Author's note: Hello everyone! This is my first Magi fan fiction, since I fell in love with the whole Magi universe and I thought that I could give it a shot at writing! The story takes place in a Modern!AU, where Kassim isn't dead, the main characters are normal people and attend universities and make mistakes most of the times. The main character is my OC, Morgause. I decided to let all the events take place in a fictional city of my invention, called Avalon (yes, it all refers to the Arthurian Cycle). Magnostadt, Sindria and Balbadd exist and are places like states or other cities. There will be lots of characters and guests from Sinbad's arcs. Aladdin is nineteen years old, just so you know!
The whole plot basically happened to be shaped on Lorde's new album, Melodrama. All the quotes are from that CD and Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Choke. There will be rated M scenes, because of the sex contents and language.
Also, I am not an English native speaker. So, I actually translate this story from my mother tongue to English. If you happen to notice any formal mistake in my writing, please, let me know!
Thanks for reading 3
"We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces".
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
"Lights are on and they've gone home, but who am I?"
― Lorde, Melodrama
It is possible to compare a basketball match with a well-executed piece of classical music. Mostly in the case of airy scores, full of quick passages, lively and energetic. Morgause liked classical music a lot. Even if she never understood the main reason to that weird characteristic.
Since she was a teenager, her ears shaped through the aggressive beats of hip hop songs, which projected lots of different stories, in her mind. At times, employing even other languages than her mother tongue. But, they all had the same taste: the same of the streets. Nonetheless, from time to time, she happened to cross paths with a sonata of ancient wonderfulness and she was never able to let it roll off her skin. She let it pass through her bones, while she contemplated such gorgeous pieces of art to make her wonder how much there was of human, in them, and how much left of divine. She had a predilection for Russian works, especially if they were folkloristic. She loved the "Korobeinki" and she could have pointed at any passage of the sonata, recognizing it with eyes closed. Because the fingers of the unknown executor chasing one another on the piano keyboard, in her mind, could have been compared perfectly to a basketball match. Tackles for pauses, hoops for sprints. It was all precisely connected and, even if the boombox on the bench was blasting Hollywood Undead songs, the mind of the girl was playing only that Russian piece. Because she was made that way. She was the biggest contradiction existing in her universe and she was okay with that.
«Pass!» Uttered one of the boys, making a rushed sign to Morgause, who was holding the hard and heavy ball in her hands. She focused on Alibaba, who was not far from her and raised her arms, passing the ball to him. She watched the boy running to the hoop and making a jump, slamming the ball in the metal circle, grasping it with his fingers and hovering for a brief moment. Then, he landed with a little and silent leap.
«Game, set and match!» He declared, pointing a victory sign to the sky and showing a satisfied smile. Morgause looked at him, slumping on the worn paving of the abandoned basketball court of the park.
Alibaba was always so full of energies, he could have been capable of climbing the Everest with just two hours of sleep on his shoulders. The girl could not get how was it possible, for a human being, to have that much vitality. She often suspected that her friend could have been on a sugar rush multiple times, but it looked like it was one of his natural characteristics. Intrinsic, not extrinsic. Everything about him made her think about a bright bundle of light. Maybe even brighter than the sun. Starting with the open and friendly smile on his face, his alabaster complexion and his hyping attitude. Even his hair, of a warm and fair shade of wheat blonde, was luminous. Morgause often said to him that if only he got a quarter of the confidence of their friend Kassim, he would have been the less lonely man on earth. But the boy always ended up chuckling and ruffling her hair, waving aside.
Alibaba did not know he was handsome. He was mostly convinced of the opposite. That was why, every time he heard a compliment almost getting him, he immediately used to lead the conversation aside, minimizing everything. Making it slide away from him, like water drops on a tarp. He knew he was quite tall, with a fit body, shaped by years of morning sessions of jogging and afternoon appointments of acrobatic yoga, but he never thought of being the real deal. The idea of beauty, for him, was way far from his figure. And it would have never been his, according to him. Argument on which all of his friends disagreed.
