The archive of the forgotten

The better one ~ conditional

I shield my eyes from the sun, the weather is getting warmer the last few weeks. Honestly it feels like a burden every time another degree adds itself to the temperature. I always prefer a slight winter, my ability to concentrate diminishes when I need to worry about removing layers of clothes.
The same sun is shining through the small window of the miserable dorm. We are sitting in the middle of it, the warmth of the light dances on Thrjels hair, we are skipping lunch in order to play with the cat. Cyaren has called him Flip, I never asked why to be honest, but I think it's a sweet name. Flip is a curious little kitten, he does not use his nails often, (or at least not to scratch us, he does like to climb our beds.) and he always knows when to cheer someone up. His favourite place is the roof, which I only allow him to enter when I am with him. I don't allow Cyaren to go up there either, every time he asks I feel my hands run cold and can only shake my head. Being one step away from something is more dangerous than knowing the possibility.
Thrjel looks at the cat and smiles lightly, his brain deeper in thought than he realises. Cyaren is drawing something and as he looks up and down constantly to nothing in particular I wonder if he's purposely not cutting his hair or if he is just a child who doesn't know better. I hope he's growing out his hair, with the ripe age he came here it must have erased most memories of his culture. I wonder if he is even aware that everything he is being taught here is to influence him to let a precious part of himself go. His black eyelashes remind me of my sister and my mind cuts me off, it needs to protect itself.
Flip jumps unto my shoulder, I don't know why but the cat is very fond of that. I think it's because it can see more from that point, but Thrjel things Flip likes my hair too. I pet the sweetheart and try to listen to the conversation they're having but I am preoccupied with lightning my cigarette and trying to see what he is drawing.
"You can't look yet Xad!" Cyaren yells and pushes my face away.
"I hate kids." I exclaim while I gesture his hand away. "Careful, you'll burn yourself on the cigarette."
"You told me you have an imaginary kid dear, you can't hate them that much." Thrjel answers with a wink.
I shake my head and chuckle "Well now the dimwit knows everything better."
"Nobody can dislike kids, everybody was one once." The little one says, furiously drawing some kind of line.
Flip meows in my ears and tickles my neck with his fur, I shrug and I hear a distressed exclaim from the little creature whom I might have forgotten to take into account. "Maybe I was a very annoying kid."
Thrjel and Cyaren both chuckle. I smile, "I can't imagine you being even more annoying you mopstick." He says. I whack him on his head and breathe out smoke in his direction.
"Ouch, my ego! But if I were I'd act like you." I quip.
"What were you like when you were my age?" Cyaren asks, he tilts his head in the puppylike way Thrjel has taught him to. I smile while wishing I could disguise my feelings better.
"Did mr. Dimwit put you up to this?" I ask as I ruffle his hair.
"No, I just can't imagine you as a kid." The kid says innocently.
"Honestly, me neither." Thrjel says, and I look at him with a very specific smile and he chokes on his water.
"At your age, let me think." I look up and narrow my eyes as my memories pass me by. "Later it changed, but at your age we were with four, three boys and one girl. We lived in this abandoned steel factory along with pigeons and some rats, the basement was the only place where the rain couldn't invade our life. We had our fun, we were a bit of misfits, and delinquents if I need to be honest. But we had our fun, and we had our kind of family."
"What were they like?" Thrjel asks, I'm surprised he has the guts to poke me for more information. He knows I don't talk about these things, and he knows that all too well too.
"Well of course we were not the only kids on the streets and maybe..." I see Cyaren's face changing, he knows I am avoiding the question. I sigh and smile "I was the smart one, the wise one, with wisdom beyond his years even though I was the youngest, the scrawniest, the thinnest." I chuckle, the fools. "Then we have Fraye, she was the brawl, never met a better fighter since. She taught me everything I know, she was the oldest. Then we had Dywaîn, he was the family man, well.... Family boy. He kept the group together, solved any fights that broke out, made sure we had somebody to talk to." I stop talking and smile, a tear pricks in my eye as I remember eating for free in the tavern not far from the mines. The kind man who could make the best stew a hungry growing boy could dream of, and he'd give us one meal a day for free. He used to say, just to piss off the drunkards, but now that I think about it he might've felt a sting of guilt somewhere, that he couldn't do more for us.
"You said there were four Xad." Cyaren says in his high voice, as if he feels betrayed.
"I thought you were the one who was supposed to know how to count."
I chortle, "Yeah yeah, then we have Leapy, his name was something else but we found him after he had broken his leg. We tried our best but he ended up with a limp, but he did run with us, he did everything we did, but the rhythm in which he ran was strange, so we called him Leapy. It stuck, he was the funny one, the one that has no real function but might really be the heart of the group."
"What happened to them?" The boy asks.
My face smiles but my whole body freezes as it looks for something that is technically not a lie. But I want to lie, to myself and to him, I need to give him hope. I cannot pretend it was beautiful when I knew it ended worse than a Shakespearian tragedy. But did it really end worse? You'll never have confirmation.
"I don't see them anymore. We grew up. It happens Cyaren, we grow up." I answer, assuring myself slowly.
"Will we grow up Xad?" His eyes look too innocent, they remind me of everything I don't want to be reminded of. They remind me of a stinging pain that I've tried to soothe for my whole life.
"Of course we won't" Thrjel says, he grabs my hand and looks at me. I can read the question in his eyes. I nod, I am okay. I pet Flip and he starts to run through the room.
"We need to make sure nobody sees him." I say with a sigh. "We don't know what the consequences might be."
Thrjel nods knowingly.
"I'm sure you were interesting as a kid." Cyaren says, still not willing to let this topic go.
I take a deep breath, I remember the sting of guilt that constantly poked into the empty space just underneath the sternum, the nightmares that caused the blue cast of exhaustion on my face. "I had my problems, but I made it work. We were the cool kids, might have been just simple petty thieves, we were vandals, all in good fun before we joined the re....." I stop, I cannot say the word here. I am not even certain if anybody knows of my involvement with it. "This school." I correct.
The door squeaks open and I instinctively snatch Flip and hide him under a blanket.