"Roy! Hey man, are you good?" The sound of a familiar voice pierces through the hazy mist of my brain followed by a stern nudge delivered to my head. My eyes creak open, feeling the sting of the air around me. Bringing my red eyes to bear upon the source of the noise, slowly, like the cannons on a battleship swiveling on its platform.

"Mark..." I said, "I’m... exhausted."

Mark stands up straight, looking down at me as I try to rest my eyes for a little bit on top of a desk during lunch period.

A look of concern in his eyes but his lips seem to play off a comedic smile, "Yea, I can see that. What in the world happened to you? Trouble in paradise?"

It's Monday, the day after Aria and I moved into our apartment that was commissioned to us by the Partnership program. In case it wasn't obvious, my first night in the new place wasn't exactly great.

"That girl... she... she..." I try to get the words out as Mark stares at me curiously, "she is a much more avid gamer than I would have ever given her credit for."

I tell Mark about how last night after dinner, Aria spent the entire time playing on her console on the living room TV with the volume on loud. She persisted long after bedtime. Because of the loud noises between the sounds of the game and the sounds of her furious shouting, I couldn't get a wink of sleep until she finally called it quits in the early morning. I even tried to step out and ask her to reduce the volume but whenever I got close, she would stare daggers into my soul which crushed my resolve and caused me to retreat into my room where I tossed and turned and tried to use my pillow for blocking the noise, but none of it worked.

Mark could help but snicker at my story, "Damn, that's rough. Still, never would have thought the princess was into video games like that."

"She's not just 'into them', she's a certified addict." I say as I sink back into burying my head into my arms on the desk before calmly adding, "Also, don't call her princess."

"Huh?" Mark replies with a puzzled look as I correct him about the nickname.

"She hates that name. She told me as much yesterday."

"Oh ho," He says with a nudge, "already getting close to miss popularity, are we?"

"Not at all," I corrected him again, "still icy as ever. She just quickly corrected me when I used the nickname myself."

Mark chuckles, "Man, you are such a poor bastard. Got to say, I don't envy your situation."

Something off the corner of Mark's eye draws his attention to the doorway of the classroom. "Well, speak of the devil. Looks like you might have a visitor."

I raise my head slightly and follow his gaze and see Aria peeking into the classroom, scanning its surroundings like she's looking for something. Her eyes finally meet with mine and she steps calmly towards me, her expression showing that of her public persona, a cool, collected, and sweet young lady, yet when after she approaches me and Mark her tone of voice sounds anything but sweet.

"You're not an easy guy to track down, you know? I've been asking around various classmates and many of them barely even know who you are. Managed to find one classmate who vaguely remembers you being in their classroom."

"Yea well," I reply in an exhausted tone, "I don’t really have much of a presence in this school."

“Yeah, I can tell,” she replies, “everything else I learned about you and you’re a loner too. You must be one of the most isolated people I have ever met. Even an isolated tribe gets more attention than you do.”

I would argue with her but honestly, I am too tired to even move right now.

In my stead, Mark squeezes into the conversation, leaning against my desk and I already see the gears running in his head as he’s about to say something I’m not sure I want to hear.

“Hey Aria, I heard you gave my boy a real workout last night."

The Worst thing he could have possibly said.

My body tenses up as I snap my head to Mark, but quickly my attention becomes stolen by the strange sense of danger. The air becomes filled with malice and I feel it into my very bones.

Shakily, I turn my head towards Aria, her expression doesn't change but I can tell that behind those eyes of hers is an intent to kill.

"Oh really?" She asks, her tone giving off a chill, "And what kind of things did he say?"

Of course, Mark is the only one who can’t read the situation, "He said you kept him up all night. Man, I never would have guessed you could be so wild, Aria, and on the first night of living together too."

"Oh, is that so?" Her eyes narrow, piercing into my very soul. The air around her becomes dark and twisted to match the growing evil within her. At any moment now I know that she could blow up and destroy the entire city if she must, like a nuclear bomb!

My sense of self-preservation kicks into overdrive as I start waving my arms frantically to try to defuse the situation, "No! No! I didn't say anything of the sort, I swear! I only told him about how you really like to play video games and how last night you were playing so loud that I couldn't really get to sleep, that's all I said!"

Mark's smile grows bigger as he feels himself about to burst into laughter, "That's right, that's what he said, and also-"

I rise from the desk and hurriedly press my hand to Mark's mouth to block further noise from escaping, "Shut the hell up, you idiot!" I say with a mixture of frustration and panic in my voice, but the air of danger doesn't disappear.

