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Darkness. Swallowing your body and clinging onto your arms like burrs. You walk at a leisurely pace, meticulously placing one foot in front of the other, savoring the feel of the tempid air clinging to your neck. Ignoring the way tall buildings loom over your body as if they were preparing to strike.
"You're out later than usual."
Your breath catches in your throat. Slow, deliberate footsteps grow louder as they approach you. Rhythmic in their beat. Clipping the night skies, slowly trailing off as the lingering echoes melt into the stars. Ringing in the silence as the sound resonates off the brick walls surrounding you. Louder than the erratic heart shaking your bones, willing to be let free.
You glance over your shoulder, watching the outline of a figure emerge within the shadows on the other side of the narrow street. Your eyes shine against the stark surface of your dark volto mask. "I didn't realize that you would've noticed."
Green eyes glowed with amusement. "Then you underestimate me."
You turn your head away and slow to a stop. Narrowing your eyes at the moon. The craters could be seen miles away in your spot, glowing with an ethereal, luminous radiance against the slick ink of the dark skies. Outshining the billions of stars that stayed transfixed in their place.
"You know," Your tone is dull, yet casual, "you shouldn't be out here."
"And why not?" The words are light and teasing, but the slight hesitation in his response speaks volumes. He pulls his cloak tighter around himself and sneaks a glance. "Sick of seeing me?"
You blink slowly. Running a hand through messy blond curls, turning your head ever so slightly to look at the boy behind the crisp white mask.
"Of course not." A sly, humorless smile forms on hidden lips as the words puddle on the ground. "But it seems that your parents are."
The air switched. A tension grows in the atmosphere; you could feel the deafening silence weighing down on your shoulders, closing in on you both, choking you with it's lanky fingers. The boy barely seems surprised; his green eyes gave nothing away. But his shoulders grow taut, and he starts to walk again.
"Always so forward, aren't we?"
"Life's too short to beat around the bush." Blue eyes flicker back to the empty, deserted street. Moonlight illuminates every crack, every crevice, every bump on the rocky blacktop, highlighting the path in front of you. Almost urging you to take it, even. With initial hesitation, you start walking again, maintaining your distance within the anonymity of dark silhouettes.
"It's nothing new, you know." The boy speaks with such feigned nonchalance, for his voice is thick as he looks up. He's holding back, like always, you think. "Nothing new."
The town remained lost in their dreams, plunged in a world guarded by stars. The only sound perturbing the gentle night was the soft hum of blades of grass being swayed by the autumn breeze, followed by the violent whistle of a train miles away. You take notice of this, relishing in the solitude that whispered across your skin as you imagine the detritus of a home that resides deep within emerald eyes.
Your lips part, ever so slightly. "That doesn't make it any better."
There was no response; not immediately. You become increasingly aware of the way silence resides in the night. It's not soft, it's not delicate. It's a demon in the corner that's simply waiting to jump out and devour you.
He glances over at you for a moment. Searching within your blue irises, striving to dive deeper within their depths and find the truth, the intention, behind your words. It's a long while before his gaze softens, and his shoulders slump.
"He snapped again." He speaks with trembling lips, but his words ooze with a sickening casualness that makes you grimace. This isn't normal, you couldn't help but note. This isn't right. "He replaced my old bruises with new ones now. I would feel the imprint of his shoe on my torso with each step, but now I'm just... numb."
Your heart grows heavy with each step as you stare up at the intimidating silhouettes before you. Dark, tall buildings loomed over your small figure, their shadows shrouding you both in a thick sheet of blackness that inches across the pavement. Reaching out to tug you further into their abyss.
"Is that so." Each syllable drops from your tongue with a deliberate slowness. You close your eyes and gnaw at your bottom lip. "And your mother?"
"The same as always." He heaves out a sigh. Removes his gaze from you, and looks back at the road in front of him. "Acting like I don't mean a damn thing."
