I am usually not one to add descriptions at the top of my works, but I feel one is needed simply to mention that I have a playlist made specifically for this story. It is where the title derives from. You can place it on shuffle if you want, but the link to it is on my profile. The story really does sound better if you listen to it and read.
Now, I do hope you enjoy my story (and my playlist if you happen to listen to it.)
The place was too quiet. It was always too quiet. Still, it had been the only job Demyx had been able to snag at such short notice in walking distance of his home. He sighed deeply, placing his elbows on the checkout counter staring at his mundane surroundings. There was the broken coffee dispenser that had a leak with a bit of drippage that was starting to stain the dark violet carpet that covered the shop's floors. Demyx should have been thinking about cleaning it up, but instead he was simply watching one drop take a suicidal leap from the coffee machine to the ground and then another and another. He was fixated on the drippage, not even hearing when the door opened with the light tink! that announced a customer. He jumped back with a startled yelp when in his vision was drowned in striking blue. It took him a while to take in the pupil of the eye that was tilted up to meet his. It took him a while to take in that the colour belonged to anything at all.
"I want this please," the eye demanded. Wait. Demyx had that wrong. The eye was not speaking. A young woman was. She stared at him with an indifferent face that matched that was a pleasant contrast with the vibrant aqua of her eye. Her other one hid behind the layers of a stylishly messy bang. She stared back at him for a few moments before speaking again. "Are you mute or dumb?"
Demyx stepped back at her words. That was rather... Rude. Despite, he smiled at her politely. It would be bad business if he turned her away. "I was just taken off-guard. I didn't see you," he said and took the book she was holding out to him. Its cover was a plain black leather with a single word scrawled on it, Ecchymosis. Demyx tilted his head before scanning it. "$21.95 ma'am," he said, and she nodded before searching her wallet. Demyx could see the aquamarine colour of her eye change to a deep, troubled blue. She looked up with a dismayed eye yet indifferent pale lips.
"I believe I have lost my money on the subway," she said. "I cannot purchase Ecchymosis," she said the word easily sliding from her mouth like water. "Can I put this book on hold?"
Demyx shook his head and watched the blue of her eye grow more in intensity at her disappointment. She stared at the book, not moving a single muscle. Demyx swore she did not even blink before meeting his eyes. "I suppose I shall be going then," she finally said after a long elapse of silence. Demyx watched her leave (tink!) before wondering what just happened. He picked up the book and stared at it. She seemed to have really wanted it. He felt and turned it in his hands. It was quite heavy in both physical and monetary weight. He thought for a moment before scanning it and taking some of his own money from his pocket and purchasing it. He slipped it beneath his arm and pushed his head past the doorway. "Ma'am!" he called out, but she did not seem to hear him. She was already pretty far down the sidewalk, knee-long ebony skirt sweeping around her grey stockings. He could only make her out in the crowd for her hair that now shined in the sunlight, a complementing rival to her dark attire. Demyx glanced at the shop door before cursing. He hurried inside and switched the green "open" sign to a red "closed." Then off he went. He ran, weaving around various pedestrians on the crowd. For someone so small in black leather flats, she moved fairly quickly.
He paused for a breath, not watching her for a second, and was dismayed to find that she was out of eyesight. It was as if she had transpired into air.
Or had went underground.
Demyx quickly descended into the subway station he had not noticed before. There she was perched on an ageing bench with a notebook in her lap. Her pale slender hand held a pencil that moved rapidly on the white paper, staining it blue. She was very absorbed in what she was doing, not paying attention to the crowd around her or anything but the words she wrote down.
"Ma'am." She did not glance up. Nothing else in the world mattered in the world to her then. Demyx had to tap her shoulder to get her attention. He also wanted to glance at what she was writing. "Ma'am."
She whirled and faced him. "Ah, the moron," she stated in a bored, factual tone. Demyx opened his mouth, taking offence, but he closed it again seeing she meant none. Her eye reflected she was merely stating her first impression. He found himself lost in the colour again, but he stopped himself. Instead, he held out the book. "You seem to really want this."
The woman looked down and nodded. She picked it up gingerly. "You bought it?" she asked. She looked at him and tilted her head slightly. "You bought this for me?"
Demyx nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. He was a bit embarrassed at how impulsive he had been. "You seem to really want it," he repeated, "and I guess I cannot stand a disappointed customer." He laughed, averting his eyes. "Sappy huh?"
