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Dull outings. Forced interactions. You always feel the gravel underfoot and never the grass. You make polite conversation, but you’re so detached you can’t remember any of it. You make a mark on your paper--interaction has been successfully completed. You call it socializing and then still wonder why you feel so empty inside.
Your father wanted you to be a politician, so you go to college and major in political science. The classes mean nothing to you, nothing at all, but the job you have as a bartender, where you clean glasses and pour drinks, feels more real to you than any social theorem presented by monotone voices in nearly empty lecture halls.
Your father pats you on the back. He’s so proud of the work you’ve put in. He brags about you to his friends. It’s so weird how he can be so proud, you think, when you can’t even recognize the face you see in the mirror.
You cut your hair once. You cut it so short you can see the tattoo you have hidden behind your ear, the only time you did something for yourself, regardless of what anyone would say. How odd. You trace the marking gently with your fingers. You had forgotten it was even there.
You decide to grow out that red hair someday. To let long luscious curls drop down your bare back sometime in the future, but maybe not now. There’s an interesting thought tucked in the back of your head, a seed that is beginning to germinate, an egg ready to crack. You need to get something done. Whatever this something is, once it’s completed, you can have your long hair back.
You go to a party on campus, dragged along by one of your classmates. She calls herself your friend, but do you even know her? Does she even know you? Sure, you’ve talked a couple of times and yes, she has every ounce of your respect—but what does that mean when you know nothing of the person giving it?
At the party, there’s a young man with braids playing a guitar. His voice is the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard and you find yourself feeling in a way that you simply cannot describe.
Listening to him is like the first breath after you break the surface and it feels like your whole body comes to life. You end up sitting at his feet, enraptured. Your friend is smiling at you and there’s a glimmer of something in her eyes. She knows, you think, without knowing what she knows. You don’t bother with it too long; your gaze slides back to meet the guitar player’s aquamarine eyes. There’s something soft there, understanding; as if all the questions you had about yourself and the world he could answer, if you just worked up the nerve to ask.
You wonder, briefly, how that conversation would go: please, you would say, please tell me why I doubt I have a soul. Please tell me why everything always feels wrong, but no one else seems to see it.
Please.
He puts his guitar down after a while, citing sore fingers. He looks at you and doesn’t back away, like others always had. He sits down next to you and offers you a sip of his beer.
You take it.
“Crazy party, right?” He says, giggling. His fingers touch yours when you hand back his beer and you can feel the rough calluses on each finger and you’re struck, for a moment, by how poetic it is, that his dedication is on display at his fingertips, an achievement that could never be denied or taken away.
Your friend pokes your arm.
“I’m going to grab some nachos from the kitchen,” she tells you, winking. “Try not to have too much fun while I’m gone!”
She wanders away, chatting with people intermittently as she navigates out of sight. You turn your attention back to the man sitting next to you. He smells like cedar and hops. You wonder if you smell nice too. You decide not to overthink it and lean towards him.
“I have a question for you,” you say, wondering how on earth you are going to say what you need to say.
“Oh, I could tell,” he tells you sweetly, “you have very earnest eyes.”
Huh. You didn’t know that about yourself. You find yourself collecting his comment in your mind and framing it on a bare wall. Earnest eyes. You rather like that.
“You play really well,” you say, pointing to his guitar.
“Lots of time and lots of practice,” he cocks his head to the side, considering you. He has the answers. He has to. You cannot let him slip by and fade into the periphery.
But how? How to ask a stranger to stay? How to bare the soul you aren’t even sure you have?
“Could you teach me?” You ask. You have no interest in learning the guitar.
He reads you like a book.
“Wanting to get to know me better?” he laughs. “There’s no need to front. We could go out for some coffee sometime, if you want. Want my number?”
“Yes,” you breathe and he’s grabbing your arm and writing on it in sharpie. His name is printed above it. The I is dotted with a heart. You wonder for a moment if you should do that with the i in your name but shake the thought. That doesn’t feel like you.
But how would you know?
You smile at him.
“Thank you, Venti,” you tell him.
“You know my name and I don’t know yours,” he says, leaning forward. “Do I get to know?”
“I don’t know what it is yet,” you blurt out and huh. You’ve had your name all of your life, why on Earth would you say that?
He just chuckles and leans forward.
“Are you looking for suggestions?”
