She smiles back at me with great reluctance. “Ah, that is well… Funny to hearing?”
“Absolutely!” I shout, and without waiting for her to raise me, I leap up and throw my arms around her. “Thank you—thank you—thank you! Oh, Rice, you really are a life-saver! Sorry about rejecting you when you first came, I really thought I wanted to die, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“Have you?”
I pull back out. Is it just me, or does she feel shorter than usual? Might be the lack of hat. Anyways! “Yes! Now that I’ve been headless for a while, I’ve realized that I seem to have been headless most of my life! Sorry to have subjected you to my headless state. Did I look reproachful? Oh, I’m sure I did. But I’m better now! Wow, being alone with nothing but your thoughts sure gives you perspective, huh?”
“Um, should you mayhaps talk with smaller words? I cannot understand…”
I release her and begin pacing, the tickling grass eliciting another giggle from my throat. “Yes. I am lucky. I didn’t die! I was very close, but now I have tasted death. Only in part, of course. Only a taste-test! But that was enough—I will not die. I cannot die! There is no…” I grit my teeth. Ah, pain, pain! Wonderful pain! “No absolution through death. I must live. How cruel! Isn’t that horrible? I can never truly experience the pain I’ve subjected others to! Forever, I must live, knowing that I cannot be afforded the same rest as my victims. Ah, the karmic irony! Truly, I was too naive to believe myself deserving of death! No, my pain must be even greater, even—”
Something cracks across my face, and all of a sudden, something stings the left side of my face. Hm? I touch it. That’s weird. That’s very odd. Why is…
Taking another step closer to me, she slaps me again—even harder, this time, to the point where I fall to the ground. Cold, damp grass.
She squats down on top of me, pressing her knee into my chest. Her face is twisted. What expression is this? Desperation? Anger? Hurt? There are so many to pick from!
“Who think you that you are?”
My lungs don’t breathe. My heart doesn’t beat. My skin is cold, my flesh is stiff. I smile up at her. “I’m a person, aren’t I? What else could I be?”
“You are,” she says, leaning in closer, “Lo Fennrick. Your nose is bent, and your teeth are yellow. On long distance look you out like one strange beast. You speak weird. You have not really one dialect. But your meat is red, and you give never up, until the end. Right now, so are you scared. And hurt. The life… have it disappointed you? Have you disappointed yourself?”
My smile trembles. “I used to be worse,” I say, weakly. “But I’m better now. I’m supposed to get better. After living through all this, shouldn’t I develop? What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right?”
“Sometimes,” she says, grasping for words, “hurt… only hurts. There is no lesson. No reason to why it happened. It just… happened… and then continues life.” She steps off of me. I sit up. My chest aches. I grit my teeth. No. No. I can’t. I was doing so well. I can’t stumble now. If I do, I might never get better, I might never… She kneels down in front of me, reaches out, and takes me into her arms. “Have not hurry. Let yourself stop and take care of the moment. Let yourself feel the hurt. Cry, if you must. Laugh, if you need. But feel.”
My shoulders tremble. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Why can’t I just…? Angry, angry tears well up. Crying, again. Somehow, even though I’m not doing as much stupid shit anymore, it feels like I’ve gotten worse. Is that simply the kind of person I am? Always struggling, always failing. But…
Always… rising again.
Even if I don’t want to. Even if I just want to lie down and die.
I have never been the sort of person to give up. Not really.
I… have…hope.
I press her closer to me. She strokes the hair out of my face. Below her shirt, her chain mail clinks coldly.
Suddenly, she chuckles.
“What is it?” I ask, still in her arms.
“That thing on your back… I can read it now. I couldn’t before, but now…”
“What does it say?”
She chuckles again, pulling my hair out of the way. “It looks out to be same thing written many times… In all cases, says one of them… ‘Embrace hope, find grace.’ On English.”
“‘Embrace hope?’” I parrot, including the chuckle that follows. “That’s stupid. Why brand something upside down? Totally dumb. Then you’d only be able to see it if I was hanging upside down, or if you were…” I look at her. She looks back at me, so close. I lean back into her embrace, if only to escape her gaze. Damn that emperor. Next time I see him, I’ll get him so drunk he won’t wake up for a week. Damn him. Idiot. Baka.
