Shield

23.- Midnight.

The last semester blurred together in mind-numbing exams and overwhelming expectations, of bodies tied together and forcefully kept apart. Dreams when seen from afar seem brighter.
Hot damp inner shirts sticking mercilessly to a tight muscle, torsos dripping with sweat and blood, asphyxiating waves of over barring temperatures, asphyxiated wearers with tailored suits and red bottom high heels.
Shun kept close but Park was kept closed. A new chauffeur, a new right-hand man, a new "friend" for Nel.
Shun found himself pushed to the side on foreign jobs and urgent secrets, seeing lees and lees of his shared wife his heart began to fester, consumed by jealousy and paranoia.
"You busy?" the voice on the other side of the midnight call asked Charlotte "Sorry about the hour," Shun's voice was raspy and distant. He sounded like he was coming down with a cold
"It's fine!" Charlotte answered suppressing a yawn, she was still awake anyway "I haven't gone to bed yet,"
There was a silence between them, and Charlotte did not know how to fill it.
"Ceecee?" Shun asked and she told him she was there. Another silence "I heard you got into T Uni, congrats,".
Charlotte smiled to herself "Thanks son," she said even though his congratulatory words did not have much emotion "You, ok?" Charlotte asked "Where have you been' I haven't seen you at school lately. You bailing on us?"
There was a faint humorless laugh on the other side of the line "Just following orders" Shun croaked and proceeded to sigh loudly. Charlotte could just imagine his giant figure slowly deflating as he exhaled. Becoming small enough to pass through the phone line and sit on her desk in front of her. She would pet his minuscule head with the tip of her finger and comfort him, placing one pinky on each shoulder.
"what are you thinking?" Charlotte inquired.
"How long it would take me to eat my own leg" Shun answered, and just like that they were playing the question game.
"What does your big toe taste like?" she wondered out loud.
"Like pork with green curry," he said.
"You should get that checked. Have you decided what you will be when you grow up?" Charlotte asked resting back on her chair and closing her eyes, the chair creaked softly under her weight.
"I am already tall, so maybe a gardener," Shin responded obediently.
"That's a good plan, you won't need a ladder to shape the trees. Are you afraid of spiders?" Charlotte continued, feeling each answer lighter and lighter.
"Not as long as they don't play wind instruments," Shun said.
"Wind instruments? Why?" Charlotte did not see this one coming.
"Think about it, they are spiders! They should stick to the string section" he said his punchline with such an intense determination that Charlotte laughed out loud straight into the phone,
"I am hanging up now!" Charlotte exhaled wildly "Lose my number." Her scolding attempts were pitiful.
"You disown me way too easily" Shun sulked "...Thanks Ceecee." And without another word, he hung up.
Charlotte stopped laughing and with a sigh began to wonder about the lost pup.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I think maybe it's instinct or like a sixth sense" Nel explained trying to keep a straight face and feeling silly "and what does it feel like, this sixth sense?" Charlotte watched her intently, not a single cell of her body unfocused "it's always there, like... boiling..." Nel admitted looking at her hands as she opened and closed them slowly "like a boiling pot, it burns sometimes, I feel like. Vomiting, that's the only thing I can compare it to, all the time like puking. There's like this ball in my stomach".
Charlotte nodded staring at her "and what do you think it means? Like what is it?"
Nel smiled brightly, the soft rosiness of her cheeks danced to the twinkle of her lively eyes "rage" she said simply.
And Charlotte nodded again. Her friend had an innate ability to take horror and turn it in to strength, people saw her under different lights, masked in different ways. Like the victim, like the culprit, a waste of space, an usurper.
Her magic ability was to see herself as nothing, as none of those, play every part and none, bounce back in a split second feeling in her mind like a winner even if she broke every single bone of her body in the process. The purest self-destructive stubbornness.
By being undefined she could redefine herself at will, in a second, in each turn of her serpiently way.
"you aren't turning green on me, are you?" Charlotte joked humorlessly and Nel shook her head, still smiling wide, all white teeth and red lips and lovely girl "let's get some ice cream. " she answered and tangling her hand in Charlotte's they did just that. A sweet cold treat to pacify the beast in the pit of hell inside her stomach.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Morning felt like a clock ticking frantically down, the last grains of sand slipping through the fingers of students as hour glasses, counting down to the end of their prolonged youth and the begging of the farse that is adulthood.
Preparations for graduation were well on their way and all the paperwork had been sent out in advance.
Nel sat on the roof of the classroom building, her legs dangling free over the edge, head laid back with her face to the sky, eyes closed, inhaling in deep and slow, the impending end.
Park stood back indifferently contemplating the scene in silence.
The morning sun felt good on her skin and she could blissfully enjoy herself being swallowed by the silence of this pure morning.
Nel's phone vibrated in her deep pocket and lazily she dug it out. A text message from an unknown number, read "hey there" proceeded by a picture taken from afar behind a column of books. A tall almost man's body curved over a young lady, kissing passionately.
Nel examined the picture for a moment, zooming in and out on her screen, her heartbeat contained but loud in her own ears, her breathing steady but shallow, lightheaded. A knot in her stomach, a knot of rage, a knot of disappointment. Her pupils dilated. "Park," she called out to her companion, "time to go."
It was the 12 message of this fashion she had received in the month, all containing similar pictures in varying locations of the school with different girls.
As they vacated the rooftop Park tried to initiate a conversation. His intent crashed and burned without a single response. His boss moved forward like a swift wind, light and fast, not quite walking not quite running through brightly lit hallways and green gardens.
They passed an empty library at the end of a semester of fleeting footsteps and graduating youths moving on to take their place in the "world", embrace their past-on legacies. Inside was a fresh corner of artificially cooled air, perfumed with expectation, aging paper and vases with elegant, perfumed flowers on each side of a long windowsill under high ceilings and phantom voices of graduated pasts.
"Yo!" Park called out, his voice resonating loudly, echoing in the silent chamber.
Nel turned sharply on her heel, a cold smile on her face that did not touch her eyes. "Park," she snarled softly, "lower your voice in the library."
Park nodded, lowering his gaze apologetically as Nel turned again. "Good morning," she intoned. The three people standing in front of her froze. They had seemed to be struggling silently.
Charlotte hastily tugged on Shun's uniform, the fabric of his button up shirt pulled every which way, untucked. His jacket was cast aside on the ground forgotten. His hair fell messily in his face, his hands running though it frantically trying to push it out of his eyes, smooth it back. The three people stared at Nel in silence. A petit girl from first year Nel had seen around Shun lately hid behind his big body, her uniform and hair in a similar state of chaos.
Charlotte was pale, looking almost sick. Her wide eyes darted back and forth between Park and Nel. The tension thick over them. It felt like snow ready to collapse a straw roof. The air almost creaked with their suffering.
Nel presented her hand to Charlotte, with a constricted smile. Charlotte doubted in taking it for a moment, mystified, not sure what she was expecting so she reached out to take it. Nel softly tugged her forward, locking their hands together. Without a word she walked away, pulling Charlotte behind her. Park following close, looking at Shun over his shoulder with a miserable expression. His every step was loud and heavy, and it felt to him like he was walking under water. Charlotte also looked over her shoulder at Shun, becoming smaller with every step forward. Being left behind.
Exiting the building, Charlotte's warm hand felt rigid in Nel's gentle embrace. Park looked ahead; lips sealed. A blinding sun shone in their eyes; a sparkling kaleidoscope of futuristic colors too bright to make out.