If it doesn't strike you as odd seeing two boys staring at the front door of an old building for half an hour, then you must be a relative of mine. We were left out in the cold, ringing the doorbell several times. An unidentified face looked down at us after a while from a window on the third floor. Because of our identical knee-length coats and red wool caps, we looked like twins, our gloved hands by our sides and our eyes glaring upward.
I can't say we looked like the most approachable teenagers ever. The permanent scowl on our faces didn't help us appear any friendlier, either. Regardless of our appearences, we still had manners, and we stood close to the door so that others could use the sidewalk. Our motionless stance and our rosy cheeks made us look like mannequins. Sad, frowning, unmoving mannequins.
"When are they opening the door?" Roxas growled. He turned his head away."Those people keep staring."
My head followed. A group of women on the corner of the street was sitting down on a white picnic table, staring at us strangely. They had bought drinks from the small bar next door, gossiping amongst themselves. When we both glared at them, they all turned away.
We both looked at the white door again suddenly, stiff dolls displaying winter-wear. The door had opened, and before us was nothing but a staircase…until we looked down.
Roxas and I had never met our grandmother before. She was an extremely short woman and had a frown to match ours. Roxas and I were praised many a time for our looks, but I'm sure this woman had never heard such a compliment in her life; her eyes were slightly sunken into her face, and the skin around her mouth and chin were hanging repulsively, much like a basset hound. She narrowed her eyes, examining us. I glanced over to Roxas only to see him grimacing, and I nudged him with my elbow.
She led us into the foyer, struggling to close the door behind us. This small, cramped yellow room only had enough space for the staircase. Roxas began to slowly walk up the steps, but was yelled at when Grandmother took out a set of keys and began to unlock another door beside the front entrance.
Apparently, our apartment was on the first floor.
She fiddled with the keyhole, unable to open it. Stalling until she could actually unlock the door, she said, "I'm on the third floor, brainless Cloud is living on the second floor, and your other dim-witted cousin on the third across from me. We didn't have time to fix this one up much since the bar last rented it out, but it was the only one empty."
And she was right. The place was filthy. The entrance led straight into the kitchen, a large, but bleak room. There were two or three cabinets off to the side with a small sink on top of them; no microwave, no oven, no table, and the old refrigerator was tilting to the side. Roxas was first to notice the lack of a washing machine and began to complain about having to wash dishes by hand. The lacey curtains on the window were ripped and a beige color, although I was sure they had been originally white. There were yellow water stains on the ceiling, and the tiled floor was covered in a mixture of dirt and dust. Roxas and I didn't take off our shoes in there until weeks afterward.
The living room was in the back of the apartment, past the kitchen and the pantry. It was as depressing as the rest of the home, although not as unclean. There was nothing in it, of course, except a small lamp and an old air conditioning unit in the window, and it wasn't until I took my shower later that night that I saw the bathroom. The tub area was large, but the shower curtain was long enough to cover only a small portion of it, making it almost impossible not to get water on the floor. Barely any water passed through the aerator in the sink, no matter how much I turned the knob. The top right corner of the mirror was cracked, and you had to pull on a long string to turn the ceiling light bulb on.
There was an unsightly rust stain around and above the drain in the bathtub. I stared at for most of my shower. The building was so old that if anyone on any of the three floors flushed a toilet, the water would become extremely cold, and I would have to push myself against the wall under the shower head to avoid it. It was bothersome, to say the least, and I had to wait for a minute or two for the water to turn warm again.
When I told Roxas of this, he was too bothered to take a shower and went to bed without one. We had been left one large bed to sleep on before all of our furniture arrived in the next day or so, and we had to, unfortunately, share it.
"This blows," Roxas said in the darkness, pulling up the blanket. I did nothing but look up at the ceiling for the rest of the night, silently nodding.
Roxas and I were stacking food in the pantry on the second day. I was in the middle of opening a grocery bag when a there was a knock on the door. Roxas looked up crossly and threw the box of noodles aside. "The old hag graces us with her presence once again," he announced.
I put a can of corn on the shelf and looked out the small window in the storeroom. Across the street was a couple hugging each other, keeping themselves warm in the cold. Then, crossing the road, there was a pair holding hands. As I watched them, two more people passed under the window, smiling at the falling snow. It was then I looked away bitterly. I hadn't seen anyone I didn't absolutely hate yet, and the only ones even close were polished, well-manicured men that worked at the expensive restaurants and clothing stores up the street. But I hadn't really thought about any feeling affection for anyone until he walked in the door.
