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“Do you want to go pick berries with me?”
Fern was lying face-down on their hammock with one hand under their head as a pillow and the other limply falling off the side. Arcade was sitting on the floor beside them, his back leaning against one of the rock columns to which the prince’s bed was tied, and he was close enough to feel Fern’s hand graze the air right next to the side of his head: a small, constant whoosh prompted by the delicate swing of the hammock. He was so immersed in reading the book on his lap, his head so relaxed and in battery-save mode, that he scrambled to process Fern’s words fast enough.
Picking berries with him.
Picking berries with him?
One part of Arcade’s brain (the very logical one that seemed to be in charge while he studied), immediately thought that it was unnecessary for them to go out to look for food. He had brought Fern snacks just the day before. Most of them were neatly organized atop some sort of ledge at the side of their cave, except for the bag of mini-cookies Fern was currently finishing, and he had made sure to stock his friend with enough food to last at least three days if they were really hungry. There was no need to forage for anything, and they both knew it.
“Why?” he ended up responding, mainly because that part of his mind was way faster at reacting and it had considered that things would get awkward if he didn’t answer soon enough.
However, he spoke in a tone that was a little too distant and distracted to sound normal, and that indifference was even weirder. So, after half a heartbeat, Fern took their arm up into the hammock to use it as leverage and pushed themselves closer to the edge of it, moving just enough to peek at Arcade from above. The sudden sharp swing of the hammock made Arcade look up, and he locked eyes with Fern just in time to see them tilt their head slightly, confused at his unusual response.
And it was then when the rest of Arcade’s brain kicked in; everything in him that couldn’t find enough excuses to spend time with Fern; everything in him that had made sure to take the prince to his dorm almost every day of that week; everything in him that told them he was an idiot for not agreeing to Fern’s proposal right away. Of course, Arcade cursed at that logical part of him for taking over, blaming his distracted answer on the fact that he’d been too busy with that book about colonialism, and reprimanded himself for not noticing the most important part of Fern’s question.
That they wanted to pick berries… with him.
So, before the fairy had time to overthink Arcade’s disinterested tone, he forced his mind to quickly add something that didn’t make him sound like he didn’t want to go with Fern. Because he wanted to. He really, really wanted to spend as much time as possible with the person that he really, really liked. “I-I mean, I don’t mind! But, uhm… don’t you have some snacks you can eat instead?”
Phew. Perfect save.
Kind of.
Fern didn’t even blink at his words, shrugging with the confidence of someone who’s been expecting a question and has a rehearsed answer for it. “Foraging is still a habit of mine, I guess,” they said, keeping their eyes focused somewhere on the fabric of the hammock. Their tone wasn’t giving anything away, but Arcade didn’t miss the fluttering of their wings, soft enough to not even make a sound. And then, with an honesty that caught him completely off guard, Fern added: “Besides, I feel like walking with you today.”
With you.
With him.
With Arcade.
Statements like those were becoming more and more frequent on Fern’s part, and they always sounded as if they just... wanted to spend more time with him. At first, and considering that Arcade had a huge crush on the fairy prince, he thought that it was merely wishful thinking on his part, so he didn’t pay much attention to it. However, that eagerness from Fern had done nothing but increase during the past few days, slowly but surely getting more obvious since Arcade started to sneak them into his dorm. It was similar to the excitement that Fern displayed every time they hung out together, but more… purposeful, maybe. Like they were actively trying to seek opportunities to be with him.
Arcade had the feeling that Fern simply liked it when someone’s attention was on them, and that the reason why they were more insistent on being with him was that he just happened to be there. But he was deliberately ignoring such an idea, focusing on the fact that Fern seemed to like hanging out with him. On the fact that, the more time they spent together, the more Arcade noticed the subtle ways in which Fern showed, maybe... that they wanted to be with him. Like agreeing to visit even when Arcade had a lot of homework to do. Like wanting to snatch his attention from a reading or an essay to make him watch a cat video with them, or a documentary with them, or just… to have him sit next to them.
