Please Don't Say You Love Me (One-shot)

Late Night

There's never been much need for me to think so far ahead into the future. Sure, the occasional few months planning here and there but some people insist on planning years and years into the future! Can you imagine that? Me, a Snufkin, planning what specific age I have to get things done! I suppose it's one of the few things my parents and I have in common. Living day to day instead of meticulously planning our lives. That's where most of our similarities end.

I was found in a basket, with nothing but my hat and my harmonica. What had happened? Joxter didn’t know he had a kid until recently. Mymble barely remembers me at all, let alone what had happened to me. Neither know me that well beyond what I let them know. I want them around, but I don’t know how to treat them like parents I suppose.

That leaves me here, stuck in this feeling of wanting to love my parents because they are here but wanting to be angry at them for leaving me. My mother has so many kids why am I the only one that got left behind, why did she forget me? Can I even hate The Joxter? Can I hate a father who wasn’t there for me because he didn’t know I existed?

Am I allowed to feel complicated about my parents? They are here, they found me, that's more than some orphans can ask for. So why do I feel like I'm a kettle boiling over with horrid feelings when I think about them.

Sniff doesn’t seem to care about how he had gotten separated from his parents for so long. Or maybe he does care, and hides the fact that he does. Is that what I'm meant to do? Hide my emotions about all this so that we can pretend to be a somewhat functioning family? There are so many questions that I want answers for.

Everyone in the valley doesn’t seem to wonder about these things like I do. Moominpappa is delighted to have his friends around for awhile. I can even hear him now, sitting on the veranda, recounting a recent adventure that he had gone on. The air is warm in the moomin house from all the people packed in it. I can hear Sniff and Moomintroll breathing quietly. Sniff mumbles in his sleep.

There's footsteps in the hallway. I blick and just now am I realizing how strained my eyes feel. I turn my head slightly to listen to who is wandering around the house late at night. Moomintroll shifts in his sleep beside me. The person pauses by the door, not moving for a good few moments. Then they shuffle back the way they came from.

The moonlight is coming through the window in Moomintrolls room. The bed Moominmamma set up for me feels too soft, but it feels rude to shift too much to get comfortable even if I'm the only one awake in the room. My mind feels like it's going to outrun my head, and my body feels like it's ready to give up out of exhaustion. Pulling my arms out from under the blanket, I lift them up and over my face, admiring the way they look as my sleeves slide down. Flexing my hands can make certain tendons pop out. My body has always been more mymble like than anything, with fingernails and bare skin in place of claws and fur.

The Joxter has claws, he used them to carve something into the wood of Moominpappa’s chair. Turning my hands palms down to my head, I flexed my hands to curl my fingers. I tried to imagine myself with claws and hands covered in fur. But all I could see was my calloused skin and uneven nails. Hardly anything like The Joxter.

Letting my arms relax and flop down onto the bed, I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I was craving my pipe, which I had left in my bag downstairs. It would have been nice to smoke on the roof and stargaze for the rest of the night. But I was not the only person awake. Just thinking about that makes my bones feel restless with the urge to flee, sneak down and grab my bag and spend the night in the forest like I'm meant to.

Hodgkins laughs quite loudly from below, and now I know I can't make a clean escape. I breathe in so deeply that it almost hurts before letting it go and deflate into the bed that is too soft for a body that sleeps on dirt regularly. Closing my eyes almost feels like a relief. Sniff mumbles in his sleep again and that makes Moomintroll shift once more, then all is quiet. Just the noises of storytelling downstairs, the quiet breathing of my friends, and the occasional creak and groan of the wood.

And with that I finally drifted into a peaceful dream.