Page 63 of Eternal

AZRA

“All I Need” by Radiohead

Present

W e stand in line at the burrito stand, and people are so loud around us… they’re all dressed up in so many things. One has wings, the other is dressed as a potato. A lot of vampires too.

I really do hate waiting when people are around. I hate how ordinary it feels, and tonight it’s too... crowded, too loud.

But when we arrived, his hand brushed mine, and I froze.

Then he simply… held it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I didn't pull away, I didn’t want to.

So now, here we are, standing in line, hand in hand, dressed up casually with everyone around having some type of costume, like it’s the most normal thing to be doing on a night like this.

He tricked me with a grabby hand, literally . He reached out, and I grabbed it without thinking.

The line shuffles forward, and I can’t help but notice a family in front of us.

A mom, a dad, their little girl holding onto the dad’s hand, her pretty innocent eyes wide with excitement as they order their food.

She’s wearing a princess costume, with a crown, and even some purple makeup on her eyelids.

She’s giggling, and her mom’s smiling down at her like she’s everything to everything to her.

I bet we did that before. I know she made me get out, bought me food, and smiled at me like she loved me so much it could’ve killed her.

Do I remember it clearly? No .

I was really young. I only remember clearly the last years, the ones where she lost it all.

I hope this little girl will never have to live in a house without love, without protection. I hope she’ll keep that smile forever .

But then, I can feel him, his hand in mine. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to my jaw, barely there, but it feels like everything. “You're okay, partner .”

I can feel the blush creeping up my neck, and when our eyes meet, he chuckles. It’s soft, like he’s amused by me. “Cute.”

I blush even harder, and it makes my brow furrow. “I stabbed an already dead man a few hours ago, and you’re still calling me cute?”

He laughs again, low and quiet, and moves us forward in the line, pulling me with him. “Maybe don't say that out loud,” he says with a grin. “People might hear you.”

Before I can come up with a response, we’re at the counter, and he starts ordering our food, every detail like he knows exactly how I like it. He pays without letting go of my hand, his thumb brushing over mine in that small, familiar motion he always does.

Up and down, up and down.

I focus on that, the simplicity of it, grounding myself in the rhythm.

We stand there for a moment, waiting. I glance around, watching everyone in their little worlds. Couples. Friends. Families. People alone. They’re all so normal, all probably dealing with their own shit, things they won’t ever show.

Are they sad? Maybe grieving? Or maybe some are in love?

And then I feel it. His eyes. They're on me, watching every shift of my expression, my neck, my mouth, my breathing, like he’s studying me. It's almost too much, and I don't even know why it’s affecting me this way.

Then the lady calls us, handing over the bag.

On top of it was a tiny pair of black cat ears on a headband.

He lets go of my hand long enough to take it, but then he’s right back there, and long fingers are still tightening around mine. Without saying anything, he slips the ears onto my head, carefully. With so much tenderness.

I blink up at him, caught off guard. “What are you doing?” I whisper almost too surprised to say something else.

He smiles, barely. “You’re so cute,” he says, like it slipped out before he could stop it.

I freeze, mouth partway open, and just like that, I forget about the burrito.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” he says, voice low, a little rushed. “You’re really fucking adorable all confused and I can’t take it.”

Then he grabs my hand again, tighter this time, and pulls me outside.

We make our way to his bike, and I slide behind him, arms wrapping around his waist. In a few minutes we arrived at our spot, and the bench is still waiting for us.

This place saw us evolve, in a way. We started here a few months ago, awkward, unsure, pretending we weren’t already a little fucked in our heads.

We’re sitting there, side by side, with no one around, just like we did that first night, but everything feels different, warmer, closer. He hands me my food, squeezes my thigh quickly, but doesn’t say a word at first.

The cat's ears are still on my head, he looks at me once and laughs under his breath. “I still can’t believe you bought these,” I murmur.

“I still can’t believe you’re wearing them,” he says, all smiling.

And we stay like that, eating in silence, while the city is celebrating tonight.

I take bite after bite, chewing slowly, trying not to think about everything that’s been gnawing at me. About what I’ve done. About what’s still left to do. I just want to be here. Not stuck in my head, not lost between the ghosts of my past, here, on top of the city, breathing, eating, existing.