"Go on, what were you about to say?" Her voice gets even more chilling than before, I didn't think it was even possible to feel like you could freeze into solid ice from words alone.

"J-Just ignore him, he's an idiot to his core and likes to play way too many pranks on people, and not know when to stop. Feel free to ignore this pathetic creature for the rest of his currently short life."

Mark grips my hand to move it away from his mouth, "Aw, come on man. I'm your best friend." He says playfully, still maintaining his goofy smile.

"What you are is a moron!" I fired back quickly.

Finally, the dark air starts to dissipate as Aria takes a step back and breathes deeply, "Well, fine, I'll believe you for now, but only because I don’t think even you are that stupid to suggest something so disgusting.”

I fall back into my desk chair exhausted even further, if that's even possible. The adrenaline of fearing for my life leaving my body. Mark delivers one last chuckle at my expense.

"Anyways, that's not why I was looking for you." Aria says as she tries to get everything back on track, "Mrs. Chavana wanted to see us after school today, something about getting our first assignment to do."

I nod my head, still somewhat on edge from earlier, "Alright, I'll make sure to be there."

Without sparing another word, Aria glares at me briefly before turning to leave the classroom.

Mark steps closer to me and delivers a pat on my shoulder, "Oh yea, this school year is going to be a blast." This man is a certified moron who is going to get me killed someday down the road.

Later that day

After that unusual episode during the lunch period and dealing with the rest of the day's classes, Aria and I meet up in front of the counselor's office and are soon invited inside. Mrs. Chavana sits behind her desk as usual, and we take the two chairs across from her. "Hello, you two, so how was the first night in the new place?"

Aria shoots me that same menacing glare that makes me tense up right away, still feeling somewhat bitter over Mark's world threatening prank during lunch time, I quickly and casually respond to Mrs. Chavana's query, "Oh, it was fine. Yep, no issues whatsoever."

This causes Aria to kill her glare, satisfied with my answer. "It was different from what I’m used to. Still not too crazy about rooming with a boy.”

Mrs. Chavana gives off a friendly smile, "I understand, Aria, but different is good. Sometimes what we need in our lives is a tiny bit of change. I know that it can feel somewhat uncomfortable having to share a space with a stranger but I'm glad you two are taking it well at least.”

Mrs. Chavana leans forward in her chair, crossing her arms to rest on the surface of her desk, “Anyways, I'm not here to counsel you today, I'm just here to offer up your assignment."

Mrs. Chavana reaches into a desk drawer and picks out a small folder with our names on it and pulls out a sheet of paper that was tucked away inside it and places it on the desk in front of her. "So, for the Roy and Aria pair, your first assignment is pretty simple: a leisurely stroll through the park."

Aria and I look at each other confusingly before returning our eyes to Mrs. Chavana, "I don't really get it ma'am," I say to her, "why do we need to go for a walk around the park?"

'Well," she replies, "one of the things that have been said about the two of you from those closest, is that you two may not get out enough during your free time. I won't go into the details right now, but we in the program feel that for your pairing, just going for a simple walk can be an enjoyable way to get outside and be a bit more active and doing it together can make the experience much more enjoyable rather than going for a walk alone."

I sigh at her statement, of course I know it's true for my case. Though I try to hide it, all I ever do when coming home from school is just stay cooped up in my room playing video games. I give a short glance over to Aria pondering to myself if she's in the same boat as me.

Yesterday, after unpacking I noticed that all she did was study and then play video games. Though we spent most of the evening together in the new place, we didn't really converse all that much, if at all, even during dinner. Now, it gets me wondering, why a girl like her volunteered for this strange program to begin with. Perhaps going for a walk and conversing a little will help me gain a bit of insight, though then again, I'm not really too keen at sticking my nose in people's personal business.

After meeting with Mrs. Chavana and getting our assignment we take the bus back to the apartments, a bus specifically designated for the program students, not really an important detail, but it's nice to have the option of having a bus meant just for us in the program.

We both walk silently into the building and take the elevator to our floor and enter the apartment. We settle back into our independent routines. Aria goes into her room, and I go into my own, I throw my school bag to the floor and plop down onto my bed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I am so tired." I mumbled into the pillow.

