Rooftops At Sunrise

3

One day collapses into another, until Aoi is standing before their designated meeting place. Her ears are ringing, her vision is distorted, perhaps she should be worried, but it is nothing to be worried about. The worst that could happen would be her fainting. And that has occurred so many times already that Aoi is able to see it coming now, and sit down on a bench, before her head has a chance of cracking itself open, like an egg across concrete sidewalks.

Aoi wishes she could take her phone out and start playing stupid mini-games to pass the time, because the young man she remembers as The-Idiot-Whose-Name-I-Didn't-Even-Get is late. She can't though. She knows very well the veins in her eyes will not withstand the light. They will leave red trails behind with a dull ache, inside the whites of them, should she cave and scroll through the device that sits in her pocket—charged at a full battery—for more than a minute or two.

The young woman blinks. She shuts her eyes, until she does not desire a distraction anymore. There's no way she's going to touch it, she thinks. Not today—at least, she hopes it will not be today. Having need for her phone would mean there is an emergency. And that would be bad for the young woman, in more ways than one.

Aoi recalls the pain that said emergencies entail and shivers.

She also briefly glosses over the other kind of misery that lives in her mind, too, whenever she listens behind her living room's door, to her parents crying over medical bills they are forced to pay each month.

The young woman sighs. If only she could work part-time, she thinks, these problems would not have to exist.

Someone taps her on the shoulder. It feels like needles are running across her skin. She jumps on the spot, then turns around to face The-Idiot-Whose-Name-She-Didn't-Even-Get. "You think you're funny?" Aoi is frowning again; she cannot help it.

Damian holds his hands up by his face. "S-sorry!" he blurts. "I swear I didn't mean to scare you!"

"Whatever." Aoi shoves her hands into her pockets. It's a weekend, and the crowds around them keep on expanding. The sight hurts her eyes. She wishes she could go home, to stare at a blank wall for an hour or two.

Instead, she enters the café.

"You weren't, uh... caught, right?" Damian asks her, as he follows right behind.

Aoi wants to shake her head, but it would temporarily mess up her vision a little more; she settles for a shrug instead. "The teachers didn't doubt me for a second," she says.

"Ah." Damian's laughter is awkward. "But the students did?"

Upon hearing his words, Aoi stops in her tracks. "Yeah." She does not mean to sound so upset when she speaks the word, yet, it still comes out all wrong. Broken. Twisted—like what her peers tell her on the daily.

Damian wraps his arm around her shoulder. He swings the both of them from side to side. The young woman thinks that she is going to puke. "Come on," he tells her. "Don't cry, the aliens will be here for us soon. Then, we won't have to deal with this crap anymore."

Aoi steps away from his touch. "I doubt that," she says, despite her being ever so thankful for the distraction. The false hopes.

Crying would have been a humiliating experience, in her eyes; especially in the middle of a café. It would have also blinded her. And being blind—in Aoi's opinion—is a bit of a struggle, especially when one is trying to cross a road outside.

"The cake's on me!" Damian suddenly declares, as he points to himself with his thumb and a closed fist. "Consider it..." He averts his gaze from hers, then scratches the back of his head. "A token of my apology!" The young man clears his throat. "Seriously, I'm really sorry if you got bullied because of me."