Fern would even directly ask him, more and more often, if he wanted to join them in whatever thing was there to do, and that alone was something Arcade would’ve never expected from the image of the proud, aloof prince that Fern displayed just a few weeks ago. It was so detached from the imposing distance they had with Arcade back when they first met that he felt a rush of happiness go all the way through his body every time. It was enough to keep him from thinking too much about the whole thing and just... take as much of Fern as they were willing to offer.
“Sure, sounds fun!” Arcade responded, unable to hide the excitement coating his voice. Fern’s eyes finally met his, their ears perking up at the answer like the words were covered in chocolate, and their wings started to flutter fast enough to make a delicate sound similar to a hummingbird. Their reaction made Arcade smile endearingly, the butterflies in his chest flying almost at the same speed.
He closed his book, as well as the notebook he’d been taking notes on, before putting them both inside his backpack. He’d been doing research for a history essay he had to present in a few days, but soon after putting the book aside, the information he was reading started to blur and fade from his mind, giving way to Fern’s entire presence instead. That seemed to have become a constant now: Arcade pushing homework to the back of his mind whenever Fern wanted to do something with him.
He had the feeling that, sooner or later, his decision management regarding his grades was going to come back to bite his ass, especially considering that exams were just around the corner. But he hadn’t necessarily gotten into trouble yet, so he didn’t think it was an urgent concern. After all, he’d been doing just fine up to now, juggling school with Fern quality time with researching curse-breaking techniques, so slacking a little bit wouldn’t hurt as much. He could worry about his academic life later, when he’d finished picking berries with his prince.
Besides, it was hard to think about his essay right there and then when Fern was with him right there and then.
Arcade stood up and brushed the cave dirt from his pants. Fern got off the hammock eagerly, almost jumping off as if he couldn’t wait to get moving, and the almost empty bag of mini-chips made a sound of protest when Fern abandoned there. The prince started approaching their cloak, located right next to their organized food stock, but before they could get close enough to take it, they stopped in their tracks, hesitantly staring at it. They took their hands up to the hood of Arcade’s jacket around their chest, their fingers grazing the fabric before gripping it with a strangely protective attitude. And then... Arcade saw the exact moment when Fern decided against taking the hoodie off, instead resuming their walking far beyond their cloak and leaving it behind.
Of course, Arcade knew that Fern’s decision to wear his clothes didn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, Fern’s cloak had the smell of the cave stuck to it, and he had the feeling that it wasn’t as nice to wear after so many months there in the forest. But he still didn’t fight the content smile that appeared on his face at the view. Seeing Fern with his jacket on made Arcade feel like a part of him was with the prince as often as he wished he could be himself. It was like a permanent hug around Fern’s body; one that kept them warm at night, and that was comfortable enough for Fern to keep close. It was a nice thought that Arcade didn’t want to chase away.
“Okay,” Fern muttered, reaching towards the black tote bag in which Arcade had packed the snacks he brought the day before. “I’d normally put the berries in the pockets of my cloak, but seeing that we have this, we can use it instead.” And then, as if he needed to justify his choice even more, he turned to Arcade, holding the handles of the bag with both hands and opening it to show the space it had. “It’s bigger and easier to carry, anyway.”
“Yeah, looks good. I bet we can fit all the berries of the forest in there,” Arcade agreed, enthusiastically. Fern’s expression brightened just slightly at the response, just enough to make their eyes look as if he was smiling, and Arcade felt his heart throwing a celebratory party at the sight of it.
He accepted the bag when Fern offered it to him, and started walking behind them when they made their way out of the cave. The prince seemed to know where he was going (made sense, for he’d had to find food on his own for almost a year) so Arcade simply let himself be guided by his friend’s steps as they walked next to the creek with a decisive, firm stride. After a few minutes, they turned to get deeper into the forest, and as soon as they left behind the path that Arcade was familiar with, he tried to map the way in his head... just in case.
