Those who don't do archery for a long time mostly forget the strategy they used to have. It doesn't only convey archery but also things that can be done by skills including catching fireflies. This wasn't my first time catching fireflies yet I couldn't catch any. I am not fond of catching them but I knew I couldn't since I hadn't done it after going to Germany. I was so involved in career stuff that I even nearly forgot how to live like a resident of Island Elysian. Germany is a great place to complete graduation, still I missed Elysian. But currently, I want to return to Germany again because my not-so-lovely brother, Mac, is about to create a storm so that I'll give him the jar of fireflies. It's not a gigantic type of storm that happens sometimes (due to him since he is the creator of this type of stupid storms) but the nagging. Why should I give him the Jar? It's a gift not for anyone else but me. And for that, he is upset with me now. Having a younger brother is not an easy task. My life in Germany was not so easy since I missed my home, but after returning to Elysian, most of my problems are created thanks to him, otherwise I'm doing great in my own place after coming from another country.
"Tell me the truth, how on earth have you caught 21 fireflies?", he points his finger at me as if he would shoot me with it but he can't. Does he really think flies can't be caught by me? For the confirmation, It's not that I can't catch fireflies but it is that I currently don't possess the manoeuver to catch them. I was scribbling something since I didn't want to waste my precious attention on him but I stopped and turned around as the sentence he made contained mistakes that he should probably take back. My chair makes a scary noise that makes him put his finger down, which is good.
"It's 22. Not 21." and not 23 either.
"It doesn't matter. My question is who caught them? because I know it can't be done by you." His voice turns into mockery as he says "You suck when it comes to catching fireflies."
That's not entirely true. I can do archery very well but not like professionals because I never really took it seriously. It was on my Monday schedule as I like to spend my time on it due to the strength I have to use while doing archery. I like complexity that matches with some strong riddles which means that I also like puzzles. I felt satisfied when it occupied my mind. An empty mind is a devil's nest where a busy mind is an angel's home. I don't know if anyone said it or I came up with this new saying but that's the truth anyway. And about fireflies, catching them is a waste of time and waste of energy when you know you have to free them, letting them out of the jar before they die there. I don't know if other people let them go or not but we do, most people in Elysian do.
"It was a tourist." I started writing again after saying these 4 words. I'm not writing anything specific but scribbling again. I just don't want to be heedful on this topic because I'm not going to give the jar to Mac who is sitting on the bed right now and looking at me as if I'm an Alien from a different galaxy. I wish I was as I prefer to be in a different galaxy to being with Mac on the same planet. But fate doesn't always favour a good person, does it?
"You have no other thing to do, that's why you're jesting, aren't you? There is no way we would have a tourist. You know this place has no safety bar. Besides, it is one of the least popular tourist attractions.", he is either confused or he is not taking my words seriously.
If I give it a thought, he is right. There is no way we will have tourists. The last time we had tourists was when I was going to germany. They lasted in this place for only a day. There can be thousands of reasons, but my main question is why is she here? Now that's a dark horse which is about to be found out.
"You are right, but she wasn't a local here.", I'm pretty sure she wasn't.
"What's her name?" Mac asked me and that's the moment I came to know that I didn't even ask her name or either she did. The only thing I know about her is that she is good at catching fireflies. Have I always been this dumb or was this the first time being dumb? Either way, it was really idiotic, which is why I am not answering Mac's question and he's getting the reason why I am not answering.
"You don't know her name? That's such a stupid thing. Where was your brain at that moment?" He hollers instead of talking, so I have to remind him that mom is sleeping. We both know that mom worked hard today since she also cleaned dad's old library so to be a good son, we both don't have the little wish to wake her up from the sleep otherwise, we are aware of the consequence.
He sighed and gritted his teeth. If he is thinking that he is looking scary then it's a false opinion because he is looking cute but I'm not going to call him cute or he will turn into an angry bird. Stressing on every word, he murmurs "Do you know how she looks? Explain to me."
He goes and takes a few coloring pens which are actually mine, and a white paper on where I was about to scribble again. What is going on in this kid's head? Whatever, I don't really care, for why let's see what he does. And about her looks… if I think carefully, her fashion sense is unique and her style isn't from here. That's also a plus point for assuming her as a tourist.
"She was wearing an oversized coat which was just the colour of coffee. The coffee would be regular coffee which must have milk in it, and black long sleeve shirt with black sneakers. They were matching." I actually liked her style.
Mac starts doing something on the paper "She must be gorgeous. What do you think?" I don't have to think about it. I saw her and she was beautiful. Technically, she still is beautiful, but I can't see her anymore.
What am I even thinking?
"I'll be lying if I say no." I looked at Mac after replying to her sentence. He also looks at me and shrugs slightly so I did the same thing which is copying him. "Explain her, you idiot." he says to me. Oh, so he shrugged to indicate to me to explain about her."Her hair is black but not fully black. It has a dark brown red in that black shade. Her eyes are the colour of that same coffee but without milk. She must be a model or strictly following a diet routine I guess. Who knows? Girls are a difficult type of subject. Her hair wasn't short but also not too long." I memorised her so well that it'd be too difficult to forget. I guess it is because she saw me as a failed experiment. I looked at Mac and guess what?
He is trying to draw her. I thought he was thinking of doing some investigation or anything but not drawing. It didn't even cross my mind but I'm glad that it didn't as I can see how he is drawing.
Can I laugh?
