He's forgotten.
He has been so immersed in the hubbub of the clan that to return to the quiet of isolation is a startling reminder how refreshing time alone can be. Solitude is a familiar feeling for him, a reunion with an old friend after parting ways for a while; he values it just as much as the company of the clan. Yet he cannot deny that battle and chatter and coordination haven't completely warmed up to him yet, even if he has been marinated in such instincts ever since the fateful evening during which he turned.
He is a boy of blood, but the blood does not completely coat who he was before. Sure, it has pooled around him, soaked and shriveled the corners until all that remains is dissolving crimson, but the core remains the same. His heart remains untouched, unblemished- he still carries the tenderness, the vulnerability of that child pricking his fingers on the chainlink fence.
He has not encountered such a fence since the one encompassing the schoolyard- or, at least, has consciously forced himself away from the ones that have taunted him, reminded him of the pain he experienced before the pineapple. Every twisted fragment of metal is a reminder of his inadequacies, his fears, and the expectations of the people around him; he does not want to recall that. Yet he finds himself patrolling such a border on the edge of the city, where his clan has retreated from the violence and distress of rival invasions.
His purpose is to protect- he has known that, ever since his bold escape- but the endless links spark nostalgia. Feet crunching on the pebbles underneath, he walks in the nighttime, hand trailing gently across the slivers separating two worlds. The yellowed moon hangs low as gloaming fades, and he watches the time pass from the shadows on the ground, from the pace of his whispering footsteps. All is silent, and he remembers such a time where the only noise was inside his own head, where he walked for hours on the clouds lingering above reality.
His hands press harder, harsher. He remembers this pain, this gradual puncture slitting his fingertips from skin to blood. Blood... had he known, even then, what he would become? Had he known the world was made of blood and not of happiness, consumed by battle and not by peace? His heart is so tender; he has shied away from such thoughts, from the crooked past that creates the footsteps dawdling in the sand behind him.
He remembers the peace of solitude, embraces that old friend so wholeheartedly- is there not a reason?
He kicks a stone across the path, pace slowing as he grips the metal edges even tighter. The fence no longer simply nicks him but perforates his skin, wounds him. His scars never fully healed; the little lines weaving across his fingers reopen as the makeshift healing splinters. The cold air numbs his hand as it vacates the comfort of his pocket, and everything he feels fades slightly. He remembers this numbness.
The stone cuts through the chilled air as it barrels from motionlessness to sudden velocity, dinging against a metallic can half consumed by soiled snow. It catches his attention; he pauses in his tracks, rocking back and forth on his gouged fingers. The wound secretes pain, but he does not let go, cannot help but wonder just how far he can push himself. He remembers this- day after day after day, this agony, this self-inflicted punishment for all his imperfections.
He remembers after recess, being sent to the nurse's office to have the blood cleaned off of his hands and smearing it on his face, his arms just to avoid returning to the class full of children made with only the colors of black and white, while he is the entire rainbow. He remembers the scent of her cleaning solution, consuming the entire room- typically occupied by the girl with the perpetual cold and the boy who faked a stomachache to skip math class and the occasional athletic kid who scraped a knee during gym that day diving for the ball or the teacher's pet sent to grab another box of tissues. He remembers the rare lice checks, where hordes of anxious students would poar in, and he remembers the looks they would give him, the way their mouths would twist as they glanced at his bloody, foul hands and the red paint scrawled across his cheeks.
He remembers the sting of the alcohol, the whimper he suppressed as it zapped his fingers one by one. It was the pain he hated the most, for it was the pain he did not ask for, the pain he did not cause himself. He remembers the coarse bandages she fastened around each one, making his fingers bulge- he could not write with them, could not use them for anything except opening the door back out into the hallway and furiously scratching them off, peeling the layers of cloth away with the nails he refused to cut so that there was something to dig into the wounds with when he could not access the fence. The pain of his nails was always sharper than that of the fence, for he dug deeper into the pre-existing wounds instead of wearing away new surface skin as he gripped each chain slightly different. Surely it was also a mental thing- he could not fake an accident from the gashes created by his own hands. The links, at least, are not entirely his fault. His mother said something about suing the school once, but he doesn't remember her even following through with it.
He wrenches his hand away from the fence, clutching his wrist as the blood collects at his fingertips. The stone rolls back to him, and he squats down to pick it up when the glint of the can it struck catches his eye. Crawling over, he pulls it from the snow, brushing particles of the material from its surface. And the can contains nothing other than what had saved him, what had pulled him from the darkness of the chainlink fence into the light, into gaiety for the first time.
Pineapples.
He cracks open the lid, pleasantly surprised to see the snow has acted as a cooling agent, keeping the precious fruit fresh. Reaching in with his unscathed hand, he selects a sliver of fruit from the juice and plops it onto his tongue. The taste is familiar, and he remembers the first day he tried such a flavor, and the heaven that followed.
"I can make that heaven all you know."
The voice startles him, and he jumps to his feet, pineapple juice splashing over the side of the can into the snow. He faces one of his kind, but he does not recognize them from his clan- though the faces are still fresh in his mind, he knows this woman would have been branded in his memory. The eyes- dark, but the dark that can be both honest and deceiving, that walks the path where both truth and lies dwell. Her features are sharp, as well- cheekbones create the foundation of her face, and such obvious structure is uncommon. He would have recalled her from his own.
He sees no weapon, but surely a member of another clan would not dare approach him without. Fear courses through him, but he would never admit to such a thing, never reveal that the others are too far away to hear his cry for help.
"How do you mean?" He stutters. How long has she been standing there, watching him? Surely his back wasn't turned for very long as he opened the pineapple can. Nervous energy sends his heart pounding in his temples.
She takes a step forward; he takes a step back. "You don't like your past, do you? All that's there is old wounds and your own spilt blood. You don't want that as your childhood, love. Nobody does."
"One cannot wish the past away," He casts a skeptical glance in her direction, making hesitant eye contact. His injured fist clenches, unclenches, and another burst of pain erupts on the pads of his fingertips. "I'm stuck with what I have."
"What if you weren't? What if I could make you forget everything up to that sense of joy you got from eating those pineapples?"
He remembers the pain too vividly; he has been scarred by it. And he's asking himself if there is a way to heal those scars, if there is a way to make it seem as though they were never there, and he was a normal child made only of black and white, colorblind to the rest of the rainbow? What if he had known from the start what he loved, what would be his? What if he could permanently forget the times where he didn't know? What if he could undo the blood still foaming at his fingertips and be able to deny that he was ever in pain?
"All you have to do is leave your clan, and all that will disappear."
But I've just found my purpose. I've just found my place. His mind is spinning, spiraling in every direction, bouncing from yes to no and in between and his world has been rocked by the possibilities he never considered, the lack of pain he'd thought just wasn't meant to be.
But what is a person without a childhood? What is a person without pain? Who is he without the struggle that led to such joy? He longs to make it all disappear, to never feel that pain, recall that pain to his mind of the conflicted, defective child, but it dawns on him how much such agony has shaped him.
"Fine. I offered you the chance to have nothing, Pineapple. You can have everything instead."
And he remembers.
