Through the Screen

cautious footsteps make noah avert his gaze from the broken glass on the floor, to the small figure slowly approaching the threshold of the kitchen, his fingers tightening visibly around the broken piece of plate in his hands once he notices the misery on adrian's face—hair unkempt, lips chapped, forehead marked with thin lines of worry and an unhealthy pallor of sadness on his usually warm pink cheeks.

"y-you can go and freshen up, i'll do this," adrian's voice is barely audible, and noah can't find any words to say once the younger boy grabs the dustpan from noah's loose grip and dodges the scattered porcelain on the floor.

"adrian i—"

"i'm fine, i promise, please go and take a shower, i'll order something to eat so you feel better," adrian refused to meet noah's eyes, he knew he would start crying in just one look at the morose expression on his father's face. he wasn't mentally strong enough to keep the image of noah's watery eyes and his sunken cheeks and the permanent frown on noah's lips in his mind. he can barely blink away the sight of abel leaving, and the sound of doors slamming in unison.

statement. "c-can you

push his son's hair away from his forehead and a

a brain—guilt. the complex, slowly building and the feeling of guilt that can't be looked over. the one that begins from the very centre of his heart and expands slowly throughout his body, leaving behind a hot waterfall of nothing in particular, slowly filling up his chest. it drowns his happiness, drowns his lungs,

his eyes. amidst the storm of confusion in his brian, adrian lets another feeling carve its way in—guilt. the simple, broken down, obvious feeling of guilt that arises from the base of his chest and lands on the tip of his tongue, dotting the corners of his eyes with tears. he feels unbearably guilty for coming between

sliding down against the wooden door and adrian's fingers loosing their grip on

of water landing on his glasses from his dripping wet hair. and maybe it would bother him any other time, today, he just sits silently and lets the hot

or it is simply, so utterly broken that noah can't feel it anymore. the ache in his chest, the burn in his lungs, the sting in his eyes—everything has disappeared, leaving behind this empty, numb