The Butterfly and the Rainstorm

The final bells rang, sharp and clear, piercing through the hazy clouds of sleep and boredom, and there was a surreal sort of stillness in the air, before it was shattered by the excited rustling of books and bags. The halls filled with metallic slams, energetic shouts, and stomping feet as the students happily prepared to leave for a nice three-day weekend after all the dull droning. Hiroto smiled to himself as the chaotic noises tumbled around into his ear, humming a tuneless tune under his breath as he slowly sifted through all the books and papers in his locker. A gentle, breezy expression graced his face as he casually slid his math textbook into his open arms, and gently clicked the locker door shut. Twirling around on his heel, he scanned the rapidly clearing hallway, and smiled again, gliding forward, not to the front gates, but rather, deeper into the school, turning and turning until he reached a humming door, bold, blue, and steel, standing guard in front of him. He placed a hand on the knob, and tilted it just so, peeking a head into the classroom.

“Ah, hello everyone!” he cheerfully called out, opening the crack in the door just a bit more so it was enough for him to slide his body in. It was a not large, but not small classroom with plastered walls, scuffed tile floors, and a whole army of cramped rectangular desks, shoved and forcefully united in the very center of the room, with a few odd ones left to their own devices against the windows and walls. A few scattered individuals were crouching and slouching over various piles of canvas, paper, water, and wild arrays of liquid color around this room. One or two lifted their heads out of the intriguing patterns of paint, graphite, and ink to nod a brief greeting in reply to Hiroto, but the boy didn’t mind. Striding over to an organized mountain of oil paints and canvases by the far window, he pulled out a phone wrapped in ear buds from his back pocket. Still humming to himself, he pressed the ear buds in and the humming began to take form into a light, fluttery song. 

The teen was pulling out brushes and picking out tubes of colors to spread onto his tall canvas in a relaxed manner when the classroom door flew opened, slamming into the wall with an air of mortality. In the presence of the once brave door now stood a shadow that emanated more coldness and finality than the door had. Unlike Hiroto’s smooth, soft entrance, this one demanded the fearful and shocked gazes of every member in the room, as if they were being graced with a surprise visit from a great general of war. A tall, lanky teen stood, glaring, at the doorway, with his bony shoulders hunched over just that bit, backpack partially unzipped and slung lazily from one shoulder. His eyes swept across the room in a cold fire, before he slinked over to a table to the right of Hiroto’s pleasant displays. He stuck a foot out and kicked the chair out from under this table, and plunked down into it.

Hiroto turned to grin happily at this new arrival, reaching a hand up to remove an ear bud to say, “Hello Elliot!” 

This boy, Elliot, didn’t even bother to look up, and merely grunted harshly in response, tossing his bag under his own table. He began to pull out sheets of paper covered in plain black and white, without a color in sight, which was strange when compared to all the other tables in the room. Hiroto brushed this off however, like it was a daily occurrence, this bluntness from the other boy, and it most likely was. 

Hiroto picked up on his humming again, although he left only half of his music in, and began to elegantly paint strokes of pretty skies onto his canvas. Meanwhile, Elliot had pulled out a sharp pointed ink pen and began to aggressively cut sharp lines onto the paper in pure black. 

Silence befell the room once more, peace taking its reign, until Elliot’s furious scratching at the poor piece of paper suddenly ceased. He jerked upwards, throwing his chair behind him leaving it to clatter onto the ground, abandoned. His breathing was heavy and inconsistent, his head was down, and he had slammed his palms onto the table with a loud bang. The other occupants of the art room also ceased to move, silently watching and waiting to see how this trembling boy would react. Eventually, Hiroto broke this freeze-frame moment, setting down his brush with a small clack.

“Elliot, are you alright?” he asked worriedly. He began to reach a hand over to lie on the taller boy’s shoulder, but Elliot swung a hand out, slapping the asking hand away with the sharp clarity of skin ripping at skin.

Elliot twisted his head up and to the left to burn his eyes at Hiroto, shouting, “Don’t touch me!”

Hiroto was stunned, and he retracted his hand. “Elliot…I don’t get it…” he murmured, eyes wide.

“Of course you don’t, you simple minded fool! You never would, because you’re always so happy, and light-hearted, and carefree!!!” the raging boy snarled, teeth bared and eyes flashing. The tiny crowd was now whispering in worry, a few hesitantly calling out, “Elliot, maybe you should calm down a bit.”

“What’s wrong with being optimistic?” Hiroto questioned, frowning.

