21 - 15th_moon
some backstory.
He had bought the car on a whim. It had been one of those things; "right place at the right time" things and he had been nineteen and it wasn't like he was poor. And the car had been crap, a little more than a scrap of metal on the roadside, with broken seats and tyres so worn that they were dangerous to drive on. But the car worked and there was only a little rust, hardly any, really... and. Well. He had fallen in love with it a little, right the moment he saw it, big and clunky and neglected and beautiful underneath all the grime.
He had spent the rest of the year more at the garage and the university than at home.
He wasn't very good with cars. He had never needed to be, not when there were other people - always more capable, actually trained for it - looking after the family cars. But this, this car was his and he wanted to learn it thoroughly. He wanted it to be truly his. It was almost like he needed it, something that he was the one completely responsible for.
Of course, he had help, but it was still he who ended up picking out motor oil from under his fingernails during boring lectures. It was still he who had to struggle with the problems and who felt the successes, so much more strongly than ever before.
He had no plan beyond that. There was no deeper idea behind it all. He just wanted to finish the car and maybe drive around in it during the summer, make lazy rounds around the town, maybe show off a little.
Then things happened. He finished school and started working and suddenly there didn't seem to be any time to go to the garage to tinker with the car, or to even take it out for a spin. There were meetings and reports and financial analysis and suddenly he realized he was older and completely different from the boy who bought cars on a whim, just because he felt something vague tugging at him somewhere behind his heart.
It had been early spring. So early that there was still some snow on the ground and the air still got freezing during the nights. He hadn't been able to sleep properly for a week and parts of him, the parts inside him, felt constantly raw, like grains of sand were scratching at him just below his skin.
He got out of bed just when the sky started to look lighter and sneaked into the garage where the air was only a fraction warmer than outside, where it was only just starting to smell like spring. He had crawled into the back of his car, hidden in the corner of the garage and behind his father's Jaguar, and there he had slept, curled on the backseat, shivering from the cold but unwilling to leave.
That was probably when he had decided.
But things happened and summer came and suddenly he slipped into happiness, almost accidentally, and he stopped thinking about escaping. And then there was another spring, and then another, and things kept changing around him without any real input from him, and then Sho woke up one morning in his car without any memory of how he had got there. He was freezing cold and his fingertips looked blue when he stared at his hands in the dim light. His throat felt raw and there was sand scratching the corners of his eyes and he couldn't remember when was the last time he had felt something else than exhaustion.
He had gone back to the house and packed a suitcase, deliberately leaving everything more expensive behind. He had discarded even his cell phone, sleek, black and somehow threatening on his bedside table. He hadn't even glanced towards his suits that were hanging neatly in the wardrobe, in a long line of blacks and dark blues. He had written a short note for his mom and left it leaning against the mirror in the entrance hall, something about going for a ride and calling later, "don't worry mom".
He had already been on the highway, driving away from the city when Sho had realized that he wouldn't be going back for breakfast or lunch or even for dinner.
He had bought the car on a whim. It had been one of those things; "right place at the right time" things and he had been nineteen and it wasn't like he was poor. And the car had been crap, a little more than a scrap of metal on the roadside, with broken seats and tyres so worn that they were dangerous to drive on. But the car worked and there was only a little rust, hardly any, really... and. Well. He had fallen in love with it a little, right the moment he saw it, big and clunky and neglected and beautiful underneath all the grime.
He had spent the rest of the year more at the garage and the university than at home.
He wasn't very good with cars. He had never needed to be, not when there were other people - always more capable, actually trained for it - looking after the family cars. But this, this car was his and he wanted to learn it thoroughly. He wanted it to be truly his. It was almost like he needed it, something that he was the one completely responsible for.
Of course, he had help, but it was still he who ended up picking out motor oil from under his fingernails during boring lectures. It was still he who had to struggle with the problems and who felt the successes, so much more strongly than ever before.
He had no plan beyond that. There was no deeper idea behind it all. He just wanted to finish the car and maybe drive around in it during the summer, make lazy rounds around the town, maybe show off a little.
Then things happened. He finished school and started working and suddenly there didn't seem to be any time to go to the garage to tinker with the car, or to even take it out for a spin. There were meetings and reports and financial analysis and suddenly he realized he was older and completely different from the boy who bought cars on a whim, just because he felt something vague tugging at him somewhere behind his heart.
It had been early spring. So early that there was still some snow on the ground and the air still got freezing during the nights. He hadn't been able to sleep properly for a week and parts of him, the parts inside him, felt constantly raw, like grains of sand were scratching at him just below his skin.
He got out of bed just when the sky started to look lighter and sneaked into the garage where the air was only a fraction warmer than outside, where it was only just starting to smell like spring. He had crawled into the back of his car, hidden in the corner of the garage and behind his father's Jaguar, and there he had slept, curled on the backseat, shivering from the cold but unwilling to leave.
That was probably when he had decided.
But things happened and summer came and suddenly he slipped into happiness, almost accidentally, and he stopped thinking about escaping. And then there was another spring, and then another, and things kept changing around him without any real input from him, and then Sho woke up one morning in his car without any memory of how he had got there. He was freezing cold and his fingertips looked blue when he stared at his hands in the dim light. His throat felt raw and there was sand scratching the corners of his eyes and he couldn't remember when was the last time he had felt something else than exhaustion.
He had gone back to the house and packed a suitcase, deliberately leaving everything more expensive behind. He had discarded even his cell phone, sleek, black and somehow threatening on his bedside table. He hadn't even glanced towards his suits that were hanging neatly in the wardrobe, in a long line of blacks and dark blues. He had written a short note for his mom and left it leaning against the mirror in the entrance hall, something about going for a ride and calling later, "don't worry mom".
He had already been on the highway, driving away from the city when Sho had realized that he wouldn't be going back for breakfast or lunch or even for dinner.