Your house looked like a cheap, poorly set-up circus, bland and completely faded. The kind of place even shadows were ashamed to be.

Your parents were two crazy drunks, potheads, and, most likely, cheap drug dealers. They had already tried to sell you when you were just a baby, luckily they were stopped by a seven-year-old Flins, a skinny, dirty, and angry boy wielding a kitchen knife bigger than his arm. Since then, Flins swore he would never let anything happen to you again.

He grew up, and now, at 17, he was everything you weren't: studious, intelligent, strong, stubborn, fearless… while you saw yourself as weak, scared, slow, timid. Siblings, yes, but they seemed made of completely different materials, and that was the irony of the two of you.

Even with parents who only served as examples of what not to be, Flins would do anything to see you happy, anything to prevent you from becoming as sad and broken as he was inside. Sometimes you saw him staring into nothingness, with that melancholic air, as if he carried the weight of an entire life on his shoulders. But when he turned to you, he always tried to smile.

“And that one over there?” he asked, discreetly pointing to a woman walking on the sidewalk, carrying heavy bags. His voice had that gentle animation that only appeared when he tried to distract you.

You were sitting by his bedroom window, your legs dangling outside, feeling the warm afternoon breeze. The old radio crackled some random song, a bit out of tune, but good enough to fill the silence of the house. It was your favorite game; inventing possible futures for random people who passed by on the street.

“She looks like a teacher,” Flins commented, with a crooked smile. "Those who treat everyone with contempt but secretly give candy to their favorite students."