He hummed out a sound, thoughtful and quiet. October's mind had flitted to his parents, to their shambles of a marriage, in spite of all their attempts at pretending otherwise. Of his various half siblings, tossed here and there. Of November, and his cut strings, his desire to be outside of that box.

"Communicating can be hard," October admitted. "Instead of like, bottling stuff up. People do that a lot, I've noticed." Like November. "They think if they keep it all in, people will be able to read their minds or maybe they'll be able to change things, but they never can."

Rep was given a faint smile.

"Can't understand what's happening if you don't talk about it, after all."

Baneful