Crumbling Under Pressure

Chapter 2

Regret.

She won't make him regret it.

Johan understood the failure of tutoring someone else, still it bothers him that he simultaneously shivered when she said it. It seems off for a start and her breath could contributed the suffocating feeling; pressuring and strengthening the claustrophobia within him. How does he know this?

Family.

But he shouldn't dissect the similarities between two different groups of people without knowing them deeply. He wasn't going to make a compare-contrast graph and present it to one of his professors, right?

He shook his head answering his question. The bossa nova music filtered the cafe along with the chatters from costumers from differents areas of the place and the rich scent of caffeine greeted his nose with thirst. He fidgeted his t-shirt and certainly counted the minutes before Mia can arrive with their orders.

He inspects, truly memorizing each furniture, the walls from every side and the ceiling above. He couldn't determined the size but he can simply says it was big, the walls were painted in pastel blue with a few picture frames and also with quotes painted in black, he couldn't simply forgot the large sized windows expanding from the two sides of the wall as well. The furniture were common to spot on but the cashier and blackboard, hanging above has the list of the meals being served, and also the grandfather clock beside were the easiest to notice.

He sighed finding the time to be slower than usual. He took a few paces backwards from his present thoughts and leaned on closer to the table. His phone being the front of his view and text messages from his family were shown in the screen; mostly were from his older brother, John.

Hey, bro... Heard you yelled at mom last night. You okay? 8:00 am

I'm always here if you need me or anything. 9:30 am

Johan... please listen to me. 11:54 am

Three messages; each sent in different hours of the day. All held similar tones within them and he exited the messaging app, never bothering to reply. His breathe hitched against his throat, feeling a lump in it. Gulping the lump down isn't going to be easy and helpful either. He sits still and tried to pinpoint a distraction that he was trying to find in his smartphone; music is a great choice too.

Johan nodded to himself, grabbing his earphones from the small pocket of his bag and plugged it in his phone and his ears. He tapped the music app and the row of songs appeared in the screen.

He swipes up from the available choices, skimming the songs away from his view and ended up picking whatever was available.

He could say it was music to his ears. Pun intended, right? A 'no' would be a definite answer.

He tapped his foot along with the rhythm, creating a beat on its own he even bobbed his head. It sink in his mind, imagining the change of scenery from a building to an open spaced landscape filled with flowers and cool breeze coming to touch his skin. A girl appeared in front of him, glancing at every direction but mostly focuses her eyes at him and she gave out a smile at his direction.

Her appearance was strange; pink pastel skin and blue eyes. It fits the song and so is the world he imagined; the colors aren't in placed and everything looks hazy. The trees formed on any shapes and the grass comes off as transparent.

"Johan," she called his name and the vision changed back to reality. "Eat up."

The fantasy theme scenery changes back to the ordinary cafe and the girl whom he thought was imaginary was Mia in the flesh. Their meal are placed on their medium sized table and the song ended and it was replaced with another.