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1. Kenny suits the colour red, but he's not angry.
Kenny has been pounding Eric with mud tainted snowballs for a good half hour, hardly giving the other boy a chance to recover between each one. When Eric finally composes himself, he lets fly a constant string of verbal abuse that only makes Kenny laugh tumultuously through the collar of his jacket, gloved hands gathering together another mound of frozen ammunition.
Stan's sitting next to Kyle on a dilapidated park bench, sliding his booted feet back and forth in the pliant sludge, reciting under his breath what he's going to say to Wendy when she arrives. His voice is soft and steady, an endless chant that mingles gracelessly with the defeated noises Eric makes as another snowball collides with the back of his head.
Stan continues to mumble, checking his watch now and then, mapping everything out as another cry of frustration echoes from Eric's position. Not long after, Kyle finds himself being dragged off the bench, callous fingers digging painfully into his arm, hard enough to bruise. Eric screams wildly and Kenny swears bitterly; the loud thwack that sounds a moment later makes Kyle cringe.
Kenny freezes, his grip on Kyle's arm loosens and his body folds. Sinking to the ground like a faded vermilion lead weight, he whispers something entirely unmemorable and, with his cheek pressed flat against the snow, Kenny promptly expires.
Five minutes later, he lays in a puddle of brown tinged slush, the sleeves of his jacket splayed like long ribbons of blood by his sides. Kyle kneels haggardly beside his friend, palms resting on his own thighs, cold liquid soaking through the dark fabric of his trousers; he's too tired to act alarmed, Kenny's death is so much like routine now.
Kyle knows by now, that each time Kenny dies he loses a little piece of himself to oblivion and, despite what people say, he's not quite the same person he used to be when he reawakens. Only Kyle seems to recognise the subtle changes in his personality; Kyle's the only one who actually appears to care. But Kenny realises this unfortunate truth also, he tells Kyle in secret that he feels himself slipping away sometimes. Kyle imagines that one day Kenny will wake up with no memory of their friendship whatsoever, and that scares him more than anything else in the world.
When Kenny's eyes flicker open, Kyle isn't at all surprised. The other boy slowly runs his hand over the back of his own head, gazes at pale fingers covered in clotted icicle blood and shudders. Kyle believes Kenny might be about to say something profound by the way his lips twitch, but his eyes go suddenly glassy as though he's forgotten, as though he's confused. The individual snowflakes clinging to Kenny's inky eyelashes shiver collectively and Kyle remains silent.
When Eric squelches up to them - deep boot indents in the snow - he mumbles an unconvincing 'oops,' into the harsh morning air, and Kyle feels the cold burn of ice on his lips. He watches the life trickle sluggishly back into Kenny's eyes, wondering what part of him has been lost to the void this time; the toes of Eric's black boots kick a large, blood splattered rock out of view.
2. Kenny's destitute, but he's not stupid.
When he turned fourteen, Kyle wondered what it would be like to bleed, not from just a paper cut or a grazed knee, but from something more substantial: Kenny took a pair of silver scissors from Kyle's desk drawer and dragged the serrated edge across Kyle's forearm. Kyle bled all over his bedroom floor, tendrils of crimson seeping through the open wound and onto his clothes, smudging across the hand he placed over the broken flesh. He thought he was going to die and Kenny's eyes sparkled with astonishment, looking as though he disbelieved what he'd just done. Ribbons of colour blurred Kyle's vision and he clutched Kenny's t-shirt desperately with his blood stained hand, unable to make a sound, positively paralysed with fear. Kenny placed his own hand over the wound, pressed his lips violently against Kyle's, and for a moment anguish was replaced with wide-eyed, breathless bewilderment.
Two years later Kyle still has the scar. Kenny likes to run his fingertips over it when they're alone, delighting in the tense shiver the touch sends through Kyle's body. On days when Kenny doesn't seem himself, Kyle rolls up his sleeves, shucks his t-shirt, watches for the recognition in his friends eyes too emerge at the sight of the blemish. Kenny smiles, leans forward and trails his tongue along the sensitive skin as if to commit the shape of it to memory.
Kenny has never apologised for what he did, and Kyle still keeps the scissors in his desk drawer as a reminder, discoloured blood preserved inside the tiny silver hinges.
