Chapter Text
It’s the same routine. Wake up, eat enough for them, take care of the library, and when it’s dinner time, it closes, and you go back to your room. It’s the same every day.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It makes it easier. Easier to forget about them, about everything. The repetition of the days makes it harder to tell the difference between them. So he stopped counting the days after a while, and living in bliss is more painless. It’s simpler that way, and it is! Granted, sometimes it is hard, of course it would be. He sometimes thinks the kids here make it harder, and sometimes they are a sort of escape from their standards of behavior.
Hunter sighs, staring up at the crappy ceiling on his crappy bed. Bold of him to call it his, just as it’s bold of him to want privacy in his room; he glances at the security camera in the top corner by the door.
The clock, he hasn’t yet seen, ticks and ticks. Calming sometimes and exasperating at others. Soon, he’ll leave. Or maybe not. It might be late, he might not have been sleeping for that long, or perhaps they don’t want him to leave just yet, or maybe he is impatient. It’s hard to tell. He counts the seconds.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, click. The door unlocks. Food is quickly shoved into the room, and the door closes immediately after. Thirty minutes left to go.
When they pass, the door once again opens. He sees the guard’s elbow peeking out from the frame, it’s still. They are always so stiff and stern. They know he will continue to behave, yet they never let their guard down. He supposes that is what they are supposed to do anyway. Guards are meant to guard, and they always blindly follow orders. He’s speaking from experience.
Hunter leaves the room in a very expected order, head facing forward, hands interlaced in front of him, and not making eye contact with the guard when they pass him to open the door to the library. At this point, he can go anywhere. As long as it’s in the library. He can not leave, and he will not leave. It wouldn’t have been very well behaved if he had tried to. Now, would it?
He walks by the entrance, the same doors that would be the exit too, to collect the books that were dropped off after their borrower had finished reading. Then he wanders around to put them back in their respective places. As he gets to putting away the last few books, a folded note falls to the ground.
“Can we talk? You know where to go. From R,” It reads.
Of course, he knows where to go. He goes to the same place every time he wishes to speak to someone in private. Usually, it would be hard to talk in secrecy, but it’s easier when you are well-behaved.
He peeks around a bookshelf to see the one who wrote the note walk in. A sixteen-year-old boy named Reginald. But nowadays, he is starting to let Hunter call him “Reggie,” a nickname he would only let his family and… close friends call him. Hunter doesn’t use it often, he doesn’t feel the need to.
He hides the note in a book and walks over to the back of the library. Hidden doors in bookshelves are always a classic common trope, and this would be his guilty pleasure if it weren’t for the fact that they are really that common. He has a vague remembrance of Luz telling him about one in the Bonesborough Library. But even the smallest things can somber a mood.
“Hello,” Hunter smiles, showing emotion isn’t easy anymore, at least not happy ones.
“Hey,” Reginald says, sitting down across from him, a small smile shows in return.
Hunter grabs a book on the shelf next to him. As he speaks, he swaps the note to the other text. “Anything in particular you want to talk about? Or did you just want to talk?”
“Just… talk, I guess,” he fidgets slightly.
Hunter pauses before he answers, only a small pause. A small pause just to think about what to say. He was, has been, the older one. He’s been the one who gives insight and advice to others seeking it. “Company is always good.”
It’s funny how that's all he really needed to say for Reginald to chuckle, “Yeah, of course. I’mma ignore the fact that we are how deep underground? And ignoring that you are meant to stay isolated and… umm, wait, was that too… brash of me?”
“M-maybe just a little? But it’s fine, I swear! It’s true, don’t be scared to speak the truth.” That was not what he was expecting. But it’s not much of a big deal. Reginald is right after all, Hunter is supposed to stay quiet; all he is meant to do is to take care of the library and the books in it. Operate it and help people look for a specific novel. This is not what he is meant to do, but he will still do it. If it is helping the children here, he will keep doing it.
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. Still, that wasn’t right of me to say something so insensitive…”
Hunter was never good at hiding his emotions, not from friends. His ears lowered, and a sad smile appeared. “I accept your apology. It’s not necessary, but I accept it.”
It was quiet for a while. Sitting in silence. Being in each other’s company is good enough. It pains him to say this, “I’ve… been gone for a while. It would be good if we left.” He doesn’t want to cut it short just yet, but they would get suspicious otherwise.
“Yeah, alright. See ya.”
“Goodbye.”
Hunter gets back to his desk with the guards none the wiser. He’s well-behaved after all, no need to think he isn’t. To them, he was helping someone look for a book or organizing a shelf or two. He would never go behind their back, he would never betray them, he knows better.
The library eventually closes. Not much has happened since Reggie visited. Life is empty and dark, and until someone comes in to brighten it, it stays stagnant. Same as how you need to fit the mold, how you need to keep doing what is expected.
When Hunter gets back to his room, he writes in his journal. Not mentioning the specifics of what happens today, and certainly not mentioning Reginald. No, if he even does as much as describe his personality, then there would be severe consequences… Now that he thinks about it, there’s not much to talk about. About how he regrets everything, how he misses his friends, how he just wants to die? They probably think he’s dead anyway…
He stares at the page. Nothing happened today, there’s nothing to write about, and he would rather not think about them. They cause too much pain just to think about. Hunter is a crybaby, he wipes a few tears away.
He walks to his bed and lies in it, softly sobbing. He’s all alone again; he’s always alone, lonely, and broken. Why must it always hurt? Why must he remember all of his life before? Why can’t he just… be over with it?!
His chest rises and falls, Hunter curled in a ball on his bed, crying about his death of freedom, person, and family. They were family to him, they really were. And it hurts to see them gone. He can’t talk to them ever again. He never will. Until he dies, whenever that happens, which it probably won’t so soon. He’s too good, well-behaved, to go just yet. They can’t lose someone as useful as that. No, never, ever. He’s too good. He’s just what they need. He’s too special. He’s too smart, though. He knows how to hide things. He knows how to lie and how to act under pressure. He’s too good, too well-behaved.