Chapter Thirteen: The Weight She Carries (I1B0C13)

 Chapter Thirteen: The Weight She Carries

 

            “Vaida, do you remember? Do you remember that night in the hospital, after the Interfectus attacked and took everything from us? I saw you lying there in that bloody bed; I’d never seen anyone sadder than you! You had only one eye open, but you stared dead ahead like there was nothing left. I’d heard what happened! I saw what the fire did to your body. I sensed your sorrow just by standing in the same room as you! I felt your misery like it was a part of me. I just started crying. I threw my arms around you! I remember it because that was probably the sincerest sadness I’ve ever felt! Do you remember?” Harvey asked as he stood over her.

            Harvey was soaking wet from the rain, so the candlelight glistened in the tiny droplets which clung to his hair. These same reflections caused Vaida’s skin to shimmer. Harvey stuck his foot under her left shoulder and then lifted it, rolling her onto her back. She stared up with her dry left eye, but she could not close her eyes. She could not summon a single word to her throat. When Harvey stepped closer and stared below, Vaida felt like he glared at the burn scars on her face. She instinctively felt the need to hide her wounds, but the poison’s paralysis prevented this. Vaida writhed in desperation, at least in her head, but her body barely moved. Her inability to hide her scars was the worst torture of all.

            “I was just a dumbass kid, but I already hurt so much for you. Even with your burns and that self-hate you never could shake, we grew up together! Just like we did before. I got to see you change! I got to see you get obsessed with exercise. I got to see you run a thousand little science experiments! I got to see you grow into a woman. But all that time, you were drifting away from me. You didn’t need me anymore! You proved it when you left. When you said you’d fight the Interfecti. You proved that I’m expendable. You proved that I am nonessential to you! I was the crying little boy who held you in my arms as your whole world burned, and yet you still crawled away from me,” Harvey confessed with an accusatory tone.

            Vaida commanded her lungs and throat to produce a sound. She tried to force a high-pitched scream which could pierce the rainstorm and announce her distress, but no sound emerged. Her body was paralyzed; she was forced to stare into Harvey’s dark blue eyes. A brief grin fell across his face, but it swiftly melted away into a disgruntled frown. He then lowered himself to the floor so that his knees fell on opposite sides of her hips. He nearly sat on her as he gazed at her scarred face.

            “Do you know why that little boy cried for you? Do you know why I helped you with your experiments? Do you know why it hurt so much when you ran away from Bones City? It’s because I was in love with you! I loved you even before the flames ruined your beauty. Vaida, you and I were always meant to be together! That’s why the flames didn’t take you. That’s why I fell to pieces when you left! That is why I couldn’t think about anything else. But Vaida, it’s your fault that this happened! I begged you not to leave. I told you from the start that you weren’t ever allowed to leave me!”

            A thin layer of angry tears surfaced in his eyes as his trembling face glared at her. He touched his hand onto her wet hair and squeezed so that his fingers rubbed her scalp. He saw the terror in her left eye and the sadness in her right eye, so he lowered his face and pressed his lips upon her forehead.

            He said, “I’ve been wrapped around your finger my whole life! When you were gone, the wrapping unraveled and I lost everything I cared about. It all became so meaningless. So while you were running around out there without me, I did some heavy thinking. Now I’ve figured it all out! Vaida, I was created just for you, and you were given to me. I don’t know if you were destined to carry these scars, but even in my heart, you still shine brighter than the stars. I love everything about you, even though you left me behind! You’re still the only thing that makes me happy. So I can forgive you for running away as long as you stay with me now. Please stay with me forever! Isn’t that what you want?”

            The heavy innkeeper was unconscious at this point. Through the corner of her working eye, Vaida saw that his chest still rose and fell every few seconds. She then stopped focusing on the innkeeper since she knew he could not help. The only other thing she saw was Harvey’s deep blue gaze. He stared expectantly at her like he was waiting for an answer. Though she could not speak, he still saw her reluctance.