As I lay there, I think to myself how now Aria and I are expected to go for a walk through the park and have it done before the end of the week. It did cross my mind to just cheese it and just say that we did it, but I'm sure they'll ask us questions about the walk and the cameras around the apartment could see for sure if we left to go anywhere or not. I'm sure that, for a task as simple as this there might be some way to get around having to do it, but thinking of a way is too much energy for me right now and any attempts to avoid actually accomplishing the task would be more trouble than just doing it. It's a simple walk in the park after all, nothing complicated about it.

I hear a knock on my door drawing my attention away from my pondering mind. I rise from the bed and approach my bedroom door to open it and see Aria standing on the other side, "What's up?" I try to ask her casually.

She crosses her arms and returns a casual glance to me, "So, we're expected to take a walk through the park, like it's some natural thing. Doesn't it get to you even a little bit how uncomfortable this all feels? Living together and having to do these stupid little tasks."

I nod my head, of course I agree with her completely. When I first heard of the Partnership program, I thought the whole concept was strange, thinking to myself 'It's pretty weird for high schoolers to openly decide to just live side by side with a stranger like that' and yet here we are, a couple of those very same people.

"So, how do you want to do this?" she asks, referencing the assigned task.

I scratch my chin as I relay what I've been thinking, "Well, we're obligated by the program to fulfill the tasks assigned to us. I don't see how we could feign doing them, especially with a simple task like this one, it might be more effort avoiding doing it than actually doing it. Besides, being part of this program, as strange as it is, if we're serious about making progress towards becoming 'functioning adults’, doing the tasks will be a key factor in achieving that. Isn't that what we volunteered for?"

Aria looks at me silently for a moment before she nods her head in agreement, "Hmm, that’s unexpectedly well thought out and mature of you, I’m impressed. So, I suppose we'll just have to go along with it. We could just pull off the band-aid and just get it done and over with."

"What, you mean right now?"

"Yea, why not? It shouldn't be too hard to get done. It's just a walk after all."

"Yea, I suppose so."

Aria jabs a finger towards my face to draw my attention, "Let's make this one thing clear, this is just a walk through the park. This is not a date, no funny business, and no 'I worked you hard' nonsense."

My face flushes red at her affirmation, "I know that! Damn, I already told you that was just Mark pulling a prank. I didn't really say any of that."

"I remember what you said," she says with a nod, "just wanted to make that clear anyways."

We change from our school clothes and into more casual attire. We leave the apartment building and begin our journey towards the park. There is one not too far away from the apartment building. It boasts a walking trail, scenic trees, and even a pond where ducks like to relax in.

"Huh," I say to myself, "this place doesn't look half bad."

Aria adds on, "Reminds me of the park me and my mom used to walk around at. Though I wish I was walking this with her rather than a lousy guy like you." She says it in her usual brash sort of way.

"Sorry for being so lousy then." I say trying to dismiss her jab.

"See, you don't even try to defend yourself." She frowns at my dismissal, “you could probably stand to be a little more assertive, what kind of man are you?”

“What kind of girl are you that frequently tries to give me a hard time? You’re like a bully or something.”

She scoffs, but she doesn’t say anything else and instead she just starts walking down the path ahead of me. I sigh deeply and decide to follow suit, already wishing I was anywhere but here.

The walk feels kind of lonely. The wind blows lazily against the trees, making the green leaves rustle together. Sounds of ducks quacking in the pond nearby, even the playful children in the playground that neighbors the park feel like a mockery against me. Aria continues to walk ahead of me, not looking back at me at all. Though I don’t really mind it, it makes wondering if calling her a bully earlier had hurt her feelings.

We walked through the whole walking trail without saying anything to each other, by the end of the walking trail it was getting into the evening time, the sun hadn't quite touched the horizon yet.

Aria still walked ahead of me, without looking back. She then veered off the walking path and made her way towards the pond. I watch as she picks out one of the benches on the pier overlooking the pond and settles into it.

I didn’t want to just leave her alone, so I followed suit, picking out the same bench but sitting on the further end of it.

Not a word passes between us as we look out to the pond until finally, she broke the awkward silence.

“Am I... really a bully?”

Her question catches me off guard, wondering if she really has been stuck on that this entire time. I glance at her direction for a moment before setting my sights towards the ducks floating lazily on the pond.

“No, you’re not a bully. Maybe I just said more than what I meant to say. I don’t appreciate all the names you call me, but I also wonder, given the nature of our situation, if you lash out because of some hidden reasons not specifically targeted at me.”

