The night before Halloween, you lie down in a field full of green. There's few bright colors, flowers dying out by the earthly tones of brown, orange, red and yellow.
You close your eyes, taking a deep breath. Arms extended on both sides, you float on grass with the smallest sign of a simper left on your lips.
A single tear trickles down the side of your face, losing itself on deep green. You sniffle, quiet enough to pass through the crickets' tune.
It doesn't matter how many times you've stared at death head on. Every single time you find your soul walking through that dark space; nothing but gloom around, it's new —it's the first time.
There's no such thing as familiarity when you witness calamity at its prime.
Perhaps, it's not a bad thing. It's the only ray of hope to get you out.
You don't want it to be second nature, but as time passes, the blood on your hands' closer to itching itself onto your skin —to become a part of you.
"Are you crying?"
The light glows brighter; you leave that place. Your hands are not stained in red and your body belongs to you.
The starry night doesn't smile down at you. Instead, Baji's long hair tickles your skin as he crouches down behind the top of your head. His eyes are fully on your own.
"A little bit." You whisper out, content at the sky above. A sculpted dome in all its glory, with sparkling stones and contrasting clouds.
Baji sits crossed legged behind, cradling your head with both of his hands as he brings you to his lap —a gentleness not quite common to be seen.
"Tomorrow's the day." He nods. His thumbs play with your features, brushing through your cheeks.
While you gawk at the painted ceiling that makes the room, Baji gazes past the muses that fill in the loneliness within the emptiness.
And truth is, Baji has never been to a museum before, but the mere picture of your sprawled out body illuminated by the stars that shape over in their canvas, leaves him wanting to be framed for an exhibit.
Except it's private; only he's allowed to visit and stare.
"You are different today." You point out, Baji's touch halting —not leaving your skin.
Your eyes shift, from the sky to him. He frowns, the wildness of his hair shielding you from his full expression.
His head moves up, a throaty hum leaving his throat. You can only see his chin, unknown to the melancholic spark that glazes his eyes.
"Allow me, just for today."
Giggling, the smile is plastered on your face once he looks back down. He pinches the sides of your face, pulling on them for him to snort.
"I like it."
"Huh?!" You stare back at the squint in his eyes, nose scrunched up and lips the slightest bit parted.
Sighing, one of your hands grabs one of his, tracing past his bruised knuckles with your thumb. You bite your bottom lip, containing the silly smile ready to break in.
"I really like your wildness, the side of you that beats up guys in gangs or that threatens to burn down cars." You think back on the beginning, laughing at the memory. "But I can't help but love all the care and fondness you have for your friends."
"For the people I love."
Baji's hair is pushed back by the puff of fresh air, his reddened ears exposed to you. His hands move to cover your eyes the moment your first laugh spurts.
You take them off, once again able to gaze at the ambar hidden within his irises. Beaming, your teeth peek from under your lips, eyes tinted by the brightness of the stars upon your pupils.
"So, allow me, just for today."
You sit up, leaving Baji's comfortable lap. Crossed legged as well, you turn so you sit ahead of him. Your hands play together, fiddling with each other's fingers and entangling them within a mess.
"I'm scared." He drops, glaring down at your hands on both of your laps. "I can't help it."
Focusing his eyes on you, his sharp canines glisten with the pale moonlight. Taking both of your hands in his own, he squeezes them.
"But for them I'll do whatever it takes." You correspond to his smile with the twitching of your lips, not high enough to reach to the corners of your eyes.
It doesn't take long for it to faint.
Swinging his arms at the steady rhythm of yours, you ease on the hold, letting them fall down to his knees. The bed of green you are sitting on rustles, tickling you.
You prop yourself up after the shimmering in Baji's eyes chokes you. Taking one last look at the night sky, Baji copies your movements and stands up, too.
Facing him, his now closed lipped grin is directed at you. Fondness sweeps his gaze, shining through a gemstone you can't pinpoint.
Leaning forward, you wrap your arms around him, pulling him into a hug that leaves him gasping. You smile, letting his hair hit your face as the contact of light muscle pulls you closer to him.
Baji, whose cheeks are coated by soft heat and stomach exploding at the knocking of your rapid heart in his chest, yelps in joy at the move.
"Thank you," You mutter, lost in the giggling of your memories' way. "for being there at the library, for asking me for help."
He chuckles, a hand keeping you steady by pressing against your lower back. Stiffening, he secures you closer to him, following in the same light voice.
"Thank you, for helping me."
It's hard to break the hold, faces near one another after your arms leave the other's touch. The eye contact persists, daring to crack it despite how tempting it appears.
He peers down in an instant, taken as a reflex even when you so coincidentally share the same urge. Glancing up at you, his eyes darken; along with the pursing of his lips, accompanied by his tongue passing over them from the inside, his nose nudges yours.
