Thirty-Seven (bxb)

Chapter Seven

Danny didn't know what to do or say after bumping into the smaller teenager. They both looked at each other in shock, frozen in place, unaware of what they should do next. Danny had hoped that the encounter from the night before hadn't been real, a figment of his imagination. That he simply imagined the large scary guy and the small boy he had been carrying. That he simply passed out of the couch by accident and didn't give his room up to the two strangers. Running into the small boy definitely ruined the illusion that everything was as it should be.

"H-hello there," Danny studdered out, looking past the boy, wondering where the scarier one was. When Danny didn't see him standing in the hallway, his attention turned back to the small boy, who, upon closer examination, wasn't as young-looking as Danny first assumed. Danny first thought the boy standing in front of him was either an early teenager or a pre-teen, but looking at him in the proper lighting, he looked more mature, more aged, like a teenager around the ages of fifteen or sixteen. Even then, Danny wasn't sure. "W-where is the other guy?" Danny asked hesitantly after the boy didn't reply.

Thirty-Seven struggled to understand what the guy was saying, as the guy was using terms he's never heard before. Thirty-Seven's speech comprehension was horrible, as words were rarely used around him, never giving him the chance to learn to speak or understand English. When the guy said, 'other guy,' Thirty-Seven recognized the word guy, and summed up that this one was asking about his savior. Thirty-Seven turned slightly, pointing back towards the room he left.

"Oh, so you left on your own?" Danny asked, understanding that the boy would be curious to wander, but he had assumed the boy wouldn't leave the room without the bigger guy. Thirty-Seven could only look at the guy in confusion, not understanding him. Thinking about it, Thirty-Seven realized that the speaking barrier would quickly become a problem when they both started talking to him. Pointing and gestures would only work if he managed to understand what they were saying.

Danny paused, waiting for a response, becoming confused when he didn't get one. Why wasn't the kid responding to him? Danny didn't once think it was because the kid didn't understand him, didn't understand English, as Danny assumed he could speak just like the other guy. Danny leaned forward slightly, hoping it would urge the kid to speak, getting disappointed when the kid only seemed to lose interest in Danny, his eyes moving rapidly, examining the contents of the bathroom.

It wasn't as if Thirty-Seven didn't know what the content of a bathroom was, as he'd seen the relieving unit and a similar-looking device for cleansing, but he never saw the two objects next to each other. Thirty-Seven would always be taken into another room for the cleansing, and it only happened every-so-often. Thirty-Seven had no way of knowing the distance between each cleansing.

"Are you hungry?" Danny's voice drew Thirty-Seven's attention back to him, although he still didn't understand what the guy was saying. Thirty-Seven looked closely at the guy, wishing the language barrier didn't exist. Even if he could talk, what would he say? What would he want to talk about? He'd ask about the colors, the shades, and what each one was called.

Danny was slowly becoming annoyed with the boy ignoring him and was about to snap at him about it when the boy shook his head and made weird gestures at his throat and mouth. Danny tilted his head, trying to figure out what the boy was doing before, ultimately putting two and two together. "You can't talk?" Danny asked baffled.

Still not understanding the guy, Thirty-Seven sighed, before walking around the guy, venturing further into the unknown space, no longer seeing the guy as a scary threat. He was too chatty to be a bad-guy. Danny stared at the boy's back, even more confused than the moment before. If the boy couldn't talk, did that also mean he couldn't understand what Danny was saying? Was he simply mute, or was it more than that?