Leon Hirawa.
Born January 31st. Aquarius. Magician-wannabe.
Magic tricks were sketchy. Card skills, horrible. Personality, off-putting.
To the majority, Leon was someone you gave the go-by—avoided at all costs, no matter the occasion.
Amidst his disconcerting nature, his fortunes were especially notorious.
Unlike the rest of his tricks, they consistently tallied a one hundred percent accuracy. Every one has become a reality. The sole drawback was that he only foretold fortunes portraying hardship.
Getting booted off a treasured sports team or committee. Losing all possessions until nothing remained. Flunking a grade. Acquiring injuries or ending up in the hospital.
Some disbelieved, dubbing it as superstition. Others insisted it was the devil's luck.
Whatever it may be, Leon was 'hazardous'—a threat to anyone's well-being so long as he peered into his keepsake crystal ball.
. . .And I happened to peer into that crystal ball alongside him.
Clueless as I was, I received it.
A fortune.
A prophecy foreshadowing my death.
I only had eleven hours left.
"You have to take it back," I pleaded with Leon.
Promptly after the fire alarm had went off, the entire school was evacuated and attendance was taken by each respective teacher. From there, Naru and I had singled him out, splayed out on the grass in another makeshift nap.
"Hirawa," Naru added.
"Nnn, I can only predict the future." Leon, contrast to our panic, was a ball of tranquility. He swayed back and forth like a plant in the stark February wind, and smiled. "Once I do, I can't withdraw it. Not until it comes true."
"She's only in this mess because of you." Naru's indignation was unsettling. He'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me, yet now he was going this far. I'd linked it was because as a class rep, he had less tolerance to stuff like this, but I hoped it also meant he didn't hate me as much as I thought. "You should know better than anyone your fortunes are bad news. Why would you tell another one?"
He tittered. "You must care a lot about the kitty cat, huh, Umi. Earlier you were being sooo cold to her, too."
Naru stiffened, pink rising to his cheeks. "That. . ." He shook his head. "Fix this!"
"No need to be so snappish, Umi. Smile, smile. It'll cheer you up!"
"The fact that you even expect me to smile in this situation means you've really lost your marbles!"
"Leon," I urged, butting in. "There has to be something you can do! Please!"
Staring up at me, then back at Naru, his demeanour shifted. Finally, he retained some means of solemnity. "Like I said, once I tell my fortunes, your only choice is to ride it out until it becomes a reality. I've practiced and practiced but each and every time, I can only foresee terrible futures. Yours in particular, kitty cat, is of a greater scale than I've ever seen. Even if I could undo it, this jinx is too strong."
Colour drained from my complexion. "N-no way. . ."
I was going to meet my end, then? At the measly age of sixteen, I'd kiss this world goodbye.
"You said you barely avoided being crushed by the ceiling, right? Truthfully, that incident adds up a lot more to what I predicted when I gave you my fortune. Yet, for some reason, it didn't transpire."
"That was only because Naru pushed me out of the way. If it wasn't for him—"
"Exactly, kitty cat!" Beaming once more, Leon raised his index finger. "It didn't occur—rather, you managed to prolong your lifespan—because Umi was by your side."
The twinkle in his eye rubbed me the wrong way.
"What are you saying, Hirawa?" Naru demanded on my behalf.
His happy-go-lucky expression broadened.
In lightning speed, he was up on his feet, and in our vicinity. A clicking sound emerged. Immediately, what he'd done smacked me like a pan to the face.
His smirk gleamed.
"It's simple!" he proclaimed. "Umi has to stay with the kitty cat until midnight!"
My heart sunk in my chest. I lifted my arm, which caused Naru's to fling upwards as well.
"Wh-what is this?" I cried, eyeballing the silver handcuffs.
"Take these off," Naru sputtered, equally mortified.
"Can't. I lost the key ages ago."
"Leon!"
"Now, now," he dismissed. "I'm doing this for your own good. You asked me to help resolve this situation, so I am."
"In what way is this a solution?" I snapped.
"Umi is your good luck charm," Leon replied, matter-of-factly. "His presence is doing you a favour by cancelling out your bad luck. If you believe in the superstition that is my fortune, then surely you can understand what having him nearby or not entails."
"Th-that. . ."
"Umi can't leave your side," Leon elaborated. "If he does, you'll die within seconds. Therefore, until midnight, you can't let each other out of your sight no matter what. You have to stick as close together as possible, searing each other's figures into mind."
