Some might call it a lifelong friendship. Others, a passionate platonic devotion. But Willem knew the situation for what it really was and what it always had been: unrequited love.

Over a decade had passed since their first introduction, and he had fallen. Hard and fast. It had been that simple for him, even from such a young age, to know that this was the one person that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Those feelings had only grown stronger with time and with each letter that they had sent to one another over the years. Letters progressed to emails. Emails progressed to texting and phone calls. And in time, those turned into video chats.

Each level that was added only caused Willem's emotions to multiply. Each new fact that was gleaned from their conversations was carefully stored away as a precious moments. Each new moment that they spent talking with one another was enough to cause his heart to race in his chest. He had always yearned for the next text, the next call, the next moment that they would spend together.

If only the distance hadn't been a factor at all, then he would have had the courage to express the emotions that he had kept bottled up inside for all of those years. He would've expressed how he felt, and then they would've been happy together. Because now… Now that they were going to the same university together to be able to actually spend time around each other in person…

It was only during those first couple of weeks at the university that Willem had realized that he had missed his chance… That he should've acted sooner…

His heart had felt like it had shattered that day, and he had been suffering in silence ever since. There was nobody that he dared turn to, nobody that he trusted enough to let into that broken part of him. He refused to even confide in his sister once she had arrived at the same university two years later. He knew that she would never understand what he was going through and that she would only have tried to stick her nose where it didn't belong. Besides, why allow someone to try to fix something that didn't have a cure in the first place?

For all of his outward stoic appearances, his heart had been a fragile little thing. Nobody had been aware of his feelings before, and he certainly wasn't going to start divulging them now. His feelings were his own, and he owed that to no one.

Art was enough of a solace for him. He didn't need other people. It was the purest expression of his emotions. Even though anybody who saw his art never understood it, it was his outlet for all of the bottled up emotions that he held within him. It never stopped the heartache completely though, and even despite how much he sometimes wished it would, his love never faded.

However, just because he himself chose not to divulge his emotions or relationship drama (or lack thereof) to everyone around him, it didn't stop other people from doing the same in return. More specifically, the guys that he was on the soccer team with tended to be the source of this particular bane of his. Even now, Willem could feel the tight thrum of a headache creeping up the backs of his eyes and into his temples.

Regardless of how much it pained him to listen, this was still one of his friends that was hurting, his roommate, and even though he may not outwardly or openly show it, Willem still cared. He cared more than he would ever let even himself believe.

“I just don't understand what I did wrong this time…” Mathias mumbled, eyebrows furrowed together above a pair of bright blue eyes as they jogged laps around the field, the rays of the sun beating down against the backs of their necks. “It seems like Lukas just gets mad at every little thing that he thinks isn't right, and then he takes it out on me by taking all of his stuff. He ignores all my phone calls and texts and even blatantly ignores me whenever we're at hockey practice together, besides trying to nail me with the puck. But then a few days later, he's back to talking to me and telling me how much he's sorry and that he misses me and that he never meant to leave and that he didn't mean any of it and that he still wants us to be together and that he didn't know what came over him. He does it every single time, and it's honestly driving me a bit crazy with as moody as he's been being recently,” Mathias finished with a wide gesture of his arms before they fell to his sides as he hung his head in exhaustion.

Willem sighed gently, shaking his head as he slid his fingers back through his gel-spiked hair. It was a motion half in exasperation and half in resignation. “Matt…”

“I would just dump his ass and tell him to move on!” called one of the other team members, a German student named Gillian, as he ran past the pair. “He's no good for you, Matt!”

At those words, Mathias's pace stuttered and a frown began to form on his face. Willem could see it for what it really was though: hesitation and fear, even though Mathias would never admit to being anything but fully confident and happy.

Shooting Gillian a glare that caused the other student to speed up along the track, Willem pulled Mathias over to the side with a frown and placed a hand on the other's shoulder. “Look, I have no right to interfere in your relationship or tell you what to do or what to say or how to act or any of that. Your relationship is with Lukas and Lukas alone. He's the one that you should be talking to about all of this. If you… If you really want to be with him and you respect him… Then you should keep your relationship between the two of you and communicate everything that you're feeling to him. That's the only way that you'd end up fixing things.”

Mathias opened his mouth as if to say something before shaking his head, his expression becoming pensive. Willem took that as a sign for him to continue talking.

“If you start bringing other people's opinions into the relationship, then it all starts devolving into a my friends said this or my friends said that contest, where it becomes more about what everybody else thinks rather than what the two people in the relationship think and feel about each other.” Willem raised his free hand and pointed over in Gillian's direction where the white-haired man was mingling with a group of some of the other soccer players on the other side of the field. “That's exactly what that was. And there will be plenty of other people who will try to put their opinions in your ear.” Willem let both of his hands fall to his sides and looked away, his voice becoming distant as a familiar tight pain clenched his chest. “And if you really… If you care about Lukas… And if you value the relationship between you both, then it would be better to talk everything out with him.”

Not that he really expected Lukas to end up giving Mathias the same courtesy in return. After all, Willem had met the guy, and there was just something about Lukas that gave him red flags that made his skin crawl when he was around him. It was something in his demeanor and the way in which he carried himself. It gave Willem the impression of nothing short of an arrogant, pompous, conceited child who felt entitled to everything and then proceeding to throw a tantrum and throw things or beat people up when he didn't get his way.

Maybe he was just biased though, since most other people that were outside of the soccer team's circle seemed to think that Lukas was this outstanding guy. Willem knew better though. He knew so much better than anyone else the damage that Lukas had caused and was continuing to cause upon the people that he cared about. Willem had been the sole witness to the bruisings and depressive episodes that Mathias had gone through because of that bastard.

Mathias deserved better.

And it only hurt Willem's heart even more to see Mathias force a smile in front of everybody else and pretend that there was nothing wrong with the world. It hurt that Mathias felt that he was the only person that he could come to about anything and everything while he had to hide what he was feeling from everybody else. But the real killer was that it hurt Willem that he couldn't be there for Mathias in the ways that he wished that he could be.