A festival is here, and so is Jace

Every small town has its own traditions. Some have superstitions, some have festivals, some have their own language, and some have their own, very special people. This town had all of them.

Today, my morning started in his arms. I woke up to find a smile plastered on his beautiful face, although he was in a deep slumber. I planned to sleep some more, but something woke me up. There was a faint sound of music in the air. A jolly, catchy tune went on, a mix of violin, piano, cello, guitar, and a loud chorus of people.

I shifted on the bed, cautious not to wake him up, and tried to check the time. My watch was kept on the bedside table on the other side, and so was my mobile phone. A tug in my hand made me fall on his chest. A groggy voice hit me with a rush of dopamine.

"Don't wake up yet!"

"No?" I asked in the sweetest way possible. Only to see him chuckle in his half asleep mode.

"No. Stay where you are."

I flipped on my stomach and watched him resting. His face was slightly flushed, probably from the heat. It was not very hot, but here two bodies lay entangled to each other. I smirked reminiscing the things he did to me last night. Such an innocent, almost angelic face, and was such a freak under the sheets.

Here I used to think I was the freaky, demanding, bossy one in bed.

"Stop staring." He mumbled and covered his face with his free hand, while the other one still held mine.

"How do you know I am staring?" I took my face closer to his whisper. The music outside grew louder, with much fervour and intensity. It felt as though they were trying to wake up everybody around the corner.

"I can feel your it," he opened his eyes and squinted. The sunlight played hide and seek on his face.

'Wait," I offered, "Let me shut the window."

"Let it be," he held my hand tighter and pulled me closer. "I like the music."

"It's loud."

"It will go on for a week now. I wonder if Vee has made all the preparations yet."

Now I felt ignorant and awkward. "What preparations?" Someone in my head chimed in, "You should know about it."

"The festivals of the dragons. You seriously don't remember?" He asked me, and instantly his eyes changed from curious to regretful. "I am sorry. You are not supposed to remember it. Today onwards, the locales will celebrate the dragons for the next ten days. Today is just the beginning of it."

"Such a noisy beginning."

He smiled a little and continued, "It is just them, our noisy neighbour. They love to make a big deal out of everything."

I sat up and stretched. It must be quite late, I judged from the sunlight outside. There was more music in the air. I couldn't imagine what a ten-day-long festival might be like. "What do they do?"

My ambiguous question brought upon a fit of laughter. "Why do you look so horrified?"

I felt my cheeks heating up. While I was dying to crawl inside a safe space where the noise would not be able to touch even my shadow, I couldn't accept the fact that I looked horrified. I could feel my embarrassment of having my lover laughing at me. "I am not horrified," I mutter.

"You sure look horrified." He propped himself up on his elbows and asked me, his laughter fading now, "It's because of the loud music, isn't it?"

I tried to act cool and waved my hand in dismissal. "I am fine." My hands found my phone, and looking at the digital clock on the lock screen I decided it was time to get up. Today I had plans of shooting as many footages as I could for the next video, but this festival had given me another idea.

"What exactly do you do during this festival?" I asked Max, who was now donning his shirt.

"I drink myself to a blackout, and when I don't, I cry myself to sleep." He made a joke that hit me a little too hard. He was not unaware of it. "The festival brings me all my memories of you, you know. So it's a bleak affair to me. The people in the town go for a lot of different activities, though. In the old times, they would light up the town and do some rituals, but then the new kin started the partying culture. Hence, the music."

He had moved towards the windows. His face held a small, reminiscing chuckle, eyes vacant. I walked to him and pulled him for a kiss. One of my lovers once told me that kisses could melt stones if you knew how to do it correctly. I only wanted him to forget his pain.

"It was very difficult, isn't it?" I whispered and showered kisses on his cheeks, temples, lips. I wanted to go on. This was what I longed for, and now that I had it, I had no intentions to stop. He responded me with equal heat on his skin.

"Every night was like a living hell that I couldn't leave, because if I did, I wouldn't be able to see you again."

I wished I could make sense of what he said. I wished I could tell him about my days too, all the times I had thought of ending my life only to discover that nothing could kill me. I wanted to tell him that now everything was going to be fine, but before I could say so a knock on the doors broke the rhythm we were into.

I glared at the door panting. "Hey, lover boy, there's a man waiting for you downstairs. Says he's your friend, named Jace."

Vee spoke unnecesarily loud, making my blood boil in annoyance.

"I am going to tell him that you are not in the room and will meet him in a while."

It almost felt as though he knew what we were about to do and mocked me for not having enough time for it. I glanced at Max and felt happy that he showed the same annoyance as mine.

"Let me take care of you," I said and resumed where I was. My kisses trailed down his chest. One of his hands grabbed my hair, another rested on my shoulder. From my experience, I knew he was going to bury his nails on my skin. His moans drowned the annoying noises I had been dreading until now. I gently took off the shorts he was wearing, and took him in my mouth.

After some time, when he kissed me to wipe away the last remains of his essence with his tongue, my mouth responded hungrily to him. I was still not done.

After a long time I came downstairs. My body felt right. Max glowed in happiness. We were such pathetic, hopeless lovers, only time would tell what was in our future. By that time, Vee had talked Jace into checking in, and having a coffe with him. I caught a glimpse of a strange, almost transparent, white, cloudlike mass around Vee–like a live blanket had engulfed him to protect from the outside world.

The cloud dissipated in a flash sensing my presence. Vee scowled at me and left Jace alone.

I had never noticed that about him, I realised that as I saw him walking away.

"I though I will give you a surprise." Jace smiled broadly and hugged me.

"Thanks. Now tell me the truth," I said, returning the smile.

Jace and I were those friends who cared for each other, protected each other, had each other's back, but never interfered in each other's business. We could easily claim that we were best friends, but there were plenty that we did not know about each other. Like, I was not aware that he had a female friend who was in love with him, and he would bring that female friend to visit me.

"Crystal wanted to see the town. She said there was a festival starting from tomorrow, so I thought we'd just drop by. I was curious about the place too."

I eyed the woman carefully. She was probably a couple of years older than Jace, olive skin had a healthy shine, her long dark brown hair glimmered in sunlight, her small heart shaped face showed curiosity, and her eyes followed Jace affectionately.

"Actually, the festival has already started. Listen to that noise? That's how they start it here."

Jace introduced me and Crystal proudly, leaving me confused who or what was he proud for. It was my turn to show off, and I introduced Max. "This is Max. You do remember him back from the train, right? He was the one who invited me here."

Jace had a million questions in his mind. I could almost hear the questions as he eyed Max from head to heels. I stifled my laughter and said, "How about you two freshen up and we'll show you around?"

We watched them going upstairs. "Now, if I am not wrong, your girlfriend is also going to arrive very soon. Have you thought about it yet?"

There was a lot I had not thought about, like Amy, like how I was supposed to break the curse of this town and the old kin, like who was Emma and why was she looking for me, and most importantly, my memories from the last time I was with Max.