School Girls' Stories - New Generation

Chapter 58 – Midnight Farewells

The moment Rhapsody heard the noise upon her balcony she was awakened and racing towards the sliding glass window. Her first reaction was to protect herself, to lock herself in and start screaming, but as soon as the head ascended over the railing she stopped. She recognized the top of that head, she recognized the dark strands that were closer to his mother’s hair color than his siblings. She stepped out onto the balcony, softly, quietly, so she was there as he came over. He pushed himself far enough up so that he was eye to eye with her and stopped moving, not expecting her to be standing there in a long silken thing that he would have thought she was too young to wear and would not be wearing with a rapist in the next bedroom.

“Hi,” Sora said casually.

“Hi,” she said casually back. “I thought they sent you to military school.”

“I took a test so I could graduate early,” Sora admitting, propping himself so he sat on her railing, still not fully trespassing into her house, though he had trespassed upon their lawn and stolen their ladder to go up to that balcony.

“Congratulations,” she said. She did not know what else to say. “What are you doing here?”

“You are more blunt than usual,” Sora pointed out to her.

Rhapsody shrugged. “It is a little passed midnight and someone has just trespassed onto my balcony, I’m curious, and tired.”

Sora smiled at her. In all of the statements she never lost her calm, sincere, sweet voice. She never sounded angry, though most people would be; she never even let the curiosity slip into her voice. It was what he liked about her, what he wanted from her.

“I came here to say goodbye, or so long,” he admitted. “I’m joining the military and I thought… I wanted to see you before I did.”

For the first time there was a glimmer of real emotion across Rhapsody’s face. She stepped back unconsciously and seemed to be frightened… of him. Why, when he had only come to say goodbye to her? He knew after a moment’s hesitation. Every man who had shown her interest was interested in one thing from her. Sora had seen it, and seen results of it, and he did not want her to think that of him.

“Will you write me?” he asked quickly.

“What?” she looked genuinely surprised by his question.

“I will write you, so you have the address, but will you write me back?” he asked again.

She studied him for a very long time, her aquamarine eyes going over his face, his body, his face again. “What is it you want from me, Sora?” she finally asked.

“I want you to write me.”

“You came all of this way so I would write you?” she asked, the lightness back in her voice. She was quickly recovering from her shock and once again retaining the mask that her mother had taught her well over the years.

“Yes, and no,” he admitted. “Rhapsody, I want something from you, but not now, not like this, and not while you are still hurting from everything else. I want your heart, but I’m too old, you are too young. When you turn eighteen it will be different, but for now, it is not.”

“Sora…” she started quietly, “I’m not ready to give you an answer on that.”

“Then just tell me you will write me.”

Rhapsody looked at him with a sweet smile. “I can do that,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight. “Good night Sora.”

“I’m thrown away so easily,” he joked, climbing over the railing and onto his ladder, descending slowly.

Rhapsody went to the edge of the railing and looked down upon him. She did not say a word to him. There was no need for conversation. She just smiled at him, and he smiled back up at her. He wondered why she looked so wounded when all he had wanted to do was confess his feelings to her, but then, for just a brief moment, before he was far enough down where he could not see her room any longer, he saw the shadow hanging back. He knew now what that wounded look in her eyes was. Sora was not the only man after Rhapsody’s heart, and while Sora was away in the military Ashe would be only a room away.