Chapter Text
The sky felt heavier than usual, grey tones engulfed the parts where pink and yellow used to blossom freely.
He let his mind fly away into the abyss, each flimsy step his mind took risked the chance of falling into another pit.
“Look! The sky! It's like…us!! Get it? I'm pink and you’re yellow!” a female voice echoed in this mind cheerfully as he drifted back into the reality he was in.
He gripped onto the voice, the sun and the light like it would fly away any moment. The voice was warm, warm in ways the cold in his soul never could duplicate no matter how hard it ached to.
Shameful bandages carefully twisted around his arms and neck, he’d spent the last week or so tracing the thin lines and tracking where each bandage led to like a horrid pirate with a treasure map. His treasure being a trip to the E.R and a few missing veins.
“Anthony?” his mom called out to him tiredly from the front seat. Her voice slightly raspy from sleepless nights. The starless nights that filled this town, streetlights creating artificial hope that maybe the stars would come back.
The hope that maybe just because the streetlights that the stars went unseen, the negative creating a hope for a positive.
“How are you doing? Are you feeling alright?” her voice sounded concerned, but the pity that laced it was all Anthpo could focus his attention on. Wrapping around his throat like the snake from the bible.
“Yeah.” he replied, voice hoarse from the crying he had done as if it could’ve done anything. Crying like the heavens could’ve heard and offered him a solid hand to wrap around one last time.
“Promise not to do that again?” she continued, anguish seeping into her voice.
“Yeah” he repeated, he’d just gotten back from the mental hospital where his therapist checked up on him almost hourly- he didn’t need his mom taking on that role again. No, really.
“Okay…you should go and visit your friends”
“Mhm-hmh” he tried, eyes lifting back to the view outside.
His “friends” were a few kids on the football team who asked if he was okay when he fell once, Will from the occult club in which he couldn’t talk to in school unless he wanted to be deemed “weird”, and Hanbon- president of the student council who was basically his sister.
pathetic, really it was truly pathetic.
He bolted for the door as soon as the car parked. Up the stairs and into his room. The stairs creaking under his heavy footsteps.
Anime posters ran up and down the walls while video games filled the shelves. His bed lay unmade and crumpled letters rested on the floor like they belonged there rent free.
God. Right in the center of his shelf was plenty of golden trophies. All for football. A sick reminder of what he sold his soul off to.
He sighed and flopped onto his mattress, automatically curling up into a ball as salty water threatened to fall from his eyes.
He rejected them, built a dam in his mind to stop a waterfall.
Boys don’t cry. They suck it up and move on.
On his nightstand laid a letter from his best friend who moved away years ago,
Dear anthpo,
Im sorry i love you, not platonically this time
Sincerely, Billy.
That was when Anthony gave up tears. Tears weren’t going to fix what he had lost because of his cowardness.
That's when Anthony gave up entirely, quit the DND club, quit volleyball, quit trying to be himself.
He instead turned to football, sweat filled locker rooms that were filled with boys murmuring disgusting comments about girls in the school.
It was like a drug, like a quiet poison seeping through his soul and heart- finding old scars and seeping inside of them. It felt good to not care, it felt good to build a wall, to shield himself from the harshness.
A solid object hit his window, anthony rushed over to check what had happened-
When he looked down, Will was there. His fluffy hair unmade.
Grinning his lopsided grin, gesturing him with a tilt of his head to come down.
Anthony usually didn’t hesitate to go on a late night walk or park visit with his best friend. Tonight he looked back before opening his window and dropping down.
That made him think about ending his life, jumping from his window probably wouldn’t do much since it was muscle memory almost- kind of like a cat.
Whatever.
“ANTHONYYYY” will yelled.
“WILLL” Anthony laughed along with him, it didn’t feel real. But Will bought it- so it was fine.
“Can we go to the park? I swearrr i saw an alien!! Or UFO!! Or a kid doing an ollie!!” will gestured wildly throughout the air.
“Yep..all equally exciting.” Anthony said sarcastically, unable to hold back a slight twitch in the corners of his mouth.
“RIGHT???” Will exclaimed.
It became a part of their nightly routine, Will would run to Anthony's house down the street when his dad started yelling again. Escaping the noise by replacing it with his own at Anthony's rapid ranting.
