"What do you mean by like?" Jack's eyebrows rose as he questioned the nervous-looking Maurice. His curly red hair was getting into his eyes as they were growing longer, and he needed to find a way to keep them out, but he was too occupied even for that. Oddly enough, he found his heart beating violently at the mention of Roger's name.

"I guess I meant.." Maurice drummed his fingers on the rock, looking for the best description of the weird feeling he himself could not understand. He glanced at the sea, trying to avoid Jack's confused gaze. "Uh.."

"Go on."

"It's like.." Maurice's tongue swept across his lips. Apparently, he was the most hydrated of all boys, since almost every one of them had dry lips. He suddenly though of his home back in England. His thoughts fixated on the girl he had developed feelings for, and a temporary explanation formed inside his head. "It's like when you look at someone, and you think, 'Oh God, I've found my home.' And when you're around them, you feel comfortable, yet still a little awkward, but you know that you can tell the person everything about yourself without any feelings of hesi.. hesa.." Maurice paused, his eyebrows furrowed, trying to remember the word.

"Hesitation?"

"Yes. And you can just stare at them for literally hours. You feel your heart beat faster around them, you see light shining from them and to you, they're perfect. You feel like you have to protect them from every danger because that one, and that one only is your home."

A sea gull flew by, its cry echoing in the air and disappeared. The waves crashed into the shore in its irregular rhythm. Jack stabbed a lizard crawling by his feet with his knife, but the creature got away, and the blade hit the rock underneath.

"I've seen how you look at him, chief." Maurice restarted the conversation, his voice solemn and unusual, and his eyes were toward the setting sun. "There's no denying it."

Jack was silent. He tried to think up a topic to distract themselves from this awkward one, but could not come up with anything that would not eventually lead to the mention of Roger. His brows furrowed at the thoughts of his lieutenant's odd behaviors recently.

Jack had always noticed how Roger enjoyed destroying and killing and torturing, like when they were still in school, the boy threw a pocket knife up a tree, wounding a bird. The bird was a small, golden canary. It fell down with the knife still in its wings, and Roger brought it back to his house. The next morning, he showed up with the intestines of the bird that he eventually put in a younger boy's book bag just to mentally torment him. Roger had changed. The change was unnatural, since Jack had always noticed how unmoved his sadism was towards everything. No one at school could even make him behave differently, but it seemed like Roger had been acting like that because of someone.

Jack tried to recall the last time Roger obeyed someone besides him.

"Chief," Maurice's voice interrupted him. Jack turned to the other in annoyance. "As I was saying."

"Bollocks to you."

"Are you thinking of Roger again? You always look like you're constipated when you're thinking of him." This startled the chief, making him nod and his cheeks turning crimson.

Maurice sighed. The chief, Jack Merridew, may be excellent in many aspects, but his knowledge in that area was limited, or maybe it was because he had too much pride to own up to it. A boy liking another boy was wrong anyway, wrong on so many levels. He pulled some grass that had grown under the rock up and fondled it with his two fingers. Chief liked Roger, and Roger liked a dead person. It was like a chain reaction with no ends. One of God's fucked up games. He thought.

"The feelings you have for him have always been there, chief," Maurice let go of the grass in his hand, and, again, moved his gaze to the setting sun. The sky was getting darker. "Right from the start. It's always been there. You just haven't noticed it enough to know that it's there. Like the firefly." He nodded to himself.

Jack stared at Maurice, questioning the hunter's words. The cicadas started crying, and his eyes moved away from Maurice, fixated on a glowing creature. Thinking that it was just phosphene, he rubbed his eyes, but the glow was still there. His bony hands reached out, and with a fluid movement, captured the creature. He peeked into his closed palms, and saw a light illuminating the darkness created by his hands.

A firefly.

Turned out, it was there all along.

He just did not notice it enough to know.

..

The red-headed hunter walked along the trees in silence. The sun had gone home a moment ago, a home where it belonged. He looked around, not knowing what he was looking for. He swiped his tongue across his dry lips, grasping tree trunks absentmindedly in the dark. His mind was still trying to recall the last time Roger was obedience to somebody, anybody, but him. His insides curled up at the thought of the raven-haired boy listening to another person beside him. Jack unconsciously gripped tight to his knife. As if anyone would dare to steal what was his. His teeth gritted.

But what if Roger liked someone else?

Just the thought of Roger belonging to someone else alone made Jack uncomfortable. He snatched his knife out of his belt and slammed it on a tree trunk next to him, his heart beat faster and his teeth dug into his bottom lips. He then took his knife back, and put it where it belonged, on his belt. His light blue eyes stared forward, and caught a glimpse of the former chief's discolored ocean blue ones. He approached the other chief, avoiding to look at the flies buzzing around and the white larva crawling out of his skin. The expression of fear was still there. It had always been there when he stared into those eyes. He himself had ordered to have the eyelids cut off, so that those eyes would forever open wide in fear. Fear of him. Never had he regretted his decision so bad.

He needed that blond's advice. Or at least talk to him.

A noise from behind startled Jack. He quickly hid behind a bush, his right hand gripping the knife again.

The one causing the sound was a raven-haired boy, but it was not just any raven-haired boy. It was Roger.

He walked pass the rotting former chief, in his hand was a coconut shell filled with wild flowers. He looked around cautiously, then wormed himself into a space behind the creepers hanging across each other. Jack watched as his pale legs disappeared in the green of the creepers, then emerged from behind the bush and carefully walked to the creepers. He peeked inside.

Roger was concentrating on what seemed to be a flower crown. But there was another one. Someone with deeply tanned skin and dark brown hair, who looked like he was sleeping and watching Roger at the same time.

Memories of the only time Roger would dare to contradict him flooded his mind.