Alpha Belt
Venura Residence
August 2014
August 2014
“Doing okay?”
She sucked in a
breath. “Yeah. Okay. Definitely better.” Miles let a small smirk curve his lips
upwards; seeing Arianne flustered (despite the gravity of the oncoming
situation) amused him. But he couldn’t actually blame her for being fidgety and
nervous.
He knew that she
had been studying for the past months and wondered how she was able to carry it
all – school work, extracurricular work, and then the tutoring. The second Game of Thrones book was left discarded
on her bed. She had promised to read it when she had time, but she hadn’t even
peeked at the backmost portion which contained the lineage of various
characters.
“–and I honestly
don’t know what I’d do if I failed the exam,” she flustered. Miles blinked and
looked at her. Arianne was pacing, eyes lit with fear as she walked back and
forth across her room. She pivoted on a heel and turned, walking to the door,
to the window and back. “I just want it over with. As soon as possible. I don’t
even know why I was put in the last batch,” she groaned.
Miles quirked a
dark eyebrow. “Perhaps you’re worrying too much. It might be a sign.”
“A sign?”
“That an extra
day is being given so you can calm your nerves.” He stood up and walked to her,
gently pushing her back to her own bed. “Please do calm down. Write. Read. Do
what you want and don’t think of the exam just yet. You’ve prepared enough,” Hopefully, he added in his head, “And
remember what Sir Andrej said. Just relax.”
When she still
didn’t look sure of herself, he pursed his lips and sat next to her. “You’re
one of the most intellectually stimulating I know, Venura. A different kind of
intellect,” he added. She looked befuddled. “You see things. You understand
them. You apply it. If you believe you’re not intelligent at all, then I might
have to shake some sense into you,” he joked.
But she still
looked hesitant to accept all of that.
He knew that she
was still thinking.
“You’re not
Marie or Ride,” Miles said softly. “I don’t see why you have the need to
compare yourself, darling.”
Arianne sulked. “You don’t get
it, Miles.”
“’Course I do.
You keep telling me stories about your friends. Since last year.” He ruffled
her hair. “Keep believing in yourself, Venura. Sort of like how you believed in
Odysseus when we read the Odyssey.” With that, she whacked him with her
notebook and he laughed. “Just relax. Your laptop’s waiting for you,” he nodded
at her study table where the laptop sat comfortably.
“Miles Gabriel,
are you trying to distract me so you can leave?” she asked him. He blinked.
“Of course not,
Venura. I’m just trying to get you to relax. Just do me a favor?”
“Depends on the
favor,” she snarked. He blushed.
“A-Anyway. Just
don’t YOLO the first exam. I heard some others saying that they planned to do
that for the first exam this weekend.” He met her gaze steadily, forest-green
looking into coffee-brown. “Don’t do that because you might just get in while
others didn’t because they fucked up hard.”
His accent
collided oddly with the swearword. She couldn’t help but grin.
“And if you
think there’s anyone who doesn’t believe in you, you’ve got me.”
“Of course I do.
What would I do without you, Miles?”
She meant it
rhetorically, maybe even sarcastically. But the Forest Original hummed to
himself and tapped his head in curious thought.
“You’d have one
less person to talk to.” She agreed silently. “And no therapist.”
“W-Who said you
were my therapist?!”
“Self-proclaimed
therapist of Arianne Venura,” he replied sassily. She rolled her eyes and stood
up, but Miles grabbed her wrist. “Joking aside. Won’t you stay beside me?”
She studied him
carefully.
“…you’re
confusing.”
“You should be
used to me by now, Venura.” His eyes twinkled, “I’m ever the enigma.”
“Enigma or
headache?”
“Foul.” Despite
their exchange of words, she chose to sit beside him once again. Miles decided
to gently stroke her hair, prompting her to stammer out a mixed reaction as he
did. “Hold still. I’m trying to fix your hair.”
Despite her
grumbling, she did. And soon enough, he had twisted it into a nice braid that
went down her back. “Magic hands,” he commented to himself happily, and pulled
away from her hair to inspect his work with admiration. “All those images help,
I guess.” Arianne gingerly touched the braid and couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Magic hands.”
“Indeed.” His
eyes glanced at her clock. It was nearing 9PM.
“Miles?”
“Yes, Venura?”
He expected a
retort, a sassy comeback, anything.
Instead, his
body froze as she hugged him.
Tightly.
Miles felt his
fade redden and his voice die in his throat momentarily as she embraced him,
arms around his torso and hair dangerously close. It took him a moment before
he returned the hug, awkwardly putting his hands on her back and then settling
into it.
They didn’t
speak. They merely stayed in that position until he asked her, gentle and low.
“Better?”
She nodded, not
quite having the strength to speak. It was only when they pulled away that she
was able to answer him.
“Better.”
Better with you.
No comments:
Post a Comment