Lonely Shade of Blue

ONE: As much a beginning

~ Really trying to pump out long chapters to make up for the wait. Hope you like it! Enjoy!

Thank you to my avocado for the beautiful cover art 💙💙

On with the story.

__________________________________________

ONE

'As much a beginning'

The sun was beating down and scalding as it sat loftily in the sky. It was a glorious Saturday afternoon, the clock indicated that it was barely three, and the skies were clear. The heat was more than unbearable, but the gait in Ariel's steps failed to cease, and even the exhilaration he felt wouldn't be simply abated by the scorching heat of the sun.

Beneath the perfect sky, pun intended, he thought to himself, laughing at how cheesy that was.

The dimple on his cheek deepened as he grinned, surveying the men who were lifting his things and moving them inside the house he only just rented. It was shaping up to be a good day, he could only hope that it would get better.

"Teka, dahan dahan dyan," he instructed, running over to assist one of the men who was carrying his things inside (there weren't a lot, he didn't need or plan on bringing so many things with him after all). "Paki-ingatan nalang," he added, sighing in relief that he was able to rush there quickly before his turntable turned into fragments of what it is supposed to be.

"Opo sir, pasensya na," the man said apologetically. Ariel just nodded and smiled, sending him off again.

It had been a long and harrowing road, but he has finally come to this, and he was determined to get a good outcome from it. He had gone through the eye of the needle, through hoops and hurdles and he wanted to make sure it was all worth it.

He had a lot of setbacks and it took him a while to get here. But this was a start, an actual beginning. He was, at the very least, one step closer than he was a day before.

When his meeting with Gabriel Santos did not pan out well, he'd had to devise another plan and find another way to uncover the mystery that is this author. Gabriel was right when he said that the author probably didn't want to be found, he considered that of course, but Ariel wasn't going to just give up. She (and yes, Ariel found out that she is a she) has done a laudable job of hiding, and it had seemed like a preemptive strike to hide behind a pseudonym (all the more difficult for him to find her).

After what seemed to be an insurmountable amount of time (and inconceivable amounts of pleading too), one of the execs at Vibal had agreed to look into the record to find the mysterious author. He'd been given a name, Amelia Villanueva, and Ariel had to ponder a tad bit how a simple name could have made his life seem so ridiculously complicated.

Not that it matters anymore, since Ariel had already hit the jackpot when he'd found out the name. It would be remiss to say that it had been easy from there, but it was at least a lot less difficult when she had been a nameless, faceless individual (she still remained faceless even now, but the name would suffice). If the book wasn't a tangible proof, Ariel would have never believed of this woman's existence. She seemed to either (a) not exist, or (b) disappeared from the face of the planet.