Straight on Till Morning

He knew the place better than me who was visiting for the first time so I let him lead me trusting him completely even if he had a tendency to play with my nerves and test my patience when I did so. The moments I was wary of him and his plans, he would never dare do something to upset me even a little but the ones I let my guard down, he accepted it as a challenge to see how much I could endure before breaking my composure.

This time I was glad I trusted him.

“Take off your shoes” He demanded in the middle of the street. The world around us was quiet and void in a beautiful way. There weren’t many people going around and about at this time of day and though there was some guilt sitting stubbornly in my stomach and not going away, the exhilaration was greater. There was something about the darkness of the night that made everything seem more exciting. That didn’t mean I was going to oblige to every single request he made, however. Especially one as absurd as that.

“Why?” My voice was a bit pointed. I was sure that no matter the reason behind this, I wasn’t going to be convinced. He simply smiled mysteriously and dug his hands deeper into his pockets.

“It’s a secret” He sing-songed with a glint in his eyes that I wasn’t sure if it amused me or made me fear for my life, or at least my dignity.

“That’s reassuring enough” I mused sarcastically and he looked delighted like he wished my response would be something like that. I really didn’t understand him at times.

“We can’t get there if you’re wearing your shoes” He gave another vague clue as if it was going to be enough to keep me satisfied. I cocked an eyebrow and crossed my arms under my chest.

“I’m not going to the afterlife with you” It was a joke but my voice had been so flat when I said it that his eyes grew wider than I had ever seen them, before his whole body started vibrating in his effort to contain his laughter. He had expected something since I wasn’t known to keep my mouth shut but he hadn’t expected that. I smiled smugly as I watched him straining to regain control of his body and ease the laughter which was becoming more and more hysterical by the second. Sometimes, the more you fight something, the more it tries to make its presence prominent and felt. For some reason my cheeks started burning at that thought and I looked down trying to hide it.

“I’ll do it” I finally said, cutting off the last remains of his laughter and he looked at me with surprised teary eyes. I didn’t think he was going to laugh that hard. Maybe he needed it. And maybe the tears glistening in his eyes weren’t from laughing but from something else that leaked out the moment he let his guard down. I tried not to think about it.

“Really?”

“Yes. But you will have to take off something in return” A challenging flame sparked in my eyes as my lips quirked up in a sly smile. He raised both his eyebrows and half-lidded his eyes.

“Your real intentions finally shine through! You were after my body all along!” He said with his usual high-pitched voice which he used when he was trying to be overdramatic or tease me. However, he stiffened the moment he realized that I wasn’t reacting to it and still continued to move towards him in long slow steps, my eyes never leaving his. I watched his Adam’s apple jog as he swallowed hard and my body heat increased but I wasn’t going to stop. It was so easy for him to make me feel all those things, I wanted to repay the favor,

“So what if I was?” I asked in a low voice and stopped mere inches away from him. My hands reached for him and I saw him flinch, the only movement he had made since getting petrified by my unusual behavior. I grazed his neck with my fingertips feeling like I could die in the spot but not letting it show out of sheer stubbornness and the moments his lips parted and he was ready to say something, I tore off his tie. His breath became easier and so did mine.

“Your tie. It didn’t look good on you” I stumbled upon my words and could feel my hands tremble so I quickly stepped away. I was supposed to be the one teasing him but right now I felt worse than the times he had actually teased me. For a moment I had considered- had considered-

I threw away my shoes in a movement a little more harsh and strong than I had intended. I was definitely going to regret it later when I was going to be looking for them and would be unable to find them. I could already picture myself walking barefoot to the hotel but it was a small and insignificant image in the back of my head. The rest of my mind was filled with things so loud and mixed that my body felt a little feverish.

“Are you coming or what?” My head snapped at his voice and I saw him standing meters away barefoot and breathing easier now that this chain of fabric was no longer there. It wasn’t all to tease him. I couldn’t stand seeing that tie around his neck like gallows growing tighter and strangling him.

Had his voice quivered a bit or was it just my imagination? The way he was standing not too far but not too close either- Yeah, must have been my imagination.

“It better be worth it” I deadpanned as I followed behind him. He shot me a bright smile and continued walking forward. He had purposefully asked me to take off my shoes at a safe distance so that I couldn’t see where we were going but at the same time, not hurt my legs very badly. I wasn’t exactly sure if walking barefoot was really unpleasant or pleasant. I mean, yeah, I could feel everything, every little rock and broken branch and flaw in the construction of the street, and my skin already had small scratches and cuts but there was something really free about it. My feet were breathing and feeling the pulse of the earth underneath and not covering my senses made me feel more awake and alert. It was peculiar and wrong but at the same time, somewhere inside of me it felt so right.

“If you’re smiling like that for the route there, I can’t wait to see your reaction when we reach our destination” His voice broke through my thoughts and the reassessment of my life choices. Apparently, I had been smiling without realizing it but he had noticed. He always did. The night air felt colder as it touched my now warmer cheeks and I tightened the grip of my hands on my arms. At some point, I had forgotten if I was holding myself because the night was a bit chilly or because that way I felt safer and more careful.

