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It was dark.
Not the type of dark you can still see when you're alone in your bedroom. Or the type of dark that had you trembling with paranoia in a haunted house attraction near your house. No, it wasn't those darks.
It was a happy dark.
Probably because this time, he believedーno, he knowsーthat there will be light soon.
He sat alone at whatever-this-floor-isーit's just darkness in any directionーand smiled a bit to himself.
In that past life, he was a miserable farmer burdened by work without pay. Then here comes Ceruleanー
He giggled at himself, following a quite harsh slap to his own head. Damn, he did look more like a shitty teenager than Cerulean said he was.
But then, amidst his weird moment of studying how weird he acted last time, a bright light came cutting through the untouchable darkness and as it came and swallowed the darkness through its feathers, euphoria filled his veins once again.
"Hello, Mr. Chartreuse."
"I still hate the name my first mother gave me," he grumbled under his breath. He shook his head, returning the ethereal creature's smirk.
His smirk did lessen the angel's own.
"How's third life?"
He rolled his eyes, not moving from his sitting position as the darkness was being sucked into the angel's pure white feathers. What amazes him even in his third time seeing is that the feathers never change colors no matter how deep the darkness was. In seconds, he was surrounded by white.
Not pure white. Not happy white. Not the white his darling bride had came in with through those church doors.
It was just white. Like mental-ward white that will turn you even crazier.
He wonders why he thought of a mental ward.
Oh rightーhe snapped his fingersーhe was once crazy. Second life, if he's correct.
"I'm getting tired of your face. I," the angel sighed, "and the entirety of the heavens and hells hate the both of your guts. Now just go on."
He was yanked off of his place on the floor with the angel's glowing hand. "This time, you will actually serve your sentence to God."
He frowned slightly, but it turned into a grin. He will see Cerulean again.
④
It was a weird afternoon. The sky near the horizon turns more orange and reddish as seconds had gone by.
He wonders if he'll die by sunlight, or by moonlight.
"Die! Die! Die!" the people had chanted.
He can only see a few figures through this sheer dark fabric, but his eyes were set at the sunset by his right. Also at his only star, on his right side too.
Too bad Cerulean, his dear Cerulean, can see nothing through the dark fabric also wrapped around his eyes.
The chantings were so repetitive that it almost became a normal sound to their ears. Like a background noise they don't care about.
That's when the heavy steps rang through the wooden platform, sending quite a shock to him. But he grinned anyways.
"These two men," the executionerーalso the damned mastermind of this stormーexclaimed, silencing the crowd's chants for a moment, "had went against the law of the Allmighty! Men is for women and women are for men!"
The crowds expressed their agreements, which did nothing to him but hurt his eardrums. Better kill him already than torturing him with such.
In a quick movement, their blindfolds fell to the floor as the knot untied behind their heads.
The first thing he looked at was the sunset, not the noose right in front of his face.
"The sunset sure is beautiful without the black fabric."
He smiled. "Yes."
He was pushed forward slightly, putting his head through the loop. With a last look at his love, who was staring back at him with bright blue eyes still visible and admirable even with a sunset in the background, he smiled.
"It seemed I shall die earlier by sun."
He never missed the small teardrop seconds before he can never feel the stool right under his feet.
⑤
If Chart had learned something today, it was that his Math teacher dressed exactly like the doll his sister had.
Damn, he would learn nothing if a teacher dresses like a stripper.
Well, not exactly a stripper; it was just a shorter-than-normal pencil skirt and a tight button down. Now that he thought of it, a tease is a better word.
(Un)Thankfully the bell rang before he can lust more over a teacher. He pretended to hate it, but he was relieved.
Think of girls, Chart. Think. Of. Girls.
He chanted that to himself all the way to the bus stop.
He hated to admit it, mostly to himself, that he might be gay. Just might.
"Hello Chart," someone said, slinging an arm around his shoulder.
"Hello Chris." He replied, already knowing who it is despite not turning to look at the person's face.
It was his bestfriend, a girl named Chris. She was pretty, had long wavy hair and a nice body. She should've been perfect, but she's coming after his sister.
"I can see you looking at Ceru weirdly at French lit." she teased, poking his arm. He furrowed his eyebrows, pretending not to know what-the-fuck-she-was-talking-about but he did, andhewanttostopit.
"So? His hair is just...gelled back. It was unusual today," he replied as casually as he can, adjusting his backpack at his shoulder to, again, feign casualness.
That only made her smile wider. "So you did notice his hair."
Damn it, he failed.
⑥
"I hate bubblegum."
The boy looked at him weirdly. "Really?" The same boy hummed in thought before sighing, "Yeah right, you're Singaporean."
