My Curious Encounter with Benjamin Button

There's this boy I know. We're not really friends. I admire him greatly, and wish we were, but it seems really impossible. Maybe someday I'll get up the courage to talk to him. Maybe someday he'll respond to one of my lame jokes.
There are a lot of things about this boy that make him worthy of my attention, but over the last few weeks, I've noticed something fascinating-- he seems to look younger and younger all the time. I think it's because he's lost a lot of weight over the time I've known of him (and a lot of muscle too). His hair, once spiked and trendy, has grown out into a little-boy, side-part style. For a while he had whiskers, but now his face looks smooth as it would have been as a child. He seems shorter, too. I think he's slumping his shoulders. Or maybe it's because his face is always down, particularly when he feels my gaze. Gone is the vibrancy and confidence of the man I once saw, exchanged with something like timidity, though it might be old-fashioned pride. I haven't heard him really speak for weeks. He keeps to the shadows like my light will destroy him, and he resents it. Ironically, seeing his diminishing persona clouds my own countenance and I feel darker when I am around him. We're both starting at shadows.