Saying Something Stupid

It's as if the room held its breath - Too much silence.
Even the steam appliances have shut up.
Everything seems to digest the words spoken.
Even Naoh, who just slowly turns to face Alex - Looking at her for the confirmation of those words - Did she hear correctly? Alex? Marriage? They engage in an intense eye contact and just as it seemed the words would never come, suddenly-

"Pfft!" 
Naoh blurts out a choked laughter and crashes back onto the carpet. She lets out a series of cackles and giggles, making Alex turn a shade of peach. Mid laughter, she looks up at Alex.
"Where did that come from?"

Alex takes in a shaky-flustered inhale and jumps up in an instant. She flails her arms around and the slew of embarrassment coats her voice, as she starts screaming into Naoh's cacophony of laughter.
"Shut up dude!" she squeals, but the cackles only grow louder as Naoh catches the frustration in her tone. Alex's eyes narrow and a small pout lands onto her face, as she tries her best to backpedal. "I-It was just a random thought, okay?"

After a few more giggles, Noah's laughter seem to somewhat simmer down.
She slowly sits up and wipes a small bead of tear forming around her eye. She lets out a few more exhausted chuckles left inside her mind before finally speaking to Alex, who is on the verge of storming out and spending her life under a rock.

"Sorry sorry," she mutters, waving her hand in a placating notion, allowing Alex to let out a huff of relief before Naoh takes one last jab at her.
"I just didn't take you for the 'maiden waiting for her happy-ever-after' type."

Alex clenches her fists and launches herself at the teasing Noah, with a squeaky growl of innocent embarrassment. "THAT'S IT!"
She tussles around with the Naoh, who is way lighter than her and she starts her special 'RAPID TICKLE FIRE' - One of her personally coined power moves.
Even as they tumble around the coarse carpet, the touch of Alex is always light; Even during their strained laughter, Alex keeps glancing at her eyes, looking out for signs of any genuine distress. 

The choked giggles and grunts of ticklish struggle, swarm the messy room for a few minutes, before a victor emerges from their intense showdown. Just as Naoh's stomach was on the verge of tickled-induced cramp, she puts her hands up and yields with a content smile. "Alright alright!" she cries out and Alex tones down her tickle assault, allowing her to form coherent words. "You win, I won't bug you."

"Hmph!" Alex grunts out, letting her friend sit back up. "You better not!"
They both sit apart and try to catch their breathes. Their eye contact is shaky, as Alex keeps looking up and down from the carpet - She can't believe the words that actually left her own lips. Naoh easily catches onto her friend's unease and knows that something's off - Was it really just a random 'spur of the moment' thought? 

She crawls over to her friend, until she is within arm's reach and what follows is a few moments of awkward silence. It is finally broken, when Naoh lets out a content chuckle accompanied with a raised eyebrow and reaches out to Alex, who finally makes eye contact.

"But seriously," Naoh murmurs as she takes her hand close to Alex's face and taps at her forehead. "Why did silly 'marriage' pop into this head of yours?"

Alex blinks at her for a few seconds....lost on the word 'silly'.

Silly huh?

Just one word was enough to make her feel...foreign - Like it wasn't even a thought for the one she had if front of her eyes. A confirmation that even if they are on the same scattered floor, their minds are world apart. That's the feeling that Alex got - It didn't even make her sad or hurt. It just left her frustrated - Why can't she ever relate or feel the same?

She is frozen in a state of silent contemplation, before her conscious kicks in and she swats Naoh's hand away. "It was just a stupid question," she grumbles in serious tone and turns away from Naoh, who gets caught off guard by her shift in demeanor. "Just forget it..."

Alex pulls up her jacket hood and clutches her knees to her chest, curling into a little ball - A habit which Naoh has seen before and has come to associate with moments of genuine distress. Now she is the one looking at Alex's hunched back and she starts to feel a bit concerned - Was that question a sensitive topic?  She starts to realize that laughing and ridiculing her buddy, wasn't the best choice. She knows from experience that trying to dissect Alex's thoughts right now, would only push her away.

So, what does she do?
She decides to 'think out loud' - Almost like she's talking to the room -  An act she's performed  whenever Alex gets fed up with her antics - This is their unofficial medium of communication, when direct words are not a comfortable option.

Just as the silence grows colder, Alex feels something press against her and she glances back to find Naoh, leaning back into her. Alex doesn't pull away, instead she shifts slightly to make the position more comfortable - Their backs are now pressed against each other. The sky expert lets out a content sigh and begins her 'thinking out loud'.

"So...marriage, huh?" she speaks into the air, trying her to leave no traces of her earlier teasing. Alex's ears perk up at the starting words, but she doesn't turn around. Naoh smiles to herself and continues "It's such a...umm....BIG topic."
Her vocabulary isn't suited for such a subject - Most of her words revolve around the place above, so such grounded topics aren't really her forte.