            “It might be twisted to confess this, but I was actually relieved when I saw the extent of your scars! After all those months you spent locked away from me and hidden from contaminants, your burns still couldn’t heal. At least not completely! You were grotesque, but it reassured me! It would scare away anyone who wanted to try and come between us. It proved that you were marked for me! It was assurance; you would surely be mine. That’s why I know this is right! You tried to go against destiny by running from me; you tried to fight destiny by defying me, so I am just returning the world to its natural state. Your scars are the reason why this had to happen! That’s why I knew it would come to this. That’s why I know you want this too, even if you don’t realize it. Though it’s a shame that it takes paralysis to make you realize it,” Harvey said in a loud whisper as he hovered over her.

With a trembling smile on his face, Harvey lowered his lips and placed them gently upon hers. He opened his mouth and released a warm moisture as he kissed her mouth. She wanted to squirm or protest in some way, but the poison’s paralysis was still too powerful. He snaked his right hand into her dark hair and held her wet face gently in his left hand.

“Doesn’t it feel so right? It’s wonderful. You’re so disfigured that no one else will even look at you. The only way you’ll ever find love is if you stay with me; you’re the only one I could possibly want! You’re the only one I've ever cared about, even when you were gone. But please don’t worry! You won’t ever go unnoticed with me. You won’t ever have to leave this city again! I’ll keep you with me forever.”

Despite her desire to lift her feet and slam Harvey aside, Vaida felt a rush of tears in her eyes. She had a burning sensation, almost like an instinctive impulse or a desperate itch, urging her to cover her scars in any way possible, but she could not bring her fingertips to curl. She could not make her breath accelerate or stop. Harvey glanced at her face with an expectant stare, almost like he believed that she would be moved by his words, but he still saw sadness in her eyes. He pulled his left hand across her face so that his fingers rested on her rough scars.

“Why can’t you accept that I am the only way you’ll ever be happy? Your body is so revolting that everyone else looks away with horror. Everyone but me! And even if you fell in love with someone else, even if you somehow got someone else to fall in love with you, don’t you know it isn’t fair? You can’t honestly expect anyone else to accept you when anguish stains half of your body. You can’t expect them to stay in love with you when they see your pain every time they look in your eyes. No one else can do that; only I can do that! Only I can make you happy! Only I can free you from your unending misery.

“We both know the real reason you chased the Interfecti. It was all just a magnanimous display of self-hatred. It wasn’t for revenge, and it wasn’t for righteousness! It was just a thinly veiled plea for death. You were begging for freedom from the world that turned you into this! It was just a showy scene of suicide.”

Though Vaida’s body would not respond voluntarily, a thin stream of tears fell from the corners of her eyes. Her skin was moist from a small presence of sweat. As Harvey gently brushed his left hand along her scars while staring at her eyes, she noticed two daggers holstered on his hips. The sheaths were brown at the top, but a purple shade stained the bottom. A thick purple liquid dripped from the bottom of the sheaths and stained the ground. The daggers certainly tipped with a powerful poison.

“Even if I can’t convince you that you need me, I can prove it to you. I can prove that you love me, and you’ve loved me for as long as I’ve loved you! I’m going to prove that it was always your destiny to be with me. I will make you understand what I’ve known all along! I know it’ll be worth it. It has to be worth it. I had such a promising life before I realized that I don’t care about anything—anything but you. I had so much and threw it all away! I threw away my future for an ugly girl who hates herself, but I don’t regret it! I don’t regret anything I do for you. I don’t-”

The door flew open with a powerful crash; the doorknob slammed into the wall and dented it. As a downpour fell from the sky, Hatasuko ducked and ran through the doorway with his sword in hand. When he saw Harvey kneeling over Vaida with the innkeeper on the ground at their side, he ran up and slammed his right foot into Harvey. The kick was so powerful that it threw Harvey off of Vaida. He crash-landed on the ground and rolled several feet.

