章 9: Prelude 2 - Bright-Colored Words, Part 1
imagination /ɪˌmadʒɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/
the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never been wholly perceived in reality.
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For the first time in almost a decade, Zachary Ashworth genuinely smiled. He finally found a reason to truly cling onto. It was time to leave the lone cave and start walking a new road, a new road with someone of the same stitch.
As if, somehow, his words brought about a magical meaning, the rain came to a halt. One droplet after the other, it completely stopped. What came after was a beauty of a sight. The dark clouds dissipated as the bright sunray seeped in slowly from each gap, till the grey sky had disappeared, leaving only the sky in a cascade of twilight. It had happened so quickly that none had the words to describe it.
The girl put out her hand to check if the rain was truly gone. Realizing it was safe, she folded back her umbrella after shaking the remaining droplets off. However, it was then that she had noticed that the bright light of nightfall wasn't the only thing in the sky.
She tilted her head upward.
With her mouth agape with joy like a child, she pointed at the sky. "Look!"
Zachary, who was taking his sweet time to recover from that long run back from the station, raised his torso back up and followed to where the girl's finger was pointing. To his surprise, he was met by something fantastical; something he hadn't truly seen before in the real world… a rainbow.
It was bright and colorful with its usual wide curved shape, but it was much more faded into the sky than to how it was depicted clearly elsewhere. This was reality, after all, nothing was as fantastical as it should be.
Even then, the girl gave out all her wondrous reactions toward this rare event.
On the other hand, Zachary still felt nothing from it.
Yes, he recognized it to the full extent, but to him, it was anything but colorful. Just another black and white image along with the rest of the world he perceived. He looked at the girl's dazzling childlike expression and her eyes that reflected the light of the sky. And then his gaze turned back at the sky and the rainbow, which was still painted in the colorless dusk. It was a desperate attempt, of a dreamful kid, to see the world through her eyes.
「It's not like something in me will change with just a few different words.」
Despite his thoughts now, he had expected himself to have a change of heart when he made the decision to come back and tell the girl of his dream. Usually, in fiction, this would be the point the character's mentality changes for better or worse, as it was a character shift after all. Yet he could not bring himself to disappointment.
Fiction was fiction. And this world was this world: reality.
But, unbeknownst to his closed-minded self, the girl was about to make it something more. She was truly going to inflict change.
After admiring the scenery of the sky for no more than a few minutes, the girl turned her focus back on him.
"So…," she smiled with elegant confidence, "Are you really sure that's what you want? To see a bright-colored world, I mean."
Zachary lacked the words to express himself, due to him exploiting his exhaustion. But he didn't lack the motivation, he wanted to be completely honest with himself, and he was dead-set on achieving his goal. He did not run through hell and back only to back away when the opportunity presented itself.
He nodded with a resolved look on his face.
"I see…," the girl placed her index finger right under her lower lip and looked away for a moment, as if she was thinking about something, "Alright! Meet me at the tram stop east of the school. Tomorrow. Right after school. Deal?"
"Huh?!"
Zachary gave off a dumbfounded expression. He had no idea what the girl was planning. They had just met and she was already thinking of their next meeting. For someone who barely interacted with anyone in recent years, this was bizarre.
The girl got off her feet and took one lousy, yet large step after the other, as if she was a kid playing hopscotch.
She approached Zach with ease, "You wanna make it to the competition with me, right?"
「The competition…」
He was caught up in his own thoughts that he had completely forgotten about this golden opportunity — it wasn't exactly one as he had to earn it, but it was an opportunity nonetheless. A writing competition was being held soon by none other than his shining idol, Myung, which had her "meet and greet" event coincide with. It was the perfect chance; a chance to meet the author that inspired him in many ways and learn from her, and a chance to prove his worth in the literature world.
The girl leaned downward and still looked at Zachary with a smile, breaking off his train of thought.
"We'll need to broaden our horizons!" She spoke with much enthusiasm as she placed all her fingers against each other.
Without notice, the girl reached for her small bag and pulled a small, slightly torn piece of paper, before handing it swiftly to Zachary, who was still dazed by her abrupt and continuous actions.
"I'll give you the deets later tonight. M'kay?"
Just as she showed up earlier that day with fantastical energy, she decided it was time to leave quickly walked away. She waved her hand and arms back and forth for a grandiose farewell, till she had completely disappeared from his line of sight.
Zachary stood in his place, with the paper still in his hand. He was quite shaken by the events that took place that day, but more in a dumbfounded way than a fearful way. It was as if he expected something more to happen out of his "life-changing" decision. But he was only met with this sudden chain of actions and reactions from the girl.
And before he could take the proper time to process it all, she was already gone.
"What… just happened?"
He remembered her words, and how a certain thing she said did not align with the question she first asked when she met him.
「Wait a minute…」
"She does know about the tramway!"
Instead of snapping his fingers for coming to that revelation, he frowned in frustration for the time he spent meaninglessly explaining something that she already knew.
「She was playing me this whole time…!」
"Just who the hell is this girl?"
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