Chapter Text
The first time Isak sees him, it's like the air has been knocked right off his lungs; and all at once it's the boy from across the street leaning against the wall consuming his insides. The boy with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the crinkles by his eyes forming as his head lolls back from laughing too hard. It's too much to look at, too present, too prominent, too everything. Too much. Too much. He can't breathe.
He looks away.
The sun is shining brightly today. Flock of bodies surround him, simultaneously going back and forth to leave and enter the school premises. Despite the warm weather Isak can still feel the breeze of the holidays season looming in although it was nowhere near December, not even close, not even at all. It's only the beginning of the school year and he could already see himself flopping on the tough material of his mattress and doze off for the rest of the year. The past year hadn't been kind to him (not that he let himself or let the year be kind to him either) and so this year he was hoping something in the universe would shift just so he could feel a rush of serotonin in his brain. With his second year in Nissen starting in the middle of the year, the likelihood of that chance is close to zero percent. Still, he hopes. He hopes and hopes and hopes.
He breathes out and lets the cold air consume him; lets the cold touch his toes and kiss his insides. To the naked and unsuspecting eye witnessing Isak like this: snapback tightly perched on the crown of his head, thin shirt hugging his body, the hunter green puffer jacket wrapped around his frail body barely doing anything to keep him from the cold, tight jeans clinging onto his legs, one would assume that he's shaking and trembling under the layers of his clothes. But Isak has gotten so used to this; gotten so used to the crisp embrace of the air that he's become numb. Numb and desensitized. Still, when he decides to burst out of that element, in that bubble (albeit rarely), he can feel it tugging in his chest and freezing his insides. He can feel it bursting in his chest, in his stomach, in his toes.
He looks up to the direction of the blonde boy he was ogling at earlier, eyes bolting shut and away once their eyes meet. He's looking at him. The blonde boy with bright blue eyes and long lanky legs and coiffed hair built to perfection as if he'd spent his entire morning crafting it like that, as if he didn't worry about his social life or his family or school was looking at him. And Isak is embarrassed that he'd been caught like a deer in headlights. The blonde boy with bright b—the boy had an unreadable expression in his face when Isak looked at him. Amused? Curious? Strange? Wonder? Isak lists them on the top of his head but none of them comes close.
"Dude, you good?" Jonas casts him a worried glance and Isak is silently thanking the gods for the wonder that is Jonas Noah Vasquez, his best friend since they were little, for sparing him at least a bit of attention so he could take his mind off the boy across the street with a stick of cigarette perched on top of his ear, Isak notes. Another thing he observed from ogling.
The conversation that was mostly to fill in the silence awhile ago, he notices, has come to a stop when he feels three pairs of eyes boring a hole into his head. Well, four pairs of eyes if you count the boy across the street. Mahdi and Magnus are staring at him with the same expression as Jonas', lips pursed and eyes concentrated. And he suddenly feels naked, feels vulnerable like this. He's afraid they saw him darting his eyes back and forth from them and to the boy leaning against the wall, chewing on a gum and back again. He feels exposed and he scrambles the words he's rehearsed over and over again in the corners of his room when he'd realized back then that questions were going to be asked and he'd eventually have to face them, face his friends, and oh God he feels so exposed and naked and frail and vulnerable. They can see right through him. They can. They know what he is. They know. He searches for the right thing to say when he squeals out a 'yes', his mouth processing the word out loud before his mind could.
And if they're not convinced, they don't mention it. They let Isak be. They let Isak return to his bubble and he lets them return to their boring conversation about the boring girls and boring parties and boring lectures. He tries to listen to their conversation, tries to contribute something, but his brain shuts down before he could voice his thoughts out. They try to include him and he appreciates their effort for trying but he just can't, not like this, not when the wounds inside him are still fresh, not when the cuts that were dug deep inside him are still guaranteed to break him apart and they'd eventually see the real him. So they let Isak be.
His last class for the day ends and he's up before anyone could catch up to him. He bolts past through the door, past through the bodies swarming in the hallway, past through the breeze of the cold air outside. His eyes shift to the corner where he last saw the boy, and he's a bit disappointed that he's not there. Isak shakes his head and tries to get rid of his haunting blue eyes from his mind. This is wrong. This is so wrong. The words of his mother play out in his mind before he could stop them and it stings. Years have passed and it still stings. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months have gone by and the results are still the same. He shuts the memories down before they could consume him, picks them apart and shoves them back to the void in his mind where the memories of his mother are locked in.
Still, he searches. He looks for that flare of hope and sunshine and tugs at the thought before he could stop himself, and the memory glosses over his mind like a film.
Shrieks could be heard from across the beach. The sun is smiling down at them and Isak can feel the bubble of laughter starting to form in his chest and before he could stop himself, it's out and about in the waves of the water and the sand in the beach and a pair of eyes are looking at him fondly. Blood rushes into his head and he could feel the whole world spinning when his father brings him back into the water, standing in his toes and feels the floor of the sea, the sand tickling his toes. His father holds him steady as his mother swats at his father for keeping Isak upside down long enough that he only feels lightheaded.