"Like a romance novel," she said with a smile teasing her lips. Demyx glanced at her long enough to catch it, and he felt the strong desire to see it again.
"Like a romance novel," he repeated his own smile becoming more genuine.
She looked up when her subway arrived. "I shall see you next time I visit the shop," and with that she was gone, vanished past the subway's gliding silver doors. She did not even glance at him, but Demyx could not stop staring after her. He smiled. She had said she would visit again.
That made him happier than it should have.
The happiness mixed with anxiety as his waiting grew. One day grew into two and two into a week. The time passed with him waiting anxiously and pulling extra shifts just to see if she would arrive at some odd time. For some reason, he had became somewhat obsessed with befriending her. She did not seem to get out often if at all. She had been so pale, and it was only heightened by the dark attire she donned.
Twenty-seven days, five hours, and thirty-three minutes. That was the last time he saw her. Demyx was not completely certain when he began counting the minutes, but he had. He wondered if she liked the book. On the fifty-first minute of the twenty-eighth day, he saw her. The door opened with its resounding tink, and there she was, slender and petite with a somewhat masculine face that was subdued into femininity when framed by her chalybeous hair. She appeared somewhat lost, staring off in thought with her brown leather messenger bag slung over her right shoulder. She made her way to the counter, and Demyx took in her appearance.
She wore black dress pants and a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck. Today he could see she had her ears pierced, two small golden crosses in each ear. That surprised him. When he had first seen her, he had not taken her for one to have piercings. He wondered what other surprises she hid.
"I would like to inquire about the 'Help Wanted' sign. I am in search of employment," she said bringing Demyx's attention to her mouth and the way her lips parted.
"My boss put that up, but she's out." He was still staring at her mouth. He swore he had seen a flash of silver when she spoke.
"Oh. Then perhaps I should come again. When is she expected to return?"
Yes. He was right and wrong. There was a flash, but it was not silver. It was cool grey-tinted blue. Like the wisps of a cigarette.
"Not sure. I can hire you if you want. The boss is a cousin of mine, and she left me in charge."
The lips did not change, but her eyes sighed relief. "Thank you. Do I need to fill in an application?"
"Nope," Demyx said bringing his eyes up and smiling. "Just need to ask you a few questions. First, what's your name?"
"Zexion Ienzo Farnese. I go by my forename," she said, and Demyx was again surprised. Zexion? That did not sound like the name given to a girl. Then again, his name was Demyx O'Donohue. He had never met someone with a name like his either.
"Zexion. Mind if I call you Zex?" he asked not bothering to wait for her reply. "So Zex, how good are you with books?"
"I am an English major, and I have always been an avid reader. I also know most categorising systems by heart having volunteered at my Academy library in my primary schooling."
"I can tell," Demyx said. She had a rather extensive vocabulary. He wondered if she ever spoke a simple sentence in her life. "What's your favourite colour?"
If she was taken aback by the sudden turn of the questioning, she did not show it. "I do not have one."
"C'mon, if you had to pick. Can't hire you if I don't know something as important as that."
She raised a brow, and Demyx could see the hint of a bemused smile crossing her lips. "Okay then. If it is absolutely necessary, I shall settle on... azure."
"Azure?" Demyx tilted his head slightly.
"It is the colour of the Mediterranean in the afternoon," she said.
"So you like the sea?"
"Is this a part of my interview?"
Demyx grinned and laughed. "Of course."
"I grew up on the sea. My father owned a practise there. I would swim almost daily and occasionally go boating."
That just made Demyx all the more curious, so he pushed on. Everything she said made him want to know more. He was insatiable. He asked her question upon question, and much to his overjoyed surprise, she did not object. Sometimes her words hesitated, as if she was considering not answering one of his questions, but she ended up answering in the end. Demyx had to eventually stop, actual customers had began filing in and were milling about the store.
"Interview over. You got the job Ms. Farnese," he said, but Zexion's eye told him she already knew that. Her eye also told him that she knew he wanted to say 'You can start today,' so instead of giving in to what he knew she was thinking he said, "You can start tomorrow. Be here by six to open."
Was that disappointment? Demyx swore for just a moment he had seen it flash across her face. She nodded, and he searched for it again. He could not find it. He sighed as she left again and put his cheek in his hand, leaning on the counter. No other customers interested him as much as that woman. He realised despite everything he had managed to find out about her, he did not know her. She still had this air of mystery around her, and Demyx was starting to believe he had fallen for a femme fatale, the danger being toward his heart. He bit the inside of his cheek and sighed again as his head hit the table.
