Beware The Water

Shorter Wong... You are the worst

It was another late night that consisted of studying, sugary snacks and heavy eyes. Lux sighed and started to feel bored all of the sudden. She reached for her phone to see it was as dry as the damn deserts she was studying the ecosystems of. Shorter hadn't reached out to her since she mentioned a police officer coming to her house a whole week ago. This strange boy was always just disappearing and showing back up at the most random moments like no time had passed at all.

Lux would sometimes worry when he wouldn't answer her texts or calls. Even more so when Sing would say he didn't know of his boss's whereabouts either.

Knock! Knock!

The heavy knocks on glass made Lux jump. There was only one person who'd scale up her balcony this late at night. She took a moment to look in the mirror and make sure there weren't any crumbs on her face before opening the door.

"You could have told me you were coming." Lux said, stepping to the side to let Shorter in.

"I like to be spontaneous."

"Clearly." Lux chuckled, cleaning up the opened books and trash that were scattered over her desk. She made the executive decision to put her studies on hold and give Shorter her full attention since he hadn't talked to her in what felt like forever. Lux sat criss cross in bed while Shorter lounged in the gamer chair across from her.

She caught him up on how she got the captain position on the team for the academic decathlon that she was rambling about. He seemed excited for her but Lux couldn't help but notice that Shorter wasn't acting like himself. He was usually extra cheery around her but tonight he just seemed more reserved and quiet.

"So..." Lux tucked strands of hair behind her ear and looked to the side, the words in her mind hesitating to come out. "There a reason why we haven't talked for a week?" Her cheeks burned at the neediness of the question.

"Just been busy." Shorter answered quickly, trying to move on from the topic. He interlaced his fingers behind his neck and spun around in the chair. He caught sight of a new prize on the floor in front of Lux's award shelf and got curious. "What's that?" He got up and grabbed a rolled up scroll that was tied up with a blue ribbon that had golden #1's all over it.

"Oh. Just a dumb art project from a few weeks ago. My teacher entered it in a competition recently and it won first place." Shorter slid the ribbon off and unrolled the scroll. The piece was of buildings in an alley, painted in an abstract watercolor style. Shorter studied the scene and noticed that it looked oddly familiar to the location he took Lux to see the mural. The buildings were painted in black and grey with thick black lines scribbled strategically through them to emulate what was supposed to be a simplistic taking on graffiti. And where the mural was meant to be, Lux used the brightest pastels, blending them into each other to make the piece come to life.

"This is actually really good." Shorter lifted up his sunglasses to get a better look at the art. He couldn't believe Lux just had this laying on the floor. "Reminds me of-"

"Yeah it is." Lux cut him off before he could finish. "It was my inspiration." She admitted shyly. "My teacher said to give my art piece a name."

"What'd you pick?"

"Lost Gem." Shorter turned and tilted his head. Lux immediately buried her face in her hands and shook her head. "I didn't put much thought into it okay!"

"No no I like it."

"It just represents something so beautiful stuck in somewhere ruinous where nobody wants to go, so it remains undiscovered. I wanted the colors for the mural part to stand out and draw you in to where you don't even notice the darkness surrounding it." She explained as Shorter sat down next to her, still looking at the painting in awe. Lux couldn't help but smile. "You can keep it if you want."