Sweat… beads that are a physical response to an emotional stressor. The bane which threatened his wandering mind.
His hand rubbed the wrist wishing to take grace of a non-existent watch, gifted to someone better suited for it. He no longer needed the artifact that rested as a lasting reminder of the self-inflicted blemishes. There was no reason to sweat in cowardice.
That morning had been oddly bright and warm with the passing of hummingbirds as well as the scuttle of squirrels to the modified trees aiding them to grow exponentially faster than natural ones. A weather that quickly turned dour once the sun truthfully rose while the violence of a storm approached.
Coveted to his chest, brought to a magnificent glow by his heart, rested a small box in the shape of heart. Very stereotypical but nevertheless it had been all the two of them could think of. Hopefully it would get the point across.
Yet, buried under the chocolates was a silver necklace pinned by a butterfly encrusted with fake rubies and emeralds. It looked pretty, hence why he bought it. If two pretty things went together, they only became enhanced.
Simple logic.
Staring at the wrapped case the boy barely recognized the passage of periods then all of a sudden, the school day had ended throwing him on the path to her classroom. She always stayed after classes ended for a bit longer to make sure the room was properly cleaned as well as the resources stashed away. All the teachers were grateful for her presence.
Perhaps that was what had initially caught his eye.
Her hands placed at the hip and ready to tell off anyone that dared to touch another hair on the bruised plated child sobbing to a corner of sewage water. A scene he knew all too well. The scared look in those bullies expressions and the droopy mugs that turned so at just the sound of her voice, he had crazily fallen into something he was lost in.
If asked he didn't know whether he could tell what aspect made him become this unfeasible and unrelenting person.
Was it the way her bed hair housed nests of birds when awoken from a sleepless night? How she never settled for just a draw but always won back which was lost? Maybe it was everything. The mere confidence oozed infecting everything in her vicinity with an added pressure to idolize to grow just to have a section of what built her to be so strong.
'I probably am attracted to too many strong people…'
Without knowing it himself, he could not subside the smile on his lips.
All too soon the moment of reckoning came as he stood in the hallway, her door straight ahead. Separated by no more than feet did the shivers return rooting his feet away.
To relax his mind, he glanced at the artwork with a strained glare.
The best was hers. Images of meadows and seaside caverns overtaken by shipwrecked pirate ships. These things and places that he knew she had never seen in her life were demonstrated with an unfound clarity. They had come from the picture books as well as fairy tales told from an uncle. One unknowing of this story could only see a fine craftsman portraying vividly real frames to paper, but he found them inspiring. The uncle's words seeped into each wave, every blade of grass, and swipe of the brush. His haughty demeanor accompanied by jovial morals exemplified by the absence of dark and light strokes cohesively moving a person's gaze into the rabbit hole of swirling emotions.
The month they had first started at the academy, he had entered the art room after having waited close to an hour for her to leave school. Inside he found a distressed and sobbing girl. Almost immediately he sought to crush the door open, fleeing to her side in order to ask what had gone wrong. So, he would until he saw the brush in her hand. He left the door traveling to the window in order to better catch a glimpse of what she was painting. Finally, the reason was clear for her heartache.
Nimbuses masked by a gray wicked face blew their offspring at a lone naval sailor boy. The boy marooned onto a tiny inflatable raft not much more than the clothes on his back and tiny bottle of water to his name. Items used with vast intellect to survive for fourteen weeks, six days, twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes. Luck had drifted him through storms, tsunamis, and whirlpools threatening to capsize his dream of life. The nimbuses blew and blew but eventually they gave out leaving the boy all alone again.
The sailor boy lost his clothes then his mind to that last gust of wind. His nakedness exposed the garish rash that ate up his skin from pinky toe to thinning scalp. On the boy's fifteenth week, he had given up, consumed by the natural current that drags all to it. But, on the fifteenth and first day since his shipwrecked nature, a boat found his raft with an empty vessel onboard.
This was the uncle's final story.
Military Police came and carried his body away. A candlelit vigil was held by the few homeless who had encountered the man recounting his good-will and entertaining values.
He let her bawl her eyes out as she finished that painting. The pain and sorrow disturbed all who came close to it but would become rapt in the insanity depicted.
The moral found by the distantly far off passenger boat long forgotten by the survivor but in clear view to any spectator. A tale of sorrow but not without hope. It was a reflection from the boy that he should have held on, no matter what came next, for, the storm will let up eventually and then daybreak will be cleared for all to gaze in relief.
He would not fret nor frown if the answer was not a desired one. Brave this terrible storm because there would be greater things beyond. A greater reward for those watchful; able to seek out the opportunity that comes without word.
Placing his hand on the knob he slowly twisted it to stare at…
+++
The brown curls highlighted by the passage of the sun's rays through their strands resembling a holy halo. For some reason she did not wear baggy clothes or glasses this day. Instead, she was a natural beauty without a speck of makeup to conceal that fact.
'BA-THUMP! Thump!'
