Fire and water, water and fire

The monsoons came early, the humidity climbing and rainfall increasing. While I huddled down in my home to hide from the torrential rain, you came alive, your eyes wide at the fat round droplets as large as your iris. Your peering out of the window, drenching yourself in the wetness of it all.

You ditched your jacket, the one you wore year-long despite the tropical heat, for waterproof slippers. While goosebumps rose on my arms and I complained about the cold, you danced through the wind without an umbrella. Except, when you decided to flip your umbrella upside down, just for the laughs of it.

Your serious demeanour scared me for days, but now you seemed bubbly and full of life. Your warm months slumber, your rainy day life, was the exact opposite of my, and the general populations' idea of climate.

Then, I saw you walking in the rain.

I reached for you, and my fingers touched dry fabric. New waterproof invention, I asked quizzically.

You shrugged, then shook your head. No, it has always been like that.

I temporarily hung there.

I dragged you under the umbrella. Since young? I questioned.

Yep.

You looked uncomfortable under the umbrella, staring desperately at the raindrops falling from the ends of the umbrella prongs. Clear droplets dropping down rhythmically, like rivulets down to the saturated with moisture floor beneath us. Like the creases on your forehead as you stare down at the dark grey road.

I walked you back to your block, and told you to go back up to dryness. A streak of longing went past your face, but you turned back to me and nodded, a part of you finally submitting to my better decision. I waved goodbye, then left with my umbrella over my head.

However, before I had turned the corner, I looked back.

I saw you, grinning, dashing back into the rain, clearly oblivious to me staring at you.

We changed class, and you and I were not in the same class.

I saw you walk to the toilet, then come out after 15 min, you hands covered in water droplets. Yet, they rolled off your limbs like water droplets to a lily pad's top surface. I later went in, if you know, and tried to do so. No luck for me however: they only could evaporate off my skin, leaving me even colder than before.

Your classmates came to me one day, asking me about you. Unfortunately, I had no answers, despite being with you for at least 5 years. Just as I was about to leave in my despair of not being a good friend to you, they asked me the final, and most potent question.

How are you able to understand and tolerate her?

"Understand"..."Tolerate". The words floated through my mind endlessly, throughout the day. I avoided you, but I knew your gaze was on me as I wandered through the school, questioning our friendship. Perhaps, you knew, because you did not try to follow me home that day.

The monsoon season soon ended, bringing back the tropical heat. As others shed their jackets, your pale, almost glossy skin was hidden in a layer of black, your bluish eyes covered under a dark hood. Your personality quieted, the life ebbing out of you like the torrents afraid of the bright sun.

I avoided you at all cost, desperate to be away from a "freak" like you. I began to question everything, our strange friendship, your looks. I moved to the front of class, paid much attention, tried to be the perfect student, just to shake the thought of you off.

It never worked of course.

You haunted me like a ghost, physically and mentally, reminding me endlessly of the good times we had together, forgetting the strangeness, or perhaps uniqueness of you.

Yet, I forsook you. I saw you in school, and I turned my head down, your eye shooting lasers into me, burning my skin. I never saw your face ever again, but probably, you did not understand.

Be careful, your arm is in the bunsen burner! My lab partner screamed at me one day. All I felt was a patch of warmth, nothing searing, nothing painful. I removed my hand from the supposed danger, then checked it visually.

Nothing wrong, just a little crimson.

Actually, my face on the other hand, seemed to be burning. You are red in the face, I hear a voice say through the fog of my mind.

I excuse myself, and dash out of the lab. It is pouring again, I notice, unexpectedly given the monsoon period is already over.

I remember your jacket for a moment, but I push the thought out of my mind like an unwanted notification. I dash to the toilet to cool myself down despite the cold wind blowing through the corridors. A cold front, I think, yet a wavering heat seems to be following me, burning strong then weak, like flames of fire.

I see you in the distance. I keep to the side of the wall, eyes averting you. Don't notice me, I beg you quietly in my mind. Yet, you reach out, and touch me.

I flinch. But, I soon realise that I feel less hot. I look up, my eyes for once not scared of your pale face.

Water dripping from your fingers. I follow your gaze to my own.

Fire exploding from mine.

Fire and water, water and fire, I hear subtly.

Your mouth is not moving.

It is in my brain. But how?

We have a bond dear, you as fire and I as water. Telepathy, simple.

You cause water to evaporate and I cause fire to extinguish.

I see how you are like a water droplet. Clear skin and eyes, so transparent I can nearly see the blood vessels underneath. You feel cold to touch, hiding from the sun like a biting rainy wind from the bright warm sky. And for me, I feel fiery at times, biting back and fighting things.

Like my friendship with you too.

It has been too long, I scream for joy at your face. Reaching out, I grab you in an embrace. Regret vapourises out of me as fire and water combines and disappears in beams of light that condenses into a big ball of glow.

Our friendship is restored.

Fire and water, water and fire.

We were meant to be.