Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(91)

He looked toward her and found her eyes glistening, teary. “I’m so bad at this,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I was supposed to be distracting you. Yet here we are again, having the same conversation.”

“No, Yumi,” he said (highly). “It’s fine.”

“It isn’t though. We did everything wrong, Painter. I wasn’t supposed to fixate on winning that prize—I was just supposed to throw and enjoy the company. I see that in the way others are acting down below. I…I don’t know how to be a person, Nikaro. You have to explain to me how to have fun.”

“I like explaining things,” he said, causing her to look at him again. “Yumi, I’m a painter. Do you remember why I said I loved it?”

“To share it,” she whispered. “To see the delight of your creations with your friends…”

Painter gestured as they continued upward, high enough that the chaos of the carnival instead became a pattern. Flowing pathways, spinning rides like fanciful geometries. Lights, once garish and overwhelming, became twinkling accents to a wonderful tapestry.

Her eyes widened.

“Not quite as breathtaking as flying,” he said.

“No,” she whispered, “but I love it. I love not feeling afraid. I love being able to linger.” She stared for a time, but then saw one of the other couples in their cab pass, coming back down the other way. Those two cuddled up close with a jacket around them.

“We can’t do this right, Painter,” she said. “We—”

“Yumi,” he interrupted, feeling an unfamiliar emotion.

Contentment. How long had it been? Years? Even with everything else, even in their strange situation…being in that cab that night, with light dancing beneath them…was perfect.

She looked at him, cocking her head.

“Are you happy?” he asked softly. “Right now. Worries ignored. Problems forgotten. Are you happy?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“How long has it been?”

“I don’t think I can remember a time,” she said. “There are…vague memories. Of laughter. A home. A place where the floor was never too hot, and where someone held me. I might have just imagined all of that… You?”

“My birthday,” he said, “first year of upper school. About a month before the test to join the Dreamwatch. The following month was awful, stressful as I tried to prepare every last moment. That day of my party though—with friends and my paintings, a place I thought I belonged… Masaka made me a hat.”

“Was it black?”

“More like a helmet,” he said, smiling. “With spikes. She said it was a birthday hat.”

They stopped in place as the ride paused for the couple at the top of the pinnacle to have a moment. Painter felt warm, even though it was colder up this high. He felt as if he were wrapped in a blanket. With the best view in town. And he wasn’t looking at the city.

“Maybe,” Yumi said, with a smile, “it’s all right if we do things the wrong way. As long as it’s the same wrong way.”

She rested her hand on the bar in front of them—right near his—as the ride brought them up into the top position. He wanted so badly to be able to hold her, but had to content himself with moving his hand an inch closer to hers—until he felt the barest sense of electric warmth at their touch.

It thrummed through him, like magma injected into his veins. If he’d looked closely, he would have seen two little lines—like electric sparks—connecting his skin to hers. Magenta and azure.

Together they enjoyed the silent presence of one another, drinking in the moment. It’s said that everything you eat, even the air you breathe, becomes part of you. The axi that make up the matter you take in come to make up you instead. I, however, find that the moments we take into our souls as memories are far more important than what we eat.

We need those moments as surely as the air, and they linger. Potent. Yes, a person is more than their experiences, stacked up like stones. But our best moments are the foundations we use to reach for the sky.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime that passed too quickly, their cab reached the bottom. Yumi slipped out, settling the oversized painter’s bag against her back. Wordlessly, the two of them strolled away from the carnival. Now that they’d been to the sky, the chaos at ground level seemed distorted. Like a painting seen so close-up you could no longer make out the meaning.

They trailed vaguely in the direction of Painter’s apartment. The streets grew quiet—the carnival receding into their past—as they entered sections of the city that acknowledged the late hour. Even the homes felt sleepy, the drawn drapes drooping eyelids. Only the ever-present hion lines floating above lit the way, painting cobbles and concrete.

Neither of them wanted to break the moment. Until finally Yumi stopped and dug into the painter’s bag. She pulled out the smaller sketchpad and knelt, taking out a small paintbrush and a jar of ink.

“Yumi?” he asked, leaning down.

She held up a finger to still him, then unscrewed the ink jar—twisting it the correct way this time—and dipped her brush. Then she proceeded to paint a picture of what they’d just experienced. A view in the first person, looking out at the landscape below. In front of that, their hands on the bar of the ride’s cab. Except in this, their hands overlapped.