A/N: This is a "novelization" of the Can't You See Me music video by Tomorrow x Together. I suggest watching the music video before reading this as it will make everything clearer. Also, I suggest having the English translation of the lyrics on hand because I reference them a LOT, especially in the poems.
Since I didn't want to use the real member's names, I replaced them with their character's names in The Star Seekers storyline. This is not because I am wanting this fanfiction to be seen as part of the storyline, but just because these are the members' canonical pseudonyms. This story is in no way a reflection on the real people behind TXT or the fictional Hybe universe, but just something I made up for fun.
Guhaejwo ("Save Me")
By TheFlightyFairy
Soule:
I'm yours, you're mine
An elusive secret of this world
That cannot stand the test of time.
And when it evaporates
My world unfurls.
Who would want to be friends with a chain around their ankle? Was this vicious cycle started by them or by me?
As long as I can remember, I have been desperate. I am always drowning, spinning around, searching for the air. I cling to people, with the wild thought that if I squeeze tight enough, they won't leave me. It never works. Even my parents find excuses to get away from me so that they can breathe. And the mattresses I lie on, the fences I lean on, the ground that I leap from, disappear beneath me – well, you can imagine how I fall.
It was actually getting better last year. No one was more surprised than me when I actually found a group of friends at school. We had all been trainees at one point but eventually had been weeded out. What do all those un-spotlighted boys do the rest of their youth? Start a dance group, form a club that excludes everyone else, but not me. This time, Iwas on the inside. For a little while.
Avys had always been our little brother, but then his mother died in a sudden accident, and he disappeared into silent despondency. Taho and Eugene got suspended on the same night; both for stealing, and Eugene for starting a dumpster fire. It had been Viken's idea - it was always Viken's idea - but he had slipped away before being caught.
I hadn't been there. I had been at home, housesitting while my parents were away, again, while my friends took risks and got in trouble together. Just like how it always was, and how it always would be. I remember my voice echoing off of hollow walls, and… not much after that.
I was in the hospital. They gave me medication; they told my parents to do this and that to make sure it didn't happen again – whatever it was. They wouldn't tell me, but I put a few of the pieces together. Maybe that's why every noise sends me shivering now, why laughing feels like lifting weights, why the only playlist I can get myself to listen to is Sad K-pop for Sad Nights. My parents knew this, or the gist of it at least. They knew it all, and they left again anyway. Once again I'm left alone.
Guhaejwo.
Viken:
Our promise…
Something, something…
What was that?
Who cares!
Friendship is a life of individual nothings
So why let those past haunt us?
Taho had had plenty of time to forgive me by now. Eugene had gotten suspended too, and we had made up in no time. His cold shoulder had only lasted until the next night, the one where we had found out about Soule. That night we had all met up at the hospital and shouted at the receptionists until security gave us the boot. I planned on climbing a tree to get in through a window, but Taho shouted the first words he had spoken to me since school heist, "You're not helping, Viken! You always just make everything worse for everyone!" Then he stormed off – and took Eugene's car home while he was at it.
Eugene put a hand on my shoulder before I could spit anything back. "Hey, if Taho had been the one near the exit, you bet he would have run too." And I knew things were good between us.
So of course I invited Taho when Soule texted that his parents were checking out for a couple of days. I didn't think the redhead would still be in a funk when we met up on Soule's doorstep. He didn't even have the decency to look when I offered him a warm pretzel!
Avys was looking gloomy too, but that wasn't news. He hasn't been much fun lately, but, you know, his mom died. Everyone keeps saying just to give him time.
We're all going to have fun this weekend though. I'll make sure of it.
Soule:
I was elated when I saw them through the keyhole, happier than I want them to know. Four pairs of eyes stared directly through that tiny window into mine. Could they see me? Could they see the joy on my face? No? Then just believe me.
Eugene:
Now I see them burn in fire
Turned to ruins,
Our memories to ashes.
Every moment it grows higher.
My doing.
Gone in four crazed flashes.
The oven in Soule's house uses real flames. As I placed the tray of gingerbread into the oven, I leaned my head inside just a little too far. The flames flickered on the bottom. I was just far enough to withhold the fire's satisfaction from blistering my face. So close to what would be danger, if it were not wrangled and controlled to do my bidding. I smiled at those little fingers that were waving at me from below.
