Cedric was completely silent for a few seconds, just sitting there and sorting through his thoughts until they fell apart into words. “…I am painfully aware that trying to be someone you aren’t only isolates you, but the idea that if you just ‘be yourself’ everything will work out? It’s total bullshit. The only people that believe it are people that have never been Different with a capital D.” He took a moment to steady his breathing before it started to grow shaky. “Because there’s a limit - a limit to how unique you can be before it stops being socially acceptable. A threshold where you go from ‘quirky’ to ‘a freak’. And when you cross that threshold? You’ll be more than just isolated, you’ll be ostracized. Sure, wearing the mask keeps me from getting very close to people, but to a degree, that’s the point. Get too close and they’ll see what you are. So you have to keep yourself an arm’s length away, or they’ll chase you a mile away.”

“But… you have friends now.” Dyllan reached his hand out. “You have us n-”

“Only because you weren’t there!” Cedric smacked Dyllan’s hand away and raised his voice - speaking with a loud and unsteady tone that Dyllan had never heard from him before. “You weren’t there before I learned how to hide! I know you, I know you’re a good person, and I know you would have stood up for me even if you’d seen what I was really like - but you wouldn’t have been my friend. So I hid myself, and I would have kept doing it forever.” Cedric gestured toward his shadow. “Until I showed up. The real me, outside my persona. Then I couldn’t hide anymore.”

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“But you’ve seen the ‘real me’ inside my shadow, and we’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“…maybe I could have kept hiding after all, because you clearly don’t get what I’m saying.” Cedric pointed at Dyllan’s heart. “You lived inside your ego. When ego and shadow combined, the shadow was incorporated into the ego - and the ego took on qualities of the shadow, while staying the same at the core.” He gestured toward his own heart. “But this, this isn’t me. I live inside my shadow. If my shadow and ego combined, the ego would be incorporated into the shadow - and the shadow would take on qualities of the ego, while staying the same at the core.”

Dyllan smiled mischievously. “…do you really think I didn’t already know that?”