TEARS

mirrored TEARS

Through the wind-blown existence that was penetrating every part of me, practically separating me from the Earth once more, I felt the strong pulse of Akira grabbing a hold of my wrist. At that point, I was barely conscious of my own actions, too entirely caught up in the air that was wrapped around me in the shape of a boy. There wasn’t any point of me even trying to understand the sudden shift of the weather, the realistic concept of it, as well as my own frequent changing. And yet, even though I had long since past abandoned a lot of my comprehensive thought, I was slowly trying to grasp a hold of any kind of sense that would be granted to me. Right in front of me was that sense and logic that would bring me back into some kind of assimilation of combined truth to be told. It was a story that I was unsure I wanted to be written, and just a simple touch would mark a choice in ink. Without much thought or explanation, I found that I didn’t need to do much of anything. In fact, I had every ounce of my strength ripped away from me. For, within a second, the cloud boy, without name and only barely a face to behold, snapped Akira’s hand away from my wrist.

Akira’s plethora of emotions splayed about his face like a Picasso painting, each dictating a different sort of feeling, and yet, somehow making a unison completion. Shock, concern, hurt, it all showed up in mosaic form as he was smacked away by a complete stranger in regards to someone he’s loved since he was ten. And I, caught in the middle of a wordless argument, merely rested within the presence of protection. Loosing any amount of strength that I had to begin with, I twisted about in the cloud-boy’s arms, resting my head on his chest. As if some power had completely been lost within me, and I simply wanted to rest.

At that point, I don’t think I even realized what was taken place right then. In fact, this was far too similar to a dream I had concocted when I was seven for me to actually take seriously. Even though, somewhere in my subconscious, I knew the difference between reality and physicality, my conscious state was more than confused. And yet, I was more than content with not realizing. Perhaps that was just my body’s way of shutting down my mind.

“Koya, who is that boy? Who are you? What are you doing here? Koya, what are you doing?” Akira’s questions shot off one after another, his infamous model of successive firing, although not very successful.

“He’s a cloud, of course!” I muttered, my voice partially covered up by the wind, which was still doing a very thorough job of making my already frigidly wet clothes flap against my skin, striking like little bombs.

Of course, I couldn’t see Akira’s countenance at that moment, but I’m sure the ratio of confusion to hurt was drastically tipping in the confusion scale. Although, Akira did have any absolutely amazing ability to be hurt by the most innocent of things, I wasn’t as naïve to think that this was innocent. But, in my deviated state, I was still imagining this, every last bit of everything. The cloudy boy, Akira coming after me in the storm, the thunder, rain and everything else, it was all too calculatedly absurd to be real. At least, that must have the functioning side of my brain still at work. Of course, if this was all a dream, then Akira wouldn’t have to be hurt, and I could still keep this boy that smelled like April clouds.

“A cloud? Did you just say he’s a cloud? What a second. Are you all right? Are you sick?” With a slight tremor in this hand, I felt Akira’s presence come closer to me. But before the contact actually reached me, the cloud boy pulled me away from his touch, as if feeling my hesitation in wanting to wake up.

“What is ‘sick’?” he asked, his voice seeming to cut through the wind. It was clear and seemed to have a slightly sharp edge to it, which I took to pertaining to Akira’s frequent attempts to try and steal me back from the intoxication of the clouds. I don’t know how, but the boy clothed in clouds seemed far too easy to understand, and if I were actually present inside the world, I probably would have quickly retracted the condition as just a little quirk. I’m not typically one to immediately assume I understand people; sincerely, I try to never make that position, because the moment I do, I become disappointed in people. It’s oddly ironic how we claim we understand people based off of who we want them to be. And yet, in my dream-like state, I could understand him and be understood by him.

After being together for, roughly, thirteen years, given the couple of years he up and left, I had grown accustomed to feeling his reactions, without even being able to see him. So, even safe, utterly soaking, and exceedingly warm in another boy’s shirt, I could well picture his face of slight panic, thinking that he now has two kids who have utterly lost it. He had gotten used to be eccentricity when it comes to clouds, but here was a boy that had completely stolen me within moments, and is asking what it means to be “sick.” So, without even the craziness that our relationship was, he had to make a move against my own willpower, as a teacher and an older adult; which, in all sense of the word “adult,” went against his natural traits of, well, a typically scared and confused kid.

“Listen, Koya. I don’t really know what’s going on, but we really need to get you out of the rain.” Without so much of a flinch, Akira’s boyhood dripped away from him, as if the rain had thawed out his masculine side, which had been tucked away for so many years. Even within the cloud-boy’s arms, I could feel his determined side leak through. I’d seen it more than once, certainly, but never to this degree had he ever been challenged; therefore, it’s safe to say that he was doing his utter best to rise to the occasion. Although, what he was thinking the prize would be, I was more than unaware about.

Grabbing a hold of my wrist, he yanked me out of the boy’s arms, as if merely a plaything to be tossed about. Or, perhaps I had disappeared long ago, wrapped up in the sky, and now I was merely part of the air. And as if answering to my contemplation, the wind picked up its motion, as if angry that a mere mortal was taking its prey. Yet, even as I could jest within myself, pretending that I was just a part of the clouds, like this was any other day, as Akira’s embrace wound about me, I slowly began to fall back into reality.

“Um… Akira. I, uh, don’t feel so swell… to put it lightly.” The Earth tossed about me as I felt the feverish warmth that had comforted me so much from the cloud-boy, and yet, as I stood in the center of the universe, I was well aware that things were not going so peachy-keen. And even as the trees knocked against each other in frustration, I watched through paper-thin eyes, the light slowly fading away from me, the cloud-boy’s own pair of gray-green mirrors flash in unison with the lightning. But whether it was the electrical charge itself that was being reflected against those stormy eyes, or if the light was merely reflecting the clandestine intentions of his illustration, I could only see the answer in between the spaces of my heartbeats as I lost to my subconscious.