estranged pieces, frayed knots; {string}

[kousei ♚]

Shooting stars all break up
And even though it seems like half the world away

I hate nostalgia.

Awkward stares across the office space turned into awkward conversation on office chairs became hiding history from a nation. It stopped being awkward at some point, somewhere between the method and the madness, eye contact was no longer uncomfortable. I no longer felt like I was treading on thin ice, I no longer felt like the spotlight I craved was going to blind me. I wouldn't lose myself, not to a spotlight and not to her of all people. The floor wouldn't shatter from beneath my feet, rifts won't tremble and I'll stay steady. I'll be okay. We'll be okay.

Truth be told, it was easier than I thought. To bury eons of history beneath our feet and hide it from a nation despite the spotlight we crave threatening to reveal every inch of our trembling skin down to our very bones. Perhaps I was taken by the statistics on my screen, captivated by the numbers I read and the theories I formed. It became easy to tune out the sound of her voice, easy to forget how she sounded when she calm and how she sounded when she became a storm. I forgot what the shattering of my vase sounded like.

Success is the best remedy for heartbreak, I suppose.

It was easier than I thought to step on the nostalgia because I hate reliving the past. Whether it's my adolescent years where I couldn't say so much as my name without twisting my tongue into knots that ached more than any black and blue bruise that kissed the skin. Or whether it's remembering the one time I watched the sunrise upon the horizon alone and hurt because of it. I hate reliving the past, so I press forward.

Maybe that's why it's so easy to enjoy the present success while it lasts. Success drowns heartbreak and breaks the failure of our past relationship. I can look at her and not listen for the sound of clockwork and cogs anymore. Perhaps that's what makes it so easy to suggest we leave work at the same time when we're both the last two in the office again. I ignore the sound of my own heart sinking, cut the strings of past heartbreak and focus on better things. The first parts of our journey to and from home are the same anyway before we diverge to our respective homes, we go to the same coffee shop on the way to and from work.

(I took her there, once)

So we step out of those doors together and bite the cold. "Nothing better for a cold day than coffee, huh?" A weak laugh follows, my hands stuck in my pockets and I don't know why I even suggested the idea. I hate nostalgia, hate living in the past, I need to look ahead and trudge forwards. I was always one for taking the path that brought me forwards, always one for looking to the future and cutting strings that tethered be to the ground. Looking back at what hurts you is no way to get ahead.

I need to stop doing that, speaking without thinking.

I don't know, when around her, I always got less cold and calculated. Once, every sentence that fell out of my lips was measured, something calculated. Every action was weighed against risks and rewards, I never acted on impulse. Like forming a differential equation, measuring correlation and following logic. Yet whenever I caught a glimpse of golden hair and blue eyes, whether she was angry at something I did or carefully taking my hand in hers, I always miscalculated something. Or forgot to altogether because things would just fall out. Without so much as a stutter.

("I love you.")

I need to stop being spontaneous, I hate it when I do that.

Still, what's said is said and we find ourselves in that coffee shop; I hate nostalgia.

It's stupid, that I've latched onto this place for a year. Kept coming here alone even when there was no reason to. I just like the coffee, helps me work through the night. And it's quiet, for even now there's practically no one here. Except the people who work here of course, they know my usual. I kept coming here, long after she shattered my vase.

I'm not chasing ghosts.

I sit down, pressing two thumbs together and resting my elbows on the table and putting my jaw against my fists. I hate nostalgia, I should've just kept moving forwards. "I think we're doing a good job today, I bet you they loved us out there."

I let my gaze wander.

"I know I did."

[zoe]

[alex 🐺]

we are color 
we are the canvas




{ astrid } 




and the brush
we are artists

She tried not to think about the nights spent curled up in bed watching the stars dot the sky. The galaxies swirling over her as she wasted her days thinking of him. Endless days when the world was so grey. She had never meant to let things with Turing get so out of hand. The broken glass on the floor. The water dripping down the walls. The flowers that he had bought for her dying in the corner. Broken glass and a trail of water She tried not to think about the fight - about her anger and exasperation at his inability to jump, to leap, into her. She tried not to think about it, but she carried the scars of their life together as they grew closer again. Learning each other as friends.

She could never forget the way he sounded next to her. The smile in his voice or his peals of laughter at the most random of times. She swallowed back those feelings as they bubbling to the surface. Heads bent over stats from the current Games littering the table that they would jointly work at. She tried not to think about how he looked when he was immersed in a book, or lost on a walk together through a new park. She tried not to think about it, but it was all that was on her mind.

