Sweet As Cotton Candy
Jude reminisces on their connection to Kai. (Outdated.) (Originally written 10/28/17)
Long Friend laughed and called them soft, and perhaps they were right. Jude liked the living best when they were sugar sweet, cotton candy that melted on their tongue and rotted their teeth. Kuma was their special case, their beloved medium, but Kai was a happy accident and a happy one indeed.
He understood them. Not them as they were, of course, but he appreciated the senses of life like one of the dead; he threw himself body and soul into experiences as they did, luxuriating in touch, taste, smell, sound, every point of contact a new electric connection as they sought together the next newest sensation. He could keep pace with their hunger, but hunger was not all he was.
They could see something else in the velvet of his brown eyes: flashes of worry, tender anxiety that rose in moments of quiet. Sometimes, they could hear it when he still asked, can I kiss you? Can I touch you? The answer had always been yes, yes, yes. Beneath the whirl of colors he painted himself in, he was still fragile, a pane of painted glass seeking reassurance, approval, love they were all too happy to give.