A certain boy (RusPrus)

Under the tree

Sweat. Sweat and dirt. That was the strong, familiar smell that constantly permeated the air in the park during the afternoon. The fresh smell of leaves and dew could only be enjoyed until about 4:45 pm, when the kids started playing football, just a few minutes after they got out of school. Whether it was the summer sky, so unreasonably blue, or simply the urge to make it possible for that smell to pollute the air to give them the energy to play so carelessly after an entire day spent studying and learning, still wasn't clear. The only thing that could be easily understood was that they smelt of sweat, quite disgustingly, and that every single one of them was covered in dirt, regardless of whether that was the intention or not. Yet they laughed, yelled and ran as they tried to kick the white ball, or rather what used to be a white ball, into a "goal". If the space in between two trees can actually be considered a goal, that is.

The voices of the kids in the football field were so loud they could be heard all the way under the weeping willow, the biggest and oldest tree in the park. Sure, the tree wasn't all that far away from the field, but it still was annoying. As well as distracting. How is someone supposed to draw when so many people are just screaming all around? Needless to say, for how beautiful the park might've been, in the afternoon the noise was just too much to stand. All that could be done was sit and wait for all of them to go away.

Did those others really have nothing else to do? Was running after a ball while screaming for no apparent reason their only option? There must've been something- maybe homework, maybe swimming lessons after class or something, but no.  Everybody remained in the park until the mosquitoes came around, reminding them that nobody was allowed in there after dusk, except for the mosquitoes themselves.

No doubt somebody would have gotten seriously injured if the kids tried to play in the park during the night in the same way they did in daylight. Football was only a fun game when played under the sun. So why was it that even after dusk a boy was still running and playing? Why hadn't he left? Why did he keep on kicking the ball? He was just repeatedly throwing it against a wall and waiting for it to bounce back anyway. Hadn't he told his friends that his parents would've picked him up soon? Why did he insist on breaking the peace of the park?

Those were the questions that normally he would ask himself while sitting under that same tree, in the same position, with the same paper on his knees and the same old pencil in his hand. It kept happening over and over: everyday the kid would stay in the park for several hours, hitting the ball in the same way, again and again. It had been happening ever since school had started, yet there still were no answers to his questions, and he couldn't do but stare and wonder. And ask himself the same questions every single time.

A loud voice broke the rhythmic slamming of the ball against the wall. And suddenly, on that oddly warm and humid summer evening, the routine was broken.
A single, short, scream broke out, but soon left room for silence. But it didn't last long. He raised his eyes from the paper and looked up just in time to see a grey sphere, dirty and consumed, the same that had been kicked against the wall several times, hit him square in the face.

The silence had been replaced by distorted noises in his head, probably caused by the hit. He could feel his face burning and tickling with pain, but he wouldn't have been able to say whether it actually was hurting or not. But his eyes were a completely different story. When he was able to open them again without tearing up or having to scratch them, seeing as apparently dirt had fallen into them, he sat up and started looking for his pencil, the flashlight he had been using as a light source to see the paper in his hand. Luckily enough, it had just rolled a metre away.

He reached for the pencil, suddenly noticing a figure standing not too far from him. A figure that was wearing a black and white t-shirt and a pair of shorts of the exact same colours, hadn't it been for the fact that both were stained in green and dark brown. And the figure smelt of sweat. Sweat and dirt.
He picked up the pencil and stood up, curious to see the kid up close for the first time.

He was surprised to see red eyes, which didn't fit with the kid's white hair at all. Actually, hair that could've been white, but was covered in dirt. As was everything else. His hands, knees, shoes, elbows... The boy was simply entirely covered in dirt. Which was actually pretty gross.
But repulsion was not what he felt, quite the opposite in fact. Seeing those unnaturally coloured eyes, shining with tears on such a dirty and sweaty face gave him an unknown feeling, which he could've in no way named.

The kid, whom had been blinded by the light, soon recovered and sprinted away, the ball in his hands.

He found the entire situation quite funny. He had never spoken to the boy once, neither had he ever looked into his eyes, up until that moment. Yet he had been drawing him for several months. And funnily enough, he only then realised that the smell wasn't actually all that bad.