A Little Bit Quirky

Chapter 36.5: Hope

A.N: This is an extra chapter from Akira's point of view. Just a little insight into what he was thinking in the previous chapter. Thanks for all the support and hope you are enjoying this fic! 😘❤️

Akira's P.O.V:
His back is wide.

Wider than I remember, or maybe its just the angle.

My gaze wanders from his broad, square shoulders, to the sharp, innward jut of his shoulderblades, to the curveture of his spine and the bulge of his tightly packed muscles through his hero suit.

Honestly, he looks ridiculous, clad in a shinning costume with a flame pattern. It's something you'd see on a hero in movies; the good guy. Even the cape, though shredded and barely hanging onto his shoulders, is so fucking cliché, I want to laugh. Top it all off with that small golden crown, and it's like he's begging to be made fun of.

Still, his back is wide.

His hair is tossed by a cool breeze, red and white strands clashing and tangling, curling at the nape of his neck. Ice and fire swirls around him. Rime branching out beneath his feet, snow falling around him and his breaths puffing in the cold air. I feel the coolness rolling off him in waves, as if I'm immersed in freezing water, drowning in a coldness that is entirely him. Little snowflakes materialise at the tips of his fingers and gently float into the air, dancing around him, around me. The ice is cracking and stretching in sheets of pale blue and pure white, fine and iridescent.
All of this bursts from his right side; cold and cruel and beautiful.
Then on his, left is a raging world of heat. Flames dance through the air; golds and crimson and burnt oranges. Heat spills from him and his left side blurs, my vision warped by the warmth. The fire curls around itself, twisting and thriving - breathing as if it is alive, a part of him. My skin burns and my head swims, sweat pouring off me in buckets. I feel dizzy, caught between hot and cold; submerged in a constant state of contradiction. I'm freezing and burning, stiffening and melting, trembling and scorching. I want to move, to run from this confusion, from this blatant defiance of nature, but I find myself stunned. I'm completely mesmerised by the sensation, by the dizzying beauty of two opposite ends of a spectrum colliding. Black and white, good and bad, fire and ice. It meant something. It had to. That these things could possibly meet, could possibly co-exist together in one body.
It means something.

I dig my fingers into his wide back, desperate for something steady to hold onto. Excitemwnt swells in me and I gaze at the swirling fire and ice around me; hot and cold exploding through my senses. My eyes are wide as I fall forward, burying my face in the wide back before me. Its warm and I cling to it desperately, to the person who could create such beauty. Joy jolts through me and it had been so long, so so long since the last time I'd felt such an emotion, that I cave beneath it, tears welling in my eyes. The heat and cold attacks me, pulling and pushing me, molding me. I let it, let it consume me entirely as long as I can continue to lean against this wide back. Something is stirring inside of me, something long since snuffed out.
"Akira!" My name falling from his lips thrills me and I find myself awed by the fact that someone who can do something as amazing as defy nature is saying my name. My name. "You okay?" I ponder over the question, shifting slightly. Lifting my heavy head and staring at the back of his neck, I furrow my brows. I'd never been okay. For so many years I've not been okay. From the moment I found out the truth, from the moment everyone decided to turn their gazes away, from the moment the shining silver blade had sliced through the skin of my wrists – I've never been "okay".
But, now, maybe it's different. Just for this moment, suspended in a revelation; in fire and ice. Maybe. Just a little bit. "Yeah." I croak out, voice shaky and thick with emotions. I'm falling and falling and falling, my skin seared by flames; my bones covered in frost; my soul captivated by a pair of mismatched eyes.
I'm falling. But it's okay.
I bury my head into his shoulder and as expected its firm and steady.
I breathe a sigh.
The emotion rising in me, it isn't something as trivial as love or happiness. No its stronger, so much stronger, it shakes my very core, grips my heart and squeezes. There's a hero before me, a hero with a strong, wide back and for the first time in my life I have a thought.

Maybe I can be saved.

My eyes burn and I press my face deeper into his ghastly hero costume, a laugh climbing up my throat.
In the deepest darkest part of me, a flame appears. It's not anything grand, just a weak little glow from a lighted candle, but it's enough.
It's enough.

"I'm okay."