As Ai’s arms wrap around me and the scent of freshly washed clothes fills my nose, my thoughts remind me of Wu Qing, for a moment.

Wu Qing’s embrace felt like a pleasant vice, a binding of sorts that has been done countless times. In contrast, Ai’s hug from behind just feels like an awkward hug. Normal, but slightly anxious and unsure.

As her hands cross my chest, she pauses for a moment. From my scan, I can see that her lips have tightened. With a breath out, one of her hands begins begin traveling lower.

Past my ribs.

At my solar plexus.

Before she gets any closer to her goal, I slowly reach my hand up to hers. And clasp it in mine.

It’s quite soft.

She freezes in place, even though I do nothing else. For quite a long time.

Okay, seriously… how do I move from here?! I had so many ideas earlier, but my mind is practically blank slate, right now! Dang it, James, you have to remember!

I subtly cast healing on myself to help my memory… but unfortunately, it seems this isn’t something healing can fix.

It’s not a condition, it’s just me not remembering…

…It does help with the anxiety, though.

We sit there, in silence, for a good five minutes, as I desperately try to come up with something, anything to say to navigate this.

Before I come up with something to help the situation, she makes her move again.

She was clearly confused by my silence and inaction during this time, but seems to have made a decision.

I can hear a gulp behind me, as she silently proceeds with her other hand, attempting to go for the goal yet again.

Leaning in even more forward, she brings her body right against mine, with all that entails. I can sense that she is holding a determined face. Strangely enough, she doesn’t remove her other hand from mine.

Moving slowly forward, she continues reaching.

Once again, I reach up to grab her other hand and she attempts to dodge it while still going forward.

Luckily for me, I’m quicker than she is and grasps it firmly.

Awkwardly, I’m now holding both of her hands, while she leans on me from behind. She lightly pulls on them. I automatically let them go.

We sit there, with her still laying on me. Her arms hang loosely around my neck, as her head rests upon mine.

Okay, seriously... What do I do?

Suddenly, she shifts backwards, the warmth of her body leaving me.

A glance behind me, reveals that she is mirroring the pose that Lin was making earlier.

Her knees to her chest, lips pursed, and head buried into her knees.

I can barely hear a whisper of her words directed toward me.

“Was it good?”

I swallow my breath as I try to come up with words to address the question.

She laughs pitifully, before saying it again.

“Was it actually that good? That I’m not even worth anything to you?”

She’s talking about the prostitutes… I should refute her line of thinking.

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My voice comes out stintingly, but I manage to push out my words.

“I-I didn’t have sex with them… None of them.”

Her eyes narrow before a mocking, coughing laugh comes out.

“That’s funny. So, I’m not even worth it, even just for this.”

“Ai… I don’t see you… No, I think you are a beautiful woman. An exceptionally beautiful woman, in fact.”

Her teeth grit at the first words, but then tighten even further at my following words.

“Oh, really. But you don’t want to fuck me?”

There’s no good way to answer this. I better just say it straight.

“… No, I don’t want to fuck you. I actu…”

“Do you even like women?”

“… yes. I like women.”

Choppy and sharp, her voice rings of bitterness.

“Not me, though, huh? Not the cripple?”

… There is way more under the surface than I thought. Forthcoming and honest. That’s how I need to be.

I can’t let her narrative take over. She needs to know how I honestly feel about our relationship. As friends.

Swallowing and coughing to clear my voice, I manage to speak solidly.

“Ai.”

She pauses the slight shaking that I hadn’t noticed was there previously. I continue, speaking my mind on this.

“We are friends. I like you. I actually really like you a lot.

“I just honestly can’t believe that I was privileged enough to find someone so smart and talented, through such stupid actions of mine.”

“Healing us was stupid?”

…Ah, fuck.

“No, no, no, no. That’s not what I meant! What I meant to say…”

Her face has already hardened. The words I’m saying aren’t coming through.

I try to defend myself. To retract what I was saying. Making more mistakes.

To explain how the four of us are a team.

Nothing goes through. She remains in that position. No words. With the result that there is nothing I want from her. That the relationship between us is transient.

Meaningless.

I have to take a different approach. I just… don’t know what to do. I haven’t had to deal with relationships like this in the past.

Fuckin’ A.

Seeing no movement from her, I can’t help but raise a hand to my head. I have a headache.

More than one that’s focused on me, it’s more towards the helplessness I feel about the situation. On the obvious mistakes I know I’m making. Over and over again.

Shoot… I don’t know what to do. I feel so immature. Inadequate. Useless.

Can I even call myself a man? Someone who could help others in the right way?

No. Of course not.

A fucking failure.

I fall on to the bed face down, my hand still on my head.

The movement of the bed shakes her slightly, as I laid down quite violently.

After no movement from her, I shift to laying on my back. She still doesn’t move, beyond the movement of the bed.

In silence, which has been happening frequently, we lay there.

Her in her ball and me laying down beside her.

I just start talking. No thinking, no planning… just talking.

“I’ve… never been the best at things. No matter what it was… When I was real young, I used to play baseball for a local social sports team. The coaches always put me in the outfield, since it had the least chance of having something happen.

“I was always too impulsive for the game. When the ball would get hit, I would run around like a mad lad, trying to catch the ball. While occasionally this got me the ball, normally I just ended up running into someone or messing up the ‘play’.”

I look over at her for a moment and can sense with my scan that she has her head slightly tilted towards me. Clearly confused at what all these random words mean. Sensing that something is different.

I continue anyway.

“One of the girls on the team, Jamie, was even worse than me. Always dropping the ball, messing up the plays, or throwing to the wrong area.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head at the memory, holding down a chuckle.

“She was so, so bad… But she always seemed to come alive during the games. Her and I would always pair up and play with each other during practice, mostly because no one else cared to be around us weirdos, who couldn’t even play well.”

With the next thought, I couldn’t suppress the smile that came out.

“She didn’t make it easier for us either. With this huge, silly grin on her face, she would toss the ball to me during games in the outfield, from the infield, mind you, when someone was lapping the bases.”

I can feel my smile melt away.

“That didn’t last for long. There were too many people on our team, for people who weren’t good at the game to continue to play. She was going to be removed. Discarded. Thrown away. For some kids, who frankly didn’t care about the game even half as much as she did.

“She was devastated. But she kept practicing, over and over and over again. I felt like I had to do something, anything to keep her on the team. She was the only one who actually cared. Who enjoyed the game for what it was. A game. A place to let loose and enjoy yourself. So, we practiced constantly, pushing each other further and further. Getting better and better.”

“But, so were the other kids. We already had a lower starting point. Both our parents were poorer and couldn’t afford specialized training. We started taking things seriously, too little, too late. And when we went for the evaluation? I couldn’t do anything to help her. She was removed from the team. Kicked off, in fact.

“I still remember begging the coach to let her back on the team, when he told me with an incredulous look, ‘I can’t believe you actually asked me that, boy. You’re lucky you’re still on the team, yourself.’”

My lips tighten at the memory.

“She moved away soon after. And he ended up letting me go anyway, later that year.

“That’s right when I first learned, that I wasn’t good enough to help other people with their issues. No matter how hard I try. Or, to be specific, that’s when I actually started making excuses for myself about what I could and couldn’t do. That some things, were just the way things are.”

I find myself looking blankly at the corner of the room, studying the curves of the carved stone, and turn my eyes back to Ai, whose eyes shift back to her knees, away from me.

I don’t know what I’m saying… but, I’ll just keep talking. At least she’s listening now. To some stupid, random stuff.

But… I guess it’s something.

Looking back at the wall, I continue on.