My mom had chastised me over and over again for getting suspended last month. She had said I was so bad that I would be sure to go to hell. But, I don't know; maybe if hell is made of fire, it won't be so bad.
The treats were done. No one noticed that I left the oven open and running after I had taken them out, just so I could see the flicker through the corner of my eye. I could just say that I had forgotten if they asked. But no one did ask. No one noticed.
Avys:
Our Scintilla bloomed underneath the starlight,
Now all I can remember are the highlights.
Even those were taken by the blight.
You gave up your fight.
Mine is worthless.
I came for Soule, so that he would feel less alone. I know what it is like to feel alone, not the way he seems to feel it, but since… well, you already know my eomeoni died suddenly earlier this year. I saw her fall from our roof. I had been reaching up to hand her the gardening gloves…
Her absence is so prevailing throughout every day. No one really understands that. My younger sister barely took two weeks to grieve before rejoining with her trainee group, and my older sister had moved out ages ago. Together I've cried with them once, but alone, so many more times.
I think my friends and teachers expected me to be mellow and depressed for the first few weeks. They accepted it, put their arms around my shoulders, texted me, told me they would be there if I ever needed anything. But after a month or two, the sympathy dried up. Now there was more hesitance, more hard looks. I could almost hear their thoughts; you should be over it by now. We certainly are. They just don't understand me anymore.
But I had not come for me, I had come for Soule. I was tired of feeling sorry for myself. That was all getting dropped off at the door.
"We've got to do something memorable this weekend, something we'll never forget," Viken said through the chips he was crunching.
Pulling out my phone, I said, "I know what will make us never forget this." Viken and Eugene eagerly crowded around me for selfies. In the background of those pictures, I saw Soule and Taho, unmoving, sitting at the foot of the couch. I pushed past Viken and Eugene and held my arm so that everyone was in the shot.
"Smile!" I said. Not everyone smiled. I looked worriedly back at Soule. He had seemed happy when we were in the kitchen while Eugene baked. He wanted us here, why was he despondent all of a sudden? I was the one who should be sad.
Don't think about that, I quickly told myself before my thoughts could stumble back to the tragic load I had left outside. It was going to stay there.
Eugene:
"What should we watch?" Avys asked, flopping on the couch with the TV remote in hand. He had really perked up, which was a relief. Me and Viken needed all the help we could get with keeping spirits up. I give credit to my gingerbread cookies. Too bad they seemed to be having the opposite effect on Soule.
"Movies are boring! We can do that any day. We need to have a giant party here or something." Viken groaned.
Taho looked at him. I think it was the first time he had even looked at Viken since we got here. "This is Soule's house. You can't just come in here, destroy it, and then leave." He turned back around and stared forward at the blank TV.
I made a cringing face, not that anyone noticed. Why was everyone always doing something to make this difficult? I let my eyes slide over to Soule to see how he would react. Hm. He wasn't reacting at all, just blowing his gum into a bubble, and staring at the TV's home screen as well.
I reached down and popped his bubble to snap him out of the trance. "Hey, Host-Man, can we have a party here or not?"
The look that Soule gave me when he turned around felt like he was turning me to frost with his eyes. I recoiled, but the next moment, it was gone. He had turned back to the front. Still, the cold feeling lingered. Had I done something wrong?
"We can do whatever we want," Soule said. His voice was cheerful – I think. "But… I'd like it to just be our group."
There was silence for a moment. Had the others felt that icy flash?
Avys clapped his hands. "So, Avengers then?"
Taho:
Together, Together
We're forever, forever.
You promised, promised.
Did I think you could be honest, honest?
Now who's the liar?
The strawberries were sour – out of season, of course. I had a backache from sitting on the floor, but no way was I getting on that couch. I wasn't even willing to stretch my hand up to scratch the itch on my neck, because it would mean my arm would probably brush against Viken's leg. I would rather be just about anywhere than here.
You know about happened with Viken and Eugene a month ago. Did Viken tell you it was him who goaded us into sneaking into our school in the middle of the night and stealing the cash? He probably said it like it was no big deal. Of course, it wasn't for him. He had run away when the alarm had started. I would have ratted him out – at least then we could suffer the punishment together – but Eugene glared at me until I answered their questions with, "No. It was just us two." Viken didn't just get me in trouble, make me a thief, but he also made me a liar, just for being a better friend than he was to me.