But the trees engulfed them more and more by the second, and it wasn’t long before everything blurred, slowly looking all the same to him. The foliage of the trees and bushes around them became slightly denser, and the roots sprouting from the ground slightly bulkier, and suddenly Arcade wondered if the forest had always been this big. Granted, he had walked through it countless times to get to Fern’s cave and back, but it was always the same familiar path with the same familiar mushrooms all around the same familiar trees. Wherever they were going now was new territory, and it rendered Arcade’s sense of orientation useless.
Still, Fern never hesitated. He didn’t even seem to think about his steps, as if it was just muscle memory now, making his way through the place like there was a neon path showing him where to go. The idea wouldn’t be that strange considering that Arcade himself had gotten to the fairy’s cave for the first time thanks to a trail of glowworms that led the way. However, if that was the case with Fern right then, it had to be something humans couldn’t see, for Arcade could already feel that he was completely lost.
Out of instinct, he started to walk closer to Fern as if to make sure he wasn’t going to be left behind on accident. When he glanced at his friend’s face to check that they weren’t lost either (you know, just in case), he found them scanning the bushes next to their path, seemingly trying to find something among them. Concentration was glistening in Fern’s dark eyes, but his confident step never faltered, and Arcade couldn’t help but think that it was impressive how sure Fern was of himself even in a realm that wasn’t his.
“Do you always go to the same place to pick berries?” he asked, curious, following Fern’s gaze to see if he could figure out what they were trying to find. All he stumbled with was plants full of leaves and flowers, though, and not a single fruit in sight.
“Depends on my mood,” Fern said without turning to look at him, his eyes still focused on the bushes even while he took a random turn between two random trees. “I know of places closer to the cave, and I would go there whenever I didn’t feel like putting effort into anything.” He paused, his eyes sparkling at something in the distance, and Arcade saw the same thing as them barely half a second later. “But whenever I wanted to walk for a while, I would come here.”
Right in front of them, surrounded by tall trees, there were berries. Blackberries, maybe, judging by the small splotches of dark purple that covered the highest branches of some shrubs, and perhaps also some blueberries, their blue color decorating the bushes closer to the ground. Arcade saw some stray pinkish fruits here and there, too, which seemed to be berries that weren’t ripe enough yet.
There weren’t necessarily a lot of them, though. The plants were a little apart from each other, and it was obvious that you had to dig through the leaves a bit to get some of the fruits. There didn’t seem to be many blackberries either. But it still was quite a good harvest, with the fruit shrubs stretching several meters to his left, and Arcade had the feeling that nowhere in the forest would he find so many of them together in the same spot.
“Woah, this place is so cool,” he said, amazement coating his voice, before starting to walk toward the nearest berry bush he could find. It had long, sharp leaves, similar to aloe vera but without spikes on the edges, and its colors were a combination of yellow and light green. He crouched in front of it, staring at the purplish blue fruits that huddled together in racemes kinda like grapes did.
Fern walked off a little to his left, two trees away from him, to get close to a blackberry shrub. “I like to come here. These are the best berries in the forest,” he said with a little bit of pride in his voice. He studied the blackberries in front of him before picking one, plump and of a deep purple color, from a mid-height branch. Then, he looked at it from all angles and popped it into his mouth.
Immediately, a small but contented smile landed on Fern’s face at the wild flavor, and Arcade noticed the red-tinted splotch that the berry left on the right side of the prince’s bottom lip. It decorated the corner of their mouth like a target, like the ‘X’ of a treasure hunt that compelled Arcade to go right there, and he imagined himself standing up, moved by his desire to explore it. He imagined himself brushing off the color of the fruit with his thumb. He imagined his hands cradling Fern’s face as he cleared the splotch off their mouth with his own…
Fern turned to look at him right while Arcade was staring at their bottom lip, and he felt his heart stopping for half a second in his chest. Shit. He turned back towards the plant he’d been inspecting before, so fast that he almost hit himself with its leaves, but he ignored it and fought with all his might to look composed. He hoped that Fern hadn’t had time to catch onto anything that was going on through his brain, or to see the blush that crept all the way up from his neck to his cheeks.
