KON POV

Have you ever felt the constraint of something crawling closer to you by the second? Take the concept of time, for example. You’re boiling a kettle of water. You don’t want to stand around wasting your time waiting, so you go and do something else, like watching a video or listening to music.

I know alarms do exist, but setting them aside, you convince yourself you will remember when the water finishes boiling. But over time, your focus on this new activity begins to overtake the boiling kettle at the back of your mind. Minutes pass, yet the nagging feeling is still there, shouting at you about the boiling kettle that needs to be taken off the stove until it grows softer and softer.

The funny thing is, the whispers never disappear completely, so you occasionally ponder to yourself, “Did I forget something?”

Time inevitably inches on and on with or without you. You can feel it harping softly at you, but you can’t seem to grasp it, as you are focused more on whatever you are doing.

So, in the end, the kettle blows up.

Then it dawns on you: everything has a deadline. Unseen, untouched, but you feel its presence nonetheless.

The boiling water.

The battery life of your phone.

The creaking hinges getting eaten by rust every passing second.

The lifespan of every being.

“The mid-term and final year exam,” Zack inserted.

I chuckled. Yep, those are some serious deadlines alright. Even Venti had to groan at the reminder that he barely passed his entrance exam to Seika Academy.

Haha, those were some fun and frustrating times tutoring Venti. Zack wouldn’t even help. He just went around bothering the librarian’s secretary.

......

“The Sky falling down on you.”

......

“Uh, you mean like the stars are coming nearer?” Venti squinted his eyes and looked at the moon, trying to see if it was getting bigger or not. “Nope, I don’t see it. It’s not just your imagination?”

“I wished it was.” I replied back.

For the longest time now, ever since I was old enough to look up at the sky, I had noticed how it always seemed to inch closer and closer. A crawling speed, but I could feel it falling slowly to our city nonetheless. A foreboding so to speak. One that I could never ignore no matter how hard I tried.

I tried asking everyone about it when I was a child. Orphanage sisters, friends, or even passing strangers about the sky that’s coming closer and closer to our city. To no one’s surprise, they all dismissed me. A kid with an overactive imagination, they said, as I sat there in the playground doing nothing but staring at the sky.

So, seeing as nobody believed me, I tried to do a test.

“A test?” Venti asked.

“Yes. I would go to the farthest opposite sector that I could and see if it falls slower or faster on the other side.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I know, right? Too bad that’s the best I could come up with back when I was a little kid. I even got scolded for an hour straight once I was back at the orphanage.”

There I went, blowing up all my meager savings for a trip to Sector 34 through various public transport by myself without adult supervision. It’s a miracle in itself how I managed to reach there on my own without any incident whatsoever. Once I arrived though, what I found baffled me.

“What did you find?”

“The sky is still falling normally no matter how far I ran from one place to another. Nothing changes. Then I realized something. The sky is not falling closer and closer to the city. It is falling closer and closer to me.

My deadline so to speak.”

I giggled a bit at how I worded that. The sky is still falling normally. Hah, what a crazy irony. My listeners don’t seem to share the sentiment though. They both cast a concerned look in my direction.

“Wait, so if that’s true, then what happens when the sky falls completely?” Venti sat up straight.

“Just so we are on the same page, you are talking about the Sky, right? Not some incurable disease?” Zack raised an eyebrow, maintaining his skeptical tone at my mention of a deadline.

Huh, an incurable disease. I never thought about it that way but it might be apropos in some sense. “No, I don’t know. And no, I’m not dying of some disease.”

They heaved a sigh of relief. Such a worrywart. I swear they can be such a mother hen sometimes.

So, there I was, thinking how I had finally lost my marble, and at a young age too. So naturally, kids do what kids do best, ignore it for the sake of not being ostracized by other kids.

“Is that why you always have your head down during PE? To avoid looking up?” Venti asked.

“Oh, you noticed?”

“Yeah, kind of hard not to. You were the shortest one around. Other kids thought you got lost and wandered into the wrong classroom.”

“......”

With Venti, sometimes I can’t tell if he is saying stuff out of malice or not. The guy is as straightforward as an arrow. Should have known Venti and the term filters don’t mix well together.

Anyways, that’s that, I guess? Kon, the weird kid with a giant sky hanging above his head.