He came with a box in his arms, biting his lip slightly. I had been standing with my back toward him at the time, and I turned around expecting to see our grandmother instead. I'm sure I looked like a deer in headlights, my hands suddenly getting stiff. I scarcely remember anything but him, and, as I look back on it, the moment only lasted a few seconds. I'm not even sure if I breathed or not.
He placed the box in the middle of floor, his lip still between his perfect teeth. He then stretched his arms out and looked up at me; his eyes caught mine for a moment, and he slowly smiled, his gaze still locked with mine. I'm not sure how long that moment actually was or how I acted through it, although I'm sure I didn't move at all. But I do remember when his smile suddenly became strained, and he turned to Roxas as if he was going to say, "Wow, what the hell is wrong with your brother?"
Of course, he did no such thing, but he might as well have. He didn't stare at me for a long while afterward, and he stared at Roxas for most of the time. Our grandmother came in right behind him, out of breath. She pushed Roxas aside and placed a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Those stairs can kill can old woman! Be thankful you don't live all the way up on my floor. Damn staircase…" She caught her breath, sighing. She began to ramble about random things.
I hadn't the slightest idea as to who this man was, but I knew that he was tremendously handsome, almost ridiculously handsome. His eyes were a piercing gray, stern, and yet they gave off a feeling of purity and humbleness. I had suddenly become self conscious, quickly smoothing out my clothes and checking my hair. Maybe I had dried food on my face, or maybe there was a stain on my shirt, or perhaps my pants zipper was unzipped; I thought of everything that could be terribly embarrassing.
I watched as he smiled and shook Roxas' hand. His kindness was genuine; no grin that perfect could be forced. Still, apparently, even his charming smile couldn't make the ill-tempered Roxas smile back. I doubted anyone could.
He looked to be around seventeen or eighteen, only a couple of years older than me. I began to wonder if I fell into his range of liking, if he liked skinny, brown-haired teenagers that never seemed to stop staring at him. Since he was young, he couldn't possibly be too unattainable. However, there could be problems. Someone that looked like that couldn't possibly be single…
"This is your cousin, Leon, that I spoke of before. This is the one that lives on the third floor, across from me."
…and couldn't possibly be related to me.
I lay in bed that night, defeated. He was off-limits. But it wasn't like we had grown up together and saw each other every day. Just because we were cousins, second-cousins to be precise, it was wrong for me to feel affection for him. I had imagined our entire 'coming out' scene with our family, Leon yelling at them all that since we loved each other, we should be together, regardless of the fact that we were relatives.
Dreams never come true. If he really loved me romantically, that would be a miracle. Even so, I still thought about him.
"How old is Leon?" I whispered, turning my head slightly to look at Roxas. His eyes were closed, but he opened them a moment after to stare at the ceiling.
"I think he said he was twenty or something."
Twenty. Five years older than me. Now not only was my love immoral, but it was illegal. But deep down inside, the fact that it was forbidden made it more appealing to me. I thought about him everywhere, even in the bothersome shower turned cold, and I moved myself closer to the showerhead, so that the water ran right over my head. I thought maybe… maybe Leon, two floors above me, had just flushed the toilet.
I know it sounds ridiculous, and I know you're probably laughing at me, but just thinking that something that he did affected me just …thrilled me. He might have been in the same room, in the same exact spot, three floors above me. I stepped back into the water, the temperature still ridiculously low. It ran down my face and my shoulders, down my spine, wrapping around my legs. His face raced across my mind and I felt warm, regardless of the freezing water.
And just like how Roxas used his outspoken, icy disposition to be…friendly, I used my naïve shyness. Cloud and Leon sat outside on the picnic table every other evening, and Roxas and I had nothing else better to do but join them.
"I'm left-handed," Roxas said, noticing Cloud writing a check with his right. The older blonde stuck out his tongue. The conversation would mostly only include those two, occasionally Leon, but I always tried to make myself stand out, even if only a little.
"I'm ambidextrous," I said, with the smallest sense of pride. It was true, so I wasn't a complete liar. However, over the course of the conversation, I might have spilled out a couple of white lies…
Roxas pulled at his hair. "I have to style it like this."
And I responded, "My hair is naturally spiky."
