Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 140. What a quick-witted friend

The grief was unbearable until it left me as if it had never been there. I was still grabbing my mother when the scene changed.

It was deep into the night, and I had waited in the living room for my family to return when I saw my father entering the door, holding the hands of my brother and sister.

His face looked like a hideous mask, and he neither acknowledged my presence nor the fact that both of my siblings were crying heartbreakingly.

My whole body spasmed, and the next time I opened my eyes, I found Henry straddling me, having a taser in his hand.

"What?" I asked, but my voice didn’t come out. We were indoors on a mattress, Henry sitting on me, leaning over and nearly engulfing me with his body.

"Kenny, I am sorry; you have to act now." He took my hand and put something in it.

I raised it and found that I was holding a knife. I looked at it in hesitation when Henry grabbed my wrist.

"I know. I know it’s difficult. But you have to do it, Kenny." Henry came closer while positioning my hand above my throat so that the blade was above my main artery.

His hands trembled, and while he helped me put the knife in place, he simultaneously didn’t let go and held my wrist tightly, as if he was trying to stop me from cutting myself.

"You have to do it; then everything will be fine."

While looking at him, I pressed the knife against my throat, yet he didn’t let me. There was pure desperation on his face when he finally slowly loosened his hold.

I don’t want to do it; I am so fucking scared, I can’t do it; I don’t want to die. Unable to stop these thoughts reverberating in my mind, I slashed my throat with all my might.

Blood spurted out, and if the vision of Henry doing the same action was already a nightmare to experience, to go through with it in my own body was the worst possible reality.

My heartbeat quickened, and the blood drenched everything, but my fear lessened because I had bright blue eyes holding my gaze because I could feel his body weight on me, just because everything about him assured me that I wasn’t alone.

That was a fucking necessary assurance, something I really needed at that moment.

When my strength left me and I began to get sure that we had made some terrible mistake and that I was going to die here for real, the bleeding stopped and so did my weakened state, but most importantly, my head finally cleared up.

"Fuck. That was more horrible than expected." I groaned, gripping my throat like Henry had after he discovered that he managed to survive.

"I know." Henry slid his fingers over my cheek, and before I could ask him what he was doing or tell him he should get down from me, he asked,

"What did you see? You cried so bitterly." On his fingers were no tears, even if what he said was true, but blood instead, because both of us were full of it.

The way he said it made me unable to just joke it off, especially after what I just witnessed. I thought back to him speaking with me about his parents and... oh well. It doesn’t hurt to tell him.

I put my arm over my eyes so that he didn’t see me while talking, or at least so that I didn’t see him looking at me.

"The first time I looked into the future, it was my mother’s, and I saw her drowning. I threw a fit, but she left regardless to go to the sea with the rest of my family, trying to prove me wrong and show me that the world was no scary place."

I breathed out shakily and chuckled.

"But the world is a scary place, and fucking scary at that. And the most scary places are empty homes..." Damn, feeling that I was rambling cringy crap, I laughed when the big dog climbed down from me and pulled me up into his arms.

"Let go." I tried to push him away, but he used his iron grip on me, so I sighed, too groggy to fight after the emotionally draining shit.

I patted Henry’s back for whatever reason, the same way my mother did on me.

"Creepy to go so vividly through a memory that was so long ago." I muttered. I couldn’t even remember what she wore that day, or the electric razor or stuff like that. I knew my Mum was absolutely casual, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to run around in her bra, naturally not in front of subordinates, but yeah. Furthermore, I also hadn’t remembered her exact wording, just the overall gist of her words.

Should I thank the shadow? Though it was torturous to go through all these feelings again, right now, besides the heavy pressure on my chest, I feel a lot lighter. As if I would be okay after crying a good while.

I was so exhausted that I started to nod off while Henry was hugging me. I wanted to remind him not to think of this in any gay direction when I opted for just shutting my mouth for now. Thinking is so damn tiresome.

**************

The next time I woke up, I had tears in my eyes and wanted to really just cry it out. Feeling that I was lying on the mattress and that Henry wasn’t beside me, I did just that. Pressing my hands against my eyes, I tried to be as quiet as possible so as not to awaken the mighty, evil dragon that was rumored to live in this underground cave.

In the midst of sitting up, I conjured up a smoke and a drink when I saw Henry seated on the other side of the room with his head bowed. I was so startled that I even flinched. What the fuck?

"Why the hell are you here?" I wiped my face, but it wasn’t of any use; that fucker had seen and heard me crying now anyway. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Very well. We’ll fight that out some other time.

"Watching over you." Henry said and looked up.

"Watching me cry?"

"Didn’t you see me cry enough in one of your visions before?"

I thought for a moment about the scene where I fucked him, but he hadn’t cried then—eventually I remembered what he was talking about; the vision where I saw him break down because of his sister’s death.

"So we have seen each other cry; what of it? Aren’t we friends?" Henry asked while shrugging.

"Yes, yes. Just stop talking about it; that’s—"

"Gay?" He finished for me, and I laughed.

"No, but normally you just nod at each other in understanding and then never mention it again."

He nodded at me deliberately, and I chuckled before nodding back.

The blood on me had meanwhile dried, but the mattress was ripe for the garbage dump—we even had a matching one inside an adjoining parallel world.

"I hope we have another mattress." I finally got to drink my drink when it disappeared before I could even take my first sip, together with my untouched cigarette.

"We’ll go look later, but first you have to clean yourself, or everybody will freak out."

Looking at Henry, I noticed that he had already washed up.

I had washed him when he was possessed, but he let me sleep in my own blood after I experienced the same—what a good friend.

Though, if I had woken up only to find that he had washed my body and changed my clothes, I would probably punch him.

What a quick-witted friend.