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April walks alone, as he does most days. What he is looking for, he can’t quite say.
Perhaps it is there, in the back of his mind. The exact, hopeless reason why it is that April walks, but perhaps he does not want to admit it to himself. The power such admittance would hold over him is not something he wants. Denial, April has found, always works more favourably.
There is work. His own work for the organisation, which usually descends post nightfall, undercover work in that office, and when he gets back to the hideout, there is the work to be completed that he left behind. He digs his nails into his palms at that, ignoring that swallowing weight in his heart.
Through the crowds he walks, always watching their faces. Is he that stupid, that part of him believes he’ll catch a glance of something familiar? A ridiculous scene, pushing through the lugging mass of humanity. A man tugging another along by the arm, although they are both grown. The taller beaming with delight as he says, “Oh April, where did you get to?!” and takes him back home for the evening.
What he wants more than ever is that - to talk over dinner, casually about what will happen tomorrow. To walk in through the door and be asked about work, as he removes his coat and puts it away.
Foolish - no one ever comes, no one ever dares even glance his way, far too preoccupied by their own lives, and rightfully so. Still, what is it that catches in his chest, watching people go by? Families, friends, lovers - and April, who stands alone among them.
The world does not change in the wake of death. It only feels as if it has ended for those who loved the departed. The crowds still spin on, still holding and cherishing one another, though April has lost his way, and shall not get the privilege of loving again.
April likes to believe he isn’t dominated by such emotions. April is clean cut, with no time for mourning. His eyes are only wandering out, because he is watching for a flash of white hair. Surely, that is what his mind clings to. Thoughts of revenge, and not that of a family April no longer has, or perhaps never did have at all.
If August were here, it wouldn’t be so quiet. August talked and talked, as if he feared the very notion of silence. He laughed loud, and flourished in the glow of city lights. He’d point out things he thought they’d both like, never really thinking of himself. He’d just look at April, smile, and ask if there were any spice shops he had spotted, and wanted to look at.
With December, he’d nudge him just a little, as his eyelids started to droop. There was a certain way August would look at December as if he was fragile. December of course, was not, and had certainly proved that.
So undeserving of August’s love for them both that was wholly unconditional. It makes April sick, to imagine how gentle August’s glance would fall upon December, and how he could still have the heart to do such a thing to him.
How suddenly the world changes, in one single moment.
A gunshot rings out into the night. Did he scream, or just accept it? Did he lie dying in the moonlight, and still allow December to escape, simply because he loved him?
August had promised that to him all that time ago when they were both young. August was a lone star that held him close to his heart. He could feel their pulses together, when he promised on the night he found him. April was only a frightened kid, no matter how tough he wanted to seem, and August was some foolish adolescent, though back then he seemed to have such trust in things. In the organisation. In himself. In family. He said,
“We’re family now ok? We’ll look out for each other, no matter what happens.”
The world kept turning on. Somewhere in the world, people danced and loved. They were as they always had been - family and friends. While people’s lives were lived with their usual mundanity, the light was snuffed out of April’s, unbeknownst to anyone else.
It carried on as normal.
August - who was so all encompassingly bright, was gone in one single moment. Quiet, simply as if he never existed at all.
So the world carries on unaffected. Only April grieves, and yet pushes it so deep down he allows himself to suffocate on it.
Nothing changes.
These are still the same streets as they always have been, and will continue to be so for much longer, likely outliving April himself, and all else who walk along them.