Realistic or Modern 𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 [ic]

[triples]

鏡宇

jingyu

uniform

outside science lab

"Maybe I'm just like you."

Daiya's statement hung in the air like a line off a play; what devices were used, he wondered. Dramatic irony? He laughed, a short, light sound that laid somewhere to the right of a scoff.

Maybe she was just like him.

Maybe she sat, surrounded by conversation and color and life, and drifted away into an emptier world in her own head. Maybe she stared at the passing traffic sometimes and felt incomprehensibly lost, because everyone was going somewhere and she had nowhere to be. Maybe there was nothing more she wanted than to feel something without the company of concern and a crowd of thoughts.

Who was he to say that she didn't? The picture of her, hair in the wind, standing against the backdrop of an aqua sky, made that less impossible to imagine.

Maybe even people who are loved could feel alone.

"That's..."

he let the word weigh down on his tongue. Interesting? Funny? Hard to believe? All of the above, and none at once?

"A thought,"

he settled.

His finger tapped against the window frame, restless. This was the longest time he'd spent with someone else in ages, and while their relative isolation meant that his eyes got some rest, he didn't know if he should be allowed to feel this... calm. With Daiya, especially, and her odd curiosity about — he assumed — people.

"Mr Chen's late,"

he noted. He barely remembered that the teacher was the reason they were here at all.

"Do you think he forgot?"

 

[Uxie]

黛雅

daiya

uniform

science lab

She stared, waiting with curiosity— earnestness for a reaction. And if she had expected anything from him, it wasn't a laugh; A short, airy one that felt as heavy as the boxes they had just carried up, that held a note of exasperation she couldn't be sure she was just imagining. She felt her expression slip for the tiniest of moments, an imperceptible droop that was corrected before her gaze left his face, dropping to her lap.

He didn't believe her.

Well, who would? she reasoned, It sounds like a joke. At his expense, too, if he was truly as much an outcast as he made himself out to be.

She felt the ache settle, or perhaps she had simply grown used to it, as she always did. It didn't matter.

"That's..."

Daiya glanced up again, this time watching him impassively as he seemed to consider his words.

"A thought."

Yes, he seemed to have a lot of those. She supposed she did, too.

She said nothing in response, willing to allow silence to fall over them again as her gaze returned to her lap; Perhaps she would wait a few more moments before she excused herself.

"Mr. Chen's late. Do you think he forgot?"

Her eyes widened, and it was after a moment's pause that she let out an absurd laugh. She had forgotten, and she was surprised he remembered her flimsy excuse. Was he that desperate to leave?

"Maybe."

She hopped off the table, feet landing lightly onto the concrete floor of the classroom.

"We should just go, then."

Once more, Daiya stared at him, an unreadable expression on her face. A beat passed, then two, before she spoke up again.

"Jingyu,"

she called, voice soft but clear,

"Let's be friends,"

A clear demand, loosely tempered with the addition of an

"...Okay?"

 

[triples]

鏡宇

jingyu

uniform

science lab

"Jingyu, let's be friends."

He considered that it might be just another joke. Daiya seemed to have an odd sense of humor. His gaze, caught on the fragmented hallway through the half-open windows, flicked toward her and met a clear pair of eyes. An odd sense of humor, he realized, that didn't include this.

He looked awkwardly away. A dozen responses hovered on his tongue and fizzled out like soda bubbles. Us? Such a foreign word. Why? But she wouldn't answer if he asked. She would give another of those cryptic answers, and it would only add more passengers to his overcrowded train of thought.

"Okay?"

Was it okay? Her stare on him felt determined, like she'd already decided that it was. It must be nice to be so decisive, even if her resolution was doomed not to last. Jingyu thought of the black hole in her heart and that flash of gray; he was the worst person for her to befriend.

He waited for Daiya to take her first step. To head for the door, let the moment go. But time in the room seemed to be frozen save for his fidgeting hands, held still by the force of her stubbornness, awaiting his answer. One, maybe two long seconds danced by with the breeze.

"Okay,"

he obliged — and what else could he say? she wouldn't walk away — watching as her figure perked up and promptly approached him like a spirit finally invited in. That smile again, and a demand disguised as a request:

"Give me your number, then."

He blinked at her, distracted by an odd beat of his heart. Was that a twist or a flutter? He wouldn't know; he couldn't see his own colors. Hers glittered a half-shade shy of satisfaction as she offered her phone to him, dial pad open.

"...Okay."

 

[triples]

23.04.2021

III.

I used to think that if I stared at myself hard enough in the mirror, I would see the colors bloom. In this one way, I suppose I hoped to be like everyone else. I suppose I hated the sight of the single dull figure walking past the shop windows, painting a clearer picture still of how I was an outsider.

