E-Boy Story Part 3 Between Night Bus and New Glances
I believe some evenings only truly resonate later on.
Not immediately, not in the moment you're driving through the night with headphones on and the train windows reflect your own image. Not when your heart is still beating faster from music, closeness, and too much cola. But not until the next morning, when everything is quiet again. When the room no longer glows purple but is flooded with gray daylight. When the clothes from the night before hang over the chair, looking like they've experienced more than you'd like to admit.
That's how it was after the concert with Niko.
I woke up far too late, still half lost in my thoughts from the night before. My head was heavy, my hair was sticking out in all directions, and a small black smudge of eyeliner still hung under my eye, even though I was sure I’d taken it off. Apparently, my face had decided to keep the evening as evidence.
There was no new message on my phone.
Only our chat from yesterday.
I read it again anyway.
Not because there was a lot. Actually, it was just a few sentences. I had written that I was home. He had asked if the twenty-two-year-old in me also found the evening awesome. I had written yes. Nothing more. No big confessions, no heart emoji, no exaggerated promises.
And yet this chat felt like a small open door.
I lay in bed for a while longer, thinking about his hand. Not in that cheesy way where you immediately hear background music and stare dramatically out the window. More like quietly. Amazed. As if my body still had to process that it had really happened. That someone had taken my hand, with its black nails, its rings, its little insecurities, and didn't find it weird. Not too much. Not wrong. Just my hand.
I used to often think that if I ever looked the way I wanted to look, then everything would be solved. Then I would automatically feel confident. As if you could simply overwrite insecurity with a necklace, a good haircut, and eyeliner. But it doesn't work like that. Style can open a door, but you still have to walk through it yourself. And freedom doesn't always wait immediately behind the door. Sometimes, more fear waits there first, because suddenly you're really being seen.
The day after the concert was quiet. I wore only sweatpants and a loose shirt, no necklaces, no freshly done nails, no perfect look. Just me, tired and a bit softened from the night before. Still, something felt different. Not outwardly. Inwardly. As if I had gathered another small piece of evidence that my path wasn't ridiculous.
At twelve, I needed my black hoodie to hide. At fifteen, I painted one nail and pretended it was a joke. At seventeen, I put on eyeliner and took it off again, afraid my face would suddenly become too honest. At eighteen, I used a new city like a reset button. And now, at twenty-two, I sat there and realized I no longer just wanted to try out who I could be.
I had long been living it.
In the afternoon, I finally got ready. Not for a date, not for a concert, not for a photo. Just for myself. I showered, half-heartedly blow-dried my hair, put on black pants and a loose shirt, and a silver necklace. I skipped the eyeliner today, but I reapplied my nail polish. Black, cleaner this time than before. I was starting to like this moment. This slow, concentrated brushstroke. My hand used to tremble then. Today, it was almost meditative. A little ritual. A sign: I decide how I look.
Later, I went out, just to the kiosk and then a bit more through the city. The air was cool, but pleasant. It was one of those early evenings where everything looks mundane, yet feels a bit cinematic with the right playlist. People walked past me with shopping bags, bicycles clattered on the sidewalk, somewhere it smelled of fries and wet asphalt.
I noticed the looks, as always.
Some were short and neutral. Some a bit longer. Some perhaps curious. Others perhaps irritated. In the past, I would have tried to interpret every glance as if my worth depended on it. Today, I still noticed them, but they no longer dictated everything. I had learned that strangers often just look because people look. Not every glance is a judgment. And even if it is, not every judgment needs to take root in me.
That sounds more confident than I felt.
But it was a little true.
I stopped in front of a shop window. Not intentionally, more because my reflection caught me for a moment. There I stood: black hair, loose shirt, necklace, dark nails, tired eyes, headphones around my neck. Not a perfect social media e-boy, not a flawless anime character, not a figure from a music video. Just a young man who had at some point decided that he could be soft and dark, sensitive and masculine, flashy and insecure all at once.
And suddenly I thought of the twelve-year-old I once was.
I imagined him next to me. Small, insecure, hood pulled low over his face, with that cautious look, as if checking if he was somewhere he shouldn't be. I think he would have stared at me. Maybe admiringly. Maybe confused. Maybe he would have asked if we'd get in trouble if we went out like this.
And I probably would have told him: sometimes comments, sometimes looks, sometimes fear. But no trouble bigger than the feeling of constantly hiding myself.
My phone vibrated on the way back.
Niko.
Just a short message. He wrote that he was listening to the song from the concert again and it made him think of yesterday. No big drama, no love confession. Just this little sentence that made my whole evening brighter than I cared to admit.
I only answered when I got home.
Not immediately. Not because I wanted to play games, but because I wanted to hold onto the moment briefly. I didn't want to jump right back into chat bubbles, not immediately formulate something witty, not turn the magic into a quick quip. So I put my phone on the table, made myself tea, and sat down at my desk.
My room looked different in the evening light than it did at night. Less cool, less aesthetic, more honest. The LED strips were off, the manga on the shelf were crooked, and on the table was a ring I'd been looking for yesterday and hadn't found. My gaming controller was half-stuck under a hoodie, and next to it sat an empty glass. It wasn't perfect. But it was my space. Just like my style wasn't perfect, but it was mine.
I opened the camera and looked at myself on the screen. In the past, I would have immediately searched for the best angle, adjusted the lighting, checked my face, and tidied my hair. Today, I just took one picture. Without a big pose. Without a filter. I looked tired, but real.
