The Reckless & The Brave Book 4: Even Though I Don't Know Love Yet [BokuAka]

Even Though I don't know Love Yet

The boy's earliest memories are of the room. He thinks that there was nothing before it. The room was small and windowless with white walls and floors. His bed was small, really just a mattress on the ground in the corner. He had a desk and he had the chair and he had the bright fluorescent lights that turned on every morning at the same time. There was a routine to the boy's days then. He would wake up when the lights turned on and he would dress in the white clothes that he would find hanging from the hook on the wall. When he was dressed a door would open to allow him into the bathroom. After he left the bathroom there would be a tray of food on the table for him to eat. Then it was time to go to the chair.

The chair had been too big for him at first and then it felt small, it was white like everything else and sort of shaped like the eggs that he sometimes got with his breakfast. The boy would have to climb up into the chair alone and get himself seated properly. There was a headset that hung from the top of it. It would lower down over the boy's eyes, blocking his view of the white room. He learned everything from that chair. He sat for hours as a woman's voice taught him everything he would need to know. Reading, writing, math, history, science, languages. The boy absorbed it all. When the lessons were over the headset would raise again and there would be more food waiting for him. The boy would eat and then another door would open. This room was the exercise room. The woman's voice would come through the speaker and a projection on the wall would walk him through the steps of different exercises. When that was finished he would return to the chair. This second time in the chair was the hardest. Every day he had to sit there and memorize the seemingly endless list of numbers and letters that flowed on the screen before him. By the time it finished his head would feel so full that it felt like it was going to burst.

He was supposed to eat once more when everything was done but sometimes his head hurt so much that he skipped his meal and his bath and just crawled into bed instead. He would be punished for that the next day with extra work thrown into his lessons and exercise but he never really cared about that too much. Time passes slowly for him this way. His only company is the voice of the woman that teaches him. Her voice is void of emotions and she never speaks more than is needed but it gives the boy comfort. For years it is the only voice he hears beside his own. It's familiar.

***

The boy does not know how old he is the first time he sees another person. This person is much taller than him with curly brown hair and kind eyes behind his glasses. The appearance of this person is strange and the boy isn't sure how to react. He knows that it must be an adult but he has never seen a real one before, or maybe he has. Sometimes when the boy sleeps he dreams of a soft face and long hair and a melody being hummed. The man introduces himself as Spec's and the boy thinks that it's the strangest name he's ever heard. In his lessons people have names that make much more sense. Spec's tells the boy that he is going to be his teacher now, he tells him that he will have a new room and that he will interact with other people.

It's all too overwhelming. Spec's takes the boy's hand and he leads him from the room through a door that has never appeared before. There is a whole maze of hallways and rooms outside of it. There are different colors too that the boy has only ever seen in his lessons. Though it feels weird to be touching another human he feels that Spec's is a safe person. He clings tightly to his hand and he's led through hallways and downstairs and into a wing of the building that looks newer than the rest to a room with a real bed and pictures on the walls, there is a closet full of clothes and a shelf full of textbooks. There is a new chair in there as well, like the one in his old room but this one is the right size for him. Spec's tells the boy that he will have normal lessons from now on but he will still have to spend time in the chair to memorize things at the end of the day.

It's a struggle at first to live each day without a set routine. The boy still wakes up at the same time every morning but then he has to pick his own clothes. Spec's brings breakfast for both of them and they eat together. At first Spec's has to test the boy. He asks him to translate things from different languages and to solve math problems. The boy finds that the questions are easy. He can recite the numbers of pi until Spec's tells him to stop. He has no problem remembering the periodic table of elements. He can understand and speak at least ten languages. The boy does not understand why Spec's seems so shocked by this. The boy has always taken his lessons seriously.