Near the summit of a hill, the town of Bristel was clean in view behind his back where the smoke plumes of ferries’ funnels clouded the port’s sky. Everything seemed so far asudden, and little, affecting nothing on the saddled hills enveloping the haven. Its blaring noises traveled far uphill, but the boy had grown accustomed to the liveliness of industry and he would stay undisturbed as his fourth song played in his ears. Hiking by his neighbors’ homes, slanted on an incline, there were a vast number of characters who were up early and about other than schoolboys. Younger couples would go for walks together, in their newly wedded states of minds, whilst older folk returned from their early morning strolls. Others exercised in gardening, clipping edges and mowing grass. There were only a good few citizens who swept the pavements of leaves, doing their work as a member of their community. Some and few, gave their cars a wash before they were rolled out of their familial drives. Everyone was in motion. Doing something. Busying themselves with morning chores before the long tedious work that followed later. They could not bother telling their children to hurry to school, standing idly by, there were some slacking students too, prepared to miss class altogether. Though Arminius was quicker, it was unpreferable for him to be late, imagining what punishment he would receive this time. It was unthinkable. Yet always, he would make sure to greet those he was most familiar with, properly, who would return a simple gesture of greeting too. Continuing his ascent, step by step, the boy skipped over the exposed roots of a tree with his hands clipped around the straps of his bag. Humming along to the favorite melody of his playlist in tune, he happily headed to the entry of a gas station. When he checked the lanes beside him for automobiles coming by, ready to cross, he felt a jolt backward from a yank on his bag.
Caught out by surprise, he tripped and tipped over. “Wha—?” Arminius yelped as he slipped, falling.
Caught by an arm, luckily, although it was unneeded as his feet had found his ground already, his back was laying mid air when he was taken by a second surprise by the face of a friend. Though it was less than a glad surprise for what his friend had done.
“Colt?” Upside down, Arminius named, with half his usual certainty.
“Do you not tire yourself walking so fast?” The boy, of the same year in school, asked.
Stood upright, it was sorely clear that Arminius was shorter by an inch, as it would always be brought up in a round of casual jesting. More if anyone counted his friend’s shabby hair. They were opposites entirely and how they came to befriend the other has always been considered nothing short of a miracle. For one, this boy sounded naive. There was always a belittling pride burning in his brown, almond eyes, where one pupil was marked by an ink-like dragon. His self looked down on all and everyone, except for Arminius, who he considered, almost by obligation, an equal. A childhood ego was kept on his mantle, undoubtedly passed down from his noble lineage whose oriental blood was classed as the rarest jade. Even more so in the Aelon. Yet he behaved in no proper way that he was supposed to. From his rugged uniform, he shed not a single care for his appearance. With his soles of his shoes nearly peeled off and a hole in his bag ready to rip apart at any moment, for a stranger, he would have been mistaken as a delinquent that everyone would actively avoid. But that thought could not be more untrue for his name of Colt Chō.
Arminius straightened out his jacket and took his jab at him in any given opportunity, “You’re just slow.” Pulling his earphones out of his ears and unplugged it from the audio player that he clicked to pause, he stuffed the set in his pockets and pointed with his head, directing onward at the path.
With a chuckle, unknowing how best to reply at his attack, Colt chased him, trying to start up a conversation beside him. Following on the path which they found clear of cars, they crossed over the running stream of water leaking from the gas station which had become near derelict in recent decades. Only one pump was open as the others had been barricaded or sealed for however long its passerby had known this world. Its prices were sat low on a board, for whoever was wealthy enough to see, written with black paint on a white canvas that the worker flicked every morning to adjust. Just then, the numbers changed again, in preparation for the following week of rising costs. It was nearly thirteen crowns per liter. Enough for a fancy meal at the capital or to feed a moderate family with bread and soup for a week. It was truly a waste of the world that many only then failed to ignore.
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