"A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life."
— Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
He sat with his legs folded beneath him in the window-nook, staring out at his front yard. He wanted to go out and play in his treehosue - but was carefully weighing the pros-and-cons first.
"Sweetie." his mother came around the corner - having finally got David to take his nap. "What are you doing?"
"I want to go outside." he said, turning and looking up at his mother. She smiled down at his freckled face and round eyes - adoring her first-born. He was so inquisitive and perceptive - even at six.
"Then go ahead. What's the matter?"
He pointed to the road in front of the house where a boy was on his hands a knees with a little tin box of chalk. He'd been out there, doodling on the road, for the past fifteen-minutes.
She smiled, "Why don't you go out there and say hello? I think he's new to the neighborhood. He probably doesn't know anyone." The boy started biting the side of his thumbnail, watching the other through the window - who was still completely captivated by his artistry on the pavement. She pushed his hair off his forehead, "He looks like he needs someone. A friend."
He nodded, watching still, and hopped off the nook, walking slowly towards the door. She looked on as he trekked across the yard, straight for the other child, curiously.
"Hi."
The boy with the chalk looked up, with smudges of white and pink on his face. He dropped his chalk and examined the other closely. The sunlight liquidized the green of his eyes and made them translucent. "Hello."
"I'm Dawson. I live there." he pointed towards the house he'd just come out of, his mother still watching from the window nook.
The other nodded, standing and wiping his palms on his torn chinos. "I'm Cole."
*
Cole woke before Dawson. He felt hung over though he'd had no alcohol the night before. He was hungry and could feel a dark irritability itching on the inside of his skull. He remembered what had happened, but he never revisited the events. He put it behind him - behind the metaphorical locked door - and stretched his arms high above his head in the dim bedroom.
He glanced over at Dawson, who was still sleeping heavily - lost somewhere in oblivion. His dark red hair fell over his closed eyes and his lips were parted slightly. His nose was long and perfectly straight and his eyes were the shape of two half-moons, turned, and meeting at their points. Cole saw him as a cosmically beautiful person.
He slid off the bed and went over to the dresser. The second to the bottom drawer was unofficially his since they were twelve and got tired of dragging clothes back and forth when he moved to Havenstreet. Of course things had changed since then so instead of raggedy over-alls and a superman t-shirt, he had a Guns n' Roses hoodie and tan cargo-shorts. His leather skate-shoes from the night before would have looked awkward so he rummaged through Dawsons closet until he found a pair of black Vans that were too-big, but usable.
Six-fifteen. Dawson's alarm would go off in exactly ten minutes. Cole walked over to where the other was still sleeping, submerged under the navy blankets, his bare arm stretched over the side of the bed Cole had vacated, his long, strong, fingers clawed in Coles pillow. Sparse faded freckles marked him from his bronze shoulder to his wrist.