“Y-Yeah, these look really good!” he said, picking one of the blueberries in front of him just as an excuse for having turned around like that. Perfectly normal. If he acted perfectly normal, maybe he would be okay. Maybe he wouldn’t have to explain why his face was getting hotter at that chilly hour of the evening.
But before he could take the fruit to his mouth and eat it, he heard Fern’s voice right next to him, way closer than before. “Don’t take those, though,” he warned with a severe tone slightly underlined with concern. Arcade had to make a conscious effort to not jump at the sudden closeness of the prince. He hadn’t even noticed they were now crouched beside him, staring at the plant. “Those are poisonous.”
“Really?!” Arcade exclaimed, suddenly very much aware of the berry he was holding. Both he and Fern glanced down at it for a second, Fern’s eyes full of some sort of resentment, and Arcade regretting the fact that he’d been about to poison himself like an idiot in front of his crush. “But they look like blueberries to me.”
“Be mindful of the shape,” Fern responded, pointing at it, and the movement caused them to lean a little closer to him, their arm brushing Arcade’s. Their weight was slightly pressed against him as if Fern was trying to keep their balance, but Arcade had the hunch that Fern didn’t need any help keeping their balance. He moved the fruit in his fingers to see it from all angles, busying his mind with analyze it, analyze it, analyze it, instead of Fern is so close to me but I wish they were even closer. “This one looks slightly like an oval. Blueberries are almost perfectly round, and they’re much less purple than these.”
“Right,” Arcade muttered, looking at the berry one last time before turning to face Fern. The fairy was close enough for him to see the freckles scattered all over their cheekbones, some more faded than others, but he forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand and not on how easy it would be to lean down and kiss each freckle, or maybe kiss off the blueberry splotch on their mouth. “How did you know? Like, that these were poisonous. Did you ever…?”
“I ate them once,” Fern interrupted, frowning briefly at the fruit in Arcade’s hands as if it had personally offended their entire family tree. “I noticed that birds liked them, so I decided to have a few of them too. But the taste was really sour, and when I got a stomachache that lasted days, I concluded that they weren’t really... that good for me,” he explained, scrunching up his nose in disgust. “I had to learn with trial and error until I knew what was safe to eat.”
“Woah,” Arcade muttered, staring at Fern with a mix of admiration and wonder. He knew that, most likely, the prince was used to getting that look from Arcade (those eyes filled with amazement at anything that came from the fantastic, almost unbelievable cursed moth prince from a different realm), and maybe that’s why they didn’t acknowledge it any further.
However, because Fern didn’t care to look deeper into Arcade’s expression, they didn’t notice that this time was different. That there was a little bit of sympathy in Arcade’s eyes, too, next to the continuous realization that Fern was amazing even beyond his royal blood and his wings and the magic. Their words had suddenly reminded Arcade that, in a way, they were a survivor. They had persisted in a foreign place, even when it seemed so unbelievably hard, and that was incredible too.
He didn’t think Fern was aware of that strength, even when it was one of the reasons why Arcade loved them, and he had the sudden, overwhelming urge to whisper it to them. To hold Fern close, to remind them that they were amazing, to tell them that they didn’t have to be alone any longer because he was with them now, and he would make sure to always be there. At least, for as long as he could. For as long as Fern allowed him to.
But he had the feeling that the prince would misinterpret it for pity, and he didn’t want to risk making them think that when it was the complete opposite. So, not for the first time in weeks, he had to stop himself from hugging Fern as if his life—both their lives—depended on it. Instead, he stood up, mostly because his legs were starting to cramp from the crouching position, and made a vague gesture to the fruit plants all around them.
