Marked on my calendar with a red circle, today's date signals the important event in the life of all and any Sumeru students. Although awaited, I stand in the all-too-familiar hall thinking melancholy thoughts.
"I can't believe we are finally done!"
Yea, we are graduating.
I turn around to find Candace holding me by the shoulders (she's a little taller), giving me that big grin of hers. The rest of the gang – namely Cyno, Alhaitham, Faruzan, and even Nilou – are there as well, giving me small smiles and rolling their eyes at Candace. A bright smile shines on Faruzan's face.
"I don't think I have ever seen you smile so brightly in my life!" I exclaim, gasping in an exaggerated manner.
"Well, you better stare at it while you can. School has finally ended, so now I am truly free," Faruzan states, giving me a proud side glance. She did mention before that finishing school is her dream, although she didn't tell me whether there's anything that special that she wants to do afterwards.
"Remember the taxes," Nilou mumbled, sending Faruzan a crinkle-eyed smile in exchange for a glare.
I couldn't help but giggle. I almost teared up at the thought of this being the last time ever that I'd get to see them all act stupid together like this. I brushed my young tear away with my fingertip, covering it up as tears of laughter. Wishing for school to end is fun and all, until the very point that it actually happens. And in this moment you wish that it would never end.
All the memories made together with your friends, classmates, group-project mates, competition buddies, nice teachers that feel like the wonderful parents some of us never had, and even those made with the grumbly teachers and those who need to work on their temper do not make me wish for this to end anymore. I wish it could go on forever. That way we wouldn't have to really feel this sudden rift between childhood and adulthood.
Nilou carefully took my hand in hers, and for once I looked at her without remembering that she is Cyno's girlfriend; the place that I could've occupied if he had loved me. I think she felt the same way I did, and perhaps to many students, excluding Faruzan, this hallway had the same melancholy feel today as it did to the both of us as we came closer and closer to the Main Hall.
Hundreds of students in green robes sat in rows of grey seats, making the golden-rimmed platform of the soon-to-come speaker seem like a stage in a grand theater.
I don't remember everything that the old man up there told us, nor the speeches of the many students and professors and else-who-not. I just clapped along, or shed an occasional tear which seemed like it wasn't related to any of their topics at all.
I stood on the stage then, along with many others who were graduating with us, and for a moment I forgot how to live and whether I was living at all. I looked at the big amount of people in their seats, younger perhaps, although I could not see their faces. They were too far away to hug, and yet close enough to identify their Sumerian features. It felt like I have accomplished something on my own that doesn't seem any special. Soon, we will be replaced upon this stage of marble.
After we were dismissed, with more noise than anyone could ever imagine a prestige academy having, I climbed up the stairs to the second floor one last time, walking up to that one familiar open door. That was not my classroom. But somehow, its doors will always be open to me. As long as I'm a child. This is the classroom I used to study in. My favorite classroom.
Never again will I be able to come up here and find an excuse to hangout with the young teens who are perhaps not interested at all in seeing this older girl just doing weird things around the class; collecting papers, hanging out at the teacher's desk, and whatnot. I just love this classroom, the one which I will see for the very last time. And the teacher who teaches here. I remember how she was the new teacher that got me irritated when I first sat down at my desk. It was a bad enough day back then, as I did not get the window seat.
And then the memories came flowing in;
I remembered the day a few weeks after I had confessed to Cyno, when a rumor was going around about him kissing Nilou in the hallway by our classroom.
I remembered the day when me and Alhaitham almost ended up in a bizarre embrace when the blackboard almost killed me by falling over.
I remembered the day when Candace and Faruzan dressed me up for a school dance. Probably the first time and last time I'll ever wear a fancy dress.
I remembered the day when Faruzan comforted me in the food storage room through my breakdown.
I remembered the day when me, Faruzan, and Candace made a bet on getting the boyfriends of our dreams if we ran 10 laps around the marathon ring in the P.E. section.
I remembered the day when Cyno got scolded for coming to class with sand falling off him in waterfalls.
I remembered the day when I got lost in the research library and ended up getting carried after falling asleep by a stranger back to the entrance hallway. I still have no idea who that was.
I remembered the day when I scraped my knee real bad when I stumbled because of the stack of books that I carried that covered my view, and had to be carried between Alhaitham and Cyno to the meds office on the third floor (why would something like that be on the third floor?).
That knee really hurt and yet now something in me hurts much more.
The sunlight filtering through the glass and falling onto the classroom's desk and marble floor, emitted a glistening peaceful glow, that made me remember all too well that time is unstoppable.