Roxas stared angrily at me, as well as the rest of the table, all of them doubtful. No one's hair could be that incredibly, perfectly spiked apparently. Maybe I wasn't completely truthful, either.
"Soda is not just soda. Certain brands taste good, whilst others do not!"
"I'm not so picky."
"I think black and a really, really dark blue look best on me."
"Summer colors are best for me, like red and yellow. Everyone likes summer!"
"Grape jelly is the only thing that has the right to be on toast."
"Butter, jelly, jam—what's the difference? It all tastes good!"
"I simply adore cold, dark days when the sky is completely gray with a blanket of clouds, like today. Gorgeous."
"Oh, today is horrible. Sunshine never gets old! A nice breeze to go along with it is also nice, perhaps."
And after a while, Roxas asked the question that was on my mind: "How old are you, Leon?"
Leon's eyes were glued to the table. "I'm twenty-five."
Somehow, my body kept on living after that moment, although my heart ceased to beat. It had been suddenly stabbed with many sharp, pointy knives. He was ten years older than me. I wanted to leap across the table and strangle Roxas to the ground for telling me the wrong age. I guess Leon noticed me glaring at my brother, for he asked me a question.
"What grade are you going into, Sora?"
I wanted to get up and run away. Even though I didn't look like I could be eighteen or older, Leon hadn't known my age until then. Maybe he was asking to see if he loving me was lawful or not, and maybe he was hoping I was older than I actually looked. Leon might have been hoping to hear "I graduated years ago! Do I really look that young?" I had no choice but to disappoint him…and myself.
"I'm going into…tenth…"
Leon's eyes flickered suddenly; I knew it. He was troubled that our love could never be.
Rather, that's what I wanted myself to think.
"You two are quite young then," he said to me, smiling grimly until Roxas spoke.
"The schools now are so overcrowded," my brother said, turning to Cloud. "Too many crowds. Too many people. I hate people."
"I don't think people are so bad," I replied, my voice getting soft again for the next set of dark-brother-nice-brother questions.
It turns out I lied about that, too. There were people I hated, namely the ones that Leon would come home or drive off with. I secretly looked out the kitchen window every morning and afternoon when he would leave and return to his apartment. Many times he would be by himself, like when he would go outside shirtless to walk to the alley with his trash. However, there were times when he would be with a woman.
I didn't see the same woman twice. I had begun to wonder if he was just coming and leaving with different family members that I had never met before, acting as a carpool. The idea wasn't completely unbelievable, but he had told Roxas and me once that he had a girlfriend.
Which girl it was, I wasn't sure. I would look at all of them, knowing that they weren't nearly pretty enough for someone as handsome as him. Some were too short, some were too tall, some were too chubby, some were too skinny, and all of them were positively ugly.
Even though he had a girlfriend and I was a boy, and even though he was twenty-five and I was only fifteen, and even though he was my cousin and I was his, I still had hope. I still watched him from the window, I still sat beside him out on the picnic table, I still thought about if he flushed the toilet or not; I could not stop myself from thinking about him. Without Leon, my surroundings were still bleak.
I was so obsessed with him that I would try to make sure that wherever he was—in Cloud's apartment, on the picnic table, going down the stairway—I was, too. It's one thing to have a crush at school, when you can follow him from class to class, but it's another to have a crush at home, when the playing ground is much smaller. At home, I could be there when he watched television, when he talked with Cloud, when he ate his dinner…
…and when he brought me mine.
I opened up the door every other evening with Leon shoving a bag of fast-food in my face and laughing. I took it graciously, of course, and Roxas would pop out of nowhere to grab it away from me.
"What took you so long?" Roxas would grumble. That was his way of being kind. It was my job, being the nicer brother, to be there to nod my head and thank him properly, and it was Leon's job to shake his head, say 'No big deal,' and walk up the staircase.
But this last time I found the courage to, instead of hurry and close the door, stick my head out and watch him as he went up the winding stairs. I already knew what I would be doing for the rest of the night. I would think of him in the shower, think about him in bed, and drift off to a dream that always included romance, passion, and Leon.
And I can't wait to see tomorrow.
Author's Note: I don't like it much, it's not as strong as I wanted it to be, but it's been plaguing me for a couple of weeks now, and with a TWO-YEAR ANNIVERSARY coming up, I had to write it down. It's a day late, but it was meant to be posted yesterday and we should all blame my Internet for dying on me.
Happy two-year anniversary, Ame! You are my forbidden love of tongue cancer forbiddeness!