On Tuesday morning, Noah woke up early to clear his table, organize his games, make his bed, and sweep his floor. At the last minute, he decided to dust the peripherals and ceilings, but the dust fell down so he had to sweep the floor again. He took a shower afterward but noticed how dusty the top of his ornaments were when he came back so he wiped each one down with a rag. Then he wiped his windows and monitor screens. He got dust on the floor again after that so he swept for the third time. Then he unmade his bed and threw the blankets in the wash basket. He laid new covers afterward.
He stepped back to admire his work. He was sweaty and tired and dustier than his room before he cleaned up. He breathed in the newly clean air that was his room and sighed in content.
He took another shower and was late for homeroom.
On Tuesday noon, Amelia had lunch in the Arts Department, specially delivered by a working student who worked at the school's coffee shop nearby. When she asked who it was from, the guy said it was compliments from one of the Heirs. Which one of the four, she wasn't told. She asked him to give them her thanks, then picked at her food without really relishing any of it, not even the organic breadfruit, the savory-looking chocolate cake, or the creamy steaming coffee.
Her mind went back to the conversation she had with Noah last night.
"You really talk a lot, don't you?" She said after a while of silence. They had been sitting silent on the bench they found for a while then, appreciating each other's company.
He looked startled at the news. "Really? I was just making conversation."
She shook her head. "I like how you talk. You've got nice diction." It was the best compliment she could fish for. She wasn't much when it came to appraising people, but she was sure about her judgement on Noah. She might have slipped in and out of his soliloquys, but that was only because she liked him. To a normal person, he might be able to reel them into what he wanted them to hear.
He looked thoughtful for a while. "No one's ever told me that before." He smiled sheepishly. "It's nice to hear."
"Why?" She asked, folding her hands on her lap. A breeze blew by and she felt her fingertips complain amidst the cold. She should have borrowed a pair of gloves, she thought.
He scratched his nape. "Usually, people tell me I stutter too much so they can't understand most of what I say. In fact, I've been blabbering the whole time I talked to you tonight."
She stared at him. "You don't blabber though. Not to me. Or at least, not when you tell stories."
He stared back, thinking over her words.
She felt herself unable to hold his stare and looked away. It was true though. In a normal conversation, Noah stuttered a lot, especially when he was embarrassed or in front of a crowd, she noticed, but when he was telling a story, especially about something he was passionate about, he had a good rhythm, pronouncing the words neatly and able to use the right transitions to keep a linear telling. She wondered why he never noticed it himself. Hadn't anyone heard him tell a story before?
"Hm." He said after a while, leaning back on the bench with his arms spread. "The last time I told stories like this was in front of my parents. And that was a long time ago." His eyes went distant, no longer to the starless night but somewhere else, somewhere she wasn't.
She gaped at him, the question came off hesitant. "Where are they now?"
"They're alive, don't worry." He said nonchalantly, which made her breathe lighter. She had been worried. "They're just not around is all. Most of the students in DDA have parents like mine so don't go thinking I'm a special case."
She stayed silent, like the rest of their conversations before, but she internally agreed. Albeit in her point of view, she'd sympathize with the parents. There were many trips and invitations from her father that she had to cancel, forgotten about, or postponed because of her sport. There would be a bout of dread at the pit of her stomach before picking up the phone to answer her dad, and once she had to break the news to him, she'd felt like being strangled upon hearing the dejected tone in his voice he'd try to hide.
She wondered if Noah ever let his dejection show to his parents. If so, maybe his mom and dad felt the same as she does whenever they had to cancel on him.
"What's your report about?" Amelia asked, jerking Noah a bit. Was it that surprising for her to talk? She wasn't able to ask, because then he regained composure and answered.
"Italy. Basically anything about it, really. There's no set matrix, and the teacher just wanted us to talk and stuff. So long as you can explain how the subject affected the rest of the world. Of course it still has to be factual and I still have to deliver the details around it." He leaned back, a lost look back in his eyes as he stared up the sky. "Plus points if I could get my classmates to keep listening for half a minute." His cap had gotten lopsided during the night, and now it tipped to his right.
So it has to be a contribution the country made to the world? She looked up as well. Then she closed her eyes.
"Watcha' doin'?" She heard Noah ask after a while.
She hesitated to tell him. "Praying."
He leaned forward, leveling her. "Whatcha' prayin' for?" Then, as though realizing the obvious, his voice went quiet. "Oh. Yeah. Of course."
She shook her head, letting her smile show as best she could. "Strangely, I'm not praying for that for once since it happened." She opened her eyes, looking at him. "I'm praying for you to figure out your report." And that I'd be able to help you somehow."I honestly want to pray for a lot more. I want a lot of stuff." She tried to make a joking grin. "Is that selfish?"
Noah stared at her for a while as she waited for him to reply. She noticed that he stared at her longer than usual whenever she tried to smile. It felt reassuring, knowing that she wasn't the only one who liked to stare at people. She just wished she didn't blush too hard. He had really nice eyes. Especially in the dark. They glowed like jewels from another world.
He blinked, and it dawned on him.
He stood up so abruptly she would have stepped back from surprise had she not been sitting down.
"Eureka!" Noah exclaimed.
She wanted to ask what he just got, but he had spun around, his eyes alight and awake, glinting a sparkling blue so pale she thought it almost white. Her breath got caught at the back of her throat and she forgot what she wanted to ask.
"Eureka!" Noah repeated, he raised his hands then threw them down in excitement. "Should I walk you back?"
She must have looked confused, but said nothing and nodded anyway.He was so excited he didn't even try to explain himself, nor did he even bother to ask her if she was curious.
She stood, felt a rush of cold and tried to hide it by casually folding her arms over her chest without stopping her wade.
Without missing a beat, Noah placed his jacket over her shoulders and kept walking when she suddenly stopped.
He looked back at her, still looking excited.
She looked back, then pulled the jacket closer to her body and caught up with him.
He started talking about mundane things again, never going back to his report, but Amelia didn't mind anymore. Sometimes her hands would clutch at the jacket like it was him. It was two sizes too big for her. From time to time their eyes would lock at the same time and she'd feel her cheeks raise temperature in response.
Back at the Arts Department Dormitory she stayed in, she gave him his jacket back and he said "Goodnight." But before he went, he took off his cap and fixed his hair, flipping it to the left with the tip of his fingers, then wore his cap back.
It was such a cute mannerism!
"G'night." She said in a rush, realizing she's been too slow to say anything and should fix it if she wanted to be understood.
He looked at her with that surprised expression again, but this time, he looked more bemused than unnerved. He smiled, nodded, then went his way.
She stared at him as far as she could, and sometimes he'd look back and wave. It was only when she realized her ears shocked her fingers from freeze did she pry herself away from door and into the heaters. She leaned on the glass, tinted door that was only see through when there was an even distribution of light.
She never realized someone could be freezing on the outside yet be so warm on the inside.
