Just Another Messy Ending

By the end of the day, I was dead tired – dragging my feet along the ground and feeling every muscle ache tired.

Exhausted, sweaty and slightly dishevelled, I headed to the bunk rooms which Weapon had shown me last night, trying to get my tired mind to remember where they were as I traipsed through the deserted hallways. Everyone else was most probably in the bunk room by now or in the kitchen area; my practice with Party had gone on longer than theirs had as – according to Party – I had a hell of a lot of catching up to do to get anywhere near the level they’d managed to get over the month they’d been here.

That was something that surprised me when he told me, actually. I didn’t expect the other guys to have been here as little as a month; I’d expected them to have trained here for years! Apparently though, I was just a late entry to this year’s team, and - in a month - they’d managed to excel their skills and race far ahead of where I was now, leaving me in the dust at the start line.

So, now I was going to have to put in effort to try and close the gap, starting with training more hours until I could at least get up to the point where I could train with them, rather than one on one with Party.

As I shuffled into the bunk room, I took note of who was currently in the room with me and immediately my eyes were drawn to two boys in the middle of the floor. Sweet Tragedy – or Ben, as he’d told me earlier – was sitting across the lap of a boy with long brown hair, whose arms were wound around Tragedy, holding him close to his chest. No one in the room seem fazed by the two boys as they shared kisses, gently giggling as they placed butterfly kisses over each other’s jaws and cheeks.

As I moved on past them, the boy underneath Tragedy laid back, pulling him on top of him and holding him close.

“My baby boy” the unknown boy whispered into Tragedy’s ear, nuzzling his cheek and causing Tragedy to settle his head down on the other’s shoulder with a content smile on his face.

I assumed they were a couple, which was another thing that I didn’t expect; honestly, I hadn’t expected things like that to be allowed here, not because they were both boys, but because I didn’t think any relationships would be allowed. After all, wouldn’t creating strong bonds like that effect your work on a job or something? Couldn’t it cause you to dis-obey orders or something to try and save someone you love?

So, that meant either it was allowed, or Tragedy and this other boy were keeping their relationship from Party and higher authority.

Still, it wasn’t particularly any of my business and if they’ve managed to find happiness in a place like this, good on them.

Apart from them two, also in the bunk room was Northern Downpour, Perfect Weapon, Chelsea Smile and Fun Ghoul, who were spread out across the room, some in bunks, some sitting at a table near the back of the room.

Those not currently occupied with kissing greeted me with a mixture of smiles, waves and verbal greetings as I crawled into the bunk Weapon had allocated to me last night.

I was so exhausted that even the slightly scratchy duvet covers on the bed felt like luxury as I pulled them over me and up to my chin. God, even the thin mattress felt like memory foam against my sore muscles.

Despite being so tired, I still felt the nagging at the back of my mind, like something didn’t feel quite right. Tomorrow morning, I’d be getting up even earlier than the already early wake up time to go and put in some extra hours with Party and, for some reason, I just felt like something was going to go wrong.

And with that uneasy thought in mind, I settled down to sleep.