Fatin Ishteaaque, Period 1, 10/12/21

 This is just how the world works. It’s unfair. Since the moment you're born your whole life is planned for you. Society gives you a role, your environment makes your choices, and the world tries to stop you. That’s just how it goes, everyone understands that to some extent. Fumio understands this, and so does Shira, but the way they react to such knowledge is what sets them apart as people. Fumio is a well built young man, standing at 185 cm, his dark hair and broad shoulders would make you think he has to be some sort of athlete. Although he is well fit, he also focuses himself on his studies, and scores the highest marks on tests, there is no doubt that he’s assured his first college choice. Shira on the other hand is a more freelancer, social type of person. Despite being rather short, she easily makes friends with anyone she meets using her cheerful aura and personality. Her light blonde hair and small structure absorbs the attention of every guy around her. Little did these two opposites know, their lives were connected from the very moments they both set foot in Chicago.  

Fumio dreamt of one day becoming a strong actor, and as all shy and dedicated people, he decided to take it one step further. He dedicated his entire life to experiencing everything one possibly could, so he could be ready for any possible role he might ever have to play.  Ignoring his social awkwardness and lack of human interaction, he has experienced just about everything a highschooler can, except for what his friends constantly bug him about. You see, as a senior in high school Fumio was at that perfect age to start experimenting, with his bodily pleasures.  He never thought about that though. Shira on the other hand goes with the flow, she is talented in every field you could think of, and dreams of just going wherever the world decides to take her. 

As a soon to be drama major in NorthWestern University, Fumio never really met Shira, who went to UChicago. However after a few days of wandering the city he noticed something, something rather odd. Whenever he went out, he always saw the same girl. No matter where he was she was always there, almost as if she was following him, but whenever he looked at her, all he saw was the look on her face, carefree and not a hint of malice. Any trace of doubt would vanish, there was no way she could be following him! One day he made a mistake, he looked straight into her eyes. He became encapsulated, her light blue eyes made him feel the calmness of an ocean. He couldn’t move, his thoughts had vanished, and the only thing he felt was heat, yet he was cool at the same time. Not even the young scholar could understand what was happening to him. That's when she turned to him. Their eyes meet and locked into each other, breaking Fumio out of his trance. The heat overpowered the cool, the collected figure he held for 18 years of life broke, as he quickly reverted his gaze and sprinted away. After reaching quite a distance he bends over his knees, and wipes his sweat. All of a sudden he began to feel everything, his hair wet and dripping on his head, he felt his clothes on his skin and his lungs pumping faster than ever before, furiously trying to keep up with the speed his legs moved.

“What is this”, he thought to himself, “why does my head hurt, what’s going on”?

“Fumio?” Reads a voice in the distance. He looked up and saw a brown haired woman, only slightly shorter than his standing height. Her skinny jeans contrasted her white and red t-shirt, yet matched with her satchel bag. It was his older sister Bria, who worked at a research lab in New York. She’s a constant mess, to put it in easy terms. When she isn’t at work, she’s drunk, but above everything, her little brother comes first. After Fumio’s dreams were abandoned by his parents, only she supported him and watched over him whenever he needed.

“B-Bria?”, he questions, “what are you doing here?”

“Believe it or not, I can do more than drink. I came to surprise you!" Fumio stares at the woman blankly. "Wow you don't seem happy to see me. Anyways, aren't you graduating soon? You should look the part as well, y'know.”

 She waits for a response, but to no avail. Fumio appears to be lost in thought or perhaps his mind is simply preoccupied. “Is everything okay? You’re usually a lot more put together than this.”

“Nothing, just a bit tired from the exams.” There were no exams, but how could Fumio tell his sister there was something he didn’t understand, she would never let him live it down. "Okay then." She knew something was up, but she brushed it off and decided to give him his space.

But what did happen to him? That’s what he thought about the entire time. Looking down at his feet, he entranced himself in thought: who is this girl? Why does he keep seeing her? As they walked he noticed something out of the corner of his eye, as his neck bent up to get a better look, he felt a thump in front of him. He looks down and sees blonde hair covering the face of a young girl. He immediately recognizes the situation, and turns away, shying himself. While never actually looking at the girl he helps her to her feet. Feeling disrespectful he looked down, so as to avoid her eyes, but still show apology. His face showed a light pink, one of bashfulness and shame, at least that’s what he assumed, but his mind was elsewhere. She smelled good. Wait? What? That’s a bit weird, Fumio started thinking. Wait, no it isn’t, Fumio isn’t that kind of guy, but when something smells good, you notice. Melted chocolate, no; vanilla, maybe both.  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was beautiful, not nostalgic, but more reminiscent. Or maybe it was the other way around. Fumio wasn’t thinking clearly; he couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Whatever the smell was, it was sweet, it was strong, it was... odd. He gawked at the ground, his hair covering his eyes, he didn’t even know what he was staring at. He stayed like this until a voice spoke up. At first he thought it was the girl, and rushed to face up and get a look only to see Bria there with her mouth covered by her fingers. 

