Chapter #16; Liquidating Lessons
1396 Words
His arms stiffened, raised high in the air, attempting to take a hold of the meagre drops wafting around.
1...2...3...
The grip started to tremble, quickly losing control of the water soon trickling through the teal locks, the dye hiding their vibrancy fading away while his knees buckled down on him.
Ryeon sighed, cheerless.
“Three seconds, just little droplets.”
The footsteps grew closer and closer, Ammara knelt down and gave him an awkward smile.
“So... any progress?”
The response she got from that? Glaring, to say the least.
“Three seconds.”
Ryeon’s face fell, inspecting the growing smile, it was a little too wide, and obviously not real.
“I better leave. This bleak backstreet’s going to kill me if I stay.”
He pushed on his knee to propel himself, his arms groaning from the aches.
“You know... you could always...”
She paused mid-sentence.
“I could always what?”
“Ask for help?”
His eyes widened, his palms grew sweaty, his limbs trembled all over again.
Ask? For help? No way.
She watched him panic, her own throat growing dry as she gaped there, more in disbelief though.
Introverts.
“Relax. It’s not as if a beheaded rooster’s going to come your way.”
He snapped out of his dismay; Ammara now found Ryeon gaping at her.
“...What?”
“Whaaat?”
He took a deep, long breath and hastily mumbled underneath it.
“You were never sane & never will be, will you?”
She pursed her lips tightly, knowing full well the likes of what he said.
“So then... should I contact Leila?”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
He shut down that idea instantaneously. As if that’s going to stop her...
He turned to leave with slow, long strides. Meanwhile, just behind him, a maliciously helpful smile grew wide while glaring into a phone screen with her contacts open.
“Dolores probably knows her, right?”
Dolores!Hi!!!Remember Me???The one with the super cool knife?Ammara Sular?
The one with stickers on the blade guard?Teddy bear stickers?
Yeah!Do you have Leila’s contacts?Can I have them?
Why?
Ryeon sucks at using his powers.She might help.
The synthetic squirt?
WHAT
k
Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...
Leila!Hi!!!I’m Ryeon’s sister!Can you help with his powers?
How am I going to help?Also...WHERE DID YOU GET THIS NO.?
You also have water powersMy dad saw you use themThe night there was the fireYou scared him real good btwHe thought he was going crazy
creep.
“RYEON!”
She crashed her way into his room.
“Leila’s coming! She’s going to help you with your powers.”
She squealed from a pile by the wall, something greeted by a grim look by Ryeon himself.
“What did you do?”
A squeaky clump of feathers hovered outside the window, its shiny feathers glistened in the sweltering sun. Ammara carefully opened the window, trying her best not to scare the bird away, and reached her finger out. It tenderly settled itself on her finger as a pop of mismatched colours caught the corner of her eye.
“SHE’S HERE!”
Ammara screamed in Ryeon’s face, the sudden jolt scared the bird away, who flew off elsewhere. She wrapped her hand around his wrist, dragging him throughout the house.
Leila watched as the plastered smile of a bouncy ball travelled down, carrying a half-dead husk of a human.
An awkward smile greeted them at their destination.
“Hi! You probably know about his powers because ‘meetings’—”
She stared, marginally deepening her voice for that one particular word.
“—so I’ll just leave so you can help him practice.”
They shared confused eye contact while she waved her arms around, pondering over Ammara’s unusual antics.
“So... yeah. Bye!”
Ammara ran back inside head first with her arms pointing backwards, stiffened, with Leila and Ryeon both standing there in an awkward silence, maintaining a lack of uncomfortable eye contact. A weird ringing started filling Leila’s ears.
“So... what’d you need help with?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then paused, then spoke in a meager tone.
“Holding droplets for more than three seconds.”
Leila let out a short, screaky intonation. She looked around and then gestured Ryeon to follow her back into the backstreet.
.
.
.
She cracked her knuckles, nodding her head subtly towards a cracked water pipe, and raised her arms high. She closed her eyes and the water penetrated the pipe through the largest c***k, sparkling around Leila in a smooth, flowy stream. The bright, vibrant colours of the water’s refraction overpowered the drab concrete grey.
She opened her eyes, blinking hard once or twice, and looked up at Ryeon.
“Have you ever lifted weights?”
...
“—What?”
That query seemed to catch him off guard.
“Have you ever lifted weights?”
She questioned him once more, this time speaking louder with more pauses, so as if to clarify herself.
Ryeon looked down, shaking his head oh-so-slightly with a little moan.
“Water is quite dense, which translates to more weight even in little amounts. So—”
Leila explained, raising her own arms up a little bit higher.
“—holding it strongly enough to keep it afloat, while impossible to oblivion, needs a good arm.”
She swiftly moved her nose up and back down, inviting him to take a chance.
Strong hold, good arms. Got it.
Once again he took a deep breath in and stiffened his arms mid-air. Ryeon closed his eyes and started counting in his head, this time grasping at a thin streak of water.
1...2...3...4...5...
His arms started wobbling, shaking all over. Strong hold...
13...14...15...
They gave up, screaming in agony as the water droplets dripped down his face in a familiar path.
Leila watched it all with a finger on her lips and the tip of her thumb supporting her chin.
“A lot of your arm strength comes from your shoulder, so use it. Try again.”
Motivating him, Leila her hand gripping at her own shoulder to a tight fist.
Again once moreover, Ryeon stiffened raised arms, closed his eyes and started counting.
1...2...3...
He kept going, his arms still complacent.
28...29...30.
30 seconds through, small stream.
He let go of the water, letting it drip down his face and to the ground. A symphony of somewhat aggressive squeaks greeted Ryeon as he opened his eyes. He found a soggy sack of feathers staring into his soul from Leila’s hands. It made him c***k up a bit.
“Thank you...”
He said meekly while his voice took its turn to c***k up.
“I believe our little session is over for now...”
A sly smile contradicted the steamy feather ball.
“We could settle to practice regularly though.”
A nervous chuckle escaped his throat.
“What would you need to practice? You’re probably great at it. Maybe even perfect.”
That was met with a quite disappointed askance.
But I’m not...
2nd May 2021, Sunday.
Ryeon;
Ammara forced Leila to help me practice my abilities. Nothing out of the ordinary here folks. Especially considering that she was super enthusiastic about it.
My arms hurt. Leila gave me some good tips on using the ability, but nothing on the after effects.
And I’m also shivering. Which is kind of weird considering that a fire is burning bright on the road.
Leila;
I helped the synthetic squirt with his powers today. He was constantly in awe and at the end was like “you’re great” and “perfect”.
I’m still learning myself right now. These kinds of skills don’t really have standards, apart from that you can do it. It’s not as if this thing has become some sort of trend. Though it would fall in line with those trends that cause you to suffer.
I guess to those oblivion I probably am, but once those ones get a little practice they’ll quickly see right through the glamour.
I think I forgot to tell him about the side effects. They’re brutal at first, but fade away with time. They resemble hypothermia symptoms, which kind of makes sense. You’re exposed to water and putting quite an effort into manipulating it.
- Writer
