The mont Aiden grabbed Barnes by his arm, he was startled by a sense of familiarity with him just from a small touch, leaving him spellbound for a while. Without paying much heed to Barnes’s question, Aiden found himself intensely gazing at his soft palm which had a few deep old scratches engraved in them, as if Barnes had gone through a series of old wounds.
The second he touched his cold palm, Aiden also felt a stirring unusual ache deep inside his chest, as if he had mistakenly touched an old scar that might have been buried in his heart from the past morylane.
That unfamiliar sense urged Aiden to pressure his mind and reminisce sothing about the past, which might have been lost within the mories he was unable to retrieve since he was 7.
But now, he was certain this wasn’t the first ti he had touched Barnes, and the way Aiden was holding onto him tight without answering made Barnes a little fretful as he urged, "Sir, is there sothing wrong?"
"Ugh!" But when Aiden tried to reminisce a bit harder, a terrible throbbing ache stirred on the back side of his head, making him groan in pain aloud. He quickly unleashed his hold from his hand and grabbed his head tightly, dropping the sandwich bread on the ground.
"Sir!?" His disheveled groan let out a concerned shriek escape from Barnes as he quickly wrapped his arm around Aiden’s shoulder, watching him tremble while grabbing his head on both sides with his palms. His expression had shrunk into a pained look, and his body language couldn’t hide the distress he was going through, making Barnes turn restless, "Sir! What happened? Please tell ...where are you hurting?"
"Ugh...water...J-Just get so quick..." In a low shivering voice the second Aiden commanded him, Barnes sprinted ahead deliberately to grab a bottle of water from any nearest vending machine. In less than a minute, he ca back with a bottle of water and hurriedly handed it to Aiden, huffing hard from running too fast.
Aiden quietly accepted it and emptied almost half a bottle of water in one breath. The tremors going all over his body cald down a little bit when he finally lifted his gaze on Barnes whose facial complexion had turned redden from the harrowing anxiety inside him.
"Thank you...what’s your na you said?"
"B-Barnes Weikfield. Anyways, are you feeling a little better now?" In a concerned low voice, Barnes spoke while kneeling down before Aiden on the green grass, fixating his gaze deeply on him. "You seed to be in a lot of pain... If you’re comfortable in telling , I want to know what happened to you all of a sudden?"
"It was just a fit of splitting headache that happens occasionally whenever I try to retrieve those mories I lost from the past. Maybe, I tried to rember them a little harder and that’s why, it occurred. Nothing serious at all."
In a vague low mumble, Aiden tried to shuffle the matter as an ordinary thing, but it piqued Barnes’s curiosity to the point he urged him again. "But...if you’re going through such a terrible headache every ti you rember anything from the past, that ans it must have occurred through a traumatic injury. Isn’t it so?"
"You’re too nosy about my life, honestly. But...since you were obedient enough to fetch water quickly in a breath, I will be nice enough to tell you a little about ." Aiden exhaled a heavy sigh while addressing his taunt, but his voice turned a bit serious when he continued.
"When I was 7 year old, I fell from the second-floor balcony of my room and suffered a traumatic head injury. As an aftermath, I lost a few mories from my past and even forgot so major events that had left a deep impact on my life. I started having anxiety and panic attacks as side effects of the dication, but no matter how much I tried to regain my mory, in the end I would be left with this splitting headache that fucks the shit out of !
"Thus, the doctor warned not to pressure myself too much, since it was considered as a possibility that I had lost those mories as a protective asure my brain opted to protect from so kind of grave trauma which would have been painful for if I had rembered them. Losing a few bunches of mories didn’t create much trouble for ...and maybe that’s why I forgot about our past encounter as we....HEY, are you crying?"
Trailing off in between his sentences, Aiden’s curious mumble winced Barnes as he realized tears were streaming down his pale cold cheeks while he heard his part of the story.
Those emotional turbulences he had suppressed inside him for over a decade had now pushed him to the verge of sobbing, but Aiden’s mumble made him feel a little bashful as he quickly wiped his eyes, "Oh, no...I think I had dust in my eyes, I wasn’t crying—"
"Co on, I told you, losing those mories didn’t create a big impact on my daily life. I grew up just perfectly fine, except for those fits of headache that happen to if I try to rember any of my lost mories. But that isn’t a sad story that would make you tear up... An old coot like you shouldn’t be emotional like this."
Sounding cordial from his tone, Aiden unknowingly reached out his hand and wiped the tears streaming down Barnes’s left cheek, with a gentle tap on his side face.
However, feeling the touch of his warm palm created a shiver to run down his spine, but Barnes tried his best to keep a stoic look intact on his face. He yearned for his warm hand but didn’t feel the courage to grab his hand.
Instead, deep inside his heart he conveyed his sincere apology on his own, ’I am sorry, master Aiden. I should’ve never abandoned you...I should’ve been a little braver to stay by your side. I can’t even imagine the pain you must have gone through to lose your mories from this traumatic injury...but...if it ans I can see you act fine like this around , I hope you never rember about . I hope...you never co to hate ...’
With that soft murmur, Barnes’s gaze fell on the tattoos shimring on Aiden’s side neck and upper chest line through his long round neck shirt.
Just from a sight he could feel a gush of uneasy palpitations rising inside him that made him wonder, ’You covered those burnt scars with your tattoos, right? It breaks my heart to see those tattoos...but...I am curious, I hope you had forgotten that dark incident too?’
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