As we endeavoured on our long journey to the markets, mainly because Emily had forgot to return the apron that her friend lended her yesterday, the scalding heat made us question if it was really still spring.
The dry air didn't help either, making it feel like we were walking in a literal oven. We had it better than other people, however, as we didn't give the heat the groans it wanted, distracted by the silence that we both love so much. In short, there was practically no room for suffering, as long as there was silence with Emily. But that wasn't much shorter, was it.
Hmm? Is it really that hot? I'm starting to see mirages… I don't even feel that bad though.
To be honest, that was only my hopes, as I looked at the annoyingly manipulative girl that stood out from the croud like a sore thumb with her worrying amount acne, walking hand in hand with who I would think is her mother.
My heart dropped when I realised that she had noticed me, and let go of her mothers hand in order to make a beeline straight towards us, with a big smile on her face. That was the smile that a trader wore when they found treasures sold for much less than they were worth.
"What's with the eye rolling?" She asked with an unchanged smile as she slowly came to a halt onfront of us, with her mother slowly following suit.
"I don't know." I shrugged her off. I was aware it didn't make sense, but I didn't care.
"Do you know her, Adam?" Emily asked.
"Vaguely." I replied.
After getting my answer, she turned to look at the young girl that was fiddled with imperfections despite her young age. She could only guess what life she could have lived in order to enter puberty so early.
Vanessa was also looking at Emily, the eye contact making it seem like Emily expected an answer from Vanessa too.
"H-He saved me. From b-being bullied." She said bashfully, fiddling with her hair as she switched her gaze from the ground to the brown haired boy repeatedly.
"Oh yeah?" Emily narrowed her eyes at the child who clearly had a strong crush towards her son, and a grin grew on her face. She was shot down by five Apache Helicopters however, as her son gave his input.
"You bastard, don't manipulate my mom." I threatened.
"Pfft." Vanessa mocked, and any sign of bashfulness completely vanished from her face, replaced by a smile bigger than the one she came with. I want to say it looked genuine… but it was probably not.
"Hello, I'm her mother, Leah." Vanessa's mother introduced herself after having finally reached them. She wasn't met by an answer though, as Emily looked blankly at the pair of children that were staring eachother off, one with a smile and one without.
"…Was that an act?" She replied after a few seconds, with another question.
"Yup," Vanessa's mother tapped her shoulder lightly, and a helpless smile appeared on her face. "I also don't know how my daughter came to be so good at acting, sometimes she even manipulates me into buying her things." She sighed, also looking at the two children, now finally having a conversation. Not the best one it seemed, but it was better than them staring eachother off.
"Hey, can I have the ding that you took from me yesterday? Don't think I didn't notice." I reminded Vanessa. I'm not normally this petty, but this girls personality made it so I wanted to be.
"Sure, hold out your hand." Vanessa replied, as she pulled her hair behind her ears.
I did so, and Vanessa then began forcefully gagging herself as she hovered her head above my outstretched hands, earning a shudder from me.
"Ew! Why are you trying to vomit?!?" I pulled back my hand as if it were under a guillotine.
"Hm? How else do you expect me to get it out?" She replied nonchalantly, to my endless confusion.
"Did you eat the gold coin??? What's wrong with you?!?" I screamed.
"No, idiot, I spent it! On food!" She shouted back, confused at the shocking amount of time it took for the boy to understand the joke/statement.
"Tell me before you make a joke like that!" I shot back, which earned a hearty laugh from Vanessa, it went on for long enough that it earned a smile from me too.
"How did it take you so long to get that? Have you ever even socialised?" She asked, wiping some snot from her nose.
"I have 50 years worth over you." I didn't lie. But she was right in a sense, I've been such a bookworm these past years that I haven't even made any friends yet, so my rust should be evident.
"Poor soul, do you not have any friends? I can be your first one if you want." She mocked.
"I don't need any." I replied, not realising I had just admitted that I had none.
"Haha, you actually don't! Do you really want me to be your first one?" She asked, reddening my ears.
"No, you're just looking for connections! Also, your personality is really annoying." I got her back.
"Oh, okay." She said dryly, before turning around to walk towards her mother who was just chatting happily with her new friend.
I looked at the sky and sighed, the heat was really evident now. All the screaming and shouting got to me. I have no idea why I was so energetic when I was talking to her, and now I regret giving her the entertainment that I did.
A loud sound shot me back into reality, as I began hearing a girl crying. "Waaaaah Mama!! Adam said he doesn't wanna be friends with me!! Waaaah!!" Vanessa cried at her moms legs.
Leah turned her head towards Emily's, and gave her a hopeful smile, as if asking her to talk to her son.
Emily started walking toward me, and looked into my despairing eyes with loving ones.
"Come on, Adam. Do it for my sake, her mothers a very nice person. I've always thought that you should start making friends your age." She said, resting her hand on her chest. I didn't expect her to go against my happiness like this, that must mean that she really thought i should make friends my age.
"But mama, she's just acting again!! You saw her earlier, right?!" I argued, wanting her to know that there were better people than her out there.
"Come on, don't be silly Adam. Are you telling me she can cry on command then?"