"Lovesick?" a voice laughed, and he looked up to see the grinning of his best friend. His shorter boyfriend (or best friend? Demyx was never sure with those two) was scowling about something or the other. Demyx caught one look at him and grinned.
"You really should stop teasing him Axel," he said. "One of these days he just might kick you in the balls."
Axel opened his mouth to retort, but Roxas, the shorter, interrupted. "If he had balls to kick."
A bark of laughter escaped Demyx's lips, and Axel pouted. "Touché. Now buy something or get out. Larx has been ridin' my ass about you guys just hanging out here."
"We'll take these then," Axel said tossing a few manga and romance novels on the counter. He chatted with Demyx as he rung them up, making the other a stuttering mess when bringing up Zexion.
"It's not like that!" he would insist, but he was never believed. Axel had a knack for picking out a lie, and Roxas was even better. He could be just as bad as Axel sometimes. Perhaps that was why the two got along so well. Whatever. Demyx did not care by then. He just wanted them both out. Even if he was certain they were laughing at him as they made their way out the door.
He sighed again and slumped against the table. Every taunt they had said was indeed right. He was beginning to think he was "lovesick" as cheesy and cliché as it sounded. He wanted it to be the type of cheesy romance that ended in him getting the girl.
He went home with that thought on his mind, and it kept him awake. He thought about blue eyes, secret ghost smiles, and books with too-long titles.
He could barely keep his eyes open when he got on his bicycle to ride to work. He yawned and closed his eyes for a moment nearly swerving his bicycle into the street. He cursed and swerved back to the bike path. He managed to make it just in time to see Zexion arriving from the opposite direction. She was wearing one of those sweaters that always looked itchy with a time-worn messenger slung over her shoulder. Shit. Her skirt was a mini today, but that was probably because she had a pair of the longest legs Demyx had ever seen.
He nearly swerved into a wall that time.
At least his eyes were open.
She looked at him and helped him straighten up his bicycle. "My, are you all right?" she asked as he struggled for balance.
Demyx laughed and waved his hand. "Y-yeah. Just a bit nervous," he said and then realised his slip of tongue. "About today. Might rain and forgot an umbrella." It was a terrible excuse, but all Zexion did was nod.
"All right," she said, and they stood there awkwardly for a moment before she gestured to the door. "I expect that you have the keys?"
Demyx laughed again, and he ran a hand through his hair, somewhat mussing his mullet in the process. "Sorry," he apologised. "I didn't get much sleep." He unlocked the door and kicked it open, dragging his bicycle to the back. He did not trust it outside alone. She followed him inside and placed her things down beside the counter. Her black converse made soft sounds in the carpet that disrupted the silence of the just opened shop as she looked around. She looked at the messy coffee counter and then at Demyx.
"Do you not clean this area?" She picked up a coffee machine that had managed to escape the dispenser and disposed of it in the trash. She walked back to the counter to stand next to Demyx staring at him with that too blue eye of hers until he felt compelled to answer.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Not really... I... Get busy... And it's kind of... Gross," he said thinking as he spoke. He felt like he was saying all the wrong things by her expression of disapproval.
She sighed. "I will clean it," she said and walked over to set herself to the task. Demyx averted his gaze and busied himself with waiting for his usual line of boring customers. He was trying not to stare at the way the flared leather skirt seemed to give her a sort of shape. Although, he liked the way she looked normally too - lithe, slender, and long like her legs in her black hosiery. He had began staring after a while in spite of himself. Maybe if he stared long enough, he could peel past the layers of her appearance to inside of her. He scrunched up his nose in thought. He had studied a bit of fashion design before deciding being a dubious student was not his thing.
Okay. First thing, she only wore sensible shoes, so she was a walker. She did not like to show skin. She never wore anything that did not cover every bit of her except her hands and face. Even her itchy looking sweater that slid off her shoulders a bit had a black undershirt beneath it to her skin. Sensible and modest and...
Looking at him.
He flushed a bit and pretended to be doing something important. He did not dare to look up again until he was absolutely certain she was busy. Then, he began studying her once more. She was slender, but she looked healthy although a bit pale. She probably did not get out often. He could see her as the introverted but not shy type of person who just preferred solitude over socialising. That was probably she had chosen such a tedious bookstore to work in.