3. Kenny's watching the television, but it's not plugged in.
Kyle is shoved backwards through the cornflower blue toilet door, hitting the opposite wall with a dull thud that reverberates sharply through his ribcage. Verbal retaliation is cut short by Kenny's cold hand being slapped across the Jews chapped lips. He instinctively glances around for anything that could prove fatal to Kenny's health - plastic toilet seat, dented bathroom sink, dripping taps, peeling paint - while outside, Eric is screaming disjointed obscenities about snowballs and stones and the state of Kenny's house. Both boys shuffle further against the stained, mismatched-patch-painted far wall. Kenny pushes the door shut quietly with his foot, his hood slipping down, the tips of his blonde hair supporting tiny specks of snow that shake as he stifles a giggle against Kyle's shoulder.
Kenny has a new set of nothing to lose every few days - broken down home and shackle bound family, school tests and pointless collaborative assignments about Asian rice growing - and the risk of being caught with his tongue in Kyle's mouth is his current favourite game. With the taste of polar fleece on his lips, Kenny licks Kyle's neck defiantly, as if Death were a person who could be swayed by irrational rebellion and tiny promises of love. Kyle lets him of course, carries the marks he's given as keepsakes, guarantees that Kenny still remembers who he is.
Kyle's elbow knocks the flush button on the cistern, the sound of running water building up and cascading into the toilet bowl follows. Kenny flips the toilet lid down and pushes Kyle on top of it, straddling his lap and laughing deep in his throat as their bodies vibrate with the swirling water pressure beneath.
Eventually, the screech of Eric's voice subsides and Kyle is left shaking, leaning his head against the bathroom wall, purple and red abrasions littering his alabaster skin. Kenny licks his lips and stands, something unreckognisable dancing in his eyes, then saunters proudly outside with Kyle close behind, lost in a type of giddy trance. The afternoon wind is bitterly cold despite the glowing sunshine and Kenny's face looks unusually pale. Kyle stops short, and just like a slow motion replay, he watches Kenny slip on a fresh patch of glimmering ice . He turns away, but still hears the blunt crack of Kenny's skull hitting the concrete paving. He notices a small green pipe jutting out from between the layered brick wall, droplets of water falling from it's jagged opening, and wonders how he didn't see it before. Eric appears in front of them soon after, and his face doesn't even falter when he sees the blood pooling at Kyle's feet, he just laughs aloud and says triumphantly, "I found you!"
4. Kenny cries, but only when he's happy.
Four days after Kyle turned fifteen, Kenny cornered him in the school supply cupboard. Surrounded by blocks of spare scissors and boxes of various sharp edged objects, Kyle panicked. Kenny pushed a stack of crates in front of the cream-coloured door and unconsciously, Kyle reached for his scarred left arm.
Flush against a metal shelving unit, Kyle could feel the rounded tips of screws digging into his back, the artificial light in the center of the room creating an unnatural halo around Kenny's frame. Kenny closed the distance between their bodies, hands gliding beneath the heavy fabric of Kyle's jacket, tickling the tender skin underneath. Their breath mingled as they jerkily reached for one an other, lips brushing sporadically and hearts fluttering nervously against their chests.
Kenny pushed his hand skillfully inside Kyle's trousers, teasing the sensitive skin he found with his fingers, teeth tugging on the lobe of the other boys ear as he mumbled endearments against his skin. Kyle gasped several incoherent sounds into the air as the flimsy shelves around them groaned and broke free, sending twenty shimmering pairs of plastic handled scissors and a jar of golden glitter into the stale air.
Kyle stood in deafening silence, too scared to move as the cuffs of his trousers turned from light grey to brownish red, too scared to breathe as the life drained completely from Kenny's tear burdened eyes. Specks of gold dust glittered in their hair and made the blood leaking from Kenny's wounds sparkle ruby red; it matched the colour of his lips as he smiled against Kyle's neck, filaments of happiness warming his punctured skin as his breath slowed and ultimately, shuddered to a stop.
Kyle remembers it all with crystal clarity, recollecting each of the tiny details that Kenny seems to have forgotten over time; piecing them together he replays them in his mind as he sits beside Kenny's hospital bed, or as he kneels beside Kenny's ruptured figure on the ground. Occasionally he murmurs specifics aloud, silently hoping that they'll be absorbed by Kenny's subconscious. Once in a while when Kenny wakes, Kyle is still mumbling, memories sliding off his tongue like silken threads and Kenny smiles as if he remembers; sometimes Kyle smiles back and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they'll be okay in the end.