That's how he always is. I didn't even think about it until I was stuck at home for a month with nothing better to do. Any idea that comes into his head, he has to do, and he has to make us do it too. He doesn't care about how my parents were millimeters from disowning me when they found out about the suspension. When I'd told Viken I didn't want to be the 'good boy gone bad' anymore, he'd just laughed in my face. Then I stopped talking to him. Why talk when no one's listening?
I wish that was all, but the others have started to make me uncomfortable too. Sometimes I feel heartless for thinking that, especially about Avys. Avys has a good reason for incomprehensible behavior. Not Eugene though. He knows exactly what he's doing. While the three of us had been sneaking out of the school on that rueful night, Eugene had inexplicably lit a match and thrown it into one of the dumpsters behind us.
"What are you doing?" I had shouted back at him, forgetting to be quiet, which is the only thing I can blame myself for. "You could set off the fire alarm!" But Eugene hadn't even looked at me. He had stopped running, staring at the flames that were beginning to bubble up from the lone dumpster. It took the sirens and voices of campus security to even get him to turn around. Crazy, insane.
But until the next day, I hadn't thought it of Soule. What had happened that night the three of us were out committing felonies? I had woken up at 2pm the next day, consequence of a sleepless night, and picked up my phone to messages assaulting it from every direction. Soule… meet us at the hospital… nervous breakdown. No one could say exactly what it was, not even Soule when we finally got to ask him. He claims he doesn't remember, but I know he knows something. Now, sometimes I catch him in a trance. He invites us over and then acts like he's asleep with his eyes open. It's weird. Maybe he's a liar too.
The back of my neck prickled as the screen flashed in front of us. I could feel those eyes on me, eyes I hated and feared; 0f one insane.
Guhaejwo.
Viken:
What comes in
Never leaves.
It stays confined inside these blue eyes and pale fingers.
It shakes me from the inside,
Then heaves,
And wins.
My head started nodding during the film's final battle, the part where everyone is supposed to scream and cry. Everyone was tense, and it wasn't because of the movie. I could feel it like a frost coating the entire house, and us inside of it. This was not how this weekend was supposed to go.
It was all Taho's fault. He didn't even try to hide the little bitterness complex he had against me. It was souring the mood of everyone else. Why did he have to be such an ice queen?
He was sitting right below me, back stiff, squishing strawberries between his teeth. I could practically feel the juices squirting into his mouth. I imagined reaching down, grasping ahold of his wrist, and shoving the prongs against his tongue. Maybe it would bleed. Maybe it would just look like strawberry juice.
Maybe I should stop thinking these things, or my itchy fingers might do something stupid with the other three there to watch.
Maybe sometimes I wish I had been born inside a different head.
Guhaejwo.
Soule
Crumbled sand castle.
Who's the liar?
Dressed up in pretty tassels
I search for you all
Through the dancing fire
I don't know what's wrong. They came. They're all here. It's all five of us, even Taho and Avys, who I know sacrificed to be here. What's wrong with me?
I can't raise my hands when the TV heroes score a blow like the others do. The walls are weighing down my body, even my face. I could smile when they first came, but each time, the motion got heavier and heavier, like my eyelids as the evening crept forward. It was the first week of January, so the days were still dwarfed by the night. The sun took my joy with it, whatever part of me that used to have the capacity for happiness seemed to have broken since… since whatever happened.
I find myself staring off into space a lot, like there's a black hole in my mind where that night used to be, and when my thoughts get too close to it, they just get sucked up.
Some strawberry juice landed cold on my cheek, and I was back in my kitchen. And oh my days.
"Viken!" my voice along with three others screamed simultaneously.
"Stop!" Viken desperately and ineffectively shoved his hands on top of the lidless blender. His long fingers along with a meter radius of counter and floor were covered in red a moment later.
"THAT IS NOT HOW YOU TURN OFF A BLENDER!" Eugene was yelling. I was closest to Viken, but I couldn't get my muscles to move faster than Eugene's. Before I could blink, he had hopped onto the kitchen island and was reaching over. "The button, the button!"
