YOUTH || LRH [on hold]

-', nine ,'-

"do you believe in that thing called karma?"

tyler gave luke an incredulous look, and then he laughed. they were in a field, somewhere in louisiana, a small town called jonesville, if luke remembered correctly. tyler sat on the hood of the car, drinking a beer. luke sat on the cooler box (that before then, he had not known existed) his guitar on his lap, strumming the soft notes of an old eighties song his dad had taught him.

"uh, yeah. i guess," tyler answered.

"can you explain it to me?"

tyler stared at the blonde boy, and then up at the starry sky above them. he flicked a bug away from his face and took another sip of his beer. luke wondered what tyler was thinking about, and whether or not he was a part of his new friend’s day—or rather, night—dream.

"well, basically," tyler began, "it's like, the law of physics. like, say you do something to hurt someone, well then the laws of the universe will work against you until you get hurt in return. same for good things."

luke nodded, trying to understand. that made sense. nothing in life was without consequence, good or bad. what goes around, comes around, luke thought. luke had never been religious, he'd never thought about god, and whether or not he or she or they existed. his mother believed in god wholeheartedly, and his father just went along with his mother because it was the easy thing to do. luke had been to church maybe once or twice when he was a child, but his parents had never forced the religion upon him, and he had never had the curiosity to learn. other faiths, however, he found interesting. he had no desire to practice any sort of faith, but learning about them excited him. the idea of karma was one that he had heard about before but never really understood, or tried to, at least. luke didn't know whether or not tyler was religious, but that didn't really matter.

"do you think i'm your good karma, or your bad karma?" luke asked, suddenly. tyler looked at luke quizzically, undoubtedly wondering what all of this was about. luke didn't even know, but this was going somewhere and he wanted to see how it would play out. he was sure, by the new look on the korean boy's face, that tyler wanted to see how it would play out too.

luke could see the reflection of the stars in tyler's eyes, or maybe it wasn't a reflection. tyler asked: "what do you mean?"

"like, do you think this adventure—you and me—is gonna turn out to be this big and wonderful thing? or do you think it'll explode into chaos?" luke had been thinking about this for a while now, ever since that party. things with tyler felt so amazing and unreal that luke couldn't imagine that they might go bad. but there was always a possibility that they could, and luke wanted to know if he was the only one who had doubts. luke didn't want to have doubts, he wanted this new life to be perfect, but it was a childish illusion, thinking that life could ever be perfect. something was always going to go wrong, luke just hoped that the something wasn't the relationship he was beginning to build with tyler.

"why would you ask something like that, luke hemmings?"

"i don't know," luke admitted. it was true, he had no clue where it came from. but he wanted an answer.

tyler obliged. "good karma, for sure. i mean, i've done some pretty shitty things in my past, and i'll probably get punished for that at some point, but right now, right here—with you—this is good. it's not turning to shit because of some religious belief."

luke smiled. he was hoping tyler would say something like that. he just hoped a little bit harder that it was true.

tyler said: "play me your favourite song."

now it was luke's turn to look puzzled. "what? why?"

"because i like it when you play the guitar, you're real good at it," tyler praised him, and luke felt the skin on his neck heat up. he was sure that if were not so dark out, tyler would have been able to see him blush. "and i want to know what your favourite song is. i know you can play it."