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A soft breeze brushed against his features. Distant chatters of people, the authentic rustle of the ever-changing trees, and the chirps of birds sufficed as background noise. The seasons of bright summer shifted down to a mellow fall. The faintest smell of tree bark, cinnamon, and pumpkins captivated and enhanced the tranquil essence. Crisp leaves gracefully blew away and danced in the wind currents.
"Teyam, hurry up!" Ao'nung complained audibly. He held his hand out to his boyfriend, who was a few feet behind, stepping on the crunchy leaves. A handful of crickets bounded away into the safe havens of nearby bushes.
"Wait just a second..." Neteyam insisted before crushing another poor leaf with the sole of his fluffy brown boot. The leaf crunched loudly as it corrugated. He huffed in satisfaction before meeting back up with Ao'nung and bumping shoulders.
"So childish," Ao'nung teased. Neteyam flicked the rounded tip of his broad nose.
Ao'nung traced his nose from top to bottom with one cold finger. He reclined against the wooden bench and rested his left arm on the backrest. Neteyam, sitting next to him, observed the other with a euphoric gaze. Neteyam's golden brown eyes were slightly milky, and his skin radiated with a pastel glow.
Falling leaves, animation smooth. Veins are prominent and pronounced as if severed from a human nervous system. Each individual experiences a miscellaneous, poignant perspective of life.
"This is nice," Neteyam whispered, voice laced with serenity. Like his gaze, his voice seemed distant and far away, but Ao'nung didn't ponder it. Ao'nung hummed in agreement and took a sip of his caramel latte. The steaming liquid burned against his chapped lips as it slid down his parched throat.
"I'll take the...salted maple and caramel latte—hot—please," Ao'nung stated before turning to his right.
"What do you want, Tey? I'll pay," the Polynesian questioned. His boyfriend contemplated his options. The lady behind the counter was a dark-haired young woman with olive skin. She wore a beige skin-tight shirt underneath her green apron, pronouncing her curves and stomach rolls. She had a cute and large pierced nose with a conspicuous hump. She shot him a confused and judgmental glance. Ao'nung scowled, but Neteyam was blissfully unaware.
"Hazelnut tea for me," Neteyam ultimately decided. The woman didn't write down his order and kept looking at Ao'nung expectantly. Was she deaf? No, that couldn't be it; She had heard Ao'nung just fine. Discrimination, then? It certainly wouldn’t be a first. The woman—Alette, as Ao'nung finally read her name tag—huffed in annoyance.
Ao’nung sighed, wanting to leave the cafe. “He said he wanted the hazelnut tea."
Alette rolled her eyes and mumbled, "I don't get paid enough for this.”
Rude, much?
Alette inhaled and forced a braces-filled smile as she punched in the order in the POS system.
“That’ll be $11.28. Cash or credit?”
The trifling amount of coins and spare dollars weighed nearly nothing in his jeans pockets. Earlier that day, they had spent a few bucks when revisiting a street vendor selling crochet items. They first came across the creator about a few months prior; Ao’nung had bought a royal blue cat, while Neteyam had a light blue seal. Today, a diminutive raven was on sale. Convoluted black satin was soft against his skin as he had held it up to inspect. Now, it sat lovingly at his side on Neteyam's lap.
The chair did little to mimic the comfort of his bed, but Neteyam's warm presence made up for it. Neteyam was like autumn, Ao'nung decided, homey and comforting. In a swift blink, everything was tinted orange.
It was a hot summer night, a tapestry that had yet to change its interwoven threads of scorching yellow to a cheerful gold. Ao'nung woke up feeling sad. The taste of melancholy lingered in his mind, tantalizing what he assumed was a peaceful dream.
Why was he sad again?
His heart ached, his soul felt crushed. And yet, the reason seemed obscure. Just as Ao'nung was about to grasp the tangible truth, he heard an auspicious whisper.
“Hey, Ao'n.”
His aching heart fluttered and instantly healed as relief flooded his system. Clear as day, Neteyam sitting upright on the corner of his bed, wearing a long gray T-shirt and baggy, checkered pants. The halo of his hair was slightly messed up—cute. Neteyam's presence felt abrupt, but Ao'nung wasn't caviling. How did he get in, anyway? Oh, yes, perhaps the window; they had done that a few times after arriving home later than promised—all in jest and the loss of time, of course.
Neteyam's vitiligo patches, stark against his otherwise dark skin, were eerie and had a faint glow, along with his eyes. The boy gazed blankly at the peeling and sticker-filled ceiling (Ao’nung was seven when he requested an entire pack of glow-in-the-dark mythical tulkun and ilu stickers. He adored them, even if they lost their brilliant luster throughout ever-moving time).
The quixotic serendipity of Neteyam’s ethereal existence echoed in the dark chasm of the night. Eywa, how did Ao'nung get so lucky?
Ao'nung slowly sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He reached forward to hug his boyfriend.
Arms wrapped around air.
Wisps of his drink's heat lazily trailed up into the air. Ao'nung blinked and looked up at the sky. The paintbrushes had already painted the newest scene, describing a muted dark blue hue dappled with white specks for stars. Lampposts were dimly lit, providing some extra artificial light. Crickets commenced their harmonies, the creatures still alive as the night was young. Neteyam had mentioned how Lo'ak used to catch crickets in see-through glass mason jars. Kiri always set them free in their backyard when he wasn’t looking.
“You need to let him go, Ao'nung. This is only hurting you more,” Kiri desperately tried to reason. Tsireya, Ao'nung's younger sister, stood by Lo’ak’s side with her head down. Her lengthy, jet-black curls mostly hid her sad face. The pair portrayed so much love that it was virtually bittersweet.
