TEARS

storming TEARS

“Koya. Kooooya.” It was a beckoning that seemed to be pretty much the start of any conversation I got myself into. “Kooooooooooyaaaaaaa.” With a slight thud to my occipital lobe, I found it my best interest, for my own personal safety, to look at the perpetrator. A slightly irritated scowling face to meet another of similar disposition.

“You know, Megu. Generally, when you want to talk to someone. You don't immediately go into violent measures. Peace. Peace. Let us all be- oi, don’t pull the hair!” Trying to grapple my way out of her tiny yet immensely strong fingers, I found myself trying to evade the approaching floor, as the chair was slowly understanding a fabulous situation of utter trickery. And yet, even though my struggles, things typically turn out in vain. In other words, inanimate objects and the delicate yet amazingly masculine fingers of my friend tended to have an amazing ability to pull my feet from under me. With a satisfying thud, Megu, with her baby-doll body claimed her position on top on my stomach, as I laid flat on the school floor. “I don’t even want to think about the germs that my sweater is now gathering,” I groaned.

“It’s for your own good. If I hadn’t drawn your attention away from the window, you’d still be staring mindlessly at the clouds. It’s not good for you to be so day-dreamy! And it cuts back on my best friend rant time.” Cute, petite, with straight-black hair that always seemed in some new, confounded hair-do every day, Megu was pretty much the epitome of a girly-girl. She had a 21 magazine survey quiz to prove it. Today, she was decked out in two pigtails, which she somehow twirled, curled, and crimped until they were going every which and way, and yet, still, turned out looking adorable on her.

“So, basically, it was it was for your own good. I don't really see where my survival and utter sanity plays into the scene here.” Megu gave a small grin from onto her perch of my stomach.

“Well, if Megu doesn’t get to rant, then she is slowly going to bottle-up and suppress all of her emotions. Until, one day, when she slips and falls down on the pavement, breaking her new pair of high heels. At that point in time, she has a mental breakdown and kills everyone she knows, and of course, her best friend, who started the entire thing would go down first.” All the while smiling and listing off her horrific deeds, I made a mental note to never buy her high heels and to secretly sneak into her room and dispose all of her old ones. Of course, that might have the same consequence; so best just lay low about the whole thing.

“I see your point. As if your referring to yourself in the third person wasn’t creepy enough, I’d rather keep my friend at a minimal-esque killing spree. Especially me. I’d like to keep my life,” I compromised as she shuffled in deeper into my belly, which was beginning to feel as slight pinch from the garter belt that Megu was wearing. Oh, the juicy blackmail.

“Of course, especially since you haven’t fallen in love yet! ARGH! Love! Stupid love! Why did you go and have to bring love up, Koya?!” Megu bounced about, slightly stabbing me with her vixen punches in my shoulder. Three older brothers can really up your physical strength, apparently.

“The last time I checked my mouth log, I didn’t. You did.”

“But you implied about your lack of any kind of romance in your life based off the utter distain when you said you wanted to keep your life!” she announced, as if this was the most obvious and simplistic answer. Not to mention, completely applicable to her own issues.

“Thank you, Miss Delicate. The next time I have a mildly sensitive matter, I will be sure to tell it to you so that you may rub it in with some peroxide.” Megu gave me a slight pout, as if to fully pronounce her control on people. With a sigh, I tried to let go of the irritation. “Fine. Fine. My bad. Now, what’s going on exactly? What happened to Riku? The last time I checked he was attached to your garter belt- I mean, hip.” One of the glorious things about Megu is that she utterly unaware of most things that go on around her. She’s a totally narcissus, for the most part, but has a kind heart when it’s needed. Well, most of the time. So, it’s way too easy to get in jabs with her, but for the most part, she just thinks you are giving her a compliment, or she’s so wrapped up in her own world that she just doesn’t care. Which is perfectly fine by me. It grounds me a bit. At least Megu’s world is on this Earth, and not up in the clouds, where I spend most of the time.

“Ooooh, don’t even say his name. So, listen what Riku did!”

Ignoring her own obliviousness to her own command, I listened for about fifteen minutes to the harrowing and tragic tale of Megu and Riku, her ten-day boyfriend. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fact that I don’t enjoy listening to Megu rant about her exploits; it gives me a sick sense of vicarious living. But, for the most part, it all ends the same. Because, the way it is with Megu, she already has her mind up about what she is going to do about the situation before she comes to me. For the most part, I just think she likes to think she doesn’t have much of a mind or determination towards relationships. It scares her, making up her own mind, so she likes the comfort of at least giving me the rundown of what she is planning on doing. Or, who knows, maybe she is just doing it for my sake; so that I have something to listen to and feel apart of.

“So, what are you going to do? Dump him or keep him?” It was the question I always asked. And, like a novel, she played out exactly the same scene.

“Well, I just don’t think it’s time yet. I feel like I need to give him another chance. What do you think?” she asked with a sigh.

“Well, in my opinion. I think you should go with whatever makes you the happiest, go with what you want to do.” It was the same old line, but for some reason, with this girly-girl, it worked like a cliché. With brightened eyes, she gave a giggle and stapled me into the floor with a hug.

