The Poet and the Luckster
The breeze was cool, near icy, as it caused long velvet locks to flow behind a small frame, the windows curtains following the same grace as the train of velvet drifted softly between them. Pale green eyes shaded under long dark lashes stared vacantly up at the moon which was painted in the star speckled sky above, clouds misting over the natural artistic piece as she continued to observe the scenery. The smell of sea salt tickled her nose and she realized she couldn't see the horizon line, couldn't see where the ocean ended and the sky began.
Inspiration surrounded her, in the scenery, in herself, in hope, in despair, so many different inspirations hit her at once that it caused her mind to trip over itself in its poetic verses that automatically surfaced when new stimulus hit, causing her brain to jumble words together in an almost chaotic way and so she tore her eyes away from the ocean scene from beyond her window ceil in order to allow her mind to calm and organize itself.
"A poet's thoughts are hardly organized," she mumbled to herself, "but they shouldn't be this cluttered." Her orbs found the journal which sat in her lap, then the pencil which she grasped tightly in her hand.
Nagisa Hanari: The Super High School Level Poet, the title was too long for her liking but not everyone does well with wording such labels.
As she sat in her open window, her back against the windowpane while her toes rested against the other side of the windows frame, she did what she usually did when wishing to calm her thoughts, she began to recite song lyrics, she sang in a normal tone as her eyes once again found the beach scenery.
"It's a little late for a sing-along don't you think?" The voice, though somewhat hushed, startled Nagisa as she whipped her head in the direction which the voice emanated from.
Nagito Komaeda stood just at the corner of her cottage, smiling brightly as he always did. For a moment Nagisa's expression hardened, as she recalled her classmate's warnings to keep her distance from such a potentially dangerous man, but only for a moment. As a poet she was able to find some sort of beauty in all things, and as she looked on him she could see nothing but beauty coming from the Luckster before her.
His disheveled locks swaying this way and that in the light breeze, the slight discoloring of his mane catching the moon light causing it to appear luscious and soft as it floated about. His eyes, she noticed, were a particularly odd color but as she studied them at that moment they were gorgeous, she could see that his silvery grey orbs also held a blushy tint within their irises.
As Nagisa looked on him she found inspiration in yet another place, only that time she found the poetic wording which flowed through her mind did not become ensnared in the other thoughts which drifted about in her Rubik's Cube brain, her pencil found her paper as she was quick to scribble her first thoughts down. As she wrote, the sound of pencil on paper filling the conversational silence, she heard a single footstep she glanced up for a moment and saw that Komaeda was ready to leave, she watched as he picked up his foot for a second time.
"Stop right there!" She ordered sternly just as his foot tapped against the ground again. She glanced up from her journal once more, her writing never ceasing; she saw that he had frozen in his tracks, and looked to her questioningly. "Come over here, Komaeda-kun." She said her voice regaining its low tone as her eyes found her paper.
"What's this?" Komaeda questioned as he came to stand just before Nagisa, "you want me to stay?" She could hear the smile in his tone.
"Don't worry I won't bother you with it for long." She said as her pencil moved from its spot on the paper, Komaeda only laughed at that.
"Bother me with it?" He repeated, "not at all, if anything it should bother you having garbage like me around, don't you think?" She narrowed her eyes at that as her pencil found its flow again. "Eh? Are you writing about me?"
"Though, beauty and meaning reside within his soul, his heart does not feel their worth," she recited her writings to him without a care, "his self-deprecating words disagree with his blithe tone and blissful beam. One must wonder if such a man truly means the meek claims which spill over his tongue and through his lips, reaching the ears of his contemporaries and traveling to their hearts where their truest impressions of him reside. Such a man is a mystery to his peers through no fault of his own." She glanced up to him with an almost impish look in her eyes, "thusly one can only presume as to the dishonesties and integrities behind such declarations." She watched as Komaeda blinked in surprise before a sheepish smile took his features.
"I always knew you were the Super High School Level Poet, but I've never actually heard any of your work until now!" He exclaimed, "you really wrote all that about me just from the one sentence I said? I'm so flattered!"
"You shouldn't be," she stated, "I pretty much just said that you're a mystery and none of us are sure if you have such a low opinion of yourself or not."
"Ah, really? It sounded much deeper the way you worded it!" He began to scratch at the crook of his neck.
"A strong vocabulary is necessary for poetry sometimes, actively using such terms will ultimately cause the reader to think about the piece longer."
"I see, I see. But I'm still grateful for your writing about me." He stated, causing Nagisa to raise a thin brow at him in a questioning matter. "you said: 'beauty and meaning reside in his soul, his heart does not feel their worth.' You complimented me, though I'm not really worthy of receiving a compliment from one of the embodiments of hope, it still makes me happy!" Nagisa chuckled lightly.
"Well, that's not all I wrote, I started writing when I saw you, so the first parts actually about your appearance." She smiled to him in a, unintentionally, seductive way. "You're very good-looking." At that comment Komaeda was completely taken aback.
"What?! I've never gotten a compliment on my appearance before! Not even from my own Mother!" He exclaimed with a bright smile, he began to gesture widely, turning away from her as he spoke. "Ah~ this must be what hope feels like! I've never felt such absolute good before!" he turned back to her, "what can I do to repay you?" The question no sooner left his mouth than Nagisa grabbed the collar of his jacket and roughly tugged him down to her level.
