Broken - Raekkuno oneshots

Stars and Neon lights

Thank you for the reader who provided me with the awesome idea of this shot. As a person without anxiety, it is a very unique experience to be exposed to another insight, and I think that people who are lucky enough to not to be involved in such experience should at least sympathise if not help the situation of those who need some love to get better. Thank you very much and sorry if my wording of this credit part causes any misunderstanding.

Sykkuno sat on the roof. The stars were beautiful tonight. 

Put on his headphones for some calming piano music, he lied down onto the brick tiles. The bumps were hurting his spine, and the chilly wind soon caused his teeth to chatter. But he didn't want to go down into his room.

He didn't want to go to the place where the sharp look of the blinking red lights on the camera directed onto him. Nor where those dazzling white words of harshness penetrated from the black background of his monitor into his iris. They say that reality's inescapable, but not tonight.

The hypnotic crickets sound effect almost put him into sleep there, until it suddenly stopped. 

He half-closed his eyes as he opened his phone. Nevertheless the screen almost blinded him. The music still continued, but no sound could be heard. Not even after switching to a different one.

After all the harassment of the day, he felt unfair to have to suffer from such frustration. Why did everything have to happen today all at once? 

He tucked his phone back into his pocket and started untangling his headphones. But after a few attempts, the wires just got more stranded. Eventually he stopped and threw them off the roof. They hit the windows and were shattered into pieces before falling to the grass.

And he didn't even get to enjoy the silence of the night. A few moments later he could hear a rash of thundering footsteps on the stairs of the attic. Almost ten people rushed onto the rooftop simultaneously. 

Ten mouths speaking at ones. His mind failed to register any. The questions buzzed like bees being released out of the hive. The questions which he had been running away from all day.

It finally came to a point when they slowly faded into silence, after realising Sykkuno being completely mute. 

"Can I not talk?" he murmured.

"Do you want any of us to stay?" 

He hesitated.

"No."

And he broke into tears after the footsteps grew away from him. 

A sense of lost aroused. Of course. They did what he appeared to hope them to, so who could he blame for except himself? 

Above all, staying away might be the only way to independence. 

He knew that one day, they would eventually be fed up, just like his parents, teachers, colleagues. He had seen the word "insincerity" too many times in his life already, and he knew that it would pierce his ears again if he continued to grip to the unconditional warmth they have embraced him in, so why not just be the one to leave? This would save them the effort to come up with a vague excuse.

"The world won't wait for you, to change, to adapt, to realise." He had been hearing this since he was, at what age? Seven? The idea of quitting this game came across to him, he thought that 2019 would be the last year before he could magically transform into a different person. How naive.

Maybe it's time to flee and hide. Like a coward, they say, but maybe they were right.

Suddenly he was attacked by a surge of warmth as something soft landed on him. Somehow he was somewhat glad that his thought was interrupted: regaining the sensation of his fingers was something worth living for, because then the breeze immediately became not as cold. Maybe even a bit gentler, and he didn't realise it until now.

While he was wrapping the blanket around, he could distinguish a familiar figure walking into his peripheral and sat down beside him. He bit his lips, waiting for another round of bombardment of questioning. 

But she was silent. And he enjoyed it.

They stared at the starry sky for a while. Stars were rare there, as the flashing neon lights in red and orange had always been covering those delicate little pearls. But here they were, together, only separated by the horizon. He wondered how could the peace co-exist so harmonically with the vigour. She wondered too, how could the vigour not contradict with the peace.

The moon was up and shone her light onto the two. Sykkuno traced the rays down until they diffused onto the light cocoa skin of her face. And in those eyes, he could see the reflection of the moon as if they were two well-polished mirrors, with a diamond embedded in the middle. As sincere as a diamond's promise, seeing right into his heart.

He panicked as he caught his own reflection in them when she turned her head to his side, but he didn't look away. Those eyes were gorgeous.

She smiled after noticing this, and put her arm around his shoulder. He resisted his instinct to flinch away.

"Don't worry about the "in case"s, we'll always be at your side."

One sentence. That's what it takes for a grown man to break down. He buried his face into her shoulder and hoped for her to forgive him wettening her sleeve. 

She wrapped her other arm around him, smiled as she felt the up and down motion of his sobs. All in all, she knew that he had been holding this all day. 

After all the burden on his heart was unloaded, he looked up through his blurry eyes.

"Rae, what can I do without you?"

"Don't make me too proud of myself otherwise I'd massacre you in Rust."

"I'd love to see it."

(The End)