"You sure?" I reply nervously, "I think we've been here adequately enough. I could just start heading back to the apartment, maybe start getting dinner ready."

Aria crosses her arms in front of herself, posturing defensively on the bench, “It’s not like I despise you or anything. At least, I don’t think so. I’m just… very uneased by everything.”

I don’t press her any further, I can tell she seems uncomfortable with talking. Everyone has their secrets, including myself.

“I’m… sorry about earlier today, about Mark I mean. He’s a good guy, he just has a very… different since of humor.”

“It’s fine,” she replies quickly, “I already said that I believed you about not saying those things. The thing though is that he said it. It makes me feel uncomfortable and disgusting.”

“That’s why I’m apologizing.”

“It’s not you that needs to apologize, idiot.” she heaves a frustrated sigh as she stands from the bench and walks closer to the edge of the pier, staring down at the murky water.

I let out a deep sigh as well as I watch her distance herself from me and this conversation. Well, whatever, this is fine I suppose. It’s not like we need to get along perfectly or anything anyways.

I lay back against the bench, feeling a cool breeze brushing the nape of my neck. The silence is soothing somehow, and this bench is starting to feel very comfortable.

“Hey, Roy,” she calls out to me without even looking in my direction, “You don’t really have many friends do you?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“Just an observation, but when I was looking for you earlier today it was like you didn’t even exist. Hardly anyone could tell me your classroom number, what you looked like, even I started to question if you weren’t just a figment of my imagination.”

My eyes downcast back to my lap, “It’s just… how I always been. I kept my head down, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t get involved in any events, slowly, I just disappeared from everyone’s memory.”

“Everyone but Mark it seems.”

I nod my head at her assessment, even though she can’t see it with her back turned, “He's the only one who puts up with me even when he should have the good sense to leave me be. He's practically my only friend in the whole school, my only friend period, in fact."

“I see," she says, "Well, it’s not my place to judge you for your choice of friends.”

“He means well, honestly. He’s got this idea in his head of breaking me out of my ‘shell’ this year. So, he’s probably trying to introduce a little chaos in my otherwise quiet life. I’m not someone like you, someone who is popular and has a mountain of friends.”

"Who says I have a mountain of friends?" She quickly fires back. "Just because I'm popular, doesn't mean I have a lot of friends. In fact, the number of genuine friends I do have I can count on one hand. People want to be close to me because I'm popular but that doesn't make them my friends. That's something you have to build for yourself with the people you can trust."

“Hmm, that’s actually not a bad piece of wisdom you just gave there.” I replied to her. I start to feel my exhaustion returning to me, making me give out a big yawn.

“Yea, I learned pretty quickly that sometimes just because someone is close, doesn’t mean you can entirely trust them.”

A soft breeze passes by us again. Aria continues to stare out to the water of the pond, looking at the ducks as they quack away. I just continued to sit on the bench, not knowing how to respond to her statement. Some minutes pass, and I start to feel drowsy, my eyes becoming heavy from the silence, until I unexpectedly fall asleep.

Slipping away into my unconscious mind once more, but the scenery is different from my usual dreams. It’s here, in the blackness, where my mind is once again captured by my inner psyche.

“I'm back here again, am I?” I whisper to the dark void.

"Yes, you are." A voice reaches out to me from the dark. It is soft, and sweet but carries with it a buzz of static that makes it unsettling.

I turn around to see the shape of a kid, but I can't make out their face, I never could. It’s always shielded by a blur, a mesh of pixels that blanket the figure’s features, but I know who it is. Despite not being able to see their face, I know that it’s someone from my past.

"Enjoying yourself, are you? It's nice seeing you get closer to another person."

"No, it's not like that." I say to the child, but I look away nervously. I could never stay looking at them for long. A symbol of my guilt, something I can never escape.

"Not what I'm seeing. You secretly enjoy this, don't you? The ability to converse with someone. It's a joy that you always punish yourself for. You choose to push people away but deep down I know that you crave connections again."

"I said it’s not like that. It’s just… out of necessity." I say in defiance to the voice, but my heart isn't entirely in it.

"Is it? You can’t lie to me Roy. You were always a bad liar. Mark, for example, he's a good friend to you. You could have pushed him away a long time ago and yet you keep in touch. You're clinging on to something, the part of you that wishes you could be in the light again. Don't be afraid, it's not a bad thing." The image says, though the words sound supportive, in my ears it only sounds like it's mocking me.

