funeral for the liabilities ━━ keanu reeves + river phoenix

II. THE SAME DILEMMA

❝ we're not so
alone,
after all. ❞

CHAPTER TWO:
THE SAME DILEMMA

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The ride home was silent and quiet: radio disc jockeys' chatter and the songs they played in between intervals and witty transitions that are most of the time chuckled at when noticed.

Andy was seated on the driver's seat with Jack beside him; the blond boy was oddly quiet for a guy that is so carefree about what people say ─ it struck Andy's curiosity.

Turning down the stereo's volume, the loud electronic-like music playing in the midnight radio faded out into the atmosphere with Andy's words appearing magically like ghosts to the clairvoyant.

"I hate the radio," jested Andy, trying to form a laugh to no avail.

The blond boy only sat there in silence, eyes fixed in the moving stillness outside the car window. His head was rested on the tempered glass, glancing sideways then fixing his gaze back to watching the street lights flicker on and off and the neon signs live in the night.

Although the town was dead at late hours, especially midnight, places uptown are where secret, hidden lives lit up in the dark like cigarettes to a chainsmoker. It was where the judged felt safe and the intoxicated felt home.

"Do you think there's, like, a way to get out of this place?" asked Jack without making eye contact with Andy. He was empty-minded at that moment, only staring at the places the vehicle pass by.

"I don't know. I've been stuck here for a year now."

"Well, uh─? High five?" muttered the blond boy as he raised his hand mid-air for a 'high five' as he called it.

Awkwardly, both of their palms met and created a slightly high-pitched clap that felt uncomfortable and weird. Andy stares at Jack for a second, mesmerizing the boy's features before looking back to the road.

Jack reaches out for the stereo and turns up the volume, waiting to hear if there's still any good music being played at midnight. He sighs in frustration as he hears another generic-sounding pop song by a band familiar to them.

"Well, fuck. Still sounds like shit." said Jack under his breath as he basically mutes the radio.

Andy, however, was timid to start a conversation. He was out of something decent enough to talk to. What were there to talk about anyway? There was that thing called Anime; there was politics, too; there was nothing ─ and Andy decided to talk about the latter.

"Uh, Jack, where do you work?" asked Andy falteringly with his eyes twitching and darting around.

Jack chuckled at the boy's timidity. "Your eyes twitch like that?" said the blond mockingly while batting his eyelashes.