Chapter Text
A gust of wind colder than the humid air met Scaramouche’s skin, making the hair on his body’s surface rise and prickle, followed by an involuntary shiver.
He had recently purchased a second-hand car after working around the neighbourhood, hustling for small bits of cash given by families who had the luxury and insufficient time to maintain their own homes. He’s hoping to find a real and consistent job, maybe even get his own place. But he might have to go around sleeping inside his car and finding parking lots to trespass for a long time first before that happens.
Right now, the car is at the insurance company, receiving some maintenance that came with the deals. It was ridiculously expensive, but he needed something to get around with, especially now that he’s older than what his orphanage could afford to provide for.
He passes by cobbled walls on his walk home, watching as his surroundings transitioned from the bustling roads and towering figures of the city’s buildings, to less and less crowds.
Apartments.. joined three-story townhouses, corner-stores that make you wonder which floor the owner’s real house is, then to more spaced out front yards that get shorter and shorter, smaller and smaller.
This city looked old and dark, all archways and grey browns that spanned the environment like spilled coffee and ink. It wouldn’t be raining, yet the pavements and stones used for infrastructure looked as though they were imbrued. Perhaps to many, the atmosphere of the place would be a dream land that was all rich and novel, yet the rats that roamed the alleyways said much about its true face.
Half of the people can’t even afford to get themselves a treat from the local bakery from the amount of other things that take priority. At least, that’s how it was for Scaramouche and all of the other orphans. Sure, it was never lonely, and you grow up with many other children similar to you, but.. Scaramouche never fit at home either.
His hair was a mess, chopped and cut sloppily, and he hated it when anyone so much as even commented on anything he did. He had always felt like a man, yet no one back home accepted that.
To have community is to also risk scrutiny, but Scaramouche doesn’t care anymore. One way or another, he’ll be leaving.
Yesterday, he had cleaned up after a family’s front lawn, cutting down weeds and overgrown grass while he heard childlike laughter and the sound of small wheels grumbling on rocks from the back of their yard. The couple who hired him had two daughters, and they were playing around with invited friends, engaging in activities that allowed them to still see the sky’s brilliance and inhale the wind’s embrace without feeling like it was empty.
He can still feel a sore pain on his lower spine from the amount of grunt work he did by himself, craving a cold glass of water at the time under the scorching sun as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.
Not all of the families he cared for were anything special in terms of wealth. Just regular people in the upper middle class, hoping to at least provide their children with an easier start to life after how hard they used to have it. Even so, they were indeed luckier and better off, because despite everything, they had families.
Family that felt personal, real.. chosen. Not some roommates that you just happened to shelter under the same roof with.
He was already eighteen, his birthday early on in the year too. The orphanage would soon dismiss him, and he knew of this years ago. He was prepared, and was lucky enough to finish school.
No, he knew he had to finish school, and he knew that he had to do it well. For what? He doesn’t know. There is no reason for Scaramouche to go on living, and yet, the effort is for nobody but himself.
He supposes that deep down, he wishes for something to give him a reason. Something that gives his potential as a person.. meaning. Scaramouche likes to think that he knows himself to be a diamond in the rough, or someone that has something to prove.
Something, someone, anything.
He got this far into his empty existence. Surely there must be something worth it one day. Something that would turn his world upside down and make the sun permeate through his body, so that he may finally bask in its warmth and feel it.
After he left the insurance company, he spent some time sitting down at a parking lot for a while, smoking a pack of cigarettes that one of his peers at home shoplifted to pass the time. He didn’t want to be cooped up yet, and today was one of those rare days where he didn’t have a job to do. He wasted away his free time, like he always did. After all, there was nothing else.
He was exhausted from the mundanity of his days. The milestones he reached in life just felt like nothing, and it was frustrating to say the least. Not a single paragraph can describe every feeling attempted to be said well enough.
It’s good. It’s really good out here. But oh, how dreadful it is.
Now, it was getting dark. The skies weren’t even tinted blue anymore, just gray. He starts crossing the great bridge on the way home, the landmark and roadway that separated the city’s slums away from its sweeter parts. He didn’t plan or bother to take the bus home. He just walked, and walked, looking down below where another highway ran across under the bridge.
He stares at the flashing lights of passing cars, silhouettes of at least two inhabiting the insides. Two, three, four.
Two red cars below, three passengers in one, and four wheels to a destination. How normal, how perfect.
