Thirteenth of The Blue

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LEIGH WOKE UP FIFTEEN minutes before 5AM. She was surprised to find that Geiki was not already at bed. She threw her eyes all over the room, expecting to find Geiki somewhere as if he really intended not to be found when she wakes up. He could be anywhere in the vast room designed like an apartment unit. It is in fact a room where you can find everything. Geiki preferred it that way and it helps a lot when he is in no mood getting out of his hive. He can live in his room that is a home within a house.

            Entering the door, you will pass through a sky blue sofa set surrounding a delicate black square glass table. A wide LED screen manufactured by a known brand from Japan hangs on the wall which faces the set as if watchtower overlooking the subjects below. Geiki was not there, not a fat chance he decided to watch until morning or had fallen asleep on the couch.

            Passing through the seats just a short distance is the bed situated at the second corner just beside a grilled and tinted glass window. Up the window is the air-conditioning unit. Following the length of the bed will be the bath/comfort room in the other corner. On the last corner, were the cute sink beside a single burner electric stove and kitchen cabinet which are both laid on a plate of stainless steel protruding from the wall just below the window. A round glass dining table surrounded by four cushioned chair made the last element of that corner. He was not there either and no signs of early cooking for breakfast.

            She got up and noticed a thin pink blanket wrapping her body; perhaps Geiki draped it on her before leaving the room. An awaiting smile is ready to cross her faced when she noticed that the sheet and pillow cases were in pink too. If she had known, she might think she just woke from an apartment of a girl. This is one of the signs that no matter how hard and cold-hearted Geiki is, a good and soft side is battling its way for existence.

            She wore the slippers on and strode from the room passing two more bedroom doors at the second floor of the house. As she makes her way down the ladder that will turn right towards the receiving room, she cannot help but notice, as if for the first time, that the walls are painted in apple green. The steps of the stairs are made of thick reinforced glasses that are bolted at a stainless steel frame with rails that are shimmering under the flood of white lights from the ceiling up above.

            The thought of missing this place when she is gone came like a wretched hands reaching from the spaces of the steps of the staircase. This has been a second home for the little Leigh and every corner seemed to be dubbed with her cheerful voice and joyful laughter.

            Before she knew it, she was already down the last steps facing the receiving room. Aside from the sofa set upholstered in leather around a rosewood table at the front of the cabinet filled with component sound system and a big television set, the room was empty too. A quick turn towards a door-less archway and she found herself facing a round glass dining table surrounded by four cushioned chairs. This is a big version of the miniature one at Geiki’s room. She was caught in surprise to find the table filled with different menu as if some team of chefs have prepared for an early morning feast.

Geiki is sure there, facing the untidy double-burner stoves whom aside from a pair of khaki cargo shorts and kitchen apron, has no other garments. Even slippers have been left behind for the comfort of working and coming up with absolutely magically delicious cuisine.

            “Good morning, princess,” a booming and cheery greetings of Geiki who as his back completely turned towards her.

            A yawn found its way up her lungs but she suppressed it back, wondering how he did that. Did he happen to grow a pair of eyes behind his back and made it somehow saw someone is standing a few yards behind him? If it happens that some loud steps gave it away, how come he knew it was her and not her mother?

            “You are early,” she uttered in a cool morning voice as she slid on a chair and looked at the food served artistically on the table. There were smoked salmon with bagel, omelet with hash browns, crispy Belgian waffle, onions with capers and a plate of sliced fruits. She did not stare in wonder to the dishes long enough before a tall glass of apple juice materialized on her front.

            “No hot tea or cappuccino,” Geiki said before turning around and wearing off the untidy kitchen apron and hung it on a hook protruding on a nearby wall. “It will ruin the taste of the fruits.”

            “If I do not know it,” she said shaking her head. “I’ll say I walked in the galley of a luxury ship, or Four Season Hotel of Miami.”

            “You two are up early,” Mary said in a morning soft voice upon appearing at the dining area.

            “Because the lady here threatened to bath me with a full pail of ice cold water of I don’t wake up early.” Geiki said and walked to her mother then gave her a passionate kiss on a cheek.

            Leigh followed and touched a cheek on one of Mary’s. “You know him, auntie; he will not wake in time we leave for the field trip.”