"Stay still for five seconds so I can get a better look at your eyes to give a detailed description." She growled in a slightly irritated way, Komaeda blinked a few times in surprise.
"A-ah right." He agreed with a smile, it was only then when Komaeda had spoken and his hot breath had tickled her face did she realize how close she'd pulled him, she was quick to release her hold on his jacket and look back to her paper.
"That's enough of that!" She said quickly as she'd suddenly become a bit flustered.
"Ne, do you mind if I stay here a while?" He questioned and Nagisa placed a hand on her heated cheek.
"Not at all, you can sit in the window with me." She exclaimed as she moved her feet for him to sit.
The two sat for a long moment in complete silence, Nagisa still scribbling her thoughts in her journal, glancing at Komaeda every now and again, even in silence she noticed he seemed completely content with the situation.
"Hanari-chan?" He whispered.
"Please call me Nagisa. It's much prettier." Komaeda breathed a low laugh at that.
"Nagisa-chan, what were you writing about before I interrupted you?" His question caused her to look up from her journal.
"Nothing. I was overwhelmed with inspiration from the scenery, myself, and the situation. So much so that my thoughts overlapped each other… It felt like I was five seconds from drowning, but then when you came along; I was inspired again but instead of my thoughts becoming more chaotic I was able to focus on you as a subject. Though I'm not sure why." Nagisa had never seen a smile filled with such happiness as when she looked on Komaeda then, she expected him to give some sort of insight to the situation but to her surprise he made no comment about the subject.
"How long can I stay here?" He questioned. Nagisa paused, she'd been stupid enough to judge Komaeda, stupid enough to jump on the bandwagon with the rest of her classmates and avoid him. Her shoulders slumped as she thought of the times she'd cruelly ignored his very existence when he'd blatantly tried to speak with her, the times she'd gone out of her way to never allow her gaze to settle on him. Looking on him then, speaking to him then, he didn't seem as bad as the others had made him out to be, if anything he seemed lonely and almost desperate for companionship.
"You can stay for as long as you want to." Her answer caused him to look to her in surprise.
"What? Really? You'd want to be around a pest like me for an indefinite time frame?!" She only nodded before lowering her gaze sadly.
"Komaeda-kun… I owe you, a sincere apology. No I owe you much more than that." He tilted his head to one side curiously, "I've been so cruel to you, a real monster… I treated you badly without even trying to get to know you… I'm, so sorry." A low chuckle came from him and she noticed that he was still smiling happily to her.
"Don't worry about it, that's just how people treat garbage you know? Never give it a second look. I don't blame you for it at all." She leaned forward, a deep frown on her face as her guilt grew deeper.
"D-did I make you feel that awful?!" She questioned loudly as she inwardly scolded herself for treating him as less than human, "I'm sorry, I really am! I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed quickly, Komaeda held his hands up as a sign for her to calm down.
"It's okay, it's alright, like I said it's not a problem!" His smile had never faltered, not even once which, for whatever reason, only made Nagisa feel worse. "Look, there's really no reason for you to apologize for it, but if it'll make you feel better then, I'll forgive you." He was clearly just trying to calm her down by that point, she shook her head.
"No! I'm not asking for forgiveness," Nagisa said quietly as she leaned back, "I don't deserve it for the way I've been acting." She looked to him with blind determination in her pale green eyes, "an apology isn't enough, I wanna make it up to you, in any way I can." Once again Komaeda found himself being surprised by the Poet.
"Make it up to me?" He repeated dumbly, she nodded.
"Anything you want."
"Uwah!" His eyes brightened at that, "no one's ever shown this much concern for my feelings before! I can really have anything I want?"
"Ah, well, anything within my power I should say." Komaeda raised his head to the night sky.
"Hmm, I'll have to think about it." He said with a smile.
"Well, I wasn't expecting you to come up with something right away." She stated as she chuckled at his eagerness.
Some hours had passed, the two content with each other's company, and Nagisa was beginning to doze, her head drooping down as her eyes struggled to stay open, ultimately she gave into sleep, the last thing her groggy eyes witnessing was Komaeda turning to her with a smile.
Komaeda watched as Nagisa's pencil rolled out of her grasp and out the window, plummeting a short distance, to the ground. Komaeda stared at her for a long moment.
"Nagisa-chan? Did you really fall asleep?" He questioned, then he heard something he hadn't in a few hours, the chirping of birds. When he looked back to the horizon he noticed the sky was becoming light and the moon was gone, the sun had yet to come into view but daylight was clearly on its way. Komaeda looked back to Nagisa, a thick strand of her long velvet hair draped over her shoulder, her shoulders and chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm, her mouth slightly a gap as she dozed.
Komaeda turned his back to the ocean view as he took the liberty of stepping inside Nagisa's cottage, he removed her journal from her lap and sat it on a nearby desk before taking her into his arms and carrying her over to her bed, where he placed her quietly. Approaching the window once again, he closed the glass panels, making sure to lock them. He turned to a thermostat just beside the area and turned on the air conditioning before going to lay next to Nagisa as she slumbered peacefully.
That was what he wanted, he'd known from the moment she'd asked him, to stay in her company for what little of his life remained. After all, dying alone was scary even for a guy like him.