Block A 「Nishimura Riki」

8

Eiko sat in silence looking at the assigned project for her art class. She wasn't fond of painting, nor watercolor and preferred the traditional graphite and paper–though paint and brushes truly rooted further. She could make do with what was assigned, being in an art class made her do that tons of times. It's the concept that fought against her creative mind beyond belief.

To capture the essence of something never before seen, either in real life or in dreams.

It was an oxymoron within itself. To capture something never before seen in real life seemed nearly impossible. It contradicted itself. Nonetheless, in the face of a challenge Eiko charged. And she settled on real life to test how far her imagination could go in something so real.

But maybe she should have thought about the obstacles more heavily before emailing her professor that she would, in fact, choose real life. Now this challenge was truly hers. Eiko sighed. Adding onto that, she had two things to overthink about.

One, what should she really paint?

And two, If blocking out Sunghoon really was a good idea.

As much as Eiko hated bringing her train of thought to this place, she had to. It was where she lived, and at the moment she allegedly could not change that. The quote, life is like a movie, rang true. Life is like a movie, and for Eiko it was a fantasy, thriller and she preferred Romance and Drama.

After yesterday she pondered about her decision to leave after Sunghoon's confession. As much as it felt right at the time, it felt terribly wrong after. Eiko wasn't sure if it was her telling herself that or some intuition brought by her life story in Block A.

She closed the tab but the absence of the assignment details on her screen did not limit her thoughts to just Sunghoon, the memory of them coerced her thoughts to run. Despite how contradicting it seemed, her life was mundane.

It was uneventful outside of the life the neighborhood brought to her. Class and work, and maybe a few social encounters. Eiko was a home person even if she wanted to be outside. All of her time left after busy schedules were in the depths of the night and whereas before she could venture out to some meetup with her class buddies, it couldn't happen anymore. Not unless she wanted her life in more danger than it already was.

And Eiko came to realize through experiences that this neighborhood was not beautiful enough to capture in the form of art. Not the setting, not its inhabitants. Her failing score was a done deal.

When she came to that conclusion she sighed. Eiko preoccupied herself with her phone. She recalled the last thing she did before heading off to sleep was text Yunseo, half expecting it to open to that screen and half expecting her phone to freeze on an unfinished message loading screen. But no it loaded in fully, not on the messages with Yunseo but all of her messages, and tucked under Sera's name stood out Sunghoon's. Her mind raced and for the first time, she felt empathetic towards a vampire.

Eiko didn't know what was going on when she felt a stubborn frown attempt to tug her lips down but only into a firm straight line instead. When the frustration dissipated into what felt like guilt, Eiko believed she was going mad.

Was it really her fault?

Her mind said no but her heart thrummed a pulse that said yes in a language so foreign.

It wasn't my fault. She thought to herself the justifications. It's too much at once. It's overwhelming and I can't understand anything. My questions have been answered with blurred lines and I can't do anything because I just don't know.

She was swarmed. No matter the turn in her thought's attention, they led her back to the root of her concern.

So with conflicted feelings, Eiko didn't bother saying anything to him. Not a text and surely not a call.