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In just a few weeks, it’ll have been a perfect year since Luca first walked upon the surface. That said, much has changed. His eyes have been opened to a whole new world of possibilities and new stressors have begun to weigh like heavy boulders upon his back. He’s even grown a handful of inches and has wrestled many times with his disobedient voice box. But even with all of this growth, Alberto still dwarfs him. And, he still waits for him in Giulia’s rickety old treehouse.
Luca lies upon his back with the covers pulled up to his chin when the window to the Marcovaldo siblings’ bedroom creaks open. The leaves rustle with the wood bending as Alberto crawls across the branch. Finally, he scoots onto the platform, and, oddly, he doesn’t say hello.
With only a grain of hesitance, Luca cranes his neck to view him. For some reason, he’s squinting, eyebrows twitching ever so slightly. This could be concentration, Luca thinks, but it can’t take that much focus to plop down another pillow, pick up a corner of the blanket (now shared), and get nice and cozy inside. Yet, he isn’t getting nice and cozy inside. Rather, he’s just sitting up with the blanket pooled around his thighs.
Luca arches a brow. “You alright?” he murmurs, wondering if Alberto’s mind is playing tricks on him again, telling him things that aren’t true—reminding him of things he’d rather forget.
After a moment, Alberto only nods. Then, with supreme deliberation, he lies down. He does not lie on his side, nor does he throw out an arm beneath Luca’s pillow for that ounce of extra weight and a couple of inches of extra cushion. He doesn’t even attempt to play footsie underneath the quilt. Rather, he just lies perfectly still on his back like a statue fallen over.
“...You sure?” Luca asks again. “You’ve been kind of off recently.” And, Alberto must know he’s not exaggerating. It took him nearly an hour to eat half a plate of trenette, he had barely talked Luca’s ear off about vespas, Portorosso, or his job with Massimo, and when they hugged at the train station, he hugged him with one arm from the side.
Despite all of this, Alberto disagrees, “‘M fine,” and shuts his eyes.
Luca stares at him, eyes as wide as the bright, full moon above them. His chest hurts slightly, like Pinchy Pessa just got a small nip of his heart between her tiny claws. Luca frowns, sorrowful. “I’m sorry.”
Alberto’s eyebrows scrunch. “You’re fine,” he mumbles, and it’s just so unlike him. Just a week ago, Alberto practically poured over how excited he was to see Luca again, but it really doesn’t seem that way. Frankly, he doesn’t seem that excited about anything at all.
———
The next day, Alberto was still acting weird, but Luca didn’t allow his own insecurities to muddle his vision. He took things at face value, and in doing so, came to many discoveries.
In the morning, he found that Alberto drank his espresso much more slowly than he or Giulia, savoring it for longer. At lunch, he noticed that Alberto didn’t have much trouble eating his cut fruit, but struggled greatly at biting, chewing, and swallowing his panino. In the afternoon, Alberto howled when Ercole ate dirt after tripping on an uneven plank on the dock, but immediately after, his eyes watered, gold, and his smile settled into a harsh grimace. After that, Alberto had not one, not two, but three scoops of gelato alla fragola, and instead of biting into it with his teeth, as he is wont to do, he licked them with his tongue. Throughout the day, he stayed cognizant, an active listener to all of Luca’s and Giulia’s stories of the school year. And, most importantly, right before dinner when he thought no one was looking, he dragged his fingers to the bridge of his nose, pressed down, and dragged out to his cheeks and down to his jaw.
And, that settled it for Luca: Alberto was experiencing growing pains.
—-—-—-
“So, basically, if you have one planet you’re pretty much fine, and are gonna experience similar seasons to what we have on Earth.” Luca pointed to a diagram of the rotation of the planet around the sun in the textbook splayed across his and Alberto’s lap. A dotted line marked the simple, circular path. Then, his finger dragged downward to another diagram, one with two stars and one planet with two different orbital paths displayed. “But if you have something like this,” Luca said, voice heightening, “You either have really long seasons divided into four different parts that are like mini seasons…or you’d have really, really harsh and longer seasons.”
“What happens if you have three?” asked Alberto.
Luca grinned. “There’s no telling.”
