Chapter Text
Some days it felt like he was floating in the sky. The voices were too loud in his ears and it felt like everything was going too fast for him but Pran was left behind because he couldn’t catch up to that speed. That meant Pran was stuck in a limbo. It was never going too far but always wanting to reach for the stars.
It has always felt like Pran’s life was a soap opera. He was born to his parents who loved him but some days he knew that his mother saw him more as an instrument to wield against the neighbours; to shape him so that he could be her weapon and not her son. His father stood back and watched, unable to stop his wife, and Pran would cry alone in his room, time rushing past him like buzzing bees.
It always felt like he was in this constant competition where it was just him against the whole world. When he was young, he’d thought the entire world had boiled down to Pat, the boy next door who was the start of all his peril. So, he’d hated Pat with all he could gather inside his childish body.
But then teenage years started sprouting around and suddenly Pran was aware of the way his “whole world” had expanded. Sure, Pat was still the central focus, suddenly his mother had entered his competition list and Pat’s father did too. Everything had become diluted and Pran, anxiety-ridden, had blamed himself for even thinking of hating the person who gave birth to him.
Hatred might have been too strong of a word but Pran doesn’t know what to name the dark feeling that curls in his stomach when he looks across the parapet and sees the great distance that separated him from Pat. It would choke him and make his eyes burn with yearning.
It wasn’t better when he’d channelled this unwanted energy to competition between him and Pat, wanting nothing more than to banish the warmth that came with any wayward grin thrown towards Pran during their classes.
“Why is this always happening to me?” Pran complained to Ink, growling at the way his science model was starting to crumple already . He’d followed every step and still, it was crumbling. It was a simple model made out of straws that were supposed to show something about gravity; all Ink’s ideas and Pran had just gone along with it.
“Maybe we didn’t apply enough glue?” Ink mutters, fingers nudging gingerly at the straws on the top as her frown deepens.
They were in the classroom alone while the rest of the people were already home; they’d stayed back to complete the model. Pran was only two seconds closer to tearing his hair out. Sighing harshly, he got up, stretching his hands above his head and screwed his eyes shut.
He hadn’t heard the new set of footsteps that drew closer until Pran opened his eyes and came face to face with Pat, looking between him, Ink and the model with raised brows. “Aren’t you done?” he asks, crouching before Ink and the model on the floor. He grinned at her, too sweet and Pran felt that familiar churn in his stomach rise back to life. “I finished mine yesterday.”
“If you’re here to brag, get out,” Pran snapped, glaring . Heart too fast and hands sweating, Pran held his glare when Pat looked at him with a challenging twinkle.
“Boys, come on! Stop being so childish!” Ink scolded, leaning back on her hands with an exasperated sigh.
Pat’s eyes darted to her and the fight drained from him. Lips forming a pout, Pran scolded himself for staring at the way Pat’s face morphed into a moue and admonished himself for thinking they could ever see each other as more than mortal nemesis.
“Do you know what’s wrong with this?” Ink asked and Pran opened his mouth to protest only to click it shut when Ink threw him a glare and shushed him. “He’s good at physics, Pran. Let him try.”
Preening, Pat winked at Ink and threw Pran a grin that did not make his heart stutter. Not at all. As he watched Pat bend closer to the mishappen model with a concentrated huff, Pran’s eyes roved over the boy. The way his puberty-enhanced muscle growth was shaping nicely due to all the rugby practice. How there was stubble scratching at the underside of his jaw and the way his eyes glinted when he realised just what was wrong.
Averting his eyes and admonishing himself, Pran muttered a dumb excuse at Ink before stalking out of the room. If he spent another three minutes in there, he would do something stupid like kick the model or drag Pat away to … he doesn’t know.
Fuck hormones.
The air was cool outside and thunderclouds were crowding overhead and Pran realised belatedly that he’d forgotten to bring his umbrella. What a luck. Scoffing, he picked his way towards the bathrooms and hoped that some cold water on his face would help him calm down.
All it took was one Pat Jindapat and look at him—glaring at his reflection, hands trembling because his mother’s voice was echoing in his ears again. He’s evil, Pran , his father wants to hurt you through him. The neighbours are not good, Pran. You need to be better than him Pran . Make your mother proud, Pran. Pran, Pran, Pran!
