Chapter 7

Kaine paused hesitantly before he sat down beside Zavier at the table in the park gazebo place. The woman that sat in front of them quite honestly looked like a mess, however, her personality was somehow even crazier.

Sally suddenly stood up from her seat, walked around to their side and shoved Zavier. However, it was more like a sad attempt to shove Zavier, he didn’t move an inch and instead, he simply stood up and led her back to her seat.

“Oh come on, why do you get to sit next to the hot guy?” She said in exasperation and Zavier shrugged,

“Maybe because I’m the hot guy’s friend.” He replied matter-of-factly and Kaine quickly turned his head to look at Zavier, who in turn merely grinned at him. Kaine looked down, his red hair fell over his face and covered the slight blush that was creeping up his cheek.

Kaine couldn’t remember anyone ever being nice to him so this was a strange feeling. He had only ever read of people and feelings like this and now that he was experiencing it, he never wanted to part with them.

As he watched the banter between Zavier and Sally, he questioned if it was all fake. Obviously there must be something that Sheila wants from him, maybe Zavier is a ploy to lower his walls and get him to break. As these thoughts crowded Kaine's head, his brain started to run with all of the possibilities. 

After a few moments he couldn't take it any more and stood up suddenly, Zavier and Sally looked at him with confused, concerned expressions. He waved them away when they tried to follow after him; Kaine then found a large, peaceful tree. He climbed up into the soothing branches and leaned his head against the trunk.

About ten minutes went by and he heard a soft rustling, Kaine jumped and looked down, Zavier was standing at the tree base and looking up at him with a calm expression as he motioned to ask if he could go up into the tree.

Zavier somehow took three times as long as Kaine did to climb into the tree, however, after he was sitting in a branch beside Kaine, it was worth it. Kaine wasn't sure how, but despite his reserves with everyone, Zavier's presence, voice, face, everything, made him feel comforted and soothed.

Kaine held his breath as he anticipated what Zavier was going to say, however, Zavier simply looked at his face and waited a few minutes in silence before he spoke, "Can I play a song for you?" He asked and Kaine looked up at him with confusion in his eyes before he hesitantly nodded in consent.

As Zavier set up the song, Kaine asked himself why Zavier didn't take the opportunity to ask whatever questions he obviously wanted to ask. The song started to play and Zavier clicked something that caused Phosen subtitles to appear. Kaine frowned, unsure what the song was about or why Zavier had chosen it.

"You, pretending to be unaffected, just like that,

You are smiling, but I can hear it in your words,

You always say "I'm okay" but I can see everything,

How your heart sobs when you're alone,

After turning off the lights in your quiet room," In just the first few lyrics of the song, Kaine started to feel like his eyes were tearing up, he quickly looked away and Zavier paused the song. They sat in a comfortable silence for a lengthy time in that tree, Zavier said nothing after the song was paused, he simply sat beside Kaine and in that moment, he became his silent solace.