hearts formed by solicitude and desolation | chishiya shuntaro

ᏚᎾᏞᏆᏟᏆᎢᏌᎠᎬ (edited)

ᏞᎾᎪᎠᏆNᏩ . . . . .

ᏞᎾᎪᎠᏆNᏩ ᏟᎾᎷᏢᏞᎬᎢᎬ!

it's difficult for the human mind to break free from habits - cycles are not so easily shed like articles of clothing or meaningless possessions. once a pattern has taken form, a steady recurrence in one's life, it's inevitable for the cycle to repeat and repeat and repeat until you're stuck in an endless, maddening loop.

no matter how intelligent a person is, no matter how well they understand the human mind, they are not excluded from this unavoidable direction in life.

so then, how best to describe the feeling rooting you to your spot upon entering the classroom and encountering a stranger in the seat beside your own? surprised would definitely be an understatement. perhaps bewilderment? a sense of confusion so intense no word currently available in the dictionary could possibly amount to the emotion striking your chest?

it's a small lecture hall, just barely big enough to house no more than fifty students. those who take this class don't really choose to - it's a useless elective after all - meant to broaden one's horizon rather than provide anything substantial to their education and degree. by the end of the first week - of students trickling out one by one - you managed to gain a vague sense of who actually cared about the history of film studies, and who remained because they had to.

so it's rare for someone to show up so late into the semester. skipping class is a habit too enticing to ignore, and too addicting to stop once it has started. you'd bet a very pretty penny that unless threatened or forced, a person in the throes of such a pattern is very unlikely to return so suddenly halfway through the semester.

intrigued. that's the word closely resembling how you feel at the moment, the sensation growing the longer you take in the sight of the stranger seated casually at the table. someone capable of breaking the chains of a pattern. how interesting.

as you study him, you take note of every little detail, filing it away inside the dark recesses of your brain to call upon later. his hair, long, and curled just so at the ends, is so light it appears almost white, but the color is slightly off the mark compared to the snow white hoodie hanging from his frame. the hood is pulled up over his head, just far enough to obscure his features, giving you reason to assume that he doesn't want to be noticed - probably doesn't like it.

trying to blend in, are you? why? so you can avoid being scolded for missing so many lectures? to give the illusion that you've been here all along, and we, your ignorant classmates, perhaps none the wiser, simply failed to realize?

his eyes eventually come to meet your own, but he doesn't say anything - not a greeting nor a question. he just stares, and for the first time in a long time, you have great difficulty in trying to discern his expression.

usually, when you find yourself trying to read someone, you look at their eyes first. eyes are the window to the soul after all - they tell you things that words don't, that actions sometimes fail to convey. and yet, looking into the dark depths, all you're able to grasp is the small, inkling feeling that you are being scrutinized like a bug beneath a microscope.