Chapter Text
Pai’s completed withdrawal form sat on his desk. He’d head to school first thing tomorrow morning and file it with the registrar.
His mother hadn’t said a word when he’d handed her the crumpled form. She’d simply looked at his face and signed it without question. He’d assured her he would finish school, as he’d promised. He’d just take the GED. He’d find work. He’d help his mother. It’d be okay.
Now, after eating a dinner he barely tasted, wrangling his siblings into bed themselves, and taking a shower, Pai lay on his own bed, mindlessly scrolling on his phone, but nothing seemed important anymore. Nerdy memes, aesthetically beautiful study posts, his old bandmates posting sweaty selfies from practice… He couldn’t even focus on the images as they blurred past, he felt nothing. His mind wandered back to the events of the day…
The only thing about school Pai would regret leaving behind was— Sky.
He still felt awful about the way he’d left the boy at the gate. But Pai couldn’t stay there. He didn’t want to possibly break down and cry in front of Sky. He didn’t want to be any more pathetic in those beautiful eyes. He was already the biggest joke. A nineteen-year old still in school. The former “fat kid.” The nerd. The anti-social weirdo who didn’t talk to anyone. The loser.
Pai’s thumb hovered over his screen. He wanted to check Sky’s social media. To just— look one more time. Life would suck being away from his crush yet again, but— perhaps Pai could look at the account every now and then… Then at least he could see that face. Man! He really WAS pathetic!
He searched for Sky and clicked on his account. There was a new post, a highlighted post, and a new story. Pai clicked the post first.
The first image was a roughly drawn comic of a little boy being given a massive teddy bear that was nearly twice his size before hugging it tightly. The drawing looked old. The style wasn’t nearly as good as Sky’s recent work. The caption said: “I knew you were special from the beginning.”
Pai quickly scrolled about halfway down the post before scrolling back up; it looked like they were all drawings and strips of the Boy and Bear comic. Sky had posted comics about these two before. A great big soft bear that the boy slept on top of like a bed, the giant stuffed arms wrapped around him in a hug. Some were simple pencil drawings, some were ink, some were even colored. Sometimes the bear was sentient, but oftentimes, he was just a stuffed bear. The comics never had text; they rarely spoke— just simple, cute drawings of the two of them doing random things together. Occasionally, they were joined by a black cat. Text was never needed; the poses always spoke very clearly.
The strips in the latest post appeared to be in chronological order.
The second image showed the boy riding piggy-back on the bear, a smile so big it covered the little boy’s entire face. The caption read: “I looked forward to seeing you every day.”
The successive images continued in the same vein. Some were simple doodles, some told little stories. The boy and the bear at opposite ends of a massive bathtub with a rubber ducky between them, playing with bubbles piled on their heads; curled up together reading a comic book; brushing their teeth together, trying to make fearsome faces with their mouths dripping toothpaste and spittle. The boy, playing video games, using the bear as a cushion. Another, a drawing of the two of them drinking some warm drink from mugs late at night. One illustration of the boy was just patting the bear’s head. The next, of them both chasing butterflies.
The captions didn’t seem to relate directly to each image.
“I wanted to be your friend. I wanted to know everything about you.”
“I wanted to spend all my time with you.”
“I wanted to laugh with you.”
“Even though we never spoke, you brightened my day just by being you. Just by being around.”
“On bad days, just seeing you made me feel better.”
“I knew that I felt different about you than I did about anyone else.”
“You gave me butterflies in my stomach…”
The next strip was dated on Valentine’s Day several years ago. The shy-looking little boy made the bear lean down so he could affix a red heart sticker on the bear’s big black nose before giving him a kiss on the tip of his wide snout and blushing. The caption read: “But I was too shy to say anything to you. I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same way.”
Pai felt confused. Was Sky confessing to someone?! In spite of the deep fear inside that he was witnessing Sky professing his love— and dreading the last of the images potentially unveiling him with a faen— Pai couldn’t stop himself from scrolling down to the next drawing.
It showed the little boy “introducing” his beloved stuffed bear to four other little boys. By the last panel, they were in a massive mound, all five overexuberant boys climbing all over the big bear and wildly mock wrestling with it— putting his stuffed head in a chokehold, a flying elbow aimed at the bear’s fluffy center, one boy bending the bear’s stuffed legs back while the little boy and the last of his friends dramatically “lost” to the bear, pinned underneath his massive body. The bear’s expressionless face somehow looked decidedly happy.
“I wanted my friends to know you. I think you would’ve liked them- and they you.”
Pai looked at the four accounts tagged in the image. He only vaguely recognized the usernames, but he was almost certain that these were Sky’s buddies. One of the little boys looked very much like that kid Rain. And another resembled the boy who sat right next to Pai in class.
But the next strip showed the boy alone and crying, looking around for his lost bear. Begging his mom and dad to help him find his cherished stuffed friend. The same four other little boys from before hugging the crying boy.
“But then you went away. No explanation. No goodbyes.”
Pai checked the date in the corner of the strip— it was the year he’d left school. Wait. Was this—?
The following strip, dated the first day of classes just this year, showed the little boy finding his lost bear in an old box and hugging it tightly, crying happy tears of relief. The style was much cleaner and softer. More refined. The accompanying text said: “The day you came back into my life was the happiest day ever!”
More strips: the boy placing a little crown on the bear’s wide head; feeding the bear snacks, the both of them licking their messy fingers and lips; trying on silly glasses and painting on ridiculous makeup. Three panels of the two of them playing a game of hide-and-seek, the bear obviously sticking out from behind various places, including a lamppost and trying to hide only his face behind the fat black cat as the boy stared, amused.
“I hoped you might see my feelings for you— and maybe even reciprocate them.”
“I tried to show you how much you meant to me. In my own little ways. Not knowing you wouldn’t understand my intentions.”
“I tried to defend you the only way I was brave enough. Never realizing you might think I was no better than everyone else…”
“I hated everyone who didn’t see the good in you like I did.”
Pai continued scrolling.
Other little kids were trying to take the boy’s teddy bear away. But he donned a metal strainer on his head as a helmet and a broom as a weapon to “defend” his bear.
“I was even afraid someone would try to take you from me before I got the nerve to speak up.”
A bunch of other little kids, now mean-looking (including one taller boy with long dark hair pulled back in a little ponytail) all pointing and laughing at the little boy and bear, as the boy yelled back at them while tightly hugging his bear’s head to his chest. The bear looked upset. Tears glistened in the little boy’s angry eyes. It was dated yesterday.
Pai tried to quiet the notion banging around in his head. No. It just wasn’t possible… It couldn’t be…
“But all this time, I’d never known what you were going through. Maybe I never knew you at all. So before you leave again, I just wanted to tell you—“
The last comic, with today’s date, was different from all the others. The little boy was older, a lanky teenager that looked exactly like Sky, who stood facing his bear, only slightly taller than the boy character now. The teenage boy was presenting the bear with a sweet bread roll with a bubble caption, saying: “I love you, Pai.”
Pai’s breath stuttered in his chest.
In the second panel, the bear had thrown back the head of his suit and revealed the human head of a cartoon Pai— looking like he did back when he was bigger, his shaggy mop of hair, his glasses which (Pai realized) perfectly matched the round patches that circled the bear’s big black eyes.
And in the last panel, the boy pulled down the collar of the suit and planted a kiss on Pai’s lips.
The caption under the comic said: “I’ve always seen you. I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry that I didn’t know how to tell you that to your face, Pai.”
Pai sat dumbfounded… He scrolled back and forth, looking at every strip again. “HUNH?!”