DOGMATIC DABI X OC

19

 The air smelt of rain, Xian thought it was weird. It hadn't rained yet, so why...?

Maybe it was the smell of a storm about to come in, almost like a spider-sense to tell when the weather would turn, but he couldn't believe that. The sky was clear, there wasn't even a single cloud that could suggest...

'Remember when I would find you up here?' Don't talk about that.

Xian nodded his head.

'I could always tell when you would come up here, call it a gut feeling kid, I would just find you sitting up here, on the edge, lying down in the centre, just up here.'

Smoke, pollution, the hint of dust. Xian tried to breathe in fresh air, but his lungs shuddered at all the pollutants clogging his airways.

'I don't know kid... you just always looked a little lonely, but up here you seemed happy.' Xian's mind wandered, looking for anything to latch onto so he didn't have to pay attention to the tight feeling in his chest.

'The first time I found you up here, I didn't even tell you off, I saw you from the doorway and something told me you weren't going to do anything dangerous.' Stop, please.

Xian tried to ignore the gnawing hole aching inside him, biting his lip to feel something other than the reassuring hand still on his back, squeezing his shoulder gently.

'I swear sometimes I thought it was another kid up here, it was like you were two different people,' I know.

'In class and out there, you were such a strong kid, just your air around you, sarcastic, fun, brave, us teachers could see your fearless determination. You looked big kid, like you knew how you had it all.' Mic paused, his hand dropping off Xian's back.

'But up here, you looked...' Mic sighed out, his gaze dropping down. Xian couldn't breathe, the tightness was suffocating him from the inside out. 'Broken. I dunno kid, I don't want to assume anything, but when I saw you up here you looked hurt, and sad.'

I know.

'You know, when I asked you about it, after class, you looked at me like I was crazy, but I saw it,' Mic turned his head around, a burning intensity just like the sun in his gaze, forcing Xian to look in his eyes, into the sun.

'I saw just how much you were screaming out for help in there.' I'm burning, it hurts.

Xian thought he knew what burning felt like. When he was with Toya, the burning passion, desire, love, lust, fury. He thought he knew how it felt. He thought he knew how it felt to love someone like a forest fire, his heart burning. Melting.

But now he felt charred, a gaping hole in his chest. He felt lost, angry, hurt... scared. His heartbeat was banging in his ears, throbbing in his throat, making it hard to swallow, to breathe. He felt like he was suffocating in the smoke. He was dissolving, his limbs were going weak.

He was melting.

Xian didn't know what to say, he couldn't break the eye contact that held him so paralysed, choking him, his fears. He thought he wasn't scared of anything anymore, that he had nothing left to lose.

He didn't think that he was scared of losing himself.

'I'm... sorry.' Xian said, his eyes finally darting away.

'For what?' Mic asked with worry in his voice that only made Xian's chest try to collapse itself even more.

'For...' Xian sighed, rubbing his eyes with the base of his palms, frustrated. 'I don't know, something, everything.'

He could feel his throat going hoarse, the pang in heart, the smell of rain, of smog and dust, of flowers and trees, of the thunderstorm to come. He could feel everything, burning him, setting him alight.