Julian was suffocating. He was pretty sure he would die in about ten more minutes. He couldn't breathe. The air was just too much full of awkwardness and Julian hated it. His mother sat opposite to him and his father next to her. Ren was beside him, head bent as he chewed on his chicken nimbly. He was amused and it made Julian want to break a photo frame on his head.

" So Warren honey...do you have a girlfriend?"

His mother was the one to speak. It was an indirect jab at Julian and she was making sure he knew by throwing glances at him, pretending to be discreet about it.

Ren shook his head " No but I hope soon"

Julian tried his best to ignore his parents' fake conversation about the ideal girl for Ren. He also ignored how they put special emphasis on the word girl. He hated this. He hated all of it. He wanted to run away. He wanted to run so far away, until his legs wouldn't work anymore. He wished he could just stop existing. He wanted to dissolve into nothingness.

Julian didn't want pain. He didn't want worry. He didn't want judgement. He wanted nothing. The literal nothing.

" Julian's going through a phase right now but when he finds the right girl—"

Julian stood up. His chair toppled back and he ignored it. His eyes were focused on the woman that gave birth to him.

She looked at him, her features twisted in anger at his sudden movements " Sit down Julian"

" No." he said " No! I'm not going to sit down and try to keep quiet while you repeat those ridiculous sentences again. This is not a phase! I am gay. I'm not straight. I will never love a girl romantically and therefore I will never find the right girl because she doesn't exist. There's only the right guy for me."

" Julian...you have to understand. The society won't treat you kindly—" his dad started.

" Screw the society! I don't want to live for the society. I'll live for myself"

" That is just selfish. Everyone is born to help the society become better. You have to live for the world, not for yourself. The world—"

" The world will not get better with people with ridiculous beliefs who act like love is important but they actually stand against it. Love is love. You cannot just decide to stop loving someone and you definitely can't decide who you want to fall in love with. Loving someone is not a choice"

Julian had yelled out the last sentence so loudly that Ren had flinched. Julian stepped back slowly and then turned around. Then he ran up the stairs towards his room. He shut the door and covered himself under his blankets on the bed. He heard Ren's voice talking to his parents and then the door to his bedroom opened.

Ren walked in " Hey Jule"

Ren shut the door behind him and sat down at Julian's desk " Julian...you shouldn't have yelled"

Julian laughed humourlessly " Go away Ren...just go. Why? Why does everyone want everything to be perfect? And who the fuck decided that a man loving a man is abnormal? Why the fuck can't I go back in time and kill them?"

Warren Sanders didn't have anything to say. His cousin was always the kind of person who always talked about going back in time and setting things right. It made Warren wonder if Julian would be the one to invent a time-travelling machine. Warren didn't actually believe in making things right. You can't make things right. Ever. Because humanity had this habit of always finding hate in the most unlikely places. Humans were the most creative living beings alive and if they have nothing to hate they will create something they can hate.

" Because it doesn't work that way" Ren said, randomly picking up one of the essays that he had given to Julian so that he would correct spelling and grammar mistakes.

The love between Romeo and Juliet is not true. Romeo is obviously a pedophile who gets attracted to any hot teenager he sets his eyes on. The fact that he met Juliet and fell in love with her when he was still moping about Rosa-whatshername proves that he was just using Juliet as a rebound. Plus he also thought, you know since his and Juliet's families are already rivals it wouldn't hurt to piss them off some more. Who knows? If Romeo and Juliet lived, maybe Romeo would dump Juliet as soon as he met another hotter fourteen year old—

" Ren, that essay...you're the most negative person ever. Do you not believe in true love?"

Ren looked at Julian, his head tilted to the side as he shrugged indifferently " I do believe in true love. I just don't believe in making a fourteen year old kid my rebound when I'm a twenty something dude who got dumped by his girlfriend. Let's face it, Shakespeare sucked at writing love stories"

" That's not true. He wrote masterpieces—" Julian started to protest.