(Maybe I'll get you out of my head
Maybe I'll forget all the things you said)

Her prison and sanctuary. Her hell and her paradise were days by Turing’s side reporting on the Games. The carnage a backdrop to the renewed story of their life together. Well, not together. Parallel lines that once intersected now shooting off in different courses. Close, but not touching.

---

Astrid loved three things - strategy, coffee, and Turing. She quieted the staccato of her heart as he asked her to coffee after work one night. They had stayed late together again, and Astrid would play the fool to anyone who told her that she delayed her work just a bit on the off-chance that she could finish her day with him. By his side. Even if that meant a simple goodbye before they walked their separate ways. Lines diverging and heading opposite directions.

They ordered and of course, he had to get the same drink that he always had. Nothing had changed with him. Astrid hesitated before she asked for a simple black coffee. She had memorized the way he had taken his coffee and tea - the correct temperature of the water and how long it needed to steep to be just right. Simple acts that whispered I love you, even if she had waited months to vocalize the words that danced across her tongue and through her mind whenever her skin touched his.

Her memory of this place was hazy as if she had been here in a previous life and perhaps that was what life with him had been. Another life and another time. This was the here and now and they were taking small steps forward, re-learning each other and working together as a team. She watched him - he was her favorite movie. Something that she could do for a lifetime and never get bored with.

Even here. Even now. In a quiet coffee-shop on a small road in the Capitol, his head in his hands with his face towards her. The weight of the day rolling off of him at the promise of home and a night to regroup before the next day dawned. Even now, he was captivating and she wanted to memorize the lines of his face. Every wrinkle and dip and curve. Memory, when everything was dark and her world was loud, never did his face justice.

(Lies on your lips, but there's love in your eyes
Maybe I'll forget you some other time)

His eyes - so damn blue - turn towards hers as he speaks, dancing around her face in a new way. Turing was never great at eye contact, even in the most intimate of moments.

"I think we're doing a good job today, I bet you they loved us out there. I know I did."

Astrid nodded, her eyes on Turing but moving off of him to watch the passersby on the road in front of them. She loved the chaos of the city. The organized chaos in the way that it all seemed so loud and hectic, but so methodical. Like the Capitol was living and breathing. Existing as they existed. She drank in the sound of the streets.

”Yeah? I’m having fun with our commentary. It’s as playful as it can be without being too much, you know? I mean, we are trying to bring a new level of analysis to a decades-old ritual, but I really do think we can make it new. Like, something that is our own. Something that they haven’t heard for the past seventy-seven years.” She used her hands as she talked, her face lighting up in a way that she knew Turing would see as pure, unadulterated passion.

”Are you having fun, Tur?”

(Right on your skin, I know that love used to glow
How can I let you go if I know I'm so close?)

[kousei ♚]

Shooting stars all break up
And even though it seems like half the world away

My life's a continuous curve, cyclical like my heartbeat and infinite like we thought we could be.

Once.

I'd grown up around the sporadic, my mother and father's relationship had been a tempest contained to a household. One day they would argue, my mother would scream curses and profanities, and my father would roll his eyes and give nothing but snark in return. The next day they weren't speaking, tension from a couple polarized left the air around us almost tangible. Then they were in love, holding hands and letting compromise leave them bound together. I never said anything, I could barely speak my own name before tripping over my own words and shattering thing ice beneath my body.

My father said he was happy, he said falling in love was the best accident he ever made. They were a sporadic, I couldn't attach a method to their madness or a rhythm to their cyclical romance, not in eighteen years of living beneath their roof. All I knew is that whenever they appeared to unravel, they'd always find a way to converge before the seeds of doubt could bloom. All I know is that they tend to infinity together.

I never cared that much, it was only a passing thought; a curiosity but never conjecture. Until I found her, that is. Until I felt Astrid's hand in mine for the first time and her lips touched mine -- I actually thought I could see the resemblance. That when we split, we'd find a way to converge because we would tend towards infinity. It was just the natural order of chaos.

Except we didn't.

A year has passed and here we are again, converging thanks to the simple coincidence of similar jobs and strange passions. I hate nostalgia, but I brought her here anyway without really thinking about it. Except there's no knife twisting in my gut, no pain at broken memories shared or lost. Present success shared eclipses a a failure from the past and I couldn't be anymore glad.

We talk about work, something more successful than an infinity we failed to reach together. There's a deep passion in her eyes, an ignition of a familiar taste for success shared in both of our characters. Except we went about it in opposing ways; I held ice and followed logical steps. She held fire and followed her heart rate. Same goal but different paths, I think that's one of the things I loved. "Are you having fun, Tur?"

