Of lightning and earth (book 1 of the Celeste series)

chapter 2

Porcelain walked in front of Akila and never turned around to see if she was following him. In fact he did not need to turn around, he could hear every step of hers. Porcelain had a keen sense of hearing which developed as a survival instinct from his childhood. He could hear the trickling of the stream they just left and even how Akila placed more weight on her right leg than her left as she walked. So, there was no need to check on her so instead he became angry at himself.

There was no one to blame but himself for this detour. He was the one who stupidly suggested it and added more work onto his plate. He was not sure why he asked her to follow him. It was like his mouth spoke before his mind could form the thought. It wasn't really that big of a problem, though. The problem was how out of character this felt for him. He would have left her by the stream and carried on with his work but the look in her eyes unnerved him. It does not matter, he reminded himself. He counted this as a good deed to wash out all the shit he's done, if that could be washed by anything. Thus, he convinced himself that the detour was purposeful.

Despite just waking up Akila felt tired, her mind still swayed with static and she was terribly thirsty and anxious. This whole situation was frustratingly weird. Her body was not moving correctly and she felt restlessness in her bones, like something was not right with her. All she wanted to do was to rest and gain some bearings before all these feelings within her torn her to shreds. However, the more she walked the less the feeling persisted. The crispness of the air allowed her to breath better and the coolness from the shade of the tall trees reduced the heaviness in her mind. She felt more in control of her body and her mind slowly began to clear as if it was finally adjusting to the situation.

As Akila walked behind Porcelain she could not shake the weird thoughts she was having of Porcelain. She was obviously wary of him but that was not the weird feeling that unnerved her. It was so terribly unnerving that she felt jittery in her shoes. It was the fact that Porcelain looked exactly like her bias, Taehyung!

He sprouted as tall as V did and had the same toned body as V and the same wonderfully sculpted arms as V. His cream coloured hair wonderfully contrasted with his smooth, brown skin and his eyes were framed with cream colored eyelashes accentuating the red in his eyes. Cream eyelashes! For Akila, he would resemble the idol even more if he grew out his hair to cover his forehead. She could not help but think that he would make a perfect k pop idol. If only he would straighter the tension on his forehead, the grumpy look in his eyes and did something with the scar on his tilted nose.

"Alright, if you walk further down you'll find a road. If you keep by that road you'll enter into the town." Porcelain stated and he pointed to his left. She looked at the direction he pointed at and it just looked like more forest. Was she just supposed to walk straight? What if she got lost? Which to Akila seemed highly plausible.

"Wait...you...you're not coming with me?" Akila asked.

Porcelain gave her a funny look, "Why would I come with you? I told you the directions. Just follow it. Not that hard."

Akila was speechless for a second. Did this Taehyung wannabe seriously think his 'pointing abstractly at some random part of the forest' was easy to follow? she thought drily.

"Please accompany to the city," she asked him.

"Just follow the direction I pointed to." Porcelain said with an incredulous look on his face.

"Ay Allah," she complained to the heavens, "just...just please accompany me." She tried again, her hands fisted by her sides.

Porcelain was getting increasingly aggravated with this girl in front of him. He went out of his way just to make a detour to point her in the right direction and now she was asking him to follow her all the way to town? That was going to eat a good chuck out of his day!