Vinnie, this is probably rlly bad but it’s what ur getting cos I’m tired asf but I needed to get this out cos I wanna do other stuff too
Turning toward the freezer, Vincenzo watched Renlin come to the table with an icy steak to his eye, hearing the sound of his weight settling on the chair when he sat. He raised his chin as the man spoke, stretching out his neck to ease some of the tension in his body.
“Hm. I should’ve thought of that,” he said, wondering why he didn’t. He supposed he just thought of the peas only because the rest of the items in the freezer were covered in little spikes of frost, since they had been in there for so long. He also didn’t think he’d ever heard of anyone using that, even if it was old school. Steak was expensive, and he didn’t know if he should be unfazed or surprised there was one in there, it was still a college campus after all.
Renlin shook his head, chuckling. "Can you imagine the gossip if we did get in a fight? 'Renlin and Vinnie, best of buddies, the great Umbra brothers, turn on each other. The world must be ending.”
Listening to him, Vincenzo chuckled, endeared by the corny way that Ren spoke. It wasn’t often that Vincenzo found simply spoken things like that endearing, but Renlin was unique from others to Vincenzo. Not only was he the first student he spoke to when he first got to the campus, but he was also the first person he met that really remained optimistic for him. With the people at the orphanage, most of them, if they weren’t struggling with him, were the ones making him suffer. In prison, he supposed he made some friendships, but all of them ended… badly. In the institution there was a girl, but she became a distant memory after some months. Even at the place that was supposed to have become something like a home, Aurora tried to act like he didn’t exist, and Adrian was suspicious in almost every way. And then there were his parents, but he hardly remembered them.
With Renlin though, it had just always been a sort of thing like ”meet me after class,” or “stop by my dorm tonight, I’ll feel like a loser if I drink by myself,” for four years. The only good person that stayed, and the only person he allowed to stay. Everyone else didn’t matter, he just needed one or two good friends. Perhaps that was why Vincenzo looked past his mistakes, especially the ones that he wouldn’t let anyone else move past from.
“Yeah, I don’t think either of us would let that happen,” he shook his head, a sober smile across his lips.
He said it with confidence, but a part of him was a bit surprised they never had disagreed on anything heavier than a small remark. Most of it came from a bit of guilt on his part. Sometimes he worried that even though Renlin was a nice guy, he might be taking advantage by asking to experiment with his dreams.
Even then though, their flaws seemed to be very even.
Renlin told him who he had been fighting and Vincenzo’s expression lost a bit of spark. They were talking about Isaac again, and his face begged to be met by his palm because of it. As someone who lost family himself, it felt to him that Isaac’s death should have only brought them closer together. They had each other to understand their pain, and if it were him, he would never let that go to waste, not knowing what he knows now. And then obviously he had to yell at Tae like he hadn’t lost a brother too.
But he couldn’t say that outright, and felt sh^tty for even thinking it, so Vincenzo controlled himself, and let him continue because, as expected, he already seemed remorseful.
Even though it wasn’t good the way he acted, it was calming to know that he could still be trusted to reflect properly, like a kid who makes mistakes, and then tattles on themselves. He just had to be understanding with that part of Ren; his innocence.
“How’s he doing right now?” Vincenzo asked him, imagining what injuries he might’ve possibly inflicted on the guy. He could only hope they were minor. He’d hate to see something serious happen to the Dumans over an ill-reasoned fight.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not really in control?” Renlin asked, breaking the silence. “Like there’s something else pulling the strings?”
“All the time,” Vincenzo answered honestly, without missing a beat. “But it only lasts a few seconds, and then I rule that it’s all just me, and I’m just one of those people that lacks a moral compass,” he breathed, and weakly tried to laugh. The relieving ice on his eye was beginning to melt, and he could feel the droplets of it on his eyelids.
For a moment, he took off the cold bag and held it over the table, wiping over his eye with the back of his free hand. Then, tiredly he put it back, not really worried about how the bag was only going to get warmer.
Thinking about his life though, it always felt like something about him was wrong. It had to be, considering how his life turned out. Every time he came close to something good, he lost it. Even considering his parentage, he lost his parents not once, but twice. And even though he was occasionally kind out of the purity of his heart, his important choices always favored evil. He liked being a negative person, it was easy, and he never achieved quite as a beautiful a madness as when he hurt others. It was like he was meant for it; a life of darkness.
He could prove it simply by talking about his day.
Renlin asked Vincenzo about his own reason for having a black eye, and he wiped his bloody lip with his thumb. “Well, you know it’s the sleepover, someone has to initiate the new students,” he explained, gesturing a bit with his free hand.
“Because I’m nice, I decided not to pick on the freshmen, instead I went for the older looking guy in the trench coat, he said his name was Nic.”
“I tried explaining the initiation to him, but he kept smirking and trying to mock me when he was obviously on the border of pissing himself. Since he wasn’t taking me seriously, I had to show him why he should,” Vincenzo’s voice changed at the end of his sentence, lightening to a point where he finished it with a shrug. He exhibited no immediate remorse for his actions.
As they were talking, Vincenzo noticed Renlin’s eyes soften while he looked at him with a gaze of admiration, perhaps daydreaming about somewhere else, but he kept talking. “We were talking for a bit, while I was trying to gauge how valuable he could be to the coven, and then he insulted me so I bound him with my shadows. And-“
Vinnie couldn’t finish his sentence when he saw Renlin smile at him kindly. That was when he realized that he was actually looking at him, and not just zoning out.
Vincenzo laughed, looking back at his loving one eye as the other one was covered with that slab of meat. “What are you looking at, dork?” His laughter continued, “You look like a pirate with your left eye covered.”
It was moments like that when he appreciated their friendship the most, when they connected over insignificant conversations. It made him forget a bit about the soreness he felt on his face and body.
But before Vincenzo could return to his story, Renlin stood up and returned to the freezer. Vincenzo huffed our a sigh, not surpised that he was interrupting to get a snack, it was Renlin after all. Luckily for him, however, Renlin chose to bring two very large spoons to eat together, which made Vincenzo forget about his annoyance and focus on the label of the flavors, dropping the bag of frozen peas in front of him on the table because there was something new to focus on. His skin felt like it was quietly resonating.
With a hand gesture only, Vincenzo signaled that Renlin pass him the spatula and the tub, to which he silently agreed as well by passing them. He dug the large spoon-like tool into the tub, and then took a small bite, talking as he chewed. “Anyway, I heard that you have a speech at the masquerade ball? What was that about? I wasn’t there, I left the scene with someone. That in itself is a whole other conversation.” He said, reflecting on the events of last night, not wanting to share too many details.
@Madilnel renlin
Mentioned:
@Caticorn tae
@idiot.exe dom
@Kristi @novella j and a mentioned without names