47. The Cloak of the Night
Kim Teho
Teho lay down on his bed. A much-needed rest was due after the emotion-filled Saturday and hungover Sunday.
His camera, lenses, tablet, Redbull, and protein bar were all packed in his bag, stacked against the door of his room. A soft lamp's light together with the outside wind made a shadowplay on his walls. He rolled onto his side and his soft hair pushed itself into his eyes. His mind was scattered and trailed back to an hour before.
...
Dinner with Somin and Mia was strange, all kinds of feelings still lingered and he made his innuendos without thinking. The girls were in a relaxed mood so he was more relaxed himself. Teho was confused seeing Somin bickering with him, almost like nothing had happened.
We just played a game.
Every time their eyes met he could swear regrets were in hers, maybe a bad conscience? Yet she still talked back as always, hiding something.
Was it too much, did she like it? He wondered about the previous night.
It was all friendly, right? His head throbbed still.
He recalled shared laughs and his stomach reacted accordingly when he relived their shared touches. The more intimate talk, coupled with the returned book and those passages she had underlined. He recalled the ones that stuck in his head.
"You are always slipping away," Jeffrey said, towering above Britney who sprawled in his bed.
Her doe eyes inspected him from beneath his figure. She was ready to face him once and for all, now where her facade had crumbled.
"You're still running and hiding, never telling the truth," he took a breath as his fingers played with a lock of her red hair.
You're always such a diligent friend that I sometimes feel you must hate me for pushing you way too much," his big palm caressed her face and she leaned into it, eyes watery.
"But I know it's just an act. I see how you blush when I'm near, how you're looking at me. Call me presumptuous, but I just know. Yet you're still escaping me," he carefully vocalized his thoughts and she gave a shy smile back.
"Make me stay then," her green eyes pierced his soul and in that moment he understood.
"I will," he promised, taken aback by her sudden boldness as she grabbed his hair and pulled him toward her with such a need and lust it took his breath away.
An interesting choice to note. The silent photographer thought but smiled, imagining Somin reading the lines.
He could see her pink pencil underlining the passage and making a small heart near the "Make me stay" line in his mind. He wished he could have been there in the moment.
...
The clock slowly cut into the evening as Teho waited. He read the story for a while and thought about Somin the whole time. He cockily marked his favorite part with a pencil to not ruin her book, but to let her into his thoughts too. He burst into laughter here and there, not expecting a romance novel be so lighthearted. It felt like he could get a glimpse of what was inside the pink-haired girl's head.
An alarm gave off the signal that it was about time to roam the city, capturing what it offered him.
Work. The only state which helped him to focus.
Teho looked forward to the melancholic loneliness of endless strolling. A little bit of adrenalin where he had to run away from an angry drunk or group of hooligans. Not unusual to stumble on these groups at night.
His tired self looked to this late hour with expectation. Time to straighten up my head.
He got up and clothed himself in all black to blend into the shadows. He downed the rest of his late-night coffee and got going. Veins pumped from the caffeine and nervousness in the back of his mind.
I have plenty of friends, she's... just that. Right? He assured himself with Somin still on his mind.
...
Sharp wind attacked Teho's eyes the moment he stepped out. He pulled his backpack more tightly into his back and breathed into a black scarf around his neck.
The surroundings made him seem like a steampunk villain. This slender, shadowy figure sneaked up on the outskirts of the city at an ungodly hour. He lived his fantasy, feeling like a character from a book he had read not so long ago. The adventure the night strolls gave him filled him with a deep satisfaction.
The photographer hadn't had anything specific in mind. He crept forward, looking around sharply, hoping for something to catch his eye. For all the years he had spent in this city he felt it still had so much to offer.
The boy surrendered to the artistic flow, scaling several stairs, and looking into dark corners. Watching neon signs that flashed into the night in different colors. The wind still strong sent a plastic bag flying in a spiral.
The city looked empty, abandoned, inviting him and his ideas in.
The concept was built on the back of his head. Inspired he saw himself augmenting the color palette to create a stylized, rugged, cyberpunk environment. Even though he snapped pictures of ordinary corners, he saw his own story in it.
If he manipulated the photos in post to give them pinkish and bluish hues it would elevate the whole motif.
The pink color popped into his mind as a conclusion of his romance reading and the blue complimented its light tones. He saw it in his mind. The color palette would lend the pictures an unnerving undertone, and despite the poisonous color shift, it would feel cold and empty. Pink and blue.
Why these? He wondered about the unusual choice.
...
All types of surfaces caught his eye and he tried to find strange new angles in which to capture them.
Graffiti-tagged windows of the surrounding first-floor building looked like alien language pamphlets. The unreadable letters bled into each other and the cast shadows lent them an out-of-this-world aesthetic.
Details of an old car park would craft otherworldly silhouettes if he cropped them just right. He snapped several pictures. The detail of the antenna, rearview mirror, wheels, the door handle. All distorted, showing uncanny scenery in their reflections.
And so it went: a macro close-up of a spider with his web on the intriguing building structure, a tram going his way that glowed like a spacecraft from another world.
When he pictured the color spectrum he had chosen everything showed itself in a new light.
He smiled happily. My strange world.
The boy cracked open his Redbull, seated on the cold stairs. Joy from the rush of working, from all the composition he managed to snatch made him laugh out loud. No matter that he was freezing after walking two hours in the icy wind.
His watch showed the glowing numbers of 03:24 a.m. He breathed the coldness in as he drank the sweet caffeinated drink. The only thing he could think was:
Would Somin like these?
...
😳 Author's corner 😊
🌟 Do you walk alone at night? 🌟
...
🎨Illustrations of each chapter are available on my Wattpad acc, AO3 acc -klubickoArt🎨