You inhale sharply. There's a fire that arouses in your chest, fueling a spark of anger that rests in the pit of your stomach and screams to be unleashed. Yet you choose to clench your fists, and bite your tongue. "You don't deserve that, you know."
"So I've been told." It's so painfully obvious, the lie that hangs in the air. You can hear it in his voice; the slight amusement and disbelief that resonates within his words as he humors you.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
He stops for a second. It's so abrupt, so sudden, and you find your breath caught in the thorns of your throat when he turns to look at you with melancholy eyes. "Why should I, when everything and everyone else around me is saying otherwise?"
In one swift motion, you can feel a wave of shock grab at your skin with cold hands. Taking away your voice and uncurling your fingers. But then the frost melts off your lips, and your thoughts bubble to the surface; scampering up your throat, pushing past your teeth and escaping into the night sky before your mind could even comprehend a word going through your head.
"Not everyone."
The sound of crickets that fill his absent response is deafening to your ears, coating the dense silence with it's incessant, pestering noise. How bothersome, you couldn't help but think, your lip curling into a frown. But it's the only sign of life that reigns in your still, unconscious world, whose wandering dreams decorate the dark canvas with blinding stars.
He's struggling to find the words. Struggling to swallow the rock in his throat, as he meets your stare with unsteady eyes. ". . . What?"
You look at the boy who wears the shadows as a heavy veil, hiding within the darkness that conceals his identity. His bruises. His scars. A brief, breathy laugh escapes your lips like a puff of air and you avert your gaze.
"Even if the whole world is out to get you, to bring you down and tear you apart, there's always gonna be that one person in your life who's tries their hardest to pull you back onto your path and ends up making life a bit easier to live." A crooked smile grows behind your mask and you turn to face him. "And even you need someone like that as well."
He's silent for a long while, looking down at his worn down trainers. You could practically see the conflict that brews a storm within grassy fields. But his tone remains light in the midst of the heavy thoughts that surround him, mild and frivolous in it's nature. "And who would that be?"
You shrug with complete passiveness, fighting back a small grin. "Well, that's all up to you."
He stands there, blank stare and all, staring at you with a dumbfounded feeling swelling in his heart. He sees something in your gaze, and something clicks in his mind, you can tell; a sudden realization that captures his attention and freezes his body. But there's a moment when you can see those dark clouds begin to lift from his eyes, revealing a startling shade of green that you had seldom seen in the past, gleaming with defiance. And the only thing you could focus on was the way they looked exceptionally bright the moment his silvery, weightless laugh pierces the darkness.
"Then we can't go without a proper introduction, can we?" You could practically see the smile that splotches his cheeks. He's the one to step out of the shadows first, before you follow suit and mimic his actions. You tilt your head slightly in observance. Dark, disheveled locks flow from his scalp like strokes of ink, given an ethereal glow by the radiance of the moon. His eyes seem captivated by your blonde curls; flitting across your figure, registering you, the stranger, who had always kept himself hidden.
Green eyes soften. Slender fingers grasp onto the smooth surface of his white mask. And off it goes, revealing a face that drains the air out of your lungs.
It's a funny feeling in your chest, you learn. Simply looking at someone for the first time, savoring the slight differences in their features that make them so different, so unique. Just knowing that there are so many different faces that lay beneath millions of masks. Faces you'll never see. But then you become increasingly aware of the exhilaration that you breathe out, and the vitality that surges through your veins.
The beating of a wild heart blares in your ears; you can feel a warmth invade your cheeks, creeping down your neck as your eyes meticulously, slowly, roam his hypnotizing features. Anchoring onto the slope of his cheeks, the sharpness of his jaw, the curve of his pink smiling lips. And then, you look back up at those damned green eyes, rich and bright like the leaves that captured the glorious light of summer in their veins.
"I'm Yuuichirou."
You smile. Taste the name on your tongue, and decide that you like the way it lingers in the air.
"Then hello, Yuuichirou." Blue eyes brighten and you cross the street, pulling at your mask until the strings came undone, revealing a smile that could chase away his darkness.
"My name is Mikaela."