Or maybe I wanted proof. People claim 'I love you' without a hint, even a flutter of color. Scream 'I hate you' when there is only anger and not a drop of hatred. When I look in their eyes, I almost believe that they mean what they said. I'm sure they believe it, too. Maybe I feared I was the same, maybe I needed to be certain I felt what I felt.

I don't know. I can't know. I know myself least of all.

"I'm happy that you like me." "I'm thankful to have met you." "I'm glad that you're here, and I want you to stay." — things I can't bear to say, so I let them walk away.

。。。

镜宇

 

[triples]

鏡宇

jingyu

uniform

classroom

Jingyu would be the first to admit that he was dull. Blank stares, bare replies, terrible communication skills were his defining traits, and no one lasts long before the boredom sets in, attempts at conversation promptly abandoned. It was just a matter of time until that evening in the science lab turned into a vague memory, odd, insignificant and left behind.

Or so he thought. Yet here he had to admit another thing: that he had thought too little of Han Daiya.

And here he sat, narrowed eyes occupied with a dim screen rather than its usual wandering, about two seconds after the buzz of a notification shook him out of his daydream. Her profile picture blinked back at him from its circled frame at the top of his chats list, accompanied by the red (1) of an unread message.

What're you up to?

A casual question. So casual it was puzzling, but Jingyu was getting used to it.

Studying

, he lied, gaze flickering to the sheet lying sadly on his desk, once-white surface littered with halfhearted scribbles, as he added,

maths.

Three grey dots bobbed up — they appeared almost immediately, and he imagined she, too, was sitting alone and idle a hall away — and her response arrived before he even had the chance to put his phone away.

Oh.

The word read in a scathing tone, somehow.

You study?

His finger froze in a hover above the screen, as he battled between the vague sense that he should be insulted and the reality that he had no right to be. His silent struggle lasted only a moment, before he began to confess,

N-

"Jingyu?"

He flinched at the abrupt intrusion, and his classmate’s colours flickered, surprised by his surprise.

“Are you done?”

The girl questioned,

“I’m collecting for Mrs Liu.”

“Oh.”

Awkwardly, he shifted his arms off the paper, allowing her to take it away. Sorry, thank you, he said in his head as he silently watched her slip it onto the front of her pile of worksheets. His slight improvement in socialising, it seemed, was localised to Daiya.

“You should be more careful with texting in class,”

the girl — Wenwen, everyone called her, though he'd forgotten if that was really her name — unexpectedly continued,

“you know how Mrs Liu likes to confiscate things.”

He didn’t know, actually. He noted it down nonetheless.

“Yeah,”

he finally managed just as she made to move on,

“thanks.”

If she replied, or if she flashed with surprise again, he wouldn’t have noticed. His phone buzzed on his lap, as if demanding attention.

Anyway, wanna meet after school?

He stared at the message, impassive save for the fingers drumming against the side of the device. Teeth chewed on the inside of his cheek in contemplation, though even he didn’t really know what of in particular.

Meet? Today? Suddenly? Why? To do what? Do I have to? So many unknowns that dashed across his mind, but eventually he responded;

Where?

 

[Uxie]

黛雅

daiya

uniform

girls' bathroom

Today, surely, she felt like the camel's back. Admittedly, it hadn't been a bad day. It hadn't been a bad day. But when, amidst the lazy, irritable bustle of classes, her shoelaces had come loose for the fifth time that day— And they never undid themselves fully, because that might preserve some sense of sanity, only wriggled themselves out of their knot until they cried for her attention in that trivial, glaring discomfort they brought— Daiya decided she couldn't take it anymore.

And so, here she sat, hunched in the cubicle and legs pulled up onto the toilet seat. Her gaze was fixed intently on the screen between her fingers, and staring back at her was an open conversation. Decorated with a name she'd come to mutter often, accompanied with a photo she'd click on every once in a while, even if that default little blob never changed.

Perhaps she had messaged out of habit. She couldn't tell you which.

The phone buzzed in her hand and she felt her lips curve into the smallest smile. If there were two things that she had learnt about He Jingyu, it was that he was a fast replier;

Where?

And a pretty curt one. A man of few words, but what a surprising few words they often were!

Her head cocked to the side. She hadn't thought that far yet— She'd tossed it out on a whim, wholly expecting a flimsy excuse in response. Something like

I have to go do my homework for 7 hours,

or whatever it was Jingyu did in his free time.

Then again, what did he like to do?

"Photography?"

she murmured, the image of their first meeting flashing in her mind's eye. Surely, that wasn't the only thing, was it? It would be hypocritical of her to be amused.

