While the World Ends Around Us (Make Believe With Me)

Mourn with the moon and the stars up above

If you must mourn, my love
Mourn with the moon and the stars up above
If you must mourn,
Don't do it alone
You // Keaton Henson

It isn't until Jens is taking daily walks with Lotte that he appreciates the sun.

It's gotten warmer, the light shining against the skin of his face, shining through his eyelids when he closes his eyes, a bright, soft, red glow. It reminds him why his mother always took the extra few minutes before leaving to rub sunscreen over the back of his neck and the tips of his ears, so he pauses before leaving to toss the bottle of it to Lotte.

"I don't want to," she whines as he ties his shoes, and she tries to give it back. "It makes me feel sticky."

"Would you rather get sunburned?"

She stares at him stubbornly before he takes it and starts applying to himself, staring back. When she finally looks away, he quickly reaches out and swipes at the tip of her nose, leaving a dash of sunscreen in its path. She gasps loudly, trying to shove at his hand, but she misses.

"Jens!"

"Hm." He bends down, rubbing his cheek, analysing the glow of sunscreen on her nose. "You might want to rub that in."

She huffs, glowering at him.

"I hate you."

"You'll thank me when you don't get skin cancer."

- - -

He also didn't realise how much he hates social media until scrolling through it is the only thing he really ever does.

It's exhausting.

Every time he looks at someone, some influencer or celebrity, or even just some kid from school who just seems... better than Jens, there's a little part of him that whispers to him, telling him that he needs to do better.

But it's addictive, the self criticism. He scrolls, and scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, laughing at a few videos (sending them to the guys), but watching some and just looking.

Watching how people look, how they talk, how they smile. Wondering how he looks to other people, if other people look at him the same way he looks at them.

It's something he's always wondered (but being limited to his apartment and short walks hasn't helped his existential curiosities). If the beauty he finds in everyone else's faces, in their voices and the way they carry themselves, is as visible in him as it is in them. He thinks every person shows a little bit of who they are, a little bit of their soul, in everything they do.

He's always loved watching people, just sitting and listening, even though he is a bit of an extrovert. There's a certain beauty in witnessing existence that Jens doesn't think many people notice.

He's noticed it, the exposure of souls, in Robbe. The way Robbe has changed in just the last year, the way he carries himself a little taller, how his voice is a little stronger than it used to be. It's like he exists out loud.

Jens is jealous.

He pretends he's not, of course. He pretends that he lives out loud too, pretends that he knows what he's doing and that he's just fine all the time, even as he sends an enthusiastic, exaggerated text message before he tosses his phone away, across his bed, and stares at his ceiling blankly.

There's an itch in him, a desperate want to just do something, even though he doesn't really know what. He tries to think about it sometimes, makes lists in his head of all the things he would do right now if he could.