Work Text:
It wasn't completely silent. The sound of cars passing by, definitely going over the speed limit occasionally briskly passed my ears. Street lights shining down and casting warmth to concrete. Buildings lined the other side of the street. The green and yellow lights filling only some windows. They probably didn't think about how everyone else was shivering outside. If they did they only offered their sympathies. Nothing more.
"Bitter again?" His voice hardly cut through. Muffled through my ears.
"It's valid this time." Shame. I was being mad at people with middle class privilege again. I wasn't wrong for such things though. Not this time.
"How so?" He already knew.
"It just is." All I could offer was a shrug. I couldn't put it into words. Even if I did I wouldn't want it to come out of my mouth. He was everything but sincerely empathetic. He sighed and giggled to himself. What a childish laugh he had.
"Are you mad at me?"
"You know what? Yeah. Yes I am." Turned my head to look at him and it was the smile I was expecting to be there. "Your love can only be given with half ass giggles. You don't even understand what empathy feels like! You're a weirdo." Of course nothing in his face changed.
"You keep saying that." He put his hands in his coat pockets. "Is my lack of empathy a significant reason of incrimination?"
"Do you think it's not?"
"Certainly not the worst thing about me."
"I hate you." It was the first thing that came to my mind. The very first thing. Neither of us was expecting it but I didn't regret it. He stiffened and the smile dropped. Lowering his head to look at the ground. "Don't act like you care about my thoughts on you." Why was I making it worse?
"I mean...yeah." I couldn't tell if he actually felt bad or if he just wasn't making any expression. The light above only made him seem more important than he was. He was---by no means---someone anyone would be interested in outside of some sort of lab.
"I saw a post about how people with higher IQs tend to have looser morals." He started again. "That's me."
I could only scoff at such a statement. "You think you're smart?" He seemed serious. "Do you think you're actually smart or do you just have looser morals?" Already knew the answer.
"It isn't hard to be smarter than everyone in this day and age. But I know I'm on level with smarter people no matter what the average IQ would be over the years."
"What morals are you lose in Einstein?"
"All of them, probably."
"You're ridiculous! You don't even know proper anything etiquette and you dare say you're a genius?? You're just an ass!!"
"Sure I lack common sense and knowledge of social rules...but I got everything else."
"You're just schizophrenic."
"It doesn't make me stupid!" He furrowed his brows and crinkled his nose. A familiar burrowing in my chest.
"It doesn't make you stupid it makes you insufferable." Why was I making it worse? Mechanical digging at my heart. "You're not a genius! You don't even know what the world is outside your room. You're a stereotype!" Why was I making it worse?
"I know I'm not perfect but that doesn't make me less than! All lives have value don't they?! Why is my value different? I haven't hurt anyone and I want people to feel safe around me!!" He continued to go on, usually he shuts his mouth by now, "I know the performance behind posts and I know my lack of performance makes me hard to swallow! But I don't want to be like any of you! I've performed for all of you enough!! I don't want to anymore!"
"You're---"
"I'm performing right now! I'm not mad! I stopped being offended a while ago once I realized we are both right and wrong." All I could do was stare at him. He groaned, paced in a circle before looking back at me.
"Wh---"
"I'm so disgustingly used to putting on a show I just do it automatically." He let out a shaky sigh and put his head in his hands. Was this gesture some show too? How much of everything was something authentic?
"Do you actually feel bad?"
"I never feel that bad."
"Right. How could I forget?" I thought the sarcasm was recognizable.
"You didn't." Took his head out of his hands and kicked at the ground. His falling apart, dirty, once back now dark grey Converse. Surprised they didn't disintegrate when they scraped the concrete.
"Same time tomorrow?"
He was already walking away, "Yeah." Muffled sound of broken converse scraping the concrete. Hardly picked his feet up when walking. You'd think someone with no income would be more careful with their things.
"I uhm---"
"Please stop talking. I want to go home."