"Yes!" I retorted, which surprised Emily. She looked back at her new friend to see what she thought of my answer, and found her scratching her cheeks akwardly.
"But, I still think it would be good for them to be friends, Emily. My daughter doesn't have any friends you see, and I think she has a lot of fun when she talks to your son." Leah reasoned, which to my fury, made Emily turn back towards me with the same hopeful eyes that Leah had earlier.
"For me, Adam. Please." She pleaded. I can't believe she got away with that.
"…Fine." After looking into Emily's eyes for a few seconds, I nodded my head. I originally planned on saying yes to her, but it still ended up leaving me feeling bitter.
"Yaaaay! Thank you, Miss!" She gave an innocent beam to Emily, making Emily smile at her back. She suddenly seemed to decide to run towards me for a hug, to which I pushed her away.
|
As we walked back home, me and Emily kept exchanging glances.
Why only glances, you ask? Because the annoying Blacksmith family was still following us, with Vanessa talking to me, and Leah talking to her. We both wanted our sweet silence back, but Leah was talking to Emily with so much attention that our hearts weren't strong enough to push them away. Vanessa was also talking to me with a lot of attention, but no one cares about her.
"Are you gonna go to the academy, Adam?" Vanessa asked.
Ah yes, the academy. I've heard about it a lot these past few years, because apparently there's this super cool guy that suddenly started winning all the tournaments, and won the heart of the princess, too. Haah, there's so many main characters in this world, it's making me not feel special.
"I don't know, I'll see what Emily wants to do, even though I probably don't need it anyway. Are you going?" I asked her back.
"I'm too poor to go. Also, I don't even have an affinity for anything, so I wouldn't be able to perform if I went there." She sighed.
"No affinity? Oh yeah, that's what purple eyes signified, I forgot. Well, sucks to be you. Must of been jealous when I showed you my optic powers earlier." I mocked, but I did feel a little bad to be honest.
I'm not sure if I've said this yet, but peoples eye colour actually say what element they can control. For example, Emily has an affinity for fire, so she has orange eyes, while I have an affinity for earth, as much as I still hate it, giving me brown eyes. But there was one eye colour that didn't signify any affinity, and that was purple.
And because there was an affinity that held absolutely zero benefit to people, people naturally tried to snuff it out of existence. Not by killing people that had it, of course. They made it a law that people with purple eyes could never marry people that also had purple eyes, as it was the general consensus, that a stronger affinity would take over the genes of a baby, making people believe that someone with no affinity for anything would obviously have less of an affinity than someone with earth affinity for example. But for some reason, not only did this theory prove to be incorrect, it also proved to be the exact opposite of the truth, as the 'No affinity' seemed to beat any affinity when it came to choosing the babies genes, which confused everyone. And so they revoked the law.
For this reason, the lore behind the purple eyes was shrouded in mystery, as no one knew how it worked. Few people thought that it was an affinity that no one knew how to use. But since no one has ever showed it's use, it has been known to be what marks a man or woman that cannot use any optic powers.
Emily, who was listening to us talk, decided to give her inputs.
"Oh, about the academy, Adam. I was actually thinking of talking to you about it." She stated, accidentally letting a smile show on her face after seeing my smile. We finally found an excuse to talk to eachother.
"I don't think I should go, to be honest. After all, I don't think I need it. And also, I won't be able to see you as much, Emily." I said as I moved closer to her to walk beside her, as if telling Vanessa that I intended to talk with Emily from now on.
A disappointing silence followed as Emily had her head turned away from me. I began to get worried that Leah or Vanessa would join the conversation seeing that it had gotten a bit awkward, but thankfully, Emily spoke before that happened.
"Y-Yes, I also agree. G-Going there would just waste your time, wouldn't it." She said, with no evident emotion, even her stuttering felt a bit dry. All of this happened with her head still turned away from me, and I began to question why she was being like this.
"Mama, if you're sad then tell me. Remember yesterday? If you want me to be natural with you, you have to be natural with me." I made her recall what happened the day before when I told her that I liked to comfort her.
After a few seconds of calming herself, she spoke out her feelings. "I really do agree with you, and I also wouldn't want our time together to decrease, it's just… for some reason, sending you to a school seems so attractive to me. The thought of you coming back from school everyday and telling me about your day with a big smile on your face, and seeing you win tournaments and competitions and feeling proud to be your mom, it's things like that… that just seem so attractive to me." She realised she had let out too much of her thoughts, and quickly said something in order to make her son not feel too guilty about refusing. "B-But, I know I'm just being selfish, and I know I'll probably regret it if I don't see you for so long, so…" She wanted to finish her sentence with a 'nevermind', but it just didn't come out, no matter how hard she tried.
She turned to look at the boy that had been the target of her speech, and found him looking at her so lovingly that it made her heart skip a beat.
"Yup, you changed my mind. Going to school really does sound attractive." I agreed, which made Emily show me the purest, sweetest smile that I've ever seen in both lifetimes, as she replied with a brisk yet ecstatic:
"Mhm!".
The two Blacksmith girls met eyes for a few seconds after seeing the weirdest mother-son conversation ever, and simply shrugged, and kept on their journey without mentioning it after waiting for the lovebirds to change the subject.