drowning in violet - skephalo

07:19 AM, Monday

Darryl felt like he was about to combust, the feeling in his throat swelling like colossal pieces of hail. And everything was warm, like molten calcite was injected into his lungs messily, so the holes where it missed the first few times leaked through tissue and spread through his body. His clock read 07:19 and he remembered it was Monday. He threw on a sweater, some red and black one reserved for pretentious hipsters, and began to make his way towards the main school building.

It was still fairly dark out, and the moon peaked out amongst the fading clouds. He had forgotten to tie his shoelaces, but he was far too lazy to do anything about it; they swung across the pavement and blew against the morning air, and it was kind of obnoxious but Darryl wasn't really thinking about it, instead about the moonlight that was soaking his clothes and the way he was closer to the entrance than he thought he was. He passed by half-dimmed traffic lights and pretended like he was a part of it all, of the sound that the tires made against the asphalt and the oxidising bodies that he didn't know were happy or not in their cars or if they were just like Darryl, and it was a strange thought, but when he closed his eyes it was okay because he pretended like he was with them, voices and thoughts and habits shrouded by windshields and car doors.

He entered the building, complete with many windows and polished bricks, and made his way into his class. He skimmed the room for the familiar blue boy, and saw him propped against a desk with headphones placed snugly on top of his head. He was wearing a stupid blue t-shirt and Darryl had never felt more unnecessarily trivialized in his life. He smiled in relief and made his way over to Zak, but not without nearly tripping over seemingly nothing.

Zak spun around without Darryl even touching him. "Hey, you again?" he chuckled. Zak was looking at him and his breath caught in his throat, and then Zak was saying his name, a secret soft on his tongue, and he looked happy, really, if anything else. He was saying something but Darryl couldn't really hear it, his heart was pounding, so he just nodded and smiled stupidly.

Zak sifted through his hair with battered fingers. He was hesitating on something and Darryl didn't really know what it was; he hadn't been able to look him straight in the eyes without holding his gaze for too long because he felt breathless when his pale green irises met harsh molten amber.

"We have the whole year to go to class, let's go," Zak said, and he was smiling so Darryl was smiling too, but he hardly even realised he'd agreed to hang out with Zak somewhere, even though it was the best idea in the world to him at that moment. His mind was erratic, and sitting down and listening to a lecture for two hours seemed like eons away. Zak seemed to notice Darryl staring so he stuck out his tongue, gesturing with two fingers for him to follow him, so he did. He felt like he'd had a few cocktails because there was this buzzing in his chest and it was warm and unfamiliar and strange and, yet, he liked it - he really did.

There weren't any stars out and the parking lot looked wide: colorful but opaque. The shadows of the telephone poles looked like wax dripping down the length of a candle and onto the black asphalt, but Darryl couldn't really tell how much was in front of him because the only thing he was focusing on was how Zak was right next to him and how he couldn't feel anything but his heart bumping against his chest. They walked past the cars and into the courtyard. Zak sat down on the grass, propping his legs against a smooth rock. He lied down, arms folded behind his head. Darryl sat cross-legged next to him, staring at the way the moon shone through cracks in Zak's hair and how he could see him breathing.

"Your hands," Darryl began, "why are they so bruised?"

Zak turned to face him, opening his eyes and staring at the spaces where the stars should've been, eyes like molten silver clouding in pools within them. "I have a bad habit of punching my desk when I'm angry."

"What?"

"Yeah, it's been that way for years. WebMD says I have anger issues." Zak said, shrugging, wondering what kind of laugh Darryl had and if it was light or loud or nonexistent and if he could elicit it from the boy's mouth.

Darryl smiled gently, reverting his gaze to the grass beside him. "Do you?" he asked softly.

"No, I don't think so," Zak paused, "I think everyone has something they do to release emotions that they really shouldn't." He thought he sounded stupid and overly dramatic, a clumsy and inarticulate poetic void of eloquence and deliberation, like he was still fourteen and pretending that he knew everything and nothing at the same time.

Darryl felt like he was dehydrated because his tongue was dry, syllables catching hopelessly against his throat, and he wanted to say something remarkable and great but he didn't even know how; Zak was corroding him to a puddle of emotion without even trying.

"Do you believe everything happens for a reason?" Zak suddenly asked, shifting his entire body to face Darryl, who had now been braiding strands of grass together.

"I'm not sure. I've never really understood it. Well, I mean, I understand the concept, but I don't understand why so many people go about that theory without considering the possibility that maybe things don't. Maybe we're just grasping for ways to make sense of the chaos around us. Maybe we're giving meaning to things that were never meant to have meaning, and clinging to hope so hard that we forget the true reality around us," Darryl looked up to see Zak's eyes widened with contemplation, "what if we're wrong, and nothing's meant to be? We're just lost souls wandering endlessly, desperately seeking comfort from the notion that 'things will work out no matter what'. What if we've tricked ourselves into believing everything will be okay in the end, just so we don't have to face the reality that maybe... well, it won't."

"You take one psychology class in high school and all of a sudden you know how the world works." Zak smirked.

"Shut up!" Darryl giggled, slapping Zak's knee playfully. Both of their smiles grew.

He began to see Zak's eyes and the shape of his face and where his hair stopped because the sun had begun to rise over the city. Darryl didn't know what the right thing to say was, he never did, so he just inched closer to Zak and grabbed his hand and traced circles on his knuckles like whispers. Zak's hands were cold, icy, but they felt like fire in Darryl's. Darryl glided his thumb over the colors on the backs of Zak's hands and the pigments were somewhat vibrant in the dull morning light, blue and yellow and black. His grip was questioning and light. Zak opened his eyes and let out a shaky breath, and then they were both staring at each other blankly, just studying each other, hands together on damp grass whilst the city buzzed behind them.

"What's your favorite color?" Darryl asked, and he wasn't really prepared for Zak to look him in the eyes, at least not that intensely, and it might've been the moonlight or the smell of rain on the two boys' skin or maybe the sound of Zak breathing next to him, but Darryl found himself drinking it all in, letting himself get lost in the light. And when Zak replied, maybe he wasn't prepared for a serious answer, or maybe he just didn't want to keep looking at the bruises.

"Red."