“Many strange,” she mutters back, still holding me. Maybe because we’ve already been sitting like this for a minute, she starts to let go of me—I tighten my grip on her.
“Not yet,” I murmur into her neck. “Please… a little more.”
“Okay,” she says, adjusting to hold me again, as closely as I hold her. Absently, not even thinking about it, she starts humming. I don’t recognize the tune, but it sounds nice.
Something begins to appear in the corner of my eye, struggling, squirming, only to…
Pop!
~{88o88}~
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Hey, there you are! I was starting to wonder where you’d gone. Everything alright, Simon?
/{>>~<<;}\
\{::w::}/!
That’s good, I think? You look about the same as before, so maybe I shouldn’t have worried?
<{::m::´}>
Hm? What’s with that face? Are you… angry? Why?
<{::M::#}>
…Ah, I see. You’re mad that I tried to kill myself. Is that it?
<{::m::,}>
Angry, and… Yeah. Right. I… I guess that makes sense. But, you know, even if I die, I’m sure you would still survive, so—
I receive the tiniest slap ever.
\{,::`M´::,}>
Ah… Haha… Yeah, okay, I deserve—
\{,88`M´88,}>
Ah. Nevermind. That isn’t… Yeah, you’re right. That’s not why you’re mad. You just… don’t want me… to die. Isn’t that silly? A tiny little creature like you, fully dependent on some clown of a being like me. Someone who can hardly even take care of himself is supposed to ensure that a little thing like you doesn’t stumble out into the road and get run over. Isn’t that cruel? How can you even stand it?
\{::m::,}>
{::~::,}
{>>~<<,}
{,::w::}/<3
That’s…
I chuckle. Rice shifts in my arms.
You love me? Is that really enough to stand having someone like me for a master? Shouldn’t even love have some sort of limit, like—
{::w::}
!!<3<3<3\{`::W::´}/<3<3<3!!
Alright, alright, alright, I get it! I get it. Sheesh, no need to throw all of those in my eye. But… I appreciate it, Simon. I’m just not sure if I can really accept right now that, well… Less so that you love me, and maybe more so… That you love me enough to overlook that I’m, you know…
Me.
I mean, what have I ever done for you? And—and no need to answer that one, it’s rhetorical, and not entirely self-deprecating. Sure, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t exist, but the child doesn’t always love the parent. Aside from that, what have I done? I give you orders, tell you to do this and that…
{::w::}?
Heh. Okay, yeah, I know what you’re trying to say, being all confused. It’s just that, to me… I don’t really want to accept that your love really is unconditional. It feels too convenient. Unreal. Love should be earned, not freely given. You wouldn’t love someone you barely knew, right? That’s simply not how it…
I blink.
…Hang on.
I loosen my grip on Rice, and in return, she lets me go. I scootch out of her grip, my pants damp with morning dew. Without her hat on, her wiry, tangled hair sticks out in every direction, almost covering her crystal-blue eyes. Her face, freckles and lightly scarred, is red. Her lips are formed into a smile, and her fingers are fiddling gently with the collar of her shirt. The way she’s looking at me… The way she’s been acting…
I feel a lightbulb in my head turn on and promptly explode.
“Are you… in love with me?”
By some magic I thought only romcoms were capable of, she turns even redder, almost as red as her hair. To make matters worse, she deflates, her hands moving to pull at her hair. But she’s smiling. Or maybe it’s a nervous tic. “Is—is it so obvious…?”
“No. No, I was…” I was guessing. But I’ve never… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real person in love. Not like this. Not for… for me. I feel myself start to sweat, my fingers moving to grab for the grass. This is bad. This is really bad. What the heck did I do? I didn’t even—I don’t… “Um… If I may ask…” I glance away from her. Suddenly, everything feels very cold. If I’m supposed to be blushing, it isn’t happening, likely because my heart no longer pumps blood. So I just feel… I grit my teeth, and turn back to her. “Why?”
