Acryl

  Silvia led them down the dull-color stairs, toward the bustling, colorful city centre. In the echoing tunnel, street musicians bowed their fiddles, zithar players strummed the strings, and singers sang by the rhythm tapped out by their feet. The coins reflected light similar to the hue made from grinding down fine mineral pigments. Canvas loved the street artists, “the don’t pretend”, he said.

  Acryl could feel his own footsteps joining the ensemble of mundane artists. When he walked past them, he felt his pace becoming faster, as if to outrun the music itself. He couldn’t tell why, but he felt like there was no time left. Acryl strode through the mixture of smells- spilled beer, rust, trash, street food as noises filled his head. They left the tunnel and joined the crowded city centre. A square with an ethereal fountain in the middle of it. Water sprang out of it as if it were sparking.

  While Silvia walked into a convenience store on the edge of the square, Acryl found himself with a spare moment for sketching. Leaning on the stainless handrail, feeling the temperature of it, he took out his sketchbook, opened it to a blank page, and over the sketch he’d drawn of Suiming and Seren, held the pencil in his other hand and started to outline the city. Acryl used the side of his pencil to shade in the silhouette of the city as it inanimately rested before his eyes. His sketch was the refined and quenched by the sharper side of his pencil as he marked the corners and details of the buildings- the tombs of what once was and what would be. Weathered and preserved buildings mixed in with occasional modern buildings, the subtle edge and elegance clashed with the brutal figure of concrete, mass-produced constructions. As Acryl was taken away into the place of paper and pencil, he noticed a place in his sketch where the tone seemed too dark and a line was needle-sharp. Usually, it wouldn’t be a concern, but Acryl felt like the edge of this sketch- even if it was just a sketch to kill time- should be as controlled as his more dedicated pieces. After all, the dance of the shapes and corners was what he was trying to capture.

  “How do you fancy this place so far?” Suiming asked while Acryl searched for his kneadable eraser.

  “I can’t tell right now…but it is a little crowded for me,” Acryl answered, opening the metal container and taking out the gray cube.

  “Yeah, can’t disagree, these major Auderheimian cities are crowded this time of the year, when the remnant tide devours their towns and villages and then spits them out when the remnant months end,”

  “But sometimes the tide doesn’t return them,” Silvia interrupted, closing the store’s door. Her other hand held a cup of coffee.

  “Is that what you are writing about?” Suiming asked. Hearing Suiming, Silvia slightly dragged her hat a little bit lower as her eyes swayed. Scratching her arm, her azure eyes locked onto Acryl’s wounded arm. A tiny storm stirred in her iris. Acryl swallowed. He didn’t want Silvia to find out, not here, not with Neon beside him.

  “Hey, Sage, if you wanna pull an all-nighter, that coffee won’t be enough,” Suiming interrupted, flicking a coin in his hand, rolling it from one of his knuckles to the other. He eyed Acryl, turning to Silvia. His purple eyes reflected the distant sunlight.

  “Silvia, don’t you think this place is a little bit loud?” Seren questioned, her voice interrupted by the noise from the streets, as Acryl listened to the street’s noise, a surge of wind brushed by his ears. Slightly swinging his braids. That brushing felt like a tap on his shoulder, a harmless prank yet a warning. Though Acryl thought it was the wind, he noticed that Neon was standing behind him. He could hear her almost silent breath trembling.

  “Acryl…I think we are being followed,” she whispered in Siyuenese.

  “Did you see who?” he responded, trying to sense a wave of casting, but when he did so, Acryl felt a sting. A piercing cold was coming from the inside. He looked around frantically, searching for Kaspar’s face, hoping that he wouldn’t find his foul smile. His heart beat fast as he felt he was being watched. It felt like there were multiple hostile gazes toward him, judging him. Acryl remembered the first time he had performed on a stage for a school play, it was the same feeling. Same heartbeat and short breath. As Acryl panically searched for the faustus or those people in yellow coats, Suiming suddenly grabbed him by his shoulder.

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  “Act like we are going to get a pint,” he whispered into his ear.