"Man, I really never thought about it," Naoh says after a few seconds of genuine thought. She leans her head back against Alex's nape and starts fiddling with her nails. "What do you even do when you get married?"

The question floats around the room - An invitation for Alex to join in the conversation but she doesn't...or more so, she can't - Her answer may be too heavy for the chill tone that Naoh's pushing. After a few moments, the girl tries to answer her own question with her awkward thoughts.

"The books always end with a 'and they lived happily ever after'." she murmurs into the silence. The picture books in the 'For Kid's' section of the school library are the only material she had to research stuff like 'love' or 'marriage'. She tugs at a loose thread of the carpet in an attempt to keep her voice steady and her thoughts start spilling out. "But that's so vague."

Alex shifts just a little, letting Naoh know that she is listening, despite being a ball of indignation. Noah gets the push she needs and tries to articulate her thoughts better.
"You know, they never elaborate on what it means to live 'happily ever after'." she pauses for a bit and looks up to the ceiling, her mind spacing out. "The story never goes beyond that point. How does it even happen?"

Yet another question wafts through the air - Another invitation for an actual conversation.
Naoh starts to gear up for another round of rambling, but this time Alex decides to pick up the invitation, finally loosening her stubborn cocoon. She seems to mumble something under her breathe and Naoh simmers down, allowing Alex to express her mind.

 "I-I...heard marriage means being with them everyday and stuff."  she turns her head back a bit, catching a peek of Naoh's navy hair before continuing - Her volume decreasing with every syllable. "When you umm...find the right person, your whole life is filled happiness...or whatever."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she braces herself for another round of Naoh's cackles but all she receives is silent contemplation. The girl just slowly nods, as she tries to gauge the meaning behind her friend's words. Finally she replies in a half fascinated, half hesitant tone.

"Whole life huh?" she relaxes against her friend - The concept settling into her mind. "That's...That's a long time." 

Alex feels her friend leaning further back and she recognizes Naoh's effort to keep the conversation flowing - To not dismiss her thoughts. She slowly starts opening up, a silent comfort washing over her as she tries to add to their shaky conversation.
"Yeah...I guess," she says in a somber tone.  "A lifetime with someone...it is a long time."

"Someone..." Naoh murmurs the word, visualizing the scene of 'happiness' and trying to relate that to a person or situation, but she comes up blank...or maybe she dismisses the first images that come up to her mind - Something...or someone who is not as far away as the skies - Why did she even...never mind. 

Naoh's eyes zone out to the far wallpaper, where she's eyeing the crude stickman they had drawn - One which Alex had badass-ified, through depictions of crayon blood. As she traces the fading crayon lines, her mind runs in the background. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn't...or didn't want to relate 'marriage' with the first person that came to her mind, because she kept thinking of ways to limit her own 'weird thoughts'...and that's when she blurted out a simple question.

"That someone's gotta be special, right?"

Alex remains still and silent as she processes the question before turning her head towards her friend. She says no words but her eyes hold the universal look of "What do you mean?"
Naoh catches the unspoken inquiry and tries to elaborate on the 'special' part of her question. This time Naoh is the one who avoids eye contact - A certain heat travels up her neck as she prepares to voice her thoughts without sounding too 'mushy' or 'sentimental'.

"You know," the girl mutters in a tone of uncertainty. She fiddles with her nails again, as she tries to get the words out. "To love and be happy for the rest of your lives, that someone's gotta be pretty flawless, right?"

Alex's pupils widen for a split second and return to their original size, as she registers every word spoken. Every word goes down the hatch without issue, except for the one. A heavy weight crashes down on her and she feels a hollow pit in her stomach, but she shows no sign of panic or stress. It was a weirdly slow feeling of despair...and acceptance. 
She slowly turns back around. Her face is back in the hood, falling slowly into her cradled arms, as she goes over the last line - The one word always sticking out. 

flawless

To be flawless eh?....Now that's a hefty requirement.

She obviously wasn't flawless - To be without flaws - It's impossible.
And that was not the reason behind this tiring despair.
It was not the word nor its meaning. 
More so the burden that the word carries.

To the little girl with her oversized jacker, just the sheer weight of the word FLAWLESS was daunting. Almost like distorted mirror, telling her that all her feelings and emotions are wrong. They can never happen - It's impossible.

And all she can do is accept.
Because she knows that Naoh didn't hold any of those intentions when she just uttered the simple sentence. There was genuine thought behind that sentence. It was not created to offend, it was a reflection of Naoh's thoughts.

There is an infinite number of things she could say, a million that she wants to say and only a handful of answers she wishes for her 'stupid question', but the possibility of hearing them from Noah is zero. So many thoughts nudge her mind, begging for release...but all that escapes her mouth is a muffled:

"...yep.."

This time it did not frustrate her.
This time it hurt.