#askareito

//You mean like he wants to seem better than everyone else?

Send me a ♔ if you think I pull off my character well.

Send me a ☡ for my muse’s reaction to walking in on yours undressing.

Chloe had dressed her new friend into a pet shirt that had really cool pictures on it. She thought it would look cute on him, of course she had not ask for his permission. "You look really pretty..."

Being back home is like going back to square one, he thinks, as if he’d walked up the steps and fallen back down. But square one is familiar territory to him. Square one is comforting.

There’s a certain calmness to the way his brother breathes next to him, the way his chest rises and falls like waves in the ocean.

When he was his age, his eyes were as bright as his, shining with the promises he’d been given and the soft condolences he was always provided with. It’s been long since then that he’d realized the words were fake, laced around the edges with good intentions, but filled with lies. And he vaguely wonders when his brother will discover the same thing. It’s not a matter of if but when, and he knows that if he doesn’t learn, he’ll be stepped on and used. But that’s just the way the world works.

The clock tells him that it’s 1:27 AM, but his mind translates it into simple numbers. Time is relative. But time is also controlling. He still feels its grip on his life.

He gently prods the sleeping sea besides him, churning up the waters, and whispers, “Get up, Nate."

The boy opens his still-bright eyes, and quickly sheds his sleepy haze, excitedly asking questions about why he was here, where he had come from, why he was up-

Insignificant questions. He takes his hand and leads him outside. Time has ordered the world to sleep, but the sky is still calling. 

He takes his brother to the fields near their house, and the summer grasses dip their heads into the cool night, looking for a sun but instead finding stars.

He still doesn’t know how he’d walked into this dream; it’s as if he was suddenly freed-but from what? College? His studies? Or is it something greater, that, try as he might, he can’t grasp? He goes over truths in his head: My name is Tabitha. I have my brother, Nate, next to me. I have dropped out of college. I am taking us both to see the stars. And, in that moment, he’s struck by how insignificant everything is, how each memory is only a fleeting moment in his life.

He doesn’t know if he is doing the right thing, but even if he is, it still feels wrong. He’s been reduced to counting his dollars, solving the world with math, being ruled by the simple numbers and pieces of paper that control society. But in the end, it could all burn, and he knows that hope is just a four-letter word. Numbers and papers. Is that all he is now?

The stars only watch him, and as he looks up, he realizes that, just like time, the stars are also relative. They cut the sky with tiny pinpricks of light, while staying so far away, so distant. They don’t touch the world, they just observe.

Oh, what Tabitha would do to be like them.

He sits down on the grass along with his brother, and says to him, “You know, Nate, people are always so stressed out about things, that sometimes we just need to sit down and appreciate the things that are always here."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, friends come and go, and we’re constantly distracted by things like school or work. And we’re always changing things, like our thoughts, or policies. Things like that. You’ll understand when you get older. But-"  

His brother looks up at him expectantly. He’s thinking of the right words to say, something simple his brother will understand but profound enough to make him think about it.

"Even though the stars don’t change, people are always fascinated to look up and see them. But they’ve always been here. Why do we like them so much?"

"Maybe it’s ‘cause they’re pretty."

"Maybe. But I’d like to think it’s something more." He sighs. “Nate, you’re probably wondering why I’m here. Well-I’m here because I dropped out of college. I didn’t like it at all, you know; it wasn’t a good experience for me." 

It’s more than that, and he knows it. Every class he went to just felt like retracing the lines his previous schools had already bore into him. Every book, every set of notes, is just a collection of 26 different letters, arranged and rearranged in an attempt to explain the world, the people within, the processes and rituals throughout. It’s so meaningless, in essence, how people try to squash the universe into the boundaries of math and logic and human understanding. 

In the quietness of this night, he’s finally come to realize exactly what society is: One ruled by numbers and papers, one where people take things for granted, one where people would rather count their own dollars than everyone’s stars.

Because dollars are finite. They give the holder things they want, things they think they want. They can break hearts and take away sleep. They can make lives and destroy them.

He purses his lips and look down, knowing he is no better.

But tonight, there are no dollars. There are no books, no time, no set boundaries. There is only him, his brother, and the stars. And he says to that brother:

“ I’ve already learned lessons from life; I don’t need college. And I’m so tired of counting dollars, Nate."

He smiles then, and lies down. “Tonight, I’ll be counting stars."

—

(Thanks so much for this request- I hadn’t realized that I needed something like this. I wish more people would give me these song prompts- you were the only one. Oh well, my brain probably wouldn’t have been able to handle any more, anyway.

"Ezekiel? I didn't expect to see you again." He'd thought he been an annoyance to the reito, but here he was. At his question he paused to think; why did he care in the first place? Was it just because he was curious? It didn't make much sense to Tabitha, but he decided to answer nonetheless.