Naru's face was redder than a strawberry. "St-stop fooling around. You're lying."
"The kitty cat was supposed to meet her end over ten minutes ago." Oddly grave, Leon stared squarely at him. "Ever since, you two have been together. Of course, it's not a given that if you leave each other, fate will try doing whatever it can to kill her. But it's only that. A possibility. Of course, if you two want to, we can test my theory. Head to get a replacement key and separate you; see what happens."
Fear paralyzed me. I gulped, hard.
Likewise, Naru suppressed a shiver.
Leon's nonchalance reinstated. "Great! So we agree."
Hardly.
"On that note, you guys need to do another thing—something absolutely crucial."
Before we could ask what, Leon had scrummaged a piece of paper and pen from his bag, and wrote rapidly.
He thrust it toward our faces afterward.
"Bazinga!"
Neither of us were quick to receive it.
"What is it this time?"
Leon pouted at our unified monotone. "Eh, you can have a bit more faith in me! In the remarkable, amazing Leon!"
Utter silence.
Brushing it aside with a gesture of mock hurt, Leon explained, "I did say that you guys have to remain physically close until midnight, but I'm afraid that might not be enough."
Terror stabbed my chest. "It won't? So there's a chance I'll still. . ."
"Not only you," he interjected. "Since you and Umi are now in close proximity, there's a chance your fortune will rub off on him. If something goes wrong, you both can lose your lives."
"What?" I screamed.
"Isn't this entire setup pointless, then?!" Naru quipped.
"Not exactly," Leon replied. "As I mentioned, what's keeping the kitty cat breathing right now is, without a doubt, Umi. If you split up, the forces of the universe will target her, and she'll end up a corpse waaay before midnight. In other words, you two are working as perfect complements."
Complements. . .
"Imagine a scale," he continued, sensing our confusion. "Right now, your emotions are in harmony. The single notion going through both your heads is ascertaining you, kitty cat, survive. Using that reasoning, if, for some reason or another, you two stray from that thought process into divulging points of interest. . ."
"The scale will tip." Naru gave a straight answer.
"Bingo!" Leon made a sound for emphasis. "If it tips in the wrong direction, demise is certain. In other words, physical proximity isn't enough. Your emotions need to coincide also."
But that's. . . "What are you suggesting we do to accomplish something like that?"
It was near impossible!
Leon's smile provided the opposite impression. "Fill your heads with thoughts of each other."
Heat bloomed across my face.
"From now until midnight, don't think of anything else," he stressed. "With you being so close, that should be doable with conversation alone. Just in case, though, I've compiled some options for you."
He yet again gesticulated the paper.
I slipped it into the fingers of my right hand—the only arm I could still utilize.
My skin surely burned a fiery red at the list. Naru, peering at it as well, visibly flushed.
"A-all this is. . ." he stammered.
Say each other's names in your heads repeatedly during moments you're not doing anything else.
Hold hands.
Write each other l̶o̶v̶e̶ letters.
The suggestions were endless. Not to mention awkward.
"Couples can't go long without subconsciously thinking of their significant other. Their thoughts usually correspond, and that's why they get along," Leon innocently reasoned. "I thought if you guys engage in couple-ish things, that'll ensure your thoughts never drift apart. Pretty smart, right? I, the magnificent Leon, am amazing, riiight?"
He had to be kidding me! Only an hour ago, I told myself I wouldn't interact with Naru until I could find a way to mend our bad blood (I still hadn't gotten around to making that chocolate, thank you very much!). I'd even caused the rift between us to mount. And now not only do we have to remain physically near, but I had to execute. . . romantic things with him to prevent myself—and possibly him—from passing on to the next life?
"Again, this is all nothing but a hypothesis. You guys can decide whether to follow it or not," Leon drawled."Also,nothingI'vesaidordonecanbeusedagainstmeinthecourtoflaw. I'minnocentuntilprovenguilty. Unrelatedinanyshapeorformifdeathoccurs. Pleasetakeanyissuesupwithmylawyer."
He whispered the last bit far too quickly and quietly for me to decipher.
✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧
"May I ask what you're plotting?" Miss Akagi wore a glare sufficient to send me straight to the hereafter.
The entire class of 1–B had reconvened inside the classroom after the fire department had performed a sufficient overview and blocked off the hallway where the incident occurred. Miss Akagi insisted she proceed where she'd left off. However, prior to collecting her book to do so, the subsequent whispers from our classmates had drawn her attention our way.
