Taking Hits

Chapter 1: What is This?

The day before:

Connor had been visiting Troye in Perth for about a week and a half. The YouTube entrepreneur had been invited to a festival in New Zealand a couple weeks ago. Upon hearing about it, Troye convinced Connor to come stay in Perth with him for a bit afterwards since it was just a hop, skip, and a jump farther over the pond. They could hang out, and Connor could catch up with some other friends there too.

This was Connor's last night in Perth. The two boys planned to stay up as long as they could, just talking and laughing and spending time together. It was always so easy, the two of them. Nothing was forced, nothing was expected. But then, that's the way best friends were supposed to be.

They were in Troye's bedroom in his little apartment that he lived in by himself. Troye had lit a couple candles and turned on the fairy lights over his bed. The rest of the lights were off, the entire house dark and silent save for their voices.

"I'm having an existential crisis," Troye said, plopping down on the edge of the mattress.

Connor joined him there. "What's your crisis, my fellow vlogger who has too much time on his hands to think about things like this?"

Troye laughed. "I don't know if my happiness should be derived from internal or external strimuli? Like, is it myself who makes me happy, or is it other people?"

"Hmm," Connor thought, crossing his legs on the bed. "Well, I mean, other people can make you happy, like sometimes when they do things that just warm your heart and make you feel like there's still hope, you know?"

"Yeah, but should I be letting them control my happiness that much, or shouldn't I be in control of it?" Troye asked.

"I think there's a trade-off though," the other boy replied. "Like, you have to be happy with yourself as a person in order for other people to make you happy. You have to consciously make the decision to let them tap into your emotions that intimately and put that joy in your life."

"Hmm," Troye responded, "That makes sense. But what if you let them tap into your other emotions, like what if you let them in and they then end up hurting you?"

"Maybe a little bit of hurt is healthy too. I think a lot of people are afraid of it, but I think it's important."

Troye considered this for a moment. "Yeah, it gives you courage, a new perspective. If you get through it at least. Sometimes, you almost feel better after. Like crying, you know?"

"Like I cry all the freaking time," Connor jumped in. "But I think it's healthy to cry, honestly. I think it soothes you, it puts all that bottled up energy out into the world, it's a release. I think a lot of guys would honestly feel better about themselves and have less issues if they just cried more."

"And if everyone else didn't look down on them for doing it," Troye added. "It's just stupid, all the gender roles and being 'masculine' and 'feminine,' I mean, what does that even mean?"

Connor nodded. "And, I mean, it's not like you have to have this one strong figure in the relationship, like the stereotypical guy, and then this other 'housemaker' or 'housewife' or whatever you want to call it, like there doesn't even have to be that yin and yang, that masculinity and femininity for it to work."

"Right? Sometimes you're gonna be the strong, comforting one, and sometimes they are. Sometimes you both are, and other times, you both might just be breaking and then making each other sandwiches and washing the tears off of your clothes after." Both boys laughed. "In a relationship, it should just be a sharing of responsibilities and roles more than anything."