Felix had the oddest eyes.

There were times when they were black, times when they were red and times when they were the colour of mahogany wood. It must change colours based on moods, or emotions, or for no reason whatsoever—Hansel could never quite figure it out. But black was default, like his hair, and it was the stranger of the three.

Seeing Felix for the first time in full daylight let Hansel finally notice it, that when Felix's eyes were black, they were completely black, his pupils and irises bleeding into one another until they were the same shade—black as pitch and completely indistinguishable from one another; depthless and so impossibly dark that they made Hansel feel like he was looking into a pair of blackholes.

"Knock knock," said Felix, waking him up from his reverie. He walked past Hansel into an uncharacteristically silent classroom. "You haven't answered me yet," he reminded. "Who thought it funny to anoint you with coffee?"

A rush of blood to his head was Hansel’s first reaction to Felix’s sudden and improbable appearance outside his classroom. He had been completely caught off guard; he did not know if he should be scared or amazed. That if Felix’s appearance meant bad news or if it meant nothing. If he was merely here out of boredom or if this situation had been contrived. If it was a show, who was it meant for?

Even after the initial shock had worn off Hansel remained confused and indecisive. What was Felix doing here? What should he do? What was Felix planning to do?

While he continued ruminating these questions Felix had already navigated half the classroom.

"It's you, isn't it?" He raised a hand to point at the boy standing before Hansel's desk, who had not had the foresight to hide his empty coffee cup when Felix wasn’t looking. He stopped before the boy and asked in an overly friendly voice. "You did it to Hansel, didn't you?"

The boy looked at Felix haltingly, as if he were puzzling over how best to respond. Hansel gnawed on the inside of his cheeks.

By now his thoughts were running wild. He still could not guess Felix’s intentions. Was he going to congratulate the boy for adding more misery to Hansel's life? Give him a handshake and strike up a partnership with him? Maybe even encourage the others to do the same while he was at it? Because that would be what Felix would do normally. He was constantly looking for ways he could impose a more tiresome reality upon Hansel.

In the end Felix did none of the above.

What he did was worse, if one looked at it from a certain point of view.

The moment he had come face to face with the boy Felix bent his knee and jabbed it hard between the boy's legs. There was not even the barest bit of hesitation in his action; it was cold in execution and clinical in precision. A neat strike. Swift. Thorough. The boy grimaced and folded in two, his mouth letting out a loud oooofff.

The entire class flinched. Hansel was so shocked he forgot to breathe.

What on earth did Felix think he was doing?

Felix, on the other hand, looked like he was only getting started. He grabbed the boy by his curls and bashed his face into the desk with all of his strength, and when the boy groaned and grappled, trying to break free, Felix did not budge in the slightest. He tugged the boy's head back up and slammed it down towards the desk again.

And again.

And again.

Hansel gawped at Felix. Felix was treating this boy with more brutality than he had ever treated Hansel with. What did that mean? What was going on?

Shouts of alarm rose all around the room. Some students were yelling at Felix to stop, the others howled for a fight. Hansel weaved through all of it until he had reached Felix. He looped an arm through one of Felix's own and tried to pull him away from the other boy. Surprisingly he came easy.

"What are you doing?" Hansel nearly snarled at him, tugging him farther away from the twitching form of the incapacitated boy. "This is a classroom. You are going to get all of us in trouble."

"Doesn't matter to me," grunted Felix. He shook free of Hansel and started towards the rest of the class again. He scanned the room like a vulture, taking in every face, every detail, until his eyes landed on Julian sitting at the back of the room.

"Ah, now who might this be?" warbled Felix, prowling towards Julian. Julian stared back at him with wide eyes, as if he were looking at a rabid beast. After Hansel, he had to be the one who was taken aback the most by Felix's appearance. Unlike the rest of the class Julian knew Hansel did not have a twin. Unless he thought Hansel had lied to him. Felix closed the gap between him and his new target. "You did something bad to Hansel, didn't you? I have a feeling you did. You smell like his cigarette burn."

Julian swallowed and said nothing.

"That is enough," Hansel said vehemently from behind. Julian was the last person he wanted Felix to mix up with. "Stop causing trouble."

"He needs to be taught a lesson," insisted Felix. "it's only fair after what he did."

"Leave it alone," said Hansel assertively, stepping forward. "I don't want this."

"I don't care about what you want."

Hansel could not guess Felix’s next move, but before he could try something Felix found himself being twirled around like a ballerina.

The boy he had attacked earlier had gotten back to his feet. He had Felix in a strong grip. “Come fight me fair you little dipshit.”

Felix glanced up at the boy, saw the blood painting his lips and let out a shrill yelp. "Get away from me!"

The boy took this as a sign of weakness and grinned smugly, stretching his wounded lips and revealing his bloody teeth below. "What, you scared of me now?"