“And how did you find this place?” he asked, intrigued. Fern stood up too before walking to the same blackberry shrub they had been picking up from. Arcade followed suit, opening the bag for them when they started to take berries off it again.
“I would follow the creatures to see what they ate,” Fern said, nonchalantly, his eyes focused on the task at hand. He was pulling the fruits off the steam delicately to not destroy them, but rapidly enough to look efficient, and with every berry he took, his fingertips would get more and more red-tinted. “They knew the forest more than me, so I trailed them until they found food, and I saw that many of them liked to come here for the berries. Soon enough, I realized why.”
“You followed animals?” Arcade repeated, part of his brain stuck on that specific part of the story because, I mean, that sounded kinda cool. Fern made an affirmative sound that pretended to be careless, but Arcade could notice the pride underneath it. “Dude, no way! And they didn’t notice you?” he added with a disbelieving tone that sounded both really impressed and quite incredulous. This time, Fern did stop in the middle of their work to look at him, a berry still in one hand while they arched an eyebrow at his words.
“I beg your pardon? I’ll let you know that I got very good at tracking very quickly,” he retorted, his voice so exaggeratedly full of fake offense that it was ridiculous, and Arcade had to stop himself from laughing just to keep up with the charade they were suddenly in. Fern rolled his eyes with feigned contempt, pretending to be insulted by Arcade’s doubtful voice even while offering the berry to him. “And I’ll let you know, stealthiness comes with grace, at which I so excel.”
Arcade took the berry with as much disinterest as he could muster (which wasn’t much, considering he wanted to smile at their bantering the entire time) before eating it slowly. The flavor immediately exploded in his mouth, and it tasted like a mix of sweet and somewhat sour, as if the fruit was just a step away from being perfectly ripe. There were a few earthy notes to it, too, that gave some sort of wilderness to the flavor. “Hmm,” he hummed, but to cover up the fact that the fruit was delicious, he took one hand to his chin and acted pensive instead. “Well, then. Wanna bet?”
“A bet?” Fern replied, taking another berry from the shrub to act casual, but their ears still perked up at the prospect of winning something. It was a playful side of Fern that made the prince smile differently, as if they were already picturing themselves with the victory, and the sight was so beautiful that Arcade wanted to do whatever he could to see it as often as possible.
“Like a game,” he added, feeling the hype of the competition too. He started to craft the rules in his head as he spoke enthusiastically. “Since you say you’re so stealthy, I’ll give you one chocolate for every time you successfully sneak on me, but…”
“Deal.”
Arcade didn’t even have time to finish his own sentence. Fern threw the berry into the air before catching it with his mouth in a very cool move, and then took off somewhere in between two trees, disappearing in an instant. They were gone so fast that it was almost as if he hadn’t been there in the first place, and Arcade didn’t even have time to react. He simply stood there, still holding the bag of berries, his brain feeling a little dazed at the sudden loneliness and silence all around him.
“Fern?” he asked, not really hoping to get an answer. When he got none, he went back into his own speech to pinpoint what had prompted Fern to just…. leave. What had he said again? Sneaking on him, winning… Ah. Right. That was his mistake: he had talked about the prize before setting the rules. He had mentioned that Fern would win chocolate, and that alone was enough to get the fairy in motion without waiting for anything else from Arcade’s part.
Well, shit.
The game had started.
And because Arcade had been the one who proposed it (Fern was too far gone for him to call it off, anyway), he supposed that he was already playing.
He turned around in place to look everywhere, hopelessly checking if he could find Fern before they could sneak on him, but there wasn’t anything anywhere that gave him any clue of where they could be. He tried to ignore the nagging feeling at the back of his head that wasn’t so happy to be left alone in the middle of the forest, and decided to take a few, clueless steps towards a bunch of blueberry shrubs just because he didn’t have any better plan. Maybe he could climb a tree just so it was harder for Fern to…
“Hey,” the prince said, materializing out of thin air at Arcade’s left side. Their voice tinkled like a bell in a way Arcade would’ve found endearing… if he wasn’t too busy trying to pretend he hadn’t just had the scare of his life.
