Bubbles toward the ceiling

Calm was the dawn when the sun barely rose. Roxy was wiping the dust off a plant leaves. Her roommate's side of the room was filled with open books and heavily annotated notes on the ground, proofs of finals season.

"I want a pink track suit, whatcha thinking kids?" She asked the plants.

Books moved when Ryu turned in his sleep, cutting the plant-ish conversation. Between papers and the blanket the shiny ivory of his prosthetic toes peeked.

'Sleeping in his human form?'

She tilted her head, finding him sleeping on his back.

'Shoot shoot shooooot!!'

 He started quivering with a pained expression, tendrils appeared one after another, quite small in size first. He opened his eyes to the sight of the ceiling, instantly jerking awake, with that his tendrils tripled in length, their pointy edges stabbed the air and the empty space in front of him. He covered his eyes with his hand, panting and sweating. 

Moments after his breath stabilizes, tendrils pulled back, the sound of water pouring makes him turn to the left where Roxy, her plants and his books and every other possession was cramped in an assumed safe spot. 

She handed him the glass of water awkwardly, observing as he drank. Eyes a little wide, as if searching through all the phrases humans exchange. He observed back in curiosity. 

"It's gonna be okay." She said. Patting his shoulder stiffly, exactly twice.

He chuckled, putting the glass down, laying on his back again.

"It is actually okay now. Isn't that funny?" He asks, tone is light but something in his eyes isn't.

She looked at him for a moment with her unreadable expression.

"Please don't lay on you back while looking at the ceiling." She shoves the stuff behind her back.

"Don't worry, I can control myself if I am awake."

She took off her Jelly sandals after a run, while many tendrils puts everything in place, he was chewing bread lazily, zoning out. 

The he looked at the other's poker face looking for the right words again.

"Finals huh? poor thing, couldn't be me." She concluded that teasing was the way to go.

"How's your job?" He jabbed back with a smug grin. She made a dramatic offended face.

He gave her a light pat on the back. 

"I'm good, really. "

The sound of pens scribbling on paper. He looked emptily at the empty blackboard, glancing now and then to the perfectly filled exam paper on his desk. The smooth silence of focused students engulfed the classroom until the bell sliced it. He took his glasses off while getting out of the classroom, passing to the lockers through students reviewing their answers. 

"Excuse me..." someone called him, with papers in his hands and two friends listening behind the lockers.

Ryu stared him. 

'What was his name?' He wondered.

"These are the notes you lend me, sorry for not returning them earlier, I got hospitalized, although the final is tomorrow..."

Ryu continued staring, breeding fear in the other guy. 

'Oh... He gonna beat me up.' The guy accepted his assumed fate under the stares.

'I am almost sure his name starts with the letter B.' Ryu was doing his own assumptions too.

"The notes? You can keep them. I rewrote them anyway." Ryu responded after some silence.

"Rewrote?"

"Yeah, helps with remembering." He clarifies while pulling papers out of his locker and giving it to him. 

"You didn't come to the Intellectual property rights, take this."

"Thanks...You rewrote those as well?" He blinked, dumbfounded.

"Five times, I have to go, see you."

He told before taking a folder with him.

'That's a honor student for you'

"See, told you he's nice!" The two guys stepped out after he left.

"Then why you were hiding?"

"Not our fault bro, you didn't see him beat three thugs first thing in the school year!" One of them whispered. 

'I think its Brian.. no Bruno?' Ryu thought, still in his own bubble.

Out in the sun he was pondering he met his teacher Yamada, who was holding folders of paperwork, almost running. 

'Hey kiddo, come to my office after lunch break. Gotta fill paper work for the pre-selection.' The teacher told quickly without Stumbling on his words. 

Ryu handed him the folder of paper work.

"Well, less work for me. Then tomorrow we'll go submit this and check the spot they assign to your piece."

Ryu looked at the drops of sweat sliding down his temple. Yamada has a confused look on his face.

"I can submit it myself this afternoon, if that's okay." Ryu offered.

He considered it for a moment before handing him the folder back.

"Make sure they didn't place it in a corner. Glass needs lighting to appeal to buyers." Yamada gave him the permission with the advice.

"Roger."

Ryu looked at the clock engraved in the main building of the art academy. A magnetic powder trapped inside a circular transparent tube. Filling the part of the circle which represent the current time.

It was half past ten, and the afternoon had a long way to come in the long hours of a hot day. Plenty of time for a detour.

Near the boarder which separated the green zone from the yellow zone, where the sky is dark gray and the grass is dark brown, a group of rocks and hazel nuts like creatures ran away to another spot as the gray blob with plates for wings land on a knoll. 

Turning into a human, pack of matches in his hand. He opened it. One match with a sapphire blue tip and a writing on the inside of the pack.

'Keep inflammables and points away before lighting.' The warning told.

"... My points with me so they can't be moved...unless I move? "

His narrow pupils wondered into the cloud, thinking.

"Maybe it's a way of saying don't wish anything?" He murmured to himself.

Drawing near the match head to the strike strip. The match shook and lit on itself, before getting ignited. 

'How can I help you?'

A voice creeped into Ryu's ears, flat yet somehow whimsical.

"I want to burn a wish."

"Is it new?"

"Yes."

"Do you know how made it? "

"Yes."

"Hmmmm, Gatcha Gotcha."

Blue flames got bigger and bigger. Ryu dropped it in the last second before a giant blaze burst and flared, bright and blinding. The flames continued growing, he watched, carefully shielding his face with his arms. Then in a sudden moment it all turned into bubbles. Thin and colorful, rising to the sky, popping one after another, leaving the original pack of matches on the ground.

"Done?" He asked after watching with immense attention, the color of each flame reflected dully on his jet black eyes.

"Hmmmmmm, only 90% of the wish is gone, stuff will continue to disappear, slower though; the wish wasn't new enough. Sorry lad."

One last bubble pop, the pack of matches fades.

Magnetic powder in clocks settling on five o'clock. Soft rays of sun hitting less spots as the day is getting to its end. In the shabby apartment Ryu was greeted by a large Greek column left to the window, he blinked in confusion taking a second look as if he might be in the wrong flat.

"Only for five moros, it was a bargain." Roxy answered the unasked question about the column while doing some embroidery.

He looked at the wall on his roommate's side, the Ojamajo doremi embroidery was hanging there. It was back. Turning to the window his first glass work of a tiny crown was siting there between the flourishing plants. 

Exhausted, he sat down drinking some water. 

"Fun day huh?"

"Yeah, flying not so much. Can you teach me riding a broom later?"

"Broomy only fly with me. Sorryy~."

'I am paying transportation fees then." He joked, laying on his side.

"Be careful, the papers will wrinkle." Roxy noted.

He looks at the folder he suppose to submit. Human eyes widened. 

She watched him down from the window. Running for dear life.

'Dude just submit it tomorrow... Wait, how did he manage to forget about it while holding it. Wait is the paper okay after the match? Eh, let's eat dinner!'

In one of the auction center halls Ryu was checking the papers for burn marks, zipping up his jacket to cover a mark on him before knocking on the office door. 

"Yes, the papers are complete, just check on your piece in the storage hall before leaving." The officer told him.

"Thank you."

He dismissed himself, heading towards the hall. 

'Phew, corner placement avoided!'

In the last minutes of the sunset, as darkness started swallowing the storage hall. Above the plinth that had his name, Ryu's art piece wasn't there.