All the Beautiful Things

XV

When Calum showed up at Everest's large house to conduct his and Casper's scavenger hunt, he was not at all surprised or offended when his blonde friend showed complete indifference at the idea of the game. Calum knew his ultimate goal was to bring a little light into the eyes of the boy who saw nothing, and he would stop at nothing to reach that, even if Everest seemed disinterested or bored of his efforts, for he knew that that was not the case.

"What exactly is commencing at this moment?" Everest asked blankly when the smaller boy handed him a colored piece of card stock with the game's instructions printed neatly on it, just the way Casper and Calum had created them.

Claim giggled, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet as he replied, "it's a scavenger hunt!"

Everest was confused. 

Due to his condition, the blonde grew up with few friends, and he never participated in events that most children did. Because of this, Everest Tanner knew nothing of leisure scanvenger hunts, and gazed around neutrally at his new friend's excited figure. "I am deeply apologetic, but could you possibly explain to me, what a 'scavenger hunt' is? I seem to be unaware of this activity," he asked, blinking his blue eyes twice. 

The smaller of the two happily explained the general idea and rules of the game to his comrade, and though Everest continued to look uninterested, Calum paid that reaction no mind, for he knew that the blonde did this involuntarily, and could not be blaimed for his boring nature.

In fact, Calum rather loved Everest's differences, and while others found them odd and quite rude, the brunette thought of Everest as a puzzle he needed to solve. He was intrigued by such a strange mental deformity, and he wanted nothing more than to unravel all of the missing pieces inside of his tall friend's brain. He cherished the challenge, and the boy who presented it. Never had he met someone quite like Everest, and he was filled with an immense amount of happiness at the thought of being the one to change him for the better.

Of course, he didn't want to change Everest entirely. Part of what made the blonde so fascinating was the fact that he viewed the world from a completely different set of lenses as everyone else. This automatically made him far less corrupted than other people, and Calum most definitely did not want to change that. He wanted Everest to enjoy every aspect of life, just as he deserved to, but he wanted to maintain the slight ignorance of some things, while still teaching him how to act and feel like any other human being.

This was one of the many reasons why Calum never presented Everest with any feelings of sadness or despair, because he wanted to teach him about love. About joy and happiness and the ability to live life with a smile, appreciating the good things and paying little mind to the bad, for life is full of daily struggles, and if he was taught to linger on the negative side of life, he would never truly see the beauty in the other things, and that was not how a person should live, in Calum's opinion.

This was why the boy never mentioned Ronan, never allowed Everest to be in his presence when his classmates at school decided it would be fun to shove the brunette into a locker bay, and never told him about any life events or stories that brought a frown to his face. Because he admired the fact that Everest could laugh, but he couldn't feel upset. He could enjoy the humor in life, and never have to see the opposing side, and though Calum knew he would teach him eventually, it was the last thing he wanted to do.

But you see, this was another one of Calum's many mistakes. Of course, he cannot be blamed, for he did not know that this was a bad idea. He simply thought of what seemed to be best for his new friend's emotional progress, and he went where his ideas took him. He never meant to cause harm. He only wanted to brighten the taller boy up a bit.