            “You two just woke up to battle each other,” she said, trailing them as they took their seats around the table. She sat on a chair that is completely facing the two while forcing back a smile. Deep in her mind, she knows that they are a good yet rare combination with all their great differences. Geiki is the loose end while Leigh is always there, trailing and covering up every mistake, or trying to push him away from one.

            “I suggest you two list down your names first before eating,” Geiki teased with a wide grin. “Your mind may skyrocket and when it finally falls back to its place, you might forget everything.

            “I see the kid is boasting all of this would rather taste good,” Leigh began attacking the food.

“Good? That will be an understatement.”

            “I don’t believe it!”

            “Even I am telling the truth?” Geiki shot her back.

            Mary just watched them battle each other while judging the food served by his son. Geiki speaks of the truth. The dishes were seemed to be prepared with passion by a renowned chef in an infamous hotel.

                                                                                            -KM-

A PUDDLE OF BROWNISH water the color of chocolate drink emptied its contents as a wheel invaded the small lake that was formed by the night rain. The vehicle to which the tires belong to halted on a stop and the electronic doors near the front and amid the right side slid wide open. Colorful pairs of hiking shoes landed one after the other from the bus to the moist ground, as students from the colleges of history and archeology who are joining the field trip scattered about what once a woody hillside.

            Leigh and Geiki came out last for the reason that he does not want being caught between a mass of bodies flooding out and squeezing through the tiny opening. Being caught between a sea of flowing humanity is one of the worst things Geiki is avoiding. For him, it has no difference to that of drowning. Both of it make him draws fast and long breaths going in and out of the lungs that seem to receive no air.

            Geiki finally touched down to finally get with the outing that he sure will find boring. If only Leigh is not a part of this class, he can formulate thousands, or maybe million of reasons not to come and he will make sure his grade will not suffer from it. What seems to so interesting about an ancient weapon of war stuck on a rock?

            Now looking around, the only attraction of his life and the single reason he is here, Leigh, was nowhere to be found. She sure had perfectly blended with everyone attending the field trip. Another five buses are halting nearby as their drivers stepped on the brake lever. In almost same instant, the passengers are scattering about the place like water from a ruptured dam.

            Geiki’s consolation is that Tanya’s block is not attending the same field trip. Their class will be attending an excavation of an ancient burial ground found in a cave. At the same day of their field trip, the digging team will open the site and their findings to the public, and this will be due next week. It will be such a pain if the fantasy of archeology is on same ground with him and Leigh. But now, he literally regrets she is not here. He could use a little distraction on this outing especially when Leigh pulls up her talent moving like an unseen ghost that sees but cannot be spotted. The regret and frustration was punctuated by a mild shake of his head as he remembers every contour curves of her body.

            “You’re alone too?” It was the third time the lady at his front asked the question.

            “Ah….” He thought how much time he had spent drinking every details of the imaginary Tanya before he was back on Earth. “No.”

            “Lucky you,” she stuck out a delicate right hand as if every square-inch was made of Chinese porcelain. “I am Marie by the way.”

            He shook the hand but not before suppressing back a laugh that should have erupted out loud. “My name is Geiki.”

            Marie held his hand, stared at his eyes for a few moments before letting it go. She is sure Geiki would want to laugh given the chance, yet he forced it back for a reason he only knows. The smile evident on his lips is telling the story. She wondered what seems so funny. “I do not look like a clown to you, am I?”

            He studied her, not a moment longer than two seconds. A sneaker in white with few lines of blues and pinks all over it, a seductive high-cut pair shorts that displays out her thighs and seems so inviting for a soft caressing touch, a thin flowered blouse that has more pinks on it and was unbuttoned all the way to the chest so that a healthy cleavage seems to be whispering a seducing spell and a powder blue blazer. She also has a cute blue back pack hanging by two straps on her shoulders. She have an angelic face with high cheekbones, a thin line of brown eyebrows and eyes of same color that are guarded by lashes that seems so erect like swords around a delicate gem. She has wavy curls of brown hair which was cut amid the neck level and is shimmering under the onslaught of the sun with the help of hair polish. There is in fact nothing funny about her, but somehow the name struck home. As a kid, he used to buy a cheap biscuit wrapped by threes and when he heard the name, he cannot help it but remember the food. It felt to him like talking to the biscuit itself.

            “No, no, no!” Geiki tried his best to be the best liar that he is. “I was amid remembering something funny when you came by.” His smile now faded away. “You are not a history student, are you? Maybe archeology or something related?”

