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Let us love ever! Let us love still!
When love goes, hope too takes flight.
Love is the cry of dawn on the hill,
Love is the hymn in the night;
What the waves say to the shore,
What the wind says, high above,
What the stars say to the clouds,
That ineffable cry: ‘Let us love!’
Love makes us live, dream, believe,
Emits, to warm hearts in distress,
A ray that is brighter than glory,
A flame that is called happiness!
Love! Whether praised or blamed,
Great hearts embrace love always,
So, join to your youthful form,
The soul of your youthful days.
Love! And so, enchant the hours,
That in your lovely eyes one sees
That mysterious smile that hides
The pleasures within that please!
[...]
Conserve in your heart, free of fear,
Though you may suffer and sigh,
The flame that cannot be quenched,
And the flower that cannot die!
Victor Hugo, Let Us Love ever! Let Us Love Still!, translated by A. S. Kline
Qifrey and Olruggio got into a fight with each other, the day they met. Qifrey came home that day with his lips bruised and one eye flashing with anger, Beldaruit had smiled. “You finally made a friend," he had said fondly, because for the first time, Qifrey had let another kid his age invade his life, even for a few moments and punches.
Beldaruit had been right, of course. They competed over coloured pencils, sports, books, and before they had realized it, they were becoming best friends, skipping together their classes to explore the nearby woods, playing near the river, and inviting each other to their homes to watch cartoons while eating bowls of cereal. Qifrey didn’t even have to notify Beldaruit in advance at some point; the man would just prepare a snack for Olruggio without a word.
They grew up, intertwined, so close that sometime, their individuality would blend. People referred to them as a pair, and never expected to see one without the other at his side. Opposites attract, as the adage warns, and it would be pointless to deny how it obviously applied to them as well. Olruggio was warm where Qifrey was cold and frigid; all bright smiles where it took months for Beldaruit to catch a laugh from Qirey; so easy going and brilliant where Qifrey barely knew how to hold a stare. But it hardly mattered, when Olruggio was taking his hand to bring him to his favourite poppy field, and they would stay there for hours, filling their sketchbooks with watercoloured attempts at recreating the landscape, coming home when dusk met the night, shoes muddy, flower crowns in their hair, Olruggio’s parents worried, and Beldaruit looking at them with that same fond smile.
Qifrey didn’t have a single memory of his life that wasn't shaped by Olruggio’s presence. They walked to school together, sat together, read the same book, spent afternoons splayed in Qifrey’s room, doing homework, or picking a book together, each taking turns to read out loud a sentence. They discovered alongside literature, starting with Grimm's tales, then Andersen’s, then Perrault’s. Dreaming and drawing together about magical spells, sorceresses, enchanted jewelries, royal balls, and scary monsters. When the weather was mild, Beldaruit would sometimes bring them home-made cinnamon rolls in the garden, while the both of them would just lay in the grass, observing the cloud’s shapes.
Years didn’t alter their friendship. They continued walking together to middle school, then high school, doing the same club activities, sitting together in classes. They kept their habits of drawing. Qifrey’s notebook’s margins were covered with all the wonders Olruggio had shown him: sunsets, flowers, fallen leaves, starry nights. He often would get reprimanded by his teachers, but that didn’t stop him from being top of his class, alongside Olruggio.
Things didn’t change for them, but they changed. They became taller, their faces thinner, their voices deeper. Qifrey sometimes hardly recognized himself, when he walked past a mirror (he had traded his bangs for a pair of glasses, one lens opaque, and started to wear oversized clothes: wide white blouses, black ties, and long skirts). Their steps were getting longer; distances that seemed so vast as children became idle strolls. They grew up, but never left each other’s side.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Qifrey fell unequivocally in love with his best friend before he even turned twenty.
It didn’t start at a specific moment, day or year. Rather, it was the result of joint experiences, watered down by the years. Falling in love was a rather uneventful occurrence. It drifted in slowly, quietly, until one day you look back and realize you can't go on without holding your beloved’s hand. Qifrey experienced it first hand.
