9. Etc

With nothing more to say between them, they walked to the shore, took off their shoes and let the cold water from the sea soak their feet. It was a peaceful night, the city noises were quieter as other nights, the stars shone brighter too.

What started as an awkward company from a stranger, became a comfortable moment shared by two nameless persons. They didn’t need nothing, nor talk about anything, just here, each one of them with their own thoughts until the clock reached owerin the morning. 

“Would you be back at the same place tomorrow?” asked the boy when he stood up, shaking off the sand from his clothes.

“I don’t know, I’m not this free every day,” neither that he felt like going to the same places as a routine, he was always walking to different directions when he felt like running away from his true life. Sometimes going from north to south, from some streets to one city to another. In those cases he was thankful that his powers allowed him to go across long distances by himself in a short time.

“Well if someday you feel like going to a peaceful place with people that would never ask questions, look for “etc. lost”, there’s an address where I usually go, it’s a nice place.”

“And why are you not there but here or that other place?” the protector asked, still without looking at him, the observation made the boy laugh.

“Sometimes you feel like drowning your problems, sometimes like forgetting the noise you can’t erase and sometimes like silencing it peacefully.” With just that, the boy left. Teshal stayed in the same place for a little while longer until he thought it was enough.

It was a lie if he said he wasn’t interested in what the boy was saying, but his every week activities kept him far from that curiosity. His trainer decided to reinforce his training sessions in every aspect, and the people from the media was as interested in his as in the beginning, making him wonder when he would become old news.

He carried his smile and reassuring looks wherever he was asked to go and was presented before the people of the island. Without caring about being asked the same questions, made to show the advances in his trainings or whoever he met, his calm and kind demeanor was never lost.

Although he never thought of himself as handsome, only plain looking, people kept treating him as if he were some young idol the younger and the older could dream about. One of the reasons he abandoned all the social media focused on the reality, just keeping himself entertained with animated movies, comics, books, and videogames. Not that he had something to call enough free time to that.