Complementary Abilities

Michael’s abilities were no joke. He could make violet-coloured fireballs! I would say that the puffs of fire came out from his palms naturally as if it was born for him to yield that power. ‘It matches his eyes’. When the fireballs stayed still on his hand, it was sparkling- his eyes sparkled and mirrored the gliding movement of that aesthetic-burned flames. In addition, he said that the holocaust he managed to make could differ in shape- small but ferocious and enormous but also excruciating. That was the way he described it.

“Tiara, come here”. I ushered him with tiny steps. “Yes?”. “Here, try to put your hands near my flames”. I looked at him incredulously. “What, is that supposed to feel hot?”.

“No, not to you”.

“Huh, are you kidding me? I’m not going to do that”. The way I looked at those flames, it meant to be hot. Michael was insane to tell me to put my hands near that. It was a big no. “Hey, I told you that it’s not going to hurt you. Trust me, I know things”. He moved his jaw, pointing to his blazing flames, asked me to go on. I just went with the flow. I didn’t fully trust him, yet I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Right? What trifles thoughts. Then, I put both my hands near the flame. My hands closed the fire, like how you gathered your hands surrounding a light candle to prevent it from blowing off by the wind.

There. I didn’t feel any pain in lieu was a different feeling- cold and chilly. I opened my hands a bit with those flames became blue! I raised my head to him. “How?”. “Look, your power concealed mine. I make a hot-burned flame, but when you put your hands on it, it didn’t feel hot anymore. The fire feels cold. Amazing, right?”. I looked at the now blue flames.

“Yes, splendid. That’s mean our powers complement each other? I didn’t know a Haffu and a Muse can complement each other’s powers. It’s a shame that there’s only one Haffu in this world”. If there were more Haffus and Muse at those time, the war would not break out because there were creatures that could calm Muses down. Urgh, I didn’t know anymore. I spent that thought in the back of my mind, did not want to think about it. Never. I should come across that there was only me, a Muse that survived and one Haffu that stood by me. There was no peace in my dictionary of life. “It’s not because of that. I’ll tell you later. I’ll prepare dinner. Be right back.”. Michael scratched his neck. I watched him go. If not because of that then, because of what? I couldn’t care less about Michael’s lack of answers.

I raised my head to the sky. It showed that sunset had begun. It was a thin line between light and darkness. The twilight that I saw symbolizes the end of the light and apparent world and the beginning of the dark Orphic world. Most people were themselves only at nights, in this peaceful darkness, and your soul felt that, once the sun is down, it would be able to be free. Just how the owl waited for the night to come and spread its wings. Your soul waited for the same reason, to be who it was and enjoyed those few hours. Yeah, that was how I felt when the night came, the sunset. For being the only Muse, I did not know which path I wanted to take, which story I would make. In this forsaken and aphoristic world, even I wouldn’t know what this path with Michael would take me to. Was it right, but I knew the word right was irrelevant in my circumstances. I was solely helpless, useless and still weak. Could I make it? Survive in this evil-like world, or I was just the numb one who didn’t realize when they drown and hit rock bottom.

‘This is driving me crazy’.

I went inside to help Michael serve dinner. He was a good cook. The clacking noise of cutleries filled the kitchen area. We ate in silence. Michael was a calm and collected person. He talked when necessary and was not much a talker when he alone and obviously when eating. That was one of the reasons we didn’t eat together-it would be super awkward or that was only from my perspective. And he ate fast too, I was in my third spoon of the mushroom soup, but he was already at the sink, washing his dishes. When he was about to go to the living room, I took a chance to say, “Thank you for the meal”.As usual, he nodded and went off. Probably he would be back early in the morning.

These past two weeks, he was always like that. Dashed off in the middle of the night and as soon as I woke up, I saw him go for his morning jog. At first, all the fiasco went unnoticed by me because he was gone during my sleep hours! Eventually, I figured it out after the disappearance-Michael-during-the-night became his routine. I had no idea what was wrong with his head. Was I snoring too loud ‘till it became unbearable? Yeah, we didn’t know what we did when we were in our beauty sleep. I knew it would be pointless if I asked him. He would say ‘there’s nothing’ or ‘I will save it for later’. I just waited until he told me himself.

Maybe the truth was worse than I could imagine? That was why he was being so surreptitious. Having, keeping or revealing secrets were too much for a person to bear; therefore, Michael must have secrets that are hard to let out open or talk about with anyone. It was not my business anyway, but I could not help to feel distant- from him. It sounds ridiculous, crazy and out of nowhere, yet he was my comfort place. I knew I shouldn’t do this; nonetheless, I couldn’t help myself to rely more on him. He possibly might tell me someday.

After eating, I grabbed a towel and went to the bathroom, having my soap opera.

…

HE went out during the night, again. He couldn’t even count how many times he had done it. It had begun. He tousled his hair frustratingly and then buried his face in his arms that secured his knees perfectly. He raised his head- his countenance uncontrollably went pink.

“It’s hard, it’s really hard to hold myself back”.

…