Chart rolled his eyes at the stereotype. First of all, yeah maybe but second, it is racism! This dumb friend of his is Malaysian, but it still counts!
He was given a lollipop instead as they left the candy booth.
"So, you're going to leave for America?" Jisai started.
He hummed in response, gazing at the night citylights of Korea in a distance. "Studying nuclear engineering, yeah."
Jisai, a person of mystery (he was quite oblivious, but he managed to get to a nice school in Korea--), looked at him blankly. Not weirdly, or sadly.
Sometimes, he felt like Jisai is only feigning being an airhead.
"Did Chris know? Cerulean?"
He paused in walking, sucking the flavor out of the lollipop. The pause was not for long, as he continued walking silently.
Jisai placed his attention on the lollipop he himself had, but before they parted ways to their respective dorms, he saw Chart shake his head.
"I don't want to sadden the last days."
⑦....!!!
"You're such an idiot!"
Instead of the welcoming darkness, what met him in this special place was already white. White floors, walls, everything. If there was floors and walls, that is.
"What?"
He was quite proud actually. Each life he had no flying idea of the general truth, but everytime he was in this placeーwhere he can remember everythingーhe felt proud.
"You're going to live a thousand lives if you two kept acting like this."
He knew the angel is also speaking to Cerulean in another reality, and it makes him happy just thinking about it.
"So what? We both like messing with fate."
"You know what? Go on. Hell handles your next life. Heaven will make sure to make it feel like it."
He just shrugged as a brighter light came in, and thus he was born again.
---
"Why must you leave?"
"Why must you cry?"
"I am in this pages always."
"Never to go, never to die."
She watched helplessly as he went away. As the final pages close, she knewーshe believedーthat her love, her one and only Cerulean, will come back and read her story once again.
She once had a story of her own. Just a story: never changing no matter how the reader wanted to scratch the ink off.
But then someone came and opened the book.
Her book.
It was him, and so she lived once again.
As the book was thrown to the fire set of the invading foreigners, she breathed in.
All books had endings anyways.
⑧
The clouds are quite nice.
"Uhm, miss?" Someone tapped his shoulder. "It is raining. Do you need shelter?"
She turned, seeing bright blue eyes of the security guard, holding the overrated black umbrella. She looked back at the sky, black tint of the sunglasses helping her eyes stay dry through the rain.
"Uhm, there is a dry bench right there." The guard said once again.
She stayed like that, laying at the park bench as if it was a bed, staring up at the sky as if lounging in Italy in the siesta hours.
"We have...doughnut."
She hated to do it, but she sat up and went under the guard's umbrella to the shelter of the park's guards.
As she was cuddled upーknees to her chestーin the bundle of towels on her shoulders, she breathed in unaffected by the guard's concerned blue eyes.
"Cerule--who is that?"
The both of them looked up to the two newcomers: two more guards. One is a tough looking man, holding the umbrella for him and the other guard. The other is a smaller woman, looking at them at mere curiousity.
"Well uh..." the guard that found her started. "I found her at the...uhh, this is weird."
"My name's Chart."
The blue-eyed guard smiled awkwardly to his fellow guards. "Yeah, like she said."
The female asked, "Why are you soaking wet?"
"Because it is raining, stupid." The taller guard hit her head slightly. "Hey Cerulean, we brought more doughnuts."
Chart looked up once again at the mention of doughnuts. She caught their names at the tabletops, written for information.
Christian Clement, Romacra Park Guard
Jisagna Janne, Romacra Lost-And-Found Officer
Cerulean Clement, Romacra Park Security Officer
The guard, now she knew as Cerulean, went and grabbed one of the doughnut boxes. "Do you want some uhh...Chart, right?"
She nodded, and nodded again. Yes, she wanted doughnuts.
She was handed a glazed one, with no sprinkles or anything. She did wince at it, but she ate them anyway.
"I had been in the rain for 45 minutes now."
She nodded again, avoiding those blue eyes.
⑨
It was a huge day for any pub in the entire country.
They just won a World Cup Game. It means people are happy. When people are happy, they drink.
And Chart is a waiter at one of the most infamous pubs in the capital city.
He can glance around and see anyone in his group of co-workers that they are the only ones unhappy about the day. Sure, they supported their football team so bad, but it means overtime.
This is all for money, Chart whispered to himself as he made his way through the happy drunks to deliver another order.
Money means food, Chart! Get yourself together!
He went back to deliver another batchーhopefully he got every drink to the right person (they were drunk anyways)ーwhen he saw the cashier sigh in relief as the next shift cashier went and took her job.
"Thank heavens! I think I handed them the wrong receipt..." his friend wiped a sweatdrop across the forehead, coming to help him carry another round of orders.
