AN ODE TO YOUR DREAMS

( 十八 ) meager fantasies

meager fantasies.

THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT THIS MORNING.

Your window is left open slightly. You breathe in; deep, and it smells of faint trails of the crisp leaves from the surrounding trees outside. Your fingers dig itself onto the pillowy, soft blanket and you flex your limbs just as your eyes open. You hear the bones underneath your muscles crack through your ears. Pop, pop, pop. Then you breathe out. It is slow; air humming through your throat and you feel it glide past the tissues as your lungs expand and your rib cage along with it. Your body relaxes.

Mornings are different when you have something to look forward to, you realize as you blankly stare up at the ceiling for a few moments. The longer you gaze up into the empty space, the more the image blurs. The lines and water marks on the ceiling blend out together and all you see is the white paint. Eventually, you get up, albeit still with a bit of reluctance, and head to the bathroom with a towel slung over your right shoulder.

The water was a little colder on your skin, and so you hurry to get out of the bathroom whilst ensuring that you've cleaned yourself enough. Currently, you find yourself standing in front of your dresser. Your eyes browse through the clothing, some folded and some hung on a metal bar, and you ponder on what to wear.

When was the last time you've done this, anyway? Putting effort onto your appearance. There was no point in doing so when you've barely gone out in the past save for accompanying your mother to perform errands. Thus, you can't quite remember the last time you did or if you even did at all.

The colors of the fabrics greet you with its lack of variety, mostly ranging from black to other neutral colors. The lack of style was also apparent, mostly because your outside clothes had been simply given to you by your mother who lacked the knowledge of the current trends. But with sudden laziness spurring you to just put something on, you settled with wearing a simple top and pants.

You gather all of your necessities into a small shoulder bag and put on your shoes before heading out of your room.

Your mother is sitting on the sofa and so you could only see the back of her head as she faces the television. Some old romance drama was playing.

"I'm going out to my friend's house like I mentioned the other day."

There is no response from her.

Suddenly, you find the atmosphere to contort to be less favorable as compared to the moment when you had woken up.

IT'S A LITTLE BIT AWKWARD, you think, as you try to sit comfortably in their main living room that is stationed at the first floor of their house. It has been ( awkward, you mean ) every since you had arrived at their front door because instead of your classmate opening the door to greet you, it happened to be his brother instead, and it had been done with simply simply a flat stare and a silent 'come in'.

Itoshi Rin was in the kitchen helping out his mother—surprisingly—and so that left Itoshi Sae to accompany you in 'making yourself at home' in their living room. He sat on the sofa chair that is adjacent to the wide sofa you sat on and you were both watching an old animation series about a little girl; Chibi Maruko-chan, if you remembered correctly. Although, every now and then, you had to hold back the urge to comment on your company's choice of entertainment.