GREEN HAD EASILY BECOME HIS FAVORITE COLOR, AND CHARLES HADN'T REALIZED FOR A VERY LONG TIME AS TO WHY. Then one day he looks up and it hits him like a truck, it settles somewhere in his ribcage. He'd chalked it up to him being his BEST MATE, the person he owed so much to. The one being, in the entire world, that he would go to any lengths to protect, to help, to save. Because that's what he'd done for him, wasn't it ?
Charles is burning a hole in the gritty material of his bag, fingers even tighter as he shifts it up and onto his lap for a moment. The weight of it is COMFORTING, perhaps one of the only things he can really understand at the moment. There was a lot BUBBLING within him, threatening to escape.
A lot that he thought he'd BEEN through, compartmentalized somewhere out of sight and mind. How long ago had he looked at Edwin the way the other boy was doing to him now?
Charles ? Edwin's voice breaks through his thoughts, snaps him BACK INTO reality. He blinks, and the hands tight around his bag loosen enough where it slips between his knees and falls to the ground. His own leg BUMPS against Edwin's, and if he could breathe, he knew it would be so stuck in his throat he'd blur over his own speech. But he was dead, and there was no need to worry about how his voice sounded, or if the other boy could see the effect he had on him. There's a BLISSFUL ignorance in Edwin's face, when his dark brown eyes wander over his expression again, a smile on his own.
❝ Course not, mate. Don't get your knickers in a twist. ❞ Deflection.