“Look at how small you were.”

Smiling, Jeno looked over his friend’s shoulder, staring down at the picture of a miniature him on the phone in his hand. He seemed to be around eight – maybe nine – with wide, innocent eyes that only held curiosity and a desire to discover the unknown. His chubby cheeks had chocolate ice cream smeared on them, at least Jeno hoped it was chocolate ice cream, and he found himself staring at the screen in disbelief – had he really been that small?

“Remember when you used to come up to here?” Jeno nodded when he saw the other in his shirt that was the same shade as the firetruck that haunted his dreams. He didn’t bother paying attention to the height of the other’s hand, too preoccupied with the taste of salt mixing in with the minty chewing gum spreading on his tongue with a siren blasting its tune in his head.

How long had it been since that day?

They had gone out together, the elder treating a ten-year-old Jeno to chocolate ice cream for learning a whole routine for the school’s play in a mere week. The elder, despite being at the tender age of eleven, had courageously paid for their cones, his shaking hands passing several notes and quickly retreating to his pockets once the coins had fell into his grasp.

The ice cream that day had tasted like heaven…

…but now, the same flavor tasted like regret.

Jeno let his eyes tray from his friend who was happily swiping through photos on his phone, eagerly showing them to Jeno with wide, innocent eyes that only held curiosity and a desire to discover the unknown. The happiness in the other’s eyes – in his voice, his actions – only served to place a hand around Jeno’s heart, squeezing and suffocating him from the inside. Each word that fell from his friend’s lips tore down a locked door that he had built through tears – tears that had previously mingled with mint on his palate in the dead of night, streaks of red blurring in his vision with the vehicle that was the same shade as his friend’s shirt.

Firetruck red.

Blurring at maximum speed.

The siren drowning out h