“Why…?” Her smile quirks up, and her hands move to touch something on her head, but her hat isn’t there, so instead, she resumes pulling on her hair. “That there was not one simple question… Um…” She looks down at the grass, her eyes becoming dewy, though no less clear. “I believe… I think… You’re right cool? When you fighted at the tournament, and stood up against everyone that shouted that you ought to lose… And—and then when we fought! Electrifying, that was so exciting! Moleman was right fun, so clear, but not like you. Your thinking process… It was so alike mine, that I felt seen on a way that I not had before. To talking to you… For me, that was the highlight of the tournament.” Her smile widens. Then, some little thought strikes her, and she looks away again, twirling her hair and letting out a girlish little giggle. “And—and so are you quite cute.”
I stare at her, mouth agape. She fiddles nervously with her hair.
Pain wells up within me from words I haven’t even said yet, faces I haven’t seen.
At the same time, I know that I don’t have to. I could play along. Wouldn’t that be nice? She loves me. Of all people in the world, she loves me. Someone like me somehow charmed someone like her.
It’s worse because I do admire her. I like her. If we got to know each other better, I would love to be her friend. In fact, I would consider it an honor to be an equal at her side.
Deep inside of me, a little voice, desperate to feel what the people on TV feel, quirks up and says, ‘Maybe if we get to know her better, we’ll fall in love with her, too!’
But it’s not true, and it’s not real.
My back falls. I don’t want to look her in the face, but I know I have to. Only a coward would strike without seeing his victim in the eye.
So, I force myself to look at her face—her reddened, infatuated face. And then, I grind the words out of me, knowing that they’ll hurt much less than a false future would.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t reciprocate.” For a moment, she doesn’t react. Her body doesn’t move even a twitch. So, I continue. “I don’t really, um… feel that way towards other people… And—and not just girls, it’s more of an… everyone thing. It’s nothing against you. If I wasn’t like this, then I would’ve loved to give it a try, but… But I’m just not…” I grit my teeth, preparing myself to give the final killing blow. “I can’t love you in the way you love me.”
And I see, in heart-breaking detail, how the crystal-blue clarity in her eyes shatters.
“Oh,” she says. “I understand.” Her lower lip trembles. Still, she retains her smile, desperately. “I thought not it would…” Her hands are on her lap. They clench around a stray bit of fabric. “S—sorry. I understand. It was hasty. I knew that you not would… Heh, we know just each other barely, I don’t know why…” She won’t let herself cry. Brows pinched, lips twisting down into a frown, she restrains herself. “Sorry. I knew…”
I reach out and take her hand. She twitches, but doesn’t pull it back. Silently, I hold her hand with both of mine. It’s trembling. Now that I’m paying attention to it, my hand is also trembling. Heh. We really are similar, huh? I smile up at her. That was enough. The crystal lakes of her eyes break, and the thawed tears rush out.
Prepared, I press my handkerchief into her hand. Gratefully, she nods, bringing it to her eyes. “Sorry. Sorry, I—”
I pat her shoulder. Her chest heaves, and the napkin doesn’t seem to fully be able to contain her tears and snot. Moving over to her side, I sit down next to her. Above the trees, the sun is starting to rise properly. It’s pretty cold, even now. I put my arm around her trembling shoulders. “I might never love you the way you love me,” I say, “but I’d still like to get to know you. If you don’t mind being around me, despite all this, then… I’d like to try being friends. Would that be okay with you?”
It takes a moment for her to collect herself enough to respond. “Would—hic—that really be okay for you? I will maybe always feel me like this. You would never know if I actually was your friend, or only…”
“For the chance of having someone as cool as you for a friend?” I grin at her. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
She smiles, hides her eyes behind my napkin, and allows herself to lean into my chest. “Thanks,” she mumbles. “It means much… to me…”
And to my surprise, maybe from the exhaustion of escaping from the capital, or the stress of last night, or the emotional work of this morning, she falls asleep, right in my arms. I continue holding her. Still, sitting in the cold grass like this is no good, so I grab a pelt from my inventory and put it over her. My body might not offer any heat, but what I make, what I can create… That’s a different matter.
For a few hours, holding her in my arms, I watch the dawn. It’s beautiful. If I’d been dead, I wouldn’t have been able to watch it. I wouldn’t have been able to hold her, and listen to her light snoring. I wouldn’t have been able to feel the smell of the flowers, and taste their dew on my lips.
That would’ve sucked majorly.
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