Ruby Red Threads

#12 Akito



When I walk into the classroom early on Monday, Ren is already in his seat, which is a little unusual. He's leaning back in his chair on the far side of the classroom, his posture relaxed. Weak sunlight illuminates a side of his face, softening his features as he gazes out the window. He has a soft, gleaming look in his eyes that makes my breath catch in my throat. He looks peaceful and happy, and...I don't recognise this Ren.

I move away from the door with a jolt when I realise that I've been obstructing the flow of students filing into the room. The sight of Ren often tricks my mind into a fleeting moment of suspension, where my world starkly zeroes in on him in this way. It feels like everything slows for the one timeless second that I look over to see what he's doing, my senses going soft. It's becoming a growing inconvenience to me. Time waits for no one, and each second I spend pointlessly watching him is a second wasted.

I push forward and pause in the space between our desks. Ren trains his gaze on me, expressionless. The crease between his brows doesn't make an appearance. My stomach squirms.

"Good morning," I say, and immediately chide myself for the hasty decision. Rubi instructed me to greet him every time we saw each other, but Ren has never responded to it well. I spit it out without thinking, thrown off balance by the inexplicable shift in his demeanour, blinded by a restless drive to do something. This is not going to be good. I should have given it more thought—

"Morning," he mumbles.

I almost sag from relief. Then, once my brain catches up to my ears, I go very, very still.

"What?" When I fail to form an appropriate response, a hint of a frown invades his face. "Sit your ass down; do you need a fucking invitation?" he barks. The change in tone makes me feel oddly at ease. "I'm sorry, I...didn't mean to stand in your way," I say carefully and get into my seat, splaying my notes out onto the table. Ren grumbles something indecipherable under his breath.

I'm taking up Rubi's suggestion and allowing myself a trial period of sorts. For a short time, I will acknowledge Ren's presence. I will answer when he speaks to me. I will consider anything he asks me for. I will be patient when he disrupts my plans.

I think about Ren on the track field, the smile on his face as he ran, and the calm that descended over me, if only for a moment, when the echo of his worries inside me evaporated. The pounding of my heart, the cold air nicking at my face, all the feelings that were steadily stirring in my chest in response to every concrete thought that formed in my mind—without Ren's incessant presence there to distract me—my body and all its sensations finally truly belonging to me alone.

A blanket of blissful silence—the feeling of watching dark clouds clear away to an expansive blue sky after a seemingly endless storm. This is the feeling that I want to chase.

I need him to be happy.

I've long since been caught in this turbulent current that is Ren Ichijou, and it's all I can do to desperately hold on to my rationality and keep myself from being swept away.

I can't know what waits for me at the end of all this—if the current will carry me to shore or if it will drag me further into the depths of a raging whirlpool. I can't know unless I give in to the danger of it, and if it ends up being the latter, I can only hope that I find a way to climb out and dry myself one day.

When class begins, I push aside any stray thoughts and attempt to clear my mind, letting my concentration narrow to the text book laid out before my eyes and the teacher's voice in my ears.

As the lesson goes on, something nags at me—an unsettling hollowness, like a large piece of the puzzle that forms my morning is missing. My senses tune in to the sound of the chalk scraping against the black board up ahead, the rustling of paper as pages are turned, and the shuffling of shoes below desks. The mundane sounds of the classroom are unusually clear, and I blink, looking down at my notebook, to realise that I've fallen behind on taking notes.