Teen movies portrayed the high school prom as a life-changing event, but in Qifrey’s opinion, it was really just a boring party. And without alcohol (the teachers in charge made sure of that, though he was almost certain he’d seen a few bottles pass between some giggly teenagers). An extra-boring party then. Up against the wall, with his cup of ice tea, Qifrey was starting to regret his decision to come. He had hesitated all along; he didn’t have any memory in high school he kept looking back to with a sentimental heart. He didn’t make any friends there either, and his teachers barely tolerated his attitude (except for this nice art teacher to whom Qifrey made sure to give a box of chocolates at the end of the year). Maybe he should have taken Beldaruit’s suggestion, and stayed home, watching with him a rom-com they would have pretended to hate while secretly enjoying it.
He knew why he had decided to come at the end though. For his best friend, who was currently swaying in front of him with a group of people whose faces he barely recognized, much less their names. How Olruggio managed to form so many cordial relations with half the school while still spending most of his time with Qifrey remained a mystery to the white-haired boy.
(Just a few hours ago, they were in Qifrey’s bathroom. Olruggio was bleaching his hair as he usually did, and sitting beneath him, Qifrey had observed him. Olruggio’s face was full of teenage blemishes. The fingers holding strands of Qifrey's hair were calloused from years of drawing and playing with fire (literally, as he insisted on lighting the campfires every time they went camping). There was swollen skin around his bitten nails. He was so perfectly human in a way Qifrey felt he could never achieve.
Qifrey’s hands had gripped the edge of the bathtub. Sometimes Olruggio was so bright that Qifrey couldn’t look him in the eye, and the stink of chemicals hadn’t been the only cause of his uneasiness. Being so close to a warm, beating heart was too much for him. Their thighs had brushed. Sweat rolled down Qifrey’s back. Olruggio hadn’t even asked, and yet, Qifrey had agreed to accompany him to the prom.)
As the needle of the clock dangerously approached midnight, Olruggio came back to him. He was wearing a wide smile, and was all sweaty from dancing for two hours straight. He laid his forehead against the wall and groaned through his grin.
“I’m absolutely exhausted.”
“Yeah, I gathered,” answered Qifrey, taking a final sip of his iced tea.
“M’sorry I left you all alone,” Olruggio said, his voice half muffled by the wall.
“Nah, don’t be. It was very entertaining to watch the crowd from my point of view,” he laughed while crushing his empty paper cup in his fist.
The gymnasium was emptying by the minute; the teachers wanted everyone out before midnight.
“Hey,” Olruggio whispered with a conspiratorial look that made his face look hilariously intense. Qifrey bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Look what I snatched.”
He opened his coat to show a little bottle of alcohol (vodka, judging by its transparency). Qifrey smiled. They escaped the gymnasium with the rest of the students, and instead of going to the after-party organized by one of Olruggio’s many acquaintances, they climbed the fence of a nearby park.
And that was how they ended up laying in damp grass, looking at the sky and searching for invisible stars, far, far away from everyone. Just the two of them, isolated.
“It feels so cliché, Qifrey,” laughed and laughed and laughed Olruggio. “Us, under the stars, on our last day as high school students.”
“You're drunk, Olly,” whispered Qifrey.
His friend simply laughed more quietly. “Big news, wow. Aren’t we supposed to rethink the world while we’re drunk? Isn’t that what adults do? Tell me, Qifrey. Let’s talk about life.”
“What is there to say about life other than it deeply sucks,” chucked Qifrey.
Olruggio looked at him weirdly. “You don’t mean that.”
“What do you mean? Life does suck.”
“Not that. That's not merely what there is to it. That’s not what you think. I know you, Qifrey.”
“Ok ok. Then I guess that life is about love.”
“Passion.”
“Reason.”
“Art.”
They went silent for a second.
“Art.”
They smiled at each other. They remembered that not long ago (10 years ago, but it seemed so close and they were still children after all), they remembered that 10 years ago, they met across drawings and coloured pencils, and that art never really left their lives.
“We live for art.” I live for you.
“What is art anyway?”
“The implementation of an ideal.”
“A mimesis. An attempt to restore the perfection of nature.”
“Now you're just quoting Aristotle.”
“But please, tell me something Aristotle didn’t say if it bothers you this much.”
He thought for a few seconds.
“Art is something that does not have a purpose. And it is sorely because of its uselessness that it is essential.”
“You really think so? Utilitarianism made us think the contrary, but really, does it not produce anything? Do I not have lived a thousand lives without ever leaving my library? Do I not see the world differently because of it?”
