Black Hat refused.

Demetra mentioned that she'd tried to get the manager, a large woman named Consuela, in on this whole fiasco as well. Her response was something like "Stop meddling in the lives of the customers and get back to work!"

Flug didn't even know the woman and he already liked her.

Demetra told Flug that when the guys who deliver the coffee beans show up next, she's getting them in on the betting pool too.

Flug had no idea how it worked in betting where absolutely everyone loses. Usually there's some kind of dealer or bookie who would handle all of that and keep the money, right? It didn't seem like they set that up.

So, does everyone just keep their money? No one won, so technically no one lost either.

How could so many people see them as romantically involved? They had no chemistry, at least none from the two interactions they'd had so far. Black Hat seemed to be only interested in him for his scientific skills, and his possible villainous alignment. Flug certainly wasn't interested in him! Not in a romantic sense. Or a physical one! Not at all! The guy was unsettling, Flug couldn't tell what his motivation was, he seemed to get off on his fear, he saw him as a pawn to take for his team and use, and he clearly had no problems snooping around in his past just to tease him!

And, oh yeah, HE APPARENTLY WANTED A WEEKEND GETAWAY TOGETHER! So there was that.

What was up with that anyway? He wanted to spend the weekend together to...show him something? That would apparently take two whole days? Is it just really far away?

In other news, Flug was right. His nightmares of the night he crashed the plane and killed 25 people reared their ugly head once more.

He didn't like to think about it. He liked dreaming about it even less. The nightmares were so vivid, it was like lucid dreaming without the control. It was as if he was actually reliving that terrible night. As if he could feel the plane shaking again as it braced for the crash landing he was going to force on the old model. As if he could feel the hot metal against his back. As if the glass was shattering in his face all over again.

As if Julio was shielding him and taking on the damage he deserved all over again.

He hadn't seen Julio in years, but his face was still fairly clear in his mind. When it wasn't being tainted by the wreckage that comes with being in a plane when it goes down, he was just as handsome in his memories as ever. Flug wished he had a picture of him. Or that he could just call him. Just hear his sweet voice. Just once more. So that their last words to each other weren't so cold.

It couldn't be helped. Flug crashed a plane with the both of them on it, people died, they both ended up in intensive care, and then he killed a man in front of him.

Not the best scenario for, well, either of them, but there was no changing the past.

And as long as that was true, it seemed there'd be no changing his new sleep pattern of waking up at five in the morning in a cold sweat either. Feeling the ghost of Julio's body protect him from the worst of the wreck.

He wished he could just forget. He wished he could look at his face in the mirror and not see the shards of glass coming towards him again. He wished he could look at the small scattering of cuts on his arm and certain areas of his chest and not think about how Julio's body protected him, saved his life, kept the damage as minimal as possible.

Most people never saw the tiny scars. So small and insignificant they might as well not exist. But he saw them. He felt them. Thin but just deep enough to scar him all the same.

And he wished he didn't remember his last thoughts so clearly before he blacked out from the smoke inhalation. They most of all haunted him in his night terrors, where he couldn't drown himself in work until the thoughts went away.

When he wasn't dreaming of plane crashes, the one fear that kept him from so much as attempting to pursue his love of flying again, he dreamt about hospital beds.

Hospitals. They themselves didn't faze him. He was not scared of the sickness nor the doctors. The strange medical equipment was odd but it gave him no reason to feel uneasy.

It was the beds.

They reminded him too much of the same one he awoke in following the incident. Lumpy, cold, not at all comfortable, and his leg, one of his worse injuries, was suspended in the air by whatever the sling-looking contraption was called. He couldn't remember the term the doctors had given him but he remembered the purpose. It was to minimize the amount of blood circulating in his leg, which not only helped prevent clotting of the veins but helped it to heal faster.

Given how mobile he was, it was a wonder his leg healed as fast as it did.

But he never forgot the fear he felt, lying in the bed at all hours. Not being able to tell night from day due to the lack of windows, trying to figure out the time; was it 11 pm, or 5 am? It was quiet, so it must've been sometime in between. A time when even the staff was too exhausted to be keeping up with patrols and patient checks.

Noting that simple fact might've just been what saved him.

A new development, his dreams had been disturbed by different invaders this past night.

There was no fire, no impact, no broken bones, no scratchy sheets digging into his wounds, no pain as he stumbled around on one good leg, no body shielding him for wreckage, but there were hands on him. Holding him in a strong but gentle embrace, soft fabric brushing and caressing his skin. A dulcet voice lulling him, he couldn't make out any words but he was soothed all the same just by the sound.

He dreamed of dark skin and red and black fabric holding him tight.

He woke that morning hard, and confused.

While he was glad to not be ripped from his peaceful sleep by the guilt of his past, this dream left him feeling...weird.

He wasn't sure exactly who it had been in his dream, he had seen no face nor recognized the voice, but they seemed familiar. And their touch sent waves of calm down his body. He felt he needed calm more than ever.

Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

But it was weird.

Well, he couldn't dwell on it for long. He still had that big project in his Engineering Club to work on.

And for the first time in his life, he was struggling.