Chapter Text
Today had been melted together with countless other days for Wayde, it felt like it had been simultaneously mere hours and a whole lifetime ago since it began, a day without night.
It felt so silly, he was so silly, Tynn was just a business partner, and he had known her for 2 years, she was not a childhood friend or anything of that sort. But she was his friend, probably his best friend, and he had wanted her to not be just a friend.
Really, that Wayde loved her only meant that he should feel glad she’s doing what she felt was best for her, but if she had only explained why better. He didn’t understand why she had left, she always seemed to be happy to be here in Defiant Root and often brought up gripes with her kingdom.
Despite everything he wanted to move on, it was her life and she chose to return to her colony, but he couldn’t help but desperately wish that she had stayed still, no matter how selfish it was.
Maybe one of the reasons she had left was because termites are eusocial, he heard a lot of eusocial bugs felt very connected to their colonies usually, and she was very far away from hers or from anyone of it. He couldn’t know, he was not an eusocial wasp, –and considering recent events, thank Venus he wasn’t.
Though obviously a major factor had to be the political situation of the time. Termites and ants, thanks to Queen Elizant II, had increasingly strained relations, and this made the royalty encourage the termite diaspora in Bugaria to return before borders were truly closed.
He had not even thought about it at the time, surely Tynn would not want to return, turns out he didn’t understand her feelings as much as he thought he did.
Now ants and termites had partially reconciled, with the whole Wasp King crisis over, but hope she might return felt vain and dangerous, even disrespectful towards her choices.
Yet his subconscious couldn’t help but cling onto it against his will, why was he like this? Tynn certainly doesn’t want him to be pining for her for the rest of his life instead of taking care of the inn they built together, Wayde was sure of that.
He couldn’t deny a small part of him was angry at her for not explaining herself properly before leaving at least, but he had to keep in mind that he was just her friend as much as he secretly loved her and it was a deeply personal decision for her, where she lived no less, he could not fairly judge her with how he felt about her.
Despite knowing all this, despite knowing that it was immature to act like this, he felt so miserable. He wanted to be with her, he wanted something that he knew was impossible.
Her countenance would stay on the inn’s sign, he didn’t have the heart to remove it, he hoped she could forgive him for that if she knew.
The inn was doing well, at least, but he felt that he wasn't dealing with customers properly. He couldn't even muster a smile ever since she left. Though Defiant Root was not a very large town, the locals knew what had happened and he knew they didn't blame him, but to tourists he must seem like a bad host.
Some tourists asked him who was the termite at the inn’s sign, and with his lack of explanation and the way he reacted he feared they would get the impression she is dead or something of the sort, but he couldn't bring himself to explain it to them.
The creaking of the door brought him out of his thoughts, another customer was coming. He should try to at least pretend to smile, but no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't.
The customer seemed strangely hesitant to open the door fully, quite slowly pushing it, which only made the grating noise of its creaking last much longer.
Wayde was slightly irritated, but he obviously did not express it.
The mysterious client for the first time in what took more than a few whole seconds started peeking their antennae. That made it clear it was a termite worker, which would make it even harder to pretend cheerfulness in him.
Suddenly, the slow pushing stopped for a moment, before it was opened in an instant with much more strength and determination.
Who Wayde witnessed stand at the door afterwards made him be sure that he was hallucinating, or fell asleep at the front desk and was dreaming, or maybe even was humiliatingly confusing a separate termite with Tynn.
Because the termite next to him couldn’t be her. The termite looking at him with a nervous and mildly sad look on her face, with a face that was her face, a body that was her body, even wearing her brown scarf she liked to wear so much.
Wayde did not say anything, he merely looked at her, and it appeared she took that as an indication to begin talking with a voice unmistakably Tynn’s.
“Well, I… I was wrong to leave, not only because I had everything here and the Termite Kingdom made me feel like I had nothing to do there but because I did it in a way that was wrong. I didn't tell you nearly enough, and I could see you felt very bad but still left…”
Wayde slowly stepped left of the front desk and began shyly stepping towards her, he still wasn't fully convinced this was or could be truly Tynn.
Despite that, he could feel both deep happiness and sadness jointly invading his facial features, and he felt embarrassed.
“The part I regret the most is not that it did not turn out as I expected, but that for a whim of mine I left you in the lurch and didn't even truly explain myself. I was being a bad business partner, friend and… even person.”