Alberto raised and dropped his eyebrows, tilting his head a little this way and that as if to say Go figure. At this, Luca laughed a little. He remembered he’d struggled with that answer in school, but Alberto took it so simply. Shutting the textbook and moving it over to the side, he supposed that’s just the way they were. Alberto’s always been the one to just go with the flow, and Luca could never even hope to stop the ceaseless downpour of curiosity and questions from his mouth.
Questions like “So, how are the snout-aches going?”
Alberto blinked at him, confused. “Huh?”
“You know, the pain in your face…” Luca gestured to his own nose, gracing it briefly with his fingertips and sharing a meaningful, knowing gaze with his friend. “...Because your snout is growing again?”
For a moment, Alberto just stared at him. His mouth hung open like a fish on a line, dazed and confused to be in the open air. For what felt like forever, they sat in perfect, uninterrupted silence as if they were sitting upon the moon, up in the black darkness of outer space, away from it all. Then, Alberto spluttered to life. “Is— Is that what that is?!” he shouts, lurching forward.
Luca immediately burst with giggles. That was the loudest and Alberto that Alberto had been the whole day.
Alberto’s hand smacked himself in the forehead as he nearly flung himself backwards upon the mattress. “Mamma—I thought I punched myself in my sleep!”
At this, Luca’s giggles grew to loud chuckles. He hugged himself as his chest began to cramp, his lungs nearly out of air.
Alberto started laughing too, despite his evident pain. “Or— or that all of my teeth were going to fall out,” he winced. “I was having actual nightmares about this stuff, amico.”
“See, I was wondering why you hadn’t mentioned it!” Luca cheered, hooking a leg over to get a better look down upon his friend. He was still wincing, little tears forming in the corners of his eyes, the corners of his mouth pinching a little higher than they ought, but he seemed genuinely happy, so relieved. “Most people brag about this sort of thing.”
“Brag?” Alberto repeated, incredulity as loud as a grand piano.
Luca shrugged. “It means you’re growing up.”
“Growing up is for losers.” Alberto got back up, propping himself up on his hands, spread out behind him.
Luca tilted his head. “They’re really that bad?” he asked, trying not to make his voice sound too pitiful.
But, Alberto bristled like a cat under the raindrops, anyway. “I mean, like,” he hesitates, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not unbearable. It’s just been a bit hard to eat or, like, do anything with my face.”
Luca already knew this. Still, he acted surprised, raising his eyebrows and bucking a little bit backward. “Oh wow, I’m sorry.”
Alberto shook his head, keeping his smile. “It’s fine—”
But, Luca already had another question knocking its way through his teeth: “Have you done anything to stop it?” He leaned forward.
Alberto leaned backwards. “Not…really?”
And then, Luca really was worried. Down underwater, young seafolk are typically given a lot of grace in this period. Eat less, talk shorter, and no one says anything because everyone understands.
Humans, however, have likely never thought of—let alone even heard of—this stage of development, and unless he’s visiting the Paguros (or the Paguros are visiting him) almost everyone Alberto ever talks to is humans. So, he just shrugs and tries to brush it off like it was only dust on his shoulder: “I’ve just been toughing it out, y’know? It’s really not that bad, anyway.”
But, Luca already knows Alberto well enough not to believe an ounce of that. He knows he doesn’t like to get caught slipping up—doesn’t like to get caught not knowing something he should. Nor is he super sensitive; he can fall from tens of feet up, hit several branches on the way down, land right on his face, and walk it off like nothing had even touched him. So if he’s hurting, he is really hurting.
But, again, Luca knew better than to pry. “Well, if it's really not that bad,” he says, putting his hands into his lap, “then we don’t have to get ice or medicine for it or anything, but would you at least like me to massage it for you?”
Alberto didn’t know what to say. “Whuh?”
Luca shrugged, averting his eyes to make the interaction seem more natural, though he could feel something in his chest squeeze once more, and he knew it wasn’t another bout of laughter. “My mom used to do it for me. It helped a lot, from what I remember.”
“Uh.” Alberto hesitated. He looked past Luca, to the bedroom door, and Luca understood what he was thinking. The door is shut, and water runs steadily on the other side of the wall. Giulia was taking her shower, and his father was cleaning up the kitchen. Their private time together had only just begun, so the risk of embarrassment was as null and void as the utility of a flashlight amidst a black hole. He sighed and fixed his pompadour, just nervy. “I guess so, then. Yeah. Knock yourself out.”