Ao'nung shook his head, his stubbornness blinding him. What was going on? People were increasingly becoming distant from him, and he didn't know why. Neteyam silently leaned against the arched portico as if on the blurred gateway between factual and fiction.
“Bro,” Lo'ak's voice cracked as he touched Ao'nung’s tense shoulder. “I know it hurts. I miss him, too. You can't keep pretending like he's here.”
Ao'nung shrugged Lo'ak off and frowned. He was lost and disoriented, untrusting of the assumed fabulist. He wasn’t dissembling, contrary to what seemed to be prevalent speculations. It was as if he were the cricket in a transparent jar, capable of witnessing everything, but the noises around him were muffled and shrouded away. Only the vaguest of his own pleas kept him from falling into the endless abyss of silence. Nothing is more robust than a beating heart, and Ao’nung was sure his was true.
"My chest kinda hurts. My heart," Neteyam’s hand hovered over his thorax, cutting through Ao’nung’s trail of thoughts like a knife. That was peculiar and wasn't the first time Neteyam had complained about chest pains.
“Neteyam? Where’d you go?” Ao’nung called out. They were taking a nonchalant stroll through a trail complete with perpetual and thriving trees. The descending sun cast sunlight beams reaching out in coils and tendrils, gliding over all the life it watches with purpose. In a fleeting moment, Neteyam’s ephemeral presence diminished, leaving Ao’nung in solitude.
Or, he thought it was solitude.
Whispers resounded his name, soft and good-for-nothing praises and cynical laughter, coming from nowhere yet universally ubiquitous simultaneously. Similar to a cornered animal, he wasn't sure where the predatory sirens prowled in the trees, the leaves, and the air he breathed.
A striking noise—a gunshot—sent the ravens who once took solace in the trees to flee out into the open sky. Ao’nung’s breath hitched, and his face paled.
“Neteyam?” the boy repeated, this time more frantic. Twists and turns of the plethora of trees as they seemed to cave and merge together. A hefty fog settled, dulling the vibrant hues of colors. His breaths came out as transient and concise as he ran through the maze of eternal life.
Panic, which had once been a faint buzz in the back of his mind, now played as a loud and discorded symphony. Violent violins' galvanized shrieks pierced the atmosphere. A whimper tore at his throat as his head spun.
Ao'nung's chest hurt—he was breathing fast. Really fast. Like he was submerged underwater, the salty tears in his eyes only further added to the sensation.
Tears? When did he start crying, and why can't he stop?
It hurt; he was drowning. His hands refused to stop shaking. He wasn't cold…
I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die.
Ao'nung wasn't sure why death scared him so much. Death felt familiar in a way that he couldn't place…
He couldn't breathe.
“Neteyam!?” Ao'nung choked out, mind fuzzy. He stumbled over a tree root.
Ao'nung's heart froze; shivers crawled up his spine. Fear was like the icicles of winter that had arrived too soon, leaving him petrified.
Neteyam was in front of him, clutching his bloodied chest—an extensive, gaping hole, in and out of the body. Flesh lacerated and torn, exposing ivory-white bones inside. In Neteyam’s trembling hands appeared to be a still and slimy heart that threatened to slip insecurely. His nervous system was like confetti streamers, spilling out but still attached—it’s the only thing stopping the heart from escaping Neteyam’s grasp entirely.
Ao'nung was overwhelmed with the urge to vomit, his throat burning.
Crimson red was spewing out of Neteyam's parted and stained mouth as he choked on silent screams.
Ao'nung backed away instinctively, hitting a tree hard.
Ao'nung scooted closer, straightening his back; his brows furrowed in perplexity. He wasn't sure what was wrong. He gingerly rested his large hand over the thin cloth cladding Neteyam's chest. The raven’s sewn-over button eyes bore into Ao’nung’s soul, holding more emotions than Neteyam’s.
No heartbeat.
…What?
🙞⚘♡⚘🙜
"Tonowari, we can't keep doing this," Ronal asserted worriedly in their room. Her husband sighed heavily and put a large hand to his intricately tattooed forehead, unsure how to continue. Ao'nung had been going out with Neteyam more and more often. The lights in their baby-blue-colored room flickered momentarily. They did need to replace the bulbs, Tonowari thought in the back of his mind; it wouldn’t be pleasant to suddenly find themselves in a pitch-black dark room.
There was a faint and diminishing soundtrack of Ao’nung speaking on the phone in the other room. Tonowari’s heart stayed heavy; He didn’t know how to tell his son that the phone was dead and there was no life on the other side.
“I know…it's been months,” Tonowari's voice drifted off. Ao'nung hadn't been acting… normally… since Neteyam's premature departure from life. He was agonized, as it was in his knowledge of how close the two boys were in the past. The father shifted on his feet, mind meandering through the fields of anxious apprehension. He was cautious of the beautiful, ghost-like roses and their hidden thorns.
Ronal seemed to perceive Tonowai’s wariness and laboriously sighed. All the signs pointed directly to the unembellished certitude. She had witnessed this behavior in some of her patients at the hospital she worked at. Grief causes the puppeteers in the Daedalian human psyche to tug on heartstrings with the help of denial.
Eywa, give her strength.
The record ceased to a halt, going unnoticed by the other song.
“We need to tell him,” The woman decided firmly. Her husband grimaced, knowing that he had to comply. For Ao'nung's sake. For their whole family’s sake, actually.
“I don't know how. He seems so happy now. Is it our place to rob him of that?” Tonowari questioned, grappling with his moral dilemma.
Ronal weighed her options, choosing her words carefully. “We’re opening his eyes,”
The couple was unaware of their only son listening to them from the other side of the slightly-opened door. Vast, blue eyes like the sea, pupils as pin drops as reality shone light over his crestfallen state. Puzzle pieces in a complex, hurting mind.
Neteyam doesn't exist.
Not anymore.