Élan: A Youngblood World

4 | The Girl In Midnight Blue |

       Zakuro's body jerked up, eyes broadening in mad shock. A splash of white light haloed with gold first hailed his field of vision, strangely mellow. What he saw next was unlike any wonder.

      A girl. The glow shone below her like dawn amidst the night. An orb of light suspended above her right hand, shining more lucent than the Moon to their side. "Ease," she said, her dignified voice akin to the Cerisian sirens', "loosen the tension. Let its warmth fill the dire gap inside."

      Zakuro was caught in between complying or scramming, but pleasure triumphed over logic. It was soothing, introducing a surreal sensation of heat, consoling his breathing to soften.

      "There."

       His lungs slowly relaxed, until the Parasite ceased its stretching motion. Its end trails resembled claws tracking down his veins. Above all the eccentricity was that this girl was forthright. She did not break her gazes away from his, making Zakuro uncomfortably awed. No one else looked at him longer while he was like this. At least, not someone who happened to stumble upon him on an alley corner where he did his nightly, bloody feasts on hunted animals. Yet, this was a nobody he only came to know their existence.

       She turned over her hand, fingers curving in succession like a synchronized ballet dance. "Calm. Clear your conscience."

       Zakuro was too entranced--at the same time muddled--to hear her. Without another word, she pushed the round beacon through his undershirt, into Zakuro's abdomen without the slightest touch. Trails of gold rays resulted followed by one last glow. He felt for his wall-like gut, feeling the solvating heat inside. The pale moonlight exposed his build which was neither too rugged nor too lean, the body of a hermit who would think spending time outdoors is a waste of time. The human toil to achieve what they call fitness has always been a "hassle," as Zakuro would like to describe almost everything.

       With the marvel gone, he was able to further inspect this new face. The girl had quite fair skin, natural red lips, and svelte cheekbones. She had a long, slithery hair coated with gracile black, or dim blue in variance to the light. Her lithe midnight-blue kimono synchronized with her hair. Sapphire eyes shimmered like the sparkling lake, intimidating yet calming. If there were a few things he learned from his younger days, one of them would be that appearances do deceive.

       She must have suspected Zakuro's arising skepticism so she spoke, "Please. I do not intend to cause you any distress as much as you would with me." She offered his eyeglasses. Zakuro hesitated, but eventually took it, opening its temples with roughly dried thumbs, beholding its frame, careful not to nudge the rectangular lenses. The charm was still intact. "Scratchless. Quite durable like you."

       He did not notice until then that he was not wearing them. His illuminating red eyes were exposed. Is she not scared?

       She next lent him his black coat. "Not a loose thread. But there was nothing I could do about this." She pulled his phone out of its pocket.

       But his gazes did not leave the belle as he took his effects, only so when he briefly surveyed his coat. The silver pauldron forged from stainless metal still clung to its left shoulder cap. Upon its surface rested the bits of scarlet flakes, the remains of attempts to wipe off an unwanted image.

       The Mark of Devotion.

       One unlikely encounter is enough trouble for a day, but two? This day does not seem to favor him tonight. Perhaps this girl was shut out from the narrations of ridiculous children's storybooks, folklores of those whose eyes gleamed blazing red in the sanctuaries of darkness.