"What would it be like to change our way of living in an instant? Would we wish to go back to the times before, or would we accept our new life? I want to find out, but it's hard to let the past go."-Hillary Wolf
The classes ended, and now Vivien was walking alongside Sylas.
She had no clue she would have to bring him to her house again, she had other plans for the day that were ruined by the discovery, but she kept a lighthearted tone.
The girl walked in silence with Sylas by her side. They waited in the bus station for the bus to arrive.
The both of them stepped inside the vehicle and took their seats.
Vivien sat next to the window and Sylas stepped up, sitting next to her.
The girl looked outside the window, occasionally checking her phone for certain notifications or to simply look at the time. She loved the feeling of traveling because it usually allowed her to be in her own thoughts and imagine. Except this time, she wasn't riding the bus alone.
The boy tapped her on the shoulder.
„Check this out, I've got something funny to show you."
Vivien looked at his phone, it was multiple photos of classmates making funny faces. Next to the photos were different writings expressing certain situations based on the facial expressions each person made. They were basically memes.
„Who made those?"
„Who could it be other than me?", he said, winking at her. The girl didn't enjoy that conversation.
„They look way too silly. I hope you're not going to post them anywhere."
Her gaze dropped to her own phone afterwards.
She kept staring at her mobile device, trying to somehow get pulled away from the weird reality she was living in.
She was searching for some messages that she received from her friends, but Sylas noticed it and decided to mess around.
„Whatcha doing there?"
„It's a secret."
He waited for a bit longer. Her fingers were going over the on-screen keyboard, watching her type in her message to her friends.
He felt he was losing his patience, so he took her phone from her hands.
„What? HEY, give it back!"
She reached over, trying to take her phone back, but he didn't let her. He held it higher, and she did her best to retrieve her mobile device, but he still didn't give up.
„Naaah, I don't think I will. Let's seee, what do we have here?"
„Stop reading my messages! This is the second time you're taking one of my belongings!"
„Smileeee!", he said as he opened the camera and was about to take a selfie.
Vivien calmed down once seeing that he wanted to take a photo of the two of them, so she sat back in her seat and put on a soft smile on her face.
She looked at the camera.
After taking the photo, Sylas gave back the phone to her. She didn't waste any time and reached forward to grab her mobile device.
„In comparison to me, you're not wearing anything that can express your truest self. I like to wear bolo ties as a form of self expression."
„I don't need a form of self expression."
The girl looked outside the window for a while longer before the bus eventually arrived at the station.
The two walked off.
Vivien could finally manage to control her magic. She hadn't told Sylas about it, but she had to. Perhaps he also wanted to find out how to take a better control of his own abilities.
The girl knocked for three times in a melodious rhythm.
Her and Sylas waited patiently at the door for Luis to open it.
Once her brother had come out, wearing a black beanie and square glasses too big for his face, Vivien greeted Luis.
But Sylas immediately stepped inside without even saying a simple ‚hello' to him. As the boy walked inside the home, he basically shoved the door into Luis, slamming it into his face.
Luis would literally hold his nose in pain. He watched Sylas stepping inside the house and humming a certain happy tune.
„We need to have an urgent conversation about your choice of friends.", Luis said angrily while holding his nose.
Vivien smiled at the occurence, it was funny to see Luis getting hurt each time Sylas came to her house.
But when seeing her brother's head turning towards her, the smile from her face dropped. She didn't want to let him know it was amusing to her.
The girl also stepped inside the house and found Sylas in her room.
She searched for the project in a drawer from her desk and placed it on the bureau in front of them.
The boy watched as she started to explain that she had also gotten an idea of what to add to the project.
He stepped even closer to her, enough that her hair would almost touch his cheek. He couldn't hear her, his mind wandering off somewhere else.
Vivien was aware of his lack of concentration and confronted him about it.
"Can you ever pay attention?"
"I really am trying to focus, it's just difficult with your boring looking brown hair being all in my face."
"In the medieval ages, brunettes were seen as strong, wise and mysterious. Their dark hair symbolized depth and earthly beauty."
"What about brunette boys?"
"They symbolized misfortune."
"Tsk.."
"I was kidding. You didn't believe that, right?"
Sylas would find her devotion to work something admirable.
He smiled softly while listening to her rambling about what she was going to search for and add to their project as well.
He wrote about what he wanted on the project and then gave the pen back to the girl.
Just then, she realized her pencil case was missing. It was nowhere to be found.
She searched in her room for it into every corner, but she couldn't find it.
Sylas asked her what she was doing and she answered what she was looking for, but just then she had a realization.
She turned around to look at him, and Sylas was struggling not to laugh.
Vivien stepped closer to him and noticed the pencil case he was hiding from her. He was holding it.
She gave him a rough glare and grabbed the object from his hand, putting the pen back to its place.
„Third time! I'm still counting!", she said.
The boy lay down on the floor, having looked like he had worked for hours on end and now he needed to simply relax anywhere he could find.
He dragged her down with him, and she lay down on the floor right next to him without questioning the sudden idea.
It was weird, but somehow enjoyable, as if Vivien couldn't even feel her back on the hard floor in the moment.
She thought about the monsters in the future realm and spoke with renowned vigor. She was usually never that excited about something before, but something had changed.