His staring had now became shameless as he watched her move, he only tore his eyes away when she looked up or to help a customer.
It became a hobby of sorts. His silent staring. Their conversations were always rare and never deep. She seemed to be wary of subjects that delved too into her personal life. He had found out she was Roman Catholic, from Italy, and that her father's job in the sea was a fisher. Those were the pleasant things he found out about.
Some of the more unpleasant was that she occasionally stared out the window with a seemingly indifferent face, but Demyx could catch the reflection of a despairing blue eye in the glass. Another was that she had terrible asthma, and he had to take her to the hospital when she had an attack from dusting. After that, he had stripped her of dusting duties despite her protests that she did not want to be a bother or stop progress. That was another unpleasant fact he had found out - she seemed to have no regard at all for her personal well-being. If she tripped and began to bleed, she would apologise for getting blood on the carpet and knocking over a book; not ask for a bandage. Demyx decided if he hated anything about her, it was that.
So he hated and he loved her, but he never said anything. He enjoyed her detached friendship, the way she seemed to only speak to him on such levels. She never spoke to customers unless it was absolutely necessary, but with him she would have full conversations.
Demyx did not want to lose that.
Ever.
He wanted to talk to her, to stare at her, to be with her, and he knew that if he said anything about thinking he loved her would drive her away. He did not want that despairing blue that stared out windows looking for something they would never find to be reflected at him. No. He would not be able to take it.
So he was quiet. They worked together for six months, three and half weeks, and a few hours, and he said nothing. (He had kept counting after he met her, but now he even started a calender.) Nothing that was important anyway. Once, they talked about her book - that was what she had been writing that day in the subway station -, and she had read him an excerpt. It was a collection of fairytales, and they were beautiful and odd. Just like her.
"And when the fishman held the arm to his lips, he suddenly had lost his appetite for the meal. It had not been what he expected. No. Not at all."
"Because he had fallen in love with the suicidal poet right?"
Zexion nodded. "Yes," she said. "He had fallen in love with the suicidal poet." She was quiet after that, and she had not spoken for the rest of the day. Demyx was careful with asking about her stories after that, and when he saw she was sad he would pull out his sitar. She was fascinated with the blue instrument, chiming that she had never seen anything like it, and she had played orchestra.
Demyx was never any happier when he managed to get her to sing along with him to the tune of a song had been teaching her. Apparently, she was not familiar with any classical music, and that was a crime against nature. Demyx had to explain to her how all music was wonderful, how it all revealed a facet of the diamond that was humanity, how it could reflect the most chaotic and calmest parts of nature.
"Out of the night, into the water. We push the boat from shore. Breaking the air and stillness of the bay," Zexion sang along with him. Zexion kept singing even when he stopped, and he could see her swaying as the tempo picked up. "Listen! The darkness rings. The darkness... Listen! The darkness rings. Take off your things. And listen! The darkness rings!" Her nonchalant voice would fluctuate with the tune he played, and she would smile ever so discreetly.
Sometimes if he played at a fast enough tempo, he would get her to dance, just a little. No. It was not the standing type of dancing. She would sit and move to the strumming of his guitar. He learnt that after the eighth month and sixth day when he played "The Bells" by Phil Ochs. He thought it was sweet how she sung along every word because it from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe. After he finished, she told the history and story behind the poem. (Sometimes, Demyx could not understand what she was saying with her toolarge vocabulary, but he did understand the twinkle in her eye and the glowing of her skin.)
He was in love with her. There was no denying it now. He had fallen in love with his own "suicidal poet." Not in the way she wanted to have a physical death, but she seemed to desire an emotional one. She did not seem to want to become attached to anyone. Demyx had became her only exception. She would talk to him, and she would smile with him. He made her mixtapes every Friday, and then on Mondays when they came back in they would talk about the music he chose. She was beginning to catch on that Demyx only chose songs with literary references ( like "Moon Over Bourbon Street," "Sister Moon," and "Roxanne"), and Demyx was beginning to catch on that she played her mixtapes over the store speakers.
"You're dancing!" he laughed as he came across her in an aisle. Her white, flowing skirt was flared out around her, and her arms were raised above her head covered in the black lace of her shirt. Her pale skin peeked beneath it; the most skin she had ever shown. She whirled to him, stopping with her mouth slightly agape.
"I was not," she said and picked up some books to finish putting away.
Demyx only smiled. Fine then. Her secret was safe with him. "I can play this song on my sitar," he said and began aiding her in putting up the books.
