"Allen? Hey, Allen! Are you listening to me?"
"Huh?" The dark-haired youth looked up, turning his head towards his boyfriend sitting next to him. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was just kinda... spacing out, I guess."
The green and white scaled dragon frowned, looking down at the human sitting next to him. "I'm worried about you, Allen," he said, shaking his head. "It seems like every time we try to do something together, you're always just spacing out like this. Every time I try to talk to you, it seems like you just tune me out. It's like you don't even want to be around me anymore."
Allen sighed. "You know that's not true, Simon," he said. "I'm really sorry. I guess... I've just had a lot on my mind lately, that's all."
"But it feels like I'm the only one you're like this around!" said Simon, growing frustrated. "I mean, you seem perfectly fine when we're with groups of friends together. You're always talking, laughing, and having a good time! But every time it's just the two of us, you just go completely silent and start spacing out! I just don't get it!" He looked over at Allen and swallowed. "You... you don't want to break up with me or anything, do you?"
"What? No, of course not!" said Allen defensively. "I just... well..." He looked away, lowering his head slightly. "...Whenever I'm around you and we're by ourselves, I just... I don't feel normal. I feel... scared."
"Scared?" asked Simon, frowning. "Why's that? Why would you feel scared around me?"
"I don't know!" cried Allen, raising his head towards Simon again. "I can't explain it, but there's something about you that just... intimidates the heck out of me! I don't know what it is, but... it's there, and I don't know how to fix it."
"You're... intimidated by me?" asked Simon, now becoming even more confused. "But... why would you be intimidated by me?" He thought for a moment. "I mean, we're pretty much equals as far as I'm concerned. We get similar grades, have similar skills, similar jobs... I mean, I guess I do have music and composition going for me, but even that's really only because-"
"Look, Simon," said Allen, interrupting him. "I appreciate you trying to figure this out, I really do. But... I really think this is something I need to work out by myself." He stood up from the park bench, looking back at his boyfriend. "I'll talk to you soon, okay? I just need a little bit of time to figure this stuff out."
"...Okay," Simon sighed, watching his boyfriend walking away. As soon as he was gone, Simon turned his head, looking at the other park goers around him. As usual, it mostly consisted of mammals: wolves, foxes, cats, a few rodents, and of course humans. There were a few birds and reptiles around as well, but once again, he saw almost none of his own species: dragons. He knew he was a rare breed; in all his time living here, he'd only ever seen a few dragons in the area, and that was only in passing. It never bothered him that much - he usually took pride in being such a rare species, in fact - but even he had to admit that it did make him feel a bit lonely at times. There were times that he did wish there were other dragons in his age group around town, so that he didn't always feel so out of place.
Still, now wasn't the time to think about that. What possible reason could Allen possibly have for being intimidated by him? Leaning back on the bench, Simon tilted his head towards the sky, trying to wrack his brain for an explanation. It just didn't make sense - if anything, Simon was the one who should have been intimidated by Allen. Though they'd always had similar interests, Allen was the one who'd always had the drive to turn his interests into productivity. They were both interested in video games, for instance, but Allen was the only one of them who'd ever actually taken his interest to the next level by working on designing his own video games from the ground up. He'd learned proper level design, coding, even designing his own custom sprites and animations, all in the name of pursuing his passion to imitate what he loved. Simon had tried to learn it all as well, in an attempt to follow in Allen's footsteps, but he'd quickly given up due to his inability to wrap his head around the coding process. Allen had tried to help him, but he'd rejected it - this kind of thing simply wasn't for him, he'd decided. He simply didn't have the same kind of passion that Allen did.