«You're just fucking lucky man, that's all» commented Kassim, bending over the plastic bottle left in a corner of the dusty court where they were playing. He did not mind the voice of Alibaba protesting, while he was twisting off the cap of his bottle and brought the water to his lips, closing his eyes. He was another one of Morgause's dearest friends and he came straight from the burbs of Balbadd. That was why his voice had that weird and almost aggressive accent. He still used to mix different idioms and dialects, having moved to Avalon since a relatively short amount of time. Amongst all, he surely was the one with the most captivating looks. Very tall, with a strong build and sun-kissed skin, he was particularly alluring. His hair was shaped in lots of long and dark dreadlocks, which he used to keep in a loose ponytail. His clothes were always one or two sizes bigger than they should have been, in the full respect of the hip hop culture he grew up with. He could perfectly speak the dialect of the suburbs of Balbadd and he was a pretty skilled skater. Too bad he had the merciless habit of destroying everything had the bad luck of being between his hands or feet. He did not do that on purpose, it just happened every time. He broke books, glasses, pens, every kind of object with no distinctions. Just as like he never fully adapted to his own body and he still had those typical clumsy moves.
«Alibaba, you're so cool! Teach me how to be like you» sighed Aladdin, lying down on the pavement, resting his head on Morgause's legs. As the least of the crew -and also the youngest-, the boy seemed to overload himself of a golden aura, something almost divine-like. The same that led particularly gifted people to never fail. And to do everything in the best way possible. He had the same unique splendor of who was destined, since birth, to great things.
Just nineteen and already gotten in one of the best universities of Magnostadt, he earned a place in society without actually killing his personality. With eyes like the Sindria's skies, big and of a deep light blue, and an almost shy smile, Aladdin seemed to have kept a part of that innocent candor which was typical of children. It popped up when he laughed, played a new videogame or when he blushed for an unexpected compliment. Being the youngest of the group, the other boys and the girl involuntarily tended to treat him with a particularly affectionate behavior. And he liked receiving all those attentions. He considered them as their way of showing him love. He was especially fond of Morgause. Who was, at that moment, silently running her fingers through his long bangs, which were of a bright shade of soft sapphire. He used to keep them in a long braid, which became his signature characteristic.
«You can't be like me, Aladdin. I'm the only piece of a limited edition» bragged Alibaba while sitting in front of him, making everybody but Kassim laugh. The brunet let out a sarcastic sound.
«Yet, you can't get yourself a girl» said him, throwing the ball to his friend. The blond caught it and eyed him.
«You fucker» reproached him, immediately standing up.
«It's "sex addicted"» specified the boy with dreadlocks, slightly avoiding his offended friend's shot, who inevitably sent the object out of the court. Everybody stood there in silence, watching it roll further away from them, to the benches of the park. Kassim gave a blank stare at Alibaba, shrugging.
«I'm not going» he stated.
«Well, you should. You started this» replied the blond. Gaining an adorable middle finger flipped back at him.
«You could have just stood in silence, but you reacted like a girl…»
«Oh really?»
«Actually ye…»
«Shut up, y'all. You're giving me a headache» said Morgause, interrupting them. She patted Aladdin on his shoulder, as a sign to let her get up. The boy gave her a bothered look, watching her stretch and sigh, as she ran a hand through her long and wavy chocolate hair.
«Where are you going?» Asked her the younger and the other two looked at her in shock. They knew she was the human definition of laziness. She had the miraculous gift of being able to fall asleep anytime and everywhere. Skill that Kassim envied her with all himself, being forced to face insomnia every night. So, it looked pretty weird that she decided to move by herself, not actually being forced to get up with a kick.
«To get the ball. I can't stand them anymore» she replied, turning without saying else. She focused on where the round object was, finding it at the feet of a bench. Which was occupied by a boy who was reading, with his head bent on the book. Great. She would have asked him to pass the ball to her and she would have avoided a useless walk. She cleared her throat, faking a disinterest she actually did not have. She thought that it could have been impolite to interrupt someone who was reading. It looked like she could have nullified all the efforts that person put to isolate himself from the world. She even hated talking to people who had earphones in. Anyway, laziness was stronger than courtesy, that time.
