7.24 AM, 21st Dec
″Is that a tattoo?″
I had forgotten about the marks. I sat beside Nik on the bus, and upon rolling up the sleeves of his baseball jacket, I understood his question. Indeed, the marks looked a lot like a minimalistic tattoo – dark bands encircling both arms. I didn′t have to count them; ten on either arm and one around the waist. 21 in total.
″You′re not going to believe me,″ I told him, feeling a pang of grief as I noticed that the left, uppermost band had begun to fade.
Nik scoffed. ″I believed all that stuff about angels and mermaids, try me.″
″I never mentioned mermaids.″
″Just tell me.″
″Fine.″ I bet none of the Icari before me had been subjected to such incessant questioning. ″It tells me how long I have left,″ I explained, gulping hard, ″... before I die.″
″Yo, for real? Raf, that′s so cool.″ He grinned, leaning in to take a closer look. ″I count 20,″ he observed. ″Years?″
″21,″ I corrected, lifting the hem of the I Heart LA tee to reveal the final mark, ″... and no.″
His face fell. ″Months?″
I just shook my head. I felt the mourning in his brief silence, but then ...
″You′re just in time for Christmas,″ he said. I looked up, surprised to see him smiling. I realised, then, that Nik had lost a lot in his lifetime, perhaps more than I stood to lose in mine.
YOU ARE READING
21: The Angel and The Angeleno
Storie breviB × B・In this tale of love and death, Nikhil helps Rafaél live a life of no regrets in just 21 days. Rafaél is an Icarus, the most recent from an ancient bloodline of ephemeral angels born of the ocean. On December 21st, 2021, he rose from the sea o...
