Xioris

Find the original chapter here; The Kickoff

Sunfire’s Notes: I have rewritten the lengthy unnecessary sentences because the first chapter is from a child’s perspective. Replaced some complex, hard to read words with simpler ones and have it more descriptive to introduce how Ryou sees, feels, and thinks to have the readers see things from his perspective.

Eclipse’s Notes: Thanks to Xio here, the flow of the story is more natural rather than forced, something I struggle at times. And Xio also pointed out that some of the paragraphs change between past tense and present tense, so we came to a decision to stick to the present tense because, to me, it can hopefully have the readers imagine the story more in their minds.

Ryou picks his seat in the library where he can glance up to that person without them noticing.

He can usually find her standing there without any disturbance and with an unwavering posture. He fights off the blush threatening to explode on his cheeks whenever he catches the sight of her. It isn’t of love, he’s sure of it, but he can admit on having this little crush on them when he lays his eyes on her.

He doesn’t believe in ‘love at first sight’, mind you, but can you blame him for having a crush on her? With hair blue as the sky and big doe-like light purple eyes, the girl stands proud and tall, never faltering in her steps as a nonexistent wind blows her hair like a billowing cape trailing behind her whenever she takes a step.

She has this certain charm to her, one that Ryou can’t place his finger on. One thing for sure, she’s a mystery, a puzzle. She occasionally glides from one place to another but always in the bounds of the restricted section of the library. With time, Ryou found a rhythmic pattern in her footsteps.

Ryou listens to the rhythm of her footsteps like clockwork. She keeps going back and forth before stopping completely and hypnotically stare at the shelves and no matter how hard Ryou tried, he can’t see anything beyond other than the ordinary library bookshelf.

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

And then a momentary pause before resuming.

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

She loudly stomps through the library’s ceramic tiles, creating soft echoes that Ryou can listen to as he tried to focus on his book. He can’t be faulted when his eyes keep sweeping away from his book, his attention faltering as the printed words on his book aren’t nearly as interesting as her.

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

A pause and repeat.

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

『 . . . 』

The rhythm abruptly comes to a stop and Ryou turns his head away from trying to pretend to read on the book he has on his hands that he almost got whiplash. Instead of blankly staring at the bookshelves like she usually does, a book surprisingly rests on one of her open palms and her other hand flip on the page after page.

Something akin to curiosity flares into her eyes as she eagerly flips the pages furiously.

Ryou wonders what type of book she’s holding. What kind of book can catch her undivided attention? Can it be a book about history or science? Maybe fiction or nonfiction? He doesn’t know but his curiosity grows at what kind of book she has in her hands. But he can’t, sadly, because the book in the restricted section of the library was, obviously, restricted without the librarian’s permission.

While he’s in good graces with the librarian, she’s terrifying to be trifled with. The librarian is an old woman who’s nearsighted without her glasses. But she’s a no-nonsense woman that knows how to pick her battles.

If anyone, Ryou means anyone, tries to break one of the library rules, create any drama and noise in the library, she’ll give them hell.

Ryou snaps out of his thoughts when a charming smile graces her face and he couldn’t resist blushing madly at the sight of her smile. Most of the time, she adorned a deadpan expression as if she was bored at the world itself. Seeing her smile so suddenly made his heart spike up and want to escape from his ribcage.

His face turns even redder if possible, making him look like a bright tomato, of what kind of thoughts he has on her that he keeps seeing around the library constantly. He buries his tomato red face into his hands in hopes of the ground opening up and swallowing him whole instead of drowning him in his own thoughts.

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

『 Stomp. 』

He can hear her footsteps returning to the rhythm but he’s too flustered to check and keeps his head low, his eyes on the ground.

『 Stomp. 』

『 . . . 』

“What’s your story?”

The unfamiliar voice that comes from beside him startles Ryou out of his flustered stare he got himself into. He looks up to find who said those very words to him before suddenly falling off from his chair when a face is inches away from his own, creating a loud thud when he crashes against the floor.

Ryou winces from the loud sound, half-expecting for the librarian to appear and catch him for making a loud noise in her library.

“Oh! You okay?”

Ryou rubs the offending area before looking up to see the culprit who made him fall off his chair in the first place and can’t help but to wilt a little from the inside when he sees a pair of light purple orbs staring down at him.

“Uhh. . . H-hi. . .?” Ryou shyly stutters out a greeting as his brain reboots itself, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

She flashes him that charming smile of hers and Ryou tries his hardest to not let his blush noticeably flare up on his cheeks before she picks up the book that Ryou recklessly dropped from his hands when he fell down earlier from his chair and skim over the contents of the book.

Before, Ryou judges her from a distance for her exotic coloring but when he takes a look at her from up close, something about her makes the air hum in energy. Is it because of her confident posture or her eye-catching bright and radiant hair that catches his eyes every time?

There’s definitely something about her that he wants to find out for himself.

She hums. “Why are you reading a book like this? I find it so. . .interesting and annoying at the same time,” she shuts the book close with a soft clap to avoid getting on the librarian’s nerves.

Ryou flinches and something glints in her eyes when he does so. He shuts his eyes close in fear of seeing the judgmental look in her eyes as he thinks of an answer to her question. In truth, he’s afraid of getting judged based on what he reads again.

Tired and afraid of seeing the disgust in people’s eyes when they find out he finds the hero and villain ideology fascinating and eventually gets told to be realistic about the world.

“. . .I always wonder what it takes to be the hero or the villain. Is it more worthwhile to be the hero of the story? Or more advantageous to be the villain of the story? Or is it meaningful to be just a side character?” Ryou answers.

He bites his inner cheeks in anticipation of her scoff of disbelief or what girls do to show off their distaste or disbelief nowadays. He plays with his shirt and is surprised at the girl’s response to his answer to her question.

“In every story, there’s the hero and the villain. The important question is, who has the most fun?” she grins deviously. “To be honest. . .the world doesn’t need another hero. Sometimes, what it needs is a monster.”

She stretches out her hand for a handshake. “My name is Rinne, but please call me Rin. And I’m a monster. I hope we can be good friends.”

Ryou shakily gulps and eyes the hand in front of him, thinking to himself;

Glowing with an outline of red

Stars on the sky, a tiny specks of white

Sunfire: We're unique— How dare you.