Quote:
The Meteor Shower (3) : It wouldn’t be a star festival without a meteor shower! Right on time, a beautiful array of shooting stars graces the night sky. This time of year is unnaturally clear and it’s incredibly easy to see the stars. Most meteor fragments appear to be little white or yellow lights streaming across the sky, but if you watch closely enough you may find that some of them seem to be a whole rainbow of colors. The scientists have reported that it’s just different components burning up as they enter the atmosphere, but there’s something undeniably magical about it.
Liánlí didn’t much enjoy being in his own head. Most of the time, it only wound up confusing and frustrating him in the long run because he could not, for the life of him, properly articulate everything going on inside him at any given moment. Unless it was simple and straightforward—something easy, and pleasant, and relatively unobtrusive as far as emotions or personal difficulties went—Liánlí always found himself fumbling over the words in whatever language his brain tried to put them in. Happy made sense to him. Excited made sense to him. Sad and angry made sense insofar as he needed to deal with them himself and not take them out on anybody else.
Whatever had been going on inside him since That Patrol with Selenga, though? That emotion, whichever it thought it was at home, patently Did Not Make Sense.
A major part of the problem, at least as far as Liánlí had figured out from his appointment with his therapist this week, went back to how many feelings wanted to coexist right now. Ever since that trip out to patrol with Selenga, Liánlí’s feelings had jumbled themselves up so badly together that several of them became indistinguishable from each other. Which made his stomach lurch and his head spin in so many ways that he didn’t want to deal with—not least because he had a moving date coming up at the end of July. From experience, Liánlí knew that he couldn’t throw things together to move into a new place at the last minute. Pausing that work to try and unpack a suitcase that he’d never asked for, which might as well have been full of poison lobsters for all the good it did him?
Well, that just sounded marvelously counterintuitive to anything constructive, didn’t it?
Going out and about as Kaifeng still made sense to him—patrolling, looking for trouble that he could help with, giving innocent civilians room to get away from youma and making a bright, sunshine-smiling nuisance of himself to Negaverse officers and Dark Mirrors who thought they might get rowdy.… Even going out in the rain to chase after whatever he could do to help somebody, it made perfect sense to him……except for the part where going without Selenga currently meant going by himself, which in turn meant that Kaifeng had to be alone, with only his own thoughts for company.
Not a fate he would have wished on anybody, honestly.
Especially not when, once again, the sky lit up with rainbow meteors. Beautiful, yes, and Kaifeng still loved the sight of them……but at the same time, his heart sank like it wanted to drop out of his chest, writhing guiltily, and his mouth went downright Sahara dry.
As Kaifeng and his adorable fox umbrella slunk through one of the many parks in town, he couldn’t even summon up a song to hum to keep his nerves from doing something way too wild like trying to burn the entire house down.… Kaifeng’s brain probably would have been the “house” in this metaphor, and its assorted neurotransmitter deficiencies aside, he rather liked that brain. Even if he hadn’t liked it, he only had the one and he was sort of using it right now, so he strongly preferred not letting his nerves swoop in and burn things down.…
A quick glance down at his hand—more specifically at his signet ring—and the solution became clear: he needed to find someone to spend the evening with. Not Selenga—he had forgiven Kaifeng for running his mouth in unintentionally upsetting ways, yes, and that meant a lot to Kaifeng? But……he didn’t feel like he could just……be okay? Patrolling with Selenga again, yet? Which was stupid, and made his heart do even more of its silly, guilty nonsense, but it was okay.…
Anyway, that was how Kaifeng decided to interpret the next thing to cross his path: a star-charm left in the middle of this pathway, vivid red—the best of all possible good luck colors.
Sitting himself and his new charm down on a picnic table—half-shielded by the large tree and leaves looming over it, so not as damp as it could’ve been—Kaifeng thought about the other friends he’d made out in the magical world so far (even if they might have had different opinions on whether or not Kaifeng was actually their friend yet). He could have written to Daedalus, or to Encke. He could’ve sent something to the nice jiejie who’d met him around the power plant, or Silistra, the Saturn Knight he’d met out at the reservoir. He could’ve sent something nice to Michel-ge (and maybe some other night, he’d need to do that). He could have sent something to Ida, Selenga’s Princess, or to the jiejie who’d grown her Princess wings at that fight outside the bank (Cybele—Kaifeng hadn’t met her personally, but maybe she’d be okay with getting a note from a stranger).
In all those thoughts, though, Kaifeng’s mind kept wandering back to a certain mermaid who’d so kindly carried him to the emergency room after that same battle.… Pendour had stayed with Liánlí there, and had endured Hurricane Hayden when answering a text had summoned Liánlí’s bestie to the hospital so he could Fuss.… As he picked up a pen and his pad of Hot Topic Hello Kitty stationery, Kaifeng finally found a tune that his throat wanted to let him hum: What’s your plan to survive when you find you’re alone in the dark? You can pray to the lord of the light, but ain’t gonna get too far.…
Quote:
click image to embiggen!
Hi, Pendour-jiejie!
I really hope this message finds you okay (I’ve only sent notes to one person so far), and that you’re having a good night. (If you’re not, that’s okay too, but I hope it gets better for you!) Anyway, I’m out in West End Park right now. There’s a nice summer drizzle and the sky is raining rainbow meteors. But I thought about you, and I’m sort of by myself right now, and then I thought “I wonder if jiejie would like to watch the meteors together”?
If you do, I’m over by some picnic tables! Look for the orange umbrella with the ears and fox tail on it. And if you don’t, I hope I get to see you some other time soon. Take care!
水滴石穿 (Dripping water wears through rock!)
emotion_bigheart , Kaifeng of Saturn
Hi, Pendour-jiejie!
I really hope this message finds you okay (I’ve only sent notes to one person so far), and that you’re having a good night. (If you’re not, that’s okay too, but I hope it gets better for you!) Anyway, I’m out in West End Park right now. There’s a nice summer drizzle and the sky is raining rainbow meteors. But I thought about you, and I’m sort of by myself right now, and then I thought “I wonder if jiejie would like to watch the meteors together”?
If you do, I’m over by some picnic tables! Look for the orange umbrella with the ears and fox tail on it. And if you don’t, I hope I get to see you some other time soon. Take care!
水滴石穿 (Dripping water wears through rock!)
emotion_bigheart , Kaifeng of Saturn
As he stamped the message and sent it off, Kaifeng hoped that Pendour might show. If she didn’t, that wouldn’t be the end of the world.… He could easily message someone else.… But Pendour had been so mellow and so kind, and the magic that she’d made with her ocarina had made so many things feel like they made perfect sense.… Getting to see her again would’ve been nice, was all.
Watching the rainbow lights that fell from the sky, Kaifeng kept humming: You can sit in the cold, cold night and just hope for a spark. You might make your way in the day, but you’ll need friends in the dark.…
stari_maga_
a million years later, i’m so sorry it took me so long to start this! and that kaifeng decided to be in his feelings a little emotion_bigheart