“Everyone around has somewhere to run to but me,” he murmurs to himself, void of calm, void of sorrow, and void of bitterness.
He stops walking after passing the halfway point of the bridge, holding onto the fancy rails holed up in pretty patterns.
He takes his eyes away from the road below the bridge and onto the road beside him. There were only a few cars passing by, and they did so quite fast. There were even some faceless people soon to come and pass his way where he had stopped.
His mind didn’t register it.
A wave of something, blocking the air in his chest and calming his pulse, washes over him. Was it painful? He could never tell, for it happened so often. It doesn’t feel like pain anymore, nor can he call it emptiness. If he could use the word empty for everything in his life, then the word itself would lose all it felt and meant, because it simply wasn’t enough. Not all the sudden shocks of despair that visited him on occasion.
The edges of his vision blurred, and all he could make out were the movements of unfocused car lights and street lamps. It was as if he had entered a dream, and something was calling out to his weary body.
It prompts him to shrug his jacket off onto the dirty ground unceremoniously, his eyes zoned out into the same spot. He swiftly unties his hair and steps one foot on top of the intricate rails with parted lips.
Climb and fall, his body called enticingly. Fall off.
As soon as he was about to pull himself up, a voice booms, calling out to him and cutting through the quiet static. There was even a car beeping at him as it passed by. He turns to see a golden-blonde haired boy, running as fast as he could to get to his side in a frenzy. He doesn’t even get to make a questioning noise before the boy tugs him back down onto the sidewalk, falling back until they both meet the ground.
”Stop! What are you doing..?!” The boy said with wide eyes, holding onto his arm so that he wouldn’t stand back up to do anything reckless.
Scaramouche doesn’t even respond, not having the words on his tongue. The blur that enveloped him was slowly disappearing, until he could only slump his shoulders.
”Hey! What’s wrong? Talk to me…” urged the boy with a sense of frantic worry, shaking his shoulder.
All Scaramouche could see was this boy, looking into his eyes with something real. Real fear, gripping his arm and shoulders with a warmth and tightness he couldn’t shake.
”I-I..” he tries to say.
Say what? What is there to talk about? “I don’t know.”
The other boy sits up on his knees, placing both hands firmly on his shoulders. “Don’t do this. Just.. I don’t know what you’re going through but please, you shouldn’t..!”
Scaramouche shakes his head weakly, pupils dilating. “No.. no, I’m fine. I was just… I don’t know what I was thinking—” he holds onto the boy’s elbows.
”Why.. Why..? You’re clearly not okay!” the stranger grits their teeth.
“…” Scaramouche breathes out, looking back at his surroundings again. There were more cars driving through the bridge now, the sky darker than before. He can hear more clearly now, the road below invisible from where he was sitting.
The blonde boy seemed to also be calming down, with Scaramouche just now noticing his heavy breathing. ”Just.. sit here. You don’t have to say anything… fuck. I’m sorry.”
Neither seemed to know or care how much time had passed on that bridge. They just sat their backs against the barrier and stared at passersby like they were trying to rest after a long marathon. Scaramouche found the shared silence to be a pleasant and bizarre feeling.
After a while, the boy beside him spoke up.
”My name is Aether. I.. was really worried and scared after I saw someone getting on the ledge like that. Please, don’t do that again.”
Scaramouche turns to look at him, knees to his chest. “Why? You could’ve just walked past.”
”And watch someone die in front of me!? I would never forgive myself.” Aether clenched his fist. “Anyway.. this isn’t about me. Why were you about to do that?”
”…I’m Scaramouche,” he clears his throat. “I don’t really know. ‘Guess I just zoned out and eventually my body did that on its own.”
”There’s gotta be something troubling you. Come on.. I won’t judge or anything. Gods, tell me anything.” Aether sighs, pushing himself up and picking up Scaramouche’s jacket, opening it up to place it around the curled up boy’s shoulders.
Scaramouche’s heart stutters, and he just stares up at the boy. He’d been tight lipped, and he wasn’t planning on changing that anytime soon. But at the insistence of someone who managed to sit with him like this, he spoke.
He was lonely, and it was unbearable. Sometimes it catches up with him and sneaks up to stab him behind his back.
Please, show me that you hear me. That you can see me.
He doesn’t cry, no. However, he does melt when the boy pulls him into his arms, widened eyes hidden in Aether’s shoulder.
