A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Eight: Part Three

I slowly slid down the freeway’s asphalt with my back firmly against the walls. I spanned my arms open and nervously gritted my teeth.

The boy was different. He casually strolled down the streets without cringing his shoulders.

On the other side of the solid white line was traffic rushing in the opposite direction. This made me nervous because if one of those cars happened to swerve out of place, we’ll be hit face first. Beyond the concrete that separated the streets in two was traffic that was headed in the identical direction that we were walking.

The bright, white headlights of the east traffic and the dim red lights of the hind lights of the west traffic glowed as they progressed across the streets to their destination.

“What are you doing?” the boy irritably peered over his shoulders.

“I’m trying to be safe!”

“It doesn’t matter if you try to flatten yourself into a pancake or if you do cartwheels down the street. You’re not safe either way.”

“If an ambulance comes down this lane, we could at least try to live.” I retorted, lifting myself off the wall.

I shivered against the wind blowing against my face. My cheeks started to feel numb. I preferred to sit down and stop walking for a while. Today was far too much of an adventure already.

I slowly closed my eyes. The roaring of the freeway buzzed in my ears.

I didn’t understand the situation I was in. I was an average 15-year-old girl. There were millions of other girls that are just like me. I saw a guy falling in the middle of the street and I saved him. In exchange, I was kidnapped into luxury.

All of what happened lately has caused me to think things I’ve never suggested to myself before. This included my ponders of platonic Amanatsu.

I was never fond of “falling in love” like Sora was. When I ran into confessions, I’d overhear the rejected one say “I don’t care! I still like you!” or “I’ll try harder! You’ll fall for me then!”

What point was there? Why did they still love them even though they were rejected?”

I returned to Amanatsu. He was very kind, but if I confessed such a thing to him, he’d reject me. And I’d be just like the rejected, aimlessly walking around with broken hearts that they’ve dropped and shattered themselves.

Before I had a chance to dig deeper in thought, I felt something firm collide with my face.

“Watch where you’re going!” a sharp voice hissed. I snapped out of my thoughts and realized who I had collided into.

“Sorry!” I stumbled backwards and wrenched myself away from the boy. “I sorta drifted off.”

“You scared me, you know!” the boy scolded, glaring towards me with his lips curled. “I thought you were a cop. You should be more careful.”

He swerved his head forward and continued his pacing.

His stiff voice still rang through my head.

“You scared me, you know!”

“I thought you were a cop.”

“You should be more careful.”

“You,” I faintly whispered, following his footsteps. “You” has been the only word he’s addressed me by since we met. And I was pretty sure my name wasn’t “you”.

This thought sent involuntary words out of my mouth.

“What’s your name?”

I scrunched my nose. What a random thing to say!