Chap 23 : The Collapse of a Celestial Being falling into a Handsome Stranger’s Arm
The rest of the day was a blur. And not the fun kind of blur, like when you’ve drunk too much nectar of the Star Blossom and everything goes wobbly and delightful.
No. This was the bad kind of blur. The kind where your brain feels like it has been replaced with wet sand.
Jiyoung and Haejin found me outside the lecture hall, their faces bright with questions I couldn’t answer, their voices screeching loud with stories I couldn’t follow.
My brain kept imagining grillies mating season instead of listening to them. (Grillies, for those of you who have never had the misfortune of visiting the Swamp of Eternal Dampness, are small creatures that mate by hitting each other with sticks while screaming.
It is very loud. It is also, apparently, what my brain now associated with human conversation.)
They walked me to another class—something called “Introduction to Sociology,” which was apparently about the study of human groups, which I could have taught them myself in about twelve seconds if they had asked—and I sat through it with the same blank-faced incomprehension that had characterized the first half of my day.
The words went in. They did not stay. They swirled around my celestial brain like water circling a drain, and when I tried to grasp them, they slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the great abyss of I Don’t Care About This Either.
By the time the final bell rang, I was exhausted.
Not the exhaustion of celestial effort. Not the exhaustion of battle or travel or the slow burn of maintaining cosmic balance. This was worse.
This was the exhaustion of a body that had been pushed beyond its limits, of a brain that had been asked to process too much too quickly, of a being that was not meant to be mortal trying desperately to be mortal anyway.
Like putting a star inside a teacup and expecting the teacup to be fine about it.
I stumbled through the gates of the university. My legs were no longer cooperating with the commands my brain was sending them. One foot in front of the other, I told myself. That is all you need to do. One foot. Then the other. Then the—
The world tilted.
Not dramatically. Not with the fanfare of a celestial collapse or the slow crumble of a dying star. Just a gentle, insidious tilt, like the universe had decided to lean slightly to the left and was taking me with it because the universe had a terrible sense of humour.
My vision blurred at the edges. The afternoon sun became a white smear across my eyes. The bag on my shoulder became impossibly heavy, dragging me down, down, down toward the ground that was rushing up to meet me with what seemed like excessive enthusiasm—
Something hit me.
Not the ground. Something solid. Something warm. Something that wrapped around me with the sudden, shocking force of a wall that had decided to move into my path without warning.
Arms.
There were arms around me.
They were solid. Unyielding. They caught me before my knees could buckle, before my face could meet the ground, before I could complete my undignified descent into unconsciousness. My mortal frame—small and fragile and utterly inadequate for the demands being placed upon it, like a butterfly trying to lift a boulder—was suddenly engulfed. Enclosed. Held like I was something worth holding.
I blinked.
The world swam back into focus, grudgingly, like a cat being woken from a nap.
“Are you alright?”
The voice was unfamiliar. Low. Rough in a way that suggested it wasn’t used to asking questions, wasn’t used to checking on people, wasn’t used to anything except perhaps giving orders to lesser beings. I approved of this voice. It had authority.
I looked up.
And up.
And up.
A boy stood over me. No—a young man.
He was tall. Taller than Dad. Taller than Gate-Rammer, actually, which was irritating because I had assumed Gate-Rammer was the tallest mortal in existence and now I had to recalibrate my assumptions. His hair was light brown, like sand, and his eyes were dark too, deep brown that in certain lights looked almost black, and they were looking at me with an intensity that made something ancient and primal in my hindbrain sit up, pay attention, and possibly start taking notes.
He was holding me.
His arms were still around me. My body—my pathetic, exhausted, mortal body that had betrayed me at every turn today—was pressed against his chest, which was solid in a way that suggested he spent a great deal of time making it so. Possibly by lifting heavy things. Possibly by fighting bears. Possibly by being carved from a mountain by a god who had excellent taste.
I could feel the warmth of him through my clothes. Could feel the steady beat of his heart, which was annoyingly calm compared to the frantic thrumming of my own, which was currently going oh no oh no oh no like a tiny terrified drum.
I should pull away.
I should push him off. I should inform him, in no uncertain terms, that celestial beings did not require rescue from small mortals with large shoulders and intense eyes. I should say something dignified and aloof, like Unhand me, you overgrown coat rack.
But my legs were still not working. And the world was still slightly tilted. And his arms were warm, and solid, and they were the only thing keeping me from becoming intimately acquainted with the dark hard grey ground, which looked unfriendly and cold and full of germs.
So, I did not pull away.
I did not push him off.
I simply stared at him, and he stared back, and for a long moment, neither of us spoke. It was the kind of silence that usually precedes either a great romance or a fistfight. I was not sure which one I was in, and that was deeply unsettling.
Then his eyes narrowed. Not in anger. Not in concern. Something else. Something that looked almost like recognition, like he had seen me before in a dream and was annoyed that I had shown up in real life without warning.
“I have been looking for you,” he said. “And here you are.”
I stared at him.
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with meaning I did not understand. Looking for me. He had been looking for me. Why? Had I left a sock somewhere? Had I accidentally stolen his pet? Had I—and this was the most likely option—offended him in a past life and he had come to seek revenge?
The sound of a car horn broke through my spiraling thoughts. I turned my head—carefully, because the world was still slightly unsteady—and saw the familiar red car pulling up to the curb. Dad was in the driver’s seat. Mum was in the passenger seat. Both were looking at me with expressions that shifted rapidly from concern to confusion to why is a strange boy holding our daughter and should we get the shovel.
The arms around me loosened.
The stranger stepped back. He did it slowly, carefully, making sure I was steady on my feet before he released me completely, which was annoyingly considerate of him.
“You’re okay now,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. A sound came out that was not quite a word and not quite a wheeze. It was embarrassing. I am choosing not to describe it further.
But he was already moving. Already stepping away. Already becoming a figure receding into the stream of students flowing past the gates, like a very tall, very handsome fish disappearing into a river of ordinary sardines.
He looked back once. Just once. His dark eyes found mine across the distance, and something in his expression flickered—something that might have been a smile, might have been a warning, might have been gas.
“I’ll see you around,” he said.
And then he was gone.
I stood at the gates, swaying slightly, my bag dragging on my shoulder, my eyes fixed on the spot where he had disappeared. My heart was beating too fast. My mind was spinning with questions I didn’t have answers for. My arms felt cold where his had been.
Looking for me.
I have been looking for you.
Who was he? How did he know me? Why had his arms felt so solid, so certain, like they had been waiting to catch me long before I ever started to fall? And why—why—was I still thinking about Gate-Rammer’s jaw at the same time?
The car horn honked again. Dad was leaning out the window now, his face a mask of paternal concern mixed with paternal suspicion. “Sera! Are you okay? Who was that?”
I did not answer. I could not answer. My mouth was busy not forming words.
I walked to the car, opened the door, and collapsed into the back seat with all the grace of a lazy Horgged pig—a creature known for eating, expending the bare minimum of energy, and then dropping to the ground as if life had simply become too much to bear. It was an accurate comparison. I was not proud of it.
A note from B.R.LEE
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