Felix gagged. "I said," he seethed, backing away from the boy. "Get away from me."

The boy did not. He pounced towards Felix who acted on reflex. Thin bands of shadows erupted out of the floor and grabbed the boy by his ankles. The boy tripped, smacking his face into the floor. He looked ridiculous, falling flat on his front like that.

"Pfftt," said Felix, his mood switching from anger and disgust to pure mirth in the fraction of a second. "Ha-ha."

Hansel, who had seen exactly what had transpired, did not find the situation as hilarious as him. The shadows had already vanished, retreating as fast as they had come, but what if someone had seen? Wasn't Felix worried about exposing himself?

Once more Hansel thrust out an arm towards Felix and grabbed him by the crook of his elbow. "Come with me," he said urgently.

Using his shadow power in daylight must have taken a toll on Felix, because he no longer seemed to possess the strength to resist. When Hansel pulled, he followed obediently. Hansel brought him out to the corridor with him, then dragged him away as the rest of his classmates watched with open mouths.

Hansel shrank inwardly. Felix had just created a new problem for him. There would be plenty of people who would want to get back at Hansel for what Felix did in class today. Who knew how long it would take for things to go back to normal again?

A low sigh escaped Hansel. Honestly though, normal was a fantasy to him—too good to be true. It was a once upon a time, far, far away. It was a summer whimsy, or something out of a fairy tale, fictional and unattainable. He was never going to experience any kind of normalcy again.

When he had tried to kill himself…he should have died.

"What are you thinking about?" Felix asked suddenly from behind.

"Nothing," said Hansel without looking back. He still had Felix's arm in his hand, and it was starting to feel slick to the touch.

"Then where are you taking me?" Felix changed his question. There was something wrong with his voice. It sounded too feeble. Hansel turned his head around to check on him.

Felix looked like an emo ghost. His skin was chalk white and his eyes were rimmed with coal. He was sweating profusely. He was sweating so much that it looked like the sky had just rained on him. His hair glistened in the sunlight, drops of sweat sliding along its strands and dripping onto his cheekbones. His black T-shirt clung to his skin with dampness. Water trickled down his arms and his neck, icy cold, and moisture coated his face and sparkled like glitter. Felix, on his part, appeared deeply irritated by this affliction, and despite himself Hansel let out a snort.

Astonishment flickered across Felix's face. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," said Hansel. "I just thought you looked like a wet crow."

But the moment the words were out of his mouth he winced, biting back a memory. "So..." he said, changing topics clumsily. "I thought you could only appear at night?"

Felix scowled at him. "I told you I'm not a vampire."

That, at least, was crystal clear. With the degree of aversion Felix had towards blood there was no way he could be a vampire.

"But you look terrible now. You clearly shouldn't be waltzing around in sunlight. How can you even be here?"

"Where there is a will there is a way," muttered Felix, green-faced and trembling.

This too was fairly apparent. It did look like Felix was holding himself there using sheer willpower. But why would he go so far? Why won't he disappear now when it was just the two of them? Initially, Hansel's plan was to show Felix out of the school and tell him to get lost, but after a while he became aware of Felix's laboured breathing. He felt him stumbling once or twice.

"You can't take it anymore, can you?" Hansel asked him quietly.

"Sure, I can," Felix huffed from behind.

Of course, he would say that. His pride wouldn't let him show any weakness. But anyone could take one look at Felix and declare he was in need of a bed. Despite himself, Hansel felt a trace of pity for him. He pulled him into a supply room on their way and shoved him towards a lightless corner.

The darkness made Felix relax immediately. His breathing evened out and his eyes seemed to clear up. He coughed awkwardly.

Hansel leant back against a wall and crossed his ankles. "So. Why are you here?"

"I thought people here were giving you a hard time," said Felix, his eyes on a spiderweb above his head. He reached up and shook the web with a finger, dislodging a desiccated bug from its centre. "I thought I'd put them in their place."

"I thought you liked it when people gave me a hard time."

"Not really," said Felix, still playing with the web, breaking its links one by one. "Nobody gets to hurt you except for me."

How selfish, thought Hansel.

Then he blinked. What was that just now? He rubbed at his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, feeling a headache coming on. Dealing with Felix was addling his brain.

"I don't want you to do anything for me," said Hansel at last. "I don't want you here."

"You speak such harsh words," said Felix, putting a hand over his chest operatically. Still, he seemed to be more interested in the spiderweb than Hansel, stripping it until there was barely anything left of it. "But whoever said I did anything for you? Don't mislead yourself. Everything I do is for my own benefit."

"Then promise me you won't come here again. That you will stay away from my school."

"Why would I do that?"

