And Lumaira didn't think that things ever really worked that way, not outside the impossible realms of Hollywood movies, but with Even they did, a few weeks later and nearly the end of term. They were spending the afternoon carrying stock into the garage shop for L'Erena's Dad and Lumaira had just stopped for a drink when he looked at Even, hauling a cardboard box into his spindly arms, and suddenly he realised that the boy, with elfin hair and thin lips, eyes narrowed into his signature squint, was almost beautiful.
It didn't seem possible that the ghostlike boy, lost and dying just a few months ago, could become beautiful. He wasn't elegant, his body with all its sickly, angular sharpness, wasn't pleasing to the eye; his skin was insipid and his eyes were hollowed but he was just somehow different.
Lumaira took a long, mindful sip of his soda and leaned over to L'Erena.
"He's changed a lot, hasn't he?"
And it couldn't just have been him, because L'Erena, after a moment's hesitation, nodded.
"Yeah. You've sure got a magic touch or something, Lulu."
Lumaira giggled a little. If anybody was magic, it was Even. He was the one who'd come back from the dead, after all.
"I suppose he's just happier."
"Wearing clothes that actually suit him..."
"... Acne's clearing up a bit."
"'S put on weight, too,"
"- Got some colour to his skin..."
L'Erena caught her best friend's expression then and laughed, punching his shoulder.
"Somebody's got a crush."
"Have not!" Lumaira spluttered just as Even warily approached with a mixture of confusion and worry on his face. The conversation ended there, but Lumaira couldn't help but secretly wonder if there was something else behind Even's change than just living a life that didn't dictate to a broken boy with ugly contortions of emotional pain all over his body.
But he had no idea. Nobody had any idea, they just thought whatever private thoughts about who Even really was and where he had really come from, and let him into their lives. It looked as though Even was just going to be from now on and nobody would ever be any the wiser for the conditions of his return.
One evening they grabbed torches and trekked up to the reserve with a cool box and Thermos flasks, and sat atop the steel limestone cliffs to watch the sun disappear around a portable meal of lukewarm pasta and sugar-saturated tea. Lumaira's dying bag was full to bursting point with extra clothes in between all the plastic bowls and cutlery and the other two thanked him for it as they pulled on spare sweaters and scarves until L'Erena was pregnant and Even was a marshmallow. They'd find their way home by torchlight later, sneak into Lumaira's empty house and curl up together on the sofa. But for now they lay against each other's shoulders, passing around the flask and talking amiably to one another.
"So, Even, you got any spooky stories?"
Even, mulling over his plastic cup of tea, glanced up.
"Huh? Oh, I'm not a very good story teller..."
"Go on! Give it a try!"
"Well," Even said a little doubtfully, "I... I suppose I can have a go. There is this one story I know, apparently it's true and all."
L'Erena laughed outright.
"Hah, yeah right. But, go on ahead."
Even cleared his throat and looked up into the night sky.
"There was this boy, once. He was popular at school, although he was unpleasant and disrespectful. And there was one other boy he loved to always pick on, because he was small and didn't have any friends. Really, everybody teased him. And so, well, one day he didn't come in to school and the boy who always laughed at him joked that maybe he'd killed himself. But a teacher overheard him and his friends, and he told the boy that he shouldn't disrespect the dead. The boy was kind of confused about that because nobody had died, he was joking... but after that, he was spooked all day. And the lonely boy didn't come in the next day, or the next day, or the next... and the bully started to worry that maybe something awful really had happened to him. And... well... this is just what I heard, but apparently the next week the boy did come into school. At least the bully thought so. But nobody else could see him. It was just an empty chair. This guy just started screaming at an empty chair. They had to take him away in the end. You know."
There was an awkward pause.
"You- You didn't-" Lumaira began, and faltered. Even glanced down at the steep bank falling below them and suddenly seemed to shrink.
"When I was little I used to hope that maybe if I died I could haunt the people that hurt me," He whispered. "But that's where the similarities end."
