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"Sea-foam isn't blue," Guren chuckles, and Ceylan exasperatedly groans.
The descending sun blankets the playground in shades of crimson and apricot, berries of deep violent and shy sapphire lingering within the drifting clouds overhead. Guren leans against the railing marking the perimeters of the playground, the coldness of stainless steel seeping through his long-sleeved blouse. He turns to face Ceylan, who continues lamenting about his inevitable loss.
"Honestly? This isn’t a fair game!" Ceylan releases one of his more dramatic sighs, crossing his arms and raising his chin in (lighthearted) disdain. "You can't expect me to play a word game inspired by poetry. I have agonised enough over those Literature lessons in school about... um... Well, I forgot that book's name - but, you get what I mean!"
Guren snickers, wanting to say "no" just to tease the teenager. "Well, aren't you the mastermind of wordplay? Or maybe it's time for you to relinquish that title for someone else? Someone much more wittier?"
"That's besides the point!"
Persimmon flares of the afterglow cascade around the two playfully bickering teenagers, with leaves and twigs and abandoned cardigans of careless children adorning the playground set nearby. The swings were beginning to rust and a sanctuary of fallen leaves and branches were burrowing themselves into the base of the metal slide.
Guren breaks his gaze away from the whining Ceylan, his own laughter dying down as his eyes linger on the playground. The more he stares at the playground set, the more squeals and thudding footsteps he can hear. This place is inhabited by cacophonous melodies, and yet it is still a haven for children to release their burdens. Without this playground, there would not be peace in their hearts. Without peace, there would be no relief.
It is mid-Autumn and the maple trees are beginning to shed their leaves. Guren wonders if he misses the carefree world of a child.
His gaze shifts towards the horizon, arms growing tired from supporting his weight on the thin railing, but he doesn't mind it enough to change positions. There's a warm flare illuminating from the sun, a halo adorning its bright benevolence. Guren turns his head towards Ceylan, the blue of the latter's eyes and jacket a refreshing change from the sun's warm crimson.
Guren finds solace in the vivid indigos of Ceylan's irises and hair. Would the sun's halo flare fit nicely on the crown of Ceylan's head, like the goggles he wears around everywhere? Guren thinks it would.
He notices that Ceylan's eyes are on him and his lips are moving. Oh, he's speaking.
"I just- don't get what's so cool about it. It's just old people stringing a bunch of words together, and then having our teacher make us psychoanalyse why a colour represents sadness - or whatever." Ceylan blows a stray strand of hair out of his vision, quirking an eyebrow at Guren. "Thoughts, mighty Edgar Allan Poe Fanatic?"
Where did that come from? The aforementioned "fanatic" stretches from leaning against the railing, inhaling the soothing scent of the evening breeze and soon-to-be-slumbering city. Guren mulls over what Ceylan had mused. Something about it bothers him, and it's not the fact that Ceylan seems to harbour a personal grudge against the late poets of their society.
As Guren observes Ceylan nonchalantly lifting himself up onto the railing, struggling not to swing backwards, trying but failing to suppress a yelp, it clicks, sort of. The slight strain in the teenager's countenance, the unnatural lilt in his voice, the forced indifference... It's almost like Ceylan's emulating his old disposition, one that's outdated and belonging to the past.
A time long before the endless battles fought, scars adorned and tears shed. Long before their hands memorised the way their core bricks pressed into their palms, before adrenaline became synonymous with running into an interdimensional portal, before Death wrapped its anticipating, frighteningly-tangible fingers around the ridges of Bravenwolf's armour and Tributon's world shattered into two.
Guren looks on with wide, melancholic eyes as he sees an almost-fourteen-year-old boy struggling to return to a time much calmer, much less chaotic. He sees Ceylan fight a losing battle against time.
"Well, Guren?"
A few sparrows have landed nearby in a pile of leaves, twittering amongst themselves as they search for worms. Ceylan has successfully sat on the railing, watching Guren with legs swinging back and forth. The boy is tightly clenching the thin, steel beams.
I'll catch you if you fall, Guren wants to whisper.
Instead, he musters a smile. "Maybe... you're overthinking this."
It seems like his answer wasn't satisfactory, because Ceylan sighs. The blue-haired boy shrugs, slouching a bit and turning his attention to the sparrows, his frown replaced with a softer expression.
Guren wonders, once more, if Ceylan's gentle gaze could be crowned with a brilliant halo. Maybe it'll make the blue-haired boy feel a little less disturbed.