The glurbs' bodies were green with pink dots, and their eyes were round and pink as well. But their bellies were really big and that made Vivien amused.
Their physique was both scary and funny at the same time, depending if they were following you or not in the moment.
If you just watched them do their own thing, they would've been amusing, but of course they'd be frightening if they decided to chase you throughout a dark forest.
Everything needed to be looked at from a certain perspective.
„I shall apprehend those monsters and I will let them know who's boss. We can feed them unlimited food and then observe their descent as they get too lazy to move. If we get lucky, they will forget all about having to turn us into themselves and perhaps even afford us the opportunity for a measured walz. Their abdomens, engorged beyond measure, would be way too big for us to even dance with them, teetering precariously to exploding from all the food."
Sylas laughed loud after she finished her talk, surprising the girl. His laugh was contagious.
"I'm telling you, the only way we can befriend them is through food! I read about them, they love caramel tarts."
"Oh, I didn't know you were being serious about it, haha! It's so hilarious to imagine. We've been trying to run away from them and you would make peace with them. It's the best way to survive in a monster infested realm, just befriend the monster!"
Sylas kept laughing, and Vivien started laughing alongside him.
"We could stop by and steal some caramel tarts. I know a place."
"That sounds absolutely epic.", she answered, happily.
Silence fell between the two, creating a much more relaxing moment.
The girl thought about various topics, some too plain to discuss, some too annoying, some too weird.
But for once in her life, she simply wanted to let her true personality show in front of someone else.
"Does the color of the sky mean anything special to you?"
"Depending on which color we are talking about, because the sky can be darker, it can be pink, or it can be a perfect blue."
"When it's a perfect blue, does it make you think of anything?"
"It makes me think of the color of my eyes, but that's about it. Is that a selfish thing to say?"
"I sometimes think of the color of my eyes when looking at coffee or dirt, so it can't be selfish."
"I'm curious, did you have a hobby when you were little that you gave up on?"
"Acting"
"Wow, really? I wouldn't have imagined.", he said after knowing about all the acting and free speech diplommas displayed around the house.
"What about you?"
"Uh... I used to do martial arts and I loved it, but I had to give up on it."
"I simply stopped acting because I started disliking it."
"I... stopped doing martial arts because of-"
"Hm?"
"Doesn't matter."
"May I hear what happened?"
"No, it was stupid."
Vivien looked over at him.
The boy was deep in thought. She chose to keep working on finding out more about the curse.
She said one last sentence to him, one that she had always thought about.
"Out of all the hobbies immaginable, I chose the one most reprimanding."
Vivien sat up, wanting to keep finding out as much as possible about their curse.
"Where are you going?"
"To my desk. I'm trying to make my brain short-circuit again."
The girl sat down in her chair and pulled up her sleeves, which symbolized she meant real business.
Sylas walked around, observing her home. He stood in the living room talking with Luis for a while and their voices could be heard. She was glad they started to get along a bit more.
She kept writing, and as she touched the notebook, a purple light started to flicker from her finger.
The light spread as a single line across the room and she couldn't help but admire it in awe. She noticed the string of light stopped at one of her concert posters displayed on the wall.
The purple string started encircling the poster and then dissipated into the unknown.
She looked at the location. It was a rock band Vivien had always loved which held a concert in Seattle at the time.
That probably meant there was something in Seattle that needed to be checked out. She returned to her notebook which was now flickering with a purple light.
The magic wanted her to keep learning and writing, she was sure, so she kept it up until late at night until she fell asleep with her head on the notebook. Sylas barged in just then.
"Coming in! I-"
Sylas slowly closed the door to her room behind him. He noticed her sleeping and got closer. He was careful not to make a single sound once observing her being asleep.
He silently dragged another chair next to the desk and watched as she slept.
He placed his head on the desk, watching her. The boy wanted to reach out to touch her, but he remembered when they were in the bus and she had asked him to never touch her ever again.
He just couldn't resist in the moment and reached to caress her hair.
The strands of brown hair felt soft against his fingers, he kept running his hand over it. He watched her soft features and everything seemed to make time stop for a bit.
The girl was still in deep sleep, and Sylas began to smile at the idea that she was a heavy sleeper, when she really wasn't. He had no clue how difficult it was for her to fall asleep at times, engrossed in her own negative thoughts and self hatred.
He poked her shoulder a few times in order to wake her up, and the girl's eyes fluttered open with confusion.
"Did I fall asleep?", she said, sitting up in her chair from her slouched position and rubbing her eyes.
"Yep, you look exhausted. Did you drink an energy drink to be able to work so much or something?"
"Oh my gosh! What time is it?"
"Relax, it's only 2 am."
"Oh shucks... Wait, you can't be sleeping here! You can't go out by yourself at this hour, either!"
"Calm down, shortie. I'll get going, my dad will pick me up from here."
"That's fine with me."
"Call me when you want to tell me about whatever you found out from your work. We'll keep in touch. Goodnight, don't let the future stealing monsters bite you in your sleep."
"Leave..."
Just then, Vivien realized that the notebook had many more pages written in it.
There were certain subjects she hadn't gotten into, yet.
She remembered she had touched her notebook before and the purple light flickered from it. Maybe, that was a notebook from the future.