Because I can't stay normal after detecting how bad he is drawing her. She is so gorgeous but his drawing is making her look bad. I'm holding my laugh but it's too hard to hold, still I will try my best. I want him to finish the drawing first then I'll laugh as much as I want.
"Tell me about her nose and lips. All details." Now he is commanding me. What is he? The king of a palace who lost every battle and rotted for a long time in prison? Yeah, that's what I think of him when he says that he is a king. But currently, I won't point out his mistakes or even annoy him for a while, which will be when the drawing ends, so I don't mind his behaviour right now at all because I will soon laugh at him.
"Her upper lip was thinner than her bottom lip but the lips are not really that thin. Also, it was the colour of reddish pink." I matched with his vibe, slightly tossing the head to hide the difficulty of holding the laughter back. He won't notice my struggle since he is too focused on his drawing.
"What's kinda colour is that?" Mac frowns yet he still doesn't look at me because he is way too focused on the drawing. It is good as only I can grasp how badly I am holding on.
"It's the colour between red and pink." I somehow spoke. I'm surprised how he didn't even notice the slight change in my voice. As I said, he is way too focused.
"Oh. Fine. Continue."Is that a bossy tone he is using? I will get you back after you finish the drawing, boy. So, for now, I can only go with the rhythm.
"She has a small cute nose which fits her face properly and a bit of pink shades on her cheeks. I think that's it." No. That's not it. I just can't continue anymore because I had enough of the struggle to hold my laugh. The drawing is pretty horrible and that's it.
"She must be gorgeous." Mac looks at his drawing as if he was praising it. His face tells that he is proud of his drawing but it is just a cartoon which is drawn by pen and it can't really depict a person, let alone her and so I can't control my laughter anymore for why I burst out.
I won't deny that she is beautiful, but "You made her ugly", my voice can barely be heard due to my laughing. I'm laughing so hard that my stomach will start hurting soon. Gosh, he should try to improve but he can't. A person with this level of pomposity and this level of tactics can't be improved.
Mac is glaring at me as if my laughing was not right but what can I possibly do? I can't help but wonder what his drawing teacher does when he sees Mac's talent in drawing. He punched me but it's not effective,"what do you think of me? You think I'm Pablo Pikachu, huh?" The sentence he made makes me laugh harder than before as he even pronounced the talented artist's name in a wrong way. How can I say that it's Pablo Picasso not a pikachu if I can't stop my laugh? But to be honest, I won't correct him. I don't have that energy or even if I had the energy, I wasted all of it on bursting myself out. I controlled myself just to say,"What is Pablo Pikachu? Was he a Pokémon?" Then I continued laughing. This little man was appreciating his art where he clearly can't even pronounce one of the greatest artists. Does he call the artist of Monalisa, Leonardo DiCaprio instead of Leonardo De Vinci just like this pokémon thing? I am really curious to know what kind of struggle his art teacher went through.
What was his reaction to Mac's drawing?
Mac is so annoyed with me "that's why you don't have any friends. I'm afraid you'll lose me too." He shrugs. A seventeen year old boy is insulting me. Of course that's the kind of brother I have and to answer him, I have friends for sure since I was all alone in Germany without any member of my family which means I made friends. Though they may not seek for me at all because what we all did was making memories only.
"I have a bunch of friends, okay." I have to confirm the fault he has in his statement but what he did is ignoring my protest and rolling his eyes. Oh, sure he did it and for that reason, I picked him up from the back of his sweater and kicked him out of the room, closing the door. Look at the audacity his little horsetail contains! I don't know how I came up with this name but it's true that Mac is too full of himself. He is to be ignored cause I don't wanna start a headache thinking about him. I don't care if he goes to sleep or praises his awful drawing the whole night because what I know is I'm going to sleep for sure.
I lie down on the bed and sink in the blanket looking at the ceiling. I came back to my home after graduation but I should start thinking of my next move. If I start a company, I have to take risk but if I work as an employee, I will suck at the same office. I should've done some research before graduating but I can't regret it anymore. I have plenty of time on my hands since I just came back to Elysian. I need to think carefully before doing something as it is not a movie but a reality. My life doesn't depend on anyone's hand but me. If I do anything wrong which crashes my career then there will be no one to fix it because that's what reality is. Reality is when you realise you can't rewrite the script of time along with life and give it a happy ending. I may know a tiny sliver of how the world works but it doesn't mean that I can't try to grasp the world. It can be tough but I like challenges. I should probably sleep now otherwise if I wake up late, mom will start her morning anthem but I missed that in Germany. I move my head to the other side when I notice the jar of fireflies is by the window. I know that Mom will put all of the fireflies on the yard, freeing them out of the jar but now, I want to enjoy the view which I can enjoy because of that great firefly catcher.
It made me question if she really is a tourist.
I know she is not from Elysian but why is she here? A place where people don't come to visit is a least popular spot so my question is how did she find out about this place and why is she here?
I am certain about her being a tourist but there is a race of questions going on inside my head about her which is now making her subject concealed. I strangely put all of my attention on her and thinking of her right now where I am pretty sure that she is sleeping peacefully without giving a second thought about tonight. My curiosity is making it hard for me to sleep so all I am capable of doing is watching the jar which is by the window.
It's beautiful and matchless.
I feel like I'm in debt because she caught these flies just to prove me wrong but gave them to me because she wanted the challenge, not the prize. That side of her is actually catching my interest. If I'm providential enough by having the chance to get to meet her again I'll do something so that we can call it even.
But not any clumsy stuff like a failed experiment.