Suddenly shaky, Lumaira leaned over and pulled the bundle of clothes that was Even into his arms. Salty tears were pricking at the corners of the older boy's eyes and Lumaira wanted to kiss them away, crawl in beneath all the layers and layers to find Even underneath and hold him close until the sun rose again.
In a moment he caught himself and a blush shot to his face. Even seemed to take this as some kind of frustration and slumped even further.
"I'm sorry. I've ruined everything again."
Lumaira shushed him, reaching under two hoods to stoke at his hair.
"You haven't. It's not your fault."
"I shouldn't have said that..."
"It's okay, that's all over now. Cheer up."
When comforting didn't work, Lumaira glanced desperately at L'Erena. He felt uncomfortable in his half-hug with Even, unrequited and awkward. She shrugged at him, unhelpfully. He returned to Even, wallowing in self pity again.
"Maybe it's time we should be heading home."
"No," Even spluttered miserably. "That's not fair on you,"
Lumaira pulled him closer, tucking Even's head into the crook of his neck. He fitted there.
"I don't mind,"
"By the time we got home it'd be to awkward anyway," Even half-huffed, but he was muted by his close proximity to the other boy. "... You're freezing."
Lumaira shrugged. He'd given away all the extra clothes to L'Erena and Even.
"I don't mind."
Lumaira felt rather than saw Even frown against his skin, and moments later he pulled away, tugging his jackets open and fairly forcing Lumaira's hand inside. The pink haired boy's face exploded into a scarlet flush, and for once he was glad of the darkness enshrouding them as the two boys shuffled close enough to share their warmth. Lumaira hoped that Even wouldn't mind the way his hand took to gently stroking the warm skin beneath his fingertips and through just one thin cotton shirt. He didn't seem to.
There was a lull in the conversation, but a natural one this time, brought on by three minds thinking separate and similar thoughts, gazing out across the darkened fields. Eventually, it was L'Erena who spoke up.
"I had a weird dream last night," She said in the tone of voice of somebody who'd been meaning to say something all day but had only now remembered.
"Oh?" Lumaira asked, raising his chin from Even's hair. "Really?"
"It was one of the ones like you had," L'Erena replied. "You know, with the people."
Even cracked an eye open.
"What people?"
"Oh, Lumaira has really weird dreams. Don't you, Lulu?"
"It's not that weird, it's just because they're all the same-"
"- He dreams that people are watching him sleep-"
"- They're not really people. They sort of glow. And they just watch me. Sometimes they talk but I don't know what they're saying."
Even watched the two of them babble on for a minute or two before they ran out of things to say about how strange Lulu was, and why did one of them always look a bit like his father, anyway, then turned away and sighed.
"I never dream."
"What, never?"
This seemed preposterous to the other two, who more or less stared at their taller companion.
"Well, apart from nightmares when I was little," Even admitted. "At least, if I do dream, I don't ever remember it."
"That's kinda sad," Lumaira said softly, taking Even's posture as an opportunity to lean against his bony shoulder. It dug into his cheek and that was the excuse he prepared as his head slid almost naturally down to feel Even's heart beat through his chest. His own heart nearly skipped a beat when a shy hand crept across his back and inched him just a little closer. And dearly, he wished that Even felt the same way.
"My dreams are usually pretty morbid," L'Erena said to the world at large. "Zombies and dead people and stuff."
Lumaira froze.
"Rennie," He half whispered, half whined, "Don't mention zombies, it's cold and dark and we're miles away from anything. Now I'm scared."
"Even can fight them away with his car-crushing hands," L'Erena laughed, patting Lumaira's back. Her hand caught the ends of Even's fingertips. "What are you two doing, canoodling without me?"
Lumaira dragged L'Erena into the quickly expanding pile of limbs and swathes of fabric.
"Not any more."
They stayed up at the top of the hill until Lumaira was shuddering with the cold, then dragged him back home for hot chocolate and a movie they all knew they'd never stay awake to see the end of.
... And time passed. School finished and every day Even looked a little better, a little less fragile like if he took a wrong step he'd simply splinter and fall apart. Naminé took him back to the hospital for a check up - he came back healthier than ever.
Tentatively, Lumaira decided to take a plunge and brace the subject of parents.
