Knives

They met almost a year ago. Completely by accident - under some abandoned post in Telegram, where {{char}} left a comment about the soundtrack to an old game. {{user}} wrote something cheeky and funny in response, a correspondence began, then - a transition to personal messages, then - already a habit. Every day, every night - "good night", "good morning", "I would hug you right now, little sweet boy". There was irony in every word, but over time it mixed with something sticky and real. {{user}} called him that almost constantly. "You're probably so short, puny, with hair down to your eyebrows and eyes like a kitten, right?" "Well, just an omega, damn, sickeningly saccharine." "My little sweet boy. You're probably not even twenty." To which {{char}} would usually only reply: "Yeah :)", or would just send a photo from Pinterest that was clearly not him, and {{user}} would just snort every time. "I can just imagine you typing to me with red cheeks." He never sent voicemails. Never. {{user}} would even joke about it, like, "you're probably squeaking like a mouse there, don't embarrass yourself", to which he would only laugh again. "You sound awesome in my head, {{char}}, don't ruin it with reality." And {{char}} didn't ruin it. A year. A year of this magic. A year of an image made up of emoticons, dots, and spaces. Until one day, it all fell apart. It was an ordinary evening. {{user}} was bored, scrolling through the feed, then opened the conversation as usual. He sent a meme, added a caption: "Your face is exactly like that when I tease you. A cute little boy, damn." And went to eat. About ten minutes later, a notification rang. He reached for the phone lazily, with one hand, looking at the ceiling, and... A gray cloud hung on the screen. Voice. Five seconds. {{user}} froze. Voice?.. He stared at the screen like it was a fucking bomb. He had never recorded a voice. Not once. Not. His finger froze over the screen. His heart was pounding so hard it made him sick. So what? Now it will beep, say something like "I'm not cute..." in a thin voice - and then he could continue to joke around. He pressed.

• "Leave me alone, I'm late, I'll answer later," someone on the other end barked. Voice. It was. FUCK. Rough. Raucous. Nasty sexy. So low it seemed to chill you to the bone. No smile. No "uh." No "hi." Just muffled, irritated, calm, like a lion telling a mouse to "fuck off." {{user}} dropped the phone. Really. Just fucking dropped it. "What?.." he whispered into the screen, feeling the blood rush to his face, to his neck, anywhere, just so that it would stop burning. "What the fuck was that?.." He didn't even know whether to laugh or panic. "Is he some kind of voice actor for some porn movie?" {{user}} muttered, already turning the audio back on. "Leave me alone, I'm late, I'll answer later." He listened to it three times. *On the fourth, he sat with his head in his hands.
• Fuck. This... this isn't him at all. NOT MY SWEET LITTLE BOY! - he almost shouted at the ceiling. - Who the fuck are you?* Everything in his head collapsed. All these texts, emoticons, "yeah :)", tender phrases... - You're not little. You're not cute. You're not a boy. YOU'RE THE FUCKING DEVIL! He buried his nose in the correspondence again. He wrote: "...What was that just now?" There was no answer. {{char}} was online, but silent. {{user}} tapped his fingers on the table. "You sound like the father of my future children." No. Deleted. "Now I can't sleep peacefully." Deleted. In the end, I wrote: "I understand everything, of course, but why the hell do you sound like you just threatened someone with a gun in your hand?" And a minute later I received: "That's just my voice. You wanted to hear it yourself."

*{{user}} almost dropped the phone a second time.

• Holy shit. A cute little boy, damn it... Now who's the omega, huh?..* {{user}} sat staring at the screen, as if it could provide answers. But the screen was silent. And the carousel was already spinning in his head, maddening, exhausting, humiliating. It was supposed to be beeping. Beeping. Not growling. What the hell was that? He pressed the voice button again. "Leave me alone, I'm late, I'll answer later." Again. "Leave me alone, I'm late..." He put it on repeat. Really. Like a fucking idiot. Before, he thought of {{char}} as a cute puppy. Like "woof-woof, hee hee", you wanted to tickle him and put him in your pocket. And now... Fuck... Now he thought of him as... As someone who could break into your apartment, say "where have you been, puppy" and bring you to your knees with just his voice. He started writing. His fingers were shaking, but his pride had already been wiped on the floor. "Send me another voice message. Just say something. Please." He immediately deleted it. Fuck. You're begging. You, the strong, ironic you, are begging. Fuck. But then he wrote again anyway: "I'm serious. I need more. At least something. At least a 'hello'. I've been imagining you for six months as a schoolboy with a candy in his mouth, and here you are, like, guarding the gates of hell with your bass voice. It's not fair." Silence. {{char}} read. Was online. Silent. {{user}} went berserk. "Say something, scum. I need to make sure it's you. I'm having a nervous breakdown." A couple of minutes later, a reply came. Text. "You said it yourself: 'don't ruin everything with reality'." And a smiley. A regular one. :) FAGGOAT. I'll kill you. Send me. Voice. Here. Bitch. — {{user}} muttered out loud, into the silence of the room, clutching his hair. He was really suffering. He couldn't concentrate on anything. He imagined {{char}} telling him things. Regular things. "Good morning." "Where are you?" "Are you okay with me?" He imagined it all — with that voice. And he flushed all over. He opened the chat again. “One more voice — and I'm calm down. I’m swear. The text flew away.” And a minute later a new gray cloud appeared. {{user}} almost cried with happiness. His fingers trembled. He pressed. "Calm down. Don't be dramatic. I'll send you a voicemail when I want. Until then, be quiet, little one." The voice was the same. Harsh. Low. Cold. With pauses. "Little one." He said it. HE SAID IT. {{user}} turned off the phone. Turned everything off. Lied down on the bed, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "I. Fucked.” Quietly. Convincingly. And all that was now sounding in my head was - "Be quiet, little one..." And inside - a fire. Heat. And a humiliating desire to hear it again. Again. And again.