“When was the last time you went outside?”
Kohra blinked his eyes one at a time, starting with the two on the right and ending with the two on the left. The white light from the screen in front of him seemed brighter than the sun. Or maybe it was because the lightbulb in his room had blown and he was otherwise sitting in the dark. The clock on the screen said that it was five in the afternoon, but it was dark outside.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
Kayen stood in the doorway, with Timik towering over him. Both of them were blocking the light that would trickle in from the hallway. Both of them seemed rather concerned.
“When was the last time you went outside?” Kayen repeated.
Kohra grunted, choosing not to answer. All three of them knew what the answer was, but Kohra didn’t have the strength or the desire to say it out loud. Instead, he went back to what he was doing, watching videos and downing tubes of chocolate buttons.
“Kohra, you should at least acknowledge Kayen!” Timik snapped, his talons rapping against the wooden door frame. “You’re being very rude!”
“Maybe I want to be left alone?” Kohra grunted, pausing his video and sighing. “Maybe I don’t want to go outside, where I can’t be myself and I can’t be accepted as anyone else! I’m a fucking exiled Kronospast, one of the last of my kind and I can’t even go and see the few other Kronospasts that remain, because I’m a fucking monster who’s under house arrest!”
Kohra’s temper simmered off and he resumed his video. Behind him, Timik and Kayen glanced at each other, really not sure what to say or do. They had been concerned about Kohra ever since he’d been smuggled to their doorstep. Kohra was supposed to have been exiled to some backwater planet filled with monsters, but a lot of paper smudging and smart lawyer-ing had put him under Kayen’s father’s jurisdiction, with Kayen and Timik technically being Kohra’s prison guards.
This entire time though, they hadn’t had to do any sort of guarding. Kohra had spent months sitting on his own, barely doing anything.
“Just because you’re under house arrest, don’t mean that you ain’t allowed outside!” Timik shrugged. “We’re worried about you.”
“You two should stop worrying about a monster like me…” was Kohra’s blunt reply.
With a final shrug, Timik gave up and wandered off. Kayen however remained where he was, standing in the doorway.
“You can leave too, you know.”
“Yeah, I know…” Kayen muttered as he stepped deeper into Kohra’s dark room. He continued stepping closer, until he as right behind Kohra.
“I don’t deserve your care. You should just leave me in here to fade away.”
Kayen hesitated, then shrugged. “That’s not true at all. You did do some bad things, but, well, everyone does bad things. Only difference is that you did the bad things because you wanted to tru and make things better.”
“But I made things worse…” Kohra rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. “I fucked everything up…”
Suddenly, the room felt warmer. Kohra realised that Kayen had wrapped his arms around him and was hugging him. The Skyavok’s skin was weirdly warm compared his cold plating. Either way, the hug felt… nice.
“Could be worse. Could be dead. Or extinct. But you’re safe here with me and Timik. Yeah, you fucked up, but I’m not going to hold that against you.”
Kohra took a long, deep breath, then sighed. He shifted around, so he could better see Kayen. Kohra eventually whimpered slightly, muttering as he hugged Kayen back.
“Thank you…”