How we meet

Chapter 32

The dreams melted away the bad thoughts, they removed the weeds and the strangling vines. The suffocating flowers could breathe now. A good night's sleep had pushed away all of the nightmares and fears. The midnight thoughts that had plagued N's mind had been cleansed. He smiled as you pushed him awake. Whining about something he couldn't yet understand.
You cursed him playfully. Ranting in feathery whispers and gentle sharp words. Your words didn't fit the tone of your voice. It didn't fit the way you kissed his nose and gently tugged the sheets from his hands.
"Don't let me freeze tonight." you stabbed the joke of a threat into his heart. Blood rushed to his face, his eyes widening as he realized your closeness.
"Right." N had spoken not truly hearing your words.
His mind could only think of your hand on his chest. Your warm breath on his cheek and the warmness of wild herbs and spices on your clothes. It took root as the stem of a flower growing in his heart had now started to grow leaves and a bud, it just needed to grow ever so slightly more before it could bloom.
N was so gentle. His hands were warm against yours as he laid in bed with you for just a little longer. Who could blame him? The wearher was getting nippy, soon you would need gloves and think clothing for your walk to work. It was nice to say cozy in bed on a day where the weather was unexpectedly cold.
N didn't need to think about it. He simply knew that he wanted to have something warm like a hot chocolate to drink. He wanted to hold you by a fire swaddled in a blanket together. Perhaps you would have a book in hand. Just the thought made him smile with utter affection.
How sweet your lips were. His hand was warm his eyes filled with devotion. He held your face agaist his. His arms snaking around your hips. His hand pressed against your back.
You leaned into it. You reached up running your fingers aross smooth skin. Your thumb brusing against his cheek, your fingers toying with a few strands of his hair.
"Is it to early to say I love you?" A fragment of your heart left your lips.
"I wanted to ask you the same thing." He kissed you again. His hands never moving from their spots he rested his head beside yours looking at you.
Getting out of bed was hard that morning. It may not have been the same as the other days where you couldn't get up, yet you still wanted to whine. You were wrapped in invisible chains that dragged you down, no cursed thoughts and venom laced your mind, it was pure comfort. This was the type of laziness you wanted. A day where you didn't get up because you simply wanted to stay warm and comfy for a few more hours.
Dragging yourself out of bed. Your legs creaked and groaned. Venipede was much more vocal with his displeasure. N was the only one who could understand the curses and foul langue he roared in between yawns. For the most part, he just ignored it but tapped his nose a silent plea for him to stop, not that he listened. His squeals, whines, and cries you laughed at lightly, not in a dismissive way but because you didn't know what to do.
You comforted him, stroking the top of his head as you slowly started to prepare food. N took over cutting, peeling, and plucking if it was something that you seemed to stuggle with or if it was simply something that he didn't want you to in a cast. You were happy to wrap your arms around his hips and place your hands atop his, to guide him through all of the small steps he couldn't do just quite right yet.
"Circular movements."
You lead his hands around, you coaxed his hand to support the bowl. If you were paying just a tad less attention to the food you would have felt his heart speed up, you would have heard the slight gasp as you unknowingly pressed yourself closer against his back. You should have felt his skin heat up through his clothes, but you didn't of course.
"That's it," you praised him. Your fingers left his skin, you didn't step away yet. You watched over his shoulder making sure he was getting it right.
Then you moved on as if nothing had happened. As if you hadn't made N's entire mind panic with racing thoughts, as a few words and simple touches you took over his brain.
As if a brush was dipped into a glass of water. Ink pulled itself from the bristles. It whirled through the stagnant water. That was how each of you wormed your way into each other's hearts. You had consumed each other's thoughts. Such a peaceful morning is all you cared about. The harmonious way you could dance circles around each other. This was what you wished for, what you wished to have.
Your embrace was honey-coated devotion, it engulfed his senses. A single moment was stretched into candy floss spun together to create the perfect memory. Crystalized and pure uncontaminated emotions leaked out of you. With every candy-laced kiss, you would sink closer together.
With your homemade lunches and some thin mittens, you walked together. Over fallen leaves and crunchy earth, you moved together in a perfect dance, just like always. Perhaps it was still too early to know what the other was thinking, maybe you still question if you can trust the other in case of something unexpected. Nerves were one of your biggest enemies.
You'll walk together though. Whether it is hand in hand or not you have each made leaps in development.
You walked together, side by side to work. You passed a giggling group of kids who ripped off their wool hats and scarves tossing them to the dirt-covered path of one of their favorite public greenhouses. They pushed each other around splattering their shoes in dry dirt. You had a meeting today, but the kids watched you from the windows, peering through the bushes and vines, they snickered and teased you through the glass, joking amongst themselves. They may not be able to talk to you now but they will ask you 101 questions as soon as they force you into another tea party.
You had seen them. Your eyes had widened at the sight of their fingers pointing at you, their mouths wide with laughter and giggles even though you couldn't hear them. They noticed the way your hand tightened around your pouch of food and the way you turned away as if they didn't exist. N noticed too, turning around just fast enough to see the kids freeze and duck down from the window, scatter into the foliage, and back to their royal gazebo, as they called it.
You walked into that meeting more flustered than normal. You managed to not draw the suspicion of Burgh but you did catch N's watchful eye. His lips stayed sealed. However, he was giggling to himself as he walked with you to the office.
"Who were those kids?" he whispered as everyone gathered around the table, waiting for Burgh and his assistant to start talking.
"The kids?" you framed innocence.
"Yeah, these kids in the greenhouse were laughing but ran away when I glanced at them," he tucked his hair behind his ear, "It's strange isn't it?"
"Yeah, weird."
You knew that he knew. You wouldn't admit the reason. You refused to acknowledge it. No matter how much he played it off or joked about it you would deny knowing why the kids were so playful today.
"Maybe I had a knot in my hair?" he tugged on his ponytail, running his fingers through the ends of his hair. "I don't have one do I?"
"No, I don't think so."
"So then what do you think those kids were joking about?" He rested his head on his hand, looking not at you but at Burgh who was shuffling through a few papers at the head of the table.
"No idea."
N didn't get a rebuttal, Burgh interrupted everyone's conversations and thoughts. He was surprisingly cheerful this time. He usually hated meetings and most formal work-related things. He always preferred his little escapes from the city. His being excited about a meeting and was a rarity, you discovered this early on. The only thing he hated more seemed to be paperwork. Its not like you blamed him for hating either, sitting still for an ungodly amount of time, filling in information over and over, listening to someone talk nonstop. You hated it too to be honest.
Burgh flipped through papers as he spoke, double checking information. His assistant handed out the same sheets that Burgh was digging through. There was a map of the city streets highlighted in different colors and various marks. An arrow pointed around the streets.
He explained the whole thing with an exctment that you couldn't have possibly matched. He explained in detail about the perade, the shoping booths and a variety of things you couldn't keep up with.
"The regional fall festival will be held here this year!"
Burgh had a list of the floats and stores that woild be in the city this year. The end of the perade would be signaled by the castelia gym's own foat that Burgh was designing. He had given everyone on his select team a diagram and the details for the frame and parts thst were needed. You were left awkwardly sitting there as he rattled off information.
You flipped through the names of guests, and participating groups: school bands, the elite four and the champion would all have their own personal floats. The pokemon championship organization would have one after Professor Juniper. It was a really long list full of pokemon and business, along with organizations that you hardly even knew of, but one name was familiar; in all the worse ways.