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Attention. It plagues one’s every waking thought, controls every action, and repeats every phrase. To hold someone’s attention in the palm of your hands is like watching cogs of invisible forces work to process a world’s worth of understanding. The words spoken can make someone’s day, become the light of a life, just as those same words can break it completely in a single breath.
He held his thoughts behind crumbling walls in the depths of his mind. Yet, he himself stood strong. He always stood strong.
Winds weather the stones of the tallest mountains, seasons cripple the flowers of their softest springs with in-depth throes of winter. Rivers pave new paths in the earth’s rigid crust, carving effortlessly in the smallest grooves until canyons form. No matter how much one wishes to stay within’ a moment, it never will last completely the same again. Every second, something changes. Every minute could feel like an hour, just as every day like a year. All it takes, is a change of perspective. A change of internal time.
It started when he was just a boy. In the most obscure corners of a once hidden world, he saw an even darker, starless vile lurking within’ the shadows. He spoke pleas to others who knew no different. Shrill screams for help yet not one person believed him. Curses. Malformations dictated by negative emotions that twisted themselves to better fit a term of eldritch horror. At the time, he’d assumed them to be mere hallucinations. But no, they were real. Omnipresent in his fading naivety, that was a curse in and of itself.
Ridicule, his life next was filled with such taunt-fueled sentiments. He saw demons, he was cursed, he was the embodiment of bad luck. His own parents worried, no, his own parents held piercing glares aimed at him in disgust. They gave birth to such a wretched child. One who wasn’t even sane of mind.
An accident led to the discovery of his power. His lifeline of strength he often feebly clung to. Whilst running from a hallucination, a trip and fall on lifeless pavement kissed his cheek with heartfelt poison. Holding out his hands to stop the curse pursuing him, the touch of his fingertips grazing abomination through eyes tightly welded shut. Tears threatened to spill. His nightmare had turned into a simple orb. It swirled and glistened in the littered alleyway, where broken beer bottles were no strangers to the corners of forgotten garbage. Hues of black and orange, albeit small, looked magnificently pleasing to the eye. An intrusive thought pressed its way somewhat sinisterly in the corner of his mind.
Consume.
What a gruesome notion, to consume or be consumed. Yet, as he stared at the once creature…was it even a creature? Before himself, he couldn’t help but grimace in anger. In a flash of rage, a childish need for superiority, he grasped the orb firmly in his hand and swallowed it whole. Electricity sparked through his veins, airs of corruption formed in his lungs. A taste so repulsive his entire body sought to rid itself of the very insides keeping him alive. Time was unkind ever still, as surefire as the earth is to burn. The taste never got easier. Life only got harder.
Was it over?
No, it never was over.
That day, Suguru ran again.
Years passed of oppression, only to one day be scouted by a school that he’d never so much as heard the name of. But, someone in his position had little choice but to accept whatever offer he was given. He had nowhere else to go and not a welcoming home to return to.
Cloudy days bring heavy rains, which later allow life to flourish. Now, he understood the assumption more. Like beginning to see the first rays of sunlight over a night’s gloomy horizon, or a new worldview after experiencing something avant-garde. A baby bird taking flight for the first time after it leaves its nest, experiencing a freedom never before in its cage. He saw him in the first days of April. A star born from gold dust left behind on roads the gods had once traveled. The moment their eyes met, a spark. The minute after, they became inseparable.
The strongest duo.
What did it truly mean to be the strongest?
Was it merely a concept? A false promise of invulnerability in a world which crawled with the weak?
Was it a fact? Had he truly found himself in a position where the top of the food chain was himself and few others alone?
Staunch held morals that built themselves on a flawed system, his mind often wracked with unholy epiphanies. A vicious cycle. As he laid in his room, he couldn’t help these thoughts. The walls laid barren of any poster he could’ve used to express himself. The sheets were a dull color of dark green, somewhat like a forest, only one actually seen by the eyes and not coated in a color saturated photograph. His digital alarm clock flashed bright red numbers as each minute passed. On his nightstand, a lamp held itself unenthused above it despite being turned off.
He stared blankly at the flashing numbers.
12am.
Then, 1am.
Next, 2am.
He felt sick.
He didn’t know when the sickness started, he just knew it had begun too long ago. Every mission he was tasked to do, every cursed abomination he was involuntarily willed to ingest. The taste of bile still hung on his tongue every time he even dared to speak. So why bother even speak at all? It threatened his complete waking thoughts, the same ones that were required to stay level-headed to carry out his duty. Who was he even doing this for?
