The armoured hearts

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(Welcome here, hoping your day is/was amazing 💗✨️)

The boy sighed in delight after the first spoon of soup fell into his stomach. Kim, sitting in front of him, had a surprised expression, always the same, like a cat wondering what was happening after hearing a strange sound. Porchay just made a desperate expression before pointing at the soup and at his mouth and doing the same reaction. 

“This means that I love how it tastes.”

“How…should I know what it means, it isn’t wr-”

“Written on the rules, I know. But this is why I am explaining it to you.” Porchay said, taking another spoon. “Don’t you think that it’s good?”  

“It is.” Kim coldly said. 

“Then, you can just make that sound!” Porchay cheered up on him but Kim just denied again. It kinda saddened him to see Kim just hide behind some words on a paper. He would want to see him just express himself, but it seemed kinda impossible for now, and Porchay didn’t know but his heart was ready to take the challenge. 

He didn’t have any saving intent, or any need to cherish Kim. It was something deeper and personal, something so precious to him : not being alone. The boy didn’t remember the last time he ate with someone. He could only have some memories of him and Porsche, happily sharing the least they had and Porchay fighting because his brother wanted to give more to him. It was special and good images from their past, even more happier now that he wouldn’t be able to live those moments. Porchay wasn’t casually sitting at a table to eat peacefully what he won by his labor: he robbed most of the time. It gave  him the necessity to hide, to never be seen, to sit at the end of a narrowed and really dirty street to eat, or devour with how much he was starving, the small and not enough piece of bread he just took from someone who might have worked for it. And most of the time he would cry thinking about it, until he stopped because he didn’t have enough sobs for the intensity of the guilt he felt. 

Here, he felt nothing of this. The soup was made with the products of Kim’s garden. It was given to him by Kim, served by Kim, and it was eaten together. In one minute, Porchay lived again what he wished for years: experiencing again the family type of life. There weren't any emotions or strong feelings between them but it was enough, more than enough and the boy also had fun making Kim learn how to understand what all of those sounds were in his quiet and silenced habits. 

Kim just stood up, like a mechanism, took the plate away and said to Porchay : “Now it’s time to wash.”

“Oh, no there’s no need.” Porchay just smiled at him but Kim denied again, pushing Porchay upstairs and showing him the bathroom. Closing the door. And he was alone in something really uncomfortable to him. 

The boy had stopped to clearly wash himself if it wasn’t a necessity, but necessity was also an unknown situation for Porchay. He was just used to it. At first, he would walk to the nearest river and try to take care of himself. But after he was far away from the river and it was exhausting to walk and he was sleeping in the streets, where he could, so each time, he would wake up even more dirty. And dirtier when walking and wandering each day outside and it was raining and he was always in the mud and he ended up just getting used to it. He was smelling but he ended up just getting used to it. And he was sad about it but he ended up just getting used to it and he suddenly remembered Porsche’s sentence :”My Chay should always feel pretty and clean.” And Porchay began to cry, he still tried to get the tears inside, he somehow could, he couldn’t just break down like this. But it was real that he couldn’t do one thing Porsche always asked him to be : pretty and clean, unlike Porsche who was the one to come home dirty but shining after washing up some days after.

The boy got naked, and looked with disgust at the trousers and the pants which in the end weren’t that clean anymore. In fact, it was somehow not that bad because his pee had the time to dry but suddenly he just remembered how it was to be able to be hygienic and he felt ashamed of himself. 

He put the clothes in one of the buckets and poured water on it, before letting it dry on the edge of the window and Porchay stayed stuck for a moment at the image of water falling. This house had water falling inside in the middle of a forest. It was too weird, too strange, as if Kim in the end wasn’t that alone. How would he be able alone to literally create a way to have water? He began to be a little scared of what he might find staying but for now he needed to just wash quickly and to just take over trousers and pants in the drawers, which he did and Kim had a lot. It was even more concerning because it was a little too big for Porchay, it meant that Kim grew up but either they put it there before he would be able to wear it, or someone came, so he wasn’t alone. And that invisible presence all around was creepy, giving him shivers. 

“P’Kim, I'm finished.” Porchay just said, the boy coming upstairs after washing dishes. 

Porchay already sat on the bed, he didn’t even think for five seconds before deciding that they needed to share the bed, or more like he needed to feel again the delighted sensation of sleeping in a soft bed. Kim said nothing, just took his clothes and went to the bathroom, before coming back, and not asking Porchay anything to Porchay. The boy guessed that it was in the rules for him to sleep in the bed, so he also had to follow them. 

“Good night.” Porchay murmured, ready to close his eyes. 

“Why good night?” Kim asked and he sighed, he had forgot that Kim knew everything but the social conventional talks. 

“Well… when you sleep with someone around, you can wish them to have a great sleep.”

“”Will it be greater, then?”

“Not always…but doesn’t it feel great? To have someone wishing you this?”

“I don’t know.” Kim just answered, not adding anything and Porchay just turned around to cut their conversation. He wasn’t in the mood to just make him learn things. He felt uncomfortable, incredibly uncomfortable and it hurt him so much when he needed to just get out of the bed and sleep on the ground. 

It was harsh. It was dirty. It was hard. But Porchay felt better like this. He felt better because it was all he knew. He had let aside the comfort he had with Porsche, sleeping in one small bed, but still having one. 

Kim might not have learn all of his life to act like a socialized human being but Porchay realized how much of a human being he wasn’t when it came to the most basics things, like sleeping in a bed, because he had lost the most precious thing for everyone : the stability and the safety of a home.