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I fall back onto my bed and wished I weren't so fucking impulsive.

I am not someone who seriously yells at others! Yet that's exactly what I did... But I didn't really have a choice, did I? It was damn invasive to just talk to me like that. She can't just come here, criticize me and know damn well that it doesn't matter. Words over words, but what do they help when no action proves their authenticity? If she cared enough, her words would have been reasoned, but what has she ever done for me? I arranged the phone. I introduced the village to her. I mean, I saved her at the bus stop. If there is someone who cares, it is me!

I fall asleep, I'm not sure when. Somewhere in the middle of my internal rant I just feel my energy leaving and my vision going blank.

Carefully, I sit up and the first thing I notice is the half full fruit bowl. I reach over and take a few more bites. There is sand under my fingernails.

I look around.

My room is indeed messy. I am used to it. I don't mind it much. I lift my arm to take a whiff of my body's smell and have to cough at the intense reek.

How did Bambi manage to stay in my room for so long? She must have been uncomfortable. She should have left way sooner for her own sake.

I finish eating the fruit pieces and leave my room to bring the empty bowl to the kitchen. What I don't expect is to find Bambi sitting on the big sofa in the entry area, absentmindedly staring at the empty picture frames across the room and patting a pillow that she draped over her lap.

For a second I imagined it was me.

'You're still here', I remark, surprised.

'Yeah, sorry, I can go now', she mumbles and throws the pillow aside.

'Thank you', I hurry.

My breath hitches.

'For coming here and the fruit and all. I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry'

'You were just overwhelmed. It's fine', she sighs and steps outside onto the wooden terrace.

I follow her with a few big steps.

'That's no excuse. I shouldn't have yelled. I will never yell at you again', I promise and swallow heavily.

Bambi turns around and halts in front of me, looking deeply into my eyes as if she was searching for something. I wait for her to say something. She looks like she will any second. She doesn't.

'I- You're right. I need to take better care of myself. I go and take a shower right now, ahm, and I need to go to Ben later. He'd be happy to see you too, so, ahm, see you there?'

BLURRY GREEN ・•❍•・Chapter 11: Bambi

'Let me help you', the words fall over the brink of your lips before situational awareness could settle.

'Help me?', Yeonjun asks, fumbling with the bowl until it almost falls.

'Showering', you clarify.

'You can barely stand up by yourself', you add.

'I ate. I am standing now', he declares and looks down his body as if had to check for himself.

'Alright', you answer and sit back down onto the sofa.

'Give me a second', Yeonjun nervously laughs and vanishes into the kitchen.

He returns with empty hands and a shy smile. He coughs before he speaks. It sounds acted.

'How about you get a snack and wait here. I get ready and then we go to Ben together', he suggests and pushes the abandoned cushion into your arms.

You look into his eyes. He is good at obtaining eye contact. It makes you feel warm. After a while of silence, you can only fall back and let out a nervous chuckle.

'What?', he asks in a similar laughter, following you instinctively.

As you lean backwards, he leans forward and sits down next to you, not once looking at anything else than you.

'Or did you offer to help, because you want to shower with me?', he teases and tucks on your bag.

He taps at it and smiles.

'Didn't you want to text Lino?'

'Right', you let out.

'The first or the second question?'

'Second', you whisper, suddenly unsure if you solely intend to help or if you long for experiencing a certain closeness.

Yeonjun hums, but he doesn't leave.

It starts to rain again and wind invited itself through the open doors. The knocking of the plants against the wooden walls puts you in a trance-like state and you shiver.

'I hate the rain', Yeonjun whispers.

'But you don't even feel it', you remark.

'What?'

'There is a roof over your head. You are left with the sound and scent of rain. It's just its ghost', you explain.

Yeonjun hums again. He sounds almost like the wind himself.

'Do you like the rain?', he asks and pulls your jacket over your shoulder.

'Here I like it', you say.

'And outside?', he wants to know.

'It's cold', you state.

He gets up and extends his hand. You discard the pillow and let him pull you up. He leads you through the hallway and down another one. It is dark. Only the light of the adjacent rooms escape under the doors and the keyholes. There is a staircase in the end of the corridor and when you climb down another one that's rare a ladder than proper stars, you enter a grey stoned bathroom.

It is warm, the floor as well as the walls. There is a stoned bench implemented in the fall and the shower stall takes up a third of the room. The stone bench makes another appearance under the shower head. Across the shower you find a long sink, above it a mirror of same length. On the left is a closet.

Yeonjun takes out two towels and two bathrobes.

He opens the glass door and reaches up to the shower head. The water comes out in an abundance of steady streams that rain compares nothing to. Tiny waterfalls, you think.

'It's the most inside the rain could get', Yeonjun laughs and you remember that you are in the depths of a mountain.