And then I turned around to find Cyno, standing there, looking at me. He was my childhood crush, and a part of what made my school experience so dramatic and special. I know that a lot has happened, and I know he is not the one for me, but I hugged him, tight, and he let me. In fact, he hugged back, a little bit less tightly but he still did. He understood me, perhaps not entirely, but he did. And that was all I needed to shed the tears my heart held tight.
"Aww, Y/n," Candace said not far away, "you are gonna make me cry as well!"
"All of us," Alhaitham said quietly, as he came up from the other side.
I couldn't see them, but soon enough it was not mine and Cyno's hug; it became a hug of all my friends. The friend gang of the Akademiya.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
Perhaps it wasn't the most rational decision, but what have I to loose? After everything that has happened earlier today, leaving now would be the perfect start to my "free," as Faruzan calls it, adult life.
I have all the knowledge I could get here about traveling, and I'm going to have to learn anything else on the way. I did as much research as I could on Liyue and the environments of the lands I will have to pass in order to reach it. Specifically, Liyue Harbor, which is my main destination. There, I could get the rest I needed after the trip. I asked the travellers that came here as much as I could about their routes and asked them for any advice they could offer.
I actually went as far as beg for additional work after classes with the travel research professor, who was weirdly energised for his age. He was so enthusiastic to have a travel student he even suggested to go on a whole travel adventure with me around Teyvat, but I made sure that he knew that my priorities lie elsewhere. For my goal isn't to travel around as much as possible, but to find my place to live and figure out whether Liyue is the home I'm looking for.
"Reaching Liyue won't be easy," is what the professor told me after he has been figuring me out for weeks (I didn't tell him my actual goal). "It might seem simple, but there are bandits and rocky mountains everywhere you go."
If only that. I may not be prepared for all the obstacles that are going to face me on this journey, but to me it's "now or never."
Closing the front door behind me, I run straight to my closet, where I have a secret stash of traveling supplies. The first-aid kit, the magic items, bags, outfit accessories, etc. went straight into my arms as I tried my best to fit as much as I could in one go -- REMEMBER: women never carry things twice if they can help it. It felt most relieving; dumping all the stuff on the couch.
I strode over to the fridge and swung it open, the chilly air hitting the surface of my skin as I looked in wonder at all the food I managed to pack up. I don't know the next time that I will return here, so I packed and threw out as much of the food as I could. I cooked shawarma wraps, aaru mixed rice, pita pockets (not a fan of those, but they are good travel food), a bit of the unhealthy tulumba, rose custard (to eat before the trip), and I even tried cooking Liyuan rice buns!
Although, I'm pretty sure that they are nothing close to original rice buns made in Liyue itself.
I gathered all the food together on the little coffee table in front of the couch. Now that all the stuff were there, I only needed to change and perform the magic to get the inventory. Carrying a bunch of heavy bags is daunting, and will only take years out of my life.
The magic items are tools for the creation of different things that need a small dosage of magic, mostly inventories, and I had a set of those ever since I can remember. Ever since I lived in Sumeru. They are similar to something like magic stones, since they are differently colored, crystal-like stones that have a conserved amount of magic within them, and they work a similar way, too.
I ran back to my wardrobe, where I found all the robes I have prepared for this trip. They were made of the best Sumerian material for traveling and costed me a good penny, but I'm sure that it's worth it. This will be no short trip, so my outfit is bound to suffice!
(I'll sketch the outfit look and add it later on here.)
Just when I was about to lay out the "magic stones" in a pattern to make them work..
"Y/n!!"
I swept my head around just in time to see my front door bang open, which was enough for me to be able to hide the magic tools under a random cloth that lay on the coffee table. In the doorway stood Alhaitham, his pose clearly expressing his mood.
He took one look at me.
"Y/n, what is all this??"
⋅⋆ ───────── ⋆⋅
Hello, darlings! Here is a long, emotional chapter for you. I have not graduated school yet, but I think that this is how many students feel when graduating. I wanted to make this moment a bit sad, because of how with college ending, Y/n's childhood ends as well. Her childish crushes, drama, etc. are ending, and she is leaving all that behind as she goes into a new chapter of her life that she has always dreamed about.
That is to say, that all of this doesn't happen without heartbreaking. She is trying her best not to give in to doubt, despite the fact that there might be many emotional and physical obstacles on the way. She knows that these changes will be a benefit to her, and will make her life better. We all need to take the action in order to have something happen, right?
Life is short, so we have to use the time we have to the fullest!!
P.S. I'm probably posting 2 chapters this week, since I missed last week (I did not have the guts to write this heartbreak the whole Sunday :3)
Word count: 2098
Not edited.