In the second Rusty has opened his mouth, the cigarette was falling down his snout. The seconds it took, felt like years for both of the adolescent boys and they couldn't simply turn their eyes in another direction or simply close them or blink for god's sake. Notwithstanding, that it was cold and both Rusty and Jack were soaked from the rain, their crossed eyes wouldn't move. Almost like they were tied up, the two of them couldn't even move a bit with their bodies, the only thing that had space were millions of questions, of thoughts, both had about their counterpart.

"I haven't seen him for a while now", Jack's mind finally rebooted; "the last months haven't done any good for this guy." With a careful gaze, the boy inspected the person in front of him. Red eyes, quite a tired expression, and unkempt fur were visible for Jack, which kind of reminded him of a book his grandparents once read to him when he was little. He was counting 5 maybe 6 years when they read the book Shock-headed Peter to him. However, he was still able to remember the first few lines of it.

"Just look at him! There he stands,
With his nasty hair and hands.
See! His nails are never cut;
They are grim'd as black as soot;
And the sloven, I declare,
Never once has comb'd his hair;
Any thing to me is sweeter
Than to see Shock-headed Peter."

Jack always wondered why Shock-headed Peter would look like this. Then again, he looked back at Rusty, he clearly looked terrible. "What has happened to him? He used to care more about his appearance. What kind of invisible evil has befallen him? Should I say someth…".

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound the cigarette made when it touched the ground. Consequently, the boy froze again, but on the other side it was now Rusty's time to move and as a result, he opened his mouth again. "You look terrible Jack." In complete apathy, Jack moved his head once again to look into the puddle next to his feet. "He ain't wrong", the boy thought; "I look quite terrible." What Jack saw didn't even frighten him anymore, even though it would be similar to a mask from a horror movie. His eyes were red as well, and this night hasn't been good for his fur either. In an unexpected manner, the adolescent started to giggle, which also brought a smile on Rusty's face, so that both of them started to laugh about their current look. At that moment Jack felt something weird. For the first time in his 12 years on this school, he has seen Rusty laugh in an honest way. Sure, he has seen him laugh several times when he more or less bullied him, but this always seemed so fake, this, however, looked natural. "I probably don't look so well either", the yellow dog laughed; "Like the girl from The Exorcist". "Or Freddy Kruger", Jack added in a laughing fit. "And you look like The Scream", Rusty couldn't stop laughing, so that there even were tears formed in his eyes, possibly this was the first time for long when this was a positive sign. After several minutes of shared joy, their eyes crossed again. With this immediate gaze, their laughing stopped in a second and they went back to their miserable silence from before until it was Rusty again who started to do the talk: "Can't you sleep as well?" Jack frowned: "It's difficult, I actually don't know yet. I just have held back thoughts for too long and tonight all of them suddenly came up. It kinda was…an emotional nightmare." "I feel ya", the yellow dog answered; "Hasn't been that easy for me either". Sedately, Rusty bent down to reach for his cigarette to relight it and took a sip of it. After inhaling the smoke he stretched his paw out, offering Jack his cigarette. "I, I don't smoke!" the other teen responded. "That ain't a cigarette", Rusty smiled and took another sip of his self-constructed Joint. Something about Rusty's smile felt so inviting, so warm. It may was the smoke he inhaled passively but something in Jack didn't want to refuse this offer and who knows, maybe it could alleviate his pain, as he has put it on the airport. "I'd like, ahm", Jack cleared his throat; "I'd really like to try it out". While stretching his paw out again, Rusty smirked quite warm at Jack, who took the Blunt into his paws to try his first sip. As soon as he vacuumed it and breathed out, he saw Rusty almost about to laugh. "What is it?", Jack insecurely asked, "I thought I would have to cough?". At that moment Rusty immediately started to burst out into a laughing fit. "You did it wrong", he smiled; "you need to take another breath deep into your lungs before you breathe out again, so you inhale it." Whereas Jack nervously sighed, Rusty just kept smiling at him, which motivated the young adolescent to go for another sip. This time, however, he didn't only get the smoke into his mouth but also his lungs, when he took another deep breath as Rusty has told him to. Suddenly, Jack started to cough and Rusty took the Joint out of his paws to do another sip himself and put his paw on Jack's shoulder. When he was finished enjoying the THC into his lungs, he looked back at Jack who was still struggling to stop coughing. "That was a really good sip, Jack, the first time's always hard, but you get used to it, but here, you should sit down." Rusty brought Jack to another bench, on his way Jack was kind of worried since he didn't really want to get back into the state he was in a few minutes ago. As soon as Jack's lungs stopped hurting he looked up at Rusty again. "Can I try again?" Playing with the Joint in his paw, Rusty just nodded and handed over the Blunt following in another sip by Jack. Fortunately, this time it didn't feel that bad and he even felt some the substance kicking in. In short, the teen felt better and was about to take another sip. In the end, they shared the complete Blunt and just continued sitting on that bench for quite a while.

