Running Doesn't Make You Weak 3
Green Eyes
The girl sat in the back of her class. Usual the smart kids sit in the front not this time. The school had been more than happy to take a freshman who could pass there high school senior exams. She sat silent and unspeaking taking notes but never answering even the most obvious questions no one was to notice her. People made life hard, people were unnecessary. People didn't like it when they realized two different people held one body, people didn't understand. After school the girl walked her silent way to the tattoo parlor. That was were Jack worked, Jack was the only one she trusted in her new life he was like a father, not her father but what a father should be. He taught Alex to pierce and ever gave here her own, no one trusted a piercer without piercings. Alex never knew that Jack saw a lot more than he let on. Jack saw the shifts in posture and bearing that came with the switch from one person to another. He saw the pain even she barely noticed too used to hiding it she was. All she had ever wanted was a future. That was it. She had destroyed that chance herself. It all started on just another day. She was sitting on a stool toying with her tongue ring and doing her homework just as she did every day.
Shin walked through the Swedish streets looking around him. This place was different from his home but just similar enough to confuse him. The people here were tall and mostly all blonde or at least fair. He saw a small tattoo shop. He looked down at his arms. He had been thinking about getting another symbol. He stepped into the small shop. He felt strange he was not usually an impulsive person quite the opposite actually. There was a large yet slender blonde man behind the counter and a dark haired girl sitting on a stool doing what looked like math homework.
"Hello," Shin said into the room.
"Hello," the guy said making the girl look up, "Whatever you are looking for my friend here can help you." The guy pointed at the girl then vanished into a back room.
"Sorry about that he isn't much of a people person," the girl said in German which surprised me, she must have picked up on my accent.
"Its fine most tattoo artists aren't I am assuming he is the actual artist," she said and he looked at the girl instead of around at the walls.
"He is," she said but the words barely registered in Shin's mind. He was looking at her, he was captivated. He couldn't believe his eyes. Long dark hair fell in curls around and away from an impossibly pale face, long dark lashes framed green eyes full of shards of different shades and browns and blues, her face was sharply boned yet delicate, it was perfect in his eyes. Shin didn't know what to say, the girl he had been looking for, for so long was here in front of him.
The girl herself was confused. Once again she found the two sides of herself disagreeing. On part of her, the part that had done the running away or the weaker part, was feeling just about the same way shin was. She saw his face and saw perfection. The other, stronger, part saw a cute boy and nothing else. She was in confusion but her stronger self let her weaker self have her moment and prayed it didn't end up in stupidity.
That left the two people standing staring at each other. Sea green eyes staring into eyes like the forest.
If the girl hadn't of been so clumsy they might have remained that way for eternity. As it was she had a habit of swinging her feet. One of her feet caught on the stools cross bar. When she tried to pull it back she pulled herself off the chair and onto the floor.
"Are you alright?" Shin asked pulling the girl up.
"Yes, I'm fine I do stuff like that a fair amount…"
"Are you sure?" Shin wasn't sure why he was so worried. Something about the girl made him protective.
"Positively, you came for a tattoo or a piercing?" She said changing the subject to cover her own confusion.
"Tattoo," he said seeing what she was trying to do.
"Okay here is the main book we use, of course there are custom works, I'm sure you know all of that!" She smiled at him innocently. She had noted the tattoo's on his arms.
"I'm looking for Japanese characters," he said smiling at her as she flipped through the book. He had no idea how old she was. She looked to be about his age but her behavior was to innocent for that.
"Any particular one?" She asked. Shin watched in awe as she moved skillfully through volumes and pages like she had an index when there wasn't one.
"Beauty," he said and the word surprised him but it was what he wanted.
"Here," she said handing him the book. He looked at it. It was nice and would fit with the other stuff he had. Yet when he thought of beauty he saw this girl now.
"It's nice…" Shin said thinking.
"Do you want to get it?"
"Yes," he said decisively.
"Now or later?"
"I think I'll get it later, I have a concert today I would like full use of my arm…" The girl had moved over to the register and she looked up.
"Are you in a band?"
"Yea, Cinema Bizarre," he said walking over to the counter.
"Wow!"
"You've heard of us?"
"Mhmmm…. I've heard of a lot of things…" she said. "When do you want to come back?"
"3 days?"
"How about 3 o'clock?"
"Okay…" Shin said ready to agree with anything the girl said. Shin stood there for a moment then reached over and took the pen out of her hand. She flipped her hand over and slid it towards him.
"Call me soon okay?" he said scrawling his number across her wrist.
"I will…" she said quietly and watched him walk out.