They kiss, but before your lips do, the constriction of your heart moving up your throat abandons all touch. You close your eyes, forehead now away from Baji's —who unbeknownst to you furrows his brows and shakes his head.
Biting your tongue you turn around, ignoring the dejection slipping off Baji. Touching your lips, it muffles your words; certain glumness palpable through them.
"Goodbye, Baji."
With his hands in the pockets of his white jacket, he yearns for your retrieving form to stay with him just a little longer.
In sullen silence, he pronounces his last words to you.
"Yeah, see ya."
Deep inside, in the never ending twists of your stomachs and turnings of your hearts, you both know.
This was the last talk you two will ever have.
The fateful day arrives, and who are you to miss it.
Arriving before the two confronting gangs, you stroll over to the scrap-heap. Stares from multiple men trail your figure down as you look around, searching for a good place to sit by and watch.
You don't bother on corresponding a single one, preferring to keep your pace. The curious glances question your back, heaving a long exhale out of you.
Your hand fiddles with the golden bracelet sitting comfortably on your wrist. It itches, reflecting a string of sunlight that extends over to two figures on top of a pile of utter car trash.
Looking up at the clear skies, the fraud Halloween weather discomfits you.
A sudden hand upon your shoulder makes you jump in place, swinging your arm to the person behind you —halting right before striking him in the side of his neck.
Uttering a dark chuckle, his shockingly comforting hand grabs the one that was about to deliver a nasty chop.
Your eyes lay upon the bracelet he caresses as he does so.
"It doesn't surprise me that you go right for the kill," Letting your hand drop, imperial purple follows along with the royal smell of gold. "pretty girl."
Frowning, you avoid the luscious stare at the treasure you wear. He smiles, without a trace of a teasing remark on his treated skin, but rather a twist of his lips that offers you a look to the far—forgotten past.
"As an apology, come sit with us!"
You do nothing more than suspire, pupils twinkling with a sight so pushed back, it expands much like a puddle due to rain.
The bracelet cuts your blood flow, constricting you with the mere presence of its buyer and original owner. One whose name lays atop your tongue.
Roppongi's encounter doesn't appear to be much of a coincidence after all.
Taking a seat between two pressuring pillars, the mirror of royal purple —the prince of the castle— glares at your profile with flames so palpable, the side beside him burns.
Sparing him a side glance, a vague grin unconsciously spreads across your lips. The one to your other side, raises a brow at you both.
"I'm sorry." The fire extinguishes; purple hyacinth widens until it's all you can see. "It's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?"
Beyond his glasses, he squints at you —lazy due to the drooping of his eyes. His brows, angry, offer you a strange confirmation.
Smile dissipating, you shrug.
"I have enough on me as it is to have a single petty exchange of words bother me at night." He tilts his head to the side, pouting as his gaze pierces through the worrying contrast in the yous he's both seen.
"I'd rather forget about it."
As much as you'd love to stay the entirety of the words you've exchanged with them in Roppongi have been fully forgotten, it'd be the fattest lie you've told.
You don't do lies —you hide crucial stuff from everybody around you, sure— so it replays like a broken record instead.
That's when you realize, one night on your bed, that you didn't look, sound nor acted as cool as you made it up to be in your head.
And this was no imaginary shower argument.
You avoid the vibrance of the violet sent to read you, picking at your fingers while he does such.
It's in an almost silent groan when he pats your shoulder and turns to face away from you, hiding the tiniest smile on his face at the sight of your own.
"Rindou." Taking off his glasses, he fogs them over with his mouth before wiping them clean with his black turtleneck shirt. "We are buds now, by the way."
"Cool." You nod, giving him your own name.
Meeting the sharp gaze of the sitting king to the furthest side of Rindou, a strong gust of wind strings his braids along to a dance that doesn't last long.
You meet him with the same intensity, being the one to speak first after the dead, dim amethyst calls out to your color.
The charismatic twinkle in his eyes is gone, all but a mirror of your own remaining to everybody he meets.
"You don't need an introduction, Ran." Your wrist crawls with dread, bracelet prickling at your skin without mercy. "It's not the first time we cross paths."
He takes your hand, shining in gold, placing it on his chest. Being scrutinized by Rindou's aching confusion, the raging in Ran's heart is enough to let you know that while change exists, some things can still be the same.
It's exactly what you need —somehow he always seems to know.
"Saddening to see that you are looking at me with the same eyes I've looked at you with."
It tells a lot.
But you also know nothing.
"And still, I will always look at you the same way, pretty girl."
He smiles —a genuine, gentle one.
In the empty area ahead, both gangs already stand by.
yeaaaaaaa nothing to add 😏 thank u for 6k reads it's insane bloop bloop
in the next chapter, an encounter seared in gold 🦶