8:32h.

Kenji stared at the windows of the lecture hall, attempting to pay due attention with ocean eyes to the class. At least it was almost over. He closed his eyes, threatening to water with worry and pain. After class, he would usually meet up with Max in the campus park.

Kenji sighed, tempted to let his head slide to rest on the desk. He didn't know where Max was, or what he was doing. Max only should have been sleeping, just now awakening and dancing out of bed, madly allowing the fire of his hangover to burn away before dashing out the door to meet him.

He would not meet him today. Kenji's lips slid into an unconscious pout. He still didn't know why Max had run off, or what he had said to offend, or what had even happened between his fiery room-mate and himself.

The class ended, and Kenji pulled himself his seat, filing after the other students in a liquid daze, mind still swirling about the issue of Max's escape. He had stormed off, burning trails of anguish scraping his cheeks with heated tears, and had slammed the door with such fiery anger that the bathroom mirror had shattered, spreading a glittering resonance of the inflamed dispute on the gritty tiles.

Kenji still wasn't certain of his own reaction to Max's confession. It didn't bother that - no, it did, but he couldn't do anything about it - that Max had been raped. He only wished that Max would deal with and recuperate from such a trauma in a better manner that letting it continue to haunt him. He almost wished he could be the one to dry Max's tears, the one Max would finally feel comfortable with to return his affections -

Kenji snickered to himself underneath the sheltered walkway, clutching his books tighter to his chest, glancing out of habit for Max's approach in the clearing through the ashen rain. A trembling sigh escaped his lips, and he blinked at the ground, trying to hide the fierce blush flooding his cheeks with fire at his outburst. He didn't want the other students thinking he was a fag, sighing over a lost boyfriend.

Kenji looked up again, settling his gaze upon a sheltered bench, hidden behind a hedge and a group of charred trees, one alighting forgotten embers as new burning pollution swept it's side. It would do to shelter him from the falling ash as he thought. He needed to ponder his last thoughts.

Return to Fire and Water: A Story Arc

This page and all works within are copyrighted 2001 to Engel. Don't steal.