The other two were mixing their shouts into the fray. The blender was gargling its strawberry vomit. Viken was shouting back at them, fumbling with the controls with one hand. It was all so loud. And none of it made sense. Even the words were starting to not make sense anymore. They all fuzzed together, got chopped up in the blender. I felt like how I remember feeling in English class, straining towards the words that I had learned, but that didn't make sense all strung together. I leaned back and gripped the counter behind me with both hands. This couldn't happen again. It was just the stress. Where was that medicine they had given me?
Viken's fingers found the button. In a moment, all noise turned off.
There were a few moments of ragged breathing.
"WHAT WERE YOU DOING?" Taho finally shouted. "This is Soule's house! Look what you've done!"
It was horrific. The juice had painted the kitchen red, like the blender was the victim of a murderous rage, and the blood was on Viken's hands.
He stared down at them, like he was thinking the same thing, then slowly turned. I was startled. How could he still be smiling?
Viken extended his fingers like claws. "Anyone wearing designer?"
We all took a step back – except for Eugene, still crouched on the kitchen island. Viken's blue eyes flashed, "All of you?"
Avys:
There's something about food; being around a table, a sense of peaceful stillness.
Not at Soule's house.
"You're making such a mess!" Eugene laughed, dancing away from Viken on top of the kitchen island. I quickly pulled my plate of strawberries out from under those careless feet. Viken ran around like bloodied tiger, laughing and shouting, "It's already a mess. We'll clean it up later, but we can't clean you!" Even Taho was ducking this way and that, a part of the game. Soule was leaning against the counter, looking sick. I knew how he felt. I didn't want to play either. I didn't want to be seen in this whirlwind.
The plate was still gripped in my hands. I pulled it down with me, sliding my back down the island's smooth, white wall. It probably wouldn't be white much longer. Everything in this kitchen was turning red. Everything was turning red.
Eugene had hopped down from the counter. Viken was chasing him around the island – around me. It was like they didn't even see me.
Taho:
Eugene eventually tackled Viken from behind and sent them both to the floor in stitches. I relaxed and brushed off my clothes. I hadn't exactly been running around the kitchen because I wanted to play – more like I wanted Viken to stay as far away from me as possible. But the sight was so grotesquely chaotic that it almost did make me laugh.
I wish you could have seen that kitchen. I wondered that Soule wasn't having another freak out, thinking about what his parents would do to him if they came back before we cleaned it all. I know what my parents would do. But Soule looked surprisingly calm. He turned around and opened the fridge.
"Do you want to cook the pizza? I don't want to clean this right now."
"Yes, dinner!" the three friends who were on the ground popped up – including Avys, I hadn't noticed him sitting there.
We all crowded around the fridge, extracting anything we could find. I'm not sure if teenage boys held it as an act of unconscious rebellion to put whatever unlikely foods together that we could get our hands on, like how Eugene pulled out jam and ketchup one right after the other. Something we all have in common is enough appetite for a small army.
I helped Soule arranged the fridge's contents in some sort of aesthetic order on the round table. He guarded his own place carefully, poured the water himself. When he thought I wasn't looking, he drew a tablet out from between his fingers, like a slight of hand trick, and dropped it into his cup. No amount of subtlety could have hidden the fizzing it made when it dissolved.
"You catching a cold or something?" I asked.
Soule's ears instantly blushed. "Yeah, something like that," he mumbled.
His hands were trembling as he took the now-pink water and brought it to his lips. Liar.
There didn't seem to be a care in the world as we all sat down at the table to wait for the pizza to roast. Avys chatted freely about which Avenger was the best. Even Soule perked up almost immediately and laughed with the others like he hadn't been ashen gray only five minutes ago. I watched them.
With resentment
As my tenant
My heart is heavy, heavy
'Cause you don't understand me
Dance, dance
Because I can't, can't
Shake this worry,
Even as I'm searching, searching
For the friends I'm pushing away.
Their laughter was strange. I remember laughing like that with them just a few weeks ago, in that way where anything you do makes perfect sense because it's all just for the next laugh. From the outside, I had always known I looked ridiculous, goofing around with these four friends, but I never cared. Never before had I been the one sneering from the outside.
Eugene squirted ketchup on his empty plate, then with a glance up at the others, squirted more until it made a smiley face. They laughed like it was the most creative use of a condiment they had ever seen. Viken opened the jar of jam and tried to copy Eugene's art, with less aesthetic results.
