Finding Love | ✔️

nine

/love is that condition in which the happiness of another person 

is essential to your own/

- Robert. A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

♡

He waits for me to walk a bit, so that we’re almost shoulder-to-shoulder (except for the fact that I’m shorter).

“This way.” We go in the opposite direction to the way Jason and I had come in. But soon enough, after a seven minute underground walk, up some stairs, we find ourselves inside the abandoned train again. I can tell from the open cracks and holes of the train that it’s completely dark outside.

“It’s around four o-clock in the morning.” He mutters. There are a few dim street lights outside, giving us our only vision. We walk through the train from part to part, for what seems like hours. But finally, we stop. We’re at the head of the train.

“Sit!” he says, and I do. I place myself onto the seat that the train-driver would sit.

“Haha,” I giggle. It’s pretty cool. There are controls all around me, even above. I reach to press a button, eyeing Leopald to see by his reaction whether it’s okay for me to do so.  His face remains unchanged, so I press it. Nothing happens. I press another. Nothing happens. And soon, I’m bashing on the buttons like crazy, and Leopald joins me, and we’re playing like little kids at the arcade.

“Pull it!” He says, pointing towards a little string hanging on the ceiling.

I pull it, hesitantly. The train lets out a small groan.

“I’m sure you have more strength than that…” he says.

“Challenge accepted.”

I pull with all my strength, and in that moment, the train releases a mighty roar.

“I’m king of the track!” Leopald shouts.

“I’m queen of the track!” I echo. I’m laughing at how silly this is.

I pull the string again and again, until Leopald has to tell me to stop because we could get caught for making noise.

“But, isn’t New Town just a noisy place in general?”

“There’s always two sides to every town, Lilac.” His face becomes dark, and a sudden chill passes through me. There’s always two sides to every town. “One day, it’s all happy and neon and colours. The next, it’s not.”

I notice how he doesn’t describe what the other side of New Town is like, and it’s a frightening thought.

“We must go.”

“Now?”

“Stop looking so sad. I haven’t shown you the best part yet.”

***

We find ourselves back underground, but it’s not the same as before because we entered through a different trap door.

“You know, I’m an artist, too.” He says.

“I kind of expected that,” I say, and he rolls his eyes. “What on the wall is yours?”

“Nothing.”

I give him a puzzled look.

“Mine’s different.” He says. We’re still walking.

“Different? How so?”

He’s quiet as we suddenly come to a locked door. He scans through his pocket, feeling around, until a set of keys comes out.