The air felt soothing that night. Like a parent's touch, it caressed his skin and dried his tears, masking the memories that had surfaced.

The ones about Sarah—.

No. Don't think about it.

The entire point of Evaughn's late night bike ride was to forget about the memories that Neo caused to resurface. Remembering would only cause more heart ache. He breathed out to check whether his voice was still shaky. While there was some quivering, he had calmed down.

And just when he had begun to calm down, Evaughn figured that he was losing it when he heard his name in the near distance.

His brows faced down when a car in the lane nearest to him parked, and when a familiar face popped out from the open window, he sighed.

The other purpose of his bike ride was to be alone.

It was not to talk to Luka, who... for some reason was wearing eyeglasses. If Evaughn hadn't just been crying, he would've laughed.

"I knew it was you," he who surprisingly wore glasses smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"Just needed fresh air."

Shit. There was a crack in his voice. Hopefully, he didn't notice. The last thing Evaughn wanted was to bring out Empathetic Luka.

Just to be safe, though, he decided he'd add on to the sentence. "I didn't know you wore glasses."

"Oh. Yeah. Only when I need to."

Evaughn squinted at Luka's half-hearted tone. He wasn't convinced enough that Luka didn't hear the voice crack, or that he didn't see the dried tear lines still on his face.

So he added on a joke and even forced a laugh. "Who would've guessed that the perfect and amazing Luka has bad eyesight?"

"Guess I'm not perfect then." Luka laughed. A very forged laugh at that.

Evaughn decided he'd let it go. There was no use in hiding something so obvious. At least Luka wasn't attempting to confront Neo.

At least, he thought that was the case. That belief changed when Luka asked for his last name. Evaughn was reluctant, of course. He saw no valid reason why he'd need that information unless it was to connect him to Neo.

A skeptic Evaughn asked why.

"Nothing important. I just feel bad that I don't know yours since you know mine."

I was just overthinking it...

"Oh. It's Ruhl."

The green in Luka's eyes really was trustworthy. Perhaps too much.

They said their goodbyes and Evaughn resumed pedaling. He approached a park that would've been crowded with couples on picnic dates if it were day. Fortunate for him, the sun was setting, so he lowered his bike against a tree that he then sat against.

Straightening his legs onto the ground underneath him, he watched the sun slowly depart from him. In the distance, the moon waited patiently for its turn. Far away, the skyline from the city was visible. Evaughn made a mental note of how peaceful the park was at night. Even the tree with all its crevices and imperfections felt nice on his back.

Smiling to himself, he had the idea of making this a routine—.

"You know... that's my spot."

—Or not.

Evaughn didn't dare make eye contact with whoever owned the deep voice. "Sorry. I'll go."

The man whose spot he stole shook his head, chuckling. "Hey, I was only joking. You can sit—."

Evaughn sat.

"—if you want to." He must've been greatly amused. "I didn't mean to scare you away."

"I'll sit down." The boy mumbled.

"Okay, then." The older guy lowered to ground level and sat on the tree beside Evaughn. He faced the sky as well. For a while, that's all they did. "I recently came to this town and I found that this spot is perfect at night."

For the first time, Evaughn scanned the features on the man. He looked to be twice his age, like Neo. More noticeable was the large scar on the left side of his face. It was horizontal, and it extended from the center of his cheek towards his ear.

Evaughn must've been staring too long, though, because he then pointed to the feature. "Ah, this thing... is from a bullet."

"Sorry..." He cursed his lack of manners.

"Don't be. You'd probably feel awkward pretending not to see it."

Although his voice was deep, it was light and airy. Weirdly, it was soft to Evaughn's ears.

"Now that you know about my scar, can I ask why you've been crying?"

Evaughn turned his face away from the stranger, angry at the night for failing to conceal the redness. "I wasn't," he mumbled.

The man pressed his lips into a thin line. "If it helps, I've done my fair share of crying." Evaughn followed the man's eyes with his own. They stared beyond the moon and into space. "I cried watching my wife take her final breath. And then again when this..." He motioned to his cheek. "...happened. By then, I was so sure I'd used up all my tears, but, lo and behold, I haven't gone a year without crying since then."

He laughed at himself, and Evaughn made a curious look. Despite the weight of his words, his eyes took the shape of the crescent moon sitting quietly in the black heavens with stars that were absent.

The man's eyes imitated the planet's curves while his scar echoed its indentations. Indeed, human and planet were alike. Both were incomplete, lonely, and abandoned beings.

What distinguished them, however, was that one spoke as though he was the opposite of it all.