“Pran!”
Ripping his gaze away from his own widened reflection, Pran turned to his side to see Pat looking at him with terrified eyes. Confused, Pran opened his mouth to ask him only to notice the stinging in his arms. Oh .
“Your arms,” Pat whispered, his eyes darting down and Pran felt like everything was just too much. It was too much; the way Pat looked so horrified at the notion of Pran’s little habit as his eyes never left Pran’s arms that were now marked with angry, blood-beaded lines and Pran’s fingernails holding the evidence.
“Is that why you never cut your nails?” Pat asks, his voice so low that it doesn’t even echo in the bathroom.
“Why do you care?” Pran should run away. Far away Pat has a chance to exploit his weakness. After all, the vitriol his mother had poured down his ear should have entered Pat’s too . What’s to say his mother wasn’t right after all?
Pat’s eyes flashed up to him, so vulnerable even through the fire that now Pran couldn’t look away from. He doesn’t know when he’d stopped trying to rip his arm out of Pat’s firm hold. Maybe he was touch-starved.
“Why do I care ? Are you an idiot, Pran?” Pat snapped and Pran flinched. His fingers twitched and his mother’s voice was right in his ears again. Run. Run.
“Stop shouting,” he whispered, hating how he sounded so broken. The silence stretched and Pran doesn’t know when he’d clenched his eyes shut but suddenly everything else was amplified. Pat’s gentle hold on his wrists was starting to burn and the cool air was stinging his already-healing scratches. It had started raining outside.
“We are too similar, aren’t we?” Pat muttered and Pran found enough courage, or maybe it was recklessness, to open his eyes. Tears were crowded on Pat’s waterline as he looked at Pran’s chest with thin, pressed-together lips.
“What do you mean?”
Then Pat was looking at him, eye to eye. “Why can’t we be friends, Pran? Help each other?”
“Our parents—” he was quick to protest but Pat shook his head, tugging him closer and suddenly all Pran could smell was the faint scent of lemon shampoo and face the full force of Pat’s gaze.
“Pran, I’ve known you for long and everything my Papa said has been proven false. He told me you weren’t kind but I saw you feed the cat that lurked around the dumpster every evening when we were kids until the cat moved away. He told me you had no feelings but I saw you cry when we were ten and I’d broken your toy. I saw you smile when I gave you the watch back after you saved Pa. I saw you laugh with your friends. Papa told me to hate you but I can’t, okay? I see so much of me in you , it’s like hating myself.”
Pran stared. There was something in him that felt like he was on fire but at the same time, the metaphorical bucket of cold water had been thrown over him too . He’d been so obsessed with trying to find some order with all these conflicting emotions that he’d forgotten just how much he liked Pat. As a friend. As a fellow sufferer.
“I don’t know, Pat.” He lowered his head, trying to breathe against his constricting chest. Everything was too much and the dreaded emotion of hope was creeping up his throat again. “I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too.” A pause. “Do you need a hug?”
Pran nodded and he was blessed with the warmth of casual warmth that he’d missed so much. He doesn’t know when he started crying or when Pat’s tears were warming his right shoulder, but there they were. Just two broken boys, somehow saying goodbye and hello at the same time.
They were fourteen when Pat started the ritual of sneaking into his room every odd night. Pran doesn’t know if it was because of him or if it was because Pat was just that big of a dork. But something in his told me that the timing was a bit too coincidental to have just been Pat’s dorkiness.
To be specific, that day Pran had another big fight with his mother. He was a teenager and the rebellious phase was not doing him any good and honestly, his mother wasn’t doing anything much to help. All Pran asked for was to go to his friend Pond’s house and she’d said no. He’d been so furious then and all he could think of was how he wished Pat was next to him. But that thought occurred while he was still in his mother’s presence, sending alarm bells in his head and Pran had bolted out of his house only to not even reach halfway over to the street across before his mother caught him and dragged him right back into the house. Que lecture number two.
Pran had learnt from Pat that when his mother shouted the most, her voice carried over to his house. It had been mortifying at first but then he’d gotten used to the way Pat treated him like he was a glass on the edge of a shelf; strong enough to stay in place but with just a bit more, it’d shatter. Pran appreciated that.
