The Switch {EarthMix}

23.

Earth could feel panic and anxiety rush through his body even just thinking about what might happen.

After all the revelations from earlier he should have stayed awake, should have had a closer look at Mix and should have recognised that the other was doing worse than he had initially thought. Well... if he was his old self, the person that had met Mix in the bar that night, contemplating whether he could do a partner check in order to keep his declining relationship alive... if he was still the same person, he would have guilty tripped himself. Blaming that all this was his fault, that if he only had had a closer look at the other, he would have recognised all his emotion and would have been able to change everything.

But ... he knew himself that all of this was not true. The only thing that really might have been his fault was punching Ming and Pan, everything else was out of his hand. If Mix decided that he did not want to share how much it must have hurt him, it would have been wrong to press him on it. Forcing someone to share their feelings with you when they might not be ready or even desire to share them with anyone... would not save anything, it would rather destroy the trust that person had in you. Well, those kinds of things always were a balance act, something where you had to find the right concentration between offering help and holding out your hand, but also giving them space in order to not push the other. He had tried his best doing that... but maybe what Mix needed in the moment was to be alone, to just focus and sort out all his thoughts after all that had happened...

But then again... what if he really got a dumb idea?

" I feel like being a dilemma Vee... you weren't here earlier when everything happened... but while I am worried about his safety, I am also worried that taking away this moment of him being able to focus on himself might hurt him even more..." Earth softly admitted and let out a sigh.

He surely had caught the other off guard, the older one's facial expression changing to confusion before becoming soft and placing a hand on Earth's shoulder.

" I can understand that you're feeling this way and if I am completely honest, I do agree with what you said. Mix is someone who likes to withdraw when being faced with troubling emotions... so I think we must approach this situation carefully. While we should make sure that he is okay and not... harming himself in any way, it is important to not take away this moment of him dealing with his emotions in his own way, of course as long as he isn't harming himself or anyone else..."

"How about this then... let's look for him and if the situation is safe, let's just wait for him from a small distance... until he is ready for us to approach him."

Vee slowly nodded, agreeing with what his best friend had proposed while still being a little fascinated. Even if Earth was still oblivious to it at this point, being friends with him for the past three years made the older recognise the change in him. And he was looking forward to the day that Earth would wake up and see how much he had changed, how the connection between Mix and him had slowly made him a better and more empathetic person.

Once they had made up their minds about their plan, the two men headed straight for the main door, but right before the younger was putting on his shoes, Vee interrupted his movement and made him look up.

"Can we maybe hang a note on the front door...? So just something similar so, for the case that Mix comes back here, he can either contact us or get in here? "

Considering all the options for a moment, Earth headed over to the kitchen table and quickly wrote together a short message, that he hung on the front door from the outside with a small piece of tape. He made sure that it could not come off easily, just in case, before putting on his shoes and heading out of the apartment with Vee.

Knowing that there were probably a million places Mix could have gone to, from the coffeeshop oasis to his apartment, or even to one of the nearby parcs ... searching everything by foot was just not an option. It would have taken the two of them days to check every single one of them, so Vee and Earth had decided to split up: while Earth would look through the neighbourhood of his apartment complex', staying in the proximity for the case that Mix would return, Vee would take his car and drive around the different alternatives, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of their friend somewhere. It would surely be worth a try...