You’d essentially become a phantom to him since the age of 14. You’d been so close up until then, quite literally attached at the hip. Everything one did, the other did. Maybe you should’ve listened to Tsireya when she’d told you it was a bad idea, because, yes, it was an awful idea.

People who kiss can’t be friends, she’d said, and at the time you’d brushed her off, insisted she just didn’t get it. And so, you and Rotxo had very stupidly, in pure teenager fashion, met at hidden alcove on the island. You’d kissed, each tasting another persons spit for the very first time. Then, he never spoke to you again. How could he, when you’d simply laughed off the kiss afterwards and he had discovered a longing he had yet to understand?

Which is why you’re so wary to approach his figure as he sits in the sand, head in his hands. It’d been years since you two had uttered more than a polite hi, years since you’d reached and comforted him. Did you even know him at all anymore?

At the faint sound of your footsteps, his head snaps up, his eyes taking a second too long to recognize your face.

“Oh,” is all he can seem to utter. Then, “I didn’t think anyone would be out here this late.” He speaks, motioning to nothing in particular with his hands. He lets out a sigh. “Sorry. I’m in a shit mood.”