Maybe this time, the fight was one of those loud ones because the moment Pran shut his door behind him and locked it, there was a tap against his window. It was nearing sundown and Pran wondered what the hell was going on. Cautiously stepping over the scattered books on his floor, Pran reached out to part the curtains.
Pat stood on the other side, smile tense and hands poised to deliver another knock. “Hey,” he greeted when Pran gently slid the window open. The surprise was still etched onto his face , Pran knew , as he wondered if anyone saw.
“Someone could see you, Pat!” he hissed, stepping back when Pat started pulling himself up and over the window’s ledge.
“No one can. Our parents are downstairs and I’m light enough to not have the sheets creak.” Pat grinned, more genuine as he settled down on Pran’s bed. “The door’s locked right ?”
Sighing in defeat and desperately wanting some comforting company, Pran nodded. He sat down next to Pat and fidgeted with his long sleeves. They stayed silent for a while as Pran’s heartbeat calmed and Pat simply took in the covers of the books beneath their propped-up feet.
“Are you into JoJo?” Pat asks, offhandedly, clearly trying to not rile Pran up even though they both know he heard the fight.
“It’s cool.” Pran looked at Pat, smiling at the way his nose scrunched at the attention. “Are you here to pity me?”
“Hey, we already cleared it out that this is not pity. It’s friendship,” Pat chided, smiling brightly after Pran made a face.
“Fine. This is the first time you climbed in here, though. What made this time special?”
Pat looked down at his lap, uncharacteristically nervous with his fidgeting fingers that played with Pran’s comfort blanket that had slowly become a constant on his bed. he knew better than to interrupt Pat’s train of thought.
It was with a bitten sigh that Pat finally said , “Last time your mom yelled at you, um, you-you had this, uh, scars on your knees.”
“Oh.” It had been getting better, Pran had told Pat on the third month of their official friendship; then because of you was implied but unvoiced. This habit of Pran’s was bad and he knew it would only get worse from then on if he didn’t put a stop to it. Somehow, Pat had taken it into his own hands to stop that and it’d worked most of the time; except when these Big Fights TM happened.
Pran’s fingernails were always grown and his overly-neat mind would not allow him to chew on it, afraid of something he didn’t even know of . And when his nails dug into his skin, breaking a little bit of skin, it’d help distract him: from himself, from his mother, from the voices in his head that echoed.
“I’m sorry,” Pat says and Pran snaps his head up to glare at him but he’s not looking at Pran now; his eyes are staring blankly at the ‘ The Little Prince’ storybook by Pran’s feet. “I’m sorry that I can’t help you more.”
“Pat.” Pran places his hand on the boy’s shoulder, coaxing Pat to look at him and see the honesty in his gaze as he says, “You’re fourteen. You’ve helped me so far and the rest will either have to be stopped by my parents or by myself.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Pat snaps. “But it hurts, okay? It hurts to see you in so much pain!” They were whispering so far but now Pat’s raised voice sent a jolt of panic down Pran’s spine.
Noticing it, Pat quickly quieted down with a guilty wince. Pran breathed deeply, letting it out when he heard no hurried steps. “It’s fine,” he soothes before replying to his earlier proclamation. “I know it hurts you ; it hurts to see me hate myself too . I didn’t ask for this, you know?”
“I know.” They stay silent after that, each dwelling on their thoughts. The silence was less oppressive now and Pran felt his lungs ease as more air rushed in.
“I’m glad you came,” he says after a while. “Otherwise, I’d have gone into another frenzy.”
“That’s a very fancy phrasing,” Pat mutters. It was his habit, Pran had noticed, to divert the attention when he became flustered. It’s cute.
“Right.” Just then Pran watched as Pat’s eyes widened and he gasped as if he’d found out why dinosaurs went extinct and everything had clicked into place. “What? Spit it out!” Pran pushed his shoulders, feeling anxious and eager at the same time.
“During lunch,” Pat says, hand clasping Pran’s shoulder. “Come meet me in the library. We can search up things to substitute your urges with.”
Pran’s eyes widened. “I don’t know, Pat. What if someone saw us and they reported it?”
“Then maybe your parents will finally get some sense,” Pat whispered, eyes darkening and what else did Pran need to say yes?