“Ho-ho, Fumio you’re looking pretty red right now. Could it be you,” she closes in on his ears, “like her?” No response came from him. He was dumbfounded and shaken. Did he like her? No way, he didn’t even know her yet, but she did stick out to him a lot. Is that what liking someone is? Being able to find them in a crowd easily? Just maybe it is, but how would Fumio know that, after all, the only thing he hasn’t experienced before is love. No, there are more important things in his life right now, he has no need to worry about something like that. He just finished an audition for a play a few hours ago, he wanted to get home and rest for a bit. Of course the world had other plans for him.

“SHIRA!” yells the happy go lucky voice of Bria, who already forgot about her brother’s blushed trance. “Glad you’re here, I was just about to go to take this nerd to the mall, and you’re coming too.” The girl, who is now known as Shira, looks up and opens her mouth in a rather wide manner, spreading her happiness from ear to ear, as if she was about to yell or laugh.

“Excuse me?” Fumio questions before she can say anything. “I have no recollection of ever saying I was going to the mall.” Bria grins, she covers the left side of the mouth with her right hand, so as Shira cannot see, and mouths “You’re Welcome.” Fumio clenches his teeth inside his mouth, this was a drag off of his day. 

“Why am I here? I just want to go home.” That’s what you would think  Fumio was thinking about. In actuality his mind was blank. He felt and thought of nothing. This was the first time in his life he ever felt this way. It doesn’t matter, there is some reason behind it, right? After all the world decided that this would happen to him one day, the world must also have some plan for him afterwards. The genius boy himself was found dumbfounded but couldn’t even manage the ability to know that. Everything about this girl his sister forced him to stand next to was too much for him to comprehend. Speaking rationally, she wasn’t anything different from other girls who Fumio has met, and Fumio doesn’t know anything outside of rationality. This led to a psychological crash in his mental state, when he can’t wrap his head around his feelings. Although she wasn’t special to him, she still felt odd. One could say it was aura, but those don’t exist, or do they? Right now Fumio wasn’t sure of anything, his eyes looked blankly at the ground, losing their dark brown color. There had to be something that separated her from others, a smell can’t have that effect, anyone can buy a good perfume. It must’ve been her voice. It sounded…….. What did it sound like? Fumio was sure that he heard her speak before, he could swear on it. Hell she was talking to Bria right now. Why can’t he hear her? His mind was blank, yet he couldn’t hear what she was saying, he could understand his sister’s words and he could see Shira’s mouth moving. That was it, he was caught too off guard, there was nothing dazing him and nothing abnormal happening, he was just surprised by the odd events that took place in such a short amount of time. That, along with the fact he just had an audition, obviously he would feel some amount of fatigue that would affect his mental function. He just has to forget about this entire thing, his sister was being her normal, nosy self, trying to set him up and instigate his relationships. He held no feeling for this girl, looking at someone’s eyes once wasn’t enough to spark a relationship, after all, true love doesn’t exist. 

Just when Fumio realized this and was breaking out of his trance the girl spoke up yet again. Shira. Her name was Shira, why couldn’t Fumio just remember that. No, it’s not important, he’ll probably never meet her again anyways. What matters is that he gets home and gets some rest soon. While in this train of thought he completely negates himself escaping his trance. This is crazy, yet again he missed hearing Shira’s voice. Wait, no. It doesn’t matter! Why should he hear her voice? He doesn’t need this information, so why was he so stuck up about it?

“Helloooo? Earth to Fumi” said the hard voice of Bria, although attempting to sound soft. 

“Please, never call me that again” he replies., while pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Would you look at that, he’s alive! And don’t worry about the name, I'll only call you that until you stop being a child.” She turns her head to Shira, “Feel free to call him that anytime.”

“Whatever, do what you want.” He replies. 

