1It's so easy to see the way they walk together, in sync without even trying. Everything is so smooth and natural; the way they walk together, they way they walk together feels like they've known each other for years rather than months - was it really only a few months when they first met? They walk together around the school and you pass them from your own walks, they're always talking about something or the other and you wonder what they talk about.
Do they talk of common things like classwork and classmates? Do they dig deeper and ask about each other's homes lives? You wonder these things but never take the effort to ask either about it, after all it's none of your business.
They walk to class together hands almost-but-not-quite touching, still mumbling to each other about something or another. They have plenty of classes together and for the others they wait by the door like the lamb in the nursery rhyme. They take to the library to study and research. In the hushed firelight you can make out words in script you don't understand and notebooks full of scribbled chicken scratch. You return your books and ignore the way the whispers float just outside of your ears.
The duo are strange on their own or rather they looks like they're missing something. One's brooding and dark and snappish without the other to soften and brighten and calm them. The other's quiet and wounded and drooping in all the wrong ways unless someone's there to laugh and heal and hold them up whenever they need it. They support each other and carry whatever weighs the other down.
There are others who are part of their group, a fighter with too much to prove and weighs pulling downward with every step and there's an artist's soul whose shape doesn't-quite-fit the mold but still finds a spot. They're an odd bunch with razor sharp edges and walls they think no one can climb but still let each other in without even noticing. You hear them yelling at meals and you smile to yourself with every shout and exclamation.
Even so no one can touch the duo who is separated by no one. You had always known they were separate from the rest, always known something was off about them – how could no one else have noticed? One of the two is always outside basking in the sunlight and enjoying the breeze that surrounds them even when inside. Storms come when they're alone, where no one can connect they're mood to the weather. Rain falls whenever they're eyes are bright from people's words and yet the other always comes in time with an umbrella full of holes to wipe away the salt water.
There's one day of the year when the other goes missing, no one can find them for an entire day and the whole area is surrounded by storms no one dares try and explain. Lightning cracks midwinter and thunder cries from the sky, the next day it's back to sunlight and the biting coldness everyone usually experiences. It's only been happening since the year the youngest member entered the fray and you glance in as they self-destruct in an abandoned classroom where they think no one can see their misery. You walk on, it isn't any of your business and it's not like anything will come crumbling down with a little snow and loud noise.
You have always watch, never have you bothered to intervene between the duo. This year however it is the last year of the eldest of the two's. Nothing has given you more pleasure than watching the budding of magic like these two but for a single year it will be spilt down the middle, torn apart. You're given strange looks for the way your heart wrenches looking at them but you offer no explanation, how can you tell them how terrible, horrible – how wrong – this is? You can't and this hurts even more.