"Just… leave me alone."

"Why do you keep trying to run?"

“Because… I don’t deserve it.”

"Leave him be, he's a lost cause." Another voice rips through the darkness.

My head turns to meet another figure in the darkness, this one is another child, and its face also hidden in a blur. This one represents something else, something darker. Its voice carries the same scratch, but the sound is deeper.

"He wants to be alone. He only clings onto that last shred of friendship because he wants to torture himself. He doesn’t want to forget. Right, Roy? Don't you remember? That night... in the cold rain?"

Flashes of light appear before my eyes, like the passing of cars in the soaking wet rain. It causes me to flinch, and instinctively shake away the memory, "Please, will you two just stop jerking me around. You’re both wrong.”

"We can’t both be wrong Roy,” says the first voice, “but we can both be right. You need to stop running away from us, running away from facing the truth."

"You know I'm right, Roy.” speaks the second voice, “Just embrace what you truly want. You want to be completely and utterly alone, but you believe that you deserve nothing but to vanish, completely."

This back and forth is starting to play havoc on my mind, I feel a sense of panic beginning to envelope me, “No, that’s not what I-“

“You’ll need to face us one day, Roy. You can’t run away for forever.”

“Stop saying I’m running away!”

‘But you are running!” Shouts the second voice, “but that’s fine, go ahead. Continue to be a coward.”

“Just… shut up.”

“You can’t silence us, Roy.” Interjects the first voice, “We’ll never leave you, not until you face us. Face who you are.”

"I said shut up!" I scream into the darkness, which shatters apart what little light was left leaving nothing to see, not even the two figures from before until I suddenly open my eyes wide in a panic. My breath heavy from the strain.

“Hey, hey!” I hear a voice calling to me, a weight pressing against my shoulder.

I turn my head and see Aria placing a hand on my shoulder, with a concerned look on her face, “What’s going on? You fall asleep and now you look like you’re having a panic attack.”

I don’t answer her for a moment, all I can feel is my heart racing and my breath heavy. However, I try to get myself under control. It was just a dream. Just a stupid dream again.

“I’m… I’m okay, just a nightmare.” I answer her, not revealing what it was about.

“Do you suffer from night terrors or something? Your reaction was scary, even for me.”

“No, nothing like that. I’ll be okay.”

Aria sighs heavily, I’m not sure if she bought it, but she seems content enough to not press any further, after all, it’s not really her business.

"Honestly, who the hell just passes out like that in the middle of a conversation?" She releases her hand from my shoulder and stands up from the bench.

“I didn’t just ‘pass out’,” I answer her, “I feel asleep because I’m exhausted.”

“Why’s that? Didn’t get much sleep last night?”

“Yea,” I tell her as I stand up from the bench, stretching my body, not wanting to fall asleep again, “because of you I wasn’t able to sleep.”

Aria glances at me for my accusation before putting the pieces together. “Oh, because of my late-night gaming, huh? Sorry about that. I’m usually so used to staying up late, even on school nights, because of certain reasons…”

"It's fine." I say even though I know it's not, I didn't want her to feel that bad about it.

"Well, if you say so. Though it was pretty annoying having to sit here and wait for your sorry ass to wake up."

Her jab at calling me a 'sorry ass' rubbed me wrong and caused me to snap at her a bit, "Hey! It's because of you I fell asleep on the bench in the first place."

Aria turns to look at me, but instead of being annoyed or appearing combative, she looked at me with an apologetic smile. "Yea, I know, but I’m glad you actually spoke up about it."

‘What?’ I think to myself, ‘What does she mean by that?’

As if to notice my confused expression, she answers, “Can’t really change anything if you’re always so apologetic and passive about everything. So, next time you have a problem with something, just be a man and speak up about it, and don’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault.”

This was unnerving, is Aria actually giving me advice? I shudder at the idea of it as she usually just insults me about everything I do. Though I notice her taking a deep breath as though she were trying to relax herself, maybe she was struggling with something inside herself as well. Which reminds me that I never got to ask why she volunteered for the program, but maybe that can be a conversation for another day. After all, I’m not ready to share my reasons either.

“So!” She announces with a clap of her hands, “Now that our assignment is over, lets get back to the apartment and you can cook us up some dinner, because I am starving.”

“Fine,” I answer her, slowly moving to stand at her side as we make our way back to the apartments, “Can you at least do the dishes though?”

“Hmmm, I’ll think about it.”