Skipping Stones - Karlnap

•5|Down in the Forest|5•

Forest - Twenty One Pilots
—
Sapnap ventures through the trees when he reaches the creek ahead and begins to hear particularly loud splashes. When he takes a turn and sees the evening sun turn the murky water into a warm, orange hue, he sees Karl chuck a rock into the creek.

Sapnap chuckles to himself, adjusting the bag in his hands to pick up the first smooth stone he can find. As he comes into view, he tosses the stone into the water. Two skips.

Karl grins as his eyes reach Sapnap's, "Sapnap! How are you so good at that?"

"I told you already. It just takes practice," He replies, holding the bag and markers behind his back as he walks across the log over to Karl's side of the creek. "I got paid today."

"Oh that's awesome! You said you use it on your family, right? Did you get anything cool for them?"

Sapnap shrugs, tightening his grip on the plastic bag, "Just food. The usual. Well, I had to buy my sister hair products. You know teenage girls."

Karl laughs softly as he sits back down, "Yeah, my sister's the same way."

Sapnap gazes down at him, his palms beginning to sweat as his pounding heart rattles at his ribcage. "I actually had some spare change this pay period."

"Oh really? That's great. Did you spend it yet?" He opens up his sketchpad, and Sapnap watches him doodle a bit. It's a character Sapnap recognizes from a cartoon he used to watch when he was younger.

"Yeah, I did," He says, taking a deep breath. "I brought—um—I brought candy." He holds out the plastic bag full of chocolate bars and taffy and Cotton Candy Capsules. Karl's eyes light up as he takes hold of the bag and takes a look inside.

"We're going to get cavities, Sapnap!" He exclaims, and Sapnap laughs.

"Yeah, don't eat them all in one night." He shifts his weight between his feet. He takes in another sharp breath and, before he can change his mind, he blurts out, "I got you something."

Karl glances back up, wonder marveling in his eyes. "Really?"

Sapnap slowly reveals the pack of markers from behind his back. Karl's jaw immediately drops as well as his grip on his sketchbook as it slips from his hands and down his lap. His eyes are wide as he starts laughing.

"No way!" He grinned, "That's for me?"

"Yup. Every single marker."

He hops to his feet, doing the little hop he always does when he's excited. "Thank you so much, Sap! I can draw you full color now." Sapnap hands over the markers and allows Karl to take in all the shades of colors. The more Karl's eyes glide across the markers, the wider his smile becomes. Pure joy. Like a child on Christmas, or a small pup when offered a tennis ball.

"Thank you," Karl repeats again. "It's exactly like my old ones!" He throws his arms around Sapnap's neck and pulling him into a tight hug. Sapnap's arms stay frigid at his side until he manages to defrost them and pull Karl closer.

"Yeah, it's no problem. I'd buy them again just for you," He replies.

When Karl pulls away, he slips his hand into Sapnap's and grabs his things. "Come with me." He pulls Sapnap through the forest. Sapnap assumes they're going back to the treehouse. They haven't gone back to it since they first met a week ago. Since then, Sapnap's been wanting to go back and see Karl in his natural habitat again. Back when he was just a shy boy he randomly ran into in the woods. He was quick to open up since then. Though Sapnap likes how open he and Karl can be with each other, especially after they came out to one another before, he also quite liked how quiet Karl was in the first couple days of their meeting.

However, despite Sapnap having been encompassed by these trees many times before, he still has so much left to explore. The longer they walk, the less familiar the placement of the trees become. No longer can he predict the direction in which they are going. It's all foreign, similar to how it was when he first decided to roam between the trees. Not to Karl, though. He walks with a sense of direction, as if he knows exactly where he's going within the generally uniform plain.

Karl leads him to another open spot by a glistening pond far cleaner than the creek they constantly sit by. Sapnap can actually see the bottom. It's mainly rocks and stones. Surrounding the pond is especially taller grass and cattail plants. Water striders glide across the crystal water as tiny frogs hop along the edges.

Karl lets go of his hand and sets his books down on the grass. "I come here sometimes."

"What do you do here?"

"Draw, read, think." He turns back to Sapnap and smiles softly, "Mostly think."

"What do you think about?"

Karl plops down on the dewey grass, and Sapnap sits with him. It's pretty. The whole atmosphere. Ethereal. It smells distinctly fresh. Like the world has detoxed from all toxicity and pollution. Clean, yet not pristine.

"I think about how when you squint your eyes, everything looks real blurry and not-right," Karl replies, cocking his head and squinting. "Perception. All you have to do is change the way you look at things and suddenly it's totally different."

Sapnap tries it. He looks to Karl and squints. He's still the same Karl, he just looks different. More blurry and splotchy.

"You're still the same Karl," He says.

Karl laughs softly, "When you look at something in a different light, it doesn't change the thing. It changes how you interpret it."

"Ohh. Interesting. I've never thought of that."

"I guess I just gave you some food for thought then."

"You did."

"What about you, Sapnap? What do you think about?"

Sapnap exhales slowly and glances back at the pink pond. It reflects the hues of the sky.

"I think about the idea of being special. Some of us are special, some of us aren't."

"Aren't we all taught that we're special in our own ways?"

"That's what we're taught. We're also taught that the moment we turn eighteen, we'll know exactly what to do. They're wrong. The food they give for you to think with is poisoned," Sapnap replies. "The way I see it, some people are special and others aren't. My best friends are special. They're going to be millionaires one day. I'm not. I passed school with average grades, I have a minimum wage job, not even my family notices me when I get home."

Karl frowns and glances down at the grass between them. Sapnap straightens up.

"I'm sorry," He says, to which Karl quickly shakes his head.

"No, don't be. It's just that...I've thought about that too. That's why I ran away. I got rejected from my dream school, and I thought about it a lot. Especially right where we're sitting now. I'm not special. Not enough to go where I want to, anyway."

Hearing that come out of Karl's mouth stings like a snake right into his chest. As if he stole a piece of Sapnap's thoughts and spoke it out into the open.

"Where do you want to go?" Asks Sapnap.

"Honestly? Home. But I don't know where home is." He scoots closer to Sapnap, resting his head in the crook of his neck. Their hands are so close. Sapnap taps the pads of his fingers on his grass-stained knee, contemplating closely.

Sapnap takes a heavy breath, "So I guess neither of us are special."

"Nope, and maybe that's okay."

"How?"

Karl shrugs, intertwining his fingers with Sapnap's, "We wouldn't have gone searching, and we wouldn't have found each other."

Sapnap likes that. He rests his head on top of Karl's as he glimpses down at the pond before them. Physical touch. Though it's just holding hands, it's as if Karl just managed to reach the deepest parts of him. It's as if they're not so different after all. And, in a way, they aren't.