”Your life really has been difficult. I can see how much it’s exhausted you, I can..” Aether rubbed his back, “I’m not the best at this, but no matter how hard everything gets, your life is precious.”
For a moment, neither said anything.
Aether continues, “I also just graduated high school, and I believe that there’s a lot for people like us to look forward to. So chin up, okay?”
Scaramouche nods into his embrace.
“You told me that you got into the Akademiya, and that you have a new car.. and you’ve been working so hard to get to that point. So please. Live.”
Scaramouche didn’t understand why this man would go as far as to physically soothe him, but it felt like heaven. To have such words spoken into his ear without asking. He wasn’t making a fuss, he wasn’t sobbing his eyes out when he tried to jump, nor was he speaking with much emotion when he explained the chronic pointlessness he felt throughout his entire life. Yet on the inside, something was brewing deep in his chest.
A new feeling took root, and it was warm, like it had just met the first sunrise upon its birth.
He leaned his weight into the boy, and simply said, “thank you..” with a slight flush on his cheeks.
They walked across the bridge together after Aether insisted on going with him. Scaramouche welcomed it, trying to hide his eagerness. With every step they took, he only became more and more enamoured with the other, his long gold locks falling behind his back. Aether carried himself with the confidence of someone who wasn’t afraid to throw themselves into progressing through life. It made Scaramouche envious.
Today was a weekday, and on the way to the orphanage stood a humble, yet intricate church that was open during these hours. Scaramouche never enjoyed going there, especially when the sisters back home would force all the kids to attend the Sunday masses every morning. When he got older, he just started refusing over and over again, hiding in places they couldn’t bother him until they eventually stopped caring. Every time he was at church, all he did was tune out the mass and readers, instead arguing with himself in his head about how strange people really are when it came to worship and moral belief.
Yet after this particular afternoon, something compelled him to slow his steps and stare at the church building. Regardless of what he thought of faith, the place still felt sacred, or felt large and beautiful enough to silence you. Right now, it wasn’t a Sunday, and there are no nagging sisters around him—pressing him to step into God’s light and worship it with his life.
Aether slows to a stop with him, looking back with a questioning “hm?”
Scaramouche stares at the open church doors, limbs hesitant. He doesn’t know where this is coming from. “Would you.. wanna go in with me?”
Aether’s head tilts. “The church?”
”Yeah.”
”I—” Aether is then cut off by the ring of his phone. “Oh, sorry. One sec.” He answers the phone, looking away and putting it to his ear, “hello? Lumine?”
Scaramouche stands awaiting his response, wondering who he was speaking to. He feels strangely restless, tapping his foot lightly and closing his jacket around his torso some more. It wasn’t cold weather, but he felt cold.
Aether’s phone call ends, and he looks sheepish. “Ah… Sorry, Scaramouche. My sister called me to get home right away for dinner. It slipped my mind that she wanted me to buy something on the way home.”
”Oh… well, that’s alright.” He said curtly, internally disappointed.
Noticing his flat response, Aether quickly responds. ”But ah! I’m sure we’ll see each other again at the Akademiya, you know?”
Scaramouche nods and sighs.
Aether scratches the back of his head, “don’t worry too much.. you’ll probably see me around the city. I tend to go out a lot to all kinds of places.” He pats Scaramouche on the shoulder, “take care of yourself, man.”
”Yes, don’t worry about me.” Scaramouche put his hands in his pocket, stepping aside on the sidewalk to give Aether space to leave.
Aether smiles at him, and the indigo haired boy could only admire it silently. “Goodbye, Scaramouche. See you around.”
”…Goodbye Aether.” Scaramouche cracked a smile, “see you around,” he ended quietly.
He watches the boy walk back where they came from until he disappeared from sight, and suddenly all the tension in his muscles disappeared. He didn’t even notice it was there in the first place.
He looked at the time, and it wasn’t even that late yet. It was only 7PM, yet it was already so dark.
He looks back at the open church doors, the warm light coming from inside looking inviting, nothing like how it looks when full and during the day.
Without company as always, he steps inside without a purpose in mind. Just silence. His life was saved, and it all felt nameless.
This was where Aether left him, so now, this shall be where he’d stay.
Starting from that fateful day, Scaramouche started attending the church more often during open hours.
He needed a space to let his thoughts run through him, whether it’d be as harsh as a train wreck with old wheels on rusted tracks—or as still as a lake, where the wind blew no longer.