This Universe Is Ours (BxB)

F O U R

"Come on," Aaban whispered into the mirror, "take me to him."

Aaban had struggled for over an hour to summon the universe into his bathroom. During school, he thought he glimpsed Oscar's face across the crowded corridors, insisted he heard his voice roaring over the rugby pitches, and swore his fingers skimmed against his own in the queue for lunch. Although he had visited him last week, Oscar remained on Aaban's mind. Lilian observed this difference, commenting on Aaban's posture as if a great weight had been taken from his shoulders.

"You're looking at the world like it's a little more beautiful than it was yesterday," she had declared on their journey towards the bus stop. Aaban wanted to tell Lilian why, but he knew he couldn't quite explain it. How could he word his experience of falling through time, towards a stranger he couldn't stop daydreaming about?

"Come on," he complained impatiently. Aaban overheard his father gently murmuring hymns in his bedroom, the slow words sighing through the creaking house.

Until now, the universe had determined when, and how, Aaban crash-landed into Oscar's bedroom. Yet Aaban realized he could harness this power of time-space travel, in order to visit Oscar whenever he desired. The cosmos bestows many gifts onto many individuals, yet it is the individuals themselves who must discern how such gifts could be used for the greater good.

Therefore, Aaban would find Oscar himself. Relaxing, he emptied his mind of thoughts and listened for the dripping tap, the humming air conditioning, the cars spraying rainwater beyond the bathroom. Aaban sensed the spaces between his fingers and toes. He sensed his bones and all of his joints, their ligaments loosening, and the cavity ballooning in his chest. He sensed his veins opening with blood and the pathways in his brain locking and interlocking. He closed his eyes tightly. In the darkness, Aaban titled his head backward—tripping on the tree root, sinking in the bathwater, collapsing on his bed—and baptized himself within the moment.

And then he heard the distant thudding of bass, and immediately knew it wasn't coming from his house. As the music grew steadily louder, his father's voice gradually dissolved into the noise. New sounds drifted through the radio static, as if his ears tuned in to a different station, a different world. He listened to the echoes of people shouting and chanting. Behind his eyes, Aaban saw flashes of light, colors, and shapes emerging and dissolving into the blackness. Then he sensed movement, bodies passing by him, pressing against him, and humidity on his face and neck. His feet were no longer on the bathroom floor.

Finally, Aaban opened his eyes to an overcrowded light-up dancefloor, gleaming at the center of a dark nightclub. Aaban had never been inside a nightclub before. Although they were one year below the legal age of drinking alcohol, his classmates had secured fake ID's. Lilian had managed to buy a license from Bethany, a local musician who had relocated to New York. Bethany was white and brunette which sufficed because security guards scarcely verified IDs, particularly those of pretty girls. Nevertheless, before her premiere night out, Lilian devoted the entire afternoon to anxiously reciting over and over Bethany's birthday and home address.

The idea of teenagers pressed together and dancing drunkenly in misty darkness was enough to turn his father's stomach. Therefore, Lilian and the rest of the schoolyear partied in the bars and nightclubs scattered across Newtown without Aaban. They returned with stories of classmates kissing, fighting, throwing up, and passing out. From within a nightclub, friendships, love affairs, and rivalries were created and destroyed.

Lilian understood the awkwardness behind asking Aaban to come; therefore, she always avoided the question. Instead, she relayed the events of the night before in great detail: who walked home with who, what happened when this person spilled their drink over that person, why they were crying today. Occasionally, Aaban would close his eyes and sketch the moments within his mind, experiencing the evening through Lilian's words. In reality, as Lilian danced unsteadily and downed vodka shots in the nightclub queue, Aaban was slumped at his desk, struggling to concentrate on French adverbs whilst his father shouted over his shoulder.