«Hey» she called the stranger, hoping not to sound ruder than she actually was. The boy lifted his head up, focusing on Morgause. Who blinked in astonishment.
The face of that boy had features so fair that she wondered if, touching his cheek with her finger, he would have vanished in pale sand. The astounded expression on those feline eyes made him look younger than he surely was. With a proportioned nose, fleshy and rosy lips slightly opened because of the light shock, he resembled one of those royal stamps that Japanese emperors used to frame to the walls of their palaces, as portraits of their relatives. His hair, of a greenish shade of black, covered his forehead with bangs, almost hiding the right part of his mien. Morgause noticed a scar on the upper right corner of his face, which its nearly bronze shade was even more exalted by his marble complexion, along with a black little mole in the correspondent lower corner of his lips. He was wearing a light shirt made of silk, in an ink shade of blue, that fell perfectly on his torso, just like someone sewed it on his flesh. Same for his lower body, dressed in a creamy pair of fine pants. Those clothes kept up the image of noble elegance that radiated from that stranger and the girl just looked at him in awe.
He was standing there, sitting cross-legged, with an old book on his lap which pages turned all yellow thanks to the time. Morgause had been so captivated by a boy's looks just once, in her lifetime. But then, she thought that the same thing could just have happened twice. She mused that the face she let go innumerable sighs for was almost the opposite as the stranger's and that worried her a bit. They were contrasting like night and day. Suddenly, the image of a pair of smirking lips invaded her mind, breaking her moment of mystic ecstasy.
For how long had she been there, in silence, looking at that boy? She hoped he did not take her for a maniac or a weirdo. She nervously ran a hand through her hair, rolling a strand of hair up her index finger. The stranger on the bench kept watching her, in silence. He put his chin on his fisted hand, with the elbow on his thigh. Keeping his interested and water-colored eyes on her, waiting for the girl to do anything. Or just standing there, without talking.
«Could you…» stuttered Morgause in a grasp voice, clearing her throat right after. «Could you pass the ball?» She asked, letting her hands fall on her sides. The boy gave her another glance and then bent a corner of the page he was reading shortly before, closing the book. He picked the round object from the ground and twisted it in his hands, watching it with cryptic eyes. Then, he looked at Morgause and a corner of his lips rose up. He threw the ball without really putting an effort and then he went straight back to reading. The shadow of that smile was still dancing on his face. The brunette caught the ball and stood there, astonished.
«Thanks…?» She whispered, while the far voice of Aladdin called her back from the court. The stranger did not bat an eye, he was too caught in the magic of printed words to mind her again. Who turned with a confused expression on her face, getting back to her friends, making the ball bounce without much conviction. Why that boy was so silent? Was it a polite and elegant way of showing his restraints from socializing? But then, why smile that way?
«Oh, fuck it!» She cried, shaking her head and trying to expel all those useless questions from her brain.
«You made it!» Said Alibaba, stretching a hand out to Kassim, in a silent request to help him get up. That the brunet indulged with an annoyed sigh, grasping his friend's fingers firmly. «We thought that you would have stayed there with Prince Charming all the afternoon long», he added.
«Alibaba, that boy has a name» replied Aladdin, with a slight resentment in his voice. The blond looked at him in wonder, taking the ball back from Morgause's hands.
«Oh really?»
«What is it?» Asked the blond and the brunette both in the same time, mixing syllables and confusing the younger.
«He is Ren Hakuryuu. We're friends… sorta».
«"Sorta"?» Said Kassim too, taking the ball from Alibaba's hands and playing with it. Aladdin shook his head, minimizing.
«It's a long story» he waved off, as a sign that that conversation was over. «Free throws?» He asked then and everybody but Morgause gathered again around the hoop. She turned her head back, glancing at "Ren Hakuryuu" for the last time. Finding him still reading, detached from the reality he was living in. She wanted to know more, about him. She had to.