Kinda Complicated

Balconia & Running

''You ever put your hand on the third rail just to feel alive?'' Mikey asks, the two of them boxed into a corner of the balcony where people only go to smoke or confess things that don’t fit inside. The blanket—a peace treaty of doughnuts and borrowed warmth—slips every time Ash laughs, and each time Mikey pulls it tighter, as if proximity might be enough to keep their bodies from floating off into the static.

Ash thinks about it. ''One time, I dared a kid to pee on the electrified fence behind my middle school. He did. Pants never fit the same after.''

Mikey’s face goes wide and appalled before it cracks into delight, and for a second, the fogged city is reduced to two people and the ghost of a current running between them. Ash likes the way Mikey’s laugh buries itself in his throat, the way his hands wander when he’s not holding a prop—cigarette, coffee, Gatorade bottle, whatever’s available. Tonight, the only things to fidget with are the blanket and Ash’s sleeve, so Mikey picks at a loose thread at the cuff, rolling it between his fingers until it unravels.

Ash, never great with earnestness, tries to counter with bravado. ''You think the third rail’s dangerous, you should see what happens if you try to steal from a claw machine in broad daylight. People have opinions about property rights.''

Mikey leans in, close enough Ash can smell whatever drugstore shampoo he uses, along with hints of wine and the ghost of blue Gatorade. ''Was it worth it?''

Ash shrugs, but there’s a stubborn pride in the tilt of his mouth. ''Took home a Pikachu and a misdemeanor. My mom still has the plush on her shelf. Says it’s the only thing I ever gave her with a receipt.''

Mikey winces in mock sympathy, but the sad part of the story doesn't land; instead, he smiles like he’s memorizing Ash's face for the next time they’re both alone and the world has gone a little too quiet.

A lull stretches the distance between the roofs, and Mikey lapses into focus, gaze settling on the hive of red and amber miles below. ''Sometimes I wonder if every light in the city is a little window into someone else's private apocalypse,'' he says, almost to himself.

Ash watches Mikey's profile, the strong line of nose and the earnest, exposed way he leans into his own sentences. ''That's bleak. You study poetry along with dead malls?''

Mikey’s mouth quirks up at one corner. ''Architectural theory is ninety percent metaphors, ten percent student debt. But I like the idea of finding stories in spaces most people have forgotten. Growing up we lived across from the old Woolworths, you know? It was boarded up, but every Halloween some i***t would break in and get stuck inside. Cops always found them in the basement, usually too scared to speak, like they'd seen something ancient and hungry down there. Once, I snuck in after the sirens left. The place smelled like mold and insurance fires. There were footprints in the dust, and for months after, I kept thinking about all the little disasters that could get trapped in a place like that.''

Ash listens—not just hears, actually listens, which isn’t a thing he often did—and feels something in his chest shift off its foundation. There’s a comfort in the idea: that even the ruined spaces have their ghosts, their stories, their survivors. He finishes his Gatorade in one swallow, licking the last bit of sugar from his teeth. ''You know most people just see a busted building and move on,'' he says. ''Only you would take an apocalypse personally.''

Mikey shrugs. ''Maybe I’m just wired to notice the endings.''

They lean against the metal railing together, Ash fumbling out a pack of cigarettes with two left. He holds the pack out. Mikey hesitates, then takes the last one, just for the ritual of it. They pass the lighter back and forth, cupping the flame with their hands until the tip catches, the orange glow bright against the city’s bruised palette.

Mikey draws in, coughs once, and looks deeply offended by the taste. ''Jesus,'' he mutters, ''that's vile. It's like lighting a band-aid on fire and snorting it.''

Ash laughs—loud and sharp—and the sound bounces back from the stucco apartment walls. ''It's not the flavor, it's the drama,'' he says. ''You ever see a noir movie? No one broods over celery.''

They smoke in silence, letting the blanket slip down to their waists until the cold gets too insistent. Mikey shifts so their thighs are pressed together, and the casual weight of it is more intimate than anything Ash has let himself want in a long time. He tries not to stare, but Mikey’s eyelashes are backlit by the street lamps and every blink is a Morse code Ash knows by instinct alone.

''Why me?'' Ash blurts, before anything else can sneak out in the spaces left by their shared nicotine. He tries to sound ironic, but it comes out almost plaintive.

Mikey twists, bracing his elbow on the railing so he’s looking at Ash dead-on. ''I could ask you the same,'' he says, and Ash knows from the set of his jaw that it’s not a line—Mikey somehow lacks the gene for it.

''I mean,'' Mikey continues, thumb absently grazing cigarette paper, ''most people see a disaster and call for help. You show up, and you set up camp.'' His eyes flick down, then up again, all the nervous energy compressed into a single, precise question: ''Don’t you ever get tired of being alone at the edge of things?''

The urge to snap back is muscle memory. But for the first time, Ash lets the question pass through him, white-noise-sharp, and when he answers, it’s not a joke.

''I do,'' he says. ''But sometimes it’s easier to wait for someone else to cross over.''

Mikey doesn’t answer, only studies him with a kind of analytical compassion, like he’s mapping the space inside Ash for future reference. Below them, the city seems to flatten out, lose its depth, so that even the urgent lights look decorative, made only to be witnessed by the two of them in the cold. It’s the kind of moment that has nothing to do with time; Ash could stand there, shoulder to shoulder, for as long as it takes for the world’s rotation to scrape them into morning.

