Pink clouds

"You always say you hate that," staring down at the stick, of the pink cloud I just ate, I look beside me.

He nods his head, still biting his one. "Yeah, cotton candies are too sweet."

"Then why do you eat them, every time we come here?" I say. Staring at the familiar bookstore, standing tall in front of us.

"To give you company." He shrugs. He has a strange habit of shrugging. "I don't want you feeling lonely."

"Dude, how does that make sense?" I sneer, looking at him with disgust.

"It does. You just need to grow up," he says, looking at me, "to understand this stuff."

"Huh. Yeah yeah try and enlighten me," I roll my eyes, as I continue "sire!"

"In life, you do stuff even though you don't like it, just to…" He suddenly says, absently.

"Just to?" I stare at him. Trying to comprehend what he just said.

"Just to gain—happiness."

"Huh?" Making a big sigh, I show my dismay out loud. "I thought you'd say some cool quotes or something. But—"

"That was cool and true," he glances at me and says with certitude. "It was."

"Yeah yeah." I turn around murmuring, "whatever."

"I did read a cool quote yesterday." I hear him, say beside me. "If someone wants to hear it I might say it." Glancing at him, I see him using his pouting—the best phase you'll see him in is when he pouts. It looks so cute, for some reason. Always gets me laughing.

In these rare times, when he did that I felt a strong urge to go and find such a special sort of camera, that would enable me to frame this up, forever.

And then, if by any mistake of fate, any of us gets away, I'd open that camera, and replay this pout of his in a way that would feel as if he is staring right at me as he is doing this. Sitting beside me. I wish I would also be able to smell the sweet autumn, and the fragmented pink clouds, and feel his hushed breathing, beside me.

"That someone would hear it ONLY if it's a genuinely nice one."

"It is. A genuine quote."

"What is it?"

"I miss you, with a bubbly little hope to hold you. Hoping to be loved by you, missed by you, hoping to maybe be with you? But then does this all mean. . ." he pauses, looking at me. His clear crystal eyes, stare into mine, "I love you?"

The sky had turned pink almost, a weird shade of blue, pink and purple. The crystalline white clouds have turned into strange aesthetics of pink—filled with dark and light shades of it. The black four-headed streetlights got turned on, adding to the already aesthetic view. The amusement park was slowly all closing off for the day.

And we keep staring at each other like the day isn't getting over. Like we don't have the hurriedness to get home, as if it was not just getting late.

I wanted to look back, I wanted to turn around and just laugh it off.

Like it never even happened, that his words did not have any effect on me at all. But, no matter how hard I tried, I just wanted to look a little bit longer. Maybe. Maybe because my soul knew that, this won't last forever?

"We will remember these days, even when we grow up. Right?" I murmur. It's strange, how you sit in the silence of the present and wonder about the silent chaos the future might behold.

"Why will we not?" He smiles. Indeed, these things are not meant to last forever. Maybe, these sorts of things, at least between me and Alas are never going to even be there, even for a minute. Maybe, if there will be a second time, like today then I'll just assume for a second that, the forever I perhaps wish to see, might exist.

But just that, it would only be "Unless someone wants, to." He smiles.

"Dude, gosh stop." But unlike my words, my face betrays me as I break into a full-bloomed smile, followed by his crisp handsome one.

***

The crisp sound of our laughs, the sweet smell of the cotton candy beside us, the scream-filled- laughers of the kids near us ridding their rollercoaster rides, and frantic parents running around behind their children, screaming at them to return home.

All of it seemed to vanish, slowly. At a slow and steady pace, all of it seemed to get away from me. Even Alas' crisp-filled delighted laughter was getting more and more away from me, leaving utter silence, and bitterly roaring darkness.

It seemed to be consuming me. Taking me in, excluding all the other things around me.

And those voices. The ones that never leave. The ones that only know how to gulf out all the light, and creep in, in the twilight.

The memories, the voices, the smell. Everything, flooded in.