3 - Crow And Dove
They walked through the street. Kaito never had this type of experience, but he was strangely excited about it, he wanted to know the answers to his questions. And Yu tagged along, looking almost shy, but excited to tell more about herself to Kaito. They talked their way through the streets.
And they ended up at an ice cream booth...
“Let’s take the vanilla one! Please please please pretty please!” Yu pleaded.
“You know you can just...order it, right?” Kaito asked.
“Ah, r-right, sorry.” She quickly recollected herself. “I’ve been here before, I’ve almost always gotten the vanilla one. It’s so good.”
They both got a cone for themselves, and they found a small table at a nearby café to sit down at. Yu was biting on the ice cream with excitent, the brain freeze hit her hard but the flavors struck her tongue with even more power. Kaito slowly nibbled at his own cone.
“So...”
“Ah, right!” Yu said, her excitent slowly morphing into a slight sense of fear. “Well, you see...”
She took a deep breath.
“Well, you might laugh at for this, but...I wanted inspiration from it for my poems.” Yu finally admitted. “I’m a...poet. Hah, if I can even be called that. I write poems...”
“That sounds...interesting.” Kaito said, almost forgetting about the ice cream altogether. “Do you publish them?”
“I post them here and there, but they almost never get enough attention. And most of the ti they fall out of the algorithm because people prefer to read straight up sexual stuff instead...”
“And you got inspired by what I wrote?” Kaito asked. “Can I see them? The poems?”
“Well, they’re not really that good, they’re uhhh...mostly my pasti. I...” Yu laughed it off. “Sorry, we’re here to talk about your writing, not mine. Anyways, uhm...”
“Why are you ashad?” Kaito asked.
“I’m...” It caught Yu off guard a little.
“It’s what you wrote, right?” Kaito asked. “Shouldn’t you take pride in it?”
“It’s a bit hard to do when there’s nothing to show for it.” Yu said. “I haven’t achieved anything yet, and it seems like everyone is missing the aning of my poems...and I can’t just make it obvious, you know?”
“Do you think I can understand them?” Kaito asked.
“Well, considering that you wrote what you wrote, I think so...” Yu said with a saddened smile. ”Hah, I just realized...this...this falls in line with it, right?”
“Kind of...” Kaito said.
“I’ll read you sothing, okay?” Yu said, pretending to search through her phone to read it. In reality, she knew them all by heart. “Just...beware, I’m still an amateur.”
“Ahem....”
“The sky appears so empty, bleak,”
“It makes my heart ache with a smile.”
“I know the stars that make people laugh,”
“The moon won’t tell where they are.”
Kaito took a while to analyze the poem in his mind, and he didn’t exactly like the conclusion.
“It’s about...sadness, isn’t it?” Kaito asked.
“Huh?” Yu was taken aback a little.
“I’ve been really good at breaking down stories or poems in school. This one feels like it’s about sadness, more specifically, the type of sadness that cos from not being like others, right?” Kaito said. “Hey...Yu?”
Yu started tearing up a little.
“Did I...say sothing wrong? I’m sorry, I-” Kaito quickly shut himself up. “Is...everything okay?”
“Ah, s-sorry...I must’ve...” Yu found herself at a loss for words. “This is...so embarrassing, isn’t it? Hah...I...”
“These poems an a lot to you, don’t they?” Kaito asked.
“Why did I ask that? Normally, I would’ve tried to calm her down.”
“Ah, right, because she appreciated my own ideas. It only makes sense that I do the sa for her.”
Yu leaned her head on her elbows, trying to wipe her tears from underneath her glasses.
“I like writing poems...” Yu said. “But I rarely, if ever, enjoy it when soone reads them...”
“S-sorry, I-”
“I enjoyed this mont, though.” Yu smiled. “Thank you for understanding .”
For the first ti in his life, Kaito felt sothing strange. Sohow, everything around him gained weight, and started looking just a little more colorful.
“Understanding...?”
“I...did that?”
Yu continued enjoying her ice cream, distracted by its complex flavors. In the anti, Kaito zoned out for a few seconds.
“What is this feeling of...wanting to be told that again?”
He looked at Yu as she finished her cone and slowly looked around, as if waiting for the world’s approval to stand up and leave.
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“Why do things feel strangely alive now? It’s like...it’s warm.”
“It’s like I’ve been drawn into sothing.”
“It’s like I’ve been freezing my whole life, and I’ve finally been welcod into a warm cabin...”
“Hey, Yu...” Kaito slowly spoke up.
“Hm?”
“If you need more inspiration for your poems, then would you like to...spend so ti at the park after this?”
“Eh? The park?” Yu asked back, a little surprised and flustered. “Sure, sounds good. Maybe writing sothing about nature could be fun...”
And the two went along their journey.
They slowly explored the calm yet cheerful and lively terrain of the park. Flowers were blooming, the sun was shining down upon them, caressing them with its warmth and honesty. Children played around, aimlessly running and tagging one another, or comfortably sitting in the grass and either gazing at the puffy clouds or enjoying a basket of homade sweets.
Kaito and Yu walked along the thinner paths of the park that branched away from the wider ones, they were much more calm and less crowded. They listened to the birds’ chirping and the noises in the background, and most importantly, they listened to the warmth.
“So, did you get anything yet?” Kaito asked.
“Hehe, not exactly. That type of stuff doesn’t just get unlocked because of sothing. It just...kinda cos to you.” Yu replied. “But the nature here is pretty.”
