The Ephemeral Serendipity Of Midnight Musings

I turned all the lights off and lay down on the bed. Another day came to an end, another loop of routine completed. I turned to my side and closed my eyes as a call to my brain that I'm ready to fall asleep; but ten minutes passed and nothing happened. Instead, my mind was swarmed even more with different kinds of thoughts. Thoughts about life and death, the struggles we face, people's misfortunes and everything wrong with the world. I felt almost suffocated by my own thoughts, I didn't know how to stop thinking, never have. I thought to distract myself by staring at my phone one last time, check how many notifications I got since the last time I looked at it; zero it will read, I already knew, but still I reached for it as I didn't know what else to do to stop the incoming of this massive wave of thoughts.

Just then I sensed some movement on the other side of the bed, and then a hand pulling me closer. I didn't protest. As if he knew, that I needed to be tethered back to reality; although he was actually still asleep, his hot and steady breath crashing against the back of my neck. I steadily calmed down again. I was rescued, from flying away into the abyss of eternal thinking, like a balloon floating in the endless sky not knowing where to go or where is it 'supposed' to go. One simple gesture did it.

But a mind like mine does not stay tethered for long. Once again, it started its gears producing thought after thought. But this time it took another direction. It focused on the platinum-haired man sleeping beside me. How did our journey together, began? This is a chain of thoughts I'm going to complete.

...

He was in the same class as I, in Junior High. He used to sit by the window, two desks ahead of me. He hardly ever said anything. In fact, I couldn't remember his voice for the longest time. It was the only thing missing from the picture of him I had painted in my mind. Rest all was clear, the way he stared out of the window every chance he got, his peculiarly-styled hair that, took me a long time to figure, were supposed to resemble the flames that assisted him in scoring the goals on the soccer field, the number ten jersey he always wore and other things like this.

But occasion never rose where we would have a conversation. He was a star soccer player, I was an artist. Our paths never crossed, even when I went to watch a few of the many matches our Raimon played. I liked soccer, always have; never enough to actually do something about it but watching a match or two every once in a while was not out of the ordinary for me. Everything always happened the same way, I went with a couple of my friends, cheered for our team, participated in the uproar the stadium created when our team won and then came back.

This was all that happened in Junior High and once it was over I lost touch with everyone I ever came across there. I had no information of whereabouts of neither my own friends nor the soccer team. I didn't know if they had dispersed or were still standing together as a team like they used to in Junior High. Then one day I heard about the new rule of soccer. Soccer was being controlled in a way that completely destroyed its essence. I couldn't believe it. But that wasn't the end of it. I was in for another surprise. Rumour had it that the one at the top of this entire system was none other than the ex ace striker of Raimon, Gouenji Shuuya and that he was hiding his identity behind his new name 'Ishido Shuuji'.

I refused to believe this. This just didn't make any sense to me. How could someone so passionate about soccer be the one to be involved in its destruction? I didn't know Gouenji closely but as far as my observation had told me about him, he was not someone who could cause so much hurt to others. He seemed caring towards the people close to him even though he barely ever spoke. Surely, there were people who mistook this behaviour as cold and distant, and they were the ones too quick to believe this rumor but I knew better than to jump to conclusions.

I got my answer soon enough though. One day as I was returning from the bookstore, I decided to take an alternate route, one that passed through the street where the Fifth Sector's headquarter was located. As I reached in front of the building, I stopped out of curiosity, lifting my head up to an uncomfortable angle before being able to see the top. The campus was spread in a vast area,and the building loomed over the city, almost metaphorical for the control its residents exercised on everyone.