“You’ve been gone for like a decade!! Where have you been??? Ghosting me??? ‘Cus you havent been at school either” Will groaned.
“Oh, yeah sorry about that- out of town on a short notice…didn’t have time to tell you.” Anthony laughed it off, holding his hands behind his back.
“Really??? Dang!!” Will exclaimed as they walked down a dimly lit street. They didn’t need to look at road signs or anything, they knew they root by heart now.
The park wasn’t special, compared to the park in Anthony’s side of the neighborhood this might as well been considered a trash dump.
But Anthony, in his humble opinion, really did like this one much more. Every pot hole added life almost to the place. A breath of fresh air from uptight parents and snotty, rich kids.
“Top of the playset?” Anthony turned to will, stopping their mindless chatter momentarily.
“Ye- wait…theres ... .THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE ALREADY!!!!!” Will did jazz hands, it really was not hard to see he wasn’t surprised.
“You set me up to make friends.” Anthony sighed arms flapping at his side.
“Yeah..” Will shrugged, rubbing his shoulder where a fresh bruise was- Will usually didn’t try to hide it since it was most of the time just him and Anthony but he had brought a coat with him, brushing it off with the classic excuse of cold weather.
“Hanbon!! Coy!! Meet Anthpo!!” Will took Anthony's hand and dragged him over to these strangers.
Anthony recognized Hanbon immediately, his best friend after all.
“You’re the gay theatre kid right?” Anthony blurted out to the ginger next to Hannah, immediately physically recoiling and regretting his words as they escaped the usually filtered mouth of his.
Coy sighed before smirking- “you’re the straight football guy who's always in the locker with muscular, sweaty men right? Wowww you got some serious self control there Anthony” Coy snickered back.
Anthony wouldn’t admit it but it was almost scary. To see another kid he barely knew talk back to him like that the way they would’ve 3 years ago before he left everything he loved behind. His wall of sterotype-ness momentarily breaking.
“W-wh-” Anthony began, words faltering.
“You’re new here right?” he scowled before reviewing if what he said was right or wrong. He stepped closer to this Coy kid, tilting his head- “don’t talk to me like that you fa-”
“Wasn’t your best friend gay Anthony?” Will interjected, of course Will would bring Billy up. Of course he didn’t have the heart to get rid of everything from that era. He hadn't left Will.
“H- he wasn’t-” Anthony began, tripping over his words again as he backed away from coy.
“Just don’t talk to me idiot. I'm going home.” Before Anthony turned around halfway on his heels before Coy spoke up.
“Yeah? And what are those bandages for huh? You try to end your pathetic little popular boy life? You thought YOU had it bad? YOU? Look at yourself!” Coy let out a cruel laugh.
Anthony was not liking this kid. At all.
“Yeah, why do you have those bandages though, Anthony?” Hanbon said her first word since he got here. Unusual for her, that was one of the reasons he had gotten so close with her.
He’s always been drawn to the ability to light up rooms. Something he wished and wished so badly he could do.
“None of your business! Stop trying to dig into my personal life! All of you!” he lashed out. Maybe it was harsh but he was tired. He hadn’t talked to anyone for weeks and his first conversation being an argument didn’t go through his brain like the unproblematic way it should’ve.
“Okay, okay, chill!” will attempted to calm the fire down before it burns everything down with it.
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“I’m going home! It's late anyway! Don’t you guys have…parents or something? Go home!” I shouted from the back of my throat. Anger pushing words through my mouth before my head thought about them.
God I was horrible. Maybe I should’ve just stayed in the hospital. Every fiber of my soul caused harm to those dear to me and there was no denying that.
Do I really only hurt those who love me?
Maybe I deserved isolation after all, maybe I truly did deserve being alone and having no one.
Those who were smart enough to avoid me take it all, and those hearts too kind fall into pits and pits of agony. Like all I could do was drag people down with me.
Hanbon took one more look at me like I was a trapped animal in a zoo. A lion roaring at kids behind a glass window.
“Okay, goodnight ant. I’ll be staying here, the stars are bright today I was thinking of stargazing” Hanbon smiled warmly. no her persuasion would not work today. no i wasn't going to fall for that trap this time.
“Mmkay…have fun” I grumbled before wandering off under the dimly lit street where light had lost the argument from darkness. surrendering but not quite fully obeying.