...
Melody shrugs her shoulders and sways her hair over once, letting it dangle behind her as she passes him onward to school. "Tch." Mason agrees, cooly carrying on behind her.
Letting the wild event roll off both of their shoulders, the pair heads down the road they met on and turns down another where they can see a few other students clamoring along the sidewalks. Chatter fills the air, along with cellphone's ringing, cars honking, and animals getting their own morning craziness out of the way, The Sun reaches above the world.
Melody walks on, but noticeably leans away and tries to hide away from Mason's sight, wiping away at something on her shirt on the opposite side of him. Quick swipes from her hand break her outline. Mason can tell she's hiding something and snickers at her attempt to edge away, rolling his eyes to ask.
"What is it, Mel?"
A graveled sigh escapes with the words, hot and slow.
"Mm, it's nothing-"
Melody huffs, annoyed and hurried.
" I- I got your stupid blood on me!"
Melody scrapes harder at the bloodstain on her shirt, bunching up her knuckles for extra grip.
Mason stops and digs his heel into the ground.
"You landed on me!"
Mason immediately argues, throwing his hand to the side. Melody turns her head away, feigning being hurt, completed with a pouty face and extra pressed lips. Melody holds her eyes closed and her arms crossed at her chest in defiance to talk anymore.
"Hmph!"
After a moment, Melody looks to peek at him with a barely opened eye, but he's gone from sight.
"Gah, Dammit, stain!"
Mason is already at her side on one knee, pulling at her shirt with every rough swipe. She regrets not getting to see him relent; a sight she loves. Melody smiles ahead with sweet chagrin.
Below her waist, Mason tugs and pulls at Melody's shirt, showing that he isn't getting anywhere with his wiping. His angered breaths are a good tell now too.
"Grah! Well, I don't know what to do!"
Mason lets her shirt loose, throwing the slightly stretched fabric back to her side, holding his knee as he pouts himself.
Melody stands above him, smiling thankfully. Her right-side cheek lifts and a short and happy giggle escapes her nose.
"It's okay, it was cool of you to try."
Melody nods to him and decides to move past it, continuing down the street with her playful bounce, her arms crossed behind her back reaching her skirt. Melody skips ahead of Mason leaving him on his knee.
Mason quickly shouts out, a few paces behind her, more determined than before.
"You'll wear mine! Here, look! My uniform doesn't have blood on it!"
Mason waves his jacket above his head, already having taken it off and waving it around like his sword before. His katana still sheathed around his shoulder in the same seemingly impossible instant.
"And even if it did, you couldn't tell!"
Mason stands a short distance behind her, thinking about the possibility that he might've bled on it at some point previous. Mason juts his black and red coat forward to Melody. The black fabric somehow doesn't reflect much light sheen off of it the way most blacks do, and the red is about as deep as blood anyways.
"Mason. You know I can't wear your uniform. They'd likely kick me out of the school entirely."
Melody tilts her sweet smile and peach cheeks to the left, leaning her hair to fall over her shoulder now.
"idiot."
Melody hums, bringing herself upright again as Mason meets her.
"Hmm, that's true."
Mason rubs his chin, lowering his jacket in his other hand. The boy looks Melody over, top to bottom.
"Man, they really care that much about how they look on the Blessed side of school?"
Mason throws his jacket back on, hugging his katana back to his shoulder again. Mason, for effect, leaves his jacket hanging loosely around his shoulder and slouches his back.
"Mmm, It's not about how they look, it's what they think you represent."
Melody straightens her hair and posture, seeing how terrible Mason is making himself look.
"Feh, Damn Blessed, I'd take my being Cursed any day over a life like that."
Mason fixes himself, stretching slightly to push a crack out of his back, throwing himself upright and looking off to the side now.
Melody continues smiling, but the words do seem to weigh something.
Mason notices and smirks at his friend, shoving into her shoulder with his.
"Hey, no offense or anything. You know I at least put up with you."
"Hmph."
Melody lets her Haloglow brightly for an instant, striking Mason's eye as he catches a glint of it.
"Kidding, kidding!"
Melody punches Mason's arm, acknowledging the intent.
Melody shakes off her bruised uniform of white and yellow, figuring there's not much else to do about it, while Mason shifts uncomfortably in his red and black- wringing his tie at the neck. The shared styles of uniform relinquish the roles they share at school. Blessed and Cursed being separate in almost all fashions. Melody relinquishes that it feels good to look good, while Mason thinks about the thickness of the fabric.
"Haaagh."
Mason roars in continued frustration. Heaving a hot breath forward, the air could almost catch aflame.
"What? Is it the Sun?"
Melody looks up, squinting one eye closed and looking through her parted fingers.
"Want me to try and beat it up again?"
Melody closes her raised fist up to the Sun, her view has her grabbing the sun in hand. Her tone sounds as if a challenge were issued.
"No, don't both- ... Again?"
Mason understandably questions her meaning. Leaning his head from his slacked posture and peers over at Melody.
"Yeah! I hate that stupid thing too,"
Melody meets Mason's confused gaze, tilting her head in line.
"-so I tried to get up to it, and show it what happens when someone messes with me!"
Melody pretends to punch a few swings, even throwing in a high knee strike. The air around her seems to glow in a yellow haze as her focus grows on the imaginary fight with a celestial body.
"Is- Is that why you were in the sky!?"
Mason is struck, stupefied by her idea of actually fighting the sun, to his own lazy swings at it.
"Of course you were..."
Realizing that Melody is exactly the type of girl to try to fight the Sun, Mason sighs and agrees that it was probably always going to happen, nothing to do about the likelihood regardless.
"Yeah, but I guess I'm just not strong enough yet."
Melody lowers her head and bows to it, forfeiting her match with the millions of miles away ball of light.
Mason chuckles and Melody shines another smile, happy in succeeding to cheer the gloomy Mason up a touch. Though suddenly, a lumbering something trails onto the path ahead of them that gathers their attention quickly.
"Aheh, hey, look!"
Melody points out to the walking obstruction, a scrawny deformation of fantastical flesh, sputum, molten rock, and road.
Appearing slowly and randomly from a mound of cracked street-stone and red-hot liquid, the creature stands on two stumpy legs that, if not for the pathetic attempt at walking, it could've been said that the creature was a statue. The living molten creature appears to open its eyes, where a bipedal's eyes should be anyways.
The dumb-looking monster drags its slack-jaw over, gaping at the oncoming students. Opening its mouth wide, the creature raises its arms and shrinks momentarily. It blinks one eye at a time and hums a bassy roar. The heat released just from an opening on its body is enough to warn anything living to stay away.
"WUUUUGH."
Continued in PART 3...
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