Rooftops At Sunrise

27

[Content warning: emetophobia, mentions of character death.]

Last night, for once, is not a blur in Aoi's mind. She recalls having spoken to Lucas throughout the late night in vivid detail. The crackling of fire. The sound of crickets, and the scent of drying rain, that lingered within the air until the early morning sun shone light across lands empty of trees.

After the young man had handed her the painkillers she'd brought along just in case whilst packing back home, the two had agreed that today would be the last time they would give themselves to explore and hunt for the aliens Damian had so wished to find, before they would turn around once more and start driving back towards their once ever so ordinary lives.

It is six in the morning. Aoi sits next to Lucas, who is humming a rather sad tune in the driver's seat. In addition to last night's painkillers, the young woman has taken more medication to fight against her motion sickness. She had managed so far, more or less, without them. But all this travelling and the trip in general is beginning to weigh on her—especially after her migraine; Aoi knows she will need a few days to recover.

Both she and Lucas have yet to tell Damian they will be turning back soon. Aoi makes Lucas promise that they won't until today ends.

An hour later, Damian finally rouses.

Lucas wakes him with an anthem of depressing songs looping from within his van's radio. Aoi pinches his sides. "Why now?" she hisses at him.

The young man stops at a red light; they both watch, as a farmer tends to his cattle and aids them with crossing the road. "What?" he stares at Aoi like nothing is amiss. "What did I do?"

"The songs!" Aoi points to the space where the music is emanating from; Lucas's radio. "Up until now, all you'd been playing were really happy pop songs on that thing! Why are you suddenly—" She spares a side-glance at Damian and decides against reminding him of his sister's death. She lowers her voice, then leans in to where Lucas is swaying, and rocking against his chair to the soft, rhythm of the music. "His sister dies," she whispers, "and this is what you do? Are you kidding me?"

"Oh." Lucas stills. He looks at Aoi, frowns, then stares up at the ceiling with yet another hum. "Sometimes," Lucas tells the young woman, "it's good to be sad."

Aoi furrows her brows in turn then hugs her knees close to her chest. "You're just being offensive, honestly..." It's too early, she thinks; Damian needs more time to grieve, you asshole, don't put him through this.

The light before them turns green. The young chef cackles, takes the wheel again, and continues to drive. "Well," Lucas shrugs. "Maybe. But at least it'll take his mind off things."

In the back of the van, Damian grasps at his sweat-drenched sheets. He stares at the tattered ceiling full of plastic stars and remembers the nightmares that had plagued him last night—except, the subject of them is not mere fiction; Emma is truly gone.

The young man tries to distance himself from his sorrow by listening to Lucas and Aoi's chatter. Their voices filter in from the front of the vehicle, until they finally reach him, and he hears them arguing over whether or not Lucas's current playlist is filled with too much gloom to be played at the current moment.

Damian briefly hears Aoi mentioning the beach, then, he remembers they had talked about it before entering the diner last night—since the roads are still blocked off, the ocean-side is likely the most interesting place they can afford to visit, with all circumstances considered.

"Hey, Damian!" Lucas calls. "Tell Aoi you're enjoying my songs! She doesn't believe me!"

Damian has two options: he can either walk the path of grief, cry until his eyes are even more swollen than now—or, he can do what he believes Emma would have wanted him to. Damian slips out from beneath his sheets. His striped blanket is wound around his shoulders like a cheap, King's cloak, as he steps forth, then leans up against Lucas's seat.

The young man does not, however, speak a word, nor reply to Lucas's request.

Lucas's music gets louder. As does the young chef's singing. "And it's, the end! The end! Yeah it's, the end! Good bye, my friends!"

Damian allows for his back to slide down against used leather, until he is seated on the van's first step. He wishes the lyrics to the song Lucas has put on wouldn't sound so serious, as they do when sung by a rock band with a man whose voice makes Damian wonder how many cigarettes the singer had to smoke, to have his vocal cords ring so dry, raw.

He tilts his head so that his eyes are locked with the ceiling, like before. He parts his lips. And he joins in on the next song, that Lucas has just put on—sings along, like the young chef had done mere minutes ago, too.

Aoi follows suit with their wild chanting—although her throat is going to be killing her after this, she figures it is worth it; another good memory, for when I will be dying alone in a hospital room, in a few years maybe, the young woman thinks; even though it is an irrational thought, she cannot help it.

The much slower tune speaks of death—of losing everything dear to you. And Damian thinks, that he needs this right now; admitting that he will never get back the person that was the most dear to him in this world.

He is not even sure if he wants to see his aliens anymore. In fact, he feels guilt, now, for having gone on this trip in the first place. Emma is the one who initially introduced him to the concept of space and strange, other galaxies. I should have invited her, the young man thinks, I should have answered her calls.

He is crying again. He does not even care—in the young man's eyes, it is a miracle to him that he can actually stand and walk places, with how sick and weak to his gut he feels.

His two, other companions, have fallen silent once more.

Aoi reaches for Damian's sweatshirt in an attempt to comfort him.

Lucas drives over a bump. The way the van suddenly bobs upward makes the young woman's stomach lurch.

She releases Damian's sleeve, then quickly bends down to grab the leftover plastic bag that had been rested up against her leg since the start of the trio's morning drive.

The young woman holds up her hand in the air, then mumbles a brief, "Sorry," before she shoves her face into the bag decorated by a large smiley face and two pictures of round sandwiches, then pukes into it.

Lucas readies himself to pull the brakes, but Aoi grasps his wrist with her free palm and glances at him from the corner of her eye. "Don't," she pleads. "It'll be worse if you stop." And although Lucas cannot see the logic in her phrase, he does not argue.

He continues to drive. "We should, uh... probably stop to throw that out, though," the young chef tells her, after a moment of the trio sitting in complete silence.

"Why?" Aoi's head snaps his way. She is mortified. "Does it smell that bad?"

Contrary to both their expectations, Damian starts to laugh. "Man," he brings a hand to his forehead and huffs. "This is a terrible road trip."

Lucas refrains telling him it could be worse because they could have died in a van crash; contrary to the depressing tunes he is still, currently playing though, the young chef considers this to be quite the inappropriate joke. He decides to say nothing instead. And continues to drive until they stop by a grassy hill, where Aoi empties the contents of her bag, then throws it into a nearby bin. Lucas observes her closely to make sure she doesn't faint, whilst Damian looks away—sure he and Aoi are close, he thinks, but, not enough for him to see her vomit, if he can help it.

The young woman is still feeling ill when she climbs back into the van. Her world is spinning, rocking back and forth.

She curls back up onto the bench in the back of the vehicle, then shuts her eyes. As Lucas starts driving again, she attempts to sleep off her sickness.