"It's not stringy enough," he said, "They should have put these strawberries in the blender. There's whole chunks in here."
"It's preserves, not jam," Soule said, bringing another sip of that pink water to his lips.
The high window next to a wall of framed degrees and certificates was far more interesting to me at that moment than the creative uses of scarlet condiments. If the moon rose in the east, it should be shining right through that window at this time of night, but I could see nothing but an overcast, starless sky.
That's when I felt the coldness on my shirt, a sort of wet, sticky…
I raised my eyes from the long-sleeve – the long-sleeve that in fact was designer – and leveled them directly upon one across the table. Red handed, spoon still sticking up and his fingers still poised in the flicking position. Viken's mouth was open in a laugh: triumph; success; complete, idiotic joy. It paused as my eyes fastened onto him. At last. I had been starting to fear that no amount of coldness I could pump into a room would be able to make that joyful sinner quake.
The table went quiet. I could feel everyone's eyes. Well, at least they remembered I was here now.
I stood up quickly. "I'm not hungry. I'm going to go change."
"Here, I can wipe it off," Avys proffered a napkin, but I stepped back.
"It's fine. I was going to go anyway."
"We'll have to figure out who's going to sleep where," Soule said. "How about two sleep in the guest bedroom, and two go on the floor of my room?"
"Yeah, let's go up and do that now," Viken said, standing up quickly. Eugene got up too.
Avys hung onto his chair. "What about the pizza?"
Eugene pulled him up by the elbow, "We'll be back in a second. Let's just put our stuff down."
I hurried after Soule. "I want the guest bedroom!"
Eugene:
I hoped the pizza burned.
I'm not sure where that thought came from.
We made it upstairs. From the yellow lights, ovens, thick smells of good food, to a dark, chilly abode. The sweat that had stuck to my face from running around the kitchen finally began to evaporate. I went around switching on all the lights. It was obvious now why Soule hadn't wanted to stay here all alone. What a life to not have siblings.
Taho was setting his backpack down in the guest bedroom, small quarters containing not much more than a bed as its furnishing. We all squeezed into the entrance.
"Alright," said Soule, "Who –"
"Me, me!"
Viken was jumping up and down beside me like a kid at a mochi bar. He's weird sometimes. We're all a little weird, but Viken, I mean, it makes him fun, but –
Taho's gray eyes turned molten at Viken's voice. He pointed a finger forward, "No! Not you! I don't care –"
The idiot stepped forward and grabbed Taho's arms by the elbows like a loose embrace. "C'mon. I'm sorry, ok? I didn't know you'd be mad about the shirt. Let me clean it up, then you can decide if you want to hate me."
Taho looked as if he was ready to burn laser holes through Viken's skull. I thought it was time to intervene.
Without bothering to take off my shoes, I swept past Taho and Viken, and pulled the singular blanket from the double bed. "I call this one! Forgot my sleeping bag."
Viken turned to me, grinning, "What are we going to use, mullet-head?" He made a swipe, but I jumped backwards onto the bed.
"I guess you'll have to huddle up together for warmth!"
"What?" Taho screeched "You give that back!"
Viken jumped onto the bed with me and began bouncing. I laughed. How long had it been since I'd bounced on a bed like a kid? Um, not that long actually. Well, anyway.
"You're going to break your neck!" Soule shouted at us from the doorway, "Or the bed, which is worse!"
I just laughed and dribbled the blanket between my hands. Viken pounced on me with a gargoyle smile. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, laughing, my neck still intact. My friends worried too much.
The blanket was ripped from my fingers. Acting on instinct, I pushed Viken off me as hard as I could. He bounced down onto the bed.
"It's mine!" he was crying. "Mine! I got the blanket, the room has to be mine now!"
"Then I'm sleeping in Soule's room," Taho's voice came from the foot of the bed. "I'd rather never sleep again than share a room with you!"
"I'm the king of the guest-room!" Viken sung as I chased him around the bed. He had put the blanket on as a cape, which I guess meant royal status in this game. "So I get to make the ru-les!"
I wrapped my arms around his legs as he jumped on the bed again and the king crashed to the floor.
That's when I heard the sob.
Avys:
In my bad, sad, painful dream
You don't understand me.
All I can say is please
Look over and see!
Or… nevermind.
"You're going to break your neck!"
