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It was a beautiful evening in late April, and the five-thirty sun shone high in the countryside sky.
It was a particularly hot evening for the current month, but luckily that unusual heat was a little relieved by a light breeze, which gently caressed the ears of corn on the right side of the rather rough path of stones.
On the left side, instead, there was an orchard, from which came the cheerful chirps of the birds and the sound of the leaves that brushed each other, thanks to the gentle breeze.
There were abandoned telephone poles flanking the left side of the path, and their wires had fallen to the ground many years before, possibly due to a thunderstorm. No one had dared to disobey the will of nature, and fix them, so they had stayed there and had been forgotten.
At the foot of those tall posts, plants had grown, including wild roses and red poppies, which hid crickets that sang a beautiful serenade.
Certainly a poetic and calm scenario, I would say.
There was peace.
Or so until two bikes swiftly entered the path.
Some stones were thrown away, crushed by the wheels, and the noise was certainly annoying, but the cyclists did not care about the disharmonious sound they produced, they were too busy avoiding the potholes, and trying to get to the end of the road before the other.
The two ran side by side for a while, then crossed, then one cut the road to the other, and took the lead.
His legs were maybe stronger, and he was better at juggling a bicycle, and his was probably faster.
Modified by his own fire.
Although the other had tried to catch up, the one ahead had continued to prevent him from overcoming him, even causing him to end up in a hole, which slowed him down a lot.
So, the one who had the lead all the time eventually won, with a pretty big detachment from the other.
Once he got to the end of the path, he braked, raising dust and stones, and turned to his friend, who, by now, had given up on winning, and had really stopped trying.
"I won!"
Shouted the first one. He was red-haired, with a domineering smile and a defiant look.
"You cheated, idiot."
The other said, he had dark blue hair that came just above his shoulders, and he was approaching the other, panting with fatigue.
He smacked the friend behind the head once he was close enough, but the other did nothing but laugh and push his friend lightly.
"You’re just slow Meis, and ya can't lose!"
"Oh shut up Gueira, or I won’t come with you anymore."
Meis surpassed Gueira, and took the road on their left.
Immediately, the red-haired boy jumped, and followed his friend awkwardly.
"N-NO WAIT-"
He joined him, and looked at him, worried.
"I don't want to go alone."
Meis smiled in amusement, but didn't look back at him. He kept his eyes on the road that came.
"I’m kidding, dumbass. You know I would never leave you alone in this situation. "
Gueira sighed in relief, and he too shift his look on the road before him, while he murmured a “thank you” which was not clear at all to Meis' ears.
"What did you say?"
"...I said thank you."
Gueira blushed, and ran a hand on his forehead, under his hair, to wipe away the sweat of the race and of the situation.
He was not used to thanking people, not with others at least, and often forgot he could do it without shame with his best friend.
"It has been two weeks and I still haven’t thanked ya."
"It doesn't matter, Gueira, it's fine.
We are friends, unfortunately. "
Meis bent the corner of his mouth slightly into a smile, and looked at his friend only out of the corner of his eye, half covered by his hair, slightly moved by the wind.
Gueira thought that his friend was charming even after the effort of the race, and that he did not seem sweaty, unlike Gueira.
He had his hair literally stuck to his forehead, and he felt the drops of sweat running down his face.
Despite being Burnish, and it was said that Burnish couldn't sweat, he was dripping.
They had assumed... Meis had assumed, it was because he had recently become Burnish, and he still had something non-burnish.
"Yeah, and you’re very funny."
Gueira replied to his friend's affront, and he was unable to hold an amused smile.
They remained silent for a moment, then Meis spoke.
"Are you feeling better now that you've vented?"
He asked, without letting too many emotions filter through his voice, because he actually didn't know how Gueira could feel about it.
"Of course. Why you ask? You know I do feel better-"
The other replied, making his amused tone physical, zigzagging with the bike.
Meis moved away slightly, fearing that the other could hit him.
"It's just that...it seemed like you were holding back."
Usually Gueira went crazy when it came to burning, he didn't even try to hold back, because holding back made him feel imprisoned.
"Well, I was. The place was small, this time, and you were close; I didn't want to burn you alive. So forgive me if I thought of you, too!"
But apparently he didn't care that his friend was worried for him, and he simply replied with an amused smile.
"Mh ..."
Meis mumbled, lowering his eyes to the road just ahead of the wheel of his bike, letting his thoughts flow.
Honestly, he still had to realize everything that had happened in the past two weeks.
He still had to get used to the new routine.
It was strange to know that now that crazy idiot could have been a danger for someone.
“Burnish” was certainly not synonymous of tranquility.
His transformation had happened two weeks earlier.
Gueira had had a big fight with his parents, parents who had treated him all his life as if he had been a mistake, a burden.