His brain started slowly accepting that this all felt real, this felt like standing next to Tynn for the first time in over half a year. His smile joined the tears slowly dripping from his compound eyes. It was also clear that she was noticing his tears and felt bad about it with the expression she was making now, making him feel a bit ashamed.
He understood what she was saying, but he at this moment felt no anger towards her despite somewhat believing she was right in her self-criticisms, he just wanted her to stay.
“So… I will understand if you are angry at me for doing that only to go back on my word once it didn’t go as well as I expected, but I swear it wasn’t simply because of economics. I really feel I did you dirty with all we did together, and if you are willing to forgive me I would like to go back to being your business partner and your friend.” She sounded nervous and a bit embarrassed, he could tell she was being sincere, not that he would have ever doubted it.“Though I would understand if you didn’t want to…”
Wayde’s choice was clear.
“Tynn, I would like nothing more than you returning here.” He was struggling to keep his voice from breaking, it made him feel even sillier than he already felt. “I forgive you, though I did feel very, very bad after you left.”
Tynn walked a few steps towards him, slowly but steadily. “I’m glad to hear you forgive me, I shouldn’t have ever left.”
Wayde felt what he deep inside thought he would never feel again, that good days were coming on. He knew that his romantic feelings would likely never be satisfied, but he was okay with that as long as he could keep being Tynn’s friend.
For now he just wanted to reconnect with her as a friend. Despite his internal feelings, he overwhelmingly was overjoyed at having his friend back, not for having another chance at gaining her as a girlfriend. She never gave any signs of feeling the same way towards him as he secretly felt towards her. Regaining her as a friend is already far more than he thought ever would happen.
Tynn later that day informed the rest of the townsfolk about her return, and began working at the inn anew. She seemed to want to ‘make up’ to him by being especially diligent during work that day, and he didn’t know if he felt good about that.
As much as he was ecstatic to have her back, their conversations were still a bit awkward after over half a year separated. Wayde knew that would improve with time, he hoped it would all be fully restored into the way it was before.
She had said she missed their shared room, and it made him feel a little guilty that she didn’t know he had feelings for her when she was sharing a room and a bed with him, it was very unfair on his part to not let her at least know that, but he felt too afraid to tell her that.
Tomorrow would be another day to ponder on that, this one had been the second best of his life, maybe even the best. You don’t know what you have until you lose it.
“I really missed how cheap wood was here compared to my colony, it makes a good termite diet much easier to afford.” Tynn back then did mention that a few times, and he had always thought that it must be rough being a species that eats wood frequently in an area so devoid of plants as the Forsaken Lands.
They were having breakfast, and she seemed a bit more cheered up than yesterday. He didn’t want to make her feel guilty, even largely agreeing with the critiques she gave herself, which may be a bit illogical.
It still felt almost dreamlike that she was back, he had long resigned himself to her permanent departure, and yet here she was. He could not take this for granted though, he could not take losing his best friend a second time, anything but her leaving a second time.
Termite mandibles being shockingly strong is something he had learned from the relatively frequent occasion of her eating wood like what was now occurring. Despite their exoskeleton being quite softer than his own species, he doesn’t know if his mandibles could make a dent into wood like how hers can easily munch it.
She was clearly quite enjoying wood-eating though, her face was looking almost blissful, something that was a bit hard to understand for him. His own breakfast was a lot more mundane for his standards today, some aphid meat, which to be fair was equally exotic for Tynn’s standards with how termites were herbivores.
They both commented on things like these slightly often when they first met, when both of them just saw the other as a business partner and nothing else, but now it was mostly natural. He didn’t exactly know when they had both started to see the other as friends aside from business partners, and he also didn’t know when he had internally started feeling more than friendship for her, but…
Things like this just developed naturally, it wasn’t worth thinking when exactly they happened, just that they did.
“Also, Wayde… I noticed you didn’t clear off my face from the inn board after all this time.” Oh, she had no brought this up beforehand, and the sudden mention even if clearly not bad-intentioned made Wayde a bit nervous. “I wanted to say, I really appreciate you doing that when I know it must have been hurtful to look at it, I feel like you’re a better friend than I was to you…”
It would have hurt more to remove it, he would have replied, but his brain swapped that for something less self-incriminating, yet that he also wholeheartedly believed. “You’re a good friend, I know it must have been a very personal choice for you to leave even if it ended up being a mistake, don’t worry.”
