Chapter Text
‘’So, what now?’’ Kyle asked, wriggling a bit uncomfortably.
‘’How can I know? I’m just a piece of your imagination.’’
Yeah, that figured.
Kyle shifted from one leg to another, grimaced and sighed awkwardly. He started to think that this whole ordeal ventured into the stupid territory. Or had it been stupid all this time?
Because who in their right mind would even devise a plan like that? Well, devise, perhaps, wasn’t the most prominent word to describe what had happened inside Kyle’s head, but that’s beside the point. And he had more pressing matters to occupy his thoughts at the moment.
Like for example, a somewhat uhm… interesting-looking copy of Craig standing inertly right before him. Unless the sporadic scratching of his jaw counted, he was as motionless as he was uninterested in, quite frankly, anything. Kyle inspected his colleague’s physique with a dissatisfied pout on his face. A gremlin called perfectionist that had been inhabiting Kyle’s mind was currently busy with whispering some pieces of unconstructive criticism, like that Craig’s face was all wrong, but not how. Just uncanny, though it was still undeniably him.
‘’Soo… do you, uh, like, have any topic you’d like to discuss?’’ He tried again, not really hopeful but determined to make his trip time-worthy.
‘’I dunno.’’ …And another jaw scratch. To underline the point, you know.
‘’Okay, this is pointless.’’ Kyle sat down, leaned against a pine tree and covered his face in his palms to gather thoughts. To his surprise, the Imaginationland bark proved to actually be a pretty comfortable backrest. Definitely smoother than the ones from Stark’s Pond. ‘’Sit down.’’ He said barely audibly.
A little rustle could be heard and when Kyle dared a peep through his fingers, he saw Craig obediently sitting next to him. He deemed it a progress, even though his creation still wore an irkingly flippant look.
Kyle sighed again, this time simply to let off some steam. When he had come up with the idea to pay a visit to Imaginationland to deal with the problem on hand, he had decided to give it a try, because well, it had sounded truly ridiculous. However, he had quickly realized that the melody of that cursed song had been etched to the back of his mind and then poof! He was here. With Craig.
‘’How about we get straight to the point—what school subjects do you enjoy?’’ An easy question and neutral grounds, nice one, Kyle. Or so he thought.
Craig carbon copy took a breath with that characteristic little wheeze to it, another jaw scratch, because sure, they got time, and uttered an answer, whose erudition and sophistication finally broke the ice between the boys: ‘’Math.’’
Kyle blinked twice, very slowly, and willed himself not to cry out of frustration. He reminded himself that this was the reason for the simulation—to discover an effective way to communicate with Craig. Just some additional work, nothing too crazy when compared to all the material they needed to cover in their semestral project. He could do it.
‘’Yeah, math’s great. Sometimes I just want to do something that doesn’t require being creative. I mean, something I can do by the book and that has a finite number of solutions.’’ That was true; Kyle, in fact, enjoyed almost every subject, yet math was one of his favorites. In the world where most of his friends and the stereotypical teenagers who preferred to explore countless possibilities, while listening only to themselves, not letting anyone dictate how to live their lives, he was an oddity. Someone who actually appreciated being guided from time to time. It wasn’t a matter of an inability to make decisions or a lack of interests, opinions, or a certain worldview, no. Just a certain way of acknowledging the ways of the world, because if there were beaten paths, why shouldn’t he make good use of them as long as they aligned with his goals and morals?
‘’Hmm, true. Math’s logical. It’s either right or wrong, simple as that. Unlike English, it sucks ass.’’
Kyle smiled a bit hearing that. A small success on his chart, but still—it was the most Craig had said yet. So he probed him further about his school preferences. Do you like this subject? Why? Why not? Nothing Kyle was curious about, but it seemed like an efficient way to test different approaches and emulate a real talk with Craig. To gain some courage, or perhaps a resolve in himself to try to make the most of their shared time on the project.
And even though talking with Craig felt like rubbing skin against sandpaper, he believed he could do it.
‘’Okay, okay. So math, physics and biology are cool, but chemistry no?’’
‘’No.’’ Craig shook his head slightly, pensively.
‘’But why? I figured you’re like, all about science or something.'' This time Kyle asked not only to converse but also because there actually were some embers of interest being lit in his head.
The boy sitting next to him curled up a little and grazed his chullo hat, letting a couple of dark brown streaks of hair loose. ‘’Ugh, it’s hard, okay?’’ He scoffed quietly, yet as nasaly as always. Then he kicked non-threatingly a rock with his worn-out sneaker.
‘’Yeah, true. But once you get it, it starts being somewhat fun. Experiments can be sweet too.’’
‘’Right, when you’re a freaking bookworm, even experiments look cool.’’ Craig teased with a tiny smile playing on his lips. He rolled his eyes, which aggravated Kyle.
‘’What, that’s true!’’ He jumped and Craig snickered at his successful ragebait. ‘’I can show you some-‘’
Craig looked at him with his dark, amused, yet completely empty eyes, reminding him that he wasn’t real. This conversation wasn’t real. And it wasn’t like he could wake up the next day and show the real Craig a couple of different but nonetheless interesting experiments.
He could imagine all the necessary items to conduct the experiments here, but for what? This Craig was a faux, a training dummy of sorts, and most importantly, no experience gained here would equal anything in reality. Nothing. It was just a simulation. Doing "fun things" was of no point.
‘’Maybe someday. I should get going for today. Nice talk, thanks.’’ He grumbled and headed home, leaving fake Craig unaffected by the sudden change of the atmosphere or his absence. He just sat there on a clearing in the middle of an Imaginationland forest, scratching his jaw from time to time.