“Tanrak, why are you running? I’m not running. You’re running from yourself. Tanrak. Are you hurt? Can we just talk? Hm? I have nothing to say. You don’t have things to say or you just don’t dare say it? Hm? Don’t do this, Barth. Tanrak. Whatever’s on your mind, just tell me. Please talk to me. I’m begging you. I don’t understand, Barth. I don’t know anything. I don’t even understand myself. You do. You’re just scared to admit it, aren’t you? Just now, you felt what I felt too, didn’t you? Tanrak. Will things never be the same now? You know everything, don’t you? Know what? That I’m not God’s favourite son. I don’t understand. I like guys. Tanrak. I like you. Are you mad at me? I’m not God’s favourite son either.”

i want to beg you, as much as i can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. and the point is to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it live along some distant day into the answer.

Tanrak isn't just running, he's putting up walls and barriers and doors between them because he might be trapped as himself but he can and will push away anything that threatens his view of himself and what he has to do to get to his parents in heaven.

Barth is too observant for Tanrak's comfort because Tanrak doesn't want to see this part of himself. He never has. And he's afraid of everything he might lose.

And then he just lays it all out. Barth isn't afraid of who he is or what people say about that. Hell, he punches people for using slurs and he doesn't hesitate.

But that honesty is what gets Tanrak to open the door to him. To let him in. To be together in this rather than alone. Scared and unsure and hesitant but no longer alone.

And he holds up a mirror to Barth and together they are seen, they are not alone, they are together. No longer in the dark, no longer in the cold blue of the bathing area but the warm place that they can both simply... be.

I don't understand, Barth. I don't know anything. I don't even understand myself. You do. You're just scared to admit it, aren't you? Just now, you felt what I felt… didn't you?