A brief exploration of an author in training - A series of very short stories

Zubery - Super Short Story

"I love you!" I shout at the top of my lungs, my heart beating like the feet of a thousand Zulu warriors. There is an old stone quad with me standing in it. In front of me is the bane of my courage. She is, and has always been, the most powerful monster hunter I have ever met. 

I don't know what came over me! I mean, I have been preparing for this moment for over three months now. You have to come correct to a girl...to a woman of Rukiya's calibre. She is almost as famous as her father, Yusuke. I have this furiously hot lump redder than her clay dyed red hair stuck in my throat. She is standing there just looking at me with those big brown eyes. Suddenly, I feel the eyes of everyone else in the quad. They are all looking at us with some sneering and pointing. Her delightful two lips say nothing. 

It wasn't supposed to go like this. I'm such a fool. Of course, she wouldn't want to be with me! I don't even have a unique skill. Unless you count overthinking under the bleachers as a skill. In fact, that is where this entire crazy plan started. For the past four years at the Witch hunter academy. I have sat every day alone under the bleachers overlooking the Pavillion. 

Then she came. I'm not sure exactly when. But it feels right, even if we have never spoken in the four months she has been coming here. We just sit, eat lunch, people watch and be in each other's company. 

It has never been enough. I have always wanted us to be closer. I mean, she came to me. She invaded my space, took over my sanctuary, and made it better. I mean, sitting in the dark is fun and all, but it's the way with her around. I want her to know my name, to say it. To hold her hand, to be with her for real, not just in my mind. 

Her fierce and overpowering demeanour has grappled and beaten my tongue into silence for four months. She can't help it being as powerful as she is. Every day I wake up and tell myself "Today is the today." It has failed every day I have said it. By chance today I overheard Reggie the guru say, " A vetkoek with a hole in the centre is still delicious!" 

I mean if that is not a sign from the heavens above that I have to confess my love then what is? I mean the profoundness alone in those words steeled my resolve. Mind you I battled all my insecurities, that constant and unyielding anxiety I feel on a constant basis. That little voice inside my head that tells me I will never be good enough, she is out of my league and all that silenced.  

I could keep listening to it or heed the wise words of Guru Reggie! I decided to see if can remain delicious!

Rukiya looks around, her face is a mix of shock and something I haven't seen before. I'm cracking up like a hippo in a drought. I should have applied my lotion to my skin. Hell, I should have applied eloquence to my words. Who just shouts out, "I love you!" Like that where do I even find the balls? I shouldn't have done this. She is embarrassed to be called out by an embarrassment like me. 

She is Wangi Rukiya Angwenyi! The best hunter in a generation, the Kishi killer, Tano tamer and I'm just a boy who is too stupid to know his place. To stay in the dark and to keep his mouth shut! 

She steps back away from me. One hand holding the other, she isn't afraid. Not of me anyways, she glares right at my eyes. I would look away but she commands me with her gaze. Still, the ache in my body start. She is scowling at me. Dread and horror fill my very soul. I anticipated this, the heart-wrenching rejection to come. I can already hear it now. 

Worst of all it is going to happen in front of the whole school. The others see it too they are already laughing at me. Shouting all kinds of names they will never let down. My eyes well up, I can't blame her though. I should not have done this I should not have listened to Guru Reggie. What does he know anyways, he is just a first-year with a unique ability. 

I'm such a fool!

I didn't feel it at first, I was too surprised by the force of her kick. Yep! She freaking kicked him right in the chest. The picture-perfect form of a Nemuri Hunter. I'm sure the professors are holding ten out of ten cards as I fly clean across the quad. 

The whole quad is quiet. I don't think they expected her to be so ruthless. I should have expected it though she is after all. The kick doesn't really hurt, I mean my whole body is tingling but it is nothing compared to the hole in my heart. It feels like my blood has stopped flowing and I'm just in limbo flying into a hell I will never come out of. 

I crash onto the all familiar cold concrete only found under the bleachers. It is the only place where the original foundations of the school still remain. Rukiya steps through the gate she made to this place. Her portal has always been more elegant than mine. She is a well-cut and polished diamond. I'm not even the mud where she can be found. 

Her voice is pure ecstasy even now, with my body frozen in pain on the ground. Completely missing what she said. The pain in my heart dragging itself onto my face. I am barely holding back the tears. 

She repeats it, holding out her good arm. "Zubery, please I'm sorry I didn't know what else to do. You weren't listening before." She has never been closer to me. This is agony why now when she is breaking my heart is she reaching out to me. 

I feel like I'm dying but instead of my whole life flashing before my eyes. It is just this moment. She knows my name. No one knows my name even the professors just call me boy. I have never heard anything so bittersweet in my life. I'm as good as dead, worse I still have to face all my classmates later.

"Zubery!" I shift back away from her. I'm ashamed, more than that i'm like fresh fish caught in a fisherman's net. Nothing left to do but flail around and die. 

"What! Haven't you done enough!" I don't know where that came from. It's not fair for me to be angry at her. She isn't the one who listened to the rambling of a mad child to justify an illusion of affection I had.

She throws her prosthetic arm at me. She usually takes it off when she is here. I grab it in mid air, looking at her. She is crying, or maybe I'm crying and projecting onto her. She wouldn't cry for me. 

Now that I'm looking at her, the tears rolling down her brown skin. I'm ashamed of myself for making her feel this way. For making her cry, for being an idiot believing there is a world where the brightest star. 

"Zubery that isn't fair! I have been trying to help you as much as possible but you need to see the truth." Her voice emotions boiling over. I have been too shy to talk, she doesn't understand how hard it is to speak to her. She is so powerful!

"I..." I can't fault her words because there is no fault in them. I sink back holding her arm to my chest. Looking at her big brown eyes, listening to her. 

"Zubery, I am sorry. You died four months ago. I'm here to help you move on." I can't believe what I am hearing. There is no way that is true. I'm not dead, I have only just confessed for the time that I love someone. I haven't even lived yet. 

"No...how?" The feeling returns that cold empty feeling from before she came. I already know how, and why. The world has no place for people like me. Who lurks in the shadows. I want to say more to her. 

"It doesn't matter but it's time to go, your soul won't last much longer. You feel it too don't you?" Her arm starts to glow around me. 

It so warm. I feel like I'm holding her hand, tears coming down my face. I don't want to go but I can't carry on like this. The bleachers have been my home for a while but she is right, I try to stand at least she can remember on me on my feet. I remember now, how she lost her arm, how I lost my life. 

"It's okay, it was worth it for you..."