Unapologetic, his father only grins at his mother and kisses her cheek before he's sprinting off—Isak and his father—him bouncing in his father's arms as his father runs and runs and runs while his mother is behind them, chasing them. Isak giggles and splashes the water with his tiny arms and his tiny hands.
Around 13:21 he finds himself wrapped in a striped towel, his nose scrunched up as he takes a bite on the watermelon, its juice dripping down his chin with his mother endearingly swiping on it and pinching his cheeks after.
It's a good day. His mother is happy. His father is happy. He's happy. They're okay. It's a good day.
Tears are prickling on the corner of his eyes when the memory vanishes from his mind, like the light of a lit candle going out. He shuts his mind. He's had enough for the day. He's had enough.
He gets on the tram, absentmindedly going through the applications on his phone, and it's always the same. Facebook. Scroll. Close. Instagram. Like. Scroll. Close. Messages. Scroll. Close. He realizes he's gonna have to go through the messages burning in the application somehow someday, but today is not that day. He doesn't know when the day will come, but it's not today. Or tomorrow.
He brings up his hand to place it on the handrail, going through the applications on his phone again, and he doesn't really know where he's going with this, of what's the point of all this, when a deep voice grumbles beside him. Deep, but sweet. Sweet like the watermelon he'd eaten that day at the beach, and Isak scolds himself for the thought as soon as the memory escapes the chamber of his mind once again. No more memory hopping. Enough.
"Hello."
Isak lifts up his head, startled when bright blue eyes bore into his dull green ones. And he freezes. His body heats up and his cheeks flushes, flares up at the sight before him. The boy before him has the same unreadable expression—the same one Isak saw from across the street awhile ago, only now he could clearly see it in his face from this distance, with their faces mere inches apart. He flushes at the thought again, and looks down embarrassed when the intruding voice of his mother is starting to come out of its shell in his mind. He shuts down that part of his brain and focuses. On the shoelaces of his shoe, on the boring color of the door of the tram, on the hazy features of the people passing by outside in the distance. On the steady breathing of the body beside him, on the warmth radiating off him. Isak focuses. His mother will not ruin this day for him. He pushes the thoughts at the back of his mind and looks up again to meet the mysterious boy's gaze with the same unreadable expression playing on his face, his pink plump lips apart, grinning.
"Hi."
"You from around here?" From here, from this distance, Isak could see and feel and hear the mischievous glint that he's emanating, and Isak stares at him curiously, wondering if the boy was serious or not when they were literally exchanging glances earlier at their school. He figures the guy would want him to play off, so he does.
"Not really, no. In fact, I'm just a figment of your imagination. I'm not even here." The guy is grinning again and the crinkles by his eyes are present, and Isak's heart swells at the thought that he made that possible. The mysterious guy laughs and scrunches up his nose and if that wasn't the most adorable thing Isak's ever seen in his entire life, he doesn't know what else.
"I'm Even." The boy—Even—speaks so gracefully, and Isak thinks he should really stop describing the things the boy—Even does ever so delicately but he can't help himself when the things that he thinks are true. On the other hand, he's just happy he can finally stop labelling him as the boy with bright blue eyes in his mind and that he can finally put a name to striking blonde boy.
"Isak." He nods once, and he deems that as an acceptable response, when Even is chuckling again, although softly this time around. He wants to ask why, what's so funny? Why are you talking to me? You can see right through me, can't you? You're laughing at my pain now, aren't you? Why are you having this conversation with me?
He doesn't say any of those things. Instead, he raises his eyebrow rather sassily, and the grin that's never left Even's lips grows even wider. He assumes Even got his telepathic message to him with it being 'what?' Even only shakes his head, still smiling.
"Great conversation," Even teases, and the breath that he's been holding eases out of him all at once. He can't remember holding his breath in the first place, but he can't remember engaging a conversation with Even either, so nothing really matters anymore now.
Isak rolls his eyes, a question rolling off his mouth before he can stop himself. Damn him and his weak self-restraint.
"Where do you get off?" He surprises himself with the question, but it seems as though Even doesn't mind answering, so he wipes off the expression in his face before Even could catch it. He's trying really hard at concealing everything now with how letting everything flaunt before had consequences. Consequences that backfired resulting into this, into what he is now.
"Oh, just around the corner. I'm not really going home yet. Gonna pick up some stuff and all." Isak nods and he takes a mental note that Even is cool. For an ordinary person, saying stuff like this would probably bore Isak to death, because I don't give a fuck on what you're gonna do, Stephanie, so shut up already please. But like this, with the cold getting into Isak's head and swimming into his bloodstream, he can't help but wonder what Even means by those things. What Even means when he says he's not going home yet.
Isak just nods one more time, not wanting to pry any further in case Even's not comfortable sharing them, because they'd only spoken once after all. The tram stops and Even's feet are moving now. Isak assumes he's already at his stop.
"It was nice to meet you, Isak." Even brings two of his fingers up his forehead to bid a salute, winking at him and toddles off before Isak could so much as form a coherent sentence to say that it was just as nice meeting you, too, Even.
He smiles for the first time that day ever since waking up with disheveled hair and eyes brimming with tears. It's a good day because he lets it be. Because Even let it be. It's a good day.