[The plastic egg crumples easily, effortlessly as wet paper, and Koby swallows back the bolt of adrenaline that tells him to runrunrun, settling back on his heels instead, brow furrowed in concern. He stays a safe distance, but he’s already mentally gauging if he can get closer, if he can maintain some control in the situation, but also – help, somehow. Comfort, maybe. Without getting grabbed and drowned.]
I miss him too. [That’s offered, soft, Koby’s thoughts flicking to the warmth of the summer before, to Daniel settled in his chair on the soft green lawn, relaxed and weary and still-human, to the anxious fear of somewhere new and somewhere dangerous and I don’t know what to do someone tell me what to do in his chest that had finally, finally eased at that hand on his shoulder, those tired eyes looking into his. The kaleidoscope of memory, of a schoolboy crush nursed so, so carefully, hidden like it wasn’t splashed across his face every time he saw Daniel. And, at the end: a blur of heat, of bliss, of Koby spread out on Daniel’s couch, feeling him for the first, the last, the only time.
The thoughts ebb away, and Koby folds his hands loosely, wearily.] But you’re right, not for as long as you. It’s different for me. I only know how to be lonely like a human. [Still – that’s fairly endless, the depths of a young, tender, fragile heart, the peaks and valleys of emotions still churning with boyish abandon. Nobody’s heart breaks like a teenager’s, nothing ever feels as endless and impassable as it does at that age. Koby’s still a few months shy of twenty, but he knows enough to know the scars etched in him permanently, the loss echoing everything sweet and good and beautiful in his life. The inevitability of parting.]
What would convince you? That I won’t go. What can I say, Armand?
no subject
I miss him too. [That’s offered, soft, Koby’s thoughts flicking to the warmth of the summer before, to Daniel settled in his chair on the soft green lawn, relaxed and weary and still-human, to the anxious fear of somewhere new and somewhere dangerous and I don’t know what to do someone tell me what to do in his chest that had finally, finally eased at that hand on his shoulder, those tired eyes looking into his. The kaleidoscope of memory, of a schoolboy crush nursed so, so carefully, hidden like it wasn’t splashed across his face every time he saw Daniel. And, at the end: a blur of heat, of bliss, of Koby spread out on Daniel’s couch, feeling him for the first, the last, the only time.
The thoughts ebb away, and Koby folds his hands loosely, wearily.] But you’re right, not for as long as you. It’s different for me. I only know how to be lonely like a human. [Still – that’s fairly endless, the depths of a young, tender, fragile heart, the peaks and valleys of emotions still churning with boyish abandon. Nobody’s heart breaks like a teenager’s, nothing ever feels as endless and impassable as it does at that age. Koby’s still a few months shy of twenty, but he knows enough to know the scars etched in him permanently, the loss echoing everything sweet and good and beautiful in his life. The inevitability of parting.]
What would convince you? That I won’t go. What can I say, Armand?