Lonely Cities

Chapter One

'You don't actually want to jump, do you?'

At the sudden realisation he was not alone the young boy spun in shock towards the voice that had spoken up behind him, forgetting for a second he was stood right on the edge of life and death itself. The tentative ground he'd perched himself on was soaking wet by this point and very nearly as he turned did his foot slip right out from beneath him, a near fatal loss of balance and a mistake which would have made up his mind for him. Yet as he let out a small yelp, even in that tense second finding the time to wonder if he should just let himself fall, a helping hand, perhaps sent by God himself, reached out to grab his trembling fingers and he regained balance.

Standing back on steady ground again, the brunet felt foolish, cowardly for having put off his fate long enough someone else had to get involved, and as he gazed down at the interferer he realised this someone else just happened to be an attractive young boy, perhaps not much older than himself, and in all respects looking very much like he was standing in a place he certainly did not belong.

Black haired, this stranger had the nerve to try and dictate his life for him, an act the brunet did not take kindly too. He had been ready, yet his moment had been stolen and now, able to add irritation to his list of emotions, he frowned at the raised brow, half hidden by a black fringe, that the other boy was giving him.

'How would you know what I want?' He snapped, unnerved and annoyed by the knowing look this stranger gave him. It was as if he was able to look into deep brown eyes and read every detail of the pain they covered up, the stranger perceptive to all suffering and anguish and somehow able to sense the fear the brunet knows is woven through his heartstrings though he always refused to admit that even to himself. 'I'm going to do it,' he asserted, just to let the stranger know he was serious because he himself, of course, already knew as much. He did, he took the liberty to remind himself, he had come too far to turn back now.

Yet the stranger was not so quick to believe and he even smirked a little, letting go of the brunet's hand as if to prove a point: it would be perfectly safe to let it go, nothing bad would happen, that was how confident he was. 'No you're not,' he decided with too casual a shrug for the situation, all too nonchalant considering he'd just encountered a helpless boy about to jump.

'You'd have done it by now,' the intruder continued by way of explanation. 'You've been standing there for a good hour now,' he finished, still with that almost bored tone, breaking eye contact to look towards the rain, finally finding something to place a small wrinkle in his brow. 'Terrible weather,' the strange boy added as an after thought that left the brunet struggling to keep up with the unexpected detour of this thought train.

Choosing to ignore the rain, although it was beating down persistently on their heads, he directed his attention towards the most worrying aspect of what the other boy had spoken. It hadn't felt like an hour but he knew he had been standing there a good long time, silently mulling it all over in his own head, all the while growing steadily more depressed with his own situation. It was somewhat concerning this other boy had been present from the start.

'What, you've been watching me the whole time?! And you're only just speaking up now?' The brunet challenged, trying his best to remain strong through the sudden bout of self consciousness that close to overwhelmed him. Just who was this unconcerned stranger to judge him anyway? There was nothing he could say that would change things now, at any rate, but an hour ago...maybe.

'If you wanted to say something why didn't you say it earlier?' The brunet wondered out loud, feeling a little smaller as the black haired boy in front of him directed his blue gaze back to him, offering a reassuring smile on pink lips that might have been able to place a seed of doubt in the brunet's mind if he stared long enough. He was still scared. No matter how badly he wanted it over the fear would remain, but at least that too would be something he'd no longer have to deal with once he got this over with. Once the other boy gave up and left...