Her gaze flitted back to her phone, fingers poised over the keyboard. A moment's pause, before she began to type.

I don't know.

Why don't you pick a place?

 

[triples]

鏡宇

jingyu

uniform

near entrace

Her words echoed in his head for the rest of the day, like a tricky exam question you just couldn't answer. When he was staring at the clock waiting for class to wrap up, when he was packing his bags and, now, as he walked blankly down the stairs towards the school gates.

Why don't you pick a place?

Where did Daiya go for fun? Shopping, like the group of girls she hung out with? The library, like a hardworking student? And where did he go for fun? That was an even harder question. Jingyu was a roamer. He rarely ever had a destination in mind other than home or class.

Maybe if he just didn't answer, she would come up with it herself, or just forget about it. She probably wasn't expecting much, anyway. He glanced down again at the screen, fingers doing an awkward dance between the keyboard and the "back" button.

The park?

The moment it sent, Jingyu wanted to take it back. The park? For what? A walk? He stuffed the phone away into his pocket. She was going to reject it, or she might have already forgotten & left; his eyes still ran across the sea of colors buzzing around the lockers, regardless.

 

[Uxie]

黛雅

daiya

uniform

convenience store

She stared at the screen, watched that little bubble of grey dots disappear and plunged their conversation into silence. She swiped incessantly at it, once, twice, as if that might bring him back — at three minutes, she finally slid her legs off the toilet seat and stumbled out of the girls' bathroom. Stood in the empty corridor, she stared once more at the unlit screen, let out a quiet sigh, then she stalked to the lonely stairway that led to the rooftop.

For the next hour, her head would turn at every buzz of her phone, lulling back to face the sky every single time it wasn't a new notification from He Jingyu, dismay and disappointment settling until she decided she could stand it no more.

Thus, at exactly 1.18pm, Han Daiya climbed over the school fence and broke free;

And at exactly 3.32pm, she was still no further than three hundred metres from school. Her phone sat lonely and silent in front of her, propped up against the window of the convenience store she'd sought refuge in and inviting straying glances every few moments as if it might coax a notification to appear. If he didn't reply by the time she finished her cup of instant ramen, she'd leave. Find something else to do. Maybe even go home.

She snorted at the thought.

A flash stole her gaze instantly, and she read over the message in disbelief.

The park?

Took him hours to think that up, probably, and the park was still all he could manage. Despite it all, she found her lips curving into the smallest smile. What did people do, in the park, anyways? She hadn't been since she was 12. Maybe he'd take more pictures.

Her gaze flicked down to the almost-empty plastic cup in front of her — populated by just the loose strands people often tossed away — and then back to her phone screen. She let herself watch the clock tick to 3.35pm. 3 minutes to 3 hours felt like a petty comparison, but she hoped it was enough to give him pause.

I'm at the convenience store. Still eating.

She pressed send and hesitated, finger hovering thoughtfully over the keyboard. And then,

Come pick me up.

 

[triples]

鏡宇

jingyu

uniform

convenience store

His eyes narrowed as he peered into the convenience store from a distance. Yet another reminder that he really did need glasses; Jingyu dismissed the thought when he finally found the familiar figure along the booth.

His feet stayed stuck to their spot as he glanced around, searching for nothing in particular. Maybe someone to help him figure out what to say. He turned back to where Daiya was sat — a bad idea, their eyes met. He snapped his eyes away in a panic, though it was useless now, letting them land awkwardly onto the cup noodles in front of her.

What was he doing? He didn't know, even as he carried himself through the glass doors and to the seat beside hers. Plopping his bag down on the counter, he slipped into the seat, all without sparing her a glance.

"You left school early?"

He asked, quietly as if there were people around to hear, and as casually as he could manage. His glance flickered towards her, and then her empty bowl, dull tone gaining a tinge of surprise,

"Skipped class?"

 

[Uxie]

黛雅

daiya

uniform

convenience store

"No,"

she drawled, chopsticks bumping listlessly against the edges of the plastic cup, searching for ramen strands that were no longer there,

"Just ran out really fast."

She turned her head to glance at him, watched the way incredulity flashed across his features. Then she turned away again, clarifying resignedly,

"I didn't feel like staying."

Her eyes followed a couple of students walking by, faces that looked as familiar as they were strange. There was something about the convenience store window that seemed to turn her invisible; an eerie, poignant revelation.

Her gaze fluttered back to Jingyu, passing over his face to land instead on his bag — it looked a bit worn, an old, battered keychain hung from the front pocket, of a character she didn't recognise. She wondered if she should put a keychain on her bag, too.

"What are we gonna do at the park?"

she asked, lightly.