Unravel

It’s always in those hidden moments, under the cover of clouded moonlight, that Flynn thinks about Hayato’s eyes. Or, rather, what it would be like to catch them off guard, to push his way through that always calm exterior and find a part of him nobody had yet.

He wants to unravel him.

To find that little thread that pokes out through the tightly woven tapestry and tug, just slightly, so he can examine the string. So that he can try, maybe, to understand what means he can keep that same spring in his step each day, what keeps that same soft light behind those clear blue eyes. He’s sure there might not even be a reason, in the end. That he might end up working his way through each twisted end of the thread to find out that those were simply that, a part of the string. It’s the process, then. The knots, the ones he would spend hours softly working through, prying his fingers under the hardened ends and smoothening them out. If he spends all that time there, with the string and the knots and carefully woven patterns, would that mean he’d finally understand how to create them himself?

Maybe unravel isn’t the right word.

He wants to envelop him.

To take parts of him, the ones that are hidden between the cracks, the ones that are growing around them, and pull them into himself so that he would never forget. Flex and change, grow and blossom from the proximity. They say when you find something precious, you keep it close to your heart. Would he be able to share his world with him, then, Flynn wonders. Walking through each step together, viewing the world with that same, encompassing view. He would be able to envelop everything around him, contain them inside himself. Take everything that makes him happy and place them inside with those same, blinding blue eyes. Would he accept it? Those little pieces of the world that he treasures so carefully, things nobody else might ever get to see. Engulfed together with all those pieces that make them apart and together, he would bare his world to the person who had crashed into it so unexpectedly.

...That’s not exactly right, either.

No, that’s not it.

He wants to fly with him.

To grasp his hand and pull him along to the sky, to examine every one of those stars in space. There’s a certain intimacy about sharing the stars, but that isn’t why he wants to take him there. No, he wants to simply… float. Not try to understand, or envelop, but instead share the company of another person’s silence. They wouldn’t have to go to space for that, but the idea of dancing alongside the stars has always been dream-like. You know that you should be falling, every part of your mind reminds you of the gravity that must, that should, but you remain suspended. And there’s probably some sort of magic in that, isn’t there? It wouldn’t be a new sensation to him, Flynn knows this, but maybe it would mean something new to Hayato. Maybe he would get to see that smile once more, the one that felt like a warm secret, like the first rays of sunlight falling through your curtains, as they wove their way through rock and star alike.

It’s a little closer.

Maybe that’s it.

He wants to pull him closer.

To murmur softly in his ear the things he would usually be too terrified to say. Pouring out every last thought in his mind that he’s pulled so carefully into boxes, sealing them away. Always another day, another week. He would whisper, and promise, unsealing everything hidden between those wooden folds. Always the little things first. The first shared smile, the crinkle of his eyes, the way his whole face seemed to open up when he laughed. How he had thought he would be able to read him like a book, that first time. How he had barely gotten past the binding of the cover, and how each word he managed to grasp at pulled one right back from his own pages, leaving a story that made sense to nobody but him. How he was still unsure of how much remained to pull at, and how terrified he was of the pages one day running out, of the other side of the cover taking the words away from him, somewhere he couldn’t reach. How empty his own pages would feel then, ink dripping down their sides, unable to be contained any more.

Maybe he only wants to explain.

Explain why he wants to tangle his fingers through the strands of his hair, dragging them down to feel the escaping threads fly away. Why he wants to take those same hands and feel every crevice of his face, memorize the caverns and valleys that line it. Map out a pathway to his eyes, framing them with gentle thoughts to capture the stars within. 

Softly explain why he wants to share all the fragments that make up his broken, jagged self, in the hopes that he wouldn’t cut, just this once. Hope that when he reaches up, marking each freckle with a kiss, he would understand why everything he touches seems to glow. How, when he finally reaches his lips, he would be able to find that same feeling of knowing you should be falling, but that you aren’t, and never will, because someone hit the incorrect switch on gravity and now you’ll never find your way down. 

The room grows lighter, each ray of light brushing away everything the night would try to keep hidden. Flynn’s eyes flutter closed once again, savouring the final moment of that feeling before the boxes are sealed up again, packed away into a chest that will never manage to contain its own weight.

Softly, he falls back into his pillows, sinking down to wait for the morning sun.