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Soft padded steps echoed into the midnight, and the drifting light of the moonlight’s glow shone like silver. Translucent curtains bathed under the sky as the night's cold air let itself in the house. Soft snores could be heard so faintly, comfort was a blanket his housemates were wrapped in. Yellow was different, and odd from the others. He never quite fit in whatever environment he was put in whether it be a family, a group of love, a wife, or a workplace. He never fit . He’d soon see himself grow into that role, the person who was always the odd one out.
The boy faces the bathroom mirror, green eyes that looked at him tenderly in sympathy, which he hated.
“W-why weren’t you there?” Yellow’s voice broke. He looks like a madman, talking to a reflection of himself but he couldn’t care anymore. He was upset, broken. Sick of it all, so sick of it. In everything, everyone concludes he is stupid, an idiot. He was always certain of that ending, but he remained hopeful throughout everything. He always tried to see the good in everyone, but now he’s just exhausted. What’s a poor boy to do with the cards he’s been dealt with?
“Why weren’t you there…? W-here…where were you?...”
His vision was clouded with tears, he felt a stinging pain in his chest as he tried to breathe steadily. Barely seeing his reflection clearly, he knows there’s the pain of regret in the other’s eyes. He grips the sink until his knuckles turned white, and he grits his teeth until it hurts. The family made him feel included despite the dull and mundane life they lived. No matter how much they pushed him into the role of “mother” , a voice keeps telling him that they cared. He hates it, he despises the wretched feeling of being wanted despite it clearly not being so. His throat felt dry, the cold air of the night grazed his skin and he felt disgusted with himself.
“WHERE WERE YOU?!” Yellow had yelled into the mirror, streaks of tears on his alternate self were evident. His father has rescued him, why should it matter? Yellow didn’t know, his other self didn’t know. He was just broken, it was a rare but familiar feeling to the both of them. It was becoming a more frequent experience nowadays, footsteps occur not long after the two are asleep, and the sound every night of the knob turning. In comes a boy with messy haggard hair and sunken eyes that pierced the mirror, to which every now and then he would stare at. It wasn’t a glare, nor a soft stare, he just looked so tired, exhausted. A drained child from life.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t kno-” “N-NO ONE! NO ONE NEVER KNOWS! YOU DON'T KNOW!”
His words were broken, but the reflection still felt the continuous stabs of it. It hurt.
“It’s not my fault! Why would you pin that on me?! I didn’t know that he wouldn’t come-”
A bloodied fist, a broken mirror, and a loud crash. Shards laid on the sink after that sentence. The unsteady breathing and shaking hand of the boy told him more than he was able to say, “ shut up about him.”
The other one took it as a sign to leave. He left with a heavy sigh and a heavy heart. This night was no night to argue with his stubbornness, his efforts back then were fruitful, but when his father is mentioned he already knows that he has no say in the situation. He was unsure of the boy, a bit wary of him even. He was like a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any second. Sometimes he thinks that he just doesn’t choose to go that way, but when he does, it’s going to be a horrible time.
Did he know that blaming his other self was unjustified and uncalled for? There will never be a sure answer to that question because he didn’t quite know it himself.
Yellow fell onto the checkered-tiled floor, trying to bury himself in his thoughts as the monochromatic tiles drove him crazy until he averted his eyes somewhere else that was less hypnotizing. Tears started forming once more and he scrunched his face up in disdain. He hated crying, and he always did his best to stop it immediately. Puffy eyes and reddened scleras weren’t something he liked, and the constant nagging of the other ones about what happened made him feel overwhelmed. He hugs his knees closer to his chest, in need of some comfort no matter what it may be. The thought of driving people away breaks him and makes him feel alive.
He raises his fists and starts hitting himself on the head, a punishment for his stupidity. People cared for him, some people at least had the courage to put up with his ceaseless foolishness and his lack of knowledge at times. His usual anxieties of being left behind plagued his mind once more, and he wanted to do anything to escape this hell.
“STUPID STUPID STUPID!”
He sobbed in the night’s cold arms and he continued to hit and scratch himself for the stupidity he had attempted. He didn’t think it through again and now his other self didn’t want to see him anymore! His gaze is cast through the lens of the innocent, but he knows the horrible truth that lies beyond the house more than anyone. More than the other one, or the tall one. He mutters insults that he’d grown accustomed to, however, his father was normally doing the insulting for him. He feels the isolating feeling of being distant from everyone, a wall separating the two. There was him, and there was the other side, but there was never a “them”. The two parties were never conjoined, he had just assumed so.
