Ethereal | Twilight |

000

Sora found solace in internal bliss, a dream unfolding within his chest as suns hummed through his body like honeyed rivers. Meanwhile, amidst these glittering effects, Paul Lahote sat behind him, his towering back tense, every strain evident in his newly found muscles flexing and rippling beneath the shirt that did little to conceal his transformed appearance.

"See? There's no way he hadn't gone on steroids."

A straightforward comment, a statement with which Sora couldn't help but agree. Paul was as puny as he had been weeks ago, not even a month ago. Yet, now he sat there with a godly appearance, transitioning from dusk with copper tones to dawn with silver hues.

Paul's enigmatic eyes rolled with unleashed, furious, unsettling ferocity. His teeth dug into his inner cheek. In less than a minute, the teacher's screeching voice pierced the grounds as Paul's fist pounded against the other guy's cheek, his nose, his lips busting under the rage, sweat, and blood splattering beneath it.

Lost in the intoxicating haze of his own edibles, Sora couldn't muster the consciousness to back away, anticipating his body becoming a potential victim to Paul's mounting anger. The effects of his chosen indulgence held him captive, a veil of euphoria wrapping around his senses. As Paul was ushered away by school authorities, Sora's gaze involuntarily lifted to meet Paul's shrouded eyes, a silent exchange of emotions simmering between them.

Paul didn't show up at school the next day, or the next, or the next week. Before everyone, including Sora, thought he had given up and dropped out, his arrival came like a disrupting storm, catching the majority of the school's gossip in astonishment. Sora could still feel the eyes against his neck, especially Paul's and Jared's.

Sora didn't care about many things, but it was imbecilic not to know that Paul, throughout high school, had never included himself with friends or even people he spoke to just to pass the time. Paul always sat in solitude, eating at his own table in the cafeteria, leaning back, pressed against a chair, staring at a distance in loath and distaste. No one wanted to speak to him either or befriend him. Paul was too blunt and a pessimist; it was as if, no matter how hard he tried, he was never able to indulge in enjoyment.

"Are you alright?" A chuckle rumbled through his chest as he buried his head deeper into Leah's pillows, her sweet scent purring with every intake. The sound of her steps around the room reached his ears, accompanied by the subtle movements of her belongings. "Are you high?" The question nibbled at his curiosity, but his laziness curled over him, his body engulfed by warmth, his muscles far too relaxed to want to answer or open his lips against a pillow.

Leah sighed, "I don't even know why I'm asking — you're always high anyway." An echo of his chuckle reached away from the pillows as he forced his body to the right, her covers sliding away as Leah came into sight, her long hair falling over her shoulders as she stood close, leaning over where his body used to be.

His eyebrows rose, avoiding the question lingering in his mind, her closeness, about her breath once blowing at his back. Instead, he asked his previous question. "Why did you want to know if I was high or not?" She huffed, leaning away, her knee bouncing over the mattress as she pulled her body to the bed, keeping enough space between him and her. Not that it ever mattered to him, but because it mattered to her.

Leah always too conscious about their differences in gender, her fear of causing his body to react in any way she would be too embarrassed to acknowledge later.

"I just wanted to ask since I am always blabbering about Sam and what he has done to me, about Emily," she stopped, her eyes fading to a memory. "I wanted to know if you've ever loved someone." He looked at her, observed her, his eyes keen and siren-like, indifferent in emotion. "If you wanted to get Sam off your head, you should have just said that." Leah's eyes rolled as she heard him, groaning, head flopping to her pillow with her hair falling from over her shoulders to her pillow, her pale sheets, his bare wrist resting beneath him.

"You got it wrong, all wrong." She said, looking at her ceiling with such exhaustion. "You never speak to me about yourself; you never say anything. All you do is listen to me and take those drugs of yours."

"You're right."

Leah's visits, or his to hers, were frequent, and with frequency came the feeling of being observed. For weeks, he'd simply lie on her bed, or his, and she would talk for hours until her lips would begin to tremble and her tears would stain his shirt.

She knew he didn't care; she was too used to having him always there to speak to, and her burdens were never too big as long as he kept himself high, floating above water, breathing air he deemed light and magical as long as he believed it. Until it was over, and he'd drown in the feeling of desperation and all the consequences of his actions.

It was on those days when he would run out of his stash that he would feel the tremors in his body coil and rumble in his bones, his temples bouncing with irritation and thoughts too loud for him to hear with such loud emotion. It was on those days when he found the care ignite about the observations too obvious for him to ignore across classes and hallways, either Paul or Jared, always staring at him, always so deadbeat on being serious without a single emotion reflecting on their features as they looked like they knew something he didn't.

In the quiet moments when his mind wasn't clouded by substances, Sora couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that Paul and Jared were privy to some secret, something beyond the haze of his own existence.

The weight of their silent gazes bore into him, leaving a trail of unanswered questions lingering in the air, disgusting so.