To The Limits And Beyond

Blue Water Lily

"She'd always looked like she belonged there."

Leugi's class stretched for two full hours before it finally concluded with a timely dismissal. Almost everyone celebrated as soon as the teacher stepped out of the room, and the students had all either gone home or gone somewhere to hang out by now. Ms. Phoebe did say that the next class was canceled due to an important meeting. The earlier noisy room had been reduced to a quiet space with him at the center of no one's attention, and Leugi is now once again in his own secluded paradise. He takes a small notebook out of his bag, a different one from the one he had before in the club room. It has a soft blue tone with white lines running along the cover. He's always liked the color blue.

It's melancholic, but mundane.

Lonesome, but serene.

Peaceful in its solitude, like the untouchable sky.

He flips the cover of his notebook, the sound of paper turning almost sounding like an accompaniment to the calm rustling of leaves outside the window. Written on the first page was a capitalized title: "Blue Water Lily."

Leugi is a writer, after all; he's had his fair share of research into meanings and symbolisms, including flower language. Blue water lilies symbolize calmness and wisdom, both of which Leugi is in pursuit of: the materialization of his desires. The subsequent pages contain poetry that he'd written, probably weeks to months prior. His fingers continue to swipe carefully through pages of neatly written poems, enjoying every glimpse of the words he cannot fill in but can vividly remember writing. He reaches an empty page, and the sound of paper flipping stops almost suddenly. Leugi lets a sigh out, a relaxed one, like stepping out of a cramped space after staying there for too long.

Leugi is a writer, after all.

His thoughts come out as prompts, and his voice comes out as words.

Page 17.

"Afloat, Alive"

The undetermined war of thoughts in mind,

Leave not a spot of memory behind

Of what used to exist as peace of mine,

Remembered as a pulse, a waving line;

Chaotic it may be, it floats, alive.

- Leugi, M.

He's a writer, after all. His lines appear seamless. His style is refined. But even great writers have voices that they can't write off their mind.

"I wonder, Gale... Is there also a side of you that you keep to yourself? Or are we like what the surface tells us about ourselves: two sides of the same coin?"

His hands part from the ballpoint pen he used to write. His face has satisfaction written all over it, but his mind slowly drifts away once again.

Again, towards the same thought.

...You've always looked like you were born for the things you do, after all.

The way you looked at your goals and nothing else, had both the talent and passion, and proceeded with an attitude that doesn't need to make efforts just to be normal. I know more than anyone that there's no such thing as perfection, but you might just come closest to the definition. That day, I did not dare take another step closer to you. You seemed so happy to see that poster, after all. Maybe your smile was what captured me, or maybe it was who you are in your entirety; nonetheless, you had me heading for another dead end even as I walked back.

...Thud!

The classroom's barely opened door slams open. Outside is none other than the star herself, with furrowing eyebrows and a grin of obvious annoyance.

"Don't you think you're taking your life too easy as a club president who left someone who wasn't even part of the club, to guard the club!?" she protests, marching towards Leugi with pouting lips and crossed arms. She stops in front of a carefree Leugi, with a tiny, calm smile on his face. The notebook that lay on his table earlier is now nowhere to be found there, as he had already moved it under the desk with a quick sleight of hand. He slowly turns to Gale, meeting her pretentious wrath in between the room's silence and his next response.

"Oh, I completely forgot about that. Did I make you wait for too long, Ms. Journalist?" he asks her as if he were talking to a child throwing tantrums.

Now, one might think of it as dismissive, perhaps even disrespectful. But what Leugi is confronting isn't an unknown dilemma, but a familiar battle of reading rooms.

Gale quiets down.

Her pout remains, her eyebrows still furrowed.

She still looked annoyed, but her response says otherwise.

"No, I would've waited for a bit longer if you'd told me to," she mumbles as she picks a random chair and starts dragging it noisily towards Leugi's side. She sits down there, crosses her legs, then her arms once again. Her eyebrows relax, and her usual mood gradually returns.

"What were you doing here, anyway?" she asks with an implied "hmph."

Leugi sighs in response. He always manages to find silence, even in intruded spaces. Thinking that Gale had just sat down, he trails away from the idea of setting her question aside and inviting her to eat lunch instead. He sits back in a more comfortable posture, then looks up at the not-so-high-up classroom ceiling. After a short pause between them, he decides to answer. Just to get a rest from her curious yet intimidating gaze.

"Writing."

"Writing what?"

"Writing something."

"Ohh, interesting. And that something is...?"

"Let me think. That something is... none of your business."

"Welp, you're no fun as always."

Both of them were exchanging lines like speaking mannequins. Their mouths moved, the conversation progressed, but the rest were still like stones. There were two students in that room, with minds afloat and eyes fixated on the void before them. And then the other notices something.

A notebook, peeping under Leugi's desk.

Gale stares for a second, then smirks on the next. Leugi immediately notices this, picks up on the situation, and looks at what she was staring at.

The two pause, waiting for the other to try and make a move. It almost looks like a cowboy duel in the wild west, unfolding right inside that room.

The way Leugi reacted triggered Gale's curiosity even more, and now they're one hairball away from something chaotic.

"Luigi, dear?"

"Yes, Ms. Journalist?"

"What is that under your table?"

"Oh, this notebook? It's nothing. Really."

"Then why hide it from me, Luigi dear?"

"Well, that's because..."

He snatches it away. A swipe in almost the blink of an eye, and he successfully swoops the notebook away. Leugi dashes forward, jumping over his table while also grabbing his bag. Meanwhile, Gale could only stare for a second, watching Leugi's flashy move. His agility caught her off guard, rendering her seconds late in her reaction. She sprang up from her seat, running after Leugi, who seemed to be teasing him by standing just outside the classroom door.

"Y'know I'll have you sooner or later, Leugi. Along with that notebook!" she boldly announced as she ran.

Leugi dashes off before her, however. He looks back, and another c***k in his stoic front appears.

A soft, genuine smile.

And these words, spoken from the top of his lungs:

"I'd like to see you try."