"No way, what are they doing?"
"That Narumi? The Jin Narumi who refrains from all social interaction altogether, getting chummy with Beanstalk Shiina?"
"Dagnabbit! We need answers!"
We'd become the craze of our peers. Naru had swapped seats with the girl who was originally adjacent to me, and fused our desks to properly engage in class. Our cuffed hands, which lightly grazed every so often, was out of visible sight.
Kiharu and Tsumugi who sat toward the front hastily whispered back and forth, 'spill-the-deets' stares in tow. Even Igarashi was sending murderous, what-the-hell vibes. Hachi was, well, being Hachi by shouting alongside our classmates.
Not addressing the humiliation was unbelievably arduous.
I couldn't allow my focus to slip.
I couldn't.
"Whatever. Don't care. Separate," Miss Akagi ordered.
"U-um, please let us stay like this." Typically, I summoned my voice effortlessly, but now I could barely think straight, let alone speak aloud. "I-I forgot my textbook, so he's kindly sharing."
Fortunately, because of my bad record, Miss Akagi accepted my lie.
"Oh, so that's it."
The murmurs arose alongside relief. Miss Akagi resumed teaching after directing all eyes forward. Without the incessant pressure, breathing became a lot easier.
For the first time since we sat in this position, I flickered my focus left. Naru, ever the collected figure, hadn't broken a visible sweat. His eyes never steered from ahead.
Maybe Leon was fibbing through his teeth. That ceiling incident could've been a pure fluke, and we were blowing things out of proportion.
Yeah. It wasn't confirmed. If, by that slim chance, we didn't have to fill our heads with one another and could go back to normal. . .
A piercing clap of thunder jolted my shoulders.
The once clear sky filled with murky clouds, and rain propelled down in lightning speed. A ferocious wind hurled against the window, and caused the trees to jostle back and forth uncontrollably.
"Huh!?"
"What's with the weather? It was fine a few seconds ago!"
"Is it me or is the ground shaking?"
"An earthquake?!"
My classmates screeched in pressing urgency.
Shuddering, I slammed my eyelids shut.
. . .Or it was very much real and I was endangering everyone's lives by disbelieving in fate!
Say each other's names in your heads repeatedly during moments you're not doing anything else.
Naru.
Naru.
Naru.
It'd shifted into a mantra at some point.
Our desks rumbled wildly.
"N-Naru, it's not working," I hissed.
"My thoughts are drifting, too," he responded, pale beyond compare.
I hastily dug the sheet Leon gave us from my pocket and planted it onto the desk.
Something. We had to do something.
I gandered at a sentence near the bottom.
Hug! Keep hugging! Ten seconds—forty minutes; don't be shy! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
There was no time for second thoughts! Neither could I humour the urge to track Leon down to smack him for his vocabulary choice.
Wrapping my arm underneath his, I tugged him close. My ear hit his chest, which thundered in unbelievable bursts. Tingles darted across every inch of my body, more so when ever so shakily, Naru's big, firm arm enfolded mine, and his chin grazed my hair. I lost count of time. All I knew was that the stampeding footsteps of my peers to the windows, all hollers and chaos—everything in my immediate surroundings melted into nothing.
Even with my eyelids glued shut, I couldn't help but notice the tiniest of details. The most pressing: albeit tangibly embarrassing—it was comfortable.
"—H-huh! It all stopped."
We withdrew in a flash.
I sat, palm on my thigh, limbs quivering, skin burning.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn't muster a single muscle to move and confirm the source of the whisper. My heart wouldn't stop pounding, either.
Our classmates—who'd been completely unaware of our gesture—huddled by the windows and looked on in bewilderment.
"It was raining so hard. The wind was crazy strong. Even the ground felt seconds from collapsing. . . Now it's all rainbows and sunshine?! In February?"
They couldn't understand the phenomenon no matter how hard they tried.
With a heavy clap, Miss Akagi thwarted their attention, excusing it as result of global warming. Everyone begrudgingly shuffled back into their respective chairs.
Whatever expression Kiharu, Tsumugi or the others were wearing—if they even snuck a glance in our direction—no longer mattered to me.
My first proper hug with a boy my age (that I, myself, had initiated).
I was calm.
I could be calm.
Naru, redder than was humanly possible, wasn't able to hold out. Steam pouring out of his ears, he emitted a bashful sound, then buried his face into the cool desk surface.
Neither of us said a word for the rest of the day.
____________
Vote & Comment! <3