it’s been a while since he’s climbed the fire escape to hide away on a strange rooftop — it seems almost like he is an entirely different person from the one who used to sneak out of his parents place to do this. depending on the way he looks at it, he is. each day a little more someone else, a bit older, a smidgen more — or maybe, on some days, less.
his gaze avoids the path directly down, heart pumping adrenaline like a wash through his system. he is not going to jump. his intentions lie in escapism, decidedly not chasing after a second death. dark eyes flit instead down one side of the street and away down the opposite end, searching for answers to static of question marks. what wicked something waits out there? does it come this way?
empty streets echo silence far out and further below the edge of the building. he wonders if the dark of his silhouette against the backdrop of three am city lights is screaming louder of the same; if they are both just landmarks of loneliness. the urge to scream what’s the point of it? climbs up the back of his throat.
keung keeps his mouth closed — save for the cigarette that finds its place between his teeth, a standard distraction and its subsequent routine. slow, a trained smoker’s breath: in, in, out through the mouth. a feeling lodges in his chest, something shimmery. empty becomes a heavy, splintered thing.
the cigarette stays between his teeth, empty fingers grazing over the soft flesh of his side where a phantom pain clings like an ache which mimics nostalgia — but less sweet. over his shoulder a shiver hovers near his spine; haunted by the ghost of a touch. the acknowledgement that he is no longer alone here.
he should be able to trust his nose but his senses are dulled by this eve’s reoccurring sleeplessness so instead he swears in a sigh, more a poem than a curse, “ ah — fuck. friend or foe? ”
as if the latter would be so forthcoming.