They had started shouting at him because he was never at home, because he was always hanging out with that strange friend of his.
They had insulted him, telling him he was stupid, even by calling out his terrible school performance, his habits, his ways of doing things: long thing short, they had tried every way to belittle their son.
And Gueira, who had never stood his parents, had heard the words that were the drop that made the vase overflow.
All the rage he had carried inside for years exploded...literally exploded.
Gueira had become a Burnish at the age of fifteen, at the beginning of eight grade.
His house burned to ashes, and his parents with it.
He was not suspect as Burnish, because the fire had started from the kitchen, where he had tried to calm down.
The guilt was given to a not-so turned off stove, and the case was closed there, they had other Burnish fires to think about, much more obvious.
Gueira did not cried for his parents' death, the only big trouble was that he hadn’t have relatives to go to.
So, Meis' family, who cared about the poor boy, decided to take him under their roof, and there was nothing that could have made the red-haired boy happier.
Meis was smart, maybe too much, and understood perfectly well that something was wrong with Gueira.
And so Gueira told the truth.
He was afraid that things would have changed between them, and he wouldn't had blame his best friend if he was scared of him.
But it didn’t happen.
Meis wasn’t scared of Gueira, at all.
He actually helped him a lot.
He was a shoulder to cry on, to who the red-haired boy told everything he felt.
Unluckily or luckily for him, he had one of the strongest flames among Burnish, and the need to burn things was uncontainable, and could not be held for more than a few hours.
So, Meis often took him to the countryside, where there were abandoned houses and places far from the city, where Gueira could let himself go.
It had been this way for two weeks, and it was going very well.
Living together was fun, and outings were pleasant for Meis too.
Getting away from the city was unexpectedly beautiful.
"It would be cool if you too became Burnish."
Gueira said, without warning, without even paying attention to it, as he had turned his attention away from the road, just to shift it to the cornfield next to the road.
Who knows how long he thought about that statement, and who knows what reasoning he had come up with.
"I don't think so, Gueira."
After a moment the taller replied, moving his eyes to the opposite side.
"We could burn stuff together. It would be- like- sick."
It was not new for Gueira to spit everything he thought as if nothing was, but he did not realize that he had only been lucky so far, and he had not understood that the other Burnish were definitely doing worse.
"I really don’t care for it."
Reiterated Meis, now somewhat displeased with those words, certainly not offensive, but disrespectful.
"I'm not cut out for being Burnish."
"I know ya, mate, and you would start to enjoy it in no time!"
Gueira turned suddenly, with a defiant and almost perfidious smile that cut his face in half.
Indeed, Meis was easy to excite. Even a small thing was enough, a normal thing for many, which he would see as the best day of his life.
This was because his strict family had always kept him in check.
Gueira thought that if his friend had become Burnish, surely he would have had the opportunity to melt that cold heart ... literally.
"Oh please!"
Huffed the taller one, getting dangerously close to the other, just to give him a push, not too strong, which made him stagger a little, not enough to lose control of his vehicle.
"I'm just sayin'!"
Gueira laughed, and the two continued their way home closer than before, talking about everything and nothing, as usual.
The heavy roar of their engines echoed throughout the canyon, even dropping a few small boulders from the top of the cliff, not used to those deafening vibrations.
But the two armored drivers didn't care to make that terrible noise, they were too busy speeding through the canyon, and trying to outdo each other, for making it out of those tight walls of rocks before the other.
The two ran side by side for a while, then crossed, then one cut the road to the other, and took the lead.
His motorbike was faster, and more suitable for strange stunts, than the opponent's quad, certainly less agile.
So, although the apparently bigger one had continued to try to overcome the other all the time, the one who had the lead al the time actually won that race, finishing first at the end of the cliff.
"You cheated, asshole!"
The second, who hadn’t accepted even for a moment the defeat, crossed the finish line less than one second after the other.
His armor dissolved, revealing a grown Gueira, quite upset by the defeat.
The one on the motorbike laughed, and got rid of the armor as well, showing the face of the same Meis who, a few years earlier, had in any way denied wanting to become a Burnish, that day, two weeks after Gueira's transformation into Burnish.
His hair was now halfway down his back, and some of the dark blue locks had fallen on his shoulders.
He elegantly brought them back to their place.
Then smiled, and looked up at the sky.
He had a certain feeling of déjà vu.
"You know what, Gueira?"
He asked suddenly, turning his sapphire colored eyes to his friend.
The head of this one was supported by crossed arms, resting on the handlebar.
He raised an eyebrow at the call.
"What?"
He asked, annoyed, having not yet forgiven Meis for his cheating, but curious at the same time.
Meis smiled, and took a moment to answer, narrowing his eyes and looking at his hands.
"I do enjoy it."