SCENE ONE: "SHOVEL THE COAL IN THIS FIRE, IGNITE AND CONSPIRE
STILL DOESN'T MEAN THAT I'M NOT IN YOUR HEAD."

For as long as Kendall can think of, he can't quite remember a single conversation between him and James where Logan's name doesn't somehow magically crop up in the middle of it.

The two of them can be talking about random school and life stuff, or puppy crushes and crazy past and future adventures—or hell, it can even be about something as incredibly unrelated as a hypothetical heated debate about brie de meaux cheese handmade from a monastic production in Paris—and then, somewhere in the midst of it all, like a gnashing clockwork cue in their tired theatre performance, the name inevitably falls out of James' lips in a breathless enchantment: "Logan...", and Kendall takes the hint and mentally checks out.

It isn't that he's doing it to be rude. Well, not exactly. If Kendall's ever infamous for anything next to his impressive hockey captain reputation and speed-record shelf restocking at Sherwood's Supermarket, it's for always indulging his best friends' whims, no matter how eccentric or troublesome they may be—especially when it's the latter. So this particular case isn't the exception among them.

But even his first-place team player skills and yielding patience can only stretch out so much, before James' repetitious fawning words about Logan begin to sift past the rended holes. And no matter how hard Kendall attempts to subtly but surely steer the direction away from it, his worst efforts are all in vain.

Because suddenly, the universe of James Diamond is all about their smart friend—what he's feeling, how he's doing, what he had for lunch that afternoon, this-and-that about the super-clever experiments he has in his basement that mama and doctor Mitchell are unaware their son is secretly harbouring, how fuzzy and cute his new lilac cardigan looks, how great and brilliant and great and amazing and intelligent and oh-did-I-mention-great? I did? Well...he is.

And on and on the starstruck salesman spiel goes. It's like there's an infuriating brainworm codenamed 'Hortense' that refuses to leave once you notice the abrasive sensation, and James certainly won't stop until he has sank his nails in deep and has profusely scratched every inch to his soul's content—but Kendall's the one who's splattered with the bloodstains and left shuddering all over.

But he shakes it off and still plays along as he should. He smiles and nods and gives out bland halfhearted responses, though nothing else in their pantomime of a dialogue interests him beyond cloying politeness and pathetic shrugs. The sweet talk makes its way to Kendall's gritted teeth, as the volume turns down to zero and everything becomes greyer than the grey their sombre city is drenched in, while his larger-than-life friend somehow becomes painfully oversaturated.

Blinking back the dusty Duluth haze, Kendall grips at the shopping carts and tries not to notice how the meek sunlight carves out the stark angles of James' face; gentle glow filtering past delicate eyelashes as he throws his head back and laughs. Kendall hunches his entire figure to pick up heavy grocery boxes, while James brushes against his gangly arms and helps him out without breaking a sweat, shoulders broad with prideful mirth and carefully-brushed autumn hair cascading in slow motion. Kendall mutters something he can't quite hear at the picture-perfect Apollo towering eminence in the middle of a grimy parking lot—all bronze tans and silk scarves as he holds symposium with some sweaty kid in a tacky red apron and ratty beanie, who reeks of canned dog food and faded laundry soap...

"Bzzt, bzzzzzt, bleep bloop—earth to Kendork! Hey, you still there, buddy?"

"Yeah...yeah, sorry. Just thought I saw something in your eye—um, dirt or something, I mean."

"WHAT? Where?! Is it really dirt? Or like something else...oh no...is it a bug? It better not be a bug! I'm too pretty to get bitten by one, I'll get all puffy and red and gross and doc gonzo is gonna force me to drink some nasty medicine and I can't have that!!!"

"No no, it was probably just light glare or whatever, my bad...sorry again. But you were saying?"

"Oh, good. Don't scare me like that dude, jeez! A-ny-way—oh! Speaking of bugs, like what Logiebear was just literally telling me the other day about them while reading his spacey word pages—y'know, the black one with those glowing circles on the cover..."

"Huh..."

Huhs and hushes, noughts and crosses, taking turns in a mental game of placing the right interjections at the right spaces. Back and forth and back and forth and you're-probably-busy-oh-shoot-look-at-the-time and James is always the one to cut it short, his charmer winks and cherry-cheeked "oops, gotta go!" practically a merciful termination for Kendall's struggling grasp on his nice boy-next-door façade.

And just like that, James has pulled the plug and ran off before their corpsing can turn cold, leaving his buddy to muster out a flatlined: "oh, it's no problem at all, see you."

It feels very cruel for Kendall, but what's even worse is that James doesn't even know he's doing it. After all, why should he? There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. James likes who he likes, and him and Logan are naturally way closer—practically inseparable, even—to each other, so it only makes sense that James would want to talk about him. It's a rather sweet gesture for most people, albeit maybe too schmaltzy, when one plus one makes for a better whole instead of two jagged halves.

James plus Logan equals a perfect one.

Really, the only thing going awry in this entire innocent equation is jagged-piece Kendall. Him plus James equals an ill-fitting puzzle with a gaping Logan-shaped hole in the middle. And he probably wouldn't be this jagged, if not for his stupid serrated brain, his stupid brain that wants to be noticed but doesn't think he's worth it, his stupid overthinking brain that won't leave him alone until he ends up all alone.

And so alone Kendall remains, as he watches James bound over to laud and preen and fuss over Logan from afar, his bottle-green eyes quietly brimming over with a dazed fog of self-irritating ire.

He observes James and Logan talk talk talk for hours at an end like a spooling silent film, noting the animated lips that never even come close to touching the syllables of his name. He wonders what the two of them can even spend ages discussing, when the connective tissue between the genius and the pretty boy's shared interests can be easily severed if a second guess so much dares to traipse through its tightrope. He contemplates how he couldn't even keep small chatter going on for five minutes before people get bored of whatever bullshit he's spouting...or maybe that's it?

Maybe Kendall's just boring? Does he talk too much? Would it matter if he even said anything at all?

Either way, he should probably just shut the hell up.