A warm chuckle. That was how Olruggio usually sounded, when he was with him. It made Qifrey feel something fuzzy in his stomach.
“Oscar Wilde?”
“Oscar Wilde. ‘At present, people see fogs, not because there are fogs, but because poets and painters have taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects. There may have been fogs for centuries in London. I dare say there were. But no one saw them, and so we do not know anything about them. They did not exist till Art had invented them.’ Art shapes the world the same way we shape our landscapes. I think that even Art precedes us. We’re viewing things through its lens. Would we all universally find sunsets pretty or flowers beautiful, were we not taught by Art their aesthetic appeal? Do we truly decide what we find beautiful?”
“I think so, to some extent.”
“Really? Would you have found a corpse beautiful, were it not for Baudelaire?”
“Qifrey. A corpse is disgusting and Baudelaire is just a weirdo.”
They laughed. Then stayed silent. Then:
“You know what Hannah Arendt said about art?”
“Please enlighten me.”
“In contrast to ephemeral work, art is eternal. Perennial. Art is not used or consumed. It remains intact. By extension, it is therefore eternal.”
“Debatable, but I guess the core of the idea is right.”
“Qifrey. I want us to paint tonight. I want to be eternal with you, and I want the memory of us to subsist.”
Qifrey smiled, and smiled and smiled as he answered:
“I think we want the same thing.”
Qifrey reached eighteen at the end of the year, when fall was slowly beginning to fade into winter, a couple of months after Olruggio. They celebrated it quietly, only the two of them, blowing a single candle on a cake baked together. They gifted each other matching bracelets, fountain pens, gouache tubes, books and flowers. It was absolutely perfect.
The first decision they made as newly grown adults was planning a road trip for the summer, after the school year.
“Listen, Qifrey. Just the two of us, in my dad’s old car, sleeping under the stars, visiting the country, painting ruins and old castles, starving some nights because we didn’t manage our budget, and being together for a whole month.”
Of course, Qifrey had agreed.
But before the summer came college. They had applied to the same one, obviously, and they didn’t even question if they would share a flat. As Beldaruit kindly put it, they had practically been living together already all these years, given that he saw Olruggio as much as Qifrey these past few years. He wasn’t exactly wrong.
The apartment they rented was close to the college, less than a 20 minutes walk, clean and big enough to fit both them and their dreams. They had been wary to decorate it, at first, unsure how to navigate around these intimidating white walls and immaculate furniture. But Qifrey started to leave some colourful sticky notes on the fridge and the door, leaving messages to Olruggio (‘will come home late – group project.’ ; ‘don’t forget your assignment’ ‘grocery shopping this weekend. we DESPERATELY need a new sponge. and vegetables.’), and Olruggio started to impulsively sketch a waterlily on the wall of the living room, one evening, and to paint it the morning after, and then Qifrey added a cute drawing of a frog, and they kept adding and adding things to their mural, and they started to go to the flea market, and came back with art nouveau lamps and new stools, and they started hanging pictures of them, and suddenly, this apartment felt like their home. A home they built together. A home shaped by them.
Qifrey loved it.
Classes were fine. Qifrey blended in the back of the lecture hall, went home, painted a little, waited for Olruggio while cooking their dinner, engaged in an intellectual debate with him while eating, talking about their days as they washed the dishes, playfully teasing each other on the couch, saying good night through the paper thin wall that separated their two bedrooms.
Life was great. Their first year in college was honestly one of the best Qifrey had ever spent in his whole life. During the summer holidays, they came back to their hometown, returning to the lands and mountains that saw them grow, returning to houses and trees and fields of flowers that hadn’t changed an inch in their absence.
And then came the planning for their trip.
Beldaruit was fretting over every single detail, even though he tried to conceal it cleverly.
“I bought too many painkillers, last time I went to the pharmacy,” he would say while dropping a few boxes in Qifrey’s opened suitcase.
Or: “I found my old map from when I was your age. You know, back in my days, we didn’t rely on unreliable technology, and we certainly didn’t have your evolved phones. You should bring it, you know, as a little token from your old master.”
Or even: “How long has it been since we went shopping together? Don’t you need some new clothes?”