I nod my head without really thinking about it, body driven by the first thing that came to mind. "Yeah, more fun than I've had in a while at least," because what was I doing for a year? Shattering a piece of myself, getting myself fired in the process and then rebuilding myself from internal ruination. I don't know whether or not I'm talking about the coffee or the job.

I'm surrounded by a gallery of familiarity. This coffee shop, this coffee, Astrid. I swear, ignoring the feel of a pen in my hand and a problem strewn across my desk, this place is where I feel most at home. Surrounded by hated nostalgia but still somehow feeling so cool, collected and comfortable. As if I belong here, sitting in front of her after a long day's work and coffee on my lips. I take another sip, I relax.

"I just feel like this is something I was always meant to do, like I belong here. Doing this." It's difficult to explain, for despite freeing myself from the bindings holding me to a stuttering tongue, I never could quite find the right parts with Astrid. Every sentence was either spontaneous and unprocessed, or far too measured and deliberate. She always saw right through me. "I guess good things just worked out from bad circumstances."

I sip my coffee.

[zoe]

[alex 🐺]

we are color 
we are the canvas




{ astrid } 




and the brush
we are artists

This was easy - being with Turing was easy. Like a lazy Sunday morning when you wake up without an alarm clock, the sun already high in the sky. Turning over, stretching your arms, and seeing his face next to you. Days with Turing would always flow so easily - they would make breakfast together, sitting on the balcony in his apartment while she read some book or article about previous Games and he would pour over the accompanying facts and figures, long before they had work at All Caps, this is how they would spend their days. Languishing together, quick smiles and furtive glances that would sooner rather than later take them back to his bed to waste more of the day together. It was easy, it was comfortable. Until it wasn’t.

Astrid sipped her coffee, eyes unfocused as the street filled up with people, the bustle contained to the outside while the sounds behind them of the coffee shop barely registering in her brain. It was just her and Turing, like a lazy Sunday. This could have been a year ago and they would have been in the same place, having the same cup of coffee with each other. The difference though - the rather large difference - would be her hand on his. She had always been a tactile person and it had taken Turing quite a bit of time to get used to it. But she needed to always be able to touch him somehow. A hand on the arm, to the back of the neck, to the cheek. She craved her skin on his, even in the simplest of ways. It was more than a touch, it was a reassurance, a sign that he was still there. 

"Yeah, more fun than I've had in a while at least," he answered, and her heart leapt. She contained a smile that threatened to break through her face. She covered it up, hopefully, with another sip of her coffee, licking her lips.

Turing had always been silent but lovely and radiant like the dawn. Numbers and logic were his language that he so fluently wore on his sleeve, conveying what words never could. He had been a masterpiece, something forged by the greatest of sculptors with the utmost care, sculpted in sunlight and bathed in the stars, starbusts in his eyes.

"I just feel like this is something I was always meant to do, like I belong here. Doing this. I guess good things just worked out from bad circumstances."

Astrid’s chest caves whenever she thinks about the past, and this time it is no different. What happened to them was not a bad circumstance...it was a dance towards something that never happened and a final implosion.

She had aired out the smoke of her life and rebuilt herself only to return to this place, this conversation with Turing. The cycle broken and then remade. A year hanging in the balance, a year in which she had suffered and burned, but used the ashes to forge a new life that inevitably brought them back together. Lines diverging then meeting up again. It was fate. 

“Bad circumstances, Tur? Our breakup wasn’t just a bad circumstance. It was….it was like everything was shattered." She paused, because now, here, was not the time to rehash old wounds and open them up again. 

Astrid could never help herself though - "Did it even affect you?!” The question left her lips and she wished she could take it back, but there it was. Hanging, suspended in the air between them.

Do you even care?! danced through her mouth and almost left her tongue but she bit it, tasting iron and copper.

[kousei ♚]

Shooting stars all break up
And even though it seems like half the world away

This coffee's the same.

I know this because I've always been a mad of habitual behavior; always finding a routine to bind myself to. From fifteen it was taking the same route to school, packing the same sandwich in the same lunch box. Finding the same spot in the library and twirling the same pencil in between my fingers as a scrawled notation in the margins of books (because pages could communicate better than my stupid stutter). Now it's the same coffee, in the same large cup and three sugars from this same place -- I know this coffee's the same because I'm a man of habitual behavior.

So why does it taste so different?