"You have interfered with my death. I don't want you to interfere with my life as well. I want you to let me be."

Felix did not respond immediately.

"Do you wish I hadn't saved your life?" he asked after a few moments had passed, his face a calm mask. He was trying to feign disinterest, but his hand had frozen in the air above, idling against the last silvery threads of the spiderweb. When he spoke, his voice was soft, mellow, unlike anything Hansel had ever heard him use before. "Would you prefer it if you were dead?"

"Why do you care whether I wish to live or die?"

The last of the web broke. Now there was nothing in the air above Felix. "I told you once before. I'm your shadow. How could I exist if you were dead?"

"Oh," said Hansel. He felt a dull ache in his chest. It was only that. He should have guessed. Why was he always expecting more? His voice sounded thick when he spoke again, more to himself than to Felix. "That was why."

Abruptly, Felix's eyes found Hansel's. He frowned, trying to understand Hansel's tone. "You didn't answer me," he said slowly, picking each word with care. "Would you rather you died?"

Now Hansel was the one avoiding eye contact. There was a lump in his throat when he spoke again. "Yes, I would rather I died."

Felix exhaled deeply, as if there was something that vexed him very much. “Sometimes I don't know what to do with you,” he said. “I think I'm doing the right thing, but it seems I invariably make the wrong calls.” His edges began blurring, melting into the ambient darkness as if he were starting to disappear. "I wish you were like the other humans, Hansel. Then I would have known what to do." Blackness bloomed across his skin like an inkstain, spreading like a fungus, darkening his skin until he looked more shadow than boy. His voice, too, was growing fainter, disappearing with the rest of him.  “But of course, you would have to be as difficult as they come. You would have to be you.”

Hansel said nothing to this. 

"By the way, Hansel, I'm glad I came by today. This is the first time ever you have spoken so much to me." When he smiled Felix did not look joyful. He seemed troubled.

Hansel opened his mouth to say something. But by then Felix was already gone.

***

There was a full sky of stars that night, hundreds of them strewn overhead like illuminated sugar dust. Hansel sat by the window, looking up at the stars, body in a chair, mind elsewhere. Behind him the bedroom was mostly dark, the old desk lamp being the sole source of light for the entire room. But Hansel liked being in the dark; the darkness did not judge him.

Sitting like that Hansel thought about many things. He thought about school, about Felix, about himself. He still could not understand why Felix had decided to come to his school and make a scene that morning. He could not trust the reasons he had given him. After all, how could he believe that Felix didn’t want anyone bullying Hansel after everything he had done to him? How could he believe he would risk even the sun to fulfil some self-professed brotherly duty? Surely, he must have had some ulterior motive. Surely.

What really was going on in his mind? What kinds of thoughts did Felix have?

Hansel supposed he was better off not trying to guess.

Felix was insane, and it would take a madman to truly comprehend the mad occupations of his mind.

A moth flew across the light of the desk lamp, making shadows dance against the walls of the room. There was a light breeze blowing in through the window, sweeping softly over him, and in the far distance he could see more shadows beginning to stir, coming alive in the depths of the darkness. They bled out of the night in grotesque forms and swirled against the skyline like black apparitions. They rose and dove and sifted between a thicket of high-rises, moving leisurely, weaving through the air with an eerie, ethereal, apocalyptic grace.

 He was still watching the shadows when Felix found him again an entire hour later.

“Look at you sitting there so peacefully,” said Felix, letting his presence known. He was standing somewhere behind Hansel, shrouded by the darkness. “Would have fooled some fools into thinking your thoughts were peaceful too.” There was a faint trace of sourness in his voice. “But I’m sure your thoughts are as depressing as a drywall.”

“What do you want?” asked Hansel without turning around. He kept his own voice neutral, waiting for Felix to reveal the current disposition of his mind first.

“Whoa, Hansel, how could you make a simple question like that sound so heartless?” He snuck a few steps closer, coming to watch the night with Hansel.

Far above them, the stars winked in the sky.

When Felix started talking again his tone was even. “I hate what you are doing to me,” he said. “I hate the things you make feel. The ways you make me curious only to ignore me. I hate how you are treating me. I dislike your attitude and your silences. I hate them and I abhor them. You are sucking the fun out of my life.”

Hansel put his elbows on the windowsill and leant towards the night outside. His reply was flat, succinct. "I apologise."

A beat of silence; then Felix continued his rant, his voice never once breaking rhythm, as if he were giving a weather report. To Hansel, however, it seemed like he was forcing calm into his words—calm that he was not feeling. "See. I hate this too. I know I have treated you badly in the past. And a lot of people are still treating you badly. But you never say anything. You never complain. You just take it all as if none of it bothers you. And I can never know what is real and what is not. I never know what you are really feeling. Do you even have feelings? Am I getting to you or are you really that apathetic? I'm going mad trying to figure out what's happening inside your head."

