Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

The silence of the night was a vast contrast to the noise of the day. One could hear the breeze through the leaves and the crickets in the grass. The trickling of streams. The splash of a fish’s fin breaking the water’s surface before diving back in. Gravel crunching under each step. The air was still, hushed. Every quiet sound that had been lost to the day now amplified.

However, Zero could only hear his pulse pounding in his ears, fast and hard, the constant drumming drowning out everything around.

He felt…

He wasn’t sure.

Being around Ivy had become second nature. Something that seemed to have just always been despite having spent most of his life without her. He didn’t question how his hand sought hers only for her fingers with entwine through his instantaneously. How she knew the words he couldn’t give voice to. The way her presence soothed the uncertainty he had for the world around him and calmed his mind of its undecipherable commotion.

But it was hard to clear his mind when Sakura kept popping into it, telling him to smile and compliment Ivy. To do things he was uncertain of how to do. The woman was always so ruthless, and really making his life more difficult than it needed to be lately. If she wasn’t trying to fight him, then she was turning things around and making him fight with himself.

He glanced at the girl walking beside him in the iridescent glow of a long stretch of lilies on either side of their current path. She was beautiful, he’d always thought so. She had a way at putting him at ease effortlessly, making it worthwhile for him to get through every day and look forward to the next. She was sweet and exuberant, and he liked to listen to her lovely, airy voice and the way the pitch changed with her emotions.

But tonight, Ivy had said very little, and Zero had nothing to listen to but his jumbled thoughts that he couldn’t make odds or ends of. Every time he started to grasp at something, he heard Sakura.

“Tell her she looks beautiful.”

Fear.

He realized the feeling he felt was fear.

But it was different than what he had felt so fully in the past. It didn’t overtake everything in him, crushing his chest, making it excruciatingly painful to draw air into his lungs. His blood didn’t run like ice as his muscles locked and skin prickled. He didn’t dread this fear. It was slight, and it nibbled at his stomach and made his mind race faster than he could comprehend. He much rather preferred this feeling. But he still didn’t like it.

The girl was normally the one to initiate and carry on conversations while Zero was perfectly content to just follow along, being lulled by the melody of her words. He didn’t have to speak first often and when he did, Ivy would effortlessly pick up and take off with what he was trying to convey. But now she was mute, the air between them uncomfortable, the nibbling rising higher and becoming more prominent.

Zero didn’t know what had changed. Sure, Ivy had been nervous when they first entered Wei Wen, something he could understand. There were so many people crammed together despite the vastness of the city and the girl preferred the simplicity and openness that the rural areas provided. Places where she could move freely and not have to worry about the possibility of becoming separated and bombarded by the affections of mystified men.

But it had appeared that her spirits had lifted with the promise of the dress she wanted. When they had finally regrouped, she had pulled away from Ren at the first sight of the boy and plowed her way through the waves of people on the street until her body collided against his and her arms squeezed around him. Ivy was bursting at the seams with enthusiasm to the point that Zero couldn’t even attempt to keep up with her rapid chattering. He had no idea what she was talking about, but didn’t want to interrupt her articulation of joy, so he nodded along which seemed to be sufficient enough for the girl. Doing so left him to focus on other things, such as the closeness of their bodies as her arms clung tightly to his, the vibrancy of her violet eyes, the lure of her voice.

Ivy’s excitement had carried them through supper, the girl only touching her food at Sakura’s constant insistence while she pried Ren for hints as to where he was taking them that night. The man had done an excellent job in winding her up even tighter to the point that she was latching onto the woman’s arm and dragging her from the restaurant before she had even finished her meal in order to prepare for the night.

It was only when Zero entered the room once the two women were ready had everything seemed to change. No longer was Ivy her normal, talkative, bubbly self, but rather standoffish and mum. He had no idea what had transpired in that short amount of time to change her demeanor so much.

