Kiana pressed her fingers against the warmth of the green tea, the only source of heat in the peaceful park. The snow had fallen in a thin layer, just enough to cover the ground in a blanket of white while the trees held cotton balls of ice on their branches. It was ordinary as ever, but appeared even more stunning now that she wasn't supposed to be there.

"So, tell me about yourself." Jonathan piped up behind Kiana as they trod their way across the snowy path, puffs of breath freezing into clouds before them. "Cause all I really know about you is your name and school."

Kiana shrugged her shoulders, somehow finding his odd personality comforting. He was a beautiful mess as she tended to think -everything from his scrawny figure to blue hair and a mystery that made her heart twist into a thousand knots.

"Well, I like photography." She stated simply, giving him the same list of attributes she threw out with every greeting. "I'm head of the club too. Actually, we just got some new equipment..."

"That's not what I meant." 

Kiana paused, staring up at the boy's bright eyes. Again, her stomach twisted in warning, a kind pleasant fear that made her want to run away and hug him at the same time.

"That's only your surface, just the stuff you do. It's not you." He stated. "That notebook showed me you're not a shallow thinker and that deep stuff... that's what really makes you. That's what I wanna know."

"...I've always wanted to be bilingual..."

"Deeper." He declared as the steam from his coffee clouded his face. "It's not about what you do, it's about why. Why do you want another language? Why do you want to capture a sunrise, or a mountain, and preserve those moments forever in nothing but just an image..."

Jonathan paused, his eyes seeing something Kiana could never dream of. The excitement had built up until everything she seemed to know about him fell away in his attempt to understand even just a sliver of her.

"I...love beauty." Kiana found the words spilling from her lips, somehow unable to put the worlds she crafted into a speech. She had explored it so many times, but how was he supposed to understand? He had never seen it from her eyes.

"I love the way that people's faces light up when they're happy, or how a child explores the world." The words were coming easier now. "And I don't know what it is, but I just feel so...alive whenever these little things happen. No one notices them. No one notices the way an author analyzes a book, or how the quiet kid knows more than the math teacher has to offer. They're all their own little mysteries and I want to solve them all. They're so beautiful."

"And it makes you feel beautiful too, right?" Jonathan drew his blue eyes to Kiana, the smile creeping back onto his face.

"Um...I guess..." Kiana's heart pounded, eyes slowly drifting away from his powerful gaze. Something about him had suddenly become unnerving, almost threatening. He was still just as harmless, yet the secrets in his eyes held more determination than Kiana ever wanted to see.

"I used to know that feeling too." He was not a step closer, but Kiana could feel a dangerous heat radiating off him, urging her to run. "I loved objects. Couldn't figure out why everyone loved them so much, so I'd take them. I'd tear them apart and try to find what made them so special."

"Thing is, there was nothing in them. They were just things and I was left feeling empty all over again. That is until you came along."

"What?" All of a sudden, the aura disappeared, replaced only by the shell of a boy staring at the pond. The knots in Kiana's stomach faded, her blood cooling. She was simply staring at a boy so broken, she could almost see blood dripping from the cut on his cheek.

He was hunched over, clinging to the coffee and so still...he was almost like the zombies Kiana had run away from.

"I told you." His voice was twisted into a thousand emotions, a beautiful mess that Kiana wanted to untangle. "I bumped into you two days ago and...I couldn't let you get away. I've never felt so close..."

"Close to what?"

Jonathan shuffled his feet, his brokenness falling away as the playful grin slipped onto his face. "It doesn't matter. C'mon. I've gotta get to work in a bit, and you should get back to school before anyone knows you're missing."