Usually, Qifrey would have felt annoyed by these antics. But he was welcoming these ones with a warm smile. Beldaruit and him absolutely did not know how to communicate their affection, and this was probably the closest they would be able to express it.
Olruggio noticed the concern in Beldaruit’s face one evening when he was eating with them (because of course he did, when had he not been able to read someone), and gave the man a bright smile.
“Don't worry Beldaruit, I’ll keep Qifrey safe, and we’ll call you every day.”
Beldaruit's features softened a bit.
“Maybe not everyday, you need to enjoy your time together boys. But I'll gladly accept a message, just to know you're both well fed and alright.”
Qifrey wilted a bit. Olruggio had managed to ease Beldaruit so easily (he was a genius, after all. He understood what people expected of him, be it at school or in real life. Growing up, adults always trusted him, because he knew how to press the right buttons, all the contrary to Qifrey, always awkward and never knowing what to say). Not for the first time, Qifrey wondered if Beldaruit wouldn't have been happier if he had taken in another child, different from Qifrey, a child who wasn’t afraid to voice his thoughts and knew how to respond to Beldaruit's love. But he didn’t let those thoughts linger. He grabbed a spoonful of his tomato gazpacho, and tried to forget about it.
They left early in the morning, before dawn. Qifry was the first driver, while Olruggio caught up on his sleep schedule in the passenger seat. Qifrey rarely really slept more than 5 hours per night anyway.
They hadn’t planned a clear itinerary. They had made a vague list of places they wanted to visit, but didn’t decide on the order, and didn’t even trace the routes they would use. Let’s ride and see where the roads take us, Qifrey, had said Olruggio.
But Qifrey was more timorous than his friend, and decided that their first stop will be to a medieval city, only a three hours drive from their hometown. They actually already went there a few years ago, when they were still middle-schoolers. Beldaruit was still healthy enough to take them on trips during the weekends, if he managed his legs enough. They had spent the day sketching the ramparts, eating in a nice restaurant in the evening, and spending all their savings in the souvenir shops. Qifrey still wore the blue bracelet Olruggio had gifted him that day, even if the twine was getting thinner and thinner each year.
Olruggio stirred gently in his sleep while the car reached the border of the city. Qifrey turned his head during a red light, and smiled fondly. When the light turned green, he abruptly moved forward the car, causing the man to wake up instantly, eyes wide.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” sing-songed Qifrey while keeping his eyes on the road. Olruggio groaned. “We’re almost there.”
Qifrey saw him rubbing his eyes in the rearview mirror, and chuckled. Olruggio straightened his back, and yawned before asking: “So? What’s our first stop?”
Qifrey answered as he reached for the handbrake. “You don’t remember?”
They parked in an almost empty parking lot, and Olruggio’s eyes lightened up with recognition.
“Beldaruit brought us here when we were twelve.”
“Correct.”
Olruggio smiled like a child on Christmas Day. He immediately opened the door, barely giving Qifrey time to grab his pouch and remove the keys from the ignition. He grabbed his arm, all excited, bouncing on his feet.
“Come on, come on. Do you remember the fortress we visited last time? The gate was gorgeous, we have to go please.”
And Qifrey let his best friend lead him through the maze of the city, whirling around the market where they bought their breakfast, and narrow streets where they run like children, searching for all the shadows the city could provide. Despite how early it was, the sun burned both the back of their necks. They ended up eating on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a plaza, watching as the cafés around them slowly opened up.
Qifrey bit the last quarter of his peach, sweet juice running the long of his arm, and wiped his mouth before voicing his thoughts:
“Maybe we can spend the last chunk of the morning visiting the fortress, eat our lunch in the ramparts, then spend the afternoon filling the first pages of our sketchbook?”
They both bought a new one, for the occasion. Qifrey’s had a kraft cover, and he decorated it with a few Cinnamoroll stickers, while Olruggio’s was black, where he painted a few sunflowers.
“All good for me,” nodded Olruggio.
They did so for the rest of the day. They found a park near the castle, and laying in the grass, their legs intertwined, Qifrey sketched the city, the little streets and colourful houses, the passers-by, and, when Olruggio was too focused on his own work, he drew the profile of his best friend, his furrowed browns and his dark eyes. Qifrey glanced at Olruggio’s pages. They were filled with the same drawing, again and again, of the castle and its ramparts. Qifrey raised an eyebrow. He knew that Olruggio kept a fond memory of this place, but he still wasn’t expecting such a devoted attachment.