Zero carefully observed the girl beside him. It didn’t seem like she was mad or upset. There were no tears or pouting, her face soft and not twisted with anger. She still walked hand in hand with him and had willingly done so, but her head was kept down and her eyes had been actively avoiding his. Not so much as a single word had passed her lips since they separated from Ren and Sakura, and there wasn’t much sign of that changing anytime soon.

The devil didn’t like it.

Ren would tell him that we either do something or we don’t. Thinking about it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing will change unless we make it.

It was up to Zero to make the change.

“Are you okay?” It was the only thing he could string together, and it would have to do.

Ivy’s head snapped up, surprised at the sudden question, her cheeks a soft pink. “Oh! Um, yeah.” She attempted a smile that fell hollow before turning away, her eyes never reaching his.

This was so much harder than he thought it’d be.

“You’re quiet.” Coming from the boy who was always quiet.

The girl looked at her feet, watching each step. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He waited, but nothing more came. “Why?”

The blush deepened as she chewed on her lip, the silence only growing louder. The boy was already all out of ideas in how to proceed forward. He couldn’t force her to talk, and he wouldn’t know how to even if that was what he wanted.

But he wouldn’t have to.

“I was so excited for tonight. I really, really was.” Everything came spewing from the girl’s mouth without so much as a breath to break it apart. “I got this pretty dress and even new shoes and I couldn’t wait to be able to walk around the gardens with you. But then you and Ren heard Sakura and me talking and it’s just… it’s really embarrassing.”

Zero still didn’t understand. “Why is it embarrassing?”

Her face shot up, finally looking at the boy. “Because you heard me talking about my breasts and…” Her mouth snapped shut and she froze up like a frightened rabbit.

So that was it.

The devil had heard the two women talking in the room as he and the angel waited in the hallway, leaning against the wall that acted as a visual barrier and little else. He didn’t think much of anything that was being said even though Ren appeared highly amused by it.

But at that moment, as Zero considered it for the first time, he realized Ivy had seemed concerned over the state of her chest and how it fit in her dress. She stated her desire to have it be bigger, similar to Sakura's, to make the dress look better.

The boy didn’t notice anything wrong with how they looked as they were now. They fit her dainty frame perfectly, her body curving and dipping in all the right places, and he didn’t see any reason for that to change. There were mornings where he would awaken to her arms cradling his head against them, her fingers tangled through his hair, as he listened to and felt the beating of her heart. He always enjoyed waking up in that way very much.

He should let her know.

“They’re very nice,” Zero said simply, blatantly observing the area in question. “I like them a lot.”

He liked everything about Ivy.

But maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say.

The girl’s face burned even brighter and her eyes went wide in horror as a startled squeak escaped from her gaping mouth.

“That wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?” None of this was going well. Maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut from the beginning?

Ivy’s bottom lip puckered out, and looked as if she was about to cry. But the corners soon lifted towards her brightened eyes as she started to laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh.

Zero watched her struggling to breathe, tears streaming down her face as she tried to wipe them away, but they fell faster than she could capture them. She released his hand, needing both arms to steady herself as her body shook with the sound.

The boy was amazed by everything she did, and how natural and effortless it was for her to do all the things he didn’t understand.

He wanted to be more like her.

To experience the same things as her.

To do everything together with her.

To be with her.

Always.

Ivy looked up at the devil, her laughter drying up and replaced with a look of awe. “Zero.” She took his face in her hands. “You’re smiling.”

He hadn’t known.

“Is it bad?” It normally was not good from what he’d been told.

She shook her head. “No. It’s good. It’s really good. You have a beautiful smile.”

Beautiful.

He should tell her.

“You’re beautiful.”

The most beautiful thing he had ever known.

The girl’s eyes darted to the ground but quickly peered back up at him, determined to not look away. “Thank you.” She took her hands from his cheeks and encircled them around his arm, continuing to steer them along the path as her head tilted to rest against his arm and her lips curved with delight. “I like when you say that to me.”

And he liked Ivy.

More than anything.