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The August breeze drifts past carrying the sweetness of the orchard surrounding you. Everything tastes of summer--the air, the water, your lips, your dreams. All is stained with the promise of warmth and a season that felt like it would last forever. Or at least you had tried to cling onto that feeling despite the yawning reality of fall ever-present in your mind; a dark spot on the horizon, a bruise on the peach clutched in your hands. The end of these long days in the sun-soaked orchard alongside your best friend and the return of responsibility. School, work--lives outside of each other.
You inhale deeply, swallowing the hopes that rode on the breeze, and turned towards Minghao. Watching as he flips through his book--propped up on his elbow on a blanket in the grass. His brows are knitted in concentration despite the laziness of the day and the sight brings a soft smile to your face.
“Minghao?” you call out to him, watching him swallow a sigh before reluctantly tearing his gaze away from the pages of his book. He raises an eyebrow in question and you venture forth, “what are you reading?”
The sigh finally escapes him as he lifts the cover towards your line of sight so you can read the title: Things You Can Only See When You Slow Down. You suppress a laugh and plop down on the blanket next to him, forcing him to adjust his posture slightly to accommodate you on top of the gingham blanket. “What’s it about?”
“Mindfulness,” he answers, tucking his head back into the pages.
You wait for him to elaborate but it becomes evident that he is not going to after he flips to the next page. Releasing your own sigh, you lay back against the blanket and stare up at the sky.
The endless baby blue canopy hangs over you, speckled with fluffy white clouds and the occasional bird flying idly past, and you lay thinking of the future. Mindfulness. He talks about it a lot, especially over the summer. Something about the warmer weather made everyone want to slow down in some way or another--take stock of their life, bathe in the sun and the river--but Minghao took it on as an almost spiritual experience. Everything became a meditative act--reading, breathing, talking. He expanded and contracted to fill himself with the beauty of nature and of his surroundings.
How ironic that in all of this mindfulness, all of this meditation, his consciousness never expanded enough to fully take you in. He slowed down, but he never saw.
Maybe we all had blind spots, after all. No matter how hard we tried to look.
You brought the peach up to your lips, inhaling the scent deeply before taking a bite. It was as juicy as you had hoped when you plucked it from the branches of the tree next to you. It stained your lips, your mouth, your tongue, with the flavour of summer. The sweetness of the fruit becomes even more potent in contrast with the bitterness of your thoughts.
“Minghao?” you call to him again after swallowing, this time he doesn’t look up from his pages--just hums a low acknowledgement as his eyes continue to scan the words scrawled out before him. “What do you think of the future?”
The question was evidently not what he had been expecting from you and you watch as he places the book down on the blanket and fixes you with an inquisitive stare. “In what sense?” he asks.
You falter slightly under his gaze, his deep brown eyes--so familiar and yet still so foreign to you--bore into your own and you swallow the lump of peach and nerves in your throat, “I don’t know,” you stutter, “just in general, I suppose. What do you hope for in the future?”
He pauses for a moment, considering the question. You can almost see the possibilities swimming behind his eyes but you had become accustomed over the years to wait patiently for his thoughts to collect themselves before he spoke. He tucks a bookmark between the pages of his book before sitting up completely and glancing down at you--his head blocking most of the sun that had previously been shining down into your eyes. He hovers over you, haloed in yellow and gold. “Lots of things,” he responds slowly, carefully. “I hope for success in all of my ventures, I hope to expand upon my knowledge and never stop learning, I hope for love.”
The last word sparks a flutter in your chest and you nod, shifting your eyes back to the clouds floating above him to avoid his gaze. “I thought mindfulness was about living in the moment, not the future,” you tease him, burying your nerves with a forced laugh.
He smiles down at you and you suddenly feel exposed despite the layers of fabric clothing your body. “It is,” he laughs, “but the future is still a reality and it’s prudent to consider it as well. It’s also almost impossible to not have hopes for it regardless of how mindful you might be.”
“Right.” you nod, bringing the peach back up to your lips and taking another bite to escape the feeling of vulnerability you’ve been thrust into. Minghao shifts once more next to you, laying back and fixing his gaze on the sky above.
You wonder if you’re watching the same cloud as it floats past--a white rabbit tinged gold with the light of the sun.
“Do you think you’ll miss these days?” he asks suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the nature of the future is that things in the present must end. Everything comes to an end eventually. Summer days turn into summer nights that turn into fall and then winter and even when summer returns, it’s never the same. Will you miss it, do you think?”
“Yes,” you reply quickly--perhaps too quickly, because it startles another small laugh out of him. Despite the slight tinge of embarrassment at your eager answer, you laugh with him.
“Me too,” he nods.
The air suddenly feels too close, the breeze too warm as it wraps itself around you. You are suddenly aware of just how isolated you both are out in this copse of peach trees in the middle of the orchard. Secluded together. You’re keenly aware of the curve of his cheek, the softness of his profile as you glance at him next to you. The heat of his hand as it lays alongside yours on the blanket you brought from the trunk of your car feels at once too close and yet not close enough. The sweetness of peaches in the air permeates your skin.
“What will you miss?” you ask on a breath, your voice quiet like a prayer as it leaves you.
He pauses once more, lifting himself back up onto his elbow and leaning towards you once more--those brown eyes that you have never been able to understand or escape locking you in place underneath him. “The slowness of the days,” he starts and you feel your entire body tense in anticipation. Maybe he did see, “the sweetness of the peaches.”
“You can get peaches in stores,” you respond numbly and the corner of his mouth turns up in a smile.
“They’re never the same as they are fresh off the tree,” he reaches over and takes the half-eaten peach from your hand, bringing it to his lips to take a bite and you fear whatever was transpiring in that brief moment might be over before he leans down towards you and captures your lips in his own.
You think this might be what Minghao means by mindfulness as he kisses you. Your lips are sweet with the juice of his, mingling with your own, and you are consumed by the taste, the scent, of him. Minghao and peaches will always be one and the same in your mind. They coalesce together in this moment as it narrows to a point and you feel your mind and body expand to accommodate this new universe inside of you. You feel everywhere and nowhere, everyone and nothing--all at once.
Time slows down and you see.