Bubbles toward the ceiling

The sun peaked into the horizon in the calmness of the dawn. Roxy was wiping the dust off a plant’s 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.

A thud on the window indicated the arrival of her roommate, cutting the plant-ish conversation. She opened the window for the invisible blob to enter, he turned visible, then human. Laying down on the floor with his eyes half open.

“Can’t believe you flew all the way to here in one night.” He didn’t hear her because he was asleep already so she continued caring for her plants. Wiping leaves, fluffing up the soil and adding a fertilizer. Blissfully enjoying the process until he turned in his sleep and knocked some books.

“Heh, sleeping with his eyes open. This dumbass…”

'Wait! 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 spawned 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 stabilized, tendrils pulled back, the sound of water pouring made 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. Her eyes slightly wide, as if she were 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 asked, tone is light but something in his eyes isn't.

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

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

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

She took his words for it and went for a run only to come back to him looking like a withered branch. She took off her Jelly sandals while watching many tendrils organize his belongings as he was chewed bread lazily, zoning out.

He looked at her staring him down with her poker face, looking for the right words.

"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. Gaining a dramatic offended face.

He gave her a light pat on the back.

"I'm good, really."

“To make sure you’re extra good I’ll tell you how to spot a new wish maker!”

“They have dark eye bags for couple days after making a wish?”

“How did you know?”

He told her about the knight that talked to himself, he thought she would be more interested in the story, but she shrugged.

“A youngster plotting isn’t really new to me. Hope he didn’t detect you though.”

He raised his eyebrow, got invisible like a ghost, and pinched her cheek until he remembered he lack of time.

“Well, gotta catch the final exam, see ya.”

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏

Many pens scribbled 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.

He was reviewing the timeline of events, his mind connected that when he saw Sami in the auction preparation that day, and he had already make his wish. Meaning many art pieces has been disappearing since then, even if he didn’t knew. His mind wondered what the purpose of this wish was.

‘It’s probably a wish gone wrong or misinterpreted.’

That explanation didn’t prevent his face from making a slight frown. Sami was far from malicious but that didn’t mean the thought of him wasn’t the second most repulsive thing for Ryu.

He was deep in his thoughts until someone called him.

"Excuse me..." Some guy said, with papers in his hands and two friends listening behind the lockers.

Ryu stared him and wondered.

'What was his name?'

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

Ryu continued staring.

'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 clarified 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 an 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 until 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, though his breathe was a little shaky from running around.

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 stared at the drops of sweat sliding down the teacher’s temple. Yamada had 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 border 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 landed 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 wandered into the cloud, thinking.

“Maybe it’s a way of saying the fire will eat the points?” He murmured to himself, not like he cared much about his abundance of points, whole 0.9 points were at stake.

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 recent enough. Sorry lad.”

One last bubble popped, the pack of matches faded.

▌│█║▌║▌║

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 while taking a second look as if he entered the wrong apartment.

“Only for five moros, quite the 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 sitting there between the flourishing plants.

He checked up close it was the real one, shapeless with air bubbles and all. The catalyst of it all. He sometimes wondered if he hadn’t made this, would he be doing all this or would he stick to the original plan, used the scholarship in the first year then pivoted his major to cosmetology and went to work in the village’s salon.

Exhausted, he sat down drinking some water. The coolness of the crisp water made his thoughts slow down and he took a much needed deep breath.

“Fun day huh?” Roxy said.

“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, pointing at the folder.

He looked at the folder he supposed 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 papers 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.