“Well what I was saying was, we should take a break. We’ve been going around for a while now and I can tell that our resident scholar is getting a bit tired. I never even thought that was possible to be honest.” She points at the fountain nearby. “That looks as good a spot as any.”

The group sat down on the fountain and took some time to rest their legs. Bria, or course, sets Shira down right next to Fumio, who avoided falling into another trance. 

“So Shira, how have you been? I’m sure the boyfriend hunt is going well.” She looks Fumio dead in the eye and winks. Fumio knows he can’t let such an act go scot free, and decides to retaliate.

“Boyfriend hunt? Ha!” He aggressively laughs. “Come on now, that's not how this stuff works. What’s the point in looking for a relationship, they’re nothing but roles society made for us to fall into our places, no point in having one if you can’t actually love each other right?” His sister starts shaking her head while facing down, she knew he would probably say that but was still disappointed in his lack of growth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it just doesn’t work like that, we just follow the path that the world leaves out for us.” Less aggressive, but more assertive is how his tone changed. He spoke with such confidence and with such a care-free face, not even he expected to be smacked by his sister.

“Fumio!” She yells, now standing over him, her face beet red out of anger and embarrassment. It was the first time in a while Fumio had seen her so serious, and she only gets this way when Fumio does something to anger her, which doesn’t happen often at all. His eyes widened from the shock, his hand holding his right cheek as his eyebrows bent to a look of confusion. “How dare you! Love is very much real and I’m getting tired of your carefree philosophy! What if the world chose not to  let you act, huh!? Would you still follow that!?” Fumio was barely affected by this slander. He hears it all the time from other people. What surprised him was the fact that his sister just told him the same things that his parents did.

“Yes. I would, whether it was acting or not, cause it all works out in the end.” Fumio looked back up at his sister preparing his dark eyes with a serious look, only for it to be shattered by Bria’s eyes. Tears had formed in her eyes, not a large amount, but the fact that Bria had gotten serious enough to even come close to crying was rare, and shocked Fumio. This was a terrible day for him, his world was changing and he couldn’t seem to piece together why. Bria wipes away her tears and smiles at Shira. 

“Sorry you had to see me like that, you don’t have to listen to this idiot, for someone so smart you would never think he would be so dense about these things.” Shira chuckled a bit, and looked straight at Bria. Her face showed she was having fun and enjoying herself with Bria, but her eyes told a different story. Only someone looking for it would be able to find it, luckily for Fumio, that was a skill that he had learned to be able to unconsciously use whenever he was reading someone’s eyes. She smiled and shaped her face to form a sort of satisfied look. Yet when Fumio looked at her eyes he was able to see that the shine that glared from them was nothing but a reflection of the sun, she was completely serious right now, however her high-pitched voice gave an opposite reading.
“Actually, I agree with him. Everything is already planned out for you from the moment you're born, whether you like it or not” Shira happily stated, “all of your choices are made for you, you can’t do that stuff yourself. I never thought that one of my juniors would be the first person I would meet to share that ideal.” 

Fumio stood up fast. He stared off into the distance, clenched his fist and bit his tongue inside his mouth. Almost as if he controlled it, the sun was angled to cast a shade covering his eyes, making his face seem a dark type of angry. The two girls stared up at him, dumbfounded. He sprinted away as fast as he could, yelling that he had to use the bathroom. When he reached there, he locked himself in a stall and leaned against a wall. He slowly fell down and put himself into a sitting position, holding his knees to his chest. He was going crazy, and his mind was running loops around this one girl. Sure there were some girls in the past who liked him, but he never felt anything like this when it came to them. He held his forehead, with his right hand over his right eye and noticed that tears had started flowing down his face. No, impossible. Fumio doesn’t cry, the last time he did he was a toddler. What’s happening to him, and why couldn’t he get this goddamn thought out of this head, just stop thinking about it! He can’t, and he doesn’t know why. It was her voice, it was beautiful. Legends were written about voices like this, that compelled and attracted men, only to trap them by their lust. Rubbing salt on his wounds, his brain also recognizes that the first thing he ever heard from that beautiful voice, was someone agreeing with his philosophy. How was he supposed to just take that? But why? Why is he acting like this? He didn’t think about anything, his body just acted on it’s own. When he was caught in his thoughts, he heard a banging on the door.

“Aye! Stop having a breakdown, I gotta shit man!”

“R-right, sorry”

Fumio wiped his eyes and left the stall to find a man a good amount smaller than him staring angrily, only to look up and move out of the way. Fumio ignored this, his mind was busy with other things right now, but why?