A rendezvous on the moon

“The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light.”

― Tahereh Mafi

…

For Hiro’s first (and hopefully last) experience inside a helicopter, it wasn’t really that terrible to be honest. Sure, he may have spent most of the time initially freaking out that Lunamor might make a sudden mistake or crash the helicopter on purpose and end up killing the two of them in a spree of fire, charred bones and blood, you get the drift–but the view had been rather therapeutic (and very much needed) to say the least…

Hiro might have enjoyed it all the more if a professional had been behind the controls instead of a young woman who used to be his student.

But hey, at least they had survived!

And that had been his main concern.

Of course, now that the helicopter had finally landed in the middle of nowhere, somewhere high up in a mountain, Hiro was back to wondering if this was just some sort of elaborate scheme to murder him and to get rid of the body as well.

After all, Lunamor’s filthy rich, she’s also smart to boot... he was so sure she could definitely get away with murder if she really put her mind to it and Hiro was torn to think he was being overreacting or paranoid (and yes, maybe Lunamor was kind of right about him watching too many movies. He really should quit binge-watching horror movies on Setflix) but Hiro had always been inclined to think that Lunamor would be the type to assassinate someone in an overly complicated sort of way just like the ones you’d read from mystery novels.

Lunamor got out of the helicopter without a word, leaving the headphones behind on the seat and with a shrug, Hiro did the same as he stood beside her, looking around with vague interest.

“So,” he began, “…where are we?”

The helicopter had landed in a clearing near a lonely parking lot that only had a number of cars and Lunamor walked through the parking lot like she already knows where to go, beckoning him with a tilt of her head to follow her straight to a marbled gray staircase built on the other end of it.

“Welcome to Mt. Moon,” she answered, curtly.

Once he was standing at the foot of the stairs next to her, Hiro craned his neck slightly to look up… only to find that the steps appeared to weave back and forth up the side of the mountain in what seemed to look like a crystal-like, spiral sort of staircase.

There were tall, see-through glass walls on either side of the stairs that made Hiro seriously glad he wasn’t remotely scared of heights. A person who has acrophobia would have keeled over and die of shock from the sight alone.

“So many stairs…” Hiro muttered.

Now that he thought about it, Mt. Moon does look like a stairway to heaven. Maybe that's why it's called Mt. Moon. It's so high up, it looks like you could reach the moon itself.

Meanwhile Lunamor, who was already a few steps ahead of him, paused at hearing his remark, glancing at him over her shoulder before gazing upwards, a non-committal hum escaping her lips, “I suppose it is… it’s a fifteen-minute walk, after all.”

Hiro gawked, “Maji?”

She only shrugged at him, and Hiro huffed out a breath when he realized she wasn’t going to stop to chat before jogging a bit to keep up with her stride.

He cleared his throat, “So… I take it you’ve been here before?”

“Occasionally,”

A beat of silence followed…

And Hiro shook his head when he instantly realized that Lunamor wasn’t planning to say more, “How did you know about this place? I never pegged you to be the adventurous type.”

“…I’m not,” Hiro released a loud exasperated sigh at that, causing Lunamor to glance at him curiously… though this time, her stare lingered longer on him before she decided to add: “My older brother brought me here when I was eleven years old.”

His brows shot upwards, a bit curious.

“What for, Lunamor?”

Lunamor looked away and Hiro’s shoulders slumped, thinking that Lunamor may decide to play mute again… because really, she likes to do pretend that she was one a whole awful lot–

“For my birthday,” she muttered.

“Oh,” Hiro managed to say, suddenly feeling very awkward that he even bothered to pry–and more like an intruder over an information that was something so delicate and something he should not know, “That’s… very nice of him.”

“Mm,” a small smile curled at her lips, “He is.”

“So… when’s your birthday?”

“Last day of October,” she glances at him, “Yours?”

He smiles, “November 13.”

“Huh,” She blinks, “…we’re both Scorpios.”

“Oh wow… zodiac signs? Really? You sound like Professor Anderson. Didn’t really pegged you to be into that stuff,” Hiro chuckled.

“He won’t stop rambling about it during one of our lectures. I respect his passion about the topic, really, but he is kind of annoying,” she groused.

Hiro bursted out laughing at that.

As they walked up the stairs in relative silence after that, Hiro looked over at Lunamor, eyeing her gloved hands which are partially closed by her sides as she continued to move.

It reminded Hiro of something he had read in a psychology textbook once about how secretive people kept their hands partially closed or clasped into fists when walking or something like that… and once again, he wondered why she was even wearing gloves in the first place.

It was kind of intriguing but at the same time, he couldn’t find it in him to actually ask her about this out loud because what if she was hiding something? What if her hands are scarred so badly, she didn’t want to, let alone anyone else see it?

Then again, for all Hiro know, Lunamor just happened to be averse towards dirt or human contact… but for some reason that idea just doesn’t sit right with him although she does seem okay earlier, and she even initiated the handholding herself, after all.

A sudden idea struck him.

Slowly, Hiro reached his hand out, hesitating when his trembling fingers brushed the back of her hand and then, ever so slowly, he slid his fingers against her’s, wrapping them with his own.

Then, he quickly looked away when he noticed her eyes darting right over his direction at the sudden touch, something like surprise or wonder flashing across those piercing eyes of dark gray. Lunamor almost looked like she was genuinely caught off guard.

And almost instantly, Hiro can feel his face growing warm the longer their hands stayed like that. He almost began to seriously regret reaching out to her hand out of the blue like that…

But then, Hiro also felt the way her gloved fingers wrapping around his palm at the next second, almost instinctively, not quite enough to squeeze him but enough to just hold it back.

Lunamor said nothing.

It… it felt nice.