I was thrown backwards as the rune exploded. Jay was laughing his head off even though he was thrown back just like I was. “Owwwww…” I’d hit the ground hard. Gah, what is the ISSUE between magic runes and I? Barely repressing his borderline hysterical giggles, my friend asked “Are you alright?” “I’d be better if you weren’t being a jerk.” But I smiled nonetheless. Looking back, it was kinda funny. I was an absolute failure when it came to rune type magic, which was annoying since my best friend excelled at that stuff. I had him beat when it came to plants though, the boy couldn’t garden to save his life. “What did I do wrong?” I asked, a complete confused mess. “You touched it, silly.” “Well, duh. How else am I supposed to write chunks of rune magic on paper? BURN it on?” He laughed even harder at that. “No, the runes are touch activated, remember?” “Again, how am I NOT supposed to trigger that constantly?” “You use the pencil like a stylus, and try hard not to touch the paper. Kinda like doing online art without a glove, I think? I’ve never had to sit through doing any art online, and that’s probably for the best.” Absolutely unbelievable. This boy could draw runes better than most adults, but struggled to sketch a stick figure. I’d seen him try to draw creatively before and it was stressful just for anyone watching the spectacle, and 100% NOT something I wanted to put him through. He was setting up the art supplies again. “Come here, let me show you how to draw the properly.” He was a patient teacher if ever I’d met one. “How do you do that?” He had perfectly made the rune I’d been in the process of writing when it exploded. He grinned smugly at me. “I didn’t touch the paper all that much.” I rolled my eyes. “What happened to the scary cat nerd who could barely look me in the face three weeks ago?” He shrugged. “People are scary. I had to toughen up to survive.” “Well, it’s nice to see the improvement.” It was like waiting and waiting for an egg to hatch or a plant to bloom and then FINALLY seeing it happen. Less than a month ago, he could barely look me in the eyes. And whenever he did at that point, he’d either look away quickly, turn even paler than he naturally was, or look like he was gonna burst into tears if you moved wrong. But now he was joking and almost fully relaxed and it was amazing. When someone else is on edge constantly, the feeling can be contagious and that was absolutely the case for this kid.

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