He startled, whipping his head towards them, and almost let out a scream of surprise, but somehow managed to keep it down to a choking (definitely not terrified), intake of air. “Dude!” he gasped, clutching his free hand to his chest. His heart was beating erratically as if someone had electrocuted it, and Arcade couldn’t help but feel a little stupid at the panicked reaction he’d had to such a little thing.
However, Fern simply giggled at Arcade’s slightly frowned face, very pleased with their performance at the beginning of their game, and the sound was enough to ease his frantic pulse. As if his heart wanted to be as silent as possible just so Arcade could hear Fern’s laugh better. “That’s one,” the prince said in response, their tone filled with so much innocence that it sounded not innocent in the slightest. They were still smiling as they walked behind the blackberry shrubs Arcade was close too, vanishing again in the blink of an eye.
‘That’s one point for me’ is what Fern really meant to say.
Of course, Arcade took it as a clear indication that the competition was serious now.
“Oh, the game is on,” Arcade said, excitedly, clutching his fists in front of him as much as he could while still holding the bag. However, his enthusiasm didn’t last more than three seconds because the only thing he heard for an answer was the distant signing of a bird on the top of the trees. That made him realize, fairly quickly, his current situation: he’d thrown himself into some sort of hide-and-seek game in which he was at a complete disadvantage.
Arcade walked away from the shrubs, looking around to weigh his options. There were some bushes particularly close to each other, a few meters to his left, where he could hide. But they seemed to have thorns on their branches, which wasn’t very ideal, and if he hid in there, his own vision field would be hindered. So that was a no-no. There was also a tree with a huge trunk in front of him, and he considered standing with his back to it so Fern couldn’t surprise him from behind. That way, he could cover more angles while making sure Fern wouldn’t get him from a blind spot.
Arcade guessed that sounded as reasonable as it could get.
He started walking towards the tree, trying his best to heighten his senses, to pick up any noise that seemed out of the ordinary. However, there in the forest, every branch breaking or rustling of leaves seemed normal, and he didn’t know what exactly he was looking for. Finally, he got to the tree. It was tall and wider than the distance between his shoulders, so it should make for good enough coverage to increase his chance of success by ten percent. He looked at it, thinking that perhaps he could constantly walk around it just in case Fern decided to…
“Can I choose the type of chocolate I want?” the prince asked, peeking from behind that goddamn tree, and even though Arcade was literally staring at it, he couldn’t help but jump back at the sudden words. He thought briefly that Fern’s smirk would probably be infuriating to someone who wasn’t feeling like his heart wanted to jump out of his chest and move somewhere more peaceful.
Man, how could Fern go around so unnoticeably when they were wearing a blue hoodie in the middle of the forest?
He didn’t know the expression he had on his face right then, but it had to be amusing enough to make Fern full-on chuckle at it this time, loud and unrestrained and genuine, and hard enough to have them shake their shoulders with the laugh. And the sight was… wonderful. More beautiful than the sunset on the horizon. As familiar as a warm hug, and rare enough to make Arcade crave for more. So captivating that his heart decided to stay right where it was just so it could beat at the same rhythm as Fern’s laugh. Of course, Arcade knew that he kept being caught off guard, that he kept losing and looking like a fool, but… he couldn’t care about any of that. He couldn’t find it in himself to do anything else beyond admiring Fern.
The prince having fun was something that Arcade didn’t want to miss.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Arcade sighed, crossing his arms and scoffing with halfhearted annoyance. Fern didn’t say anything, shrugging as their only response, that smile of theirs still making their entire face glow. Then, he stepped back behind the tree, and the only telltale Arcade got that they were ever there was a brief glimpse of their fluttering wings as they went deep into the forest again.
Okay, then. He wasn’t going to give up, so he had to come up with a new tactic.
Maybe, instead of acting defensively and letting Fern find him, Arcade should try to find them instead.
