Authors note: I recover deleted stories like a boss! XD

disclaimer: I don't own this story.

Sticking Out

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Not many people know the feeling of bones, and I don't mean things like chicken bones we eat the meat off of, but I mean human bones. The white puzzle pieces that keep us together, the pieces that without them we would just be blobs of flesh and muscles and body parts that wouldn't make sense. It would be chaos on the human body.

Humans don't work well with chaos, especially if its within ourselves as individuals, trapped inside a quiet yet destructively meaningless world that needs to be built. We are grateful for those white puzzle pieces at some point, mostly when we're young and learn about the basics of the human body in kindergarten, watching the teacher point out how the knee bone connects with the leg bone while he suck our thumbs on the colourful mat.

But when those bones are exposed, we get scared. No one likes looking at a skeleton that's not made for science class out of artificial materials. When we see it otherwise, there is an uncomfortable tingle of panic that flashes up our spines.

I learned that when I learned about the Holocaust during World War II. I didn't know how people could live like that; I didn't know how people could force other people to live like that. Seeing kids my age barely stand on bony legs with feet that looked twice the size they should be, hollows filling their fat-less cheeks and the temples on their heavy-looking heads, it all made me cry so much that the teacher had to pull me out of class and tell me that it was okay; it happened decades ago, and some of those Jewish children survived long enough to escape.

It was then I learned that the human body also had limitaions. I learned that a person could wear themselves down like a weak stone until the last layer was left behind, learned that certain people with disorders did it to themselves on purpose from the fear of fate. But after seeing that, I couldn't imagine anything more disgusting than a person killing themselves through lack of life.

And those people were sickly. They looked miserable, beaten, and broken. Their eyes were always sunken back into their heads, like they were on the border between solid human and ghost, waiting for that last layer to ebb away with death and let themselves be nothing but dust in the wind. They always looked so small and fragile.

But I never knew there was a way to hide it.

I like to remember the fond memories of when I was younger, where children were the kings and queens of the kingdom known as the playground. Life was simple because we were simple, though we all thought there was a light. Like how we all dreamt of one day becoming super heroes. I knew-well, still know-two boys who wanted that more than anything. And what was more was that they wanted to do that together.

They weren't related, but they had a bond stronger than the closest of twins. Fanboy and Chum Chum were so close that them not being together caused an uneasy sense in the air. It caused a warning ripple when one of them walked by without the other. The only time when it was okay was when they were both okay with it

Almost everything about them were the same, but the only thing different was their bodies. Their physical, strange bodies that were soft and almost imaginary as they are when boys are children, I noticed it even then. Everything about Fanboy was long and thin and somewhat pointy; small, pointy nose, long limbs and fingers, large feet (that was really just another awkward stage of walking into puberty), and large eyes with unusually long eye lashes. In the sixth grade, he was five-foot-four, and now he's six-foot-seven at age seventeen. Even his smile, witch was adorned with perfectly straight teeth expcept for the bucked ones in the front, was large and ear-to-ear.

Chum Chum, on the other hand, was indeed an exact opposite. Short and round were his two main characteristic attributes: Four feet tall, chocolate-brown hair framing his round little face, and the only thing big about him, it seemed, was his imagination. He was always making up stories with Fanboy about one day saving the world with their super powers and being crowned ultimate heroes by the President of the United States.

Chum Chum's own body type and height were normal for a boy his age, but Fanboy was an enigma to most adults. I didn't notice it then, but older people always looked at Fanboy like he was an atrocious specimen of a child. He was strangely tall and overly skinny for his age but he didn't seem to care; it never came up, not until he got his first ever physical when he wanted to try out for the track team freshman year. He didn't make it due to the fact that he was seventeen pounds underweight for a boy of fourteen, especially one of his height.

I remember seeing the look on the gym teacher's face, how horrified and concerned he was. He had Fanboy's counselor set him with a health pamphlet explaining calories, eating habits and special eating schedules for his age group and gender. I also remember Fanboy being very confused about it.

It wasn't until he told me that I saw it, and the one thing I still feel a chill about is how it seemed like a whole sheet of concealing skin was ripped from his person, how he suddenly looked so damn scary. When he told me he was underweight, he was upset and he had to start planning meals and whatnot, I felt my eyes widen and then squint to get a better look at his face: He practically looked like those kids in the video, the ones who were starved by force in the concentration camps. His cheeks were shadows, his elbows were poked yet round and were sticking from his arms like small stumps on a dead tree, and those temples on either side of his head were holes. His frame was wiry beyond belief and for the first time I saw those ribs, like, really saw them.

His expression at that moment was bored, nonchalant, like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal to me. He was my friend and for a minute I was flamingly furious at Chum Chum for not telling someone or at least noticing. Well, maybe he did, but that only made me feel angrier. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I reached out to him then. We were at the Fanlair (yes, we still called it that), and we were sitting on the couch. I reached right out and grabbed a handful of his shirt. He protested but I never remember what he said because I wasn't even listening to him at that point.

I lifted up his shirt, and gasped. There they were, rounded and gripping his body like they were claws. Those pieces keeping him together. Sticking out from underneath his skin like it was underneath a bed sheet. If I looked closely, I could see that the skin leading from the bottom rib to the area around his navel had folded creases.

My heart stopped and for a millisecond, I was the one dying.

By now, I can hear him. He's reaching out at me, wrestling and almost touching my face and telling me to let go and when I do, he's blushing terribly from his neck to the tips of his large ears. For those few seconds of inspecting and taking it in, the whole world didn't exist other than him and how he is a skeleton and I feel my own face heat up.