That makes two of us.

Hansel kept his eyes on the stars, still refusing to show Felix his face. "You told me not to complain."

"You are impossible," hissed Felix, finally losing his cool. "So I told you not to complain. So what? Why do you have to obey me? Why do you have to do anything that anybody tells you to do? How can you be like this? You never think about what you want to do. You never take a stand for yourself. I have seen plenty of humans. None of them likes pain. But you embrace it like it's your birth-right. You like to suffer. Honestly, I have never seen the kind of you."

"I don't like pain either," said Hansel in a small voice, more to the wind than the boy behind him.

"Then why do you hurt yourself over and over again?" Felix seethed. "Why do you let people walk all over you? Why did you let me?"

Hansel's lips trembled. He said nothing.

"I have been watching you for a long time," whispered Felix, breathless. "I have seen how you treat yourself. I have seen you put yourself in harm's way countless times. I have watched you while you gave yourself injuries."

"I don't give myself injuries—"

"Don't," snarled Felix. "I thought I was the only liar here."

Hansel turned around now, finally looking at Felix. He had never seen Felix look so angry before. His eyes were smouldering, spitting fire. Hansel felt his breath snag in his throat. "But—"

"Don't you dare but me," he growled, his voice dangerously low. He finally closed the distance between them and grabbed Hansel by the arm. Then he peeled him off the windowsill as easily as one might peel a petal from a flower. He dragged him up, then walked him towards a corner of the room where the old, oval mirror stood. He caught the flimsy curtain that covered the mirror and pulled it off with one hand, doing it with a natural flourish as if he were unveiling a painting. The curtain fell and Hansel saw himself in the mirror. He looked bewildered, caught off guard, and beside him stood Felix, his face as grave as bones.

"Were you going to say that you don't hurt yourself?" Not even wasting a moment Felix grabbed hold of the hem of Hansel's shirt and hiked it up. "Then explain this."

In the mirror Hansel saw the scars. Cuts upon cuts that criss-crossed each other over his exposed stomach, white and fading, so many of them, so densely packed that most of his skin was this milky, convoluted net of scar tissue. Hansel tugged down his shirt hastily, hiding the scars from view. "I didn't do it to myself."

"No, you didn't," said Felix sarcastically. "You went out at night every other day so that the shadows could do it for you. I see the difference."

"It's my body," said Hansel curtly. "Why do you care?"

"There you go," said Felix, letting out a long-suffering sigh. "You always manage to be take a stand for all the wrong things. I can't even begin to understand you."

"Then don't try."

"Fine," said Felix. "It's your body. But it doesn't give you the right to harm it. You did not make your body, Hansel. You did not ask for it. It was given to you for free. It is a gift. And it is bad manners to treat a gift badly."

Hansel met Felix's eyes in the mirror. Where is all this wisdom coming from?

But Hansel was more angry than curious. Who was Felix to say all these things to him? What right did he have to rage at him after what he had done to him?

"Why should I listen to you?" he asked gruffly. "If I want to hurt myself, I will hurt myself. If I want to suffer, I will suffer. Why do you even care?"

"Because it hurts me to watch you suffer!"

The words had just burst out of Felix's mouth, so raw and so vulnerable, escaping before they could be held back and swallowed. Hansel found himself go rigid with shock, words crumbling in his own mouth. Now he looked at Felix in the mirror, really looked, and saw the utter, untainted sincerity on his face. Felix, in spite of everything, meant what he had said.

We could be twins, thought Hansel suddenly, looking at their reflections standing side by side, a boy with opal hair and a boy with obsidian. We could be brothers in a different reality.

"If you are doing this because you are my shadow—"

"I'm not your shadow," croaked Felix. And when Hansel stared at him stunned, he added. "I lied to you before."

Hansel locked eyes with Felix in the mirror. How many surprises was he going to have today? How much was Felix hiding from him? "If you are not my shadow then what are you?"

Felix looked away. "What does it matter what I am?"

A painful silence ensued his words, both boys grappling painstakingly for words to fill the silence with.

"What is going to happen now?" Hansel asked at last. He couldn't take his eyes off of Felix, who in turn was stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze.

"I told you I wanted to ruin your life," said Felix meekly, staring at his shoes. "But I don't want that. I want to do the opposite of ruining your life. I know I have been hard on you before." His head remained hanging. "But I hope to make up for it." His voice grew a little stronger, a little steadier. "I want to treat you better in the future. I want to help you."

Something twisted inside Hansel. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't believe this was happening.

Felix still hadn't taken his eyes off his shoes. His voice caved again, becoming shaky. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. His next words were nothing more than a whisper. "I care about you. So please stop shutting me out."