Mean Looking Sweetheart

CHAPTER 22

"Ikigai.... up... wakeup." The unknown whispers reminded her of her mother, who always so lovingly woke her up. Her eyes opened to the warmth of sunlight, cozying up her face. Then her mind drifted back to what she calls her instinct, which was to get hold of something to defend herself right away. Before even identifying the threat.

That all too familiar, deep voice swept over he whole existence. 'Avery, remember the world, its a place of misery and mistrust. Remember my child, my soldier. Misery is not something caused accidentally, it is brought upon most intentionally. So do not be a coward to sit back, enduring it, thinking it might be no ones fault. Its always someone's fault. It always is...'

She gasped as she came to her senses and the first thing she registered was ink engraved skin, only centimeters away from her face. She pulled her head back and realized it was Tsuda's neck, she had her nose touched with, while she was asleep. She pulled herself farthest away from him and felt the door of the car behind her back.

"You've slept well, Ikigai. We're home now." His warm eyes shifted from me and he started talking to the man outside his window, giving some sort of instructions. Which gave her time to ponder over the word Ikigai and what it meant. Thoughtlessly, she looked ahead and her breath got caught in her throat, at the sight in front of her. what is this..? She whispered intended for her own ears only.

There was a garden velveted by lush grass, in the middle of it was a wide track of smooth pebbles curving it's way to a door, so wide yet it looked nothing like a door. There was no knob, no handle nothing. She looks around and saw greens and blues and pink and purple blending together like a painting worth billions.

There were huge tree leaves with fresh dew on it. They made her blink twice to confirm it was real. The freshly spread sunlight made the due sparkle like the meteors she used to see, falling from the sky landed on these leaves, never leaving a single spark from their descent.

Those trees and grass was everywhere her eyes could see and right in the middle of this heaven layed a castle. It wasn't a castle she imagined or read about. It was a single story, there was no second floor to it. But that single floor kept going and on and on. It's boundary walls too long. For a moment she wished she could use a golf cart inside the house, just from looking at it from out side.

"You love the soil and what comes out of it." He whispered so close to her that made her realize how lost she was in the sight that she lost focus of time and people around her. "That's another thing I just found out about you." She looked at the sky and saw a few clouds coming from the east.

"It will be raining soon. Those meteors will not spark anymore." The last part wasn't meant for someone else's ears. She thought he would taunt or laugh at her for her imagination because that's how he was, always making fun and finding jokes out of things. But what he said next shocked her. "Interesting. I used to believe they were tears, of the fairies living in here." "Why would a fairy cry?" It made her ask.

"Why do you cry?" He asked through warm eyes. She looked up in his eyes and saw something that almost made her flinch. She wasn't afraid of blood, guns or curses.

Hatred was something she had seen too often in her life, never flinched or cried over them. But his eyes held things she couldn't even name. But she knew what it was.

When Achilles looked at Patroclus, this must be how his eyes had looked.

If sea could have eyes it would look like this while gazing upon sand, whom he uses all his strength to touch no matter how many time he's pushed back by the wind.

Few seconds passed without any words and the sun poured fresh beam over Tsuda's figure, making his black hair shine as though the sun mistook him for the moon. His black eyes looked like wine, a hint of redish brown in them, which might just be a trick of the sun.