"H-hey, Even."
It was the awkward transition in the evening between Lumaira and Even migrating upstairs and Naminé leaving for work, and the two boys were curled up in Lumaira's duvet chatting aimlessly.
"Huh? What?"
Lumaira swallowed thickly.
"Do... d'you want to meet your parents again?"
Even, who'd been fiddling with the hem of his borrowed pyjamas, stopped suddenly.
"Lumaira, they think I'm dead." He said shakily. "I.. I can't just walk in and expect them to believe I'm me, can I?"
"I believe you're you," Lumaira unwittingly argued.
"You haven't not seen me for months," Even whispered, voice close to cracking. "I can't. I couldn't. Never."
And tears bubbled up in his eyes and splashed across his cheeks. Feeling awful, Lumaira reached over and looped his arms around Even.
"I'm sorry," He said miserably. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"They never cared," Even muttered sourly into Lumaira's neck as he wriggled around to slot more comfortably against the thicker set boy. And then, so quietly that Lumaira very nearly almost didn't even hear, "I miss them."
Lumaira half coughed, half smiled.
"I miss my Dad too. And I haven't even met him."
Amazingly, this elicited a short chuckled from Even, thick though it was. Bony arms pressed harder against his back, fingers definitive pressure points against his skin. For a while, neither of them spoke.
"I don't want to go to bed," Even eventually mumbled, shifting against Lumaira.
"You're already in bed," Lumaira laughed - and indeed they were, huddled under the duvet in their own little world.
"I mean my own bed," Even said, referring to the one in Naminé's room.
"I could go sleep in Mum's room and you can stay here," Lumaira offered. He didn't care. He'd sleep anywhere that was convenient. But Even didn't seem to like this, holding Lumaira ever tighter.
"I'd still be alone."
Without thinking, Lumaira flopped backwards until their heads shared the pillow.
"There," He said brightly. "Now we're both ready for bed and neither of us are alone."
Even smiled a little through his saltwater-muddied cheeks and curled up against Lumaira's side. Lumaira couldn't believe it; just a week or so after L'Erena had first said that word - crush - and now, he was propped up on the pink haired boy's ribs, breathing softly, eyes closed almost peacefully to the world.
And he really was beautiful, in a way that only Even could be, with long, straight features and an elflike ethereality. Lumaira reached over and softly brushed his hand his hand across Even's cheek. He murmured a little to himself and shifted, cracking one squinting eye open.
"You don't mind, do you,"
"Not at all," Lumaira promised. He wasn't lying. Even nodded and settled back once more. Lumaira glanced up; one of them was going to have to get up in a minute to draw the curtains and turn off the light - but Lumaira didn't want to. Even's presence, warm and heavy, was reassuring, and he didn't want to move at all. So he lay in the bright artificial light as there was movement a few rooms away as Naminé woke and readied herself for work. Lumaira rested his focus on Even, memorising every feature of the boy who had spent so long unnoticed. And just when he thought Even was asleep, he harumphed a little and spoke.
"Hey, Lumaira."
"Yeah?"
"Are you- just... just wondering if you were still awake."
"I'm here," Lumaira murmured.
"L-Lumaira," Even asked haltingly, "Are you... I mean, uh, are you... you know. Are you gay."
Lumaira suddenly felt horribly self conscious. It wasn't that the question was too personal; he'd always tried to be open about that kind of thing, but it was not the kind of thing he wanted called into question while he was in bed with Even. He'd been enjoying the moment, and he didn't want the truth ruining it now.
Sensing Lumaira's hesitation, Even frowned a little.
"You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," He whispered. Lumaira was quick to shake his head.
"It's not that," He insisted a little too quickly. "I just... I dunno if it's the right time to be asking that kind of question when we're cuddling in bed."
Even pulled his arms close to himself, ducking his head to hide his reddening face.
"I was sort of hoping that if the answer was yes, then it could be more than-"
He stopped suddenly and tore himself away from Lumaira.
"I'm such an idiot."
Cogs turned inside Lumaira's mind and abruptly, he sat up, reaching out to touch Even but stopping himself just in time.
