All he ever knew was of the songs he sang and the songs he strummed. They weren't solid, but malleable, twisted around his voice and his fingers. Songs were something he could blend with. But he also knew of foul-mouthed cursing, and apple-crisp laughter, and diner mints.
He knew of the girl who sat in the doorway across from his apartment and never questioned anything, not his presence back home, or his lack of. Not his bloodied hands or leaky eyes. She said hello and he said goodbye and she asked him what colour the sky was that day. Peacetime Blue, Velveteen Night, Afternoon Drizzle,or Suppertime Yellow, he'd reply. She'd smile like she couldn't care less and tuck her knees up to her chin and laugh her apple crisp laugh.
He knew of the run down, run over and run through diner on the other side of town, that was poppy red and goodnight blue, and lit up the nighttime street with neon gold light. He knew of the waiters and waitresses who were always in each other's business and down each other's pants. He knew of grinning goths carrying lip-smacking pink sundaes and plates of never ending spaghetti.
He knew of Serendipities his guitar and Serendipitous things. He knew of the rain that battered the city, and the sound of the drains overflowing with water. He knew his battered and beaten bed and the creaky twenty-third step. He knew the coffee stain in the rug and the wind outside his window, and calloused palms and screaming lovers.
But what he knew most of was the boy who would listen to his songs. With Midnight Blue eyes, half-cracked smiles and pallid hair. Books torn with daisy yellow pages and his favorite shade of bloodless red. His distant eyes and listening ear, and his soft humming voice when he whispered "Goodnight," like the lyrics of a song.
He knew of bruising kisses that belonged to someone else and the unsteady crawl of a spider. He knew the smell of pot and look of daises. He knew how to thread words like bitch with words like lover and make them sound like everything belonged. He didn't know how to pretend nothing was wrong, but he'd learn.
He learned how to scream instead of cry and how to cry instead of laugh. He learned how to skip a beat and make it work and how to kiss and make sure it didn't. He learned how to bake cherry pies and speak lullabies instead of singing them. He learned how to see through people, and he wished he never had.
-
The city was made of spiraling towers and clean sidewalks and hobo stoves and broken bus signs. Everything was meshed together; the rich and the poor, lovers, haters, and candle stick makers. A businessman would chat with a crack addict while waiting for the bus at a shattered bus stop, and a child would share an umbrella with someone who had just killed their best friend.
Everything and everyone was everywhere and no one cared about anyone else and only cared about everyone else. There was Coca-Cola corner shops and Mega Marts on the same street. There were Rainbow Spotted skies and Lonely Morning sidewalks. And he loved everything about it. Walking with Serendipities and humming Mozart, sitting on the island in the middle of the road listening to the cars rush by in flurries of slipstreams and neon orange. The Fading Night sky above him and Dewy Footstep grass below him.
He loved the school were everyone knew everyone and ran betting pools and hung up school spirit banners and never ripped them down and sang A Hard Day's Night or Bizarre Love Triangle after the morning announcements and no one cared when students skipped down the hallway or kicked each other in the shins. He loved to sit in the janitor's closet listening to the tap-tapping footsteps outside and the la-la-ing of his best friend singing a song while he waited outside the closet for him to come out.
He would sit in the janitor's closet and remember things, like the Hopscotch Café, Einstein's Dreams, which had been a good book, or the feel of his favorite teddy bear that his best friend had fallen in love with. He remembered running for third-grade president and laughing like the world was ending in English class and not knowing why, and the hushed whisper of sweet nothings in his ear and the warm breath on his neck.
And when he was done remembering, or felt like he was going to cry or had finished crying, and his legs had gone numb he'd walk out the door and his best friend would be waiting, singing a lullaby or painting on the ceiling. And then his best friend would smile and say, "Feel better now?" Sometimes he would shrug and sometimes he would nod and sometimes he'd shake his head and hug his best friend and sometimes he'd go back inside the closet.
Once he had woken up at three in the morning and looked out his window and saw cars splashing through puddles on the road which as much intensity as they did in the day. He'd been a little surprised to see the sparkling shadows and damp tire marks on the road. He'd always assumed that when he went to sleep, the rest of the world did too. He had no reason to ever think otherwise.
So when he stepped inside the janitor's closet for all he knew and all he cared the world stopped except for his best friend who was everywhere but in pictures so he made his best friend promise to hum or tap-tap his feet on the floor so he'd know that he was still there. His best friend went beyond that and sang his favorite songs and hummed his favorite lullabies and drummed a beat on the closet door and when he painted on the ceiling or walls he chanted a mix of Christian and Buddhist hymns.
Demyx loved his best friend because his best friend could have anyone, but chose him. Demyx loved his best friend because he would sing Tony while drumming a Metallica beat and drawing a unicorn on the back of Demyx's hand. He loved his best friend like he loved the city, with Lazy Gold hair and Surefire Blue eyes.
But Demyx feared love like some people fear fire so he'd skip school and just play his guitar and hold his best friend's hand and lie on his back watching his best friend paint on the ceiling. He'd walk out of school in the middle of the day when he finds a note in his hand detailing every thought and feeling that ran through his best friend and he'd sit in the island in the middle of the street and play a few mournful tunes and then get to his feet and walk to the usual spot.
