Sweet Talk (BoyxBoy OneShots)

Evan

A/N: This chapter is actually not my own original idea, but one that I've built upon after seeing it on TikTok. The creator, with username 'prettydumbsceneideas', is a man who lists all of his content as public domain. Please check out his TikTok; it's actually pretty cool.

CW: mentions hanging, death, self-harm, suicide, etc.

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One day, a brown-haired man was hung from a tree in my town. No one knew who he was or whether he had done it to himself or had it done to him. No one came to claim the body, though I'm not sure they could have if they tried because no one could cut the man down.

The rope, no matter what blade they used would not yield and no one could untie it. Like a dark Gordian knot, everyone tried to undo the noose or the knot at the branch, but no one could get the end of the rope to budge. The city tried to cut the branch the man was tied to or the tree, but no blade could cut either, and not truck could pull the tree down. There wasn't even a record of the tree existing in the first place.

In desperation, the city tried to separate the head from the body and pull the neck out through the noose but again, no blade could cut the skin. No one could get the man down. They tried for years, digging up the tree by its roots; pulling the man, the rope, the branch; every sharp edge they could think of.

A bright orange construction fence was erected, but then a permanent fence was finally built as the years passed. The body never decayed; the rope never frayed,  and the tree never grew or died. Over time, the city forgot the man was there. He would be there forever, they decided. 

The man was hung before I was born, and he hangs still in my hometown, swinging gently as the wind blows. I remember idolizing him as a kid. The idea of this god in the city park. I hung my stuffed animals from my bed frame in his image until my mother begged me to stop. She couldn't stand the sight of my dolls hanging, but she passed the man every day on her way to work, and every day, he occupied her mind for about a minute before her job reclaimed her focus. On the way home, she didn't even glance at him, too tired to be melancholy about something that happened years ago.

The town bustles around the man every day. Never looking at him, never thinking about him. The image of a man in a tree ceased to shock anyone. They'd seen it thousands of times. Years passed, kids grew, people married, and soon, no one seemed to care about the dead body in the park.

When I was a kid, I thought every city had a hanging man in the park until one day a classmate told me in a hushed whisper that her extended family refused to visit the city infamous for a hanging body in a park. Nevertheless, I will always consider the image of a man hanging from a tree to be part of my life. It surprises me that people find this to be so horrifying.

One day, after arriving home for a semester break from university, there was a certain atmosphere within the city that I was unable to pick up on. The typical hustle and bustle of the city had been reduced to a few lonely strangers walking by themselves with earbuds in. Though strange, I hadn't thought much about it at first.

I parked my old pickup truck on the curb next to the two storey suburban home I grew up in, ready to see my parents for the first time in four months. I made my way to the front door and casually opened it, making sure to lift it to avoid scratching the tile below.

"Mom? Dad?" I half yelled, wondering why the house didn't smell like my mom's famous beef stew, or why the air conditioner wasn't on considering the sweltering temperatures. I traversed through the halls of the house, taking my steps carefully and making as little noise as possible. As I walked up the stairs, a creak or two were made, foiling my plans for a stealthy entry.