*
It has been three weeks since Venti the Bard—as his friends lovingly call him—has swept into your life. He puts you at ease in a way that you never would have suspected and he and your only friend, Jean, have bonded well. The three of you regularly have movie nights and you cannot pretend not to blush every time he leans against you or grabs your arm when you watch horror movies.
For these past three weeks, you have undergone a litany of names. Venti and Jean went through a baby name website to try to offer suggestions. It seemed to have been decided, almost without you, that the names should be masculine. Maybe it was the short hair, you think, but you didn’t stop them, and listened intently to every suggestion. Mark almost felt right--you liked the jagged bite at the end of it; Dawson felt too much like somebody else’s comfort in a way that you struggled to define to them.
Right now, you are sitting with Diluc. It feels right, but you don’t know if it’s just because of how harshly it ends on your tongue.
It was odd, you think now, how quickly coffee had turned into hangouts had turned into twice a week movie nights. You look down at where he’s nestled against you and wonder if anything else will move as fast.
Venti looks up at you suddenly, eyes glimmering mischievously.
“I bought you something,” he practically sings.
You’re dumbfounded.
“What? Why?” you ask, brow furrowed, and he laughs at your reaction.
“Always so serious! Come on, can’t I buy a gift I think you’ll like?”
You’re blushing now and the grin on his face says that he can see it.
“Fine. What is it?”
“Always so gruff, Diluc!” he giggles, before pulling out a package from his backpack. “Here! Open it!”
The package feels oddly soft in your hands, but you tear it open with unexpected venom. Jean laughs.
“Try not to demolish it,” she tells you and you smile at her.
You’re very glad she’s here.
When you open the package, a red piece of clothing falls out. It looks like a tank top, but it has some extra fabric around the chest.
You look at Venti in question.
“What is it?”
“An experiment,” Venti says pensively. “Put it on, see how you feel. I think it will help you figure some things out, one way or another.”
You grunt and go behind a divider to take off your shirt and put it on.
It presses down on your chest, flattening you, until your torso is almost indistinguishable from another man’s of your build.
You pause as you consider your reflection in the mirror.
Another?
You push it away for a moment, drinking yourself in. You are an adult, have walked this world for almost two decades, and yet you feel as if you are seeing yourself for the first time.
Sensations you had long forgotten about begin to well up inside of you as the epiphany strikes.
You don't know who you are and have been living your life like it belonged to somebody else.
You have been your own ghost.
You take in your eyes, your nose, and the cut of your jaw like you haven't seen them before. A hesitant hand touches your flattened chest.
“Diluc?” It's Jean. Your best friend. The one who could see the man behind the specter from the moment she met you. The one who must have known before you did. Her voice is shaking, hesitant, and you come out and reach for her and pull her close as you sob. Jean. She's a beacon to you. How could you have been so dead that you didn't recognize her all this time?
She holds you tightly. You can feel her head turn towards Venti, questioningly.
“I told you to trust me,” Venti said. “I think we got our answer.”
You reach blindly for him and pull him close too. One of his arms goes behind your back, warm fingertips dancing on your skin.
“It's okay,” he tells you. “Sometimes waking up is a lot to handle.”
“Thank you,” you manage to sob, holding them both tightly. Jean begins to shake in your arms and you feel tears start to fall on the top of your head. She presses a kiss to the top of your head.
Such a good friend. How the hell did you luck into having her even as a ghost?
“I'm a guy,” you tell them.
“Yeah,” Jean replies, completely devoid of shock. So she had known. How?
“A cute one too,” Venti adds and your heart begins to beat a little faster. They both have to know, pressed up against you like they are.
If they do know, they both keep their peace, and you're grateful.
You don't know how long it is before the three of you pull away from each other. Jean is beaming and proud; Venti has a soft expression that you have never received from another man.
Another.
“I like Diluc,” you say, wiping your eyes. “I think I'm going to keep it, for a while.”
“It suits you,” Jean says thoughtfully. “It's got a nice bite to it.”
Venti smiles and goes to your mini fridge before pulling out a small bottle of vodka and pouring out three individual shots.
He passes one to you and one to Jean, before holding his own high.
“To Diluc!” He cheers and you feel warm for the first time in a long time.
“To Diluc!” Jean echoes and you feel tears stinging your eyes again.