Yeah... sounded doable enough.
Arcade went around the tree behind which his friend had disappeared, starting to half-run in the direction he thought he had seen them go. He should be able to get to them soon enough. I mean, it hadn’t been too long since. Fern shouldn’t be too far, right? And even if, Arcade just needed to pay as much attention as he could to his surroundings so he was able to pick up their presence. Somehow.
It was a solid plan... for the first three minutes of walking, while he still had some hope of finding Fern somewhere along the path. But when everything he kept seeing was the same bushes and trees and mushrooms no matter what turn he took, when the sun started to get too low to give him proper light, when the shrubs started to mutate into shadows and he feared he might need his flashlight soon… then he realized that he had, again, forgotten one crucial thing: the forest was bigger than what he knew. His one-person search party was doomed to fail.
Finally, he decided to stop walking somewhere random in the middle of the trees. He turned around to look at the place he’d come from, but it was to no avail, and all he could do was stare at it longingly. He knew that, even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to figure out the exact path back to the berry place Fern had shown him earlier. It was best to just do as his mom had taught him when he was little: if he was lost—because, yes, he was lost—he had to stay in the place where he was until someone, eventually, found him.
He guessed that meant that his tactic had backfired.
To keep his hands busy, he took one blackberry from the bag he had been carrying, putting it in his mouth. It was a little more sour than the one Fern had given him before, but sweet enough to give him some sort of comfort anyway. He reminded himself that freaking out was a bad idea. That Fern was going to get to him, sooner or later, and just in case they didn’t, Arcade could still use his phone to come back if needed. That, maybe, if night fell on him completely, he could be lucky enough to find that glowworm path towards Fern’s cave. And most importantly, that he wasn’t going to be attacked by a random, unknown animal…
Somewhere in front of him, Arcade heard a rustling of leaves. He almost choked on air at it. The sound was a bit too discordant compared to the rest of the forest sounds, as if something was moving the leaves, or maybe stepping on them, and he had to force every muscle in his body to not run far, far away from it. Instead, in an act of bravery that should be awarded, he turned his head towards the vague direction he thought the sound was coming from, squinting to try and distinguish the silhouettes better. It wasn’t completely dark, but the lighting of the forest was more blue-ish than anything else, and it made it slightly harder to see.
“Fern?” he asked, just to throw a shot, his voice somehow not shaking (but at the edge of breaking). The silence that followed seemed to stretch out for an eternity even though he knew it’d lasted barely half a second. Then, he heard the steps even more distinct, as if their owner wasn’t trying to conceal them anymore, and the fairy’s voice came floating at him from exactly the direction he was facing.
“How did you end up all the way over here?” they said, approaching him. Arcade had to blink a couple of times to convince himself that it wasn’t an illusion. Soon enough, Fern got close enough for Arcade to notice that the hood of their jacket was sprinkled with forest foliage, and that the corners of the prince’s mouth were tinted even more with red, and some new blue hues, as if they’d been eating berries for a while now. Arcade briefly wondered how they had time to find and pick more. “I looked away from you for a second, and suddenly you weren’t there. I had to track you down.”
Arcade stared at them, silent, as he realized quickly that he couldn’t answer Fern’s question. Doing so directly would mean having to admit that he’d gotten lost while trying to beat them at a game that Arcade couldn’t win, and he knew that. But he also knew that he didn’t have to say that when there was a nicer truth he could choose: he had won this one. He had, somehow, been susceptible enough to recognize a different pattern in the sound of the leaves, even if just for a second. He didn’t even care if it was just a stroke of luck; it gave him an excuse to avoid looking like a fool, and better: it gave him a point.
“Aha!” he said instead, victorious, gesturing vaguely at Fern’s entire frame and avoiding the question like a professional. He couldn’t help but feel a little proud, just a little proud, at the small triumph he had managed to snatch for himself. He smiled, crossing his arms in exaggerated cockiness. “I noticed you, so you can’t sneak on me this round. That’s one!”