Kage could not remove his attentive wonderment from her subtly slick lips. They had a creese from where she would bite them in frustration, but still luscious in their tint. Her sweatshirt was replaced by a crop top and leggings. What would have been 'slutty' on anyone else inspired a fruitful thought in Kage's mind.
'Had she done this for him?'
'How would she have known?'
It was a look that Kage found cute which drew his gaze even if most looked horrendous in it. He could not describe why it worked on Sophie other than she fitted it perfectly. That could just be his answer, it didn't matter. The words didn't need to come to him because all that was needed was an action today. A simple one in fact.
Kage entered the classroom glancing side to side ensuring no other was present for this event. Then, he walked to her, a present stuffed behind his back.
"H-h-hello Sophie!" His voice peaked slightly as it cracked with nervousness. "I mean, uh, eh." Sophie peered up at him, making him realize just how much taller he was than her. It was like looking at a puppy with her eyes so big and round bringing upon the urge to pat her hair just like one as well.
Miming the phrase on his lips, he stopped after some seconds because of the silence that would evaporate them.
'My, she's patient. Just staring with no qualms.
Waiting. Why?
I'm acting like an idiot right now and can't do shit.
FUCK! FUCK! JUST SAY THE WORDS YOU MORON! SAY THEM!'
Then, he no longer was looking to her eyes but back to those lips of hers. Imagining their supple nature thus comforting glow.
"shit" he muttered beneath his breath.
"What's wro-
Tossing the present aside, Kage propped her chin up by the cusp of his hand just as he bent his neck to her height. Brief it was, but not stolen. He thought the optimal response was to jump away delivering a rightful smack to the other on the cheek. Therefore, producing a swollen bruise if hit hard enough, but she did not back away.
She pushed farther.
Wrapping her arms around his back she clawed at his shoulders mauling for further relations.
He flipped her up onto her desk now bringing her to the same height as him. Both of them absolutely beaming into each other. Out of breath, Kage drew away for a short respite as did Sophie.
Shot by the cardinal plague they huffed out exasperated whispers. "I thought… you wanted to wait." Sophie asked, fingers fiddling in the top of Kage's hair.
"I'm done waiting. I'll never make you wait again." He looked like a ravenous carnivore sating its appetite upon a prey. A beast that Sophie wanted to have more to control.
"Then, let's go from here." Shying away from him he twirled her hair into loose strands from their balled up state. Yet, when his hand drifted toward her buttoned shirt, he was forced to return her gaze. Inward he fell into that gaze.
Falling so deep.
"You sure?" Sophie had waited to theorize terrible no-good ideas that she burned along with the photographs. Today was where it ended, finally granted the ability to let release her frustrations. Let it all go to this man she spotted so far back yet never had the confidence to go through with anything. But, in his eyes she saw something spinning.
A cracked dome in disrepair and inside a SPHERE.
'What? What does that mean?'
It didn't matter. Whatever it was, they could definitely fix it together because that was how it worked. A couple did things together. She would fix him to be perfect. "Yes, I-I-I love you." Shading herself from the breakdown of proportions and slight stutters ravaging Kage's muscles, Sophie was fearful of how far she had taken it. Not long ago had Kage been at a standstill to where he should proceed and what to let go of or keep close. These three words may have done in everything he prepared for ending this wonderful moment.
Then again, Sophie found there to be no better time to let it off her chest. She did it right as well. Their stares touched like before.
On the other hand, Kage tunneled into an unsure stupor of whether he had heard those words correctly.
'Love…'
It was a sign of foregone deceit. A symbol to skewer out the inside of a person and corrupt it to a hollow end. The sign which preceded the burn of the light on his back. Meekness to justify the ends that did not need to be met.
Witnessing this particular example, it was all that he thought of the word for so long. Utter disgust gave birth to Lisa never stating such a thing to him and in the same manner him to Lisa as well. The years since then had constructed his own definition of the term to be concrete and in consequence he was never surprised when he heard the divorce of relationships as well as falling out of partners that spread in the gossip of the halls.
Yet, in the pool of these sweet irises was nothing other than sincerity. The singularity was manifested in this breed of genuineness which poured in the slight cracks of the concrete. It spread open the cracks to encompass the entirety of his way of thinking then crumbled its foundation setting it to collapse all around.
"I love you too." He wasn't startled by how they came out in little more than a whisper, or that they came out at all, but was elated with an indescribable sensation. They had happened and gone but impacted the whole of each other's worlds.
A look accompanied the actions afterward.
Squeezing, pressing, wringing as they sought more and more to identify the other by whatever mark graced the touch of warmth upon warmth. A conjoined similarity that brought a closeness none would identify with but unique to them. Not without an excruciating pain, but a pain which mellowed birthing perception unlike anything else.
All to be interrupted by the ringing of a phone.
Streaks along her cheeks leaking to the desk from the point of her chin, she asked with trouble, "Shouldn't you answer that?" A hand gliding off his chest but quickly seized in its excursion.
"Not today." With that response she gave herself to him again. Their silhouettes debossed into the curtains by the falling sun.