Tensor by Adoraincerta

Line

Maglor now appears randomly during the daytime. They have minimal overlap, but his trace can be sensed in the air. Vacation ends abruptly, and Elrond now has a full-time co-op job and three courses to attend. The busiest semester of all, he sighs, quits his part-time job, returns only at midnight nearly every workday. Hallucinations can easily invade in such time, just as he once hoped a surveillance camera could detect Maglor’s move. New food he never bought fills the drawers in the refrigerator. The first night he comes back before nine, Maglor waits until he arrives, already expecting a conversation.

Elrond feels embarrassment before speaking.

“Did you get that food from the food bank?”

Maglor shakes his head.

“Or something like Too Good To Ho?”

“I bought them. Is it unexpected?”

He flushes, rushes his words before framing them.

“You know I can afford it. There’s no need… I mean, even if Elros moves in now, I can still afford it.”

Wow. Maglor doesn’t say it, or think of it, but Elrond turns around the moment he realizes what he said, dashing into the bathroom. When he comes out, no one’s on the sofa.

It’s their last conversation in a month. The following day, with lack of sleep, or due to the schedule - the one before is tiring, but not exhausting as today - when he wakes up on the way home, he’s already one stop away from the supermarket. There’s nothing he bought left, only those belonging to Maglor, temporarily stashed in his room.

I’ll return it tomorrow, the exact same things, once I’m available. Elrond bites his lips, staggers into the room, and grabs the nearest food he can see. Obviously Maglor’s taste, the one he’d constantly wanted to try again but had always procastinated and hesitated in the first three to four years. Its taste hasn’t changed a bit.

At the time he’s already too hungry to enjoy the food on his plate, only swallowing it. Yet memory is harder to mess up even after a lot of weird years. Elrond returns to his consciousness entirely, carries the plate back to the bedside. After the first and ferocious wave of hunger fades, it’s terrifying to continue to eating anymore, as buried memory better remains buried. A voice deep inside tells him his stomach will protest and it's only a matter of time, but to not waste any of it, Elrond still gulps all crust down the esophagus, then drains a glass of tap water, twice.

Spare time, though lasting no more than half a day, comes with feelings of emptiness. Only then he notice something, though unutterable, changes over months. He pictures how his room used to be, with every piece of furniture still in its place but much emptier then. Life trace invades subtly into the atmosphere, and he’s suddenly in the mood of purchasing decorations. With less space, the room he deliberately kept minimal already distorts his prospect and leads itself to a cozier place.

Of course it is not himself but another person that creates trails to be attached to. 

Another day, when a time slot enough for him to squander appears, Elrond sorts through to a heap of cardboard boxes in the corner. They’ve been standing there silently and invisibly as a pillar, both in real space and in his mind. It requires great courage to move one of them from the top, cut the tape he glued years ago, and accept whatever is in it. A precious reminder of past time, maybe; but nightmares’ in it, preparing to pop up too.

Fortunately Elrond finds what he needs before digging deeper. On the top layer, a music box, whose songs were recorded by Maglor, still works perfectly. No battery needed, once the clockwork is wound, the mechanism still has its power.

He puts it on the nightstand.

It’s been half a month since a trail left by Maglor sensed by him. There isn’t any physical evidence, messed-up cabinets, toppled bottles, crumpled sheet or anything like that. There isn’t any scent either. Like he was once told, all such imprudence can be easily erased by a simple checklist. What’s behind these, is the thing finally manipulates his instinct, and thus his move.

Instead of podcasts or an audiobook, he opens the music box again, expecting reassuring yet intensive background (it’s become less frightening now) while he’s finishing the prep for dinner. At first, he found noise outside enough to focus; at a point three months before, his mind was full of askew thoughts need to be compressed and thrown aside, so a relaxing podcast stepped in. Now is the time to face the past, but that's not to say he’s fully equipped to hear a new soundtrack recorded by Maglor 3 days ago.

After the initial panic, inconsistency of voice and pace emerged from the new one, which only then he has the capacity to pay attention to. Elrond’s mind is still printed with the prospectus arrived at the same time as the music box: capable of containing 64 songs. He could use this as a private voicemail.

Another 20 days passed before the message he recorded was marked as read - that is to say, deleted from the music box, but Elrond’s focus has turned around to deeper concern. He is still able to recall the last time he saw the only adult, who appeared fatigued, his lips pressed into a straight line. For the first time, regret arises for not further asking where or how Maglor spends his nights now. Not in any shelter for sure, as they are all too crowded and equipped with volunteers ( him once included) to distinguish aliens. Maglor prefers wandering with no specific destination much more, especially sea shores, which is so sufficient in number in this city and a total perimeter is too long to locate a single figure.

He never thought of another missing before, that at least Maglor should have something to say or request, that he should realize Elrond never blamed him for never coming back. Now he doesn’t have the slightest clue where Maglor will end up. Maybe the past months are just an ethereal reminder of the comfort he could have had.

Deep breath. A panic attack won’t help, he tells himself, but a different mindset may. In retrospect, he spots a solid feature of places he’s sure Maglor once has been. Beaches and forests rare people visited, this he’s learned for long; but another characteristic in common yet to be extracted, that is where music won’t be blocked or disturbed or attract any attention. The patio is a good choice when passers-by are scarce, but playing a violin from 300 feet high almost always draws more staring Maglor intends to need; same as the prior, he’ll never reside in the underground, where sound can be amplified by tunnel infinitely. A deep forest near the brim of the city is ok, and an unattractive lake is better.

After those filters, he’ll have a shortlist. Elrond grabs a map to the corners of the table and circles the locations with a black pen. It's not possible to calculate the possibility of where Maglor would be in each place, but weather and population help to exclude some options. As temperatures go down after dusk, lakes and the areas around could be full of danger, whose risk he doesn't think Maglor will take; speaking of beaches, tourists and residents so desperately desire sunlight are rushing there and devouring the last month they can receive Vitamin D from nature but not pills. Forests can be dangerous from brown bears too, while city parks and botanical gardens can't. There are many destinations, which he then draws with a brighter blue marker, and the one he's most impressive is where he had his liberal arts courses during the freshman year.

He also has to determine the time slots, or it's probably that he and Maglor miss each other again and again. They usually return to camps before sunset and set everything they need by the last shine to avoid raising campfires, and it's an unobtrusive choice to distract attention, though he expects well-intentioned tips from staff like 'Oh we're going to close so hurry or you'll be stuck for a whole night'.

So Elrond empties the backpack and fills it again with a blanket, some chocolate bars and a bottle of water. Hasn't assumed it will cost more than a night, only the absolute necessaries should be brought or there's a higher risk of letting Maglor disappear for good again. The weather's fine now, and there is no one else on the light rail he takes but himself.

He practices what he'd say.

“Would you come back to my apartment?”