It smelled quiet.
There's a sterility to the afternoon light as it bleeds through a windowed wall, illuminating every shadow in a classroom lit only by its warmth - centralizing around the only remaining figure, a boy small enough to be eclipsed by his own chair. His face remained buried in the study guide in front of him, oblivious to the passing time and the absence of his peers on their lunch; not quite bold enough to tag along with any groups, yet not quite lonely enough to be bothered for being left behind. He was busy. There was a twitch to one hand, soft and pale and twisting fingers in idle seals under the pervading orange hue along with the instructions he poured over. His stomach hadn't rumbled, so he couldn't be that hungry, and if you didn't have to stop something should you need to? He was so close, he wondered, eyes half-lidded until one fell shut from the angle and the other offered the only spot of color left in the silence. A muted orange. A loud blue. A shock of white like feathery down in a pile, snowdrift lost among the cliffs. He teetered with pulled-up legs on the edge forward of his chair, feet displaced from sandles with socks that gripped at the cliff's edge.
Transform--
Fingers faltered in their incantation, stumbling over his pointer until he had to drop the sequence and shake it off with no sound but an exhalation of cold air. His skin pricked, almost biting - it wasn't cold, really, in the ambient autumn, but his skin was so thin and his blood so slow from its lack of activity, he had no defense in a small tee and shorts, hairless from his lacking age. He liked the cold. There was something to say for feeling, even and perhaps especially in negative circumstances. It was better than not experiencing. It was better to know the world as it was, to know cold so you could know warmth, so you could fend cold. He would adjust. His body, wiry and weak and aching, would know better, day by day, lesson by lesson. This was just another one. Don't ignore the cold, Kise: experience it. Breathe thin air through thin lungs and make something bigger.
It was rewarded with every cast of light from the window and the chattering of the other kids outside. Warmth. A slate of heat on the back of his neck to fight the pinching chill from his throat. A cycle.
Cycling was the topic of merit, his chakra languid in its circulation as every new seal attempted to urge it around into a more moldable state. Exams weren't too far away. Kiseki had yet to "toughen up" to the point of his peers physically, so if he hoped to ever move forward with the graduating classes he needed to better handle the level of Jutsu they were expected to perform effortlessly at this point in their studies. Control comes and goes. It's not sharpened yet, not available at whim, such an untrained muscle excited only by adrenaline he was frankly unable to work up naturally. Yet. Another breath. A flutter of white eyelashes to crest hollow cheeks as if brushing away the lethargy. Move. Move. Move.
Transform-
A snaking blue flared unevenly around his arm, features elongating in odd and haphazard places as the silhouette of a cat mewled pitifully to life before melting back into himself and the technique dispersed. Frustration nor sadness made its way onto his expression, only a gently ignited studiousness that urged another roll of his fingers - a pop - until he could make their needed shapes again.
It was the entrance of another into the room that slipped his digits from eachother, concentration falling with the motion until his head needed lifting and unwavering, clear blue shone out to frame the other boy. A voice spoke to break the silence, the gentle lilting of an afternoon dream meeting intonated pealing as if bells could sing through mortal lips and lull you to worryless sleep.
"Kazanari-kun? Are you not eating with the others?"
There's a sterility to the afternoon light as it bleeds through a windowed wall, illuminating every shadow in a classroom lit only by its warmth - centralizing around the only remaining figure, a boy small enough to be eclipsed by his own chair. His face remained buried in the study guide in front of him, oblivious to the passing time and the absence of his peers on their lunch; not quite bold enough to tag along with any groups, yet not quite lonely enough to be bothered for being left behind. He was busy. There was a twitch to one hand, soft and pale and twisting fingers in idle seals under the pervading orange hue along with the instructions he poured over. His stomach hadn't rumbled, so he couldn't be that hungry, and if you didn't have to stop something should you need to? He was so close, he wondered, eyes half-lidded until one fell shut from the angle and the other offered the only spot of color left in the silence. A muted orange. A loud blue. A shock of white like feathery down in a pile, snowdrift lost among the cliffs. He teetered with pulled-up legs on the edge forward of his chair, feet displaced from sandles with socks that gripped at the cliff's edge.
Transform--
Fingers faltered in their incantation, stumbling over his pointer until he had to drop the sequence and shake it off with no sound but an exhalation of cold air. His skin pricked, almost biting - it wasn't cold, really, in the ambient autumn, but his skin was so thin and his blood so slow from its lack of activity, he had no defense in a small tee and shorts, hairless from his lacking age. He liked the cold. There was something to say for feeling, even and perhaps especially in negative circumstances. It was better than not experiencing. It was better to know the world as it was, to know cold so you could know warmth, so you could fend cold. He would adjust. His body, wiry and weak and aching, would know better, day by day, lesson by lesson. This was just another one. Don't ignore the cold, Kise: experience it. Breathe thin air through thin lungs and make something bigger.
It was rewarded with every cast of light from the window and the chattering of the other kids outside. Warmth. A slate of heat on the back of his neck to fight the pinching chill from his throat. A cycle.
Cycling was the topic of merit, his chakra languid in its circulation as every new seal attempted to urge it around into a more moldable state. Exams weren't too far away. Kiseki had yet to "toughen up" to the point of his peers physically, so if he hoped to ever move forward with the graduating classes he needed to better handle the level of Jutsu they were expected to perform effortlessly at this point in their studies. Control comes and goes. It's not sharpened yet, not available at whim, such an untrained muscle excited only by adrenaline he was frankly unable to work up naturally. Yet. Another breath. A flutter of white eyelashes to crest hollow cheeks as if brushing away the lethargy. Move. Move. Move.
Transform-
A snaking blue flared unevenly around his arm, features elongating in odd and haphazard places as the silhouette of a cat mewled pitifully to life before melting back into himself and the technique dispersed. Frustration nor sadness made its way onto his expression, only a gently ignited studiousness that urged another roll of his fingers - a pop - until he could make their needed shapes again.
It was the entrance of another into the room that slipped his digits from eachother, concentration falling with the motion until his head needed lifting and unwavering, clear blue shone out to frame the other boy. A voice spoke to break the silence, the gentle lilting of an afternoon dream meeting intonated pealing as if bells could sing through mortal lips and lull you to worryless sleep.
"Kazanari-kun? Are you not eating with the others?"
