“Weren’t you trying to get rid of me just a second ago?” sneers the magician.
“Weren’t you trying to talk to me just a second ago? You were the one that asked if I’m curious!”
“So you did want to talk!”
“No, I don't!”
“Which is it?!”
“I just want to fly!”
They’re at a standstill not entirely sure what they’re doing as they argue. One of them initially acted cold despite the fact that he only came back to ask questions. The other one wants to leave and not elaborate any further despite being the one to start their conversation.
Suddenly, Shen is swept off his feet as the magician takes off with him. Holding onto Shen allows the both of them to be airborne without risking death.
Shen freezes, stunned by his sudden flight. Without uttering a word, the magical devil sweeps Shen off his feet and holds onto him like a toddler.
Far below are all kinds of lights far fewer than he was expecting. He never knew that many streetlights would turn off not long after they had turned on. The few cars to be seen are all rushing along at top speed just trying to get home to their families while few wander out and about taking a little stroll. The people are so infinitely small that they’re more akin to blobs waltzing down the road at a snail’s pace. Many shops and stores seem to have some of their lights on long past their closing hours and far from their opening hours.
Shen is flipped around so he can face the new moon on a serene night. It feels so much more luminous than it usually does from down below. The stars surrounding this beauty all seemingly swarm around it. Only now that he’s several hundred meters in the air can he feel.
They pick up speed until they are about twenty kilometers above sea level, when Shen suddenly starts falling with no one to hold onto him. At this eight and at the speed they ascended, Shen shouldn’t be alive, yet he feels more alive than ever.
“I wouldn’t mind hitting the ground right now. I won’t mind if this is the last thing I see.”
He’s caught just before he can hit the ground just a few feet above the pavement as the magician has taken hold of him before he got the chance to pass in peace. The devil is filled with even more curiosity as he had never met such a peculiar person.
“You’re not screaming, your heartbeat isn’t all that high, and you’re not terrified of me?” asks the magician. He slowly puts down Shen as his mortal companion starts to get dizzy.
“I’m sorry! I haven’t even asked for your name,” says Shen as he’s gasping for air. “Just call me Shen.”
“Nikolay…”
There’s something perplexing about Shen. To Nikolay, Shen seems more like an oddity he needs to study.
“Say, how about we meet tomorrow? Got anything going on at 10 am?”
“I have a class to attend that morning. Maybe…”
“Never mind! Here in this park? At 10?”
“Yeah! Guess that’s a date then!” snickers Nikolay just before vanishing.
Who would have thought that Shen’s first date would be arranged by meeting a stranger at midnight in a sketchy park full of drug abusers? Praying that his parents aren’t as invasive as they once were, he goes to bed setting an alarm for nine in the morning. Excited, he rushes home to put together the only outfit he owns that he’d actually like to wear for a casual meet; something he bought for himself. Though his head is usually filled with worries, this night he can go to bed content with something to look forward to.
“What are you doing sleeping at this hour??” yells his mother as she barges in only for him to get up and promptly shove her out of the doorframe and shut the door on her.
“Well… I’ll figure this out later,” he thinks as he checks the time.
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Though a little early, he heads out to take a shower, brush his teeth, and douses himself in gasoline to get ready for his "date".
“But what if he doesn’t show up? Was he just trying to get rid of me?”
His thoughts begin to wander. Doubts begin to creep up on him as he grows more anxious. A wild stranger he has met the night by chance that seems to hang around junkies and alcoholics doesn’t scream trustworthy and reliable. It’s everything he’s not and everything his parents would hate. Should he really just go ahead and meet this person, or should he salvage whatever he can by apologizing to his mother…
“This probably was a mistake! But don’t I have to see it through?? I’ve gotten this far, so I may as well…”
Meanwhile, his mother is frantically yelling obscenities at him while trying to make her way in. Usually, whenever it would go that far, he’d either freeze up till she found some kind of way to unlock the door or open the door and do as told. However, today is the day when he makes his own choice and doesn’t cave under pressure. He unlocks the door while she attempts to block his path, but some Asian woman who’s half a foot shorter than him can’t exactly fight a grown adult man, can they? Shen waltzes through, taking his laptop, a small pencil case, a notebook, his phone, and his wallet; things he’d usually take with him to uni and not to a date.
Walking towards his rendezvous, he can’t help but feel like people are staring at him. Every little glance of a random bystander or passerby feels like some sort of judgment as if he is in the wrong for not allowing his mother to push him around any longer.
Finally, he makes it to the park half an hour early and sits down atop one of the wooden benches starting to get overrun by moss. To his surprise, none of the people from the night before are still at the park. Shen just never realized that they probably, even with their ongoing substance abuse, could have their own lives. He just expected them to hang around in the park all day for no discernible amount of time.
“Is he actually going to show up?” Shen asks himself. He has had friends claim that they would meet on a certain day only to bail without notice. If his friends were willing to just abandon him like that, what would a stranger do?
“Yo! How are you?”
The devilish magician walks up to him from behind properly dressed in casual wear. He inspects Shen’s choice for business casual, believing it to be strange that his date is constantly walking around looking like he’s about to apply for a job.
“Anything you have planned for the day?” asks the devil.
“No.”
“Then let’s grab a bite and talk some more, alright?”
They start walking towards their city square just browsing around as they more or less silently walk alongside each other. As they pass by a school, the devilish figure starts inspecting Shen. His curiosity leads them to a little conversation about their lives up till now.
“So… you said something about class, right? Still going to school or uni?”
“Uni.”
“Hmm… So you’re skipping today? Showing up isn’t mandatory?”
“Some professors are kinda annoying about attendance, but a lot just don’t really care all that much.”
“I did have two… troublesome ones. One would just lock doors so even those through no fault of their own would just miss class. She wasn’t having any kind of absences or disruptions and told some girl that her mother dying in hospice isn’t a good reason to be late for class. Suddenly she was on "temporary leave" and then some entirely different prof held that class. Turns out she was well-known for incidents like these.
There was also some other guy who always had something weird to say about his life. Everyone thinks he’s nice and great and only wants people to learn, but I’m not buying it.
“Why not?”
“I’ve had teachers like that before. They’re always so nice and get along with the youth, but they also act like them. They’re supposed to be adults, yet they’re in on jokes and pick on kids as if they were just another student. Obviously, we need another dickhead at the helm and not some responsible person!”
“Sounds like you went through a lot of trouble…”
“Yeah, yeah! There was one bitch that always had some kind of problem with a strange amount of kids that weren’t of European origin. I’m not saying she had her issues, but I realized there was some kind of pattern. A single glance at me and we’d somehow start talking about the Silk Road, which is funny because the "new Silk Road" wasn’t even really a thing when she was still my teacher.”
“Woah! I had such a nutcase too. She’d look at me for 0.2 seconds and would go off about Russia when the last Russian ancestor I have died almost 100 years ago. I’m from fucking Slovakia! Why the fuck are we talking about Russians??”
They revel in their shared difficulties growing up with several micro-aggressions faced from teachers to the point that they almost forget to grab a bite at their closest fast food chain. They go on to talk about so much more. Hobbies, dreams, favorite places to visit… but unfortunately, each day has to come to an end.
“I’m sorry. I wasted so much time on stupid stuff that I completely forgot about what I came here for!” Shen chuckles. It seems as though he had a great time.
“Sure. Sure. I’ll show you something worthwhile next time.”
Next time… After all these years, Shen has something to look forward to.