Chapter 7
1314 Words
7
The door to my room shrieked open and it was as if I’d never been gone. My bag with books, the dark sheets on my bed, the shirt I should’ve thrown into the laundry a lot sooner.
A ball of fluff hopping across the floor and a slender figure bent over her desk, lost in her books. She looked so concentrated, so beautiful, it was almost a crime to disturb her.
A lump formed in my throat, but I quickly swallowed it away. I couldn’t be thinking those kind of things, I shouldn’t be.
The door fell shut behind me, the sound barely registering.
“Ylva?” Ryoko’s warm voice washed over me as she turned to face me. It was the sight of her that settled my worries that I was really back. Not the mosaic glass-stained windows, not the walk through the long corridor, not the Valkyrie dormitories. Those could all have been an illusion, but not her. She was too beautiful not to be real.
“Hey.” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears.
“Welcome back. How are you feeling?”
I blinked slowly. “Good? I have to admit, a little disoriented though.”
“So you’re not sick anymore?”
“Sick?”
Ryoko pushed a stray lock of hair back. “Yes. That girl you hang out with, Flavia? She said you were ill.”
“Oh. Right.” I fake-coughed meekly. “Yes, I’m feeling much better.”
My roommate put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, but I know that’s not true.”
“Eh?” The sound left my lips before I could stop myself. Now that wasn’t very elegant. “I mean… Come again?”
“Flavia didn’t say you were sick. She said you were avoiding me.”
Despite being caught in a lie and the stern look Ryoko was giving me, a smile curled around my lips. She was truly something and I missed her company.
“You’ve gotten more direct,” I noted, tipping my shoes off and crossing further into the room. A scratchy sound emitted from Ryoko’s bed and I half-crouched to wave at the dust bunny. “Hello, Pickles.”
The little ball of fluff waggled her head and then turned her behind to me.
I chuckled. “Aww, you don’t like me anymore then?”
“She’s slept on your pillow every day you were gone. Not that you care,” Ryoko snipped.
“I do care.”
“Then where were you?” Her voice softened as she averted her eyes. “Were you really in Flavia’s room?”
“I was.”
Her face fell. “Oh.”
“At least, for the first day. We finally made a poison strong enough to hold a connection in the Veil and that’s where we were. Looking for Hyde.”
“For a whole week?”
“Week? I was only gone for two nights.”
Ryoko pulled a face. “It was definitely not just two nights.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.”
From the hurt in her voice, I had no choice but to believe her. Why would she lie about that anyway? I could verify that easily.
No, she had to be telling the truth.
Contrary to what I thought, an entire week had passed instead of just two days? That was a dirty little trick. Courtesy of the Keeper of Illusions, no doubt.
Exhausted, I sat down on the bed and buried my head in my hands. How was I going to explain this? Var made it clear this would be our little secret and I didn’t know whether I was supposed to keep the entire Illusion thing to myself or not.
“Ylva?” Ryoko’s voice softened as she placed a careful hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t even know.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I looked up in her dark eyes. “Depends. Are you going to pretend you don’t know me while I’m being bullied?”
Guilt flitted across her features. “I’m sorry.”
“Right.”
“I am. I’ve felt awful about the whole ordeal. I should’ve stood up for you. I just…”
I waved her apology away. Regret and hindsight were a beautiful thing, but they always came too late. Not that it mattered.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d have done the very same thing I was asking of her. Standing up to bullies was a scary affair, I should know. In the end, I couldn’t blame her for my cowardice.
“It’s fine. Wind over the cliffs,” I said.
“Wind over the cliffs?”
“Yeah. Like… It doesn’t matter, let’s not dwell on it.”
She chuckled. “Let me guess… Wind Children idiom.”
“Well… Yes. What else would you say?”
The first smile graced Ryoko’s lips. “Water under the bridge?”
“Not as cool.”
A twinkle passed through her eyes. “You’re weird.”
“Says you. With your rice cooker and your funny bunny.”
A metal rattle and loud huff emitted from under Ryoko’s bed. From the darkness, two white eyes glared accusingly at me.
I held up my hands disarmingly. “I joke, Pickles. You’re not funny, you’re adorable.”
The bunny scratched against her cage and flopped down on her belly. She clearly wasn’t happy with me, but I’d feed her some cotton balls later and she’d surely come back around.
“She’s getting bigger,” I noted.
“That’s generally what happens when animals grow.” Ryoko pulled up her knees and leaned against the wall, looking at me with a bemused smile on her face.
“What?”
She let out a deep breath. “I’ve missed you.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Me too.”
“I’m sorry things got so complicated. I let my feelings get in the way.”
I batted my eyes down. She wasn’t the only one to blame. I’d been unfair to her, in more ways than one.
“I didn’t handle things well either,” I admitted.
“Truce?” She extended her arm, her hand hovering in the air.
“Truce.”
I reached out to shake on our peace and took hold of her hand. Sparks jumped from her palm onto mine, tingling and tickling as they ran down my arm.
Her skin was soft and warm, exactly like I remembered it. Her touch was reassuring, comforting.
I missed it. I really liked it. I didn’t want to let go of it.
As if my hand was acting on its own, my fingers entwined with Ryoko’s. For a moment, she didn’t react and I feared I’d done the wrong thing. And then her grip tightened.
“Ylva?” Hesitation coloured her voice as she looked at our hands.
A strange feeling waged war in my stomach, heating up coals I didn’t know I had. I swallowed a lump, my breath hitching in my throat as I inched closer to the beautiful Dragon.
Her eyes sparked with confusion, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned in. Closer, closer, until my breath was hers and hers was mine.
She wetted her pink lips nervously and I took it as an invitation.
Soft and delicate, both careful and daring, I placed a butterfly of a kiss on her lips.
For a moment, she didn’t react and time stood still. My stomach coiled, my chest tightened, my heart stopped. Should I not have done that? Did I misinterpret things? Did I get it wrong?
A sigh escaped her mouth and the sun broke through in her eyes. Her warm hands found my face and pulled me closer, towards her, into her.
As her lips pressed against mine, fireworks exploded inside me, uncoiling the tight spring in my gut and releasing the breath I had trapped in my lungs. All at once, all too fast, all my thoughts rushed to the surface where they fought for attention.
Confusion. Worry. Denial. And then relief, excitement, realisation, joy.
My sky of truth had been grey with expectations and assumptions, and this kiss, Ryoko, she was the sun breaking through the clouds.
It all made sense now. Why I’d been looking at her, why our friendship felt different than the other ones I’d had, why I’d been thinking about her in the forest. This was why she thought we were flirting. Because we had been, even if didn’t know it back then.
She wasn’t just my roommate, not just a friend. It didn’t matter that she was a Dragon, or a girl, or so very different from me. All those things just made me even fonder of her because I liked this. Her. Everything about her. And being away from her had just made that a lot clearer. It made me see the truth.
I was into Ryoko.
- Writer
