And so Kade left.
He didn't look back at the Choi household.
Changed schools.
Changed numbers.
Got a different apartment.
Got rehired at his old job.
Kade was happy for the most part.
He still didn't have friends really, but that was okay, he was alive, he was free.
But what was the point of being free if he didn't have anyone?
So Kade waited.
Got a second job as a dj at a bar just to keep himself from overthinking.
Signed up for a dance class to pass the time.
Two weeks.
It had only been two weeks of Kade talking to almost nobody.
The only exceptions being his siblings during this time.
This was because he had left the gang, and was hiding in a quiet little neighborhood where it seemed as though nothing ever happened.
It was nice.
Sort of.
Only two weeks had gone by and Kade already missed someone so much- he had to keep himself from crying himself to sleep every night.
His first more than just a friend.
His best friend.
Maybe even he daresay his soulmate.
Kade missed Calico more than he could ever have thought was possible before Calico cut him out of his life.
He missed his dashing smiles, contagious laughter, and his comforting arms.
His listening ears, concerned looks, and words of encouragement weren't far off from being what he regretted leaving behind the most.
Most of all, Kade missed Calico because he didn't have the chance to explain to him how he loved him.
A certain someone called Derek bowled into that fantasy, dumping Kade's mentality into a bucket full of ice, and all that wasn't washed away was an empty shell of repressed emotions.
Kade found himself scrubbing dishes one minute, then the next sitting in the middle of the floor hours later not knowing how he walked into the next room.
He couldn't breathe hardly. A suffocating vise around his heart, leaving a dull ache behind that cracked his hopes of ever returning normal.
The stray cat that wondered around Kade's house sometimes provided the smallest sense of comfort to him, gave him the smallest warmth in the middle of the cold November nights.
The stray listened as Kade started to play music again, sitting on his bed cross legged, strumming his guitar, doing his best to not let his voice crack.
- You're stealing all the breath out of my lungs
Got me in the dark speaking in tongues
Tell me when did this stop being fun?
We're undone and uncomfortably numb
Disconnected, out of mind
I'm unaffected by the times
Misdirect me on a dime
Break me with something slight-
One would say Kade's music turned to a dark taste, and some part of him realized how bad he was spiraling, but another part of him realized that he probably deserved the numbness of his emotions except for guilt and anger as a karmic payment for what he said to Calico.
Everything he ever said to Calico, with even the slightest intention of meanness, jokingly or not, rang out in Kade's mind, making him wish he could cut out his tongue so he would never hurt someone by speaking ever again.
And what was even worse that his mind kept showing him- was when they almost kissed in the middle of the ballroom in front of hundreds of people on the last day that Kade had seen Calico.
"If you want too."
The words haunted Kade like a plague day and night as he blindly went through the motions of wake up, go to a couple classes, come home for a couple hours and take care of the animals that randomly showed up in his apartment, go to one job, come home briefly or go straight to second job, sometimes go to the studio, then come home again and sing or play guitar until he fell asleep to do it all over again in the morning.
