[ BACK IN 2023 ]
One cold morning, Simon meets a boy with starry eyes and poetry-wreathed lips, and that is when their tragedy begins.
***
Simon Huang's a quiet loner with dreams of being on stage. Too scared to disappoint his overbearing, grade-foc...
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"I'm hopeless," Simon mumbles. The painted grey plastic of the table is cold beneath his elbows, hard under his forehead. It reminds him of the walls around his heart and the iron net woven over his resolve---and how everything had come crumbling down with a single puppy-eyed stare from Vincent Kelle.
Shiloh reaches over to ruffle his hair, careful not to catch their nails on the dark strands this time. "The table's dirty, Monnie," they say, and Simon reluctantly drags his head off the godforsaken surface. He's grateful for Shiloh---they're the shelter in the hurricane universe he's been thrown into, because it's Vincent's world, and he's just living in it.
Emi shrugs, knocking back her chocolate milk in one go. "Just hook up with him," she suggests, not bothering to wipe the milk dribbling from the corner of her lower lip. When Simon visibly cringes, she sighs and reaches for a tissue.
Shiloh bats their girlfriend's arm lightly. "Hooking up with people isn't the answer to everything, Emi."
Emi flashes them a lazy grin. "Well, my methods got me a partner, didn't they?" At that, Shiloh blushes, the red clear against their dark skin.
Simon drops his head onto the table again.
"You don't understand," he groans, face firmly smashed against the definitely unclean tabletop. He'll worry about bacteria-induced acne later. "He's cute and nice and he says we're friends and---"
"Well, you do need new friends," Emi interjects, gum snapping against her teeth loudly.
"He's got us," Shiloh points out.
"Precisely the reason why he needs new friends," Emi proclaims. Dissolving into laughter, she wraps an arm around Shiloh's shoulders and yanks them into her side. "Don't you want our boy to grow up, love?"
"Of course---"
"I can hear you, you know," Simon grumbles, his words muffled by the table under his face. Truth be told, he does not want to hook up with Vincent Kelle. What he wants to do is to hold him close and run his fingers through his hair and find out if his lips are as soft as they look and---