" Okay, president of Shakespeare fan club. Keep your opinion to yourself." Ren said, crunching up his essays and shooting them one by one into the bin on the other side of the room. It wasn't that Ren didn't like his essays. It was just that he'd fail if he submitted his real opinion. It was quite sad actually, how the older generations wanted the younger generations to be screw-ups like them by forcing them to be their definition of normal. They didn't want their kid to be different. They wanted their kids to lie to everyone and tell them they're okay when they're really not okay. They want to make decisions for their kids, the consequences of which the kid has to suffer ultimately.

Ren didn't want to be a freaking dentist like his parents want him to be. He wanted to be a neurologist . He wanted to understand the way brains control humans. He wanted to save people. He wanted to know if transplantation of a brain would also transport the consciousness, memories of a person into another body. He wanted to do all this research. Search for answers. What happens after death? Is our body just a machine? When we die do we just stop existing?

" Ren...about that guy. Wynter Black. What do you know about him?" Julian asked suddenly.

Ren wiggled his eyebrows suggestively " Wynter Black is your type?"

Julian ignored this. He shook his head leaning forward on his elbows " Not that. I just...he seems very lonely. Also I rarely see him at school"

Ren nodded. His playfulness was gone now. " His mom died of overdose about three years back. Dad bolted after the funeral. Sends money every two months but it's not enough so Wynter works as a life guard at the public pool on weekends. Draws a lot of women. Gets paid well to sit shirtless under the sun. He has a little sister who's probably about five years old. She literally calls him dad. I mean she can't be blamed. Wynter's whole life revolves around her. Everything he does, he does it for her. He might as well get custody of her when he turns eighteen"

" How does he still get good grades in every class?" Julian mumbled to himself.

" He's actually smart. He just listens in class. People say he doesn't even write notes. Bam! He's got straight A's"

After about half an hour of a conversation about Wynter Black, both the boys were sitting in silence. Julian watched Ren pull out the extra mattress from underneath his bed. He silently handed him one of the fluffiest pillows from beside him and threw a blanket at his face. Ren cursed at him in a rather uninterested and tired way and then collapsed onto the mattress.

" Hey Jule?"
" What the fuck do you want?" Julian grumbled.

"Hey Jule, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart, Then you can start to make it better....."

" God's sake. Shut up" Julian said. He was not amused. Ren always did this. He always sang Hey Jude and changed to lyrics to Jule. It used to make Julian laugh but now it just irritated him. A good joke turns into a bad one when you tell it about a hundred times.

" It's not God. It's Chuck." Ren scolded.
" Look, I like Supernatural okay? It's an awesome show. Don't ruin it for me. Goodnight"

Ren made a face "Don't ruin it for me" he mocked with a high pitched whining tone.

Julian picked up a pillow and threw it in Ren's direction successfully making him shut up. He closed his eyes.

Julian saw a brown-haired boy drowning. His eyes were closed and his arms were spread out on either sides as if accepting his fate. The boy wouldn't fight. Julian could see that. Sunshine cut through the water reaching the boy's face. His face was relaxed, as if no harm in the world would ever reach him. And then just like that his whole face tightened. The boy shook his head, hands clamping down on his ears. Julian started towards him, his hands cutting through the water so that he could reach him. He brushed his fingers against the boy's shoulder. His eyes flung open for a second and then he leaned forward to cling onto Julian's frame, as if asking him to save him.

Julian held the boy between his arms and started upwards towards the surface.

But when Wynter would wake up the next morning he wouldn't remember Julian saving him, but Julian would. And Julian would make sure that such a situation would never come. Julian would make sure he wouldn't have to save Wynter from himself, because the only person who can save Wynter is himself.

A/N:

If ur confused...then Julian and Wynter had similar dreams.

Vote, Share, Comment, Follow.

Thnx for reading!

Keep on living xx