"What has brought you here Rusty?", Jack asked completely stoned. "The bus? Or was it the train?", Rusty messed with Jack; "Hell man, I dunno. In fact, what makes us move each day?" With tired eyes, Jack looked at Rusty again. "Wow man, that's deep. Is this one of those deep talks you have when you're high?" Wandering with his paws through his hair, Rusty smirked at Jack again: "Nah man, that ain't deep. I'm just here to live and life makes us move. But to answer your question, I have no idea what brought me out this evening. Probably just a small attack of depression." "It happens in those years", Jack added, which was agreed by the dog. "But what brought you here to the school at this rainy night?", Rusty continued, now having a more serious facial expression; "I mean I live in the residents of the school, but you live in the districts, don't ya? That'd be more than 45 minutes with the bus, why would you come to the school?" While resting his head on Rusty's shoulder, Jack started to sigh: "You know, it's difficult. Jill, the girl I love, is probably going to marry her boyfriend, this jerk in hell and my best friend will study for the next five years in Spain. So, I'm kinda alone for now and don't know what the future may bring. In that sense, I got like an attack of depression back at the airport after I said my goodbyes to Zill and Kayla and was wandering through the night and I don't know what, but something brought me here." As Rusty sighed to say something afterward, he was promptly interrupted by Jack again, in whose eyes were tears forming again. "I don't even get the sense of living anymore", Jack cried. Initially, Rusty was just going to lay his paw on Jack's shoulder and say him that everything would be fine, but when the other boy started to cry he simply laid his arm around the shoulder to close in for a hug and kept silent. Pure silence was heard through Jack's sobbing, until he stopped, which led to Rusty trying to get off the hug again but the other one didn't let him do that. Fortunately for Jack, his counterpart didn't care, so that they stayed in this position for quite a while. "You know, living isn't that hard", Rusty replied; "It just takes humor. We both need to learn that we shouldn't take ourselves, life and society so serious, instead, humor is our only cure. In school, we've learned mathematics, art, informatics, history and whatever subject I slept through. Unfortunately, we haven't learned how to live, how to love and how to dance. I mean sure, Allanzo has taught us stuff, but I haven't learned how to just switch off my head and do whatever I wanna do while the music's playing. We are fools, thinking that what we want, needs to be reached in any way, thinking that without things happening the world stops rotating. I haven't really reached for what I was aiming for in 12 years of this school. And I just guess, you haven't reached your targets as well? We need to learn to accept this, listen to music and play our part in this world, which isn't more than dancing through life and believe me, it isn't the end if you do a mistake while dancing, the only important thing is to dance, to continue moving." While his one paw is now wandering through Jack's hair, his other one is pointing at the rising sun: "You see, another day begins." Following Rusty's speech, Jack looked up again and started to yawn, when he was finished, however, he was curious about how to start, but Rusty knew what the Jackal was going to say and just took another Blunt out of his pocket. "How about we start easy?" Agreeing with this, the adolescent nodded and they both shared their second Joint. "It was quite deep what you said there", Jack smiled. "Nah, it was Hermann Hesse", Rusty was joking again.