Project: Socialize

That night when I went home, I discovered that with an injured hand, it was unsafe for me to make dinner. When I entered through the front door, I explained the situation to Loriana and apologized while we sat next to each other on the living room couch. The response I received was a sigh and a look of concern. However, in her voice there was not a single trace of anger. Rather, she seemed quite proud.

"You did the right thing," she said as she cupped my injured left hand gently with her hands. They were smaller than mine, extremely soft, and somewhat cool in temperature."You shouldn't apologize for anything."

Her words were quite caring in nature and was extremely soothing to hear. However, what she stated was more or less the obvious facts. Even then, I still enjoyed the feeling of love and kindness that she provided me.

"To think that Alevian would protect girls from harm," she said while staring nostalgically at my hands. "It's hard to remember that you're a man now with your seventeenth birthday coming up soon."

"Yeah," I nodded, thinking about how I will spend that day alone.

Loriana then smiled and hugged me. The motive behind the hug was a mystery to me, but the warmth of her body was quite comforting. However, it was still somewhat different from that of Luna's emotionally.

Her chin was rested on my right shoulder and I could smell the aroma of her hair. In addition, I could feel two soft lumps pressing against my chest, which made a part of my body extremely sensitive.

Be humble, I told myself since if it were to stand up, then it'll poke against her stomach and make things awkward for us. Sit down.

When Loriana finally released me from her embrace, I was still humble. However, if it were for any longer, than it would've been a different story. Although she had released me from her embrace, both her arms were still around my neck as her topaz yellow eyes gazed deeply into mine. This made me quite nervous and made my heart race as her face was close enough for mine to feel the air that she breathed out.

"Loriana?" I said as I turned my face and looked away in order to control myself.

I was certain that my face was red from that interaction I had with her, and when I would peek back at her, I discovered that she was still staring at me like before. That continued for a few more seconds until I heard a soft chuckle from her as she allowed her arms to slowly slide off my shoulders.

"Looks like you're still just a child," she said with a faint smile as she got up from the couch. "Let's go," she said to me. "We'll eat out tonight."

With a sigh of relief and some frustration for being called a child, I got up from my seat in order to head back to my room to get changed while Loriana stood by the door with her phone in her hands as she waited.

***

Outside the entrance to my house, I walked over to the elevators and called it up to my floor. Muria wasn't waiting with me today, so maybe she had left her house already? That's probably the most logical assumption due to her meticulous nature. However, none of that was my concern since Muria could manage herself properly. Therefore, when the elevator arrived onto my floor and I entered it, thus signalling the official start of my commute to school, I stopped thinking about her and focused on getting to school.

Since rush hour had passed about half an hour ago, the commute wasn't as bad as it was on school days. Lumina Station being one of the major train stations in Palisia will always be crowded, but it was almost nothing when compared to its situation during rush hour. In the station itself, on the platforms, and in the train cars, there were actually room, although not enough for one to be entirely comfortable.

It was about 8:55 AM when I arrived at the front entrance of my high school. We had agreed to meet up by the front gates so that we could all go in together. However, the crowd today was as large as the day before, with plenty of traffic heading in to the school. Because of this, the front entrance onto campus was filled with people, making it difficult to find where the others were.

With a sigh, I entered the crowd, knowing that it would be the quickest way of finding where they waited. Standing around wasn't going to change anything, so I might as well take initiative.

I pushed through the river of people alone, dodging and weaving between guests who were trying to enter. Numerous times, I accidentally bumped into people, but after a brief apology, I continued on with my quest of searching for my fellow club members. Lucky for me, the search was short. They were standing against the wall by the opened gates on the other side of the river of guests that streamed into the school.

"Finally here," Loyd smiled as he saw me emerge from within the crowd.

"Took you long enough," Muria sighed. It would appear that she had left earlier than usual like I had expected.

"Let's get in," Zaksus said with great excitement in his voice. "I spent the whole day yesterday locked up in that tent making wraps, I didn't even get the chance to look around during break."

"What'd they do to you?" I asked.

"My seniors ditched the food stall during their break and never returned, leaving us first year students to do the job," Zaksus said with a sobbing voice. "I couldn't even use the restroom yesterday." It would appear that what had occurred yesterday really traumatized him.

"Then let's enjoy ourselves," Irina said as she led the way into the school.

Among the five of us, Irina was the only one irregularly dressed. Except from her, we were all in our school uniforms like the school had required us to do so. However, due to her special identity as a celebrity, she donned a face mask and a hat in order to disguise herself. If she had not disguised herself, then I believe we wouldn't be able to move an inch with the large crowd that will surround her, so I'm quite grateful that she had the foresight to do so.

The walk through the Festival was pretty bland to me due to the fact that I had seen everything the day before. However, everything was fresh to the others, so in order to not ruin their mood, I kept quiet and just followed where they wanted to go. Since I had ate before coming here, I skipped out on buying food. However, the others didn't. Loyd, Zaksus, and Irina all ended up getting something with Muria and I being the sole exceptions. We just stood back away from the main road so as to not cause a disturbance to others and have fewer disturbances on our end in order to watch the three as they lined up with great excitement and enthusiasm for the delicious looking food items that were being sold in one of the food tents.

"You're not gonna get something to eat?" I asked without looking towards her.

"No," she simply responded. "I'm not hungry."

"Oh," I finished.

We really didn't have much to say to be honest, resulting in a period of awkward silence between us. During that time, I hoped that those three would hurry up and buy their stuff because being alone with someone in utter silence made me quite uneasy. However, it wasn't to the level that it caused me great discomfort and made me panic. Rather, it was enough discomfort that it was annoying.

"Yesterday," she finally said after about two minutes of silence between us. "Thank you."

"Oh that?" I sighed after realizing that the topic was about what had happened during the play.

I then brought my left hand out of my pockets and stared at it. Loriana had wrapped it in bandages once again in order to keep the wound clean last night before I went to bed so I was unable to see the stitches underneath the bandages. However, I could feel exactly where they were as the pain carved the outline of the wound into my sight.

Come to think of it, I didn't take my painkillers this morning... Oh well, it's not like the pain is extremely intolerable. It's just that I'm too lazy to run all the way back home to take the painkillers and return. It's just too much of a hassle. Therefore, I think I can just endure it. I mean I did it up until now.

"It's fine," I said and slipped my bandaged left hand back into my pant pocket.

"..." There was only silence on her end. When I glanced over at her, there was a guilty countenance mixed with plenty of sadness that I had never seen from her before. Her facial expression was extremely tame when compared to how it usually was during class, which made her appear quite beautiful.

"If you really want to thank me," I said, "then treat me better."

"..." Muria remained silent for a few seconds, thinking over what I had just said to her and the hidden message that it contained.

It would appear that she understood my message since I heard a laugh slip out of her for the first time in my time knowing her. Her laughter was one that surprised me by how beautiful it was, and I looked at the source of that heavenly sound with eyes wide with shock. Her laugh was short-lived and so brief that it was almost as if it was all my imagination and she quickly returned to the reserved Muria that I knew.

"You know that won't ever happen," she chuckled and smiled with her arms crossed.