❝The universe is full of stars. If it weren't for them, the galaxies wouldn't be bright and the night sky would be a lifeless veil of blue because one can rely on the moon only for so long. The universe wouldn't be itself if all those stars -althoug...
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IT WAS TIME he got home.
The wheels of the train came to a halt. For a moment he stood still to absorb everything in, muting the hustle and bustle of the outer world. He had been used to the constant changes of the scenery as time passed by the speed of lightning on the railway tracks. The irreplaceable sensation of euphoria that caused the pleasant inflation of his chest whenever he listened to music travelled him to beautiful places, places where he had the freedom to be himself, without fear of consequences.
Kai removed with a gentle movement the earphones from his ears. He wrapped them around his mp3 that accompanied him from the beginning of his adolescence and continued staring out of the wagon. A part of him wanted to stay in there for a little bit longer, far away from everyone and everything, from a reality prepared to crush him at his first fault, his first wrong step.
However, he knew he couldn't keep fooling himself. This wasn't the case of a fearful of responsibilities person. He had accepted his fate from an early stage, which under normal circumstances, shouldn't had existed.
Nevertheless, even a person with a capacity of mental resources as huge as his, tended to experience occasionally the intense desire to escape, to break free so that he could etch his own path from the start instead of pretending as he traced someone else's steps.
He briefly closed his eyes. It was time to lift himself.
Whenever he returned to Astropolis, he felt like the first time. The need to reset mentally and start from the bottom flooded his veins with a new-found kind of yearning. The uncertainty of this mindset made him question himself often why did he have to think this way, but he ended up to the same conclusion. There wasn't a defined, clear answer. Maybe it wasn't needed.
Kai stood. Along with his backpack – his sole luggage – he gathered the courage in his soul to face the reality that awaited him outside of the bubble of the summer escapades, of the adventurous journeys. He was strong, more than anyone else. He didn't bend all these years and today was going to be no exception.
He debarked from the platform, trying to adjust, to connect with his surroundings. He lifted his gaze to the endless sky. The plethora of colors that painted the dusk of the sun rejoiced his frozen heart. They were transforming into a ray of light, dim but enough to warm his soul just for a while. That little window was what kept him from the verge of the cliff, from collapsing and transforming to something he wasn't.
He wouldn't turn out like him. The bitterness that chased him to his most quiet, esoteric dreams wouldn't be the cause of his downfall. He couldn't afford to end up like him. He wouldn't allow it.
For the first time from the second he stepped out of the train, he could see clearly. He could see the world around him without drowning. He made to step away from the train station, but wasn't ready. He was always running and he would continue to do so.
No, he owed to himself to stand, to not let the moment pass him by and shove him to the side.
Kai leaned his back on the nearest wall of the exit of the station. The possibilities of a fight arising when he was going to set foot inside the house were increasing by the speed of lightning as long as he kept stalling. However, he couldn't find it in him to care. He'd stopped showing interest of his views and opinions long ago. He was who he has. He wouldn't change for anyone's favor. If they were worthy of him, they'd respect him.
His gaze was travelling every which way, unruly like an untamable horse. So many people missed the simple joys of life by running. They were waking every day with the illusion their marathon had a purpose; of achieving it all, of turning themselves into multi-taskers – to people who despite the hardships, they summoned the required mental strength to win. Indeed they were successors, but little did they know that life left them behind. When the light of realization dawns, of the true introspection, it was too late.
They were a victim of time. Then again, so was he.
Kai's anchored his eyes onto a mother scolding her son.
"What have I told you about this?" she asked, her voice laced with indignance as she enclosed the boy's fingers within her palm. "Do you want us to get in trouble? It is prohibited to use powers in public unless we're given a serious reason."
The mother ignored the child's complaints about living in an unfair world. It was an indisputable truth. Kai empathized with the boy's pain. The ascertainment of a fact like that at such a young age sowed noxious roots of hurt. One would have the notion that a fragile and transitory childhood age wasn't in the position to leave any kind of wounds. Yet the reality of the adulthood years later arrived to defy that perspective and fuel these metaphorical scars lost into the abyss of one's soul with a poison that scorched fresh and olds ones all the same.
He'd been here only a few minutes that seemed like hours. It did no good to him to think this much at this exhaustive rate. He wasn't even at the starting point.
He brought his focus back to the mother with the child. She urged it to open up his step to hurry. They were heading towards the car parked at the other side, across the street. A man Kai presumed he was the father awaited, supporting his elbow at the opened driver's door.
His eyes brightened the moment the boy walked into his line of vision. A soft smile spread across his lips as his shoulders relaxed.
He crouched to the child's height and hugged him tight. He ruffled his hair as he processed the fact that he was holding it in his arms after so long. Whether it was weeks or months Kai would never figure. He didn't need to. This feeling of happiness that one could disrupt and conveyed to one another through the simplest of gestures was more than enough. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The unfolding scene reminded Kai of an era in his life where he'd been serene too. It brought him memories of the only period in his life where being a child wasn't complicated.
The inevitable bittersweetness combined with the familiar stab tearing his chest apart didn't faze him anymore. He was familiarized with the pain, embraced him to some extent, reaching to a point of acceptance. The truth was damning him, gnawing at his insides at the most fleeting moments of joy.
Kai had found a way to learn to live with the guilt that he'd been incapable, unworthy of doing something to save him back then. The lack of full control over his powers had led them to the chaos they were in now. If he'd tamed his powers, he may had been alive.
The memories flooded one after the other like gleams from a different life, despite they were his. A shudder surged through him against his will, causing the hair on the nape of his neck to stand on end.
It had been more than a year since the last time he visited his grave.
Kai swallowed the lump in his throat. It was way too soon to succumb to the pressure.
The distraction he wasn't aware of how much he needed came in the form of a vibration from the phone in his palm. His brows rose as his eyes skimmed through the incoming message.
"Where the hell are you, man? I hope you made it in time, or else I'll miss all these hot ladies at tonight's party. We both know we don't want that to happen now, do we?"
Kai couldn't help but release a chuckle masked by irony. A part of him was glad Tala still had possessed the gift of turning him off within fractions of a second whenever something didn't sway his way.
Too bad he was worse in that aspect.
Kai lifted his hand to call for the nearest cab. Tonight was the night he would leave push everything to the side, forgetting the chains of reality dragging him to the ground to capture him.
Tonight, he was going to tiptoe to the clouds and he'd be damned if he didn't admit he wouldn't enjoy it.