"Wait," He said quietly. "Are you?"
Even turned back a little, eyes already streaming again. He stared at Lumaira for a moment, eyes wide, then toppled into the shorter boy's chest.
"That was the worst thing about it," He managed through heavy sobs. "Nobody would ever have known."
Lumaira shushed him, comforting him in the only way he knew how: holding him close, hands running gently through his hair.
"I wanted to tell somebody," Even continued miserably. "But I couldn't. There was nobody... nobody..."
"You've got me now," Lumaira promised in between murmuring comforting noises in Even's ear. And slowly, he managed to coax Even back to smiling a little, eyes dry and breaths deep. And that was what Lumaira was best at; he might have been easily scared and hardly the top scorer at school, but he knew how to comfort people. Particularly gay people.
"I know how hard it is to come out," He whispered as Even buried his face in his neck, feeling each bump of a vertebrae as he ran his palm down Even's spine. "But trust me, it's better once you do."
"You don't mind, do you?" Even eventually asked, backing away and rubbing at his eyes. Lumaira laughed.
"Even, of course I don't mind. I am gay. Why would I mind?"
"Oh," Even said. "Oh, I thought that you were just- um. Oh. Really?"
"I have pink hair," Lumaira said, "I like flowers, I'm incredibly girly and I enjoy doing housework, of course I'm gay."
"I don't like to stereotype," Even huffed, crossing his arms in a manner that forced Lumaira to stifle a giggle. "I'm sure there are loads of perfectly straight guys who are like you."
Lumaira ignored the fact that that meant he really was a stereotypical homosexual (all he needed was the lisp), and nodded to himself.
"Well, anyway, I am."
There was a pause. Even shifted his weight around a little.
"Well," He said, "This is awkward."
Lumaira glanced over at Even. He was blushing.
"C'mon," He said after a moment, "Don't you want to cuddle?"
Numbly, Even nodded and stretched out his arms. Lumaira gladly welcomed him, and they tumbled into a close embrace together, Even half lying on top of Lumaira's chest. Lumaira liked it that way. He felt like he was protecting Even, and it was heartwarming to see his flaxen hair fanning over Lumaira's pyjamas, his hand splayed across Lumaira's breastpocket.
It wasn't until after they'd settled that Lumaira remembered the light. But they were comfortable now, and an exhaustive drowsiness had settled on Even's features. So Lumaira just laid back and closed his eyes.
Twenty odd minutes passed before Naminé tiptoed into Lumaira's room to find the two boys blissfully tangled in each other's limbs. Smiling a little, she brushed Lumaira's fluffy hair aside and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His eyes fluttered open and after a sheepish glance at the sleeping Even, flashed her a truthfully happy smile.
"Good night, sweetheart," She whispered, leaning down to kiss the top of Even's head, too.
"Night, Mum."
She crept around the bed to draw the curtains, and left with a flick of the light switch that plunged the room into cosy darkness.
Two weeks later, Lumaira and Even were hanging out the washing when the subject of parents came up again.
"Do you think I'll ever see them again?" Even asked as he plucked out the last odd sock. Lumaira shrugged.
"I don't see why not. I mean, all you could tell them would be the truth, right? It might be messy at first, but... it'd be worth a try, right?"
Even nodded a little.
"Yeah. I suppose so."
Lumaira was halfway up to the line, peg in hand, when Naminé appeared at the back door, face oddly grey.
"Lumaira, sweetheart, you need to come over here."
Lumaira reached back for Even's hand and pulled him in from the garden, heart already fluttering with worry. Naminé looked shocked, almost numb.
"What happened?"
"I've had a call from the hospital," She said, voice choked. "There... there was an explosion at the petrol station, and..."
"Rennie," Lumaira instantly insisted. "Is Rennie okay?"
"They did their best," Naminé said in that tone of voice that meant no. "I'm so sorry..."
Lumaira paled, fist clenching around Even's fingers so tightly that he yelped. Tears pressed at the corners of his eyes, bled down his cheeks.
"We have to get to the hospital," He said grimly. "Now."