Ignoring the remark, "No need, Chris. I can handle all this. You can go home." Chart offered a small tired smile.
The female raised a curious brow, but cheekily smiled. "You're so tired you forgot to add a cuss at that last remark." She flicked her brunette ponytail away from her shoulder to her back, inhaling the scent of sweaty drunkards in the main area of the pub.
"Alright, fine, maybe," he gave up. "Make sure Jisai checked the ventilation. It smelled like sweaty Spartans in here."
"Have you known what Spartans smelled like?" Chris retorted. They separated ways to different customers and a few more trays later, he was pretty sure he got drunk just from inhaling the scent of liquor.
Too much liquor.
Just then, the owner of this shitstorm, Jisai, came in looking like a storm himself. "I'm sooooo sorry guys, the traffic was ineffable!"
Seconds before the backdoor closed, beeps and honks of possible drunk drivers breaking the law resounded.
"I can see that."
"Oh and, Chris why are you here? Your shift's over," the slightly-inexperienced boss gasped at the sight of the cashier who worked in that bar longer than he did (after he inherited the bar). "Speaking of which, Chart, your shift's over in 30 minutes."
I shrugged. Either I take this or I take overtime.
Overtime means money.
Money means food.
"Nah, I'll stay." I said as I grabbed the tray with a strange ice light liquor on it. This person must have came in here just to celebrate and not to get drunk.
He went around, searching for that table.
"I'm here--"
He sneakily stopped and turned around. "Sorry, sir."
The man was around his age, wearing a normal superhero tshirt underneath a halfway unzipped gray and red jacket. In all terms, looking quite out of place around the people sporting clothing adorned with their support for the country and the football team, but still pretty normal.
What would stand out was a man dressed like a farmer or a nobleman, and this isn't dressed like one.
"Is...something wrong with me?" the man suddenly asked.
As a waiter, that ultimately registered as drunk talk, but he realized that the man never touched his drink yet and worse, was staring back at him.
He is, in fact, staring.
"Oh sorry, no. It's nothing." He turned and went back to the counter to deliver another drink. He had done so many rounds around the bar until it had closed the day after, but as he went home there is only one lingering feeling in his guts.
They never saw each other again.
⑩
Stupid afternoon sun. Stupid last days. Stupid graduation.
He cursed them to hell.
He hated it. So damn much.
But he knew everything would end. They always do.
It was, alas, the last day of highschool after years of humiliation, laughter, voice cracks, stress and youth. The school was pretty much deserted.
Probably literally.
The students had thrown all sorts of unneeded school work the moment the bell rang. Everywhere you glanced, you can see paper drifting in the wind, like sand moving in a desert. There are certain places where paper can reach all the way to his shin.
What a waste of paper. It was weird since there is a handful of students he knew that will take Environment-related courses to college.
Speaking of which...
...one of them was Cerulean.
He turned, hearing voices. But he wasn't hallucinating. Behind him was two of his friends, Jisai and...her.
He ran, catching up to her. He luckily caught the handle of her backpack, sending her to a stop.
"Jisai, can you excuse us for a moment?"
The brunet nodded, hitting the flustered Cerulean with his elbow. Chart almost sighed, but to both him and Cerulean's confusion, Jisai just stood by the side of the hallway, covering his ears with his face grinning like a maniac.
"Uhh..." They groaned uncomfortably, but they continued walking nonetheless. The exit doors straight ahead looked too daunting, but their pace was slow.
Cerulean covered the lower half of her face with her handkerchief, but the red in her ears doesn't lie. Yet, he took a deep breath and started.
"Hey."
"Hi," she replied.
"Hey uhm..." why can't he speak?! "...I wanna tell you something."
She glanced at him, eyes bright blue against the red and orange lockers behind her. She glanced back down as she saw he was already looking, and her face almost turned into the same shade of red as the red behind her. It kind of looked familiar...
"What is it?"
"I'm leaving for Japan."
She looked at him with wide eyes, and much to his right guesses, he knew that her mouth is open through that black handkerchief.
"Why?"
He looked away before it broke his heart.
"W-well...my mom works there and she thinks it is better if I studied there."
She was silent, but her breathing is steady.
"When will you come back?" I'll miss you.
"I don't know, but I will." I'll miss you too.
Then a loud scream resounded from the far end of the hallway behind them. "Ceru!"
They both turned in sync, seeing the poor Jisai being dragged by Chris by his curly brown hair. "Stop whining or I'll shave your hair off."
"Let's go, Ceru! Let's take this idiot home."
"Am I--Ahh!" the poor senior screamed, which echoed, as Chris pulled on his hair more.
Cerulean gave one last look at him, and lowered the handkerchief.
With a small smile, "Okay, bye."
He wasn't sure what to do about that.