Page 45 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
I’m your patricide
We don’t speak
I never see you
I lost you
Having never met you
* * *
All my tears are silent
Boy in the box
The one you forgot
Or did you sell me
Either way you left me
Don’t you know boys
Grow out of toys
What wasn’t loved
Becomes a grudge
Boy in the box
The one you forgot
* * *
He lay on his back, ink on his fingers, and closed his eyes. He could see it now, standing on stage, singing these words inside Damian’s church. No, he was screaming these words. And the music was screaming with him. I’m not your child, I’m your crime — I’m not your child, not your child, not your child.
He came to with a warm body sitting beside him and the sound of purring. There was a cat on his chest and Damian had lain down beside him. He was reading the words on the pages scattered around the two of them.
“You have to sing this,” Damian said.
Jun blinked slowly. Had he fallen asleep or just zoned out, lost in the haze of rage-fueled creation?
“I’m going to. No more contract, no more Bak; I’m going to sing my own music, my own way.”
“Yes, you will.”
They stayed side by side in quiet for a while. Jun stroked the cat on his chest. He thought about the future, shiny dark bright threads floating outward. They were his. The future was his. Or he’d break them all.
Damian joined him in petting Artemis. “We need to set the room up for tonight’s New Year’s Eve party. Everyone is coming over.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jun sat up, cradling Artemis. “I can help. Just let me pick up these pages.”
Jun
Jun set the tray of cups down by the table at the back of the lounge. Collin was laying out silverware in shapes. Damian was counting plates. The room was ready; all they were doing was putting out the last touches on the table. Émeric had ordered in catering. Dinner wouldn’t be served until around ten. Only snacks and drinks were out for the moment. Richard and Damian had tacked up streamers and twinkling lights around the windows. Émeric had been in charge of food and designating where it was set up, and Collin and Jun had been running errands for all three of them for the last hour. It had come together relatively smoothly once Artemis had been quarantined in the main bedroom to keep her from getting tangled in the lights and streamers. Damian had a small bandage on one hand from getting her out of that mess. She’d panicked.
“There, done, and ahead of schedule.” Émeric checked his watch. His phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket. “I think those are our first guests. Collin, Jun, would you let them in? Holden has them at the door.”
