The Fallen |BxB| ✓

06 | The Warmth Within You

↞[Luke]↠

Ken settled on the sofa close to the glass fencing, a coffee table scootched too close to it. I half-expected him to move away when I sat beside him, but he didn't. Moving my arm on the backrest behind him, I said, "I don't know if this place is literally at the heart of town, but look around..."

A huge expanse of the area was visible from the vantage point. Red roof-slants of houses like rows of tiny valleys slashed with roads going through them and rimmed with the vast ocean. Peripheral edges of the town were blanketed with lush canopies of trees where the woods began, and a single road for traveling outside the town.

"...you can see everything," I spoke under my breath. It had been too long since I got a chance to see the town this way, and I missed going out with someone like this. Bella got busy with school at some point, and all my relationships dissolved to favors, nothing more. Maybe I should've tried harder with Alison.

Ken lightly nudged my knee with his own. Looking beyond the fence, he said, "Thank you for bringing me here. I have a totally new perspective of the town now." He laughed softly, and his gaze met mine. "A beautiful perspective."

My jaws tightened, and I couldn't look away from his eyes. Brown. Simple, yet they gleamed behind his glasses. I wanted to cup his soft jawline in my palms, run my thumb over his cheek, and kiss to taste the details of his lips—every indentation. But I tore my gaze from him before it overwhelmed me.

I did not know why I was so careful around Ken. I let the small hesitation overrule my desire and said, "I felt the same when I came here the first time." Waves rose and fell in a consistent rhythm as if the ocean was breathing, and they were its pulse.

"Have you always lived here?" He reclined, his back touching my arm that made him straighten up too quickly.

I chuckled and removed my arm. "Yeah, born and raised." I shrugged my shoulders a little. "Gets boring after a while. My dad never travels around."

"I can sorta relate. My mom's always traveling becuz of business trips, but she never tags me along. Even now, I'm living with my aunt, as a temporary settlement. And Dad just lives in Kyoto." He paused when I raised my eyebrow from being illiterate in geography. With a small smile, he said, "It's a state...in Japan."

"Ah." I plucked the rose from its stem, kept inside a curly vase in front of us. In full bloom, its pink petals had a few dents and the fragrance a little dim. "So, why are you here, then? I mean, changing schools in mid-sem..." His vision was fixed on the flower in my hand. "...It's not easy to handle."

"I lived in Rosewood with my mom..." He paused, gaze flickering to his hands that were fumbling the hem of his sweatshirt.

Fuck. I brought up the wrong topic, fuck. "It's fine, Ken. You don't have to talk about something you—"