AN: Hope you enjoy.
II. Boy
He comes home to a hailstorm of applause. It starts the second he steps off the train.
He's the only living victor from District 12, and they adore him. It makes him laugh a little on the inside, but he pushes it down. It bubbles back up, momentarily when he sees his mother in the crowd, but dies as soon as he sees her. She looks the same as she did before they left, and for a minute he wants to run to her (oh how he wants to) and grab her and never let go.
Then he sees her eyes. They are hard, and cold, and sad, and everything that her eyes shouldn't be. And he realizes who she is.
She, the not-her-girl, sees him looking and her eyes soften, just the smallest fraction. She nods once, and in that one nod he knows that she knows exactly what he is thinking.
Then she leaves. Without the eyes fixed on him, he can almost pretend that it is her gold hair, and that she is here, and alive, and hates him like before. (Because if he is being truthful he would rather her be alive and indifferent than dead and in love). He watches the gold hair (not red, he reminds himself, never red, like it had been the last time he had seen her), the beautiful golden hair (not red like in his dreams), as she walks away, and finally he thinks of his girl. The not-here-anymore girl. The forget-me-not girl.
He turns back to the crowd and forces a smile on his face. He thinks he sees a girl faint. This time he really laughs, and it shakes his entire body.
The crowd goes silent and he stops. Finally, a small child with long knotted blonde hair and grey seam eyes (his eyes? he thinks) hands him a small golden key. He doesn't hear what the escort says behind him, because he is too concentrated on what could have been. Finally he shakes his head and she is gone, and in her place is a girl looking at him with admiration in her eyes. He scoffs and shrugs and walks off. The girl had brown hair (or was it red?).
They scream in agony (they've never felt real agony) as he leaves, and another laugh sputters out.
He slips under the fence (as if there really needs to be a fence) and walks and walks and walks until he is lost. So, he sits. And thinks. Of him. Of her. Of the girl (which girl? he isn't so sure anymore). Of the key wrapped in his hand.
He thinks and thinks and time slips away until the sky is ablaze and he looks up and it is glorious. It is gold. He watches and thinks and remembers and laughs and is happy (when was the last time he felt like this?).
He's District 12's Golden Boy. The very thought of it makes him laugh once again. He is Golden, but when she died, his whole world came crashing down.
He might be their Golden Boy, but when he thinks of gold that's not what comes to his mind.
Reviews are golden! And send me some ideas for prompts you would like to see! :)