Soule's voice rung in my head. Repeating over and over. And over. "You're going to break your neck."
I saw her. My face was craned up and the sun was gleaming over the roof, but I was not blinded. I saw it. I saw her slip, her back knocking against the curved corner, tumbling down. I was on the ladder, a meter away, but I still reached out my arms to catch her…
And then that crunch. That snap.
Eugene pushed Viken to the bed, and he tumbled. I heard that sound. Over. And over.
Taho and Soule were yelling things. Some people were laughing. Why? Everything seemed to have left my brain. Everything but that sound.
In a daze, I turned my back to the roughhousing. A few months ago, I would have been the first to join in. Now I slipped down against the bed. Down, down. Tears were springing into my eyes. No, I had cried enough about this already. And I couldn't cry here. Not here. My head drooped.
"Avys?" Someone sat down on the bed next to my right shoulder. I couldn't look up, especially not at Soule. I had come here to cheer him up. I had left my problems on his doorstep. Now I was upsetting him again. In that moment, I saw a lethargic, moping, crying boy, the one they all saw when they looked at me. Maybe they were right. I couldn't pretend it away, not even for one night.
"Hey man, what's up?" Eugene's voice. They had stopped playing. They were all looking at me. I couldn't look back at them.
"What happened? Did you say something?"
"I didn't say anything."
"Wake up, Avys."
They were standing in a circle around me, shifting their feet uncomfortably. I could feel my depression pouring out, spreading from me into the ground. I would take them all down with me.
I forced the words out. My mouth spoke them, but I hated them. "Just leave me alone."
Silence for a moment, then more shifting. Soule stood up from the bed. I could see his blue shoes from the corner of my eyes. "Come on guys, let's leave him alone."
They actually believed me.
Guhaejwo.
Viken:
I want to stop this resentment.
Please
Take my hand
Once again
Or at least
Let me decide the punishment.
I needed to get him alone. They were not making it easy.
"Taho can sleep in my room if he wants," Soule unhelpfully accommodated.
"Yeah, I'm getting out of here." Taho went to brush past those near the doorway, but I got between him and Soule before he got too far.
"Please," I whispered in our host's ear. "Let me be in here with Taho, so we can sort things out."
The corners of our eyes met. His brows furrowed. "Wait, Taho," he said. I had won.
Avys brushed past my back. The others left behind him.
Taho slumped down on the edge of the bare bed and glared at me. "You expect me to forgive you because everyone else lets you have your way?"
When he had been eating strawberries, I had pictures stabbing the fork into my friend's tongue.
"I only came for Soule. I didn't want to ever have to see you again."
Running around the kitchen, I had imagined myself as a bear, my claws oh-so-near my friends' vulnerable backs.
"So, what are you trying to do now? It's not going to work."
I'd given him so many chances, but at the table, he could only look back at me with those eyes full of hateful storms. That time, I had mirrored them.
"Hey, get away from me!"
I didn't have a weapon or real claws. I would have to work with what I had, and I was still holding the bed's blanket.
Taho's eyes went from stormy to a clear, glassy panic. His left hand fumbled, clutched, and threw one of the pillows at my face. It didn't break the smile of satisfaction that was already beginning to spread. I held out the blanket, and pounced.
It was just a fun game between friends. I'm not sure what he was so afraid of, why he wiggled like a caught trout underneath until we both slipped from the bed onto the floor. Only I knew this was something different, the only thing that would relieve the kind of pressure in my head that comes from a need unfulfilled.
"You shouldn't be here," I whispered, and let my itching fingers squeeze.
Soule:
The three of us slouched back down into the kitchen. Avys sleepwalked into our pantry, returning with a microwavable mug cake. He didn't ask, and I didn't care. I knew what it was to just need something to get you through the hour.
My eyes wandered back to my unfinished glass on the table.
Take this as needed, I remember the doctor saying. Everything around those words was a fuzz, but that moment stood out clearly. It's dissolvable. If you don't want to tell anyone, you can say it's cold medicine.
The liquid relief had poured down my throat, given me the ability to laugh again. I wished I could have given some of it to Avys, but his was a distress that no medicine could cure.
I looked around my kitchen, the leftover desolation of Viken's blender fiasco. "Guess we'll have to clean this up before it stains the walls. Eugene?"
"Huh? Yeah, whatever, I'll help."
