Beyblade Fan Fiction ❯ Opaque Sky ❯ Part 1 ( One-Shot )

a/n: Everything published after this author note was written in 2007. I decided to publish the first part because I don't think I can finish writing the rest any time soon. It's hard to continue writing something you wrote three years ago. I can barely get back into the same mind frame. Also, I think my writing has gotten worse since then. Might as well hang this up on the wall as a memorial to when I was smrt and spewing endless creativity.

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Rukiabi: This is a one-shot TyKa hints fic that doesn't have much of a plot ^ ^; This isn't a story about love. It's about meeting, about relationships and bonds. The meeting isn't particularly special and neither are the adventures. This is about two who meet on an average day. Well, enjoy. (sorry if I bore you to death though)

 

Another experimental written piece. I believe I was attempting to challenge myself in the way I could produce effective imagery, symbolism, diction and overall flow.

 

Disclaimer: All characters of Beyblade are © of Aoki Takao.

 

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We all live under it, the sky that we cannot see through. It dares to trick us with its soft, silky pigment, illuminating the space with breathable ocean and white sails. Thousands of wings float upon those sails, putting their lives in the hands of those cotton pillars. It is always there above us. Looming over us with its bleached highlights, it gives us light and equanimity. So bold and faint at the same time; bold in colour, fading in time. There is even a moment when the birds and the sky and the mountains and the hills come into one frame; the sea swallowing them within its lustrous embrace, because up there, everything becomes one; one horizon, one heaven. There are times when one could feel as if they could touch that day. But I know the truth. I've felt the pull, tugging at my heart, snatching away my soul. Beyond that endless turquoise is a darkness so vast, it engulfs us whole, marooning a crystal ball of desert cold around us; and yet we can still smile within these clear blue bars, this sapphire cage, under the illusion of an opaque sky.

 

Eventually, the sky will change, from dawn to day to dusk. A never-ending cycle accompanied with the same infinite cry.

 

Evening-shine brushed the edges of its cool hands through the deep, lustful city in the sky. Reaching out my hand, I grasp desperately at nothing.

 

“Please… wait…!”

 

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Opaque Sky

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You know when you wake up in the morning? No. Sometimes it happens even when it's not daybreak. At night, when you wake up for a drink of water, it'll feel like you're still in a dream. The dream that you were previously entrapped in will still have its threads around you and it'll feel as if you're about to walk back into that fantasy. The world around you through your eyes will be framed with feathery edges, like everything was covered in a silk screen. And that first step out of bed will feel like slipping into a depthless pool of hidden desires. What is on the bottom of the well? You won't ever know unless you close your eyes and peer into your dreams. But before that happens, your mind will click in admittance that you're no longer asleep anymore. You're awake and you're going to get yourself a glass of water to quench your vigilant thirst. Sooner of later, everyone will awake from the phantasms they'd gotten themselves lost in and return to the real world. A reality of truth and lies mixed and combined into one, another dream; a dream that everybody shares together.

 

“Tyson my man! You're awake awfully early today. It hasn't even past 5AM! Didja catch some funny fish in that black hole of yurs before ya went to sleep?”

 

“What, seriously?!?” I stood flabbergasted in the middle of the kitchen, still holding my glass half full of water. Or maybe it was half empty. I slapped a hand on my face, “Uhh, why am I awake…?” It wasn't night that I had woken up in but the foreword of a sunrise.

 

Brushing his whiskers between his index finger and thumb, Gramps gave me an amused smile. “Ya know, this is an interesting time to discuss about your future..”

 

“Oh no, Gramps you're not going to start talking about school-”

 

“No my man! I'm talkin' about the food!” He pulled off a strip of lined paper initially stuck between a soy sauce shaped magnet and the fridge. On the thin piece of paper were tiny scribbled characters oddly fit together to form words such as: Fruit, Black Forest Ham, White Bread, etc. “I'm going out tomorrow for the whole day so I don't have time to go shoppin'. You're gonna haf to do it for me.”

 

“Oh,” I took the list Gramps had slammed down on the counter. Gotta love my grandpa, he knew exactly how and when to take advantage of people. “Sure, no prob Gramps.”

 

I love my town. I know every inch of it and all the people in it. I'm friendly with my neighbours and my neighbour's neighbours and everywhere I go, people will smile and say: “Hey Tyson!”, “Whatcha doin' today Tyson?” or “How's your grandpa these days?” Wherever I go, I'm welcomed; and I welcome everyone wherever I go. I love my town.

 

I never get lost because I know that my house is just two blocks away from the nearest corner store. One block east of the corner store is the noodle shop and also Kenny's house. Five blocks west of my house is Max's place. He lives a little farther away than all of my other friends, near the outskirts of some vegetable fields, but he's one of my closest buddies and most trusted protégé. Just outside my front gate, I can see a grey and white spotted roof of a peachy coloured house behind the white-washed house from across the road. The peach house belongs to the class president, Hilary Tachibana. Sometimes, I just don't know whether she's an annoying, snarky witch or an extremely reliable friend.

 

The sky was dusted light blue when I decided to take the river path to the supermarket in the heart of the town. I yawned. I had woken up wayyy too early in the morning for a growing boy my age. I was especially tired since my Gramps decided to give me my `morning practice' in kendo, blocks, high-jumps and evil glares. So I was really thankful to be given a days absence from my high-hollering grandfather- I mean, I loved him and all, but sometimes he could be a little… much.

 

Walking by the river in the morning was great. The air was cool and fresh and the pebble dotted grounds beneath my footsteps were moist and the sky- the sky… The sky was clear blue, spray painted with some small marshmallow shaped clouds. From where I was standing, it felt like the sky could fall on me any minute. It was swallowing me into its open umbrella and I was becoming a part of it. Bringing me back down to earth, I heard a soft rustling shuffle of lush green grass and satin pale skin.

