There is no child who does not struggle to find their place in the world.
But he is the outlier, the odd one out, who brings the battle to a whole new level. He is the child who stands alone on the outskirts of the playground, watching the games from the fenced-in border, fingers hooking chain link after chain link as he plods along, eyes casually flicking in the direction of the other children. There is no open place for him among them, no simple method of joining the crowd. He's standing on the world outside, and can't find a way in.
He's averagely strange. The word is peculiar, but he's probably the only kid his age who knows what it even means. A sharp mind resides on his head, but he can't apply it to anything, can't create anything significant out of himself. He's the kid with the crooked glasses, the kid who walks the outskirts, round and round and round... nobody. That's who he is.
And no kid wants to be nobody. Their universes revolve around themselves, and they need planets to populate such precious worlds. Everyone else is a minor character in a child's perspective, and they the protagonist. Yet a story's no fun without the supporting roles.
He's got very few of those.
Searching... he's tearing apart the earth, scouring it for something to define him. His mother's arranged for him to play piano. His father has him whacking a tennis ball almost every afternoon. His grandparents insist he learns the language of his heritage, despite that nobody around speaks it except them. And so he's pinned to scribbling characters and slamming rackets and pummelling notes, caught up in a love landslide with a thousand things he doesn't love. They aren't his passions, his loves. They're not even his, and he's drowning in them.
How can he tell that to any of his relatives? He's observant enough to know they won't budge- everyone around him is stuck still, stapled to their own, unceasing desires... colorblind, and he's made up of every invisible shade in the rainbow. He doubts anyone could make them see.
All the other kids seem to know what they're doing, who they are. Cuts glaze his hands from the jagged edges of the fence, and he blames himself for not loving anything yet, for not having found that thing that he'll always adore. He wants to be one of those kids shrieking in delight as they barrel down the slide, whooping as they leap from the swingset, giggling incessantly as 'It' sprints after them across the playground; he's hoping for a black and white, hoping someday his colors will fade and he'll be the same as all of them- so simple. Nothing more than two simple shades that create who all the other children are inside.
He tries on the nerd. Are you gonna be my love? He tries so hard, but math just doesn't fascinate him, and books are nothing more than okay. There's nothing there for him except grades a little above average, and a little isn't enough to make a difference.
After scoring under eight minutes on the mile run, he attempts to be the jock. Are you gonna be mine? No, he's too short for basketball, and he can't stop tripping in soccer.
He's hopeless. He sees it in the nonexistent acknowledgment from the students in his class, as though he's invisible. It's embedded in the glances from his parents, their thin smiles and late night conversations in the kitchen after he's gone to bed. Even the teacher constantly forgets his name on the seating chart when they move the desks to new places, and his heart races every time she says he can sit anywhere, for no cluster of children is friendly. He feels it falling from the skies above, showering him in inadequacy. He's pitiful.
When the school play rolls around, he sees another chance. Are you gonna be mine? But being cast as the tree isn't exactly promising. Missing his cue as the tree is even more mortifying.
He's no one- just a lost boy. And that insignificance is a wave, crashing into him over and over, parts of him crumbling into the ocean until he's weak, and the shark can come take a bite out of him. The demons in the dark scent his blood on the air, and he's being eaten alive- all the people who care devouring him, fighting over fragments of his mind until he's so stretched out he snaps, and the blue tide pulls him under.
It's his soul, his heart- not theirs to pull apart.
He pauses at the segment of the fence devoured in vines, averting the ramblers crawling from the underbrush border. There have been many a time where he's accidentally brushed his hand across the plants, scalding himself with poison ivy for weeks- mostly when he walks on clouds unknown, daydreaming of what he could love and what he should. And there's no coming back from those thoughts- the games of hopscotch and hide and seek fade into the background, and all that's left is him and the insecurities, the failures- one for every chain link that pricks his palm. He never drops down from that dream world. Last week, he missed the whistle that called all the kids inside and was out there for hours, floating like gravity had grown and he was so high while reality was low. The winds of his shortcomings and imperfections kept tossing him around, and reality was buried in a deep, deep hole, impossible to reach down to.
His mother scheduled an appointment with an -ologist the other day. He heard her say his name on the phone, but she wouldn't tell him what it was for. She'd given him that look, that glance of how disappointing he is... how she can't believe her son ended up like he did.
He thinks it's because of the dream world.
She picks him up early from school, right as recess concludes. His hand bids a reluctant farewell to the chain link fence, smearing fresh blood across a final metal square. The car smells new still, and the -ologist building is made of bricks, all cemented together. He wants to be as solid as they are, as combined as they are, as similar as they are. He wants to be one brick, holding up so many others, connected to immeasurable comrades in the battle of holding up the building. He would be so included as a brick.
The waiting room is empty except for them and a man with a long, rugged white beard. It smells faintly musty, but sweetness pervades from the receptionist's lunch. She chews too loudly.
His knee bounces up and down with anxiety. Is this another one of his mother's dreams, another thing he doesn't love, will only be unhappy doing?
Is it something else that will show just how much of a disappointment he is?
The walk down the hallway is short, and the door silently opens for them. The man is tall- even taller than the little boy's mother, whose height genes, as of the third grade, have gone uninherited. The smile on the tall man's face is too broad, too friendly.
Or maybe Bōluó is just paranoid.
They sit. His mother lays a hand on her son's knee to stop the shaking. The man- the -ologist- says something about a conversation with mom, something about food, and now he's wondering if this is something to do with all his failures, all his time spent dwelling on them instead of becoming a winner, a better child.
The -ologist hands him a small plate of yellow fruit, bulging with juice. His mother calls it pineapple; he is enraptured. A conversation between the two adults commences, and all he can do is stare at it, sniff it. Finally, the courage to take a bite- he raises the plastic fork, stabbing the squishy fruit unlike any he's ever had before. Ever since an unfortunate incident concerning a carton of strawberries, he's steered clear of fruits, but the yellow is just irresistible- an embodiment of sunshine. And he can't help but wonder.
Are you gonna be my love?
Are you gonna be mine?
His taste buds explode, and he feels it falling from the skies above- all his joy and his happiness that had been hiding behind the clouds of the unknown. You're gonna be mine. His wave, but it's not turning him to shreds, slowly eroding him away- it's restoring him. His shark, too frightened to bite him anymore, to spill his blood. And the demons in the dark retreat to the furthest shadows, so deep he can't even see them for that split second in time, that one delicious bite. The blue tide's pulling him under a sea of joy, and he can breathe the water there now- he can breathe. It's not anybody else's- it's his.
It's his soul, his heart- things they can't pull apart.
Are you gonna, are you gonna be my love?
Yes.
