Song For This Chapter: Suzume by RADWIMPS feat. Toaka
Elien;
I never fully understood what it meant to care for someone… until Elián.
Sure, I know what it feels like to desire care. To hunger for compassion so badly, your every thought, action… and reaction is a plea for approval.
But to care deeply… genuinely without the taint of expected reciprocation? I only started feeling that when Elián came into my life.
Like a silly little brother, you instinctively always want to protect.
Before Eliàn, I only understood survival.
I was forced to familiarise myself with pain… I was… shaped. To know pain.
To know Endurance… Obedience, and despite how hard I have tried to forget—How hard I have tried to act like the horrors I endured didn't leave a dent on my soul… I still feel it.
That itchy, hurtful loneliness that envelopes me when I'm not listening to Elián yap, or watching him pout or do something that keeps my heart screaming in panic.
