Short Stories

14. The Way One Falls (Part-1)

And it was lost. The Drofang, he had stupidly left it at home. But that couldn't be, could it? Mike had taken it out in the green park. And then...did he leave it on the bench?

"Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, idiot." Mike murmured as he rummaged through the carefully placed contents in his messenger bag.

Nothing. There were books and bills, files and money, coins and tissues, guns and daggers, but no Drofang. What was more, he was going to be late for Alden's meeting. It would be a miracle if he didn't chop off Mike's head by the end of the day.

Mike upturned his bag on the seat in the bus stop. His frameless glasses slowly sliding down his sweaty nose. With uncharecterstic roughness, he pushed his stuff around searching for the little velvet box which contained the little green stone that made our little Michael Summers have a little meltdown of his own type right there, in the semi-crowded bus stop, under the omelette stuck in the sky.

"Yoo hoo. You dropped something, mister."

It was a very familiar voice. And a very unfamiliar tone.

Mike whipped his head around. His raven hair, which was previously neatly combed, now hilariously tussled and sweaty, also whipped around and hit him square on his forehead. It stung.

Before him stood a young man . Only it wasn't a man. It was a woman dressed as a man, with hankies stuffed in her pants. In fact, there were a bit too many in there, if the bulge was anything to go by.

This was Sam.

She was wearing a faded yellow sweater four sizes too big for her, it probably was her brother's, and an equally faded but fitting jeans. It allowed Mike to truly appreciate the shape of her legs. For an underweight, her legs didn't look half bad. Other then her gams, and the ominous bulge in the front of her pants (there was even a strand of thread sticking out of her fly), Sam was wearing a woolen cap, sunglasses and a fake moustache— so fake that some people were struggling to hide their sniggers.

"You —oh, it's you Mike. Well, I guess this is yours?" Sam asked, as she staggered up to him. Mike took an involuntary step back as she tried to shove a little velvet box up his nose.

It took him a second to realise that it was the little velvet box. And the moment he did, he snatched it, opened it and clapped his eyes on The Drofang, a stone which looked like a tight green jelly, shaped roughly like a star.

He heaved out a sigh of relief.

"I didn't know that funny jelly was yours," Sam mumbled. Her moustache hung lopsidedly on her philathrum as she spoke, and her sunglasses were balanced precariously on the tip of her nose. "If I had known, I would have picked it up and returned it to you sooner."

"It is! Very, very important. I've been working on this for months." Mike said, and he tried to hold back the tears that were forming. Years of research for the cure of lycanthropy had given him a single jelly as hope. And he had dropped it. "I can't thank you enough! How can I pay you back?"

Sam cocked her head to the side in thought and comically tapped her finger on her chin. Her eyes, however, were very much focused on Mike. "Hmm what can you do for me? Let me think..."

Anything. He'd move mountains if she asked him to. In the metaphorical sense, of course. He would make a potion— The Summers' Potion— for werewolves. And that'd move mountains. He would win awards—

"You can kiss me."

— prizes, recognition. His name would be printed in well known books, he'd be known intergalactically for the—wait what?

You can kiss me.

You can kiss me.

Kiss me.

"Or you can drive me back home." Sam added as an afterthough.

Drive me back home.

Drive. Me. Back. Home.

"Mike?"

Kiss me. Drive me back home. Kiss. Drive back home.

Sam looked over her shoulder. Nothing interesting there.

"Mike?"

Mike cleared his throat, trying to mentally shake off the phrases etched in his mind. "Yeah?"

Sam leaned forward, and the smell of Dragon Mead grew stronger.

Mike's heart raced while his body froze. Something was in his stomach. Something wrong and tickly.

Stop acting like a bloody teenager! It's not like it's your first kiss.

It was his second, actually. His first kiss had come, pecked, and gone, and he hadn't felt a thing.

Sam lifted her hand. Her , long fingered, brown hand. The one that was slippery with sweat on a steering wheel and, right now, looked feathery soft. The one that was coming nearer to his face. She lifted it and....

—pointed at something behind him.

"Your papers are flying away."

Mike looked back and true enough. His papers were flying away, towards the stupid omlette stuck in the sky.

Uttering a few choice curses, he went after the papers. Thankfully, the wind was non existent, so Mike didn't have to jump in front of the vehicles to catch the papers before it flew to Timbektu.

By the time he turned back with an armful of papers, Sam had boarded a bus and left.

Without a kiss.

~*~*~*~*~20 November 2021~*~*~*~*~

I actully wrote this a week (a couple of weeks?) ago, but back then, I had wanted to write it as a longer fic, with a lot of hidden meaning. But keeping a draft as a draft is really irritating. So I present to you, my first attempt at writing romance— without anything physical happening.

Oval. Who said Romance has to be physical, anyway? That'd be gross. 

There's a lot of room for improvement, so do give me advice if you have some in your pocket.

~Anony