“Hey! You’re spying on me!” exclaimed Olruggio when Qifrey’s head touched his shoulder (he was sketching the outline of the main tower of the castle in such a skillful way that Qifrey had to approach).
“You’re imagining things,” responded Qifrey while rolling his eyes. He got up, stretched his back and gathered his tools in his pouch, which he knotted around his waist with a rope. “Let’s find a place to eat.”
“You’re not disappointed in my choice, right? The fact that I brought us to a place we already visited,” asked Qifrey suddenly, twitching his hands in his back.
Olruggio turned his head towards him and raised an eyebrow. Qifrey curled his head in the collar of his blouse and hid his mouth in his olive roll, hoping that his flushed cheeks weren’t visible in the dark.
A few hours ago, they had eaten in a place nearby, and were about to join the car when they heard some music. Following the sound, they discovered a popular dance event where people dressed in traditional costumes were dancing and holding hands. Enchanted, they had stayed to watch them, clapping their hands in rhythm with the mass that was slowly forming around the dancers. The atmosphere was so calm and joyful that they had decided to linger a bit longer, enjoying the cool temperature of the night and the food stands selling local specialties. They had just bought some olive bread when Qifrey asked his question.
Olruggio hummed before answering.
"Humans are both neophile and neophobic. We loathe novelty while craving it. This place was the best starting point we could have chosen: a bridge between our childhood memories and the adults we’re becoming. We returned to the comfort of a familiar place, but saw it through new eyes, no longer viewing the world through a childish lens."
Qifrey chuckled, relieved.
“What a convoluted way of saying ‘Thanks Qifrey for your wise and clever insight, you're amazing and I love you and did I say that you are absolutely clever?’”
“Thanks Qifrey, for your wise and clever insight, you’re amazing and I love you.”
Qifrey choked on his food.
“You didn’t have to sass me this way,” he groaned while coughing. Olruggio gave him an amused stare. Qifrey crushed his feet. Olruggio punched his arm. They laughed.
Then one of the dancers extended his hand to Qifrey, inviting him in the chain of dancers, and amused Olruggio pushed him into the circle. Qifrey glowed, but did accept the hand. Without even looking at him, he knew that Olruggio was filming him (and probably planning to send the video to Beldaruit). Whatever. He would have to find a way to avenge himself another day.
In the span of a week, they visited another two cities, plus a rocky island where they, in reality, spent all their time playing with the sheep grazing around.
Qifrey sent a few selfies to Beldaruit, about ten photos of landscapes he found pretty, two pictures of the sunrise he observed in the morning, while folding their laundry and preparing coffee (Olruggio always slept through the dawn and would whine if Qifrey didn’t capture it for him), one photo of a watercolour he was particularly proud of (some ruins they had found while searching for a campsite. It was probably an old shieling, with violets and ivy invading the old stones. Qifrey had found it beautiful), and about fifty photos of the sheep. Beldaruit reacted to all of them. He noted that one sheep (a bit of a loner with a funny expression) looked a lot like him. Qifrey hadn’t responded to that text, but he did show it to Olruggio, who found it so hilarious he laughed for two minutes straight.
The trip has been fantastic so far.
In his nightmare, he was drowning. He gasped, but he didn’t try to scream.
Qifrey didn’t dream often. When he did, the memories didn’t linger; only the cold sweat remained, leaving him to wake up breathing heavily.
Qifrey hated water. Nobody—himself included—knew why. It was simply a fact of his existence. The sky is blue, Olruggio and Qifrey are best friends, and Qifrey is afraid of water. He remembered reading a Victor Hugo novel once: “Il se sent enseveli à la fois par ces deux infinis, l'océan et le ciel : l'un est une tombe, l'autre est un linceul.” Something along those lines. The ocean, a tomb. The sky, a shroud. And Qifrey, in between, trying to relearn how to breathe.
He opened his eyes.
“I would say ‘good morning’, but it’s already 2pm, sooo…” intoned Olruggio, waving a hand in front of his eyes.
