chance meeting [llyse]

"Hey, wait!"

Time, they say, waits for no man. Neither did the bus, which pulled away uncaring as she ran up to the bus stop. By the time she reached the concrete-and-plastic structure, the thing had already vanished around a bend. The dark-haired girl leaned against a pillar for support, gasping for breath. She knew a few choice words that could be used to describe the situation, the bus, and the driver, but they were inappropriate for public use.

"There'll be another bus in twenty minutes."

"I know," she growled, sneaking a glance at the speaker. Said person met her gaze levelly, with a pair of dark eyes fringed with long lashes, set in a round face framed by dark bangs. That face bore the print of exhaustion, dark circles around those wide eyes, but the girl smiled anyway, hugging a small bag to her chest as she spoke.

"What's your name? I'm Ary."

A strange name, she thought. Well, two can play at that. "I'm Tei," she said, straightening. It was not her real name, of course, but her internet moniker. She used it sometimes when talking to people she did not quite care about.

Ary's smile brightened, the expression seeming to light up her face and make her look younger than before. "Tei," she repeated. "It's a nice name."

"I'm a nice person," Tei said sardonically, taking a seat beside the slender girl. The bus stop was empty, and the two of them had the whole row of seats to themselves. Well, not the whole row. A few of the seats had been rendered unusable with the careful application of a few wads of chewing gum smeared almost artistically across the plastic. "Well, what are you doing here if you aren't waiting for the bus?" Tei queried, raising both eyebrows.

"I came from up there," Ary replied, pointing briefly towards the hospital that loomed over the bus stop. Tei had been there only once, when her younger brother had broken an arm during choir practice. How he had broken his arm during choir practice was a long story involving a few pieces of rickety furniture and a distinct lack of sleep. It had since become a family legend. "I'm waiting for my parents."

"Sick?" Tei asked sympathetically.

"It's just a check-up. They say there's something strange about my test results." The way she said it, it sounded like she was hiding something, but Tei let it pass. It was not her place to pry into private matters. The silence stretched, and Tei felt obliged to fill it in.

"I'm a university student. You know, the Jade Institute, two streets away? I'm taking--"

"Do you wish, sometimes, that you had someone to talk to?" Ary interrupted, turning towards Tei. "That you had someone to be by your side, to keep you company when you needed somebody?" Tei flinched, surprised by the girl's sudden outburst.

"I think," she said carefully, "that everyone wishes for something like that; but not everyone finds it." Tei had always been something of a loner. She had a confidante and companion of sorts in her brother, but he was fast becoming too busy with his own circle of friends to be with her all the time. She did not begrudge him his fun, but sometimes it got lonely in her room with their parents busy and him out partying. Unlike Tei, her brother made friends easily.

"Then you understand," Ary said, smiling a sad smile. They sat in quiet companionship there, watching cars zoom by. All of a sudden Ary stood, swinging her bag over her shoulder. "My car's coming," she said, pointing. Then, without another word, the quiet girl walked out into the evening sunlight, dark hair swiftly disarrayed by the wind. Tei felt a sudden sense of things slipping away from her, a chance that once gone would never return.

"Wait!" she called, standing. "I'm on ICQ, you know. I use the same name. Do you think. you could go online sometime and we could talk, maybe?"

Ary turned, the smile on her face a wonder to behold. "Yes," she said. "I'd like that."

It seemed that the sun shone particularly bright, that day.