Fern blinked at him once, twice, before opening his mouth as if to say something, but he closed it so fast that it was barely noticeable. He looked like he couldn’t really believe what he was hearing, like he was pondering hard on what his next move should be, and Arcade’s chest inflated even more in pride of himself. But soon enough, Fern’s face closed, his expression not giving anything away, and whatever analysis he was performing in his head, if any, was gone so fast that Arcade wasn’t sure he had read that right. He didn’t let that bring his victory down, though.
“Hm,” the prince mumbled, their tone ambiguous enough to sound like they were agreeing with him; like a very aloof, non-committed way of saying that Arcade was right, and that they had lost that round. However, before Arcade could retort or celebrate or even form an answer, Fern walked even closer to him, their stride firm and purposeful, and pointed somewhere at his right side. “Hey, have you already seen that flower over there?”
“Flower?” Arcade repeated, slightly confused at the sudden change of topic but still curious enough to turn his head towards the general direction Fern had signaled. He tilted his head, trying to focus his eyes so he could spot… anything at all, there in the distance, even with the environment’s dim light making it so much harder. “I don’t know, I think it’s a little too dark for me to…”
Mwah.
Arcade’s words got stuck in his throat. He immediately whipped his head back to look at Fern, speechless, the moment he felt the corner of his mouth tingling as a telltale that something warm and soft had been there just a second before. His mind was frantically trying to put together whatever had occurred in the past heartbeat; something that made sense, something that he could understand. However, his pulse was just as confused and erratic as the rest of his body, which made it incredibly hard to form any coherent thoughts.
Besides, Fern was not helping his cause, staring at him so innocently that it made Arcade feel like he had lost his mind. As if the sun-like touch on his face had been nothing but a product of his imagination. As if the way his cheeks were rapidly blushing was a common side-effect of nightfall in every single realm, fairy or human. As if that red, blue-ish tint in Fern’s lips looked suddenly smeared because Arcade was being fooled by a trick of the light, and definitely not because they had just… because Fern had just…
Had Fern just…?
Arcade could feel his brain suddenly going full speed, but it was still not fast enough to completely tell him what the hell had just happened, or how on earth he was supposed to react, or what the fuck it all mean for him. What it could mean for Fern. A thousand traces of ideas were going through his mind, not even one able to get any ground, yet all of them somehow converging in one single agreement that seemed to make the floor move, keep the earth moving, give sense to everything in the universe and destroy every meaning all at once. And Arcade could feel his heart complaining, telling him that it should not be subjected to so many emotions in so little time.
Fern had just…
“I’d say that counts as sneaking on you,” the prince said, smiling as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, their expression so dazzling that Arcade thought that maybe he had died and seen heaven unravel in front of him. He couldn’t do anything more than blink in Fern’s direction, his cheeks and neck so hot he was sure his mom would rule it off as a fever. And then, just when he thought he couldn’t look any more stupid, Fern winked at him. He winked at him in a way that Arcade’s mushy brain couldn’t interpret, and he almost got a headache from trying to understand it. “I hope you are keeping track.”
If Arcade wasn’t dead before, he sure as hell had to be now. His chest felt like it had caught fire, the flames growing out of control and drowning the rest of his body, every single thought in his head melting until the only thing that survived was Fern’s name. And then, as if the prince just came and went with the breeze, Fern turned around and walked away, letting his figure blend and blur with the dark silhouettes of the trees until there wasn’t anything else for Arcade to see. Still, he kept his eyes fixated there, in the nothingness that was once the fairy moth prince he was in love with.
The fairy moth prince that had kissed the corner of his mouth.
He took one of his hands towards his lips, his fingers grazing the place that hadn’t stopped tingling for what felt like forever, the air of the forest suddenly too heavy to breathe. He didn’t need to check his fingertips to know that, now, they were just as red-and-blue tinted as Fern’s mouth had been before they left him there.
What the fuck was Arcade supposed to do now?