He looks down at his hands, at the chewed nails and the fading pen marks he never bothers to scrub off in the shower. ''You’re really not scared, are you?'' he asks, not hiding how small his voice sounds in the vast, echoing dark.

Mikey shrugs. ''Guess I’ve been scared long enough that it got boring.'' He flicks the ash off his cigarette, aiming for the gutter two stories below, but wind keeps it floating, a slow, spiraling descent. ''Anyway, you’re the one with a criminal record.''

There’s no accusation, no edge—just fact, just the same neat categorization Mikey seems to do with everyone. Only Ash doesn’t feel classified. He feels… excavated. Like every time Mikey looks at him he’s digging down another layer, not to expose, but to understand.

Across the city, a siren rises in pitch, peaking and fading. The music from inside ricochets through the glass, a synthpop pulse unable to reach the balcony. Mikey shivers a little, not quite enough to demand the blanket back. Mikey’s hand finds its way over, searching for the blanket, but lands instead on Ash’s wrist, thumb and index finger, skin barely circled around the bone. Ash breathes in too quickly, the smoke catching at the back of his throat. He expects Mikey to let go, to laugh it off, pawn it for a joke—but Mikey just holds. The points of contact—fingertips, the blanket, the hush of breath in the cold—settle into a stillness, so complete Ash can hear the blood in his ears.

The moment lasts. Mikey doesn’t flinch or play coy; he just looks at Ash as if waiting for something he’s already decided he can survive. On impulse, Ash turns his hand over, palm up, inviting. Mikey’s hand slides in, warm and dry, and it’s not shy, it’s not even trembling. It just fits. Like a fact.

Ash starts to say something—maybe an apology, maybe a threat, maybe just a reminder that this is all still terrifying—but Mikey beats him to it, voice low and precise. ''I know how to leave if I have to,'' he says. ''But I don’t want to.'' The directness is so naked it makes Ash’s next joke catch and die halfway up his throat.

There’s a beat, slow and seismic, like the kind of breath you take before swimming a cold river. Mikey’s thumb moves in a soft circle at the base of Ash’s palm, and Ash feels—really, for the first time in years—how much of life happens by accident, by the moments you let slip or the ones you decide not to let go. The night bends tighter around them; the party’s hum falls further off the map.

Ash doesn’t know what to do with gentleness. He’s tried anger, apathy, a million flavors of detachment, but nothing has ever made him feel as off-balance as this: Mikey, close enough to count his freckles, hands folded like they’re collaborating on a secret.

''I’m not good at… any of this,'' Ash says and pulls away, rushing from the balcony. He nearly trips over a cement lip, the last of the Gatorade sloshing out over the rim of his bottle and onto his shoes as he shoulders into the stairwell. It is windowless, ugly, painted gum-under-table gray. Ash lands hard on the first step, palms pressed to his knees, trying to catch what feels like all the air in the city at once.

Above, the party resumes at a higher pitch, as if drunkenness is a contagion that finally hit critical mass. Someone shrieks a karaoke version of ''Creep.'' The whole building vibrates in sympathy.

Ash wants a cigarette. He wants a warehouse full. He pats his pockets, coming up empty, then curses under his breath because of all the nights to quit. Why now, why tonight, why with someone who looks at him like that? The world felt very far away, which is the point, isn’t it? Wasn’t that always the point, to keep everything at a distance? Ash stares at the concrete floor, the unyielding geometry of the steps, and wonders what it’s like to want something that doesn’t immediately signal its own expiry date. The fluorescent stairwell bulb flickers overhead, a Morse code of industrial neglect, and the chill soaks through the denim at his knees, up his spine, into the crescent of pain he recognizes too well.

He sat there, in the damp half-dark, until his pulse slowed, and the adrenaline soured into shame. He couldn't tell if it’s panic or some deeper, older thing stoking the internal monologue. ''Coward,'' he says out loud, and the acoustics are so mercilessly dry that the word comes back at him in triplicate. He tries a few different explanations for why he ran, none of them terribly convincing: Too fast. Too sincere. Not how the world works. Mostly, it’s that he doesn’t know what to do with a feeling that isn’t borrowed from movies or other people’s mistakes.

He waited five minutes, then another, before picking himself up and heading outside. The night had gone glossy; the sidewalk shimmered, and the wind was cut only by the hum of traffic. He lit a cigarette—stolen from the pack Chloe left beside the kitchen sink, which he will one day apologize for, but not today—and walked without a plan, letting his sneakers choose the route. By the second block, his guts had tangled themselves into a weird equilibrium, equal parts humiliation and hunger. He ended up at the same 24-hour diner he always ended up at, the familiar glass bricks and fake wood paneling exhaling warmth onto the sidewalk.

Inside, the only other customer was a security guard in a highlight-yellow vest, hunched over a plate of eggs with the weary focus of someone treating every bite as a tactical maneuver. Ash slid into a corner booth, ordered coffee from a server who didn’t even bother to look at him, and tried to reconstruct the last half hour like a crime scene.

He expected his phone to blow up with notifications—accusations, disappointment, maybe some elaborate group chat sarcasm—but nothing came. The blankness is almost worse than any shame spiral: he ghosts people, not the other way around.

He sipped the coffee, which was precisely as bad as he’d hoped.