Qifrey blinked a few times, yawned and looked around. They were parked near a beach. It probably explained his nightmare. He remembered. They departed early this morning; Olruggio was on the wheel, and Qifrey had drifted into sleep before even realizing it.
“I’m hungry,” he said simply.
“I made you a sandwich. We should do groceries soon, we’re running short on supplies.”
Qifrey nodded while taking a bite of the sandwich. It was cloudy, Qifrey noticed distantly while eating.
“Is there a supermarket near?”
“I don’t know, there’s absolutely no network around here.”
Qifrey shrugged. “Okay. We’ll just explore the area to find one.”
He kept his eyes on the waves. He wondered how easily they could sweep him, if he approached them.
He finished his sandwich and brushed off the crumbs off his thighs.
“Want to walk on the beach?”
Olruggio stared at him in a strange manner.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” he answered while opening the door. “I want to find some shellfishs.”
Olruggio remained confused. His eyes never left Qifrey as he followed him out of the car.
Every night, they slept in their shared tent, often waking up with limbs tangled, one breath away from the other. But it had been raining for two days straight, and their tent was absolutely drenched, so they decided to rent a hotel room for the night.
They found one within their budget. It wasn’t large, but it had hot water, and Qifrey, who hadn’t bathed in a week, was pleased. He spent almost half an hour under the spray, scrubbing his body and soaking in the warmth.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he saw Olruggio laying on his stomach on the bed, engrossed in a drawing. Deciding not to bother him, Qifrey went to his own bed and searched his bag for his skincare products. As he did, he accidentally knocked his phone, which hit the floor with a loud thud.
Olruggio snapped out of his trance and urgently snapped his sketchbook shut.
“Oh. You’re back. I. Uh. I’ll go shower too.”
Qifrey raised an eyebrow. He had never seen Olruggio in this state. His best friend escaped the room quickly, under Qifrey's confused stare.
Whatever.
After applying his cream, Qifrey grabbed his phone, but the connection was weak, and he didn’t catch the WiFi password. . "Unreliable technology," as Beldaruit had put it. Speaking of the man, it gave him an idea. He searched his bag for a few minutes and finally found the old map. Maybe Beldaruit had been right after all.
He opened it delicately, careful not to rip the paper. They were near the seashore, so it wasn't hard to find; after only a few seconds, Qifrey found the name of the little town. He wanted to head back inland. Maybe they could find a nice forest? Or...
Qifrey’s gaze followed the path his finger traced on the map.
Or maybe they could stay in a plain. There were many cleared areas to choose from.
Satisfied, Qifrey folded the map and put it away in his bag. He was ready to start cooking dinner when he noticed his finger had started to bleed.
“Oh shit,” he muttered while licking the wound.
It was probably a paper cut. Qifrey remembered that Olruggio always kept tissues in the front pocket of his backpack, so he fetched one to wrap his finger.
Olruggio opened the door at that exact moment and froze. His gaze darted between Qifrey and the bed, looking horrified.
“Did you open it?”
“Open what?” asked Qifrey, turning around.
Oh. Olruggio’s sketchbook was just behind him.
“Of course I did not!” Qifrey cried indignantly.
Qifrey and Olruggio may share almost everything, but they respected each other’s privacy, and not snooping in the other’s sketchbook was a tacit law between them.
Olruggio's expression fell.
“Oh shit. Sorry Qifrey, I don’t know why I assumed-”
“It’s okay, don’t worry.”
Things were awkward for approximately thirty-three seconds, and then, as always, the air cleared. They didn’t know how to hold a grudge against one another.
“I was thinking of reheating tomato soup for tonight, any objections?”
Olruggio approved with a nod. “Perfect.”
Dinner went normally, but when they extinguished the lights, a tension formed between their two separate beds.
“Qifrey,” Olruggio said into the silence. Qifrey turned his head toward him, even though his friend couldn't see him in the dark. “Why did you go to the sea the other day? You loathe water.”
After his nightmare, when he had proposed to Olruggio to go on the beach, Qifrey had remained at the water's edge almost half an hour, motionless, observing the endless waves.
Qifrey sighed. “When I woke up that day, I had dreamt I was drowning.” Olruggio made a noncommittal sound. “Dreams often radiate from unconscious thoughts. I didn't realize how much my fear of water still affected me. I thought I was getting better. Remember when I was a child? I couldn't even touch the river we fished in. So… I guess I just wanted to prove to myself that I could endure the sea.”
