No Reason But Us

Chapter 6 : Red Strings of Fate

A couple of days passed, and one of Gage's best friends was still giving him the cold shoulder. He went up to Courtney as she was heading into their class to try to fix things with her. "Hey!" he greeted her, but she ignored her, so he held her arm to stop her. "Court, are you still mad at me?"

"What do you think?" She responded.

"Listen. I'm sorry, Felix and I... we were just being idiots that's all."

"Yeah, two idiots that stabbed me behind my back."

"Court, it's not like that."

"I thought you said you don't want to deal with me."

"I didn't say that, I said I didn't want to deal with rehearsing with you," he blurted but he was being loud and realized that came out wrong that some people heard him and they began snickering at the side from their fight. "Nothing to see here, guys. Move along."

"Oh, wow, that makes me feel so much better," Courtney scoffed.

"Courtney... no... that's not... You know me, you know that I'm not that interested in being in the club."

"I know you don't want to be in the theatre club, you hate it, I know you made it so clear all the time but I thought since you're my best friend, I thought you'd at least do this for me after all the crap you put me through all these years since we started being friends."

"What are you talking about?" Gage lifted his brow at her.

"Oh! come on, you asked me to help you sneak out of class and I did, you asked me to do your English essays, I said yes all the time, and don't forget the time you begged me to take woodshop class with you because even though I hated it but I did it for you," Courtney reminded him all the things she did for Gage and he was starting to feel bad.

"Court..."

"AAALL THAT, I never said anything because I'm your best friend so the only time I asked a favor from you, you made it sound like I'm dragging you to hell, you're such a hypocrite." She then turned her back on him and went inside the classroom, leaving Gage feeling even more lousy than the previous day.

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Oddey was in Madam Vestia's art studies, and she watched one of her classmates present their art on romanticism. One by one, she saw their take on the movement, one was only a pencil sketch but it was still great, the other did with colored pencils, chalk, and like hers, some of them painted. "Next up, let's have... Ms. Empirio," the professor said. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," she answered and took her sketch pad, then went in front of the class. She showed them her final work, and they seemed impressed.

"Alright, tell us about your artwork there. What are we seeing here?"

"As you all can see, I drew a man and a woman, the story here is that they haven't met yet hence the way they are not facing each other even though they are just a step away from each other."

"I see, and what's that red... thing around them?"

"It's called the red string of fate."

"Oh! What is that?"

"In Japanese belief, there's this invisible red string that connects a person to their destined soulmate."

"Very interesting, now tell me your process."

"I used watercolor to paint with soft subtle color for the two soon-to-be lovers and the red string of fate, I used acrylic to give that wavy motion."

"Beautiful. Excellent work, I see the romanticism in your painting, and I love the story behind it. You nailed it," Madame Vestia commented, Oddey had to hand it over to her. "You may take your seat."