I didn't delete it this time.
After that, I wrote back to Niko that I also had the song in my head. Nothing more. I didn't want to write too much. I was afraid of making the moment too big, even though it already was big. Maybe that's my old problem: I either downplay closeness or immediately build a whole future scenario out of it internally. Staying in between, just in the present, is hard for me.
But perhaps that's exactly what you learn at twenty-two.
Not everything needs to be defined immediately.
Not every beautiful evening needs to immediately become a story with a set ending.
Not every hand that holds you means love.
But it can still be important.
In the following days, I thought a lot about what Niko had said. Whether my style is protection or expression. This question stuck with me like a song you can't shake. I think the honest answer is: both. My black hoodie still protects me sometimes. My chains are not just jewelry, but also a kind of statement. My hair in my face is sometimes intentional, sometimes a hiding place. My eyeliner makes me more visible, but also stronger, because I decide that my softness is allowed to be seen.
Perhaps that's not a contradiction.
Perhaps expression can also be protection.
Perhaps not everything that protects us has to be a wall. Sometimes it's more like a coat. Something you wear until you're warm enough to breathe more freely underneath.
On the third evening after the concert, Niko and I made plans again. Nothing big. No concert, no stage, no loud music. Just a walk through the city and maybe bubble tea afterward. Outwardly, I acted like it was totally casual. Inwardly, my mind immediately started its usual bad theater production.
What should I wear?
Is this a date?
Is it just a meeting?
Should I wear eyeliner?
Too much? Too little?
What if the concert night was only good because of the atmosphere?
What if we suddenly can't function in everyday life when sober?
I hate how quickly anticipation turns into a small administrative act of anxiety.
In the end, I chose dark, wide-leg pants, a tight black long-sleeve shirt, an oversized printed shirt over that, necklaces, rings, and neatly painted nails. The eyeliner was subtler than for the concert. My hair looked good, which I considered a rare sign from the universe.
When I saw Niko at the bus stop, he wasn't dramatically different than usual. Hoodie, jacket, curly hair, tired eyes that warmed up when he recognized me. And that's exactly what calmed me down. No grand gestures, no strange change, no „What are we now?“. Just a person I liked, who apparently wanted to spend time with me.
We walked through the city for a long time. There was less dialogue than at our first meeting, not because it was awkward, but because we both didn't need to talk constantly. Sometimes we'd comment on things as we passed by: a dog with way too much self-confidence, an ugly poster, a group of teenagers who looked like they’d stepped right out of a bad music video. But a lot simply happened between the sentences.
Our shoulders brushed occasionally. Neither of us immediately pulled away. Once his hand grazed mine, and I felt that little electric tug again. But this time I didn't wait for him to ask. I slowly moved my fingers closer until they touched his. It was almost nothing. And yet, for me, it was a step.
Shortly after, he took my hand.
Not with great fanfare. Not with a bang. Just as if it were right.
We walked on. Hand in hand. Through streets I knew, but that suddenly felt different. As if someone had laid a new layer over them. The same shops, the same traffic lights, the same people, but I was different in them. More visible. Less alone. No longer just the guy who wears his style as a shield, but someone who can walk next to another person without pulling their hand away.
I realized that I didn't have to act strong all the time.
That was perhaps the most beautiful thing.
With Niko, I didn't have to be cool all the time. I didn't have to maintain that perfect, mysterious e-boy facade. I could laugh when something was silly. I could be briefly insecure. I could be quiet. I could want to look good and still admit that a glance sometimes gets to me. I didn't have to be either hard or soft.
I was allowed to be both.
Later, we sat on a bench near a small park with bubble tea. It was already dark, but the lanterns cast a soft light. The tea was too sweet, my fingers cold, his hand warm. At some point, I leaned back a little and looked at the sky, even though you could hardly see any stars. Just clouds, city lights, and that dark blue that makes everything a little unreal at night.
I thought about how long the journey here had been. From twelve to twenty-two. Ten years in which I had repeatedly made small decisions that might have seemed trivial to outsiders. Wearing a hoodie. Letting my hair grow. Painting one nail. Not deleting a photo. Going out with eyeliner on. Going to a concert. Holding someone's hand.
From the outside, these aren't great heroic tales.
But inside, there were revolutions.
Every single one.
And maybe growing up isn't one big moment where you suddenly know who you are. Maybe it's a lot of little moments where you stop apologizing for parts of yourself.
When I got home later, I took off the chains, put the rings in the small bowl, and looked at my hands. The black polish was still shiny. There was a tiny chip on one finger, probably from opening the bubble tea cup. I liked that chip. It made the evening real.
I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself for a long time.
Not checking.
Not searching.
Rather grateful.
There was no finished person. No perfect e-boy, no perfect man, no perfectly formed self. There was someone who is still learning. Someone who is sometimes scared and still goes out anyway. Someone who used to think being different was dangerous, and is now slowly realizing that it would have been even more dangerous to never get to know themselves.
Niko later wrote that the evening was nice.
I replied that I thought so too.
Then I put my phone down.
This time it was left there.
Not because I didn't care about his message. But because I didn't have to hold onto the evening as if it would otherwise disappear. It had happened. It was inside me. In my hands, in my gaze, in this little peace that I rarely have.
Maybe I'll be insecure again tomorrow. Maybe I'll stand in front of the mirror again for too long, wondering if the eyeliner is too much. Maybe there will be days when I need the hoodie again, like armor.
But not today.
Today he doesn't feel like armor.
Today feels like home.
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