The door is opened horribly loud, a figure looms before the light that pools beside the shadows. Familiar red yarns strayed not too far from the figure, to which Yellow had instantly figured as the red one. Another figure stayed behind, a smaller and more feather-y, Yellow figures him as the green one.
“What happened? Hey, what happened to you? Are y’alright?-”
The red one hurriedly comes to his aid as his other housemate doesn’t stop hitting his head. Well, honestly he was unsure of what to do.
“H-hey! Stop it! What are you doing?”
“I-I’m stupid! I’m an idiot! I made the other one go away! I don’t want it!”
The tallest one of the bunch really didn’t know how to help him. Red outstretched his arms and holds the yellow one close to him. He really didn’t know, and he was terrified of his lack of knowledge about how to handle the situation. Red held the little boy, letting him cry his eyes out as the other one rushed to his side, trying to pry the boy’s hands out of his body to stop him from hurting himself. Yellow wailed and trashed around, he hated the close proximity of the others. He’s scared, once more. Scared that if he gets too close they’ll just leave again.
The child then remembers a memory, a very vivid one from his childhood. He recalls a snow-white bunny, its fur speckled with stray blood. Dry heaving emitted from the small creature, life leaving its body as it goes limp. Yellow was fully certain it wasn’t his blood on the bunny. He just had eaten, and he just came from the kitchen. He lets his mind wander more about the memory, trying desperately to remember what had happened.
Yellow remembers more clearly now, he had gone out in the garden to clear his thoughts after loud shouts came from the kitchen. The bright summer sky made him forget the past scene that had just embedded itself in his head. He scans the grassy garden and finds a white bunny feeding itself some grass. He had forgotten about the fork in his hand, and he springs up to catch the bunny to say hello.
The bunny was gone now, now he is in the present.
He was foolish to think that everything can go happily as he wanted it to be, that everything would just be fine. But it wasn’t, and he tried scraping away that thought but it always comes back for him. He wonders, does it matter that he was happy to see the bunny? It doesn’t matter, he had decided, the bunny still would have died. His carelessness was the problem, not his emotion. Somehow that assures him for a small moment, before going back to grieving.
He slowly calms down and stops hitting himself, his body gave up on him. He was tired, too tired to go on, Yellow wasn’t sure if he can go on anymore.
“Th-there…he’s stopped now, I-I think…”
Yellow didn’t move for minutes, hours even, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, he stopped keeping track of time. Time, time, time, time…what a familiar subject that his head just diverted him to. He doesn’t care anymore, he doesn’t matter. He’s just tired.
“What…what do we do with him?”
“I…I don’t know, but…I’m not going to leave him here.”
He felt pressure on his sides and stomach, a wave of relief washed over him like cold water, immediately waking him up from the trance he’d put himself into. Tilting his head to the side, he sees the taller roommate hugging him, and to his other, the smaller one hugging him as well. He was, well, stunned was an understatement. But he was in shock at the sudden action of the two. Yellow, well, he just did nothing. He let it all be.
He did feel guilt, though. A pit in his stomach overwhelmed his small figure as he drifted through. He was too loud, too annoying, too forgetful. He was always a little too something, or a little too lacking. He didn’t know balance, but even if he was unaware, that was what they just adored about him. Reality isn’t something they can’t deny, no matter how warped and twisted it may act around them. Gruesome scenes and flickering traumatic memories would fill them, they somehow stayed resilient through it all.
Yellow doubted that thought, his resilience is clearly untrue. A mess of a boy like him isn’t resilient. He always takes comfort in the fact that he’s scared a lot because that would usually mean his…that he , would come to his aid. He didn’t today, and that resulted with him taking matters into his own hands.
He recalls the bunny again, and then the dead limp bodies that surrounded him. A sticky red substance coated his mouth, and tears welled in his eyes.
He just wanted to go home.
The boy feels the tight squeeze of the two individuals he hadn’t bothered that much to call fathers. Yellow thinks to himself, they at least deserved that title considering the things they’ve done to him.
He’s now home.