Stepan left the room silently with tight lips. He probably didn’t mean it, right? He was just kidding as usual, right? Yes, definitely, his words always were as meaningless and useless as they were ruthless.
Boria spoke only in the language of insults and cheap provocations. “You disgust me”. Stepan had learned how to deal with it a long time ago. “Are you gonna whine until they take pity, or what?” These weren’t even clever. “You look like a pimp”. …or offensive, for that matter. “Do something or everyone dies of boredom”. It was so usual it was making him sick. “Nerd!” Oh, shut up!
Sometimes it took so much afford just to stay calm and not to punch his pretty face. Back in the simpler days, they were best friends and now only the phantom of that friendship kept Stepan from breaking it apart once and for all. Life with Boria was unbearable, as he always found the way to pick on his speech, his walk, his face, his faults, his folds. Yes, sometimes (but just sometimes!) he stayed calm and listen to Stepan talking about studying and linguistics, even though he probably never understood a word.
Only these rare moments of silence and decency reminded him: “Oh, yes, Boria is a real person”. And then he would wake him up early in the morning, pretending to worry about his university attendance but, ultimately, just mocking.
No, enough! He had to break free out of this vicious cycle! Stepan took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. For a moment, he hesitated, thinking:
“We always hurt those…”
“… those we love the most”, Boria thought.
He wasn’t mad or anything, was he? He didn’t even frown his eyebrows: Stepan and his stone-face, as usual. He had never laughed or grinned — only smiled indifferently; he had never shouted from excitement of investment — only watched silently; and he had never exploded with anger and frustration — he always took his humiliation obediently and blamed only himself. Even alcohol never worked on him! Drunk or ill, or upset, or whatever — Stepan remained same cold and boring self.
It appeared, there were only two genuine emotions Stepan was capable of — irritation and panic. So Boria went out of his way to provoke these emotions, hoping one day it would open up Stepan a bit. He started to make fun of him, to pick on him, to straight forward harass him. And sometimes (but just sometimes!) Stepan snapped a bit louder: “Oh, shut up”.
Only these rare moments of sincerity reminded him: “Oh, yes, Stepan is a real boy”. And then he would stay up to late night, staring at the screen blankly and typing monotonously: Boria could never sleep because of that typing.
Maybe, it was all as it should be: Stepan was still in the university, and he was smart enough to remember all that languagy-structury-stuff, and he was smart enough to care and talk about it. Boria never understood him, of course, (he was meant to be pharmacist but dropped out after first semester) but he was able to feel something great and fascinating. However, Stepan, so reserved and awkward, just couldn’t survive on his own. Somebody had to teach him how to express himself! How to take offense and defend himself! How to talk to people! Boria, however, was a terrible teacher.
“You’re just pathetic”, he exclaimed sarcastically in frustration.
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