Chapter Text
Jeno knows there's no way in hell he's gonna sleep tonight.
The moon outside is barely visible as thick clouds cover it and uncover for seconds as they pass by. The air is chilly but yet not cold; the November weather always brings some sort of internal anxiety to him. Is it scarf weather already? Or maybe still just sweater?
Jeno knows he's overthinking, but on the other hand, when is he not?
The chilly not cold air hits his warm cheeks as he pushes open the door. It's well past two, hardly any cars passing him by as he walks down one of the busiest streets in his neighbourhood. The chill now feels nice against his skin, cooling it down and drying out tears that managed to escape him when he as much as grazed his bottom line tonight.
His feet take him to the train station, old and rusty, smelling like piss and weed. The neighbourhood is known for being quite a dangerous place, many druggies constantly searching for preys to assault and threaten in order to get money for one more high, one more pipe dream.
Jeno can't say he's one of them but he knows fairly many of them, some even being his past best friends from times when he still had them.
As a train in no known direction arrives, and Jeno finishes his third cigarette, he steps on the butt and hops on the train (though 'hopping' is a little bit of an exaggeration - Jeno can't remember the last time he had enough energy to "hop somewhere"). The smells inside aren't half as bad as on the station but he still scrunches his nose at the odour of sweat and exhaustion.
He goes through the outer corridor of the train and enters the sitting arrangements section - there he takes a seat by the window, just on the right, close to the entrance so that he can fleed whenever he has to.
The train takes off again and Jeno's head falls on the headrest as he sighs heavily. They pass by his apartment complex, he follows the passing buildings with his tired eyes. He wonders if he'll ever feel okay, or if he'll ever get off this train. Or where the hell it's even going, because Jeno didn't care enough to check where he's headed.
On the next station, a woman sits right opposite of him and when she sees him, she holds onto her cross necklace for life. Jeno lifts his head to meet her worried eyes and the second he does, she sained immediately, smiling to him sadly as if thinking that he's a lost cause but she's gonna try to pray for him anyway because it won't do her any harm.
Jeno closes his eyes and lowers his head again. He doesn't have the energy to deal with christian devotees.
His head somehow slides onto the wall, just by the window, as he gets lost in his dark thoughts and falls asleep at some point. He dreams of God, a bald man in his forties with a white beard. God tells him to get his shit together and move the fuck on.
When he wakes up, the cross woman is no longer here. He also notes that it's dawn already, the sky turning more grey-ish than black. He must have been asleep for quite a while.
He puts his head up as he gets up from his seat to get off the train, and as he does, for a fraction of a second, his eyes lock with fair, brown, orange almost irises, ones so beautifully warm and comforting he finds himself falling deeply in no time. His eyes hold so much hope and unspoken are-you-okays that Jeno almost stops in his tracks.
Almost, because as soon as their eyes meet, they also part, as Jeno enters the outer corridor of the train. He looks in the impromptu mirror he's chosen for himself - the dirty, scratched window. Here he sees what he knows and should have expected - sad, empty, hollow even... The grey eyes he's grown to know so well. He should have expected that but it still sends a pang of disappointment through his heart as his mind goes over the image of the warmth he just experienced, desperately holding onto the last bits of the memory.
As he gets off the train, he doesn't look back in hopes to see them again through the window. With every further step he takes, a part of the memory fades away from his conscious - first: the feeling of comfort, then the warmth, then again the piercing colour, and in the end, he also forgets the look on his face, once so inviting and soft, now just a pile of words he, ironically, used in his head to stop himself from forgetting the feeling.