Hito and Yume

Chapter 5 - `How about this?`

Hito wakes shortly before 7:20, a bit later than normal but reasonable enough to give him enough time to be ready for school. He does his morning things, forgetting any dreams he had in the night just passed. He can still remember the things he thought about before falling asleep. Wishing he knew what his amazing looking lover felt like to hold and to kiss.

His school uniform is quite the normal sort. Black school trousers, plain white shirt and a blazer to go over it along with a clip on white and blue tie. The logo embroidered onto the upper left pocket of the blazer is of a blue shield split into quarters surrounded by a white circle In each quarter of the shield is a different image representing four of the more basic human moral standards and right: equal treatment, responsibilities, justice, and finally the right to speak freely. Everything fits, but the blazer is slightly too big. He'll grow into it, eventually (give it a few years maybe).

It's not always comfy to wear but when you've been in it for 10 minutes you forget about anything that makes it uncomfortable or awkward to wear and get on with life. There's not much to it, and it's not a very complicated uniform to wear either. It definitely makes the kids of this school stand out from everyone around them from other places or schools.

Clouds are gathering outside, with indications of possible rain in them too. They've been building up over the weekend but Hito hasn't been out so he doesn't know this. They moved in from the west, from the ocean not too far away. On the upper parts of Iithana you could've seen it moving in over the past few days.

From leaving the house to getting into school Hito doesn't stop thinking about what he and Yume might do today. A few elements of some dreams could be realised should he find a good spot, but if he doesn't there's always discussions of what they could do in the future. There's topics he'll definitely avoid until they're really alone.

"Hey Hi," Yume says while Hito sits down next to him at his desk. "Sleep well?"

"Guess so. You?"

"Same. There's stuff I want to talk about later ok?" Yume's tone sounds down. Hito tries to ignore it for now, putting it down to just tiredness but he knows it may be something else.

"Fine with me. It's probably going to rain soon, look outside." And with that Yume looks out to the window, showing a gloomy sky.

"Ah. Well that stuff I want to talk about will have to wait if it's raining at break."

"Oh yeah, break changes to 15 minutes now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. We'll find out now anyway." Hito says while Mrs. Partina enters the room. Not a moment later, the rest of the room falls silent.

"Good morning everyone, I hope you enjoyed your weekend." She says in her usual business like tone. "Today, you get timetables and your breaks are shortened down since you're no longer new."

A series of "aws" echos out from around the room as everyone realises it's going to be far more droning from here on out. I'm sure you'd be disappointed too if your break was shortened.

"Lessons are an hour long each, starting at 9am, 10:15am, 11:30am, 1pm and 2:15pm. Lunch break is between 12:30 and 1. Other breaks separate each lesson for 15 minutes. Timetables are being passed around." With that, she hands out a stack of timetables to the first person in front of her, who takes one and passes the stack back.

"So what's first?" Hito asks when Yume gets his timetable.

"See for yourself." Yume replies, showing Hito the timetable.

"Really? This early?" The timetable is like a grid, with sessions marked. In the first box for Monday is the most boring session they can get, English. Every session they've had so far has been droning.

"Yeah, sucks I know." He sighs. "Well, stuck with it now. Bet the others have an interesting grade tutor."

And so, for the hour after registration finishes, they're bored by the droning of Mrs. Partina. They're relieved to be let out at break, even if it's only for 15 minutes. The theories behind why Morphantius wrote the Churran plays were, put blunt, irrelevant to their futures and quite boring to the point of preferring to faceplant the wall than listening to it. I'd join in if I were victim to her current method of teaching too.

"Hasn't rained yet." Hito asks quietly to Yume while they put their things away at the end of the session. "Think it will?"

"Probably." Yume replies, looking outside for a few seconds while he continues to shove things into his bag. The clouds are thicker, and darker, than they were earlier. A wind has surfaced too, and is ruffling a leaves on trees either side of the window.

"Come on then" Hito says before walking out the door separating the class from the hallway. Yume catches up quickly, and continues their conversation while they walk outside.

"If it rains, what can we do?" They have only one relatively isolated place at school to be together at, and being outside it'd be a bit of a bad idea if tried to go there while it's raining.

"No idea, but I'd start with going inside."

"Haha."

They take a short moment to settle themselves at the tree. It's a chilly wind, but once they circle around the tree they find a spot where the tree defends against it and sit themselves down.

"So what'd you want to talk about?" Hito asks. He looks at Yume, trying to see if anything in his face gives away what he wants to talk about.

Yume looks around quickly, before saying "us" quietly.

"Why?" Is this a bad thing? Good thing? Maybe it'll be good news. A thousand different things flood through Hito's mind on what it could be, with many of those possibilities scaring him at the same time.

"How do we keep us quiet?" Yume whispers back to Hito.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, people are going to notice us. We're here by ourselves everyday."

