Asailah

Chapter 6

Something akin to annoyance had befallen Asa as he lay on his bed, lamenting the situation he'd just landed himself in. It was only 6 in the morning after all, when his workmate, or more accurately his dear friend had called him amidst what seemed to him like a panic attack. To him, she seemed completely trapped in her own mind as she spoke on and on at a frantic pace about what horrid feelings she'd been experiencing, her attempts to control said feelings ending futile. Yet, even if this greatly concerned Asa and made his heart race at a similarly frantic pace purely out of worry for her current state, his head seemed to resist the advances of these emotions of a deep concern and even hurt for someone he genuinely cared for. After all, he'd spent his life having his love taken advantage of in ways more than one. All the terrible recallings rushed back in a stream of misery as he entered a fierce debate in his head, pitting his own ideas, past, and desires against each other in senseless warfare that only overwrought his nerves. That's just how he was, he wasn't one to argue much with others, he'd only argue with his own self. Perhaps it was true that he never really knew what he wanted. That's how he ended up in the town, after all, and to him it was but an amalgamation of who he was. In every corner of this town, he saw the bits of himself he so desperately loathed. The complicated nature of this mental war greatly tired the poor Asa. He was very much aware of how things always seem more complicated than they truly are but simultaneously found it impossible to free himself from this curse of his. Perhaps, she was more similar to him than he first thought...


Her. The thought of her suddenly took over his ailing mind, immediately ceasing all his unnecessary thoughts with just a picture of herself, laughing loudly on the secluded side of a pizzeria, back against a brick wall as the sky painted itself a brilliantly striking orange under the afterthoughts of the setting sun. The lighting of the moment seemed to accentuate her beauty further somehow, as he already found her astonishingly pretty. It truly was a beautiful scene, and Asa subconsciously lost himself in the comfort and happiness he felt at the time it happened, a hint of those feelings still present in his warm recollection. His feelings of longing only grew, constricting his heart, progressively tightening the more time he'd spent reminiscing about her. Then, a dose of reality finally managed to hit him.

"...What am I doing?"

Springing himself up from his bed in an instant, he immediately rushed to his wardrobe at a frantic pace, looking to get dressed. The wardrobe door made its usual creaking noise he so vehemently hated, much like with most imperfections around him, but he didn't even seem to notice it was there. In fact, in the rush he was in, he'd immediately wear whatever he'd lay his hands on, and what his hands reached were a pair of fairly ordinary trousers that had been torn on the right ankle, a sorry excuse for a shirt, and a long coat. Now, it was incessantly hot even at this hour, but such a thing was last on the list in his head right now, indeed meeting her as soon as possible was the only checkbox he truly wanted to mark. After getting 'dressed', he exited his apartment, and without even caring to lock the door, he bolted. Rushing down the stairs and skipping the last few steps of any given staircase, his mind started to wander places as he slowly withdrew into his mind once more. Anyone who was up and for whatever reason wandering outside of their rooms at the time stared and wondered what business Asa was even up to, though they, like always, were too caught up in their own personal struggles and battles to care. Truly, if one were to care too much about something as trivial as some boy rushing around at a frantic pace with a coat on in the middle of a brutally hot summer at 6 in the morning, they'd only be the oddity in the bunch.

Such was the state of affairs in a town where the troubled and destitute tried to make a living. Asa had now left his apartment building and ran as fast as he could to try and make his way to the place where she lived. In his mind, he felt an incredibly vexatious feeling toward himself as he realized how much time he'd wasted pondering about the insignificant. The fear of having his love taken advantage of, or being used, was something that'd held him back from his fulfilling his desire to get closer to the people he wanted to get closer to. His loneliness was only a product of his own paranoia, and the same fear had crossed his mind when he started his friendship with Nailah. With her, he felt it was something different, but another part of him seemed to scream at him with a voice quivering with a fear of the supposed inevitable, trying to convince him that whatever he finds different about her is only an illusion. Illusions upon illusions upon more illusions, he'd been lost in this dilemma for what seemed like an eternity. He never seemed to know what was an illusion and what wasn't, but this time it felt different. A feeling of longing he'd never experienced on this scale had obscured all of his illusions, pointing to itself as the clear goal, the strongest feeling, the strongest desire. Now, he even questioned if this was another one of his many illusions, but the more time he'd spend with her, the more he'd be convinced that it was somehow the truth that had risen from its ashes like a phoenix, presenting itself for the first time since what felt to him like his entire life. This is why he felt so terrible. The person he finally longed for had been promised something, and yet he spent too long selfishly stuck in his own mind to fulfill the promise. He was many things, was Asa, but one thing he wasn't was dishonest. Even if he hadn't felt anything for her, he'd still have fulfilled his promise, and yet he'd wasted so much time for someone he genuinely seemed to care for. As his breaths grew deeper and more restless, so did his feeling of self-loathing. In his own mind, he'd convinced himself he'd somehow hurt her, hearing her desperation in wanting him to arrive, yet for whatever reason he lay on his bed in wait of nothing. It was absolutely unthinkable. It made him want to scream out into the open space, but that would entail letting his pain be known by the world around him, something he couldn't let happen. As much as he'd ignore or bury his deepest fears, much like anyone else in the world around him, he still knew his fear of appearing weak better than anyone else. But all of this willed him to run quicker, quicker than ever before, in his race to fulfill her wish.