Whilst the Moon ascends and the Sun hides away, the two boys continue to admire the nature of Benham City. Guren notices the approaching dusk, and the faded brushes of Lapis Lazuli in the darkening sky. Time had crept away, slipping through the brittle fingers of the hourglass - as if only a moment ago, ember flecks of the afterglow swept through the sky. Guren gazes at the diming sky, eyes searching for stars (planets, galaxies, cosmoses, Quarton) that could invigorate nature's deep melancholy. His eyes land on Ceylan's vibrant blues again, now unfortunately enshrouded by the night's shadow.
The boy's eyes flit towards Guren's. Guren stares back and cracks a small smile to lighten the atmosphere. When had it grown heavy?
He watches Ceylan slide off the railing, slowly strolling towards the swings at the playground with his hands in his jacket's pockets. Guren follows behind, eyes trained on the golden wings embedded onto the back of Ceylan's jacket.
Ceylan sits on a swing, pushing his legs back and forth mindlessly as the equipment drifts further from and closer to, further from and closer to the ground.
"Guren," Ceylan says, steady voice cutting through the murky mess of the redhead's mind.
"Ceylan," Guren returns quietly, leaning against a tree trunk just a few feet away from the swings.
Ceylan rests his head on the swing's metal chains. He's clutching them tightly. "Do you... miss being thirteen?"
Guren holds his breath.
The sparrows flutter off with their worms. Some ants crawl around Guren's sneakers. The swing creaks quietly beneath Ceylan's weight. The world doesn't stop turning.
"Why, scared of the responsibilities that come with being fourteen?" Guren tries to tease. Ceylan frowns slightly and Guren's chest squeezes. That's his second dissatisfactory answer this evening.
"No. Well, yes-... Maybe," Ceylan utters stiffly, swinging back and forth and back and forth. He crushes dead leaves when his feet lands back on the ground, the swing creaking louder from the force. "I don't want new things, y'know? Which is weird, really. I like when my parents get me new stuff from overseas, or when I clear a new level in my games. I like those stuff. They're like rewards. They make me feel good."
The momentary silence seems to stretch on for longer than both of them like.
"But, getting old and doing all those boring adult things like taxes and groceries? No way! It's like- punishment for aging!"
And, how unfortunate is it for Guren to want to tell him that they've already begun dealing with adult stuff. It began with entering that mystical antique shop, and it's still with them through the subtle tug in their pockets. Red and blue, fire and ice, death and life, Guren and Ceylan; these qualities have become inseparable from them.
The world does not - will not - stop for them. It's unfair, disappointingly so.
And yet, Guren is stubborn and headstrong. It might be a product of months of donning crimson armour and wielding a searing blade, of exchanging short but encouraging speeches with three other boys, of learning - by heart - that even when he falls, he has to get up; if not for himself, then for the people he loves, the worlds he wants to protect, the laughter he wants to hear from children and adults alike.
In a quieter, more wistful voice, (this time a product of internalising every struggle and agony dealt by both friends and foes, from learning to mould pain into something much kinder,) Guren whispers, "Even then, I think you'll do fine."
Ceylan stops crushing the leaves beneath his boots.
That is Guren's cue to push off from the tree trunk. Slowly, he shuffles through the dead leaves, the stifling silence, the words left unsaid. He stops in front of Ceylan and he sees the struggling, faltering composure of an almost-fourteen-year-old boy, a warrior in blue armour, a wavering memento of childhood wonder. Guren pushes past the uncertainties and extends his hand out for Ceylan, for his friend, for a promise.
"And even if you don't, I'll catch you when you fall."
Ceylan stares up at him, expression unreadable. Guren purses his lips. Was third time not the charm?
No, that doesn't matter, because a firm hand clasps his outstretched one.
"Well, if that isn't how the story always goes," Ceylan chuckles, pulling himself up from the swing and stumbling forward. His shoulder presses against Guren's chest, but no one makes a move to push it off.
Guren can feel Ceylan's breath against his ear, steady but still unconsciously anxious. Instinctively, he tilts his head and rests it against Ceylan's. The latter reciprocates it like it's second nature. The world will not stop to let them breathe, but at least in such rare moments of respite, the wordless ease of their fingers lacing together and heads resting upon one another's shoulders is safe and enough.
"Well, life will always find a way to make me do it," Guren responds from where he buries his face into Ceylan's jacket.
This time, Ceylan laughs, true from within his heart. And it's the most beautiful thing Guren has ever heard.