Before the Afternoon Comes
During the grey fogs of June, Ahiru finds herself in the ponds of Kinkan Academy, pale eiderdown clinging to her sides. Mornings are always cool, and the air smells of salt.
As she gazes up, she sees a boy standing opposite the bridge. His eyes are honey-brown and warm. Yet for all their lightness, they remind her of marbles: pretty, but without any spark. And while he looks like the sort of boy who would be gentle, his gaze is devoid of any emotion.
She looks at him for a second, and expects him to walk across the bridge, like everyone else does. But he pauses, and with the same blank expression, reaches into his pocket. Pulling out a crust of bread, he tears off a bit, and drops it over the edge. As it breaks the surface of the water, the bread crumbles into smaller pieces.
"Here." His voice is nearly inaudible.
She responds with a flurry of tiny pecks: lapping at the waves, nibbling at his hand. Crumbs stick to her beak, coating on her baby-feathers. "Quack," she says, clucking her sweetest. She flaps her wings in appreciation, and when he doesn't respond, she flaps them again. The ruffling of her feathers sounds like a small heartbeat.
Then she hears a new set of footsteps in the distance.
"What are you doing here? That duck is over-fed. It'll only get fatter if you feed it so much," says a baritone voice. "Come on, we have class." She looks up, and sees another boy, impatiently grabbing the first boy by the arm. She dislikes him on the spot.
The other boy looks at her, and then without much effort, turns his gaze away from the pond. "Oh. Okay."
Her quacks grow shrill as the marble-eyed boy is led away. But her voice fades, and even though she begins to lose hope of ever seeing him respond, he turns back to look at her once in the distance.
And she decides, no matter what, that she wants to see him again.