With him.

Then, he speaks, his eyes fixed on the city. “I’m still searching for your name.”

Is he ? I look at him, eyes narrowing a little. “Why are you so obsessed with me?”

He doesn’t answer right away. But he looks back at me, blue eyes so deep it hurts, like I could stay there forever, just being what they see.

And I hate that I want to drown in them, that I want to reach out, fist my hands in his hoodie, press my face into his neck like I belong there, like he’d let me stay there until my heart won’t hurt anymore.

“I’m asking myself the same thing,” he says, his lips pulling into a sad smile.

I scoff a little, but it’s quiet or maybe it’s scared. Scared of the feeling that his smile is bringing to me.

“Who did you kill tonight?”

I feel his eyes, waiting, watching, but I’m elsewhere, a place where thoughts are fighting against each other. I’m in my head.

I press my fingers into my thigh, grounding . But I can still hear it, that static in my skull, the void whispering back. I don’t know what will come out if I open my mouth, a laugh, a sob, a scream, so I don’t open it.

I just stare at him for a long moment and he stares back waiting for me to just say it.

“Someone who needed to die,” I answered, the words slipping out almost too detached.

His brow furrows slightly but again, it wasn’t judgmental, it was different. “What are you doing, Voron?”

I’m serving my own justice.

“I don’t know if you want to know,” I mutter, looking away, glancing at the stars instead. I don’t want to talk about this, about the things that haunt me, that keep me awake at night. But I don’t have a choice.

“I do ,” he says.

I swallow, my throat tight and I feel like the tiredness is winning tonight. I grab his hand in mine, it’s warm, large and protective, I don’t even look at them.

The memories flood back as I lose myself with him under the sky. Memories of nights spent under the stars with my mother, listening to her stories about them. About how each one had a name, how they all had meaning, I don’t even know why I’m telling him this, but here I am.

“When I was younger,” I start, my voice barely audible, “I used to point at the stars in the sky, and my mom would name them. She knew them, or maybe she lied about them, but I still believed her. I’d smile, listening to her, thinking she was the only one who understood me.

If she knew the stars personally, she probably knew what I was thinking too. ”

I glance at the stars above, feeling their cold light wash over me, and for a moment, I can almost hear my mother’s voice, warm, loving, naming each one like she used to. It’s funny; I can almost believe she was right.

That the stars really had names, that they meant something more than just a tiny flicker of light in an empty sky.

But then I remember that her voice stopped sounding warm.

Maybe it’s just the sound of memory inventing her voice in my head.

Maybe it was never that warm.

The stars don’t look the same anymore, not like they did when I was five and thought they belonged to us, to me .

I glance at Damir, but I don’t want him to see the weakness in my eyes.

I stop, unable to say more. There’s a pause, a beat where everything feels like it might shatter, but then, without a word, Damir pulls me closer.

He shifts, his body close to mine, warmth spreading through me like a blanket I don’t deserve but need, desperately . His fingers curl around my hand and he does it again, a caressing thumb, up and down.

Up and down.

I glance at him, still not sure what to make of what we are, what this is, but all I think about is how I want to talk to him even more.

“Do you think you can hate a ghost?” I ask, the words coming out before I can stop them.

He doesn’t answer right away, he takes a long breath, smiles sadly and then, finally, he says, “I do. I hate some ghosts.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice barely a murmur. “I had a friend like you. He never showed anything he didn’t want people to see.

He was always pretending to be... so happy .

Smiling, laughing, like he had no care in the world.

I hated him for it. Hated that he wasn’t happy enough.

Hated I couldn’t make him happier.” His jaw tightens, and I can see it. See the pain, the guilt.

“He never thought his heart would get him killed,” Damir continues, voice rougher now. “And I hated him for not knowing. For not seeing what was coming. He could’ve kept that smile, just one more second... but he didn’t.”

I freeze.

I’ve never seen him like this, so raw, so human . I can feel his pain, see it clearly. He is talking to me about something personal, and it's strange. He’s vulnerable with me, broken like me.