─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆
❛ Here we are at the end of the world, waiting for the sky to break into flames─but we are together, as if the stars had aligned. ❜
Percy Jackson never thought he would fall in love with a traitor.
[completed - editing]
[p...
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✩━━━ winter of 1997, camp half-blood. ❝If I ceaselessly run towards the end of the tunnel, what else would there be?❞
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HIROKI HELD THE FOLDED ORANGE SHIRT CLOSE TO HIS CHEST. His wings folded themselves over him as he gazed across the meadow, keeping out the falling snowflakes away from his wandering eyes. The white marble structures resembled ice castles in the winter, the countless valleys that made up Camp Half-Blood buried in layers of snow, not a single greenery untouched by frost. When his eyes met a camper's heavy gaze, Hiroki looked away. He studied the way his father's large thumb swept the entirety of his hand instead, then the way Chiron's lower half is coarse white fur of a stallion camouflaging with the unpolluted snow on the ground; anything is preferable to the dozens of eyes scrutinizing him.
At least his father seemed just as nervous as him. "Are you ready, little one?" Hypnos asked, resting his hand on Hiroki's head. His golden eyes overflowed with concern. "Did you practice your introduction?"
He nodded, repeating what his mother taught him with a polite tone. "Hello, I'm Hiroki Matsuoka, the son of Hypnos; I am seven-years-old, and I like reading. I'm very happy to meet you."
Hypnos looked at Chiron for advice. The wings around his temple fluttered. "Is that too much? His mother and I didn't quite know how to prepare."
Hiroki looked down with shame. He's not Naoki who charmed people with his chaotic energy, so his mother didn't quite know what to do. They agreed since his appearance won't be an issue here—unlike with the mortals who felt instinctively unsettled by the Mist altering how they viewed him to hide his eyes and wings—his biggest issue would be communicating. So, they practiced until Hiroki could introduce himself without a stutter or a second of hesitation.
After listening patiently, Chiron smiled with ease. The seven-year-old studied the Centaur's kind brown eyes. Once, when his family took him to the New York Public Library in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Naoki read to him myths of old Greek figures like Chiron; in front of him stood the wisest and justest of all the centaurs, smiling at him the same way he smiled at Heracles, Achilles, Jason, and Asclepius.
