chapter 18
Chapter 18
What level of writing would you assume this is?
Ronin had awoken on the couch he'd collapsed upon after coming home hollowed of the words that used to fill him for in a cold sweat he soaked the worn couch he had become accustomed to over the past week; the house was still dark, and its badge curtains only admitted a haze of the sun's birth.
Ronin shifted to his feet, suddenly feeling the cold wood biting at his naked feet; the house was quiet, his father still asleep, his presence distant on the second floor. Ronin avoided. As he approached the kitchen, he turned the light on, staring at his slow fingers as they dragged off of the switch.
The week had begun to come to an end faster than expected, unable to fathom his awakening in the early hours he used to sleep in, it was as if he watched himself change, and reshape, this is when his thoughts began to wake up with him, there delay only built suspense throughout his lonely breakfast.
He didn't want to wait for his father for the night, which reflected something he dreaded: his pathetic image; he was afraid, and he knew it; not even a promise to himself could stop it from happening.
Even he knew in some way he needed it.
His mouth had become a firm line, and his eyes only lasted a furious shadow covering the rest of his face in a slow haze; with a hard fist, he rattled the silverware on the table and leaped to his feet, leaving the house in an unknown hurry.
Ronin had started down the deep paths surrounded by the neverending fields; the long grass almost froze in the cold air, and winter had crept up on him, catching him on a cold track.
That same track led to the rather small school he had only been at yesterday, for it had felt like days; staring at the etched road, he had only begun to walk, yet in some way, he'd been walking that same road for so, so long.
But this time was different, this time he wasn't alone, for another presence was with him; it wasn't new, but it had never been used, never known; this figure walked slowly behind him in a lighter color, a calm demeanor the opposite of his.
Pausing, Ronin turned around, looking at the stature that stopped with him; he wanted to talk, to say something. Instead, he began to walk again, glancing back to see if he would still follow him.
It was then that her pick-up pace convinced her to create another threat to avoid, another cope that wouldn't do its job; like the other ones she created, it would stick around. He knew it, maybe life ones he'd made before it could talk, tell, and maybe guide him.
For its color was stark to the others; it was brighter and warmer; it wasn't a wall, it wasn't a guard, but rather something he couldn't read until opened up.
With a shift from the eyes he'd planted on the fields and the glass, he sat behind the same wooden desk confined him in the same room. For even the walls he began to read as they'd only reflect the students in the room, with the colors he'd named them with, the same shaded kids sat around him, their feet the opposite of grounded as they rested on the desks. The others were paintings of colors, where the brush would lag down the canvas with a yellow slowly fading as it reached the end of the room while mixed in other areas. This line strung from someone who'd pulled him into that line, only to rip himself from it, from him.
For it was Percy who led the stroke, as then came wren a paler yellow blent at the edges with the students next to her.
That he couldn't change, wouldn't.
Wren switched seats in a moment he couldn't see, for maybe she was assigned a new seat; it wasn't close to him anymore. It wasn't in his line. Nor state of mind.
This he couldn't understand for surely she would've stayed with him, she couldn't just leave, not again, how could she. He'd built her into his row, painted her himself; maybe it was the lack of color his palette had.
Laying his head in his arms he'd looked her figure over a thousand times, it was then one of the older kids, held back a year or two began to act up as he'd grown louder filling Ronin's mind with the sound, as his eyes built it up as if the sound amplified the things he couldn't say, possibly the jealousy he couldn't admit to and yet he'd remind himself of it, evertime he'd see this painting, this room.
Her.
It was only today that the man he'd met on his walk to school had stood in front of Percys line, a friend he made, no a teacher, he hadn't met this teacher, but through him he could clearly see everything Percy did, everything he said as if projected off of him. As for wren she would stare blankly as if they'd had a conversation he wasn't a part of, a connection he had yet to reach.
And with the scream of the bell his legs began to shake with its reverb, his bitting his own tongue as he watched the three talk. Percy had turned his chair to meet wren the mysterious figure didn't move, for Ronin looked as hard as he could until panned up to the face of his stature, and the eyes that stares back at him, they hit his nerves like Mercury, a warm shock infecting him, even from so far his eyes read his book that was tied shut burning in his mind.
And with a jolt from his desk Ronin had crossed the room squeezing his large bag past the students that seemed to purposely blocked his path, he'd gone around and through each one until meeting Percy's desk with a short of breath as their eyes met. "Oh hey Ronin, me and wren were just talking ab-
His voice could only fade as ronin scanned the room, the man was gone, the door left wide open and the students he'd pushed past had evacuated mixed between the door at the front of the class and the one at the back, for the colors split up between the two.
Slamming his hand on the desk wrens chair moaning on the floor as shed backed up with a flick of her shoehis eyes cut down to Percy's that met his with a shock, Ronin stuttered as wren looked up at him with her blue eyes, added at the edges with a black that crept up. Ronin retracted his hand, holding it with his other, "what's wrong?" Percy asked glancing at wren in-between his words to Ronin.
He had begun to speak back to Percy scanning the room once more for the man his voice cut, "b-bye" he said glaring at the two once more. "Oh, ok bye" Percy responded with a smile and a wave as well as the words that trailed on grown quiet as ronin left the table walking quickly to the front of the room, the door lay open and yet he'd felt a struggle when he walked through it.
He'd left the school before the secretary could've found him and make him wait in the same office for his dad to arrive, before signing out, and before his mind would protest against his decision.
For he'd met the fields he'd met this morning as well as where he'd met that man, even the ground below him tried to drop him as he slipped on the ice that coated the fields hed begun to run through, the wind biting at his face, tearing at his eyes till they ran, and yelling in his ears until coated in a red flush his nose almost red, it was halfway through the path he'd walked this morning, the path he'd walked for so long, for in a wave of wind the sky darkend with his hope.
He curled ever attempting to catch the breath that ran away with him, and the spit that chipped at his lip as it froze there.
He ground called him closer, to a defeat he wasn't ready for, but one he couldn't pass by, his legs grew weak, frozen in his regret they inched towards the ice with the dog that blew from his mouth. His eyes grew narrow until they had faded shut as he embraced for what came next clutching his shirt with his fingers that had begun to bleed at the knuckles with one last inhale it coated his lungs blending into the wind it pinched his heart. And in what he expected to be the numbing there was a quiver in his toes, it crawled up his legs, inflamed his lungs until bursting through his eyes as they shot around the scene catching the same light, the same warmth, the same man.
Ronin snapped to a straight pose as he looked at the man, and yet he looked back at the path in front of him each step he knew, each step her lived. And yet he walked it every day.
It was only today