"So? Everyone has their own small group of friends."

"We're different around each other. I heard some of the others talking about how we're always by `the tree` before you came in."

"They're watching us?"

"I think so. I think they think that we're together or something."

They sit quiet for a few moments. The other kids watch them? Surely they have better things to do than watch two boys by a tree talking with each other? And even if they did, why would that make them think they're together? Are Iithanaian kids taught to do this by their parents?

"Maybe we should try find a new place to spend breaks at?" Hito says, after a few moments thinking of what he was last night.

"Where should we start?"

"Around here? We're already here."

"Sure."

The two boys stand up, collect themselves and start to walk back to the building.

"How long do we have?" Yume asks.

Hito looks down at his watch, which reads 10:10am. "Five minutes." He says.

"No point looking yet. Lets head back to class."

"We're already doing that." Hito states, and from there forward they're pretty much silent. The noise of maybe 60 people in a hallway is, well, noisy.

And what of their next lesson? Science, which comes as no surprise when Mrs. Partina orders them, once again, to take out their exercise books and a pen. If you could hear thoughts, 27 `help me's` would be echoing across the room.

The session goes as expected for the first 20 minutes, and then the usual method changes. Mrs. Partina has plans for a more visual demostration of something. Not too sure what it is, but she's ordering people around to get things. Hito and Yume being two of those ordered around.

"You two, find me four conical flasks, they'll be somewhere in the science tech office." It's only across the hallway. The pair head over, and on knocking the windowless door there's no immediate response. They wait for a moment, and knock again, this time with a response.

"Come in." Comes a male voice from inside. Turning the handle, the boys walk into a room with shelves lining the walls and a table in the middle, various pieces of scientific equipment spread across it. It looks like a complicated setup, but they'll eventually understand it. "Wait there for a moment," the voice owner says, before disappearing around a corner.

"Okay." The boys let the door close behind them. Looking around the room, there's all sorts of things around the place. Batteries, circuit lights, volt- and amp-meters, bunches of wires tangled together in a mass back in the far corner.

A few moments later, the voice owner returns. "What do you need?" He grumpily asks the boys. Clearly he didn't wake up quite right this morning.

"Four conical flasks please" Yume says, with Hito sticking quiet behind him.

"One moment." The tech says, and again he disappears into the depths of the room.

It is an interesting room. There's a lot of things around that they know they'll probably never get to use. Some look interesting, others look unusual, while other things look extremely complicated. It smells of burnt gas, which you'd expect in a room like this. In terms of lighting, it's not the best. Window with blinds closed and roof mounted lights that aren't in the best of states.

Amongst their waiting, they both become very aware of this isolation from the rest of the building. There's no way to see in. In one mind he thinks of the boy to his left, with the angelic body he desires so much to hold and to kiss. In the other, it's just the idea of kissing. I'll let you put names to them.

"Yu, " Hito says, believing whoever the tech is to be too far away to hear the quiet voices they have, "is there anyone else in here?"

"I don't think so." He immediately responds. Yume too knows what Hito wants, so he skips all the asking and takes both of Hito's hands in his own. The minds of the two flood with the moment, and the electric of their desires take over for a moment.

In a forever and some they inch closer to one another until their faces are touching one another. Each boy can feel the breath of the other, and can smell the other too. They desire more than just this. In the mind of them both the reality of this moment is a barely believable one. They're both together, pretty much alone, where they can have one another. They only take a moment to absorb the air and smell of one another before they move closer. Turning their heads in opposing directions, their lips move closer to one another until, finally, they're touching. A tsunami of electric fire runs through both of them as contact is finally made.

In that instant they're taken to a world neither could imagine. The only thing they can see is one another, even when they close their eyes. They allow contact to persist for more than a moment, for what feels like forever in heaven, before they break it off. I think it's self explanatory that neither wanted to. The two of them are in love, what pair lovers wouldn't want to kiss so strongly and passionately?

They're fortunate they broke it off then too, because the science tech calls around the corner. "Alright, here you go." He says, handing them two flasks each. They file out of the room after thanking him, and return to the class.

The remainder of the day together is spent desiring that kiss again. A single moment, burnt into both of their memories permanently. It's a first kiss for Hito. First for Yume too. The magic of their time in such intimate contact with one another will be repeated, they're not about to let it be the last time.

They're never given another chance to do it. They do look around the school, spot out a few places, but other people already use those places for more "normal" interactions and such. The standard sort of heterosexual kissing between a boy and a girl.

And for the next week they don't get to kiss again. Lessons go on, boring as they always are, and the pair aren't ever alone enough anywhere around the school to get another moment where kissing can happen. The most they could do was hold hands at their tree. A beautiful feeling for them both, but at the same time leaving so much to desire.