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In the end, they can only move forward. Yusuf isn’t sure where they’re going, but they are going, and for now this is enough.
They walk until they can feel the soles of their boots grow thin under their feet. They walk and walk and then walk some more, until barren land becomes rich soil, red with ochre, and the sea lines the horizon like a long ribbon of glittering blue.
When Nicolò lifts his eyes off the road to take in the Mediterranean, his face brightens instantly.
It’s somewhat like watching sunrise break across the sky, soft and brilliant and hopeful all at once. He smiles – the first time in weeks – and when Nicolò is happy, Yusuf has been learning these days, his whole body changes to show it. He stands taller; his torso leaning forward, his legs tense, his eyes brimming with excitement, begging Yusuf for a cue to go.
He looks younger now than he ever has before, and it is that young boy that Yusuf takes pity on.
He smiles – the first time in weeks – and tips his chin towards the shoreline. “Let’s go.”
Nicolò soaks it all up with the same, irresistible eagerness as a child. The fine sand scorching their feet, the dancing waves, the surf frothing white and light over their toes; everything is new, everything a wonder.
He bares himself to the midday sun and crashes into the waves in his underthings, long-limbed and clumsy, and when he’s done – when his fingers are pruning and his cheeks look like they must hurt, he’s grinning so wide – he comes to sit down next to Yusuf, his weight sinking gently on the patch of wet sand.
It’s quiet. It’s the closest they’ve ever been. Close enough, at least, for Yusuf to see the net of dark dots scattered over Nicolò’s arms, and let his gaze chase them across the paleness of his chest, to meet the familiar flush at the base of his neck.
Nicolò’s skin is the colour of fresh cheese, white and spoon-soft. It burns before it tans, but Nicolò cares not. He sits in the sun now, basking in its glow, toasting in its warmth; and tonight, when the breeze blows cool against his reddened shoulders, he will pull his tunic on and hiss and shiver, and still he will smile to himself, and tilt his head back to catch the scent of seasalt on the wind. He’s odd, he is.
“I was born in a house near the sea,” he says now, moisture glistening in his beard, the apples of his cheeks pink like rosebuds. Oh, he’s odd. He’s odd and he’s beautiful, all-nose madman that he is. “But the sea back home looks nothing like this.” His voice drops, naught but a humbled whisper on his lips. “Nothing like this.”
He looks at the ocean as if it were a miracle, and Yusuf wonders. Wonders what that must feel like. Wonders if anyone– if anyone has ever looked at Nicolò like that. If he’d welcome it – being looked at in such a way.
His throat feels thick when he swallows.
“Let’s stay a while,” he says, and would regret it, if only for the way Nicolò turns his eyes on him.
His eyes. How hungry they are, ready to devour the world and all its sights. Yusuf feels that same hunger in his belly, in his chest. In the hollow of his palms and the gaps between his fingers, wanting, craving. But it’s not the world he’s hungry for. It’s not.
Nicolò’s mouth smiles, red under his beard. Seafoam licks around their ankles, rushing, quiet, murmuring. “Let’s stay.”
When they leave the next morning, and start walking all over again, Yusuf makes sure they always, always have that ribbon of blue right on the horizon.