“It is.” Kaito nodded.
“Do you co here often?” Yu asked.
“Sotis, but only when I’m by myself.” Kaito replied. “It’s a peaceful place for reading.”
“You like reading?” Yu asked, her curiosity obvious from her expression. It even made her look cuter, at least in Kaito’s eyes. “I guess I should’ve expected it from soone like you, hehe. What type of stuff do you read?”
“I like classical literature a lot.” Kaito said. ”I also like historical writings, autobiographies, that type of stuff. It’s a good way to spend ti.”
“You don’t read any romance?”
“Not really.” Kaito replied. “Never found the appeal in that type of stuff.”
“Huh...honestly, good for you.” Yu said. “They say romance books set wrong expectations in people when it cos to relationships...”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that opinion too.”
“Any specific fiction that you like?” Yu asked.
“So fiction is fine.” Kaito said.
“Any poetry?”
Kaito paused.
“There’s this one poetry author that I follow.” Kaito said. “They write so really neat stuff, and I let them copy my howork.”
“Oh co on!” Yu said, slightly blushing. “I’m...glad you really think that way though. Hey, I also know soone who writes.”
“I have a grueling suspicion that I know that person.” Kaito said. He paused for so more, looking into the fields. Yu noticed it.
“Hm? Did anything catch your attention?”
“Do you think that a grass blade...can understand a flower?” Kaito asked, looking at the patches of grass with loneso flowers across the path.
“Hm? What kind of question is that?” Yu asked, but seeing Kaito’s concentration, she continued. “Well, it’s a pretty philosophical one.”
“I an, if you look at this place...” Kaito explained. “Look at the ratio of grass per flower. And look at how flowers differ so much from the rest of the grass. Say, if those two had consciousness and feelings like humans, how would they interact?”
“Well, it’s a bit hard to imagine, but...I get what you’re saying.” Yu said. “They look kinda similar, but they’re different. I think only flowers can really understand other flowers.”
“Right...but what if there’s no flowers close to one?” Kaito asked, fascinated at the sight of nature.
“Well, then it’d be a really sad flower!” Yu said with a smile.
“Yeah...it would.” Kaito slowly said.
“...”
“The flower that blooms with grace...” Yu began.
Kaito attentively turned to look at her. She was admiring the flowers too, and she looked so damn peaceful.
“It asks for its petals to show its way.” Yu continued. “Maybe one day, its colorful soul will et one like it to show it life’s way.”
“How’d you like it?” Yu curiously asked. “Don’t be too harsh, I just made it up on the spot.”
“It was...” Kaito wanted to answer, but sothing in Yu captivated him more than her speech. Not her face, not her body, not even the noise in the background. Kaito felt like at that mont, he saw her as a flower.
“Geez, could’ve just told it wasn’t the best.” Yu pouted a little.
“No, it was...beautiful.” Kaito said, the confusion he couldn’t recognize finally being put to rest by his desire to get his thoughts across. “It was one of the best poems I’ve ever heard.”
“R-really?” Yu asked, surprised. She wasn’t smiling anymore, she was genuinely caught off guard.
“Yeah.” Kaito slowly replied. For an instant, there was nothing between them, they looked at each other as if anything else besides them was a re void.
“Ah! S-sorry...am I keeping you here for too long?” Yu asked in a light panic as her watch made so noises. “You should probably be at your place, studying...”
“I can study whenever.” Kaito said. “I’d much rather stay here. But if you need to go-”
“I...kind of do. I’m sorry.” Yu said. “But here.” She showed Kaito her phone. “I can ssage you my poems if you’d want to...it’s up to you, of course...”
“Sure, I will.” Kaito said, still burning from the warmth he wasn’t accustod to. “Hey, since I helped you co up with stuff, I think we should et up more often.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Yu smiled.
“Then, see you.” Kaito waved, slowly walking away.
“See you too!” Yuma waved, faking a smile. Kaito took his leave...
But Yu stayed. She looked at the grass and the flowers again, now with a much more emotionless expression. She took a deep yet slightly shaky breath and slowly walked away.
...
Kaito laid on his bed again.
“What was...that?”
“What was up with ? I was not acting like myself.”
He thought of the poem, the park, but most importantly - the words that she said while enjoying ice cream.
“Thank you for understanding .”
“Thanking ...” Kaito thought, probably overthinking it, definitely wanting to overthink it. “It ans that she doesn’t get understood often.”
“I can see right through it.”
“Like...”
“A flower.”
He took a deep breath.
“Professor Fedor...you weren’t rambling. You weren’t rambling at all.”
He took his phone out after hearing it buzz in his pocket. To his surprise and, strangely enough, to his excitent, it was a ssage from Yu. It was neatly formatted. Kaito read through it.
“Glancing at the sky as the flowers see their way,”
“I sotis get jealous of their scent and shades.”
“But the burden a delicate flower bears...”
“Its own brightness will cause it to whither away.”
“Interesting...” Kaito said to himself. “A burden...?”
“Sothing’s bothering her, isn’t it?”
“What could it be?”
“Maybe...sothing has happened that I never thought would happen in life.” He thought with a light smile. “She really is similar to .”
Kaito didn’t start a deep and thoughtful conversation with her about it. He just told her that he thinks it’s a really well-written poem. On the other hand, they ended up talking more about literature, so much more that they didn’t even notice how the moon had already risen...
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