He's a boy in too deep, he's a boy who's taken on the entirety of the world when he hasn't even known responsibility, and it shows in his eyes, manifests as fear that holds him at a distance. But still, he holds his shoulders back, raises his chin, keeps himself resolved as he stares back at this girl, trying to ignore how beautiful she is— but that's the sort of thing that you always notice, no matter how stricken with grief, no matter how angry. Beauty bleeds through every single time. The hold he's held on his pen loosens slightly as he hides the breath in his lungs.

"I'm gonna find him," he says, and although every bone in his body behaves in a way so unsure, the words are the opposite. "I'm gonna find him and give it to him. I'll— I'll watch him read it and everything."