"No." and with that came the sound of shifting papers. "No" the voice said again, this time loud enough to be heard over the noise.
"But you have to pick one sweetie." a woman's voice spoke up.
"I'm going to be entering college at fifteen with junior status. Can't my choices be at least worth it?" the first voice said.
"But these are worth it, sweetie. They are the most prestigious in the world."
"I don't know about that, they seem empty and for all I know there's probably not a thing taught at any of these places."
"Don't you think that you are over-thinking this Ienzo?"
"Maybe, but to over-think is much better than not thinking at all."
Ienzo was bombarded with letters from colleges and universities day after day. There was not a school that did not want him there. Who wouldn't want a child prodigy? Someone that young just seemed great for their reputation. That was all they cared about, never mind how Ienzo felt.
That was the point, sure he wanted study with the best and brightest, he was one after all but there was much more to that. There has to be a passion. But there was no passion here at this place and to think, his parents still owned this dump.
It was truly because of this piece of property that Ienzo parents decided not to divorce. At this point they had resolved to sleeping in separate bedrooms. This benefited Ienzo because he now had a much larger space to perform his small homebrew experiments.
Ever since that day he tried to save the girl and heard the voices he wondered what was out there. What iwas/i all this talk about hearts and looming darkness?
He watched his parents fall in and out of love. They were his experiment and under his control. Sometimes he left them alone and let them do as they wished and other times he would throw something in. He would take something valuable and hide it knowing that the two of them would blame each other and a fight would ensue. He also knew what made them "love" each other as well. No one knew where the random gifts came from. They just claimed them as their own and an odd moment of love would follow.
There was no doubt that Ienzo would be a scientist but his professors soon learned that he was not the normal definition of a good student when it came to his work. Once he had finally picked a school his professors were baffled at how he either showed up to class late or skipped them all together. He was a huge procrastinator and often spent long nights and weekends in the labs at the very last minute completing assignments.
He was often the one who snapped back at his professors wondering why he had to add two kilograms into the solution instead of four and arguing over what would have been ieasier/i for him. What's worse was that most of Ienzo's alternative ways were indeed right.
His fellow classmates were in awe of Ienzo's talent while his professors were irritated and determined to prove him wrong.
"So in theory balancing this equation would equal what—Ienzo?" Ienzo at the point that the professor had asked was busy drawing in his notes.
The professor then cleared his throat. "Ienzo I need an answer from you." He was sure that he had him now.
Ienzo glanced at the problem that he was supposed to solve it was covering the whole board. "Four." he said and went back to his drawing.
"That is," the professor sighed, "absolutely correct."
There was an inward moment of triumph that Ienzo had in crushing his professors' hopes every time that happened. The heart was such an advanced and unknown territory and he had to explore it any way he could.
A year passed and it was near the end of torture for Ienzo. Really, who cared why Helium was lighter than air or why asymptotes always reached the ever so imaginary infinity? He had better things to study, people and emotions are a much better subject. Well actually people and emotions did share a striking resemblance to asymptotes. They never reached an honest agreement with each other. They just live to reach for a positive or negative ending that was really imaginary. Nothing that they worked for was concrete.
Why do some people choose to live out their fantasies even though they know they aren't real? That was what Ienzo constantly wondered. He really wanted to find out. So that was what he did. He spent hours upon hours in libraries looking for source material on the psychological mind. His bits of logic and curiosity made for great discoveries no matter how small. He had often gotten in trouble for not returning the books on time and when he did finally return the books it was always in a mangled mess. The librarians hated him for his disregard in the books he borrowed conditions but he really didn't care.
He poured over every book he borrowed, not just for his class work but for his own research as well. He was so immersed in his independent research that little by little his class work was starting to suffer. He'd make it up and barely get his assignments in on time. His heart just wasn't in his studies. His heart was in other's hearts and the research that he was performing. There was always something interesting to find out everyday.
So when the day finally came to do his senior thesis Ienzo knew exactly what to do. He was going to compile his research into something he had been dying to present. However, he still could not determine whether the heart was completely physical or was it something that one could feel. Was a heart unique only to humans?
This and there was a boatload of other questions that Ienzo pondered all the way until the day before the project was due. He sat at a table in the library on that day, behind a stack of books creating his very first draft of his thesis. The library was empty, no doubt because everyone else had finished their papers by now and was ready for presentation and somewhere asleep.
But Ienzo liked to do things at the last minute there was less confusion and the quietness was great for the aspiring mind.
The day grew later and the "bang" that was required at the end of papers was always a problem, but he hated an open-ending. This paper needed a one page closing or he would finally decide on an open-end it would have to be a good open-close. It seemed as if all the proof had been presented and all the explanations had been made. What more was needed?
"How can people go on for volumes on this stuff? They must be extremely great at making up lies and illusions." Ienzo said as he sighed and decided to walk around the library for inspiration.
The aisles were empty, that alone made it easy to take a walk among them and browse volumes by this person and that and genius after genius stacked neatly next to each other on the shelves.
"I wonder if those people knew that someday all of their hard work and dedication would end up on a shelf in a university somewhere. The only purpose they serve is that college students can browse through them for low grade assignments." As Ienzo said this He noticed movement in the row next to him. Someone else was here. He raced over to the other side to see one of the girls that worked the late shift stacking more of the "geniuses" on shelves. Ienzo sighed and walked past the cart, but as he did this something on it caught his eye and he came rushing back to get it. He grabbed the book from its place and quietly went back to his seat at the table behind the books.
The book was old; at least it seemed from the way the leather on the cover had been worn to the point of it tearing off. The cover itself had no words and by the looks of it there was never any on there. Instead, there was heart on it. The heart looked ghostly. It was pale blue the only bit of color on the ashy black surface of the cover. Ienzo opened the book. "Kingdom Hearts?" he said to himself as he began to read the first two pages.
He spent the next few hours browsing the book and writing down everything of interest to him, filling up the remaining page that was left in his thesis. He wrote the last word and closed the book.
"Who would have known that someone else had thought to do the same research as I have?" Ienzo said looking at the book's front cover again. "Kingdom Hearts, a place where light and dark gather. It's like an endless factory of hearts. It's just as secret as the hearts that gather there. Still, some information is missing. I need to look at this book more closely." Ienzo said grabbing the book. "This one is coming with me." He took the book and left out of the library. The librarian just knew that they would not see that book again especially by the way they saw Ienzo grinning as he walked out. No one truly knew what was worse Ienzo when he was sulking or Ienzo when he was totally happy.
He spent most of the night immersed in the experiments of the heart shown in the book and about this kingdom that supposedly existed. It was quite an interesting and it really saved his paper, so he did owe the book at least a quick read. He finally was able to go to bed for the remainder of the night.
He awoke late the next morning as it was usual for him to do and he raced in the classroom to hand in the paper. Hopefully he had passed the class and was done with it. He hated writing; the thought process was different from that of numbers. Numbers were static, and even though they went on forever, they served a primary function and that was to count and compare. Words were so flexible and you always needed to choose them carefully.
He had the rest of the week free and mostly spent it proving and counter proving the arguments of the heart. If there was a calculation missing here or there he was able to provide it. He was able to prove and disprove their claims. By the time he had decided to return the book it was the end of the semester and the book was oddly unharmed. Instead of harming the book, the walls of his room were full of posters of very long drawn out diagrams and calculations. He did love to keep his calculations with him.
The librarians were shocked at the book's condition and wondered what was so special about it. Why it was not torn to pieces already. They just decided to stare intensely at Ienzo as he skipped happily out of the library and to his next class. Hopefully that would be painless.