As for what I wanted, I suppose I had always wanted to go on a pilgrimage. I don’t have a big aspiration like conquering the world or climbing to the top of a mountain, but it would be nice to visit Victoria and learn more about their steam technologies. Even sightseeing the dungeons and temple ruins to the west would be swell.

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The hanging sky is still up there haunting me, but I have since learned to ignore the meaning or significance of it, to be honest. It may or may not collapse on me one day, but I don’t see the point of worrying about it every single day.

As the old age saying goes, you only live once, right? I will just go with the flow and see where it carries me.

“Hmm… That’s a good mindset to have.” Zack nodded.

“Yep, and not to mention, I have tons of other things to worry about.”

“Like whether or not you will grow taller?”

“Shut it. Don’t talk about it. Quit it. I hate you.”

“Gahahah! You are such a little dork sometimes.” Venti laughed as he ruffled my hair. Who the hell are you calling dork, you stupid dopamine junkie. Go for one of those long-shot bets again, see if I care.

“You said 2 skies. What about the other one?” I looked at Zack and thought to myself for a moment.

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I did not.”

I did say that but I pretended not to remember it. Ever since we first met when Venti and Zack saved me from the bullies, hanging around them has made it easier for me to ignore my existential crisis.

Maybe it’s because I’m having so much fun every day just bantering or planning what to do next with them that I had unknowingly put it in the back of my mind. The life beyond the dread.

The boiling kettle might blow up one day but I want to enjoy my life to the fullest until then.

I would never tell them that though. Being cheesy on top of being crazy is unreasonable.

“Heh, suit yourself.” Zack chuckled as I turned my head away. Smartass.

We stayed up on the roof for a while longer, chilling, bantering, and sipping cups of coffee before calling it a day. I bid them farewell and had them go off without me since I wanted to say goodbye to Gramps before I began to pack my stuff.

I stargazed for a while longer. The sky is still falling ever so slowly. But strangely enough, after talking it out loud to my friends, I felt lighter. My worries lessened, and I felt like I could sleep better tonight.

I wonder what I should cook for dinner later, maybe one of Gramps’s favorites.

---

VENTI POV

As we strolled along the familiar path back to the train station, we happily chatted about the pantry snacks we managed to raid from Gramps’s place. It was already nighttime when we arrived at the train station. Too bad we missed the train. We had to wait for twenty more minutes before the next one arrived.

I sat down on a bench and chomped on some snack bars while Zack opted to stand up. He was gazing in the direction of the junkyard. Is he still thinking about what Kon said?

I won’t deny what he said was weird, but I can’t imagine living half my life being scared of something as abstract as a falling sky. No matter how seriously Kon said it, I would have had a hard time believing his story if it had been a year ago.

But now, I’m not so sure anymore. There is more to Kon than what he seems.

“Venti.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember back then when the dogs collided with one another?” Zack questioned.

“Yeah, that was some lucky timing there. I thought for sure we would have crashed. That would have sucked.”

“What if I told you, it was not luck?”

“Then?”

“When you were separated from us to lead the rest of the dogs away, I saw Kon subtly tapping the back of his hand with his index finger rhythmically until we managed to see you in the distance. He even told me to prepare for a jump.”

“So, you are telling me he predicted everything? From the path I was going to take to how the dogs are going to run?”

“......” He shrugged.

“Well, that’s something.”

“You don’t seem very surprised?”

“Meh, this is hardly the first time he has done this sort of stuff. Remember back when we tried to steal some exam question paper?”

Countless times we got into trouble we had no business escaping. Like that one-time Zack wanted to sneak into the teacher’s office during the night to get the answer sheet for the final year exam. The idiot had to drag me into it. Granted, it was 50% my fault for being lazy and not studying enough.

We were almost caught when the security guard decided to come back and do a double-check. Kon popped out of nowhere and saved our asses by having us hide in a vent.

Then he guided us through two security guard rotations while we were smack dab in the middle of it. For the first time, I felt the excitement of sneaking around like one of those spy movies with impeccable timing.

Too bad we couldn’t use the vent anymore, though. We barely managed to fit through.

“Gahahah! And that time when we pranked the whole local activist by swapping their soup ingredients with rat shit and laxative?”

I laughed at that. Those were some good times. Serves those self-righteous pricks right. I would have gone there and smashed each one of those pussy dumbasses myself, but Kon stopped me from getting myself ambushed and beaten up in public.