            “Wrong!” She said with a stress and smiled. Her eyes went down her soles and found it untidy from a sticky mud. She brought out a tissue paper from her back pack and bent down to wipe her shoes clean. “History student, but irregular.”

            He stood there, watching her when her blouse loosened down a few inches from her chest as she bent down. What she hides from deep her blouse seemed to say “hello” to Geiki. The depths of his mind began to wonder in instant.  His eyes almost bulged out of its sockets, yet he instantly trained them away at something in a distance when Marie poised up.

            He brought out his cellular phone and checked the time, 9:15AM. “They said we will start at 10AM.” He breathed heavily a couple of times before attacking again. “How about wandering around with me to check something interesting?”

            Marie who has now her hands on the straps of her back pack looked around for someone she could possibly know. Less than a minute of looking around, and he turned and looked at him. “Looking around, it seems a handful of those who I know are somewhere within the site.” She blinked her eyes a couple of times as if inviting him to be lured in a trap of seduction. “And your idea sounds not so bad. Why not?”

            He led her away from where the buses have parked. They went in but not too deep in the woods where the trees seem to have reached old ages. Their trunks are too huge it will take three persons to literally hug the youngest, while the oldest about five. A young mahogany which must have been blown down by a typhoon but still on its roots has resumed its life parallel to ground with a clearance of no more than one feet high.

            “There’s nothing here but trees,” Marie sounded like protesting. She sat on the blown-down tree. “You can say goodbye to sightseeing and start getting back with the others.”

            “You know the reason why I dragged you here?” Geiki asked as he took steps closer to her.

            “To come and find something interesting,” her response which is void of any emotions as if from a built-in speaker of a toy robot.

            “To know you better,” his face is now just half a feet away from hers and his eyes made contact and seem to be reaching deep her soul.

            Geiki may have told her the truth, at least half of it, but aside from that, this woody part of the hillside which is situated some distance from the digging site seems inviting him with unspoken words. There seems to be a strong gravity from it as if a witch is casting an enchantment spell to lure him in the woods. If Marie has not shown up, he may, or perhaps sure will take a hike in here alone.

            “What am I doing? Why did I come here in with a fellow student who happens to be a stranger in the first place?” She looked the way they have come in. “Maybe we should get going before something wrong starts.”

            “Something wrong?” He drew his face closer, half of his mind expecting she will dodge and runaway, never to come a meter closer to him again. But, she did not; she looked at his eyes as if wanting all of these at all. And then, he attacked closer and held an inch away before both of their lips stuck home.

            “Honestly,” her voice is a measure above whisper. “Many girls like me spent hours wondering what it feels to be with you.”

            At that, she closed her eyes, voluntarily surrendering herself to Geiki. She is ready to whatever this campus heartthrob will do to her with the exception of being killed of course. 

            His lips landed on hers, Marie feeling her body heat up from many places and cannot do anything but be driven by the ecstasy and sip back like she can extract dew to clench her inexistent thirst. She felt like she is traveling in a time warp wormhole in a speed faster than light. Everything around her seems to have stopped and even time felt like it stood still. Then suddenly, she felt he withdrew his lips back.

            Some agonizing seconds were spent by Marie who still has her eyes shut closed wanting Geiki’s lips to return but it did not happen. She opened her eyes just to find Geiki acting like a kid peering at something up above the eastern direction. His eyes were in a steady aim while his irises got readings like he is somehow lost in thought somewhere the mazes of his own mind. She watched with curiosity as he walked to a nearby tree and stared at an irregular diamond-shaped hole bored through the trunk nearly missing it a couple of inches. She felt embarrassed and wanted to cry out in frustration as he walked to another tree and studied it like a forester examining an unknown variety.

            “You are not doing this to me!” She shouted as she walks towards him and landed a crunchy slap across his face before leaving Geiki there rooted to where he stands.

            Geiki did not move a bit, not even so much tilted his head a millimeter as if it is an ordinary thing to be slapped by an embarrassed and enraged girl every day. He just stared at the tree, his mind churning with gears rotating in an awesome manner that may have steamed a ship across the pacific and back. Then he moved to the other while Marie traced her way back and disappeared between the trees. A further study of this next tree and his theory was sealed with a conclusion. He smiled and bid the woods goodbye not having much of a feeling close to regret of letting pretty Marie slip of his grasp.