Our Darkest Memories

~ Lost Memory

5 weeks before forgetting

The morning after Blaze's birthday we decided that it would be best if we'd leave. The risk that someone had maybe seen the tree with lights and the fact that we had spent a lot of time already on that camping place was a risk that we weren't willing to take.

We were still having some breakfast, existing out of a few crackers with cheese and some coffee. The coffee wasn't used a lot of times, because it was pretty scarce. However, the night before we had been up till late and we had a long day of driving ahead, so we didn't want to take the risk of falling asleep while driving.

Blaze was still sleepily sitting on a tree stump chewing on her cracker while Raiden and I already started to pack. We had just finished folding the tents when Blaze was finally done.

"Do any of you still want some coffee?" She held up the coffee pot that Raiden had managed to get hold of in his time before we came along. It was broken and didn't have a lid, making the coffee cool off very quickly. It still worked fine, though, and so we used it whenever we needed it.

"Is it still warm?" I asked, raising my voice because she was pretty far away.

She put her hand above the liquid to feel if it was still warm but then shook her head. "Sorry, it's not."

I shrugged my shoulders, showing that it didn't matter. "In that case, can you maybe bring me a bottle of water?"

She nodded and grabbed a bottle. Still with the can of coffee in her hand, she walked towards me to give it to me.

When she was only a few steps away, she wanted to throw the water bottle towards me. However, still sleepy, she made the wrong move. Instead of throwing with the hand holding the water bottle, she threw with the hand still holding the coffee pot, making its content fly towards me.

It all seemed to pause.

Blaze, who noticed the mistake immediately, hopelessly lunged herself forward, hoping to still catch the can. I saw how she hung in the air for a second and her face prepared for the disaster that was about to happen.

Because I was so focused on what was happening, I wasn't able to get away in time and before I knew it, Blaze was laying on the ground after her heroic try to save me and I was covered with coffee. The coffeepot landed with a big thud only a few centimeters away from me on the ground.

It was quiet while we just stared at each other, but then someone right behind us started to chuckle very loudly until it turned into uncontrollable laughter. I turned around and saw Raiden laughing at the whole incident and then looked to Blaze again, who started to pull herself up from the ground. She glanced at my clothes, which were now covered with coffee, and then looked back up at me again and we immediately started to laugh as well.

All we could do was laugh and eventually, I even had to wipe my eyes to get rid of the tears of laughter.

When we were finally done, I chuckled and looked down at my ruined clothes.
"Well, I should probably go clean myself up," I grinned.

I already started to walk away and passed Raiden, who turned towards me when I walked past him and responded, "Don't try to clean that beautiful smile off your face, though. I like it when it's there."

Immediately, I stopped walking. What did he just say? It was as if a piece of a difficult puzzle finally fell into place, but I wasn't sure yet if it landed in the right spot. Did he really just do what I think he just did?

Slowly, I turned around to face him.
"Wait... are you... flirting with me?? Like, flirting flirting?"

The corners of Raiden's mouth slowly went up. He started to clap his hands and looked around at an imaginary audience. "Wow, she got it, boys and girls! Give it up for this miracle because I never thought I would see this happen anymore."