are you afraid of the dark?

1. apples

I trailed behind him and noticed how the cool autumn wind rustled through his golden-blonde hair. We made our way through endless aisles of gnarled trees simply looking for the perfect ones from which to pluck only the ripest of apples.

It had been his idea to go apple picking this October. It'd be fun, he had said. I asked him what we would do with all the apples. He'd told me he didn't know. But there we were anyway.

The weather had defied all odds today, as the sun was shining with not a single cloud in sight. I loved how it reflected off of his hair, making little streaks of ginger appear. This was, somehow, something I had never noticed about him before. An imperfection, as some might see it, but I thought nothing of the sort.

He turned to me and it felt like he had been moving in slow motion. He smiled with his teeth and I felt my own lips curl up, too, in order to smile back at him. He held up an apple, one that did appear to be just as perfect as he was.

Did he want me to take it? He had his own basket, though. So, I just looked down at it, my smile melting slowly away into my face.

Did I want to sit, he'd asked me, putting the apple into his basket. Sure, I said, I did.

We sat below the short apple trees, branches and leaves hanging low in front of our faces, the orange autumnal sun shining lightly through the brush, making me feel like we had been secluded from the rest of the world.

I reached up and grabbed an apple off the tree above us. I looked at him as he sat next to me, and he looked back at me, too. I watched his hand reach over and take the apple from my grip. He chuckled and looked down at it, away from me.

I watched him clean it with his shirt. Was he planning to eat it? He knew there were rules against that very thing, didn't he?

I watched his mouth open as he brought it up between his teeth and took a bite out of it. It was almost as if I physically could not peel my eyes away from his lips. The juice had spilled out and leaked down his chin and I felt like I had to restrain myself from leaning into him and pulling him onto my body so that I might lick the mess away.

I needed to taste his lips on mine. That tart apple still in his mouth but balanced out by an inexplicably sweet element coming from some mysterious, unknown place.

I wanted to tell him, I really did. I knew I couldn't, though. I just couldn't. What might he think of me then? Either way, I felt like, I should say something - anything - even if it was just to distract myself. I needed to stop that seemingly unavoidable tightening I felt within my pants below my belt.

"Mister rule follower breaking the rules, I see," was what I settled on saying.

"Hmm?" he hummed, trying not to talk with half the bite of apple still in his mouth.

"Y'know we aren't supposed to eat the apples, right?" I asked.

"Mm!" he swallowed. I watched his throat move as he did so and I don't understand why. Why is this happening to me? "Really?" he questioned, concerned.

"Yea," I started laughing at him. "But it's no use following them now, you've already done it."

"I guess so... I feel bad though, to keep eating it, you know?" he told me.

I took it from his hands and looked at it. His mouth had been on it and, now, I would make it so that mine was about to be. I closed my eyes and took a slow bite out of it right next to where he had. When I looked over at him, his eyes flicked back up to my eyes- as they had been fixated on my lips.

I looked at him, never wanting to look away, hoping that he might catch me.

It just made me feel worse, though, when we continued as usual. We stood up and made our way down the rest of the aisles as if none of that other stuff had just happened. Oh well, I suppose we were fine as we were- as we always have been.

Just pals.

That's all we really can be, huh? And what of these feelings I've managed to develop?

If he finds out, which, he won't... that's fine. If not? I guess that's fine, too.