How We See Each Other

“Selfen!”

The music didn’t stop. It was so loud it was practically vibrating the walls, but Carmine was too comfortable to get up. “Selfen! Turn it down!”

The music faded, and Carmine heard a “Huh?” from the next room over.

“I’m trying to sleep!”

Sel kept the volume where it was. “This good?”

Good enough. “Yeah.”

“Cool. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight!” returned Carmine. He groaned as he let his face fall into his pillow. He was glad Sel was getting some kind of release for their frustrations, but he wasn’t sure it had to involve being so loud so late at night.

He wondered why he had agreed to live with her, anyway. Nostalgia? A sense of something owed? The idea that he shouldn’t leave because he was in too deep already? Whatever. It was only noise, and he was exhausted. The morning would change things.

Carmine woke up laying next to Selfen in his room back at the beach. He smiled. The curtains were closed, so it was dim in spite of the morning light spilling out from the window’s edges. Nevertheless, he could see Selfen’s face. He had offered to draw it for them more than once, but they refused on principle every time.

He knew he could do it, and he wanted to do it. He wanted them to know how beautiful they were, how their tilted smile was such a complement to the floating pinks and purples of their personality, how their green eyes brought out the sparks of lemon yellow in their excitement. He had told them these things before, of course, but a painting would be different. They could actually see themself how he saw them.

Carmine’s reverie soon left him, so he delicately removed his covers and slid out of bed. “Mornin’,” he heard Sel mutter from behind him.

Carmine stopped and turned. “Oh, shoot, did I wake you up?”

Selfen sat up. “Nah. I was sort of awake already.” She stretched out her legs as she threw off her blanket.

By the time Carmine walked over to give her a kiss, Sel had already tied her mask in place. Carmine hated to say it—he wanted to be supportive of his partner’s decisions—but he was disappointed how often she wore it now. In an effort not to be rude, he planted a kiss on Sel’s forehead anyway. The paper mache was dry on his lips.

“Maybe if you stopped wearing the mask, people wouldn’t be so scared of you.” Carmine spoke coolly, but something in him had obviously snapped. He even surprised himself. Selfen had actually opened up to him and that was what Carmine had to say?

Selfen did nothing more than stare at him for a moment. Their colors swam around them like minnows trying to escape an oncoming net. Forgetting what Carmine could see, they tried to hide behind a steady tone. “Am I really getting a lecture about covering up from you?”

Part of Carmine wanted to laugh and part wanted to slap Sel. He would, of course, do neither, instead squeezing a portion of the rough fabric of the couch to distract himself. “I have to, Sel. You don’t.” The distraction wasn’t enough. His tone came out much angrier than he would have liked it to be.

“I do,” Sel snarled. “You know I do.”

At that, everything Carmine had been holding in for months poured out of him. “No— Selfen, there is nothing wrong with your face. Literally nothing. I’m not even that mutated, and I still hardly had any friends growing up once word got out. If I go outside like this, people aren’t going to take me seriously. If you go outside without a mask, you’re just a normal person. You see the difference, right?”

Carmine regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He knew that wasn’t true for Sel; he knew he couldn’t see what they saw in the mirror.

Selfen’s colors huddled around him as if to ward off a cold wind. “...Yes,” he said weakly.

Carmine blinked and held his breath. He frantically tried to clean up his mess. “Sel- I’m so sorry. I’ve just- I don’t want you to be upset over something you can change.”

All Selfen could get out was a distant “Alright... Thanks.”

Carmine woke up laying alone in his room in the Gift Shop. It was in the back, so it had small windows that the morning light could shine through. Everything was quiet, and he recalled that last night, he had fallen asleep rather quickly after he asked Sel to turn down the music. Maybe they had actually decided to turn it off.

Carmine shuffled out of his room and pushed aside the glittery curtain that separated the hallway from the main meeting room. He heard Sel’s voice to his left: “Carm!”

“Mm?” The first thing that caught his attention was a warm, sweet smell. Sel removed the lid from the wooden box in their hand to show off a small pile of pancakes. “Ooh.”

“I went to Galiel’s this morning,” Sel said, grabbing some colorful plates off a nearby shelf and setting them on the card table. “Thought you’d like something, too.”

Carmine sat down right as Sel flopped some pancakes onto his plate. “You didn’t have to.”

“But I might as well.”

Carmine smiled at Sel. “Thank you.”

“Anything for my lovely assistant.” She sat down opposite him and began to dig in, using her usual method of ripping off small pieces and popping them under her mask.

Carmine went the more traditional route of a fork and knife. “I’m sorry about last night. I was just so tired.”

“I know. It’s fine,” Sel replied sincerely. “Made me realize I was up a bit late, too.”

“Okay. Good.” Carmine stared at Sel’s aura for a moment. The pinks and purples that surrounded them seemed buoyant and content. He smiled to himself. It was a relief to see such a sharp contrast to the sorts of memories that had kept him up.

Ironically, the two of them breaking up had been the best thing to happen to their friendship.