Winter Hearts

Under the Mask

N had noticed Leo was gone before anyone else, and, presuming he would want time alone with Siana, he called to tell him they wouldn't wait for him and to meet in the morning.

Then he had fallen in with Min, having found her reaction to their dinner game interesting. She had been touched by it, he was sure, but also a little unsettled it seemed. She was now quiet, perhaps uncomfortable, and he wanted to know why.

The day had been an interesting one where he had found himself looking over at her more times than he had intended to.

I am interested, he thought, but not sure yet how much. Or why exactly.

He had enjoyed their interactions because they were a little like what he enjoyed when he acted on the stage - there was an unspoken agreement, an understanding between the actors that whatever happened on stage was scripted, contrived, but allowed for them to delve into feelings, desires and vulnerabilities without really having to deal with them together in real life.

He realised this was what made him an actor at heart.

There was something about real life that was messy, unpredictable, which was something that unsettled him, like an undercurrent of uncertainty that flowed and ebbed in his awareness and kept him continually prepared.

He didn't think himself to be particularly quick of mind or tongue, the way Hyuk naturally was, but rather, someone who desired always to have the right thing to say or know exactly what to do in any situation. He realised early in life that what experience he couldn't get in real life he could get through simply asking someone who knew, or reading about it. So, he did that. He prepared himself for any situation. He rehearsed scenarios in his mind, he played out how he could have done something better, been kinder, been firmer. He learned how to cut someone down without hurting them, and he learnt humour and taking the brunt of a joke or criticism was a way of showing kindness to others, too.

This was his relationship with Leo when they started. His painful discomfort in front of the camera was easily smoothed over with distracting jokes, or dragging attention to himself by donning the hat of the attention-grabbing, almost pompous leader. It was already true aspect of his personality, it was just that it mattered less to him to actually be the shiniest of them all, than it did to make Leo feel less discomfort.

He wasn't even sure why he felt the need to protect him, he could certainly have let Leo fend for himself - he just thought that was an inordinately cold thing to do to someone whom he respected and would be spending the next ten years of his life with.

He learned that love can grow out of nothing, or at least, out of mutual respect.

He also learned that books, great stories, all gave him insight into how human nature was, and how people interacted.

What made betrayal hurt. What gave love a tinge of sadness. How people held on to the intangible nature of happiness.

He read anything, as long as it had potential to instruct him about being human. He was a great believer in the power of a good story.

Again, that thought that he lacked feelings, surfaced. He suddenly, and not for the first time, saw himself as a robot learning to be human through instruction manuals.

He quickly dismissed it, again, feeling it was odd. It wasn't that he lacked feeling. It was just that his singular path in life had cocooned him from life experiences that others had naturally. His depth of feeling was what made him want to learn in the first place.

The hardships in his life were from being different in a city concerned with the safety of sameness. He wanted to know how he could express compassion for others, in a world where niceties went hand-in-hand with the biting sting of condescension. He wanted to be the oil on troubled waters, the balm on wounds.