Hands come to rest on his face. Sunlight presses her warm kisses across his pale skin. The break of dawn comes, cackling softly in the warm summer air through the leaves of old and new. A light breeze, soft, comes to rest its own hands across his pale, pale skin. Heavy as sin on the bible of God, his body aches. And it aches and aches and it is almost enough to make him curse obscenely. Both legs stretched out, minding no business of their own, his elbows pointed skyward with the back of his head pressing gently against the tree. It feels rough like plastic against his skin but he minds it not. The silence is comforting, the hollow whisper of the winds, the grass that’s greener than yesterday’s and uglier than tomorrow’s.
And his hands stay where they are.
Eyes are squeezed shut behind the pale skin that comes into contact with heavy eyelids leaden with sleep. Body still aching, begging for the sleep he owes his rotting flesh. Red claims his vision. They become walls that loom over his being, trapping him in an endless sea of red. He is awake at the earliest that the sun can be, as early as the birds who sing and as late as the foxes that sleep. It is not enough to say that he is exhausted, but he feels beyond his years, incapable of moving his throbbing jaw or aching legs or burnt arms. Everything stays still as the world beyond him moves on. People awaken with a yawn to reach their lips and dainty limbs. Others fall asleep from a night full of terror. The birds up in the tree sing, sing a song that feels like screeching in his ears. Everything is loud. But there is silence. And he feels like the only world’s piece of shit.
"Why the fuck am I not dead yet…”
An inquiry, yet to be answered.
It's not unusual for Ahri to be awake at such an ungodly hour -- even less unusual for her to be out wandering the streets when the sun has just barely peeked over the horizon and the hustle and bustle of habitual citylife is just starting. The world, to her though, seems a little too quiet. Quiet enough for her to hear each individual footstep as she steps past the Keep Off The Grass! sign in bold and makes her way towards the lone tree far from the pedestrian roads.
This isn't the first time Ahri has climbed a tree (she'd done so in secret as a child until one day, she climbed too high, slipped, and broke her arm. Father had punished her then, mindful of the new cast cradling her fragile left arm. Then after, she'd learned that humans did not possess wings and she was not a bird. Home was a prison, and father the prisoner guard), but it certainly is the first time she's had company while she sits on a branch nearly fifteen feet off the ground. The young man splayed out beneath her tree seems unaware of her presence and, for a while, Ahri chooses to sit in solitude and watch him in silent observation.
The silence, however, gets irritating. And soon, Ahri sighs out of boredom and mild frustration. It's too quiet, even with the loud chirping of nearby sparrows and the distant cacophony of cars speeding by. She's just about to make her presence known when his words make her still.
Oh. She smiles, suddenly intrigued as to why someone would wish they were dead, and straightens, feet swinging back and forth. There's a pause before curiosity gets the best of her. "Do you want to die right now, then?"
