Jock Next Bed (BL)-Chapter 240: Not-a-confession Confession

Chapter 240: Not-a-confession Confession
Sky burst through the bedroom door, not even registering the softer, more subdued light of the hallway. He just needed out.
He felt his skin crawl, every nerve ending screaming. Love. He’d said love. To Chris. Like an utter, clumsy idiot.
Half-blind with panic, propelled by a desperate need to escape the scene of his catastrophic emotional mess, he skidded to a halt in the hallway, pressing his back against the cool wall, trying to regulate his breathing, which felt ragged and far too loud in his own ears.
As soon as Chris’s reaction replayed in his head, he erupted.
"THAT ARROGANT, GOOD FOR NOTHING, DEMONIC IDIOT! I HATE HIM SO MUCH!"
Sky hissed as he pushed open the door he assumed was Henry and Noel’s room, and began pacing frantically, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. His voice was carefully modulated so as not to carry too far, but vibrating with barely contained hysteria.
"O-kay... what is going on?"
Sky froze. The voice was soft, surprised. He spun around, eyes wide and horrified, to find Mei sitting on a plush armchair, a phone lowered from her ear, her expression one of utter bewilderment. He hadn’t even noticed she was there, lost in his self-inflicted torment.
"What are you doing in here?" he demanded, his eyes darting around the room and oops... this was the girls’ room, not the boys’. The realization only deepened his mortification.
The air immediately thickened with his awkwardness, radiating off him in suffocating waves. He’d been so consumed by his meltdown, he’d completely missed her presence, completely misjudged which door he’d burst through. He felt like a complete fool. His dramatic, frantic pacing, his furious muttering... all of it witnessed.
And Mei wasn’t one to let things go, not with him. Which meant she saw through his theatrics faster than anyone.
She looked genuinely puzzled, her head tilted slightly. "You just came out of... your room, right? And you’re... yelling about Chris?"
Sky swallowed hard, trying to reassemble himself, but it was like trying to catch smoke. "I—I was not yelling," he mumbled, his voice tight with tension. "I was... expressing myself."
Mei raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Sounded an awful lot like yelling." She paused, her gaze softening slightly. "Is everything alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or just confessed to one."
The word ’confessed’ hit Sky like a fresh wave of nausea. He winced, looking away, staring intensely at a spot on the wall. He couldn’t meet her eyes. He paced a small circle, wringing his hands.
But this was Mei. If he couldn’t share his thoughts with her, he wouldn’t share with anyone else. And... he wanted to let this out.
"After battling for a long time. A LONG TIME!" he breathed heavily, the dramatic flair returning even through his mortification, "I... I confessed to him today."
Mei’s eyes widened, a genuine gasp escaping her. She sprang up from her seat, as if a force had dragged her up. "For real? Wow. What happened?"
Sky stopped pacing abruptly, turning to her with a look of utter disbelief. "And then... with that stupid look on his face, he just looked at me and said ’Okay.’ OKAY!" His voice rose despite himself.
Her mouth fell open.
"I didn’t even know people said ’okay’ to love confessions, but he said ’okay’ to me!" The injustice of it, the sheer cluelessness of Chris’s response, made him want to tear his hair out. He was practically vibrating with a mix of fury and intense embarrassment.
"That bitch!" Mei shrieked, a fierce loyalty blazing in her eyes. "I’m going to kill him—"
She was already moving toward the door when Sky, despite his own turmoil, reacted instantly, wrapping his hands around her, practically lifting her off her feet as he dragged her back.
"HEY!" She yelled, flailing her feet in the air.
He dropped her, standing between her and the door. "What the hell, Mei! How can you call him that..."
She looked at him in disbelief. "I am taking your side right now!"
"I know. But even going to meet him makes things worse for me. I mean... I am already dying of embarrassment right now."
"If you really want to die of embarrassment, maybe you should look in the mirror and see how you look right now."
What?
He moved to the mirror and was horrified. The hickeys on his neck were now painfully obvious. That wasn’t even the worst part. His lips were plump and red, his face a burning crimson, hair a messy disaster. He looked like he had just been fucked. Mentally and physically.
"You let him top you didn’t you?" she asked from behind him, her voice dry.
"WHAT THE HELL!" He turned to her, looking truly horrified.
"I mean, I’m sorry. But everyone may think you are bomb but I know you. And I know how you are FOR him. If he asks you to lick his feet, I’m sure you’d ask no questions and dip it in ketchup." This was Mei’s way of showing she truly knew him, saw past the bravado to the softer, more vulnerable Sky underneath.
"Okay... stop. You are being super weird right now and it’s making me want to throw up."
She shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe you are just pregnant."
"I’m out—"
"Get your stupid ass seated here and tell me what happened while I try to cover those hickeys unless you want the others to give you shit for it."
He glared at her, but the unspoken trust between them won out. He went anyway, sinking onto the armchair she’d just vacated.
She took out her concealer compact while he recounted what he had said. Of course, he left out all the other unnecessary, explicit details, going straight to the point of his botched confession.
Sky suddenly felt the panic return, twisting into a fresh wave of worry. Had he ruined things? Had he pushed too hard? Said too much? Or, conversely, had he not said enough? Had he made Chris think he was just being... Sky, being dramatic, not truly meaning anything by it?
He imagined Chris, still in the room, maybe chuckling to himself, dismissing Sky’s outburst as just another one of his theatrics. The thought made his stomach clench. He had laid his heart bare, however clumsily, and Chris might have just seen it as a performance. The insecurity he battled so fiercely resurfaced, biting.
Or worse, if Chris had been surprised by it and felt pressured? That thought alone made him sick.