  “How about Silvia?” Acryl whispered back, holding Neon’s hand.

  “Seren will be going with her. Don’t worry; she can take care of her, we’ll meet up later if everything ain’t ending up as a burning trashcan,” Suiming responded, his monocle obscuring his eye with the sun’s reflection. They walked into a shaded alleyway, stretching roofs and patterned banners obscuring the light, and colored it in the color of those fabrics- a rainbow on the ground. The alleyway was just wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side.

  “They came for Silvia,” Suiming said, letting Acryl go. He felt that the stinging stares, the invisibly judging audience were gone.

  “Silvia, Silvia, why?”

  “What is the thing that makes them so afraid of a student?”

  Acryl couldn’t recall the last time he felt like that, after all, it had been ages since he had spoken to an audience. As he walked, he couldn’t help but notice Suiming’s expression, the swaying eyes, the toying with sleeves, the constant heartbeat tapped out by his feet. Even if he were a blind man in the game of social cues and subtexts, Acryl still noticed that something was off.

  “Suiming…was something wrong? It feels like you were hiding something,” Acryl asked, looking to the other end of the alleyway.

  Suiming sighed, his eyes looking toward the other end of the alleyway.

  “Aren’t you bad with all those games between people, words hidden beneath words, and plays with stares and faces?” he answered. He took off his monocle as he cleaned it with the edge of his jacket.

  Acryl frowned; he wasn’t proficient in telling the hidden intentions of other people, but this time it felt too easy to find out.

  “The First Enlightenment was a mistake,” Suiming voiced, putting his monocle back. The First Enlightenment Acryl thought, a term he had only seen in history books and legends, a period of time that which no scholar had information, just it happened and ended in disaster.

  “Why was it?” Neon asked, and she held onto her chest, grabbing that necklace.

  “Hey, I don’t teach history, but I can still tell stories,” Suiming said while he looked to his side as if somebody were there.

  “The First Mephisto preached the arcane and otherworldly, he didn’t expect what his disciples interpreted them, heck, he didn’t even understand it himself,” Suiming said, crows from above interrupting him, cawing a song that sounded like a group of people agreeing with Suiming’s statement, “and the disciples that lived ran to Auderheim after the early church tried to purge them.”

  Suiming laughed to himself quietly, almost like a mosquito’s buzzing. His stance was inconfident, back bent as his weight lay on the alleyway’s wall.

  “And…now here we are after they messed everything up…the School of Faust and School of Lantern, this was never just us and Silvia, Acryl, Neon, this is between the lantern and the Faust.”

  “…Guys…can you promise me?” Suiming cried. He said, looking back at Acryl and glancing at Neon, his violet eyes were glossed with remorse, similar to the sacred painting in the church, depicting the rise of Letter-Writer Aquarii after his friend’s death.

  “If we ever get the crown, can you promise me not to crown me? Don’t listen to what Fosfor and Nameless would say, don’t crown me, alright?”

  Acryl’s hand trembled. He didn’t think it would be his choice to crown Suiming or not. After all, why did a nobody have the right and privilege to crown someone? He looked at Neon, her eyes looked away from Suiming. The necklace hanging from her neck, shining its dull and metallic reflection. Neon pinched her dress’s edge.

  “But what if we had to?” she asked, letting go of the cloth. Her eyes’ turquoise were akin to that of a half-mixed paint under that uncertainty in her. Acryl had rarely seen Neon like that; she seemed to always have the answers, always smiling and acting.

  “Then…crown Acryl, leave a message in the crown saying that I retired or something,” Suiming said, walking to the other end of the alleyway. His shadow stretched long, his body covered in the jolly and layered colors from the banners.

  “But I won’t let it happen, I won’t let Acryl’s condition worsen, Acryl, you should go to Havel, it’s much safer, plus, it is not infested with the Faustus,” Suiming said, firm and confident. His eyes filled with determination, and for the first time, Acryl felt like he could see through the pair of keyholes in his eyes.

  “What are y’all waiting for?”

  Acryl followed, grabbing the strap of his bag as Neon followed him.