With one swift swipe of his arm, Elliot threw all the papers, all full of shapeless scratches of black ink, onto the floor, yelling angrily. 

“I hate people like you! You disgust me! You disgust me, you disgust me, you disgust me! You always seem too perfect, it’s disgusting! It’s always about how amazing you are at learning a completely new language and culture, and how pretty your paintings are and how beautiful the world is. It completely disgusts me! It’s disgusting! Disgusting!” 

Elliot muttered that phrase over and over again as he shakily shrank into a kneeling ball on the floor. Hiroto and the others just stared, before the painter smoothed out the creases between his eyebrows, and bent down to pick up the papers that had pathetically fluttered onto the floor.

The marks scarred the paper, falling layer by layer into shapes of grinning people with fanged shadows and shattered glass lining night-colored wings of a bleeding back. Elliot watched the other boy from between his crossed arms as Hiroto patiently cleaned everything up into neat piles before standing up, dusting himself off, and leaning over to reach a hand out to Elliot.

Elliot slapped the inviting hand away again, although this time, it was significantly softer, as though it was accepted, then returned out of spiteful pride. With weak knees, he too brushed himself off, and watched as Hiroto smiled in that same, gentle, soothing way at the piles of paper returned on Elliot’s desk. 

“It’s okay to be happy, you know, Elliot?”

Elliot made a strangled sort of noise in the back of his throat, taken aback by Hiroto’s abruptness.

Hiroto trudged on though, and gave a thoughtful smile towards the abused sheets of paper, before twirling around in that dance like way of his to face his classmate. He tilted his head a bit, and gave a huge, blinding, sincere grin, saying, “And you don’t hate yourself either! I think your work is beautiful too, even if it isn’t full of colors and curves!”

Elliot just stood there and stared at Hiroto, who had picked up his brush once more and begun to paint. One by one, the audience returned to their rightful spots in the backdrop too, leaving Elliot to look blankly at the spot where Hiroto once stood. He just stood, stared, stood, and stared, but finally, he dragged himself out of his self-made haze and sat back down. Picking up his black ink pen and a fresh new sheet of paper, he began to sweep bold black lines of fresh ink across the empty plane. 

Peace once again took over her throne, and hours flew by, until the sun had drooped down below the far mountains and seas, bathing the room in a dusty pink. The other inhabitants packed up to retreat for the weekend, leaving Elliot still sitting at his desk, carefully sketching fine lines into the backdrop of his picture, and Hiroto wiping off his rinsed brushes and clearing his table of everything but a freshly wet painting. 

Letting out a deep breath, Elliot capped his pen, and stretched backwards, satisfactorily pulling out his stiff muscles. He didn’t bother cleaning anything, and merely reached below, grabbed his bag, and stepped out of his seat, feet poised to walk out the door. However, a flash of cheerful orange and mystical grey in the corner of his vision caught his attention, almost forcibly turning him away from the exit and towards Hiroto’s finished painting. 

It was simplistic, full of swirling strokes of emotions mixing with color, crashing together to fit in such a perfect way that it made one’s mind ponder yet accept things at the same time. It was a delicate, fragile butterfly painted a glowing orange and yellow, perched on a pointy, thorned dead tree branch, bullets of silver, grey, blue, and green rain and clouds shrouding the rest of the surroundings, but leaving the butterfly alone in sharp clarity, as though magnifying it. The rolling clouds at the top were stationed at the top, moving but unmovable all the same, in plain view. And yet, hidden within the grey were even darker shades of royal purple and hints of bleeding crimson red. 

As if telepathically sensing Elliot’s pause, Hiroto put away his last brush and spoke, without turning around, “It’s you and me.”

Stuttering and garbling his words a bit, Elliot ground out, “W-what are you talking about.”

Hiroto twirled around again, book in hand and answered swiftly, “The butterfly and the rain. You’re the rainstorm, and I’m the butterfly.”

And, with that, the boy glided out of the darkening room, leaving Elliot sputtering to himself in frustration, lost.

“Wait what? Hey, wh- Hey! I said wait! What was that supposed to mean you simpleton?!” 

“It means even someone who isn’t a dark, muttering cynic can also think the rain isn’t ugly, so stop getting so mad, Mr. Hater!” Hiroto laughed loudly from down the empty halls.

The sound smacked the peeling walls of the old school as the boy marched out of the building, smirking to himself at the angry, flustered shouts and rapid footsteps of the other boy racing to catch up to him from behind.