Paranoid

Thought Process

Several minutes had gone by, and nothing much had happened. Wild had picked his book back up started flipping through it again. Twilight had started... chewing on his sleeve for some reason. Time had gone to the kitchen.

So it was pretty quiet.
Then, without warning, Wild practically jumped out of his skin and ripped the headphones away from his ears, breathing heavily.
He looked over at Legend and exclaimed, "What kind of loud-ass shitshow music do you listen to!? That nearly freaking killed me!"
Legend leaned over at looked at the phone. "Oh. It's just that? It's not that bad. There's louder stuff on here."

Wild laughed nervously and tossed the phone at Legend. "If that's the case, I don't want this."
"You can make your own playlist. I don't mind."
"No thank you. I think I'll just listen to silence."

He paused and looked around. "Ah, shit. The headphones are on the floor."
"I've got them!"
Wind jumped for them and tossed them over to Wild. They missed him completely and slid across the room.
"Wow, thanks Wind. That was very helpful."
"Sorry..."
"It's fine. I don't need them."

A minute went by, and Wild just stared at the window. Not through it, just at it.
He sighed. "This is boring as hell." He paused. "Hey Wind, do you have legos?"
"What?"
"I said, do you-"
"I heard what you said. But why?"
"Cuz I'm bored."
"Well, yeah."
"Okay. Get them."
Wind shrugged and hopped up. "Sure. Pause it, Legend."
Legend nodded and paused the show as Wind ran upstairs.

Soon, Wind came back with a big bucket of legos. Wild beamed. "That's a lot. Sweet."
Wind smiled and put the bucket on the couch next to Wild. "I'm gonna build something with you. I'm gonna go get an instruction book."
"Okay. I'll start making something."

And make something he did. By the time Wind got back, he had made a small plane.
"Ooh! That's cool!"

Wind plopped down on the opposite side of the bucket, and Legend unpaused the tv. Wind chose an instruction book and started building. He offered them to Wild, but he declined. Instead, he started building on his own.

He built another plane. This one was bigger than the first, and therefore more detailed.
Once he finished that, he started helping Wind with something from the instruction books.

The thing Wind was working on was a firefighter scene. He was putting the building together, so Wild put the firetruck together.

While he stuck the pieces together, he thought about the times he had gotten hurt while he was on his own.
He had definitely been pretty reckless, but he was tough. He healed quickly. Which was good, because when he was injured badly, he tended to have more of those flashback things. He guessed that it was because he felt more vulnerable, and therefore felt more anxious and aware of everything around him.

And it was worse when he started living in the city. Yeah, he got hurt less, but there were more sounds. Dogs, people playing their music stupidly loud in their cars, cars in general, people yelling, all that. And motels aren't that great if you're trying to avoid things like that. But motels were cheap, and he didn't want to spend money unnecessarily.

And most of the money he had given Twi for the house wasn't even his. A good portion of it was from Zel. That was why he didn't want to tell anyone how he got all that money.

And why did he do that?
He didn't want to use the old family bank account. There was a lot of money in it, but it just felt wrong to use it. So, he just used his own money. He also had a good amount of that. He had bought the motorcycle with his own money. And now that was ruined. He probably wouldn't get another motorcycle any time soon.

He remembered back when his mom told him that motorcycles are dangerous. She was right, but he didn't believe her. He thought he'd never get into a crash. He said that he'd be careful, but here he was, struggling to put legos together because his arm was broken from an accident. Here he was, unable to stand because using his leg hurt, even if he was just adjusting its position.

He thought he'd never get into a crash, but he also thought the chances of something like the Yiga attack happening, especially to him, was next to nothing. He'd thought it would always be someone else that was the victim of something like that. Not him.

And look where believing that got him.
So now, he was always on the lookout for things like that. Anything could happen at any time. That someone else was now him. It was always him.

An entire family was killed, leaving only a teenager. The teenager was him.
Someone got into a motorcycle accident. He was the someone.

He couldn't relax for one second. Even if there were other people around that could keep him safe, he still stayed alert.

For example, right now.
He heard a dog barking. A car drove by. There were birds outside. People outside were talking loudly.
He had learned to block some things out, too. For instance, he was currently blocking the tv out. He wasn't good at it, but he was good enough at it for it to work. Anyway, he usually just blocked it other people's conversations, which was easy.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he was brought back to the room. When he focused on outside things, it felt like he was separated from his body.

"Hm?"
"You good? You spaced out for a minute."
"Oh." He shook his head. "Yeah, I'm fine."