Caught In The Frame

Ｐｒｏｌｏｇｕｅ

Click. The grasshopper shot off of the leaf and disappeared into the brush. H/c hair fell over darkening eyes. White teeth suckled on the puffy, chewed lip as the boy fiddled with the camera, sifting through photos. Insects, flowers, skies, and even pebbles were reflected on the small screen, all taken from this morning.

Y/n groaned, his eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders sulking. None of it seemed right. Every photo just looked wrong, wrong in the way that made his insides twist and melt into a goopy stew sticking to the walls of his stomach and boiling up to his throat. He couldn't figure out what was missing, why he hated, no, perhaps even loathed every picture that he had taken. Why couldn't they look how he wanted them to? Why were there always mistakes? Why couldn't they just be perfect?

Ringgg

Y/n flinched, snapping out of his thoughts he looked over to the front of the school as the students hauled themselves in. He stood up from his crouching position holding his camera gingerly near his chest. His e/c eyes searched the flood of students almost hungrily, until stopping on a certain head of blonde hair. Y/n gulped, his throat dry and parched. Before he knew what he was doing, he was looking through his camera zooming in on the boy with golden strands of hair.

People seemed to circle the boy, like planets orbiting around the sun, greedy for its light, in need of its warmth. Pearly teeth came out of hiding as the boy's lips pulled up into a grin, his reddish brown eyes gleaming behind gold lashes. The epitome of perfection. The god amongst mortals. The gold in a pile of coal.

The perfect subject.

His finger hovered over the button on his camera eager to capture this display of sublimity. Was it wrong to be taking the boy's picture without permission? Was it wrong to want to freeze this moment without the other's knowledge? He thought about these questions of decency every time, and the answer was always yes. But yet, every time there would be a click of the camera and a new addition to his gallery. Call it a guilty pleasure if you will, a feeling of ecstasy sitting atop a pool of bubbling grossness.

Click

E/c eyes studied the photo with great interest. His lips quirked up happily at the picture. It was just what he wanted, what he needed. A depiction of perfection, a specimen with no flaws. The boy made even the ugliness of the others surrounding him into a likable scene. Just the way that the crowd seems to grow monotonous compared to the other is satisfying, scratching that spot in Y/n's brain.

His eyes pulled away from the photo anxious for another. When he found the reddish-brown orbs of the boy again they were not looking at another, or at the ground, or at a phone, but at him. They were different from those in the photo, dark and narrowed like the depths that hid under ice.

The camera slipped from his shaky hands, the weight hanging around his thin neck. Was it fear that froze him, shame? Exhilaration? Whatever it was there was hesitation, a moment of vulnerability while he stood there trapped in the god's gaze. Hesitation before a step and then another until he stumbled away behind a corner of the school building, out of sight. His ribs ached at the way air surged into his chest expanding his lungs painfully.

He messed up. What was he supposed to do? Could he just play it off as taking a picture of the sky? Would the god- Eden, confront him?

Y/n bit into his nails chewing on the pieces. That simmering stew of guilt and shame began to froth, seeping into his guts and boiling over that feeling of ecstasy. His breath hitched as he took in a gulp of air. Pulling his fingers away from his mouth he rubbed the back of his neck soothingly. It would be fine. He doesn't know that the picture was of him. Everything is ok.

That's what Y/n told himself in order to calm down, it worked though that stew still sat rather uncomfortably in his stomach. He looked down at the camera dangling from his neck. Worst comes to worst he'll just delete the picture, besides the other boy probably didn't even know he existed.

He walked through the school hall with his head down and his fingers gripping almost painfully around his bag as he carefully weaved through the other students. Interactions were something he feared yet envied. He had friends, once, in middle school. Some moved or switched schools but that wasn't what had messed him up so badly. Truly, it wasn't like he wanted to be this way but he also couldn't be any other way. His feelings were in constant conflict.

Shouts and excited laughter boomed from farther down the hallway. Lifting his eyes just a bit it was easy to see the large crowd hovering near the familiar head of golden hair. Conflict. It was odd in a way, Y/n loved to take pictures of the god, he loved to see such perfection. Yet, through his eyes and not the camera all he could feel was envy, all he could see was who he wanted but could never be.

He ripped his eyes away and forced himself into his classroom. Slinking down into his seat he set his camera in the space under his desk. It was going to be a long day.

˙✧˖°📷 ༘ ⋆｡˚

Eden hated people. He hated how their skin stuck to their body, he hated how their voices cracked or wavered, he hated their eyes, the way the pupils would contract, the way they breathed, or how they ate. All of it, all of their actions were disgusting. He hated humans, yet, he was surrounded by them, yet, he was one of them.

But he was different, he was perfect in the eyes of other humans. A being of faultlessness surrounded by impurities. Impurities that stuck to him, that found pleasure in his light, that craved his attention. Though here he was, entertaining them, acknowledging their sickening presence. How benevolent of him.

He gave them so much attention but still, that didn't seem to be enough. Click. Eden had been hearing a lot of that annoying clicking lately and again this morning. He almost vividly remembers the look of shock on the boy's face.

The way his e/c orbs shrunk and his gnawed puffy lips parted. His cheeks reddening from embarrassment and then paling from fear. How the boy scrambled away with his camera dangling from his neck. Eden had dealt with stalkers before, but this one, this one ticked him off more than the others for some reason.

Eden bit the side of his cheek as he smiled at his "friends" laughing in front of him. People will always give each other titles whether it be friend, lover, or parent. Yet, they don't mean anything, they hold no value in the grand scheme of things. It's a concept society made up to comfort themselves, to make themselves feel like they have a purpose like they have a meaning. That fear of becoming useless, though not always recognized, is what drives people to worm their way into other's lives like infective bugs. Eden wanted to squash those bugs. 

Words --> 1235

Authors note:

Uhm get ready for a roller coaster ig lolol :D