 

I thought I knew everyone who lived in my town. I know I would definitely remember a boy with blue hair like mine and bleached bangs, but there he was, lying on his back on the slope of the hill. And I was standing on the path right above him. It wasn't strange to get visitors or tourists passing through town, only very rare. It's a small area and you could probably walk into the adjacent city within hours. But we're content living here; here it's quiet. Here you can slumber on herbaceous plants and not be bothered. Here you can view a sky so wide you'll become completely engrossed in it. He must be lost within the clouds now.

 

“Are you soaring?” I sat myself down beside him. A light breeze blew strands of hair across his jawbone. His pale complexion contrasted with pairs of blue triangles on each side of his cheeks.

 

“No,” His eyelashes fluttered, “I'm still here. I'm still on the ground.” Could a hundred words have described the beauty I saw within those pools of ruby-crystalled wine? How much have his sights touched to shine those orbs so limpid?

 

“You must have travelled far to get here.” He was silent. “Do you think you could take me with you?”

 

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I was always alone. Thinking back to my past, I can only remember a childhood of empty silence and snow-white cold. They said I was a special boy. I didn't need what everyone else had. Love. Family. Those were weaknesses of peasants and I was not of the lower class. I was of superior quality; of high-class status, so high, I could feel artic winds; so high, I lacked oxygen. And the bitter void space around me garrotted me of breath completely.

 

But I was fine. The icy sheet of solitude became my shield from the insistent tug of companionship. But it was okay because I was used to it. It was a fortress to hold my yearnings snared. But it hurt sometimes. I never revealed my true face because to peel off the mask meant to strip away the walls. But I wondered if I were to unlock the portal to the real me, who would be the one waiting for me on the other side? And what if... what if I had lost the key? What if I never had the passport from the beginning? What if there isn't a `real me'?

 

I've been to many places, I've seen many things, but everywhere I went, I went alone. I never bothered with anybody and no one bothered with me. So when I heard the footsteps of crunching gravel and moist sand, I was confounded to hear them stall just above my head; all the others would walk away from the past. But I was even more bewildered to feel that longing once again. No, it was a different desire. It was excitement. It was anticipation. But it must have also been disappointment. Where did the barriers that I had so strategically placed, that had paled my skin to a lifeless white so that none but a ghost could find me, go?

 

And then he spoke. It was a voice so calm and so sure that I was pulled out of my hidden soliloquy to respond to his clandestine meaning. But why? His face was darkened from the light of the day, but I could clearly see two glowing balls of crystal blue, washed in purity and honed in the laughter of angelic tears. Take you with me? It was a greeting that brought both heart-pounding confusion and lifting warmth in my body. Are those words that you would naturally utter to an unspecified person whom you had recently chanced upon? You don't even know me. You don't know if I am either a friend or a foe. Maybe I am neither. Maybe I am not truly here. Maybe I am just a figment of our imagination.

 

A cool draft shifted the weight to my feet. I didn't look back as I jaunted down the hill onto hard jagged stones and crushed glass, and I never once glanced back to see if he was following me along the shoreline of the stream. The sound of crunching gravel whispered to my ears from behind me, telling me all I needed to know. The strong gust blew my clothes tight against my back. I'll let the wind take me wherever I go. He would let me take him wherever he'd go, and zephyr pushed us forward.

 

We traced the edge of the bedded stream with our footsteps; with one foot right in front of the other we continued our journey onward. What lied ahead was not known. The fact that a mountain of boulders, gradient-ed by the still moving sun, were growing in our sights just ahead of us didn't truly tell the tale of what was to come. The future will always remain a mystery; it is one of the many mysteries that man cannot ever solve. Because there's such a thing as a future, people can move forward in life. Because I found out some time ago that I, too, had a future (it had been waiting for me outside my bedroom window), I was able to get here to this place, to this very moment in time.

 

I allowed the future to become my present for just a split second as I climbed the uneven hill of giant stone spheres and rectangular prisms. Each stone that I had hopped to, jumped from, and skipped over was individual and unique in its own way. And every seashell, barnacle, and dried-up seaweed that he'd staggered on each had their own personal memory. Every print that we made in the wet sand underneath the shadows of boulders was a mark of our own distinctive identity; they were evidences of our existence. I exist here in body, but do I truly exist here in soul? No. Souls don't exist. They were an idea created by people so that people themselves could feel that they were greater than just a body with the ability to comprehend. They wanted to feel that they were connected to some higher beings, those unselfishly given the titles of god, spiritually and that there was life after death.

 

Bounding off a particularly rough, large rock, I landed in soft, dry sand surrounded by bits and pieces of driftwood. Uncountable tiny treasures in shades of soft reds and browns were scattered across the desert by the sand's companion, the sea. Like hands, the ocean dragged its long, translucent fingers across the plane of yellow peach, shimmering off the sunlight. And I'm sure we both stood there for a while, in front of the wide view of the seemingly endless ocean, letting the wind comb through our hair. My sight was transfixed upon the fine line where the sea and the sky timidly touched, but never truly did. I want to be there. I want to be floating upon that depthless well and in that limitless sky at the same time.

 

“Seeing this makes me wish I were out there.” He stretched out an arm in front of him and fanned out his hand. “I can almost touch it, the wings of the seagulls.”

 

`There's a lot more to see, so much more.' With that last thought, I turned and began heading for the cement steps that would lead onto the dock, to another path, and another unknowing future. And the pair of sapphire eyes continued to follow me.

 

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part 1 of 2