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He was hypnotising.
Like a work of art.
You found yourself fascinated by him and how he functioned. It sounded cliche you knew but you weren't talking about a human. Humans were interesting sure, but his lack of skin, his network of dovetails, intricate bones and metacarpals always captured your interest.
You supposed that wasn’t strange though. Being an artist makes you interested in people. You watched people. You saw their quirks and, based on that you were very perceptive. You supposed that was why you had become friends in the first place. That and your disinterest in his flirting. You'd known enough playboys trying to get lucky with your friends. Whilst you'd never been the one they'd flirted with you'd seen all those tricks in play. You couldn't say you were sad about the lack of attention though. You simply had no interest in that kind of attention. So you were able to see through his games which you realised quickly he used to distract and deflect attention from him. When you had first seen him and his brother you’d noticed something off in his posture. Even when he tried to play it cool, there was just something, a little bit wrong. His actions were often defensive, his posture closed off, and you rarely saw him without a cigarette in his hand. Monster cigarettes apparently functioned differently to human ones. Human cigarettes whilst being bad for humans were also bad for monsters. It broke down their magic. Or so he said. The monster ones were cleaner and gave off sweet smelling smoke. Thus cigarettes and smoking had become a more common habit, although some humans preferred to stick to their cigarettes and avoid monster products. It was a silly thought really as monsters had brought man technologic advancements with them. That was part of what made the government so accepting to monsters. That they lived off of the mutual benefits supplied to them by the monsters.
Once he realised you had no ulterior motive in talking to him every day, which you did, once he noticed you drawing one day, the two of you had become fast friends, talking about anything and everything. That didn't mean you told each other everything though, he still held secrets from you because he knew you wouldn't push it. He usually told you anyway, and if it was that important it probably wasn't any of you business. Besides, as he once told you "People like a bit of mystery. It's attractive." Right now the two of you were at the beach, despite it being the middle of November. He loved to be outside, the seasons, the sky, the wind, all so refreshingly new to him that he always wanted to go sit outside, or walk outside or do something new, a thing you thoroughly encouraged as it seemed to relax him and he seemed younger when he did so. He was 21 he explained to you and this surprised you. You were 19 but he had always seemed as though he must be older to you. His stoic nature and world weary attitude were what made you think this, you supposed. It was overcast, a faint rumbling in the air, a storm was brewing. You could always tell when you were with him, because the ozone in the air and the pressure from the storm always made his magic play up.
He was taller than you. Standing he would be around 6’4. He told you once, that monsters had gotten taller once they had reached the surface, the gravity was less on their magic their and so they had all grown a little. You supposed that made sense as far as magical creatures went. Although, he claimed he was short in the world of monsters. As you thought about it, he was one of the shortest that you had met, but he had a confidence to him that didn’t come with height. An aura that could infect those around him. You noticed a similar thing around his brother, an infectious enthusiasm for everything, you were always excited when he was. But then, his bad mood could affect the people around him, penetrating the air like a knife. It was useful knowing when to ask questions and when to just offer him some jokes and physical contact.
He had slender bones as you would expect, but they were thicker than that of a human. Bulkier. You had once compared them, and his phalanges were only slightly thinner than your own fingers. The weight spread out across his taller build made his proportions more similar to a human. Although his skull was rounder than that of a human. His bones were whiter than those of a human skeleton, they were clean and very white, not the off white, yellow- brown that human bones tended to go. They were difficult to describe, as you could tell they were skeletons, however their bone acted a lot like facial muscles allowing them to twist their faces to show expressions. He usually had a small smirk on his face, although he wasn’t a huge smiler. He was the stoniest faced person you knew.
His clothes were slightly too baggy on him, often resulting in a rumpled look which portrayed him as a character who didn’t care much about his appearance, but also portrayed him as the more laid back character he was. He wore a thick white turtleneck, which you appreciated if you ever rested your head against him of hugged him as it was warm and soft, and masked his bones quite well. His bones were softer than you expected but they were still hard enough to hurt if they were at the wrong angle. It also made him look taller which he loved. The sleeves of it ended at the wrist but he always rolled them up to his elbow joint, where the trochlea and coronoid met. When you asked him why he just shrugged and said “It makes me look cooler.”
Nerd. He also had a coat which was black and lined with artificial white fur at the hood. The sleeves ended just above the rolls of the turtleneck, and had a red circle on the arm. Inside the circle was a black silhouette of some kind of skull. When you asked him what it was he merely shrugged and gave you an offhand “Dunno. Looks cool though.”
The jacket itself ended just under where his ribs would be, you supposed, maybe a bit lower. It was lined with red inside and never done up, although he would sometimes undo it and sling it over his shoulder. He wore skinny jeans, although they weren’t all that skinny on him, but fit pretty well, only hanging loosely around his hips due to a lack of flesh to hold them on, and slightly baggy around the knees as well. The belt around his hips was oversized and had a huge buckle, it was somewhat flashy and you supposed he liked that. The ends of his jeans were tucked into a pair of black snow boots, which he rarely laced up, and true to his style with artificial fur. You assumed they were never done up due to his laziness. You also assumed this meant he tripped a lot, which would explain the two cracks on his skull. One fractured upwards from his right eye whilst the other climbed his skull down until it met his mouth.
He turned his head to you and you felt a familiar tug in your soul as you met his hooded yellow eye, cigarette in mouth, the smoke curling up the side of his face into the sky, where it was whisked away by the sea breeze. The two of you gazed at each other. Silent. Until he broke your gaze, as always. You couldn't deny to yourself you affections had grown since you met him. But even knowing him as well as you did he was a mystery to you. You had no idea how he would react and no one else knew him, not really. They all saw what he wanted them to see.
Maybe one day you would be able to tell him how you felt. But until then you were content to stay anonymous. His voyeur.