He hated the mere possibility of making Tynn feel bad, though he knew she could handle her own emotions. Maybe he was just subconsciously afraid of her stopping to see him as a friend, but he knew that would not occur.
Tynn looked a bit insecure for a moment, before smiling mildly. “Thanks, Wayde.”
She finished consuming the chunk of damp wood that formed her breakfast, and afterwards started walking towards the door outside the room, presumably to attend to the inn.
“I’ll go with you when I finish mine!” He exclaimed towards her general direction, trying to make sure not to excessively shout it, to which she replied with a lively “okay!”.
After the day was over, it would become the first day in recent memory in which, during its entire duration, he had not felt sadness.
It had been around a week, his mental state he felt had somewhat returned to how it was before she left. It was night, and she was sleeping, but he hadn't managed to fall asleep yet.
His life was going fine, the inn was going considerably better than when it was run only by his saddened form, but there were still some things to mete out.
He wanted to tell her how he felt, even if he knew she would very likely not feel the same way, because he felt he was being unfair to her not telling her when he lived in the same room and slept in the same bed, it was even kind of creepy if he was to be honest with himself.
But he was scared that she would feel disturbed at him and stop being his friend. Even if they considered each other friends, they were business partners, and they had shared a room and bed for around two years. He did not think she would just break ties with him for that without letting him explain himself, she was not the type of person to do such thing despite the fact she did leave him once, but his brain was too scared that confessing it would ruin their friendship still when their friendship was good as is.
He turned around the bed to not face her, maybe that would make these stressing thoughts and the feeling of guilt for not telling her subside a bit, and then he could fall asleep normally.
It had been three months since Tynn returned, and he resolved himself that it was time to tell her, though he did not want to. He felt bad, she should have the right to know how the person she lives with feels about her.
He was so scared about how this would turn out, so scared that he would ruin his life doing this somehow, but the rational part of his mind told him that was very unlikely to happen in any circumstance. They were adults, not teenagers, and he was quite confident that both of them were fittingly mature; they could talk about this rationally if it accidentally came off wrong in any aspect.
He had chosen specifically this day because it was a day of break they had given themselves. He had already told her about something important he wanted to discuss, there was no going back when she was standing right in front of him waiting for him to continue.
“I wanted to tell you something I have felt long before you first left, but that I kept to myself all this time. I feel it is unfair to keep it from you, though I know you won’t really feel the same way, so I hope this doesn’t harm our friendship…” The second half of that sentence made it abundantly obvious what he was talking about, and the change in Tynn’s expression from neutral to shocked confirmed that.
The next words to come out of his mouth would be almost redundant, his secret was out. “I… have feelings for you, but I would be perfectly happy with staying just your friend and pretending this never happened.”
Wayde now could only wait for Tynn’s response, and the wait felt agonising. In her face he at least did not read displeasure, much more resembling shock. He prayed to all three goddesses that she would merely accept his offer to disregard this forever after and continue to be friends.
After what had felt like countless moons, the pale termite in front of him moved her mandibles as she formed speech. “I never had anyone feel like that towards me, back in my colony most of us don’t really do that between ourselves. I would be willing to try a relationship if you want, you are the person I interact with the most and my best friend, and I really like your personality, so you would definitely be my first pick.”
What she said, especially when intermixed with her mildly casual tone, made Wayde struggle to believe what he had just heard come out of her mouth. He would never have expected that she would accept, he had always assumed that fell only on the realm of his dreams. He struggled to even process it, but once he did his eyes opened wide and his nervous face turned into the largest grin his mandibles had ever formed.
“R-really?! I do want to! I do more than anything else in this world! but I never thought you would accept!” He was close to shouting, but the tone of his voice made it clear that he felt nothing but pure joy at this moment.
“I really like how you are, so I think it wouldn’t hurt for us to try. But keep in mind that we would be trying, we wouldn’t be from the get-go partners, because I first have to see if I develop stronger feelings for you during dates and other things we do.” That was a bit of an unconventional way to go around it, Wayde assumed as a result of eusocials not being as used to the concept as other species, but this was still infinitely better than he ever expected it to go.
He had to try making her feel like he feels now she herself was proposing it to him. If it didn’t work, he would accept it and stay her friend, he could accept that, but if it went well…
He was sure that nothing else would make him happier on this Earth.
“I understand, I-I would really love that.”