In the whiteness, the blazing whiteness, there's no need to look for what we've never lost. Two naked bodies in one room. One in the double bed, one at the glass balcony doors. Two bodies and a world between them; a void.

Age difference is not something to be taken lightly, but there are further complications. There always are. Happiness, that elusive creature, never shows up on demand, nor by chance. There are families and friends to be considered, careers and homes to be abandoned or rebuilt across an ocean. Too much to think about; it renders thinking impossible.

The man in the bed looks at his lover, yet he dares not speak; dares not violate the silence. He wants to speak the words, he needs it. There's a vacancy in the bed and in his heart. For the moment, it seems to him that both shall remain vacant.

The man at the glass doors looks outside. From the tenth floor suite, the entire city stretches below, like a toy in the palm of your hand. You can use your pinky to cover a street, to hide away every sign of life in it. If you look forward, only forward, the sun paints the air with an empty white. You can feel it sting at the back of your throat.

The man looks on. There's only one line left in this world, one line that can be walked, and if it leads away from the bed behind him, it can only lead to the balcony railing in front. But he can reach neither.

He's stuck, looking out. He could stay like this for an eternity, and yet it has to change. He knows this, yet he does not know how. Something has to fall, to shatter unrecognizably. It must be him. A sigh escapes him as his forehead touches the glass. People have been gently pushed into a comfortable distance from him, never needing too much intimacy, and they were always fooled by his special manner of doing it. The glass feels moist. He doesn't know where to find himself in this room. The glass feels moist, but it isn't. He's crying.

A pair of arms reaches out from the whiteness, engulfs him; arms warm and loving. He notices they're more or less of the same height, when he feels a head bending down, hair brushing his nape and a cheek pressed against his shoulder blade. The tears keep coming soundlessly.

The tears, they're not as angry, not as bitter. Something about the special touch of his lover taps wildly into a sense of belonging. To each other. He doesn't need to move, but he can breathe again. Leaning back into the hug, his head tilts up slightly and he can see the full, yellow sun.