Rooftops At Sunrise

18

The van rumbles to life at four thirty in the morning. The sun will be up in ten minutes, and as Damian jumps awake in his seat—in comparison to Aoi, who slowly rouses out of her lethargic daze—he realizes that he passed out last night before being able to greet Lucas upon his return.

Their chef and driver is at the wheel, as always. It does not seem like he has lacked any rest. There are no bags under his eyes, and he is already stuffing his face with some leftover cake from a bakery they stopped by yesterday, which he had kept inside his portable fridge over the night.

Damian rubs his eyes. "We're leaving already?" he asks; and it is not the question he particularly wants to tell Lucas, but he feels that asking anything else would be strange, now that he has slept over it his ruminations from a few hours back; hey, Lucas, are you an alien?—truly, Damian ponders to himself, what was I thinking?

"If you want to catch the sunrise at the nearest rooftop, we have to go now," Lucas tells him.

From the back of the van, Aoi gives them both a weak thumbs up. She reaches for her pills that have always been good friends to her when it comes to what she calls her dratted beast of a motion-sickness bug. She takes them, then falls back into a gentle slumber.

Damian, on the other hand, finds that he isn't able to relax as easily in such a new and foreign environment. Perhaps, it is because Aoi is used to making unhomely places her home for brief moments; such as hospital rooms. Or, maybe, Damian merely lacks the adventurous streak that has been mostly muted and hidden deep inside the young woman by her condition.

Damian stands. He stretches his arms up to the sky he cannot see—one that is still coated in a thin veil of dead stars that begin to fade as dawn approaches. He takes up the seat next to Lucas, who offers him his last piece of cake.

Damian willingly takes it and thanks him. As they drive across the lands that have been stripped of trees, they make small talk.

Damian never finds the proper opportunity to ask Lucas whether or not he passed out whilst they were chatting a few hours ago. And, by the time they make it to the rooftop, last night's events have entirely slipped Damian's mind, as he helps Aoi climb out of the van, then tries to bargain with the owner of a coffee shop to let them watch the sun rise on his establishment's roof.

Eventually, the owner agrees, after Lucas bribes him with the promises of making a large cake for his clientele, whilst Damian and Aoi will be casually hanging out on his roof.

"Thanks," Aoi tells Lucas, as they both stand in front of his van and she holds out her fist for him to bump.

Lucas swipes some extra ingredients from his vehicle. He locks the van, returns Aoi's fist bump, and raises a confused brow, since she is the one thanking him, not Damian. Is she saying that on his behalf? the young man ponders on the question, before he parts ways with the duo.

As Damien and Aoi climb a steel ladder that leads to the modest coffee-shop's highest point, Lucas follows the owner inside, past a wooden entrance, whose bell rings to greet their arrival.

The wind is hot in Aoi's face. Her fingers ache as she grasps at each part of the ladder, one by one. From behind her figure, Damian asks her if she's okay.

The young woman does not know. It is hard for her to say, how she is doing. What is normal; what isn't, for Aoi has never done this before. She figures the worse that could happen would be for her to break a leg. And the worst: falling to her doom, accidentally hitting her head on something sharp, and dying on the spot.

She shakes the thought away, though. She stops thinking, then takes in a breath of warm, heated air, and sighs. "Y-you'll... catch me if I mess up, right?"