Dandelions

Prologue

"You know," Kirishima remarks, looking down to watch his palm. He closes it into a fist before turning it over, allowing it to return back to his side. He seems different, this morning-not the same man, of whom I spoke with just days ago. "I'm not scared anymore." I watch him only briefly before trailing my eyes back to the path ahead of us.

"Then that's it," I say, falling quiet once more.

There were many mornings similar to this; the tranquility of the forest, which seemed to almost hide us from what monsters lurked beyond the trees; the shadows cast from the clouds that lay overhead, blocking bits and pieces of the sun's warmth; the way the birds sounded-calm and at peace. The only difference now, however, is Kirishima's sudden change in demeanor.

He had been afraid since the day I met him, though not out of an irrational fear. It was sprung from a propensity of indecisiveness, for which he grew apprehensive toward the future and all that it may bring. As the years passed by, I began to take it as him wanting to be prepared prior to disaster-a mindset that I could understand, given the storm waging on the forefront of our lives. Seeing him as he is now, though, I can't help but feel as though I had been misunderstanding him all along.

I hear him suddenly laugh to himself, raising his arms behind his head. A small, light-hearted grin rests on his lips. "For once, I feel like I don't need to worry about what happened anymore. It's almost as if...Well, I suppose, it's as though a dream was all it was; a long, crazy dream that you never quite forget about."

The statement leaves me feeling taken aback. I find that I've never been able to understand this line of thinking-and, likely, I never will, no matter how much time passes us by. If memories become nothing more than dreams, if people become just a crowd of nameless faces-then what relevance does the past hold? In all my years of going through this cycle; all the times I've been faced with this exact conversation; each and every time another name suddenly drops from the story...I still fail to understand the sense of unease that washes over me. At what point in our lives do we suddenly stop asking ourselves: why?

"What about you?" he asks, glancing over to look at me, though my attention remains ahead of us. "Are we within our merits to move on from that chapter of our lives?"

I stop dead in my tracks, the question having caught me off guard. Kirishima looks back at me, curiously, if not seeming a bit concerned. I ponder it for a short while, thinking it over, though, deep down, I know he's already reached his own conclusion-a long time ago.

"If you're asking me whether or not it's alright to even consider the idea, then I'd say you've already decided," I tell him.

He offers a soft smile towards me, as if to tell me he understands. It leaves a feeling of emptiness to brew in the pit of my stomach. I reach a hand up to lay over my chest, as if to check-even just once more-that it still beats the same.

"Hey," he starts again, resting his hand on my shoulder, "I know it's a hard subject, but you can't stay quiet forever, man. Eventually, that silence will be what kills you."

My mouth forms a scowl, and I shrug him off. "I ain't planning anything, if that's what you're worried about," I mumble, although, this time, he only watches the ground, as though, once again, the apprehension returns to him, and he can do no more than to watch as it all unfolds.

There are a lot of moments in which I think back on it all, and this one is no different. There's still a small whisper of it there, looming over me, as if to tell me that it was merely by chance that I'm even still alive today. Deep down, I find that a part of me still wonders whether or not I really should have died that day; part of me wants to know what it would be like. Sometimes, I feel like an imposter in my own skin, because of it; an imposter to the world.

Word Count: 732

02/20/2024