They were expecting us. So instead, we sneaked around and decided to swap some of their spices with our special fast-acting concoction to give their boring looking-for-problem life some nice flavor.

The sight and smell of the aftermath were something to behold.

“He has a very sensitive awareness. I never once get a jump on him unless he is super distracted. He is always the first one who notices if things are going south.”

“Mm-hm.” I couldn’t agree more. He can be very shrewd at times too, if pissed. Not to mention, he always seems to have a knack for timing. I tend to leave the when and where problems to him.

“Maybe it’s because he is a beastkin?” Zack dropped a bomb. I almost choked on my energy bar. Where the heck did he get that idea from? I didn’t see any ears or tails popping out of his body.

“You didn’t feel it? When you rubbed his hair just now?” He questioned further.

“No, it felt like normal hair to me.” I clarified.

“Weird, I could have sworn I felt something when I grabbed him.”

“You were groping him!? You sick bastard!”

I punched him in the face, but he dodged it while mulling things over. This goddamned idiot needs a divine intervention before things get weird between all of us.

Sure, Kon’s petite stature made him look cute and girly, but I will be damned if I let some creep touch my friend like that. Zack doesn’t count; he can go and get molested at a gay bar for all I care.

“Calm down; I was just testing something.”

“Testing my butt! You called groping people testing!?”

“He seems to only let out his true nature briefly when he is shocked or scared.”

“Oh. So, that’s why you invited him to that movie?”

“Well, from how it felt at the tip of his supposed beast ear, I’m eighty percent sure he is a foxkin.”

“The hell? You sounded even creepier now.”

Wait.

A foxkin?

Not a catkin or a dogkin? Zack mentioned that he tested it by touching the tip of his ear. And back when I ruffled his hair, there was no hole gap or weird coloration. I didn’t see anything amiss.

“So, you think he might be a kid of some nobility?”

“Maybe? Like I said, I’m only eighty percent sure. I could be wrong.” Zack shrugged.

Damn him and his nonchalant attitude. Is he dropping this on me to see how I would react? Hmph. To me, Kon is still Kon.

But fine, I too can play that game.

“You remember a month ago when we were sneakily rummaging around his bedroom looking for his porn stash?”

“Yeah, I wanted to do it before he moved to a place with a better hiding spot.”

“That night we found a wooden box that contained a strange wheel core with some weird glowing markings on it.”

“And?”

“Ignis Fatuus.”

Zack raised an eyebrow at that. Judging from his confused face, I guess he never bothered to study a lost language.

It’s Latin, which translates to Foolish Fire. As for the significance of that? I’m still not entirely sure what it means either, but I did look it up through some unconventional means.

“I went to a friend of mine who could share more thoughts about what the words represent. I kept the information about Kon and the wheel core a secret, of course. Luckily he dabbles in fortune-telling. The words hold a connection to the tarot card The Fool.”

“And The Fool means?”

“Folly, unpredictability, and a journey into the unknown.”

“A journey into the unknown… Heh. That’s one heck of a foreshadowing.”

“So, how do you feel now?”

“Hm? About Kon?”

Zack raised an eyebrow and looked at me as if I had grown another nose. “What does it matter if he is a nobility or a user of an omen-bringing gear? I still trust Kon no matter what.” He waggled his finger as if telling me my attempt to get back at him fell on deaf ears.

“Feh, good to know.” Nothing ever seems to rattle him, does it?

“And if it’s true, don’t you think there will be tons of excitement to look forward to?”

“Excitement?”

“Yeah, imagine if climbing up to the top of the Tower of Emperium is just a simple tedious wall climbing. Where’s the fun in that?” Zack grinned. The heck? I am supposed to be the adrenaline junkie of the group, but this dude swims in it.

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to excitement myself.”

“There you go!”

I wonder if there are strong people in the Tower. Some people say it’s folly to pick a fight with someone twice your size. Well, some people are idiots because victory tastes the sweetest when you yank it off from the jaws of defeat. How else are you going to rise higher if you are not going to challenge yourself past your limit?

Speaking of jaws. I never did mention to Kon that the district he will be moving to is near my old gang members’ place. Huh, what are the chances? Well, it doesn’t matter.

If they come looking for trouble, I will just visit them and send them packing.