We busied ourselves pretending Avys was invisible, which was what he wanted, I think. Eugene went to clear the table before I could get there first, so I turned to grab the wipes from our cleaning drawer. And then – ah, so that was how Taho had felt.
I reached my left hand to my back to feel the wet, slimy thing that had punched into me. Eugene was cawing behind me. The laugh felt like it woke this depressed household from its dozing.
I turned back to Eugene, holding the skin of the tomato he had thrown. I couldn't help but smile, not because he had ruined my clothes. But none of them had teased me, laughed with me, asked me to engage in any sort of antics all night. I knew they thought I was too fragile. I'd show them who was fragile.
Eugene:
"Oh it is so on!" I shouted when Soule shucked the flabby, tomato skin back at me. He was a terrible shot, but you know, not all of us can be our elementary school's sports king. I put on my goblin grin and grabbed more tomatoes from the bowl. We had put that out for the pizza, right? The pizza that was still frying in that open-flame oven. Maybe Soule would be too distracted to remember.
"We were supposed to be cleaning up," Soule said through laughter as he ducked my attack and the savory fruit ended up splattered on the wall.
"We'll clean," I reassured, "But we might as well have fun first! How much dirtier can it get?"
Soule looked at the tomato in his hand, shrugged, and let his aim land it splat next to the mark mine had made on the wall. I whooped my praise and aimed mine at the same spot, hitting the bullseye right in between the two spots, like striking an enemy between the eyes.
"What's the game now? Ooh, tomatoes?"
Viken had ambled down the stairs, looking perfectly pleased with himself. I guessed he and Taho had sorted out their stuff. Viken dove in under my feet without need for an invitation and began pelting me and Soule with tomatoes. One of Soule's counter throws went awry and broke the lightbulb on the chandelier, but he didn't even complain. Man, it had been a while since I'd seen Soule laugh like that. Maybe it was working. We were forgetting our troubles, living in the moment, we were –
Taho materialized at the foot of the stairs.
Taho:
They were playing again?
There was something carefree, something joyous, something so intentionally oblivious in Eugene and Soule's eyes that it was practically wicked. And there was Viken, laughing, prancing about like he hadn't just tried to murder me. This had to end. They wanted to play? I could play.
"What are we doing?" I could practically see the smoke coming out of my mouth. "Throwing tomatoes? Ok."
I stomped over to Eugene, grabbed the dwindling bucket of fresh fruit. These devils weren't going to bother me anymore.
"This – is – for – everything!"
Suddenly, I was a launcher machine, like what the tennis players use to practice. My arm circled, leveling hit after hit on Viken's arms, his shorts, his stupid smiley face shirt.
The others were screaming at me, running forward, trying to stop me and defend that psychopath we had called a friend.
"He's crazy!" I screamed, hardly even knowing what I was saying. Eugene was holding me back by my shirt's shoulders. The pull felt too much like Viken's fingers squeezing my neck through the blanket. "You're all crazy, every one of you!"
Eugene's grip went slack.
Eugene:
I could smell it now. Maybe no one else did, but I had been waiting for it. Smoke was beginning to seep from the corners of the oven, creating lethargic shadows of what crackled inside. That thing that I had grown.
I let go of Taho. I had been holding him for some important reason, but I couldn't recall it just now. I needed to see...
My fingers burned as I pulled open the handle of the furnace. Avys had been sitting behind the kitchen again. I hadn't even noticed him until he scrambled up and away from the growing flames' exhalations, shouting and pointing to three others who didn't care. What was the matter with all of them? Wimps.
The flames were whispering. I leaned my head inside to hear…
Come close to see me
I am your hearts
Consuming and destroying
Now come and feel me.
Eugene, I will show you your part
Consuming and destroying.
Oh.
The fire's spell evaporated. I whipped my head out of the oven, the world suddenly coming back into focus. There were all my friends, just a few meters away, all together.
But we weren't all together, were we? Something was all wrong. We had never used to fight like this. I had tried to get along, I had tried to have fun, but still, none of us seemed to want to be within the same room as each other. And now they had all stopped to stare at me. They were staring at me because…
We all probably think we're the only sane one. But Taho was right. We were all crazy. I… I was crazy too.
What had I done? Our friendship was falling to pieces before my eyes and all I could think about was the dancing flames behind me and how much I wanted to dance with them. I was the crazy one.
