𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄

ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ - ꜰɪᴠᴇ

𝗧he thing about leather is that it's not supposed to stain.

When he purchased his Doc Martens years ago, hell, when he decided to make a career out of his shitty upbringing—he was granted one thing. He was told his shoes—the base where most bodies dropped, the place where lives came to their unholy end—he was promised that this material would be his best friend.

With leather, the possibility of relived memories and moments were about as slim as finding love in a sea of electronic hookup apps. With leather, the droplets of forgotten identities, people who would never be latent again, would roll off without a blip in his time momentum.

And yet, here he sat, his eyes glued to that same black that taunted him like every other thing on this planet. Red and splotchy, drenched in the blood of the only two people in his life that really mattered—the two that held the balance of his mental health and clear subsist in their hands—below him like a transfixion, tapping against the faded linoleum, was the only reminder that they ever existed.

Promises, promises.

A lie, a coat of faux armor to force him to recall that he'd chosen one and left the other to waste away in the back of a warehouse he had no business invading. That voice in the back of his head, loud and proud screamed at him to fucking wake up—to remove his ass from the bench he was glued to and head back to that same place to relight the burning goddamn house he'd fucking reckoned with.

... I love you more than anything else in this world.

Then please, come with me.

—but your first love was Kaedyn.

Disastrous. Painful.

Longing and unease.

Kai's fingertips dove underneath his messy and uneven hairline, pulling and tugging at the closest available strands, doing anything he could to keep his head somewhat screwed on—to acknowledge the fact that he was still here.

When they'd arrived at the hospital entrance a mere hour ago, he'd carried Kaedyn not more than two steps before a series of half-concerned, half-entertained doctors swooped in and stole him away. Nurses had clung to the blood-soaked jacket he was wearing, begging for a release of information from his lips, but all he had the energy to do was watch the disarray of purple hair disappear around the corner, not yet again seen.

Slow and stupid elevator music played above his head, allowing his shoes to create a rhythm of anxious-attachment tap dancing as his eyes poured more liquid than he had stored in his body. Three months ago, everything had been perfect—a love like no other, and his other—better—half sticking to his side as if they had been conjoined at birth.

When did this all go to shit?

How did everything go downhill so fast?

Part of him wanted to smear the tears off his cheeks in a bout of anger and march into the unmarked areas of the hospital to find him—but most of him knew that if something he did caused a chain reaction that'd kill him, he would never forgive him.