He turns around and gifts you another smile.

'Is this okay for you?', he asks.

'It's just a shower', you say.

'I know, but- you know', he stammers.

Whether you are standing together in the rain or in a construction of it, it's essentially the same. That's was you hope, at least.

'I just fear that you fall and hit your head or something', you try to reason.

'Come here', he instructs and you closet the distance with a few steps.

He opens his arm and pulls you into a hug.

'It's just a shower', he mumbles into your hair and you nod.

'Just a shower', you repeat and another shiver attacks you.

'Oh, you're still freezing', he gasps.

His hold tightens around you. Similarly, to how he activated the shower, your tears suddenly brim in the corners of your eyes, ready to spill and accompany the water behind Yeonjun.

'Clothes...', he hushes.

'Is it fine if I-', he lets the silence catch onto his question as you nod and tug on the strap around you.

Carefully, he lifts your bag off your shoulder. It lands on the stone bench with his shirt as well as your jacket.

It is you who wanted to help him, yet he is the one taking care of your comfort. You overestimated yourself, but you don't want to back off.

'Do you remember my favorite spot on the field?', Yeonjun asks when he experimentally tugs on your shirt.

He doesn't look you into the eyes anymore. Something more interesting must be found in the skin of his hands.

'Yes. The pavilion', you recall as he frees you from your clothes. He had brought you there when he showed you around the City. He brought some snacks and had a picnic with you in the pavilion that is only half standing as some columns are only crumbling stones, not able to hold up the roof. It started to rain that afternoon and you two squeezed into the only corner of the pavilion that is still covered with the remains of the dome. It feels ironic that you are now in the middle of a mountain, in a room that deliberately entails a corner of rain imitation.

Once the shirt is discarded he kneels and waits for your consent to pull down your skirt. You nod. The shivers intensify.

'You're okay', he whispers when he returns from the pile of clothes.

'Do you prefer me keeping my clothes on or-?'

'No, it's fine. Can't have you running around drenched.'

'It wouldn't be problem', Yeonjun coos as he tries to look into your eyes, reading your mind perhaps.

'I don't mind you taking off your clothes', you finally say clearly and he sees goosebumps creeping over your arms. Not wanting to let you stand there freezing any longer he discards his clothes and leaves them next to your pile on the stone bench.

The warmth of the water has occupied the whole room. Yeonjun closes the glass door behind you as you step into the stall.

Perhaps it is the fear of him turning into a monster that oversteps your boundaries, or maybe it is your uncertainty about what your boundaries actually are. 

Outside you had to do what gave you the highest chances of surviving. Boundaries and morals are easily out of the window when it is about living on or dying soon. Fighting with your fists is the easiest, however, fights occur in various forms and your fists were rarely the most effective tool, especially when energy wasn't on your side.

It might be a habit. It might be an instinct. You don't know why exactly you drop down to your knees in front of him. Consciousness is not a part of you ever since you stepped into the bathroom. The intention of helping Yeonjun is blurred by fear. Survival instinct settles in, in the most bizarre forms. They make sense to you, maybe only you.

'No, get up', Yeonjun urges calmly.

His hands appear on your shoulders and when you don't move up, he comes down to you.

'Hey', he softly laughs.

The water stream is louder than he is, but he doesn't drown in it.

BLURRY GREEN ・•❍•・Chapter 11: Yeonjun

I can't get her to stand up. This is highly uncomfortable, yet I see the emptiness in her eyes again. I hate to see it. There is a reason why I avoid my reflection. I can't avoid her. 

She is on autopilot.

My knees press into the hard stone. Her shoulders under my palms lull me into the illusion that there is only softness around me. If it weren't for the water from above, I'd be sweating. She, on the other hand, still shivers.

Then she freaks out.

'I'm sorry', she mumbles at first.

The she gets louder.

She shouts apology after apology and alters from covering her body with her arms and fumbling with the glass door.

I push it open for her.

She runs to wrap a robe around her. I follow her with water floating down my body as if I were a waterfall myself.

'Everything is fine', I say and only then when my voice sounds with the eater being nothing more than background noise, she looks at me.

When our eyes meet, she stops shivering.

There could have been thousand reasons why I met her, with the most likable being nothing but coincidence, but in this moment when her reaction is so immediate to my mere gaze, I start to believe that we are good for another. Even more, I start to consider that the goodness in me is more significant than I thought and that I, too, deserve good things.

'I'm so sorry', she mumbles one last time, before I open my arms and invite her into a hug.

My naked body doesn't seem to have any relevance, at least no less or more than when it's dressed.

'Nothing happened', I remind her.

'Do you wish it did?', she asks quietly.

'I just want us to take a shower and get ready to annoy Ben', I attempt to laugh out lightheartedly.

'I want that, too', she announces.

'Old habits die hard.'

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