"Oh," I murmured. Their eyes bored into me, judging me. I deserved it. "Guhaejwo…"
Soule:
What had Eugene said? What was that word he had used?
It sounded familiar. Something I had said before.
Something that was ricocheting from every wall around me.
"Turn off the oven! Someone turn off the oven!" Avys' voice was screaming. Eugene was nearest the smoke steaming through my kitchen, but he was just staring dumbly back at us, frozen.
There was a scramble. We were tumbling over each other, everyone shouting something or other. We finally got the oven turned off and the windows opened, but the noise never stopped.
We had just been laughing. I had just been laughing for the first time since the incident. Now everyone's mouths were open, but not with laughter. Hate, red and raw, being shot from our mouths, spreading, seeping into the walls and the floor like the red fruit we had thrown around in jest.
Oh my, the walls were stained red. I hadn't even noticed it before. I was covered in it. We all were. There was blood everywhere.
I hadn't finished my glass. The medicine was wearing off so quickly. They had told my parents it was triggered by being left alone. I wasn't alone now. There was a crowd in my dining room, all my friends.
But no one was really here. No one's minds were here, even my mind. It was inside of me, swallowing itself up. The skin of my world was cracking and bleeding. Oh, that pain…
I remember now. I remember what happened the night I was alone. I remember falling to my knees and screaming, screaming till my throat felt like I was scraping sandpaper across it, screaming just so I could hear something, some sound, some voice. I remember the walls circling around me, teasing my voice back to me, laughing at my helpless loneliness. I remember because it was happening all over again.
Avys:
Soule. I had come to help Soule. Come to set all my burdens aside for Soule.
Now Soule's mouth was open in a scream, which I was surprised any of us noticed over our own shouting. He nearly sunk to the ground, but I caught him in my arms. I could feel though his skin every tendon flexed as if he was lifting the world. Petrified, exploding, and melting all at the same time.
This was how badly I had failed.
Eugene:
"I'm sorry, Soule," I said. We were all standing around him. Our own little bubble, with the destruction flowing out around us. It had taken a few minutes to calm him down. Taho had finally shouted something about Soule's glass at the table. I had dashed to grab it and poured the rest of the foggy, pink liquid down his throat. Cold medicine my foot. It worked anyway. Soule stood quite calmly in the middle of us now. I didn't want to do this to him but…
"I saw us burning in that fire," I whispered. Maybe it didn't make sense, but that's what those flames had told me, and they couldn't think any worse of me anyway. "Our hearts… incinerated."
I couldn't look at Soule's face as I turned. Was it taking the cheap way out to leave the wake of my destruction behind me? Every bridge was burned, and for once I wasn't glad to see it.
Taho:
They couldn't say I had been the first to leave. I was the only innocent party. I always had been.
"We promised something," I said to them through gritted teeth, "But you turned your back on it when the fire was burning."
Soule:
I think Avys' look held all the grief in his heart. Then he looked away, and shuffled off after Taho. I heard him mumbling, "Friends don't understand me anymore."
Now it was just me and Viken staring at each other. I could always count on Viken to never be defeated, or rather, to grab defeat and play with it.
He didn't disappoint me now. The face that looked back at me was still smiling, the look of someone fully self-sufficient. "Don't worry, Soule. We're forever. Forever, you know?"
I must have looked just as I felt, because he stepped forward and grabbed my elbow. "Say you believe me."
I stared back into those eyes that could always dance. Always. Suddenly, my mind flashed back to Taho, his pained screams. Viken could dance even amid the fire at the end of the world, while the rest of us burned.
I pulled away. I stepped back, and it nearly shattered me again. "No." It was over. "It's turned to ruins; our memories to ashes."
When I met Viken's eyes, I felt like I would have rather remained a liar. I was the one who had stopped his dancing.
"Fine," he murmured. He turned, and walked out the door.
I turned back around. I didn't freak out again. Somehow, I felt more calm than I had all day. They had left me to clean up the red destruction they had left behind, but it was my work too. It was my consequence, because it had been my choice.
Still, I couldn't bring my feet to enter the war zone until my eyes had given one last involuntary turn towards the door. They closed, and I was left with the afterimage of a door that had Sopened once and had shut four separate times. Once again I'm left alone.