AstroHarmony: The Height of Rebellion

The Burden of Question

His name is Rokuro.

She pronounced it "roe-KU-roo", the foreign sound rolling off her tongue in an elegant slur.

Leeh leads me down a dim hall from the room I had been housed in. The walls were lined with oak doors, spaced at what appeared to be random intervals. A door at the far end to my right, I noticed, was cracked open slightly, allowing a sliver of bright light to leak into the darker corridor.

As we approach, I slow down, letting my hand slip from Leeh's grasp as she brings me forth, the girl not even pausing as we approach said door. She doesn't even pause to knock, just shoulders her way into the room, the door swaying silently open in her wake and brightening a portion of the hall. I glance down as the light spills over my bare feet, curling my toes into the stiff carpet. When I glance back up, Leeh is standing in the doorway, beckoning for me to follow her before turning back into the room once again.

"Hey, Ru," she says, ignoring as I bring myself forward to stand awkwardly against the doorframe. She plops in the desk chair to my right, one much like the one in my room. I let my gaze wander the room.

I don't get very far, not able to have made out much of the room before my eyes had found him.

He stood nearly a half-foot taller than myself; dressed in a tighter gray t-shirt, the fabric conforming to his frame and revealing every muscle on his toned body. As Leeh announces herself, he turns from where he'd been hunched over, having been filling what appeared to be a messenger's tote with papers strewn across his neatly made bed. Black sweatpants sit low on his hips, exposing a stripe of skin under the hem of his shirt. Bare toes stick out from beneath the too-long pants.

As he turns, Rokuro stares at me, an even greater sense of uneasiness lingering in the pit of my stomach. I shuffle my feet, unable to meet his gaze. His black hair is shaves up the sides, the top of his head looking unnaturally soft for a man of his stature, spiking and spilling slightly over his forehead, reaching his thin eyebrows. His eyes are similar in color, dark brown and big on his lighter face as he takes a glance over to Leeh. The bag is still in his hand. Rokuro stands up straighter from the awkward angle he had been leaning over the bed.

After a moment, he tossed the half-packed bag onto the bed, crumpling the papers beneath it. Rokuro takes a few paces towards me, holding out his hand, his skin contrasting nicely with the darker tone of his hair.

"You must be Ashten." I hesitantly reach out and take his hand in my significantly smaller one, his tight, reassuring grip in the shake making me relax, however slight the gesture may be. We don't break eye contact until Rokuro drops his hand, turning back to the bed on the left side of the small room.

"It's nice to meet you, Rokuro," I say, unsure what else to do to break a settling silence, trying in my best attempts to keep my voice steady despite how much Leeh's friend was intimidating me. I rub my arm awkwardly, shifting on my feet beneath me. He glances back at me, flashing a quick smile before reaching out to pick up the bag once again.

Something in my mind clicks, as if I've seen that before, though not Rokuro but someone else.

The realization is gone as quick as it had come, leaving me standing under the silence in the room of which nobody breaks. Rokuro stands at the bedside, shuffling papers as he shoves them haphazardly into his bag while Leeh glances from Rokuro to me, then back, all while I leant tensely against the doorframe.

"You took it well, then?" Rokuro finally asks into the quiet room. I look over to him as he continues, confused by what he was asking. "Considering that you haven't bombarded me with questions like all the others had." This second comment gets a frown from Leeh, a glare as if he'd brought up a touchy subject.