My thoughts and feelings were such an absolute mess that night, louder and spreading for some reason, that I didn’t even realize we had arrived at our destination until my toes curled in satisfaction the moment they came in contact with the warm and soft sand. I didn’t even know there was a beach so close to where we were staying. The other students would kill for such a piece of information and if they had known, it was going to be filled with many people and their loud voices. I sighed out in relief when I looked up and confirmed that we were all alone and had the beach to ourselves. I couldn’t handle any more noise and socializing for today.

“It’s…beautiful” I couldn’t phrase it any other way really. The sweet and pale moonlight was sipping into the dark seawater and made it look like it hid the most precious treasure underneath. I vaguely recalled a myth about people who thought that the moonlight reflecting on the sea’s surface was actually pieces of silver in the bottom of the sea and they tried to dry it out with buckets so that they could get their hands on the treasure underneath. Greedy. Always greedy, that’s what humans were. Looking for something more while not paying attention to the true beauty of what was in front of them. Chasing something else, not realizing the worth of what they were granted. I turned to look at his face and was shocked to feel that same greediness aroused inside me for anything that had to do with him. It was terrifying and incredibly strong and if it was any other moment and his profile didn’t look so pained for an instant, I might have tried to run away from it.

I considered finding a way to lighten the mood but found none and decided that not all moments needed to be happy or light. Avoiding the elephant in the room, didn’t make it go away. I couldn’t press him about it either, though. So I just slipped into the sand and lied down waiting to see if he was going to join me.

“When you look at the stars and the greatness of it all, doesn’t it make you feel insignificant and small?” His voice startled me. He had been so quiet that I wasn’t even sure if he was still there but he sounded close to me so that meant he had accepted the silent invitation.

“No” I replied simply. I felt him whip his head towards mine but kept looking into the night sky. “Do you see the stars stop shining because the moon is bigger and brighter? Nothing is unimportant. Everything that happens to us, no matter how small and different to what happens to others, is important to us” I explained and he made a contemplating sound but didn’t reply anything. I wanted to ask him how he was doing and what was going on with his family but I didn’t. Instead, I continued looking into the beautiful stars and poked onto another topic entirely. “Do you have dreams?”

“Are you suggesting that I am some type of demon that doesn’t sleep nor dream?” He knew what I meant but decided to deflect it anyway. I wasn’t going to give up on that one so easily though.

“What do you wish to be?” I heard him gulp and felt his gaze on me before he looked away.

“Does it matter?” He whispered weakly with a slight edge to it. Bull's-eye.

“It matters to me” I said strongly and he took a breath ready to object. The sand swifted underneath me as he got ready to get up and the thought settled in him and probably he figured that there was no reason for him to not at least discuss this, especially when he would do anything to keep away from his house that night.

“I want to be a psychologist”

“The word you’re looking for is see. ‘I want to see a psychologist’” I teased, chuckling lightly and I knew he had rolled his eyes without even looking at him.

“Yeah, yeah! Because God forbid what would happen to patients if I was their psychologist right?” The smile I could hear in his voice tugged at my heart.

“Exactly! Can you imagine?”

“It’s too scary to even think about!”

“I can already see the headlines” I lifted my arms in the air creating a horizontal line. “Patients leave crazier than before from crazy psychologist’s clinic!”

“You know, you could be my first client” I almost barked at what he implied but managed to restrain myself and turned to look at him with a painfully wide smile.

“I don’t trust someone with two names” His eyes almost gouged out of his skull and he looked intent on commenting about how I had looked for information about him, considering I knew where his summer house was as well. He decided not to in the end.

“You would change your name too if your brother was a teacher in the school” I knew this wasn’t the primary reason but still looked at him with curiosity, my interest piqued. An amused smile tugged at my lips.

“Who?” He looked like he preferred to die rather than admit it. This was gonna be golden!

“Karuizawa-sensei” He grumbled and I shot upwards propelling myself by the elbows. I definitely didn’t expect that. I don’t know if I looked more terrified about the truth of the most annoying teacher being my friend’s brother or amused by it. The smile had frozen on my lips.

“Seriously?” I still couldn’t believe it and he looked in pain when he nodded, his face covered behind his palms. I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to laugh but not quite. “I would too, change my name if he was my brother” I said and his hands were quickly removed from his face.

“Right?!” He sat up opposite of me. He looked relieved to have someone understand how he felt about his embarrassing older brother and somewhere behind all the shock and irritation abou Karuizawa-sensei, I found that moment we shared endearing.

We talked about many things after that. Not giving a damn about how quickly the time was passing by or the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we would say something really deep and then surround it with many shallow or funny things so that we wouldn’t get too deep with no easy way out.

At some point, he looked at me in gratitude like he was thankful he had a moment of freedom before he had to return to those people and their expectations. I didn’t like that look, it was like he was saying thank you for giving him the chance to dream for a night, while I wanted him to never stop doing so. So I replied with a fiery look of my own, threatening anything or anyone who stood in the way of his goal.

At some point, the air let my carefully tied hair loose and I didn’t mind it. I embraced the freedom of it and gave a promise to myself that I was going to help this person realize his dream, even if I had no idea what having a dream or wanting to make it real felt like.

We fell asleep side by side and all I could think about was my plan to help him. Nothing was going to stop me.