It was silent in both of their places. Althea's place was quiet due to everyone being asleep, and Ray's place due to him living alone. Being so make them felt like they were alone in this world, only connected by the phone in their hands.
"Thea," Ray's voice reached her ears, making her stilled for a moment.
"I love you." Ray's voice echoed in the silence. Even though Althea had already guessed it, hearing it herself made her heart pound and her cheeks burned up again, for a different reason from the previous one.
"Y-yes?" caught off guard, she could only say those words. Probably realizing her silly question, she asked again, "That... I mean, are you sure?"
Noticing her nervousness, Ray chuckled, "Yes. Never been this sure in my whole life."
"How did you know?" Althea was pretty sure he didn't even have the concept of love until yesterday.
".... Google." Ray sounded exasperated. Even without seeing him, Althea could guess how he must be running his fingers through his hair right now.
"..." Althea didn't know whether to laugh or cry at his silly but classical answer.
"What happened to your father though?" She remembered she told him to ask his father instead of browsing it.
"Sigh... My father is a bit different, you see. He didn't tell me what it was."
"How so?"
"I told him how I felt, then he asked me, 'Have you found your doctor?' I was like, what doctor? I don't have a doctor. Then he told me to go look for my doctor." Ray sounded a bit annoyed, something that Althea didn't get to hear often.
"He never gives an easy answer." Ray added.
Contrary to what Ray felt, Althea was curious as to what does it mean. So she went ahead and asked what does his father mean by saying the doctor.
"Well, he said to find your doctor using a female noun in my mother language. A doctor could either give you a cure or a poison. So you'd either push me to the brink of hell or bring me back to life depending on whether you love me back or not. Something like that, I suppose." Ray sounded like he was coughing and gasping for air after he finished.
"Uhh, what happened to you?" Althea was quick to get worried over his condition again. God knows what he did to be unconscious for that long after such an intense emotional outbreak yesterday.
"I asked you something first, young lady." Ray reminded her of his confession, partly because he knows this girl would try to evade it.
"cough, cough" Althea felt like she was choked by her own saliva.
'Goodness, how do I answer this...'
"Umm... Ray, we only knew each other for a month. And I didn't see you as a love interest, so I'm sorry, I can't accept your feelings." Althea closed her eyes. She had to come clean with it or else it'll only make the both of them suffer.
A long and disappointed sigh could be heard from the other side. "I see... It was too sudden, huh?" Ray's voice sounded so desolate. It was as if he just found a light on his life but it's slipping away his grip like sands.
"T-that is... Can't we just be how we used to be?" Althea couldn't bear hearing it.
"Thea, I can't..." Althea heard a sound of cloth rubbing against the floor, and a soft clink of metal as Ray probably shifted his body.
'A clink of metal...?'
A bad premonition arose in Althea's heart but before she could say anything, Ray beat her to it.
"I think I need to get away from you."
"Huh? W-why?" No. Althea didn't want to be away from Ray. She knew she was selfish to want him to stay with her when she had rejected him, but she couldn't bear to.
"Thea, it's painful to be here. It's painful to stay with you knowing that you don't accept me." Suddenly, Althea felt like Ray's voice had aged. That pitch black eyes of his must be looking absent mindedly to whatever it is in front of him.
"Can't we start as friends?" Althea unknowingly made herself smaller, curling up and hugging her knees as tears almost slipped down her eyes again.
"You can't expect someone to love you instantly." Althea added, trying to convince him. One-sided love or unaccepted emotions are something very familiar for her, and she didn't want Ray to went through it either, but she couldn't choose to be his lover nor to leave him. And she hated herself for that.
"Huff..." Ray breathed ruggedly, his condition-which Althea didn't know how it is- must be worse than she initially thought.
A long silence resumed and Althea could feel the sense of suffocation from waiting, she had never felt this afraid to be away from someone.
"Okay." Ray finally replied.
"Let's start with being a friend." And the breath which Althea didn't know she held, was finally exhaled as the sense of relief flooding in.