"Can you?" Demyx had came to know when there was a slight joy in her voice, and he looked over at her.
"Yes."
They finished putting away the books. It was a slow day. It was probably because the weather outside was wet and humid from the rain. He started to play what she wanted to hear, but then he changed. It was something he had written. A song without words. At first, Zexion was merely waiting for him to sing, but then she began to listen. His words came out. He sung them without his lips. He closed his eyes as he played. When had he started this song? He no longer could remember. The song started out slow, like a drizzle of raindrops, and then it was hard like a storm, a waterfall. Then it was a hurricane of notes that filled the entire shop. It was surprising such an instrument could play at the speed Demyx did. He would tap with his foot like thunder. Her eyes widened at its intensity. Demyx was stripping her bare. She stood.
"I have to go," she announced and began to look for her things. "Demyx, please stand," she said. The other had not realised he had sat down on her jacket. He looked at the rain, and then back at her. Was that frenzy in her eyes? He had to know. He shook his head. She looked at him with exasperation. "Why not?"
"Talk to me."
She stared at the simple sentence as if it was the longest in the world. Then she sighed before moving closer. "No. You to me. As you know, I am very intelligent, and I have an idea what that song was about-"
"Is."
"Is?"
"I just made it. You inspired it."
She stared at him, and she shook her head. "No. You see Demyx-"
"244 days."
"What?" Zexion stared at him in confusion, but Demyx's face was completely serious. He moved so close that their breaths tickled each other, and he could feel the carbon dioxide from her exhale turning into what would be oxygen through his inhale.
"I," he said as pushed back her hair. He needed to see both of her eyes for this. "I have have been loving you for 244 days. Ever since you walked through that door in that knee-long black skirt, flats and sweater, and you order Ecchymosis. You did not have the 21.95, so I gave it to you. To make you smile. Your smile is my favourite thing." She looked afraid of his words, but he could not stop. He could hear her heart in the silence. (Or maybe it was his own, he did not know.) "Your everything is my favourite thing. Your dancing, your singing, your walk, your eyes, your conversations, your mind - everything. I will never love anything as much as you. Or anyone. Or any place. Nothing will ever compare to you. You're my Cleopatra and I'm your Antonio-"
"Mark Antony," she corrected as if it was automatic. Even when she was nervous, she seemed to have to correct a literary mistake. That made him smile.
"Mark Antony. I stand corrected," he said before continuing. "My Penelope to my Odysseus because I'll travel the world to get to you. The Eloise to my Abelard because nothing can stop me from loving you, not even God. The Prince Albert to my Victoria. The peanut butter to my jelly." He had ran out of literary references for her by then.
"You love me?"
"That is what I have been saying."
She was quiet. "Would you love me even if I was a Prince Albert and not a Penelope?" She had began to look down at her lap. That fear in her eyes had became so sad, and Demyx suddenly understood what she meant.
What he meant.
He stared at the other man, the man he had fallen in love with, for a very long time without even knowing his gender. Then he realised it did not matter and pushed back Zexion's bang completely before kissing him.
"Yes."
He breathed the words against the other's lips as he pulled apart. "Whether you go by her..." A kiss to Zexion's forehead. "Or him..." A kiss to Zexion's left cheek. "I do not care. I love you. I love you. I love you." He smothered Zexion in kisses until he had dragged the two of them to a wall.
He did not stop until he could see that ghost of a smile on Zexion's lips. "Her or him?" he asked. He did not want to mess up again. He was serious. He would love Zexion no matter the gender the other replied with.
"Him, please. I like skirts, but I like what is underneath them."
That made Demyx laugh, and it was contagious. Zexion began to laugh with him, leaning against Demyx's chest and holding his stomach. "I apologise for not telling you before, but I was afraid I would be fired or even worse," he said and looked up without mentioning what that "worse" was.
But Demyx could guess what it was when Zexion kissed him. It was the soft kind of kisses you read in a fairytales and the sweetest love stories. An infant kiss that seemed to be inexperienced and only held knowledge of what was read in books. The kiss lasted forever. The kiss ended too soon, and when they pulled apart cyan was drowning in mazarine, and mazarine in cyan.
"You love me." It was not a question this time, but a statement.
Demyx smiled at him gently and pecked his lips again. He was going to answer that statement anyway.
"Yes. I love you." And with those words he sealed in the beginning of their cheesy romance novel, and their own little cliché happy ending.