“You always know just what to say! Thanks, Koya! I’m going to go apologize to Riku now for blowing up on him!” And just like that, she leapt off of me, weaving her way through the winding rows of desks, and flew out the door. But not before she spun around, her hair floating about her, and pointed a very accusing finger. “And don’t think I’m letting you off with that garter-belt comment!” And sometimes, she wasn’t as deep in her world as I thought she was, apparently. With a slightly awkward face, I gestured her off.

“Hi, sensei!” I heard her yell as she lessened the distance between her and Riku. Propping myself back up, I got a very nice glance of an insanely confounded teacher entering the room.

“Ga-garter be-?” he stuttered, readjusting the back of his hair, which was a strange quirk of his when he was confused.

“Don’t ask, sensei. Remain pure. Forever.” I commanded, as I tried to stand back up.

“That sounds more like a curse, coming from you, Koya,” he halfway muttered to himself, which was more his general speech-pattern than an actual lowering of tone. I’d known the cute teacher since I was four, when his family moved in next to mine. He was ten at the time, and shyness level has barely changed since then. It was always me who would tote him around, his puny arms around my own. The town used to call us the mother-son combination, and that was all fine until Akira hit adolescence and I became a confusion for him. After a mildly dangerous incident when I was fourteen and he was twenty, he moved out of his parents’ house and far away from me. I can’t say I understood anything about anything regarding everything that had happened back then. After a surprise position, for the both of us, as my homeroom teacher in my third year of high school, it was the first time I’d seen him in a couple of years. Granted, he hadn’t changed too much, but there was a pain in his eyes that I couldn’t quite accept I’d done to him. And even to that point, we hadn’t been able to talk about everything. I was too much of a coward, too fixated on the clouds to want to understand my own feelings about him or his own emotions towards me. Clouds’ emotions were unanimous and understandable. You never had to guess. I often wished to be a part of that life, but I didn’t understand the consequences it would bring.

Getting back on my feet seemed a far more hazardous job than I realized, or perhaps the weight of the atmosphere was slowly sucking out all the calcium from my body. It took me two seconds to stumble amazingly well, and only half a second for Akira to dash to my side.

“Koya, you all right? You okay? Are you hurt? Do you hurt anywhere?” He was a quick questioner; one by one, he would fire them off, most of the time, just repeating questions in different forms. Often times, he was always more concerned than I had ever been. I was the rub some dirt on it girl, and he would cry for me. Somewhere done the line, I promised myself that I would never cry in front of him, in order to protect him. Or, perhaps that was just my ability to not trust him with such precious things as tears. He offered his up to me all of the time, and I felt more than burdened by them. I didn’t want him to feel like that as well.

Without even answering him, my head immediately turned to the window. Anything awkward, anything uncomfortable, it was a defense mechanism I had. Akira smelled nice, familiar; so, I simply shut down. My heart wasn’t capable of communicating those kinds of messaging and diagnosis to my brain. It could only go on overload.

“Koya?”

Akira drew me closer to him, as if trying to persuade my mind to return once again. He’d experienced this more than once before, and I’m sure that he understood, but at that moment, there was another reason for my utter disappearance.

“Sensei. The clouds. Look at the clouds.” At the sound of the title, Akira immediately stiffened, but I couldn’t do much about his mental state or be concerned about. Not for a lack of feeling for the man, but from the sheer inexplicable craziness welling inside of me. What was going on outside of the window.

“The clouds? Look, Koya. I really think I need to talk to you… I think it’s time. Koya?” Before I could even gather my thoughts around me, I reached over and grabbed a hold of Akira’s face between my two hands, confusing the poor man out of his mind, I’m sure.

“I know you are trying to be a man right now, Akira, but that can wait! The clouds! Look at the clouds!” With a vicious twist that might cause a bit of pain for him tomorrow, I forced his face in the direction of the window. Seeing his face contort in amazement, I lit up with excitement, grabbing a hold of his hand like in the old days and dashing out of the classroom. The two of us ran down the corridors; Akira calling after me as he was dragged through the school.

“Koya, slow down!”

“No way!” Letting out a squeal that completely put a rift in my usual cynically calm behavior, we reached the exit doors of the school building. Putting my hands up against the glass, one still attached to Akira’s, I gazed out at the scene.

The sky was alight with a pale green décor and the clouds slowly twisted and turned within each other. Each emphasizing the love for one another; in perfect harmony, they combined with such exquisite tranquility that life itself felt like it was being born, or reborn. As if everything up to this point was a disaster, and now, it was being recreated. The hazardous draft, which was penetrating the school all day long with the threat of rain, was falling into affect. And yet, it wasn’t just a simple rainstorm. The wind gnashed at the trees and the clouds spiraled into a black abyss.

“Ah, Koya. Maybe we should go somewhere safer. That looks really dangerous.” With that line, the air shook and the silence utterly defied notion. That was right before the utter scream of the clouds, as if they were being ripped apart. And through the darkness, a shape beckoned me.