I find variations and deviations in the subtleties and the instinctive twitch in my fingers. But this is an imperfection I've learned to carry, because a year ago coffee never seemed to stop being bitter. I'd sit at our usual spot alone and I broke my habit, put more than three sugars because the coffee tasted so bitter now matter how hard I tried. Three became four, four became six which metamorphosed into eight. Then I gave up, let the sugar collect in a pile on the table and began splitting it into sets. Splitting the sugar pile into two equal piles because I found comfort in the geometry and hoped it would help me forget her touch.

It tastes different again -- less bitter.

“Bad circumstances, Tur?"

I look up, eyes torn from the silvery table and into her blue eyes. I look back down at the polystyrene cup, I hate eye contact. "Our breakup wasn’t just a bad circumstance. It was….it was like everything was shattered."

A thought unspoken dies in my throat before it's allowed to see the touch of day -- ("I know.") Because there's something that tends close to the boundary of frustration that strikes me at my cold core. And I swear, the minute of silence tears at my skin like a vulture tearing flesh from bone. Like a silver bullet wound that still can't seem to close despite being given a year to heal -- scar tissue could never cover up the wound.

"Did it even affect you?!”

Her words are carried by an accusatory tone and a shadow falls over my face. Eclipsing the turmoil that rages within my chest and rankles my bones, I stare at the table and remember those sugar piles. Finding comfort in shapes because it was better than remembering the outline of her shadow.

I look up.

"Of course it did," my voice is soft, despite the harsh winds tearing at my bones. How ragged the past year left me, how a broken vase could shatter, well, everything. "You were the one who left and I sat in my apartment for the whole day by that window waiting for you to come back." I slept there too, I shut my eyes and thought of her, and just the sight of her in my subconscious shook me back to reality long enough to see the light spill over my skin. "And you never did."

I break eye contact, training my vision back onto the table because it's easier than whatever this is. I become a firestorm trapped in a cage made of skin, a blaze across an ashen landscape. Yet when I open my mouth to speak, there's no words to catalyze rage. "It hurt because I'd been so in love with you."

Hurt like a knife in porcelain skin, an exit wound I desperately stumbled and scrambled to cover with red fingers.

I suddenly stand, fingers fumbling to leave cash on the table. Brain working at a million miles an hour to leave a tip for the waitress and the amount for both our coffees. I look down, back to her and sigh, leaving money resting upon the table and throwing on my jacket.

"I should go."

I don't reach for the coffee; it's probably bitter all over again.

[zoe]

[alex 🐺]

we are color 
we are the canvas




{ astrid } 




and the brush
we are artists

The air is sucked out of the cafe, the room, leaving them in a vacuum and Astrid forgets how to breathe at the concussive force of his words.

Did it affect you? Did you care? Her question hangs in the air and he answers quickly, his words stitled. The energy behind them sending chills down her spine. The mantra that she had chanted in her brain after she had left him was that he was unfeeling. He felt nothing. He felt nothing. They were played out. It was over. And it was good while it had lasted. She had been dead wrong.

"Of course it did. You were the one who left and I sat in my apartment for the whole day by that window waiting for you to come back. And you never did."

Glass. Glass coats her throat and she breathes deeply to try to keep her head. She had swallowed back the thought of him like razor blades.

She had felt his name pass through her ice in her veins, her rib cage constricting under the weight of it all. She had emerged - not quite whole and not quite unscathed - but she had built her life again. A life without him. Rebuilt from the ashes of everything. Turing’s words brought it all crashing back down. The weight crushing. But she would not let this die.

'Cause I've been looking at the sky
to show me where I went wrong

Been looking at the sky
like someone was looking down

But it keeps raining on me 

"It hurt because I'd been so in love with you." Oh, you coward. Astrid bites her tongue - the iron taste of the blood coating her mouth and she silently swears. He stands and she is not going down without a fight.

”Don’t you dare race out of here like every single other fight we have had, Turing,” Astrid threatens, her voice low and all fear gone from her heart. He was not doing this again. Two steps forward and three steps back and she was tired of this dance. The sky opening up in front of them and she could cry at the poetry.

”I know it goes against your very nature but I need you to sit here and talk to me.” Blue eyes flash grey as she peers at him.

”What have we been doing these past months that didn’t lead us back to this spot? We both knew it was going this way and we both let it happen and if, if you want this to move forward, we need to get rid of this corpse that we are dragging around. It won’t disappear.”

She pauses, a hand on his arm to make him stop. ”Leave if you like. Leave and we go back to ignoring each other. But if you think this could be something again, if we can rebuild something, please stay.”

[lyrics attributed to EDEN start // over ]