“Okay,” Luca said, readying himself. Even with their privacy, he was still a little surprised that Alberto actually agreed. Which is why, once he worked up the courage to actually reach out, he wasn’t very surprised at Alberto pulling away, slightly tensed.
Hm…
Luca reassessed the situation. They had plenty of time, but Alberto’s face didn’t look like it was only scrunched in pain. There was something else that was bothering him, causing his eyes to dart all over the room—everywhere except for Luca. Something else was causing his shoulders to hunch over but pull away. Something else was making this drag on for so long, and be so awkward in the meantime!
The position.
“You know what?” Luca leaned back, anticipatorily. “Why don’t we turn on some music, and then you sit on the floor and put your head in my lap?”
Alberto’s eyebrows twitched.
Luca elaborated: “Just to make it less weird.”
Alberto, thankfully, didn’t think about it for too long. “You’re the boss,” he said, cool as the sea breeze, before letting himself slip off the mattress and onto the floor with a slight thud.
Meanwhile, Luca stands up from the mattress, pads to the little red radio sitting upon his and Giulia’s nightstand, and turns it on. He listens to it for a few seconds, recognizing it as the pop station Giulia enjoys listening to throughout her morning deliveries. He cocks his head to his friend, sitting patiently upon the floor. “This station okay?”
Alberto winced. “Eh…switch it to 240.”
Luca turned the dial, listening to the static build up and up before pausing as the needle came to the right position. And, right as it settled, a high, melodic note whines, beautiful and well accompanied by strings and, soon, a rich, low voice. It wasn’t pop, nor is it rock, nor jazz, nor anything foreign, nor anything new. Luca stifles a little chuckle. Of course, he’d prefer to listen to opera. He’s just like his father.
Then, Luca returns to the bed and gets into position. He throws his legs over the side, and Alberto scoots backwards until Luca’s knees are nudging into his armpits. Wordlessly, Alberto lets his head relax backwards, into the little cushion of Luca’s lap, and closes his eyes.
From above and behind, Luca cupped Alberto’s face at his temples, moving his fingers lower until they were just below the ear. He pressed in, and immediately, Alberto flinched, hissing.
“Sorry!” Luca’s hands flew up. “I’ll warn you next time,” and he did.
His hands went back into position, and the next time he got ready to press down, he warned him beforehand. He watched Alberto tense up, and he watched him slowly unravel as he made small circles into the junction of his jaw. Beyond the skin and fat, he feels the rigidity of the cartilage plates, the thin slices folded over one another, stretching without being seen (at least, in this form). It was odd to feel that part of his friend. It almost felt like something that ought to be kept a secret, but that was absurd.
Luca shook the thought away, and moved his thumbs up to his temples, dragging, again, in slow, deliberate circles. And, he started telling Alberto a story about being a kid—being scolded for trying to run away when his mother just wanted to tend to him to make the process go by easier. He moved his thumbs to the bridge of his nose, pressing down and out, and he told Alberto about refusing to eat clams ever again after having it so much—too much—even though it was the only thing that he could eat without having to chew so much. Then, he moved his thumbs to the space just to the side of his nostrils, and he offered to explain what was going on to Massimo so that Alberto may save a little bit of dignity for himself and so that he’d know to focus more on soups for as long as this is going on.
Then, he found he hadn’t much else to say on the matter, so he just complimented him: “You know, I think it’s really neat that you genuinely like this stuff.” Luca nodded to the radio. “Some other people would find it pretentious, but I think it’s super cool.”
But, Alberto didn’t respond. Luca looked down at his friend, again, and he found that his eyes were resting halfway open and halfway clouded over with a milky white sheen. He wasn’t smiling, but his lips were parted slightly, just the smallest glimpse of his teeth shining through. They looked soft—soft as the plushy skin in Luca’s hands or even more so. And, beyond them, there was a slight rumble almost imperceivable to the human ear, whispering of relief and gratitude without much say of the mind.
Alberto was totally, completely, and utterly out of it, and Luca smiled.
Cu-u-u-ute.