Summary: You came to a crowded community fair just to keep an eye on him. But when you find him telling a story to a circle of children, you realize itâs not really for them.Â
[Word Count: 1,409 No Warnings]
Formatting is horrible and I am unwell. I rearranged this a hundred times and finally hit post out of spite. Hopefully itâs easier to read. If not, please pretend it is.
Also, heads up: this is written with a female reader in mind. Proceed accordingly.
Low murmurs drifted lazily through the thick, warm air, weaving together with the smoky tang of grilled bratwurst and the faint, sugary perfume of freshly baked pastries.
It was one of those modest community gatheringsâpop-up stalls with sagging awnings, checkered tablecloths mottled with mustard spots, an abundance of wobbly folding chairs, and the hum of oldies music crackling from a battered speaker in the corner.
Golden slants of late afternoon light filtered through the tall windows of the community hall, casting long, honeyed shadows that stretched and softened the worn, scuffed floor beneath.
Children wove through the crowd like restless spirits, chasing half-deflated balloons or licking syrupy ice cream from their wrists.
You hovered near the snack table, a crumpled paper cup of orange juice clutched in your hand, feigning interest in a crooked sign advertising face painting.
The buzz of conversation rose like a swarm in your earsâsharp, incessant, impossible to tune out. The crinkle of napkins, the metallic screech of chairs being dragged across linoleum, the sudden slap of a tray hitting the floor⊠it all pressed in, noise without rhythm.
You shifted subtly from foot to foot, finding a quiet comfort in the motion.
Crowds made your skin crawl.
But Johan had expressed interest in the eventâand you, against your better judgment, against your instinctsâhad followed.
You hadnât meant to lose sight of him.
But now, you heard his voiceâalready mid-story.
You froze, like a deer caught in the snap of a wrong twig.
There he wasâseated gracefully in a folding chair, as if the entire room bent itself around him.
A loose semicircle of children surrounded him, their wide eyes locked on his face. Laughter had stopped. Fidgeting had stopped. Even the squirmiest had gone still.
Johanâs voice curled through the air like thick incenseâwarm, slow, and hypnotic.
Gentle, yet edged with something precise. Like silk drawn over something with teeth.
He chose his place carefully. Never too central, never too far. Always where the eye would pass over him without stopping.
ââŠand so the girl kept the wolf in her pocket,â he said, fingers sketching a delicate square in the air. âIt was no larger than a matchbox when she folded it away. She fed it crumbs of her darkest thoughts. It grew hungry often. Sometimes it bit her fingers when she tried to feed it. But she never let it out⊠not fully.â
The children leaned in, transfixed.
You couldnât tell if it was a real story or something heâd made up on the spot. But it didnât feel new. It felt⊠remembered.
The room around them seemed to hush, the world outside their circle blurred and faded.
His voiceâalways softâshifted into something else. Not raw, not quite real. It sounded rehearsed. Velvet. A performance.
But disturbingly, not a lie.
Your fingers twitched against the cupâs edgeâbetraying your attempt to stay still.
Why did you even come here?
âShe held it close,â Johan continued. âEven when it growled. Even when it begged. Even when it wanted her heartâand not her hand.â
A little girl in a pink jacket, cheeks smudged and sticky, raised her hand like she was back in class.
âDoes the wolf love her?â she asked.
There was a beat. A long one.
Johan looked down at the girl. One finger tapped softly against his knee, once. His expression unreadableâstill, like glass before a crack.
Then he smiled. Not wide. Not fake. Just a small, quiet thing that might almost pass for tenderness.
âYes,â he said. âAnd sheâs terrified.â
A shiver slipped down your arms, blooming into goosebumps along your skin.
Your knees felt loose, uncertainâas if they might give way. Then your chest tightened.
The words struck like a shard of ice, trailing slowly down your spine.
You hadnât expected to feel much of anything at this silly event, with its squeaky balloons and innocence of a kindergarten play.
But now, your fingers curled tighter around the paper cup in your hand.
Your eyes drifted to the childrenâstill, spellbound, caught in the lull his words left behind.
A little girlâs cheek hovered in your peripheral vision, but you barely saw her.
Their faces blurred like looking through a fogged window.
The chatter and clatter around you faded, growing distant and muffled.
Your breath slowed. Shoulders eased, just enough to keep you upright.
For a moment, you let yourself drift.
And when you finally looked upâ
He was already watching you.
Across the heads of children, over the soft laughter of nearby parents.
His eyesâglacier blue, still, knowingâlocked with yours, as if heâd known exactly where you were all along.
There was no flicker of apology in his expression.
Only the quiet echo of that story still lingering in his gaze.
You wanted to throw your juice at him.
Say something sharp. Anything.
Walk over and ask: What the hell kind of story was that?
Maybe it only stayed small because you kept pretending it could be.
You just looked at each otherâfor a long, charged second.
Until a little boy tugged gently on Johanâs sleeve and asked what happened next.
Johan finally broke the gaze, turning toward the child with a soft curve to his lips that never quite touched his eyes.
For just a second, something shifted.
A pause in his smile, like he was remembering something he shouldnât.
Your scalp tingled like static.
Something inside you threatened to slip loose.
And still, you didnât move.
The juice in your cup had gone lukewarm, thick and bitter on your tongue like something you werenât meant to swallow.
Even the switch to bouncy 80s synthpop couldnât cut through the fogâtoo far away, too thin.
Then, behind you, a balloon popped suddenlyâa sharp, explosive crack that made your chest jump.
Your breath caught, then slipped out in a slow, unintentional sigh you hadnât realized you were holding.
Just behind you, a small boy yelped in surprise and took off running, other children chasing after him with gleeful shrieks.
Their footsteps pounded loudly across the floor.
But the noise didnât pull you back to the room.
Instead, it only made you feel more detached, like you were shrinking away from the crowd and the warmth around you.
You no longer felt like you were in a community center.
You felt a familiar feeling creeping inâthe same emptiness and fear you usually managed to keep at bay.
Where Johan always lived.
And where, somehow, he always pulled you in.
You slipped out quietly, stepping into the warm evening air.
Just enough space to gather your thoughts and steady your breath.
You hadnât left the eventânot reallyâjust escaped the crush of bodies, the hum of voices pressing in.
The air was thickâweighted with sun-melted asphalt and the bitter sting of charcoal dust.
It glowed too warm, too slow, like a memory that didnât want to be remembered.
After the riot inside, the silence out here felt hollowâwaiting, coiled tight.
A refuge? Barely. Just enough to flatten your thoughts like a corpse on a slab.
Youâd only slipped from one kind of suffocation into another.
âStupid.â you whispered, half to the concrete, half to yourself.
Kicking a stray pebble, you watched it skitter and disappear beneath a carâs tire.
His eyes seared into you like a brand you never asked for.
Heat pooled low, a quiet fire tangled with shame and something rotten you couldnât name.
Behind you, Johanâs voice threaded through the gatheringâsoft, steady, inescapable.
The children remained still, wide-eyed and uncertain, caught between caution and curiosity.
âDid the wolf ever turn nice?â
The silence stretched. His gaze wanderedânot lost, justâŠ. somewhere else.
When he looked back, he still didnât speak.
Because the one who needed to understand already had.
The wolf stirred behind his eyes.
Maybe it had never fit in the matchbox at all.