Evaughn was so intrigued that he couldn't recall the last time he blinked. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Believe it or not, it wasn't to make myself look like a pathetic old man." Again, his eyes turned crescent-like. "I want you to know that you're not alone. If you find yourself still crying ten years from now, know you're only human."

The boy with long hair looked at the balled fist that was brought his way. He bumped the man's hand with his own.

Nodding, he looked from one moon to the other and imagined where he would be in ten years. Would he be like the planet, or the human that sat beside him?

There was also the possibility that he'd be neither. If life chose Neo's side, Evaughn would instead be like the abyss...

The thought was shaken when he registered that the sun had fully left. It was nowhere to be seen. He turned briefly to the man. "Thank you. I have to go now."

"Go ahead. I'd feel bad if your parents got angry because of me."

"I don't have parents," he told him as he wiped grass off his pants. "Just my uncle."

The man gave him a look of... pity? No, it wasn't that. It stemmed more from the revelation that Evaughn's parents were deceased. After such news, the look was expected. And if pity wasn't the initial reaction, it would be the following. It always went like that.

Until now.

"Can I ask... what your name is?" His question was quiet, and he kept his gaze fixed on the boy.

"Evaughn," he answered after deciding he wasn't a bad person.

Lips parted, he blinked at the boy as if the name was foreign and abstract. Then he looked down and repeated it quietly.

The boy frowned. If this stranger hadn't been so kind to him, he would've been creeped out.

The man turned to his friend the moon. When his face was hidden, Evaughn thought he saw the scarred skin on his cheek droop. But, he blamed his observation on the night and stood to lift his bike from its side.

"Well, goodnight, then."

"Oh—be safe, it's dark, and—watch out for cars."

"Mister, I'm almost eighteen." Evaughn sighing. "You don't have to tell me that."

The man laughed again. "Right. You're right."

He hopped onto his bike and quickly adjusted himself to the seat.  They said their goodbyes once more before he began a three-minute-long ride back to his house. He took a deep breath before he entered the house, crossing his fingers and hoping that Neo was not home.

Thankfully, he was not.

With the house to himself, Evaughn took a shower to wash away the puffiness from his face. In his bedroom, he pushed the window curtains together. The action hid the row of metal bars nailed on by Neo after the incident with Sarah.

The bars served as a daily reminder that Evaughn was a prisoner in his own house. They told him that any attempt to escape would be futile; Neo would find him, no matter what.

***

By the end of the week Friday, Evaughn had signed all the papers necessary to get his first paycheck from his tutoring job at school. Obviously, he forged Neo's signatures wherever necessary.

He rode to school that morning, content with the fact that the papers were finally signed. They were safe in his school bag where they belonged. Safe and sound—.

SCREEEECH!

Thrown off his bike, Evaughn was hurled backpack-first onto the ground. He groaned at the contact his arms made with the hard pavement. The skin burned immediately, and he was sure some peeled off.

For a while, the world was dizzy. He mentally thanked his backpack for being his shield, and prayed that the tutoring documents were undamaged.

Evaughn heard footsteps come from the car. He looked at the person responsible and lowered his eyelids. "Of course it's you."

Luka threw his head this way and that to assess the situation. "Oh my god. Are you okay?"

"No bones broken."

"I'm so sorry, man. I don't know what got into me." He turned to the bike crumpled underneath his car and made a face that said yikes.

"Thanks for destroying my only form of transportation." Evaughn sighed, picking himself off the ground. Upon seeing how dejected his peer looked, he breathed out. "I'm just kidding. It doesn't matter."

"I'm really sorry. I'll replace it." Luka smiled, but it faded quickly. "Your arm is bleeding. A lot."

***

For the second time in his life, Evaughn was in Luka's house.

He stood beside the island and wrapped a compression bandage around his forearm, using his teeth to hold onto one edge of the strip. The task was no easy one.

Luka blinked at the boy. "Evaughn, just let me help you."

"No," he stressed for the second time. He felt pathetic enough being tended to so often by him.

"Fine." Luka tapped on the countertop as his friend deliberately wrapped the bandage at a very slow and careful rate. "By the way... can I tell you something?"

Evaughn spoke through the bandage in his teeth, his eyes never moving from his arm. "What?"

"I think there's something wrong with Dimitri's family."

"Well, it's Dimitri."

"No, this is different."

"How?"

Luka took his time in responding. At the elongated silence, Evaughn halted to look up. He placed the last piece of strip while Luka was staring at his feet.

Finally, the reply came. "There's something going on with them. I can't explain it because I don't know myself. I just know that it's not good, and that I have to find out."

Evaughn studied the serious look on his face before he parted his lips.

"Let's find out, then."