Qifrey didn’t see it, but he heard Olruggio's nod. Since his friend didn’t say anything in return, Qifrey started to drift off.
“You’re not gonna ask me?” Olruggio said suddenly. “About my sketchbook?”
“No? You obviously don’t want to talk about it.”
“I was drawing you.”
The room stayed silent for a few moments.
“Okay?”
Qifrey didn’t understand. Olruggio had, over the years, drawn Qifrey hundreds of times. Qifrey himself always drew Olruggio. He knew his features by heart, could even replicate them in his sleep. He was his best friend, but also his only muse.
“I don’t mind, if that’s what you're worried about,” offered Qifrey, not knowing how to answer.
“Remember Aristotle’s theory of elements?””
Qifrey was even more confused. Why did they keep quoting Aristotle in their discussions…
“The Avatar type of shit? The world is composed of four elements: earth, air, fire and water?”
“Yes. Thales was convinced the world was governed by water. Because it is like humankind: subject to change. You know what Heraclitus wrote: 'No man ever steps in the same river twice.' We’re in perpetual movement, an elusive force that cannot be etched into eternity. What I'm trying to say, Qifrey, is that you’re like that element. I feel like you’re going to escape me someday. I feel like, no matter how close we are, you’ll end up disappearing..”
Oh. “Oh.”
“And since we began this trip, I’ve almost exclusively drawn you and you and you and you because I. I felt like I could. Fasten you. On the paper. For you to never leave. To always remember you at eighteen, right here by my side.”
“But what about the castle?” Qifrey asked dumbly.
“The…castle?”
Qifrey felt a flush rising to his cheeks.
“The castle you kept drawing when we were in the city…”
Olruggio laughed.
“Remember when we went there when we were twelve? We got lost, we couldn't find Beldaruit, and you held my hand all during the visit, too scared to let go of it, but too proud to admit it, so you made it seem like you were doing it to guide me through the crowd, even though you were behind me. It was so cute.”
Qifrey groaned, mortified. “I don’t see the connection.”
“That’s all it was, really. I had such a fond memory of that place that I wanted to draw every detail of it.”
They stayed silent. Then:
“You’re not gonna react? To what I said about…drawing you?”
Qifrey sighted. “I can try to promise I’ll never leave, but that’s pointless if you’re that scared. And I could try to say something else, but I don’t think I’m ready to put it into words, and I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it. So I'll just quote the Greeks, too. Epicurus didn’t believe the world was formed by gods for us. To him, the world was a coincidence; atoms crossing paths by chance. The fact that we live has no meaning. So… if everything is just a series of accidents... if me, breathing, alive, is a coincidence, and fate is just the indolent fall of atoms meeting each other and creating worlds... well. Out of all this multitude of possible worlds, we still managed to find each other against all odds. I think we’ll manage to stay together, too.”
A beat of silence.
“I think we’ll both settle for that for now.”
In the dark, Qifrey knew they had found each other's eyes.
As one year ago, they ended up laying in the grass, looking for the stars. Qifrey drew some forms in the air. He didn’t know any constellations, but liked to imagine some. He spotted Venus, and from there, he drew flowers and cats in the sky, looking at him from above.
“You like this place,” Olruggio said, and it wasn’t a question.
Qifrey hummed. “It’s wide and calm and there’s flowers and the stars are bright.”
They had barely driven an hour before finding this plain, and they had been here for two days. Qifrey wasn’t sure he wanted to ever leave.
“I think I want to live in a place like this one,” he said suddenly. “When I’ll grow up. Just a little cottage, far away from everyone. With a tiny vegetable garden, flowerbeds, and a chimney.”
He gulped, before slowly reaching for Olruggio’s hand.
“There will be space for you, too. You’ll have your own room for your research. And we could… continue living as we already do. Cooking dinner together, and debating and quoting old philosophers. Painting springs and falls, birds and flowers. Growing old, together. That would be nice.”
Olruggio squeezed his hand. Qifrey barely breathed.
“That would be nice,” repeated Olruggio with a strangled voice.
Maybe they did manage to paint that night, where they promised each other to be eternal together.