He'd play for a few minutes, and once he lost himself in the songs He'd show up. Demyx had no idea who He was, with His Calming Sea Salt Blue or Midnight Blue or Deep Sea Blue eyes that all depended on moods he smothered inside himself and Elephant Bone Ivory pale skin and Violet Sunset and Violent Grey hair that always reminded Demyx that violet was one letter from violent.
The boy would sit calmly nearby with a weathered old book and read and listen and stare at him with far away, too far away, eyes and then stand and Demyx would know that a sun was sun-setting on the horizon and it was time to go home. "Goodnight," He'd always say, which always sounded too much like Goodbye and Goodmorning and then leave and Demyx would run his fingers over Serendipities and say nothing.
"Say anything."
-
He was insomniac and logical but never reasonable and always, always, hated the rain. On days when it was sunny and the sun spat small raindrops on the city or rainfalls that washed away dirt and left the city sighing with cleanliness he hated the rain. But didn't know why.
And he hated the city, with its trampled buildings and gemstone chapels and hobos and millionaires that never gave a shit. He hated the rain and he hated the people and he hated the school that brought everyone together in a family-like circle and the strange way everyone got along and never judged one another. But he never attended school because he had already graduated and felt no need to do anything else until he was eighteen and old enough to attend college.
So he watched the rainy sunrises and bright sunsets and never wondered why they seemed backwards because he knew nothing else and he pretended he knew everything, because he did.
He knew of solar systems and night skies and the difference between the two and the difference between parties and dances and fucking and making love. He knew the difference between goodbye and goodnight and the difference between good-morning and good-day and hello. He knew seventeen difference ways to make sushi and fifteen different kinds of mints.
He knew of the girl in the apartment next to him with blueberry laughs and blueberry muffins who always knew when he needed her and when he didn't but she came anyways. She'd walk into his room since he'd long since abandoned the practice of locking his door and look at him with Disney blue eyes and say hello and he'd say goodnight and she'd take his hand and wait. Sometimes he'd cry for no reason, and sometimes he'd laugh and sometimes he did nothing at all until she fell asleep and he could kiss her much too soft lips and run his fingers through her much too perfect hair and wonder why she was so imperfect.
He knew the library that was always clean and well put together and the smell of old books and new books that came with it. He knew the smile of the boy who was always reading dictionaries and pictures books. Who grinned a missing-tooth grin, and made faces at him when he thought he wasn't looking. He knew the soft carpet and the gentle tick-tock-tick of the clock behind the History section and the floorboards that squeaked in Non-Fiction.
But he didn't necessarily like any of these things. He liked, orange-flavored tic-tacs, watching the first snowfall, the smell of honey but not the taste, his friend's easy, flowing laughter, supportive laughter. He liked the way his friend could turn anything simple fantastic and then plain and boring in one sentence without realizing it. He liked the oddly coloured pop bottles his friend collected and the way his friend kissed his hand like no one was watching.
He liked the girl who worked at Apple Cider, her sharp voice and conniving grin. He liked her much too pale blonde hair and the way she always smelled a bit like burnt marshmallows and dish detergent and coffee. He liked the way she spoke honestly and truthfully, and her tendency to obsess over cleanliness when she thought no one was looking.
He liked his other friend, who spoke little and thought too much and click-clacked puzzles instead of looking him in the eye. He liked the girl at Baskin Robins, with her cherry pop smiles and kind eyes. He liked his friend who worked at Fed-Ex, who always spoke his thoughts out loud, and styled his hair too much.
He didn't like herbal soap and the word botchy. He didn't like Beethoven or blind people, and didn't mind telling people this. And he couldn't figure out why so many people were still attracted to him. He didn't like running but he ran all the same, down the streets, around cars and people who would stop and ask him how he was if they had the chance. He ran while his lungs burst and his legs gave out and then he'd fall on the ground in some long-forgotten parking lot and squint at the sky or close his eyes and sniff the night air to get his bearings.
There were times when he left his apartment because he felt the need to, and times when he left because he didn't want to. There were times when he'd scowl at his friends and times when he'd laugh. There were times when he go on a walk, and not a run, and bring a book incase he found a half-decent bus stop to sit and a read and wait for the next bus to stop by.
Then there were times when he'd look for the boy with the broken guitar and half-shredded hands. He wasn't sure if what originally brought him to the guitarist was the metallic scent of blood on him, a smell that had always intrigued him and a taste that always soothed him, but every once and a while he'd stumble along the thin boy who was all angles strumming his old guitar's older strings with worn-out and worn-down fingers with a down-cast look in his eyes and a small sliver of a smile on his lips.
It wasn't the boy that fascinated him, or even the music. It was the simple way he could stop, and read with pleasant background music and no one would question it, and no one would comment and no one would stop to ask him how he felt that day and no one would say anything because that was the way it was. It just happened, like clouds and radio static. It was like reading a good book, when you get so caught up in it, you forget that it's a book, and you forget your thoughts and sort of blend with it.
It happened, so it was fair and no one asked why, and he certainly didn't and the only word he ever said to the lonely looking boy with the guitar was goodnight, in his calmest voice as if this could get across to the dull boy that he liked the silence and he liked the noise and he liked the music and he liked the company and he liked having no company at all. But he couldn't expect any of this to get across to the boy, because he probably was on heroine every time he played and never really fully noticed him sitting there. Because that was the way he thought, so that was the way things were.