seasons. : a fireafy fic

chapter fifteen

Leafy was sitting on Firey's bed, kicking her feet, watching him straighten out the contents of his studio apartment and make something in the kitchen. The keys on his lanyard softly jingled as he walked around, like bells in her ears.

She was wearing his red and white windbreaker, which was about two sizes too big for her. Her backpack rested on the floor in front of her, opened, but forgotten.

Earlier that day, she had shown up to her classes wearing her thin green flannel, rather than her coat. She had truthfully forgotten it was almost wintertime, and she shivered through all of her classes.

A few concerned classmates had asked her if she was cold, but she had stubbornly waved them off, claiming that she didn't feel chilly at all.

When she met up with Firey, he had seen through her lies instantly.

"But aren't you cold?" she had asked him, as he shrugged off his windbreaker.

"No." His voice was curt.

"Are you sure? I thought you didn't like the cold." Leafy's anxieties were shushed by Firey dumping his windbreaker onto her head.

"I don't."

This guy confused her to all hell. She had ignored it, and later accepted his invitation to go over to his apartment.

And now, here she was, on his bed. And as she sat on his bed thinking about his earlier actions, he was still confusing as hell.

Leafy decided to turn her focus away from her inner thoughts, opting instead to take in her surroundings.

Firey's bed was pushed up against his wall, with a few pillows thrown in rather confusing areas. He lacked decorations in his apartment, but he had a few band posters haphazardly taped to his walls. Across from his bed hung a TV, and adjacent to her was a mid-sized shelf containing a rather large collection of vinyl records. Atop the shelf sat a record player, softly playing some music.

"What song is this?" she asked Firey.

He perked up, pulling his head out of his refrigerator to regard her. The rings in his pierced ears caught the light from his window, the jewelry shimmering like the flame in his eyes. "Lithium, by Nirvana."

She looked back at the record player. "I like it."

Firey went back to looking in his fridge. "Yeah, it's a good one."

Silence bubbled between them once again.

"It smells like weed in here," she said finally.

"Ah, shit really?" Firey looked up again, taking in a deep breath. "I can't tell."

Leafy shrugged her shoulders, listening to the material of the windbreaker move against her body. "The smell is a bit stale, but it's there."

"Fuck," Firey said, running his hand through his hair. "I guess I'm not getting my deposit back."

He finally found what he was looking for in his fridge. He retrieved the item, closing the door behind him with a slam.

Leafy looked around as Firey busied himself once again. She settled on a photo on his bedside table, which she hadn't noticed before.

The photo was next to a stack of notebooks and textbooks, crudely piled on top of each other. She forgot Firey was actually very smart, smarter than her.

He just didn't like the work.

But Engineering was a stupidly hard major, and he was managing himself with freakish ease. She turned her attention back to the photograph.