"Yo! What the heck?" he barks at me, making me jump. Every little sudden movement feels like a tear in the universe. The weird thing is that his face isn't all that angry; it is scared, shocked that I have just touched and looked at him. But that's the thing; we are two innocent kids, stuck in this awkward rope that needs to be unknotted. Who's here? Not a grown-up, obviously, just us. So I try to fix it with an excuse.

"I . . . uhm," I start out, "there . . . there was a bug on your shirt!" I point at the crumpled mass on his chest. He grips it frustratingly, and heavily breathes as he twists and turns it as if looking for the bug. He lifts his head and looks at me with a hard questioning look. Fanboy can actually look quite terrifying and breaking when he's upset.

"Haha," I giggle nervously, "I guess it must have flown off. Haha . . ." As I trail off, Fanboy's look softens and then he does something strange: He curls up into a ball, his head resting on the arm rest of the couch. I lean over to see his face, but it is impassive as a gray stone wall.

"It's because I'm, like, super skinny . . . isn't it?" he asks slowly, like he's not sure of it.

I pat my hand on his tickle spot, just below his armpit. I feel his squirm and try to hold in laughter. "What? No, of course not. I mean . . . well, what I'm trying to say is . . ." I'm mad at myself for not coming up with a good answer, probably because it was supposed to be a lie anyway. Lying is something I'm not too good at. So instead I tell the truth, despite how hard it will be. "You know what, Fanboy? I think we both know. You stick out too much, in a way."

He looks up at me with a worried expression.

Fanboy has this certain look when he's concerned: He furrows his eyebrows a little, like he's knitting them together, and his eyes flare up with question and confuzzlement with his lips parted just barely a hair. His pupils bore into you, making it hard to lie or say something he doesn't want to hear. Fanboy's faces always have the best effect on a person; I know this through him always keeping me back from Chum Chum when we were younger. Always questioning me . . .

"Well, that's just it," he whispers, "I don't really know anything right now." The boy curls up a little tighter. "Everything got so messed up for me in just a few minutes. The way the gym teacher looked at me . . . like I was some kind of mutant." I'll say right now that I have never seen him this sad. "I mean, I never even noticed. Funny how this can just sneak up on you . . ."

I sigh. "That is true, but it happened to you slowly. You always were a twig, but I guess as soon as puberty hit you and you pretty much needed double the calories, you slowly started fading . . ." I look down at the sticks that are his fingers, wrapped around his lanky arm, gripping it harshly. I shiver at the way the veins move like long, thin blue snakes under the skin. "But hey, what's the point of making the rest of us worry, right? Chum Chum almost fainted when he found out; I was there."

Fanboy leans back upwards into the couch and sighs, green eyes closed, thinking. His eyes open half-lidded and mutters half to himself, "You're right. I mean, all I have to do is eat more, right? How hard can that be?" He straightens his posture, looking confident. "Besides, the track team can go suck it. I've been thinking about taking Art 1-2 anyways . . ." The dork smiles, and I smile with him.

"Oh, really?" I question humorously. "Well, I've been thinking the same thing . . ."

The Fanlair fills up with a funny silence, the both of us staring each other down. He finally speaks up with the biggest smart-ass smile I've ever seen his wear. "Well then, Yo . . . I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful rivalry." His smirk is cut short when a contortion of pain takes over his face and he snaps forward, clutching his stomach. I hold onto him, asking him if he's okay even though I'm already dialing for an ambulance when I see the sudden paleness in his face. But then he touches the hand that's has my phone gripped in it. I feel the hardness of the bones beneath the skin, and I realize his hands are so much bigger than mine.

"It's okay . . . I'm okay," he stutters, as if the pain is chopping up his breath. "I just . . . I need to eat." He stands up wearily, nearly falling from no support. I lightly do, though. He smiles down at me, differently this time though. It's friendly, inviting, thankful for what I'm doing. He looks so much more older when he's tired, like right now.

Then it hits me. Something that was always floating around in my head but never grabbed: Fanboy and Chum Chum never had any parents or any kind of grown up to look after them. And how Chum Chum was and still is on the large side . . .

Fanboy is older. By almost two years. I've seen him go into momma-bear mode for Chum Chum, ready to tear anyone's face apart if they so much as scratched his best friend. I can't help but think, what if . . . what if Fanboy never ate much for Chum Chum's own sake? No. No, that can't be right. How can that even compute to him? Fanboy is probably the first person that comes to mind when I think about eating junk food. It feels uncomfortable to think that Fanboy and Chum Chum's lives could have possibly been that hard. These thoughts are stupid, I tell myself as I stare off stupidly into the wall.

"Hey Yo, you okay?" Fanboy's high-deep voice asks me. I smile and tell him yes, everything's fine, and then ask him if he wants to go get some burritos from the Frosty Mart.

Grinning at me toothily, he calls Chum Chum and when we meet him there, Fanboy isn't a skeleton anymore. He's his normal self again: A tall, pink-cheeked dork with a buck-toothed smile that's ear-to-ear. Walking with a stride like he's the most energetic, happiest teenage boy in the world who always used to and still does talk about superpowers/heroes/villains. Having a small food fight with his best friend, getting beans all over his jeans and pissing off Lenny to a new level. A warm yet empty feeling fills my cheeks and my stomach. It's admiration. It's at that moment I think to myself, how can a kid who's never been cradled, sung to, or given a hope in the world be so dang happy?

And I answer myself with, Because he's a kid who's had to be the one to do all of that for someone else since the very beginning.

-(~)-