What world did he live in where he was forced to hold true to such ideals?
He clutched his stomach, he hadn’t eaten in who knows how long. It clawed his insides, howling of harsh, foul indictments. He didn’t think of such things anymore. Curled up tightly in a ball of…what’s the word? Nothing?
He felt nothing.
Was that how he truly felt or was it how he was forced to feel?
His eyes held bags under them from countless, insomniatic nights. They lingered slightly puffy, holding post-wept tears, grappling with a growing reality. His motives not as strong as they once had been, his will for change slowly wavering.
No, he was ready for change.
He craved an escape, somewhere, anywhere but here. The here where he laid paralyzed in the early hours of the morning that he now refused to rise for. He wouldn’t get out of bed today. He didn’t get out of bed yesterday. That was okay.
This is okay.
But it wasn’t okay, and as the clock soon flashed at 7am, he heard an unassuming, almost timid sound from his door that reminded him of that. A patterned knock that he’d heard hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. Yet, he didn’t rise to meet the individual who painstakingly stood behind the guarded entrance of his room. The one who hung the stars for him every night he was restless, he was often reminded of why he chose to stay. He didn’t want to be reminded.
He didn’t hear the door open and close, nor the once boisterous footsteps fade to quiet in consideration. The soft rustle of a convenience store shopping bag that held various snacks in it, some of his favorites, some he’d never heard of before.
The thought of eating made him sick.
But…
As his tired eyes met his lover’s bright blue fluorescent skies, he was reminded who he was truly doing this for.
“Suguru, you idiot…I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me. Is this where you’ve been hiding? You could’ve at least texted me.” Came a voice that tried to lighten the mood. He sat down the shopping bags as he crouched down in front of the bed that his lover was rooted, dormant in.
“I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want you to come searching, Satoru.” Was the reply that sounded a bit sharper than he’d intended. Yet, his star remained bright as always, unfazed.
Satoru sat down partially unaware, leaning against the side of Suguru’s bed as he began to explain, in vivid detail, of the mission he had just returned from.
Suguru felt sick.
Satoru noticed.
His playful tone now speaking gingerly as he stood back up not a few minutes later, rustling through the bags he had brought. Suguru had sat upright in bed now, his disheveled obsidian hair fell haphazardly onto his shoulders. A contrast to the white t-shirt he wore, his eyes remained distant.
“Hey, Suguru? When did you last eat something?”
No response, as he stared blankly towards the edge of his bed.
His mind was spinning, yet unthinking.
Spiraling.
And spiraling.
And spiraling.
Suddenly, a pocky was shoved into his mouth, his eyes widened in shock as he instinctively began to chew it. The sweetness of sugar, it coated the inside of the mouth he thought repugnant. The unexpected change in flavor was a welcomed change as his eyes met with the star’s once more. God, how he could always get lost in those eyes.
“Eat it.” A delicate request, it clung to heavy air that begged silently for reprieve.
And so he did.
Within’ those brief moments, the ambience of the environment seemed to gradually lighten.
The two began to snack out on all the various treats Satoru had brought from the store. Joking about past missions they’d been on, both with each other and apart. The worries from Suguru’s mind faded quietly into mere whispers, until maybe, just maybe they’d vanished completely.
As the couple fell into a comfortable silence, Satoru had crawled into the same bed as Suguru now laid, no longer rooted, but feeling more comfortable. A soft smile, heartfelt and sincere slowly crept onto Suguru’s face. The rays of morning sun contribute to a warm atmosphere that once felt colder, more desolate. He closed his eyes, his lover close in hand, and fell asleep to the sound of morning birds.
Attention. It finds one’s every waking thought, controls every action, and repeats every phrase. To hold someone’s attention is like watching cogs of invisible forces work to process a world’s worth of understanding. The words spoken can make someone’s day, become the light of a life, just as those same words can break it completely in a single breath.
But, attention is not always so fervently phrased. Actions can sing louder than words ever could. The star that shines so brightly in the sky, unbroken by societal horrors and only further fueled by incompetence. Suguru was doing it for him, or rather, perhaps they were doing it more so for each other.
Entangled in the loving embrace of one another was all they’d ever need. In these moments, in the calm quiet of a waking day, Suguru had Satoru’s undivided attention.