Instead of attacking again, Hatasuko tossed his sword aside and scooped Vaida up in his arms. Since she was motionless, he could not tell if she had been shocked into a catatonic state, but he held her in his big arms and rested his chin on her shoulder. Her dark hair grazed his wet chin as he glared at Harvey from across the room.

“Vaida, please talk to me. Who is this? What happened to you?” Hatasuko whispered loudly, losing way to adrenaline.

“Who the hell do you think you are?!” Harvey asked, reaching for his daggers.

The innkeeper groaned on the floor as he finally started to stir from his paralysis. Hatasuko walked over to the sail-rana, leaned over, and picked up one of the thin black shields. He continued to hold Vaida closely in his arms as he glared at Harvey.

“My name is Hatasuko, and I am the first Astrodeus. I am the one who will rid this world of the Interfecti. I am the one who will create a world without misery. And even more importantly than this, I am Vaida’s friend. What did you do to her?” he demanded.

Though he was weakly emerging from his intoxication, the innkeeper crawled onto his knees and dragged himself toward the staircase. Harvey watched with a look of interest. The gentle flicker of candlelight shone in his eyes.

“You are mistaken. I am Vaida’s only friend. I am the only one who could ever love her! I am the only one who can give her happiness. You are just a usurper to my destiny; you are an interloper who wandered into her life while I was away. But I promised her that I wouldn’t let anyone or anything get between us,” Harvey challenged.

Hatasuko felt Vaida’s hot breath on his neck. He had not noticed her shaking at first, believing it to be his own heart pounding, but then he remembered that he no longer had a heart. He softly set her down inside the sail-rana since she was unable to move. As he backed away from her, he discovered that her right eye had closed. Her long hair had fallen and covered the scarred part of her face.

Once Hatasuko turned to face Vaida’s former friend, Harvey charged at him with his right dagger extended. When Hatasuko saw the purple fluid which stained the blade, he felt a rush of fear, so he pulled up his shield to block the dagger. He easily deflected Harvey with the shield, and despite Harvey’s strength, the impact did not make him stumble. Harvey quickly jumped to the left and tried to attack, but Hatasuko effortlessly blocked it with the black shield.

             “What happened to Vaida? Did you do this?!” Hatasuko demanded.

“She wouldn’t listen to me! Last time I tried, I just made her cry. I did this so I could talk to her! But don’t you worry; the dose I give you will be more than enough to keep you out of our way forever,” he answered with a cocky grin.

“The dose? What do you mean? What did you do to her?!”

“Isn’t it obvious? I poisoned her! I met an apothecary and-”

            Before Harvey had a chance to finish, Hatasuko slammed his shield into his enemy’s body. Harvey let out a groan as the impact knocked him backward, but before he stopped stumbling, Hatasuko roared and threw his left fist at Harvey’s chest. Harvey flew backward and slammed against the wall. He then ducked, kicked off the wall, and lunged at his enemy, but Hatasuko lifted his knee and struck Harvey’s face with relentless speed. The sudden damage knocked Harvey’s daggers from his hands. He fell onto the floor as blood dripped from his nose and mouth; the blood shimmered in the light of the flickering candles.

Hatasuko reached down, wrapped his giant hand around Harvey’s face, and lifted him off the ground. He felt his enemy squirming from the pain of this pressure right after having his nose snapped, but he did not care. He slammed Harvey against the wall while still gripping his face in the palm of his hand.

            Hatasuko whispered to his sniveling enemy, “I have never killed a person in my life, but it’s never felt more right than this. I’ve never wanted to kill someone so badly. I will let you leave, for the one and only reason that I will rip out your lungs if you don’t leave right now. However, I promise you that if you ever come anywhere near Vaida again for any reason, I will teach you a pain so complete that the mere concept of death will seem like a luxury.”

Having no other way to escape with his life, Harvey relaxed his body with a defeated sigh. Hatasuko set him down on the ground, kicked the daggers away from his feet, and then backed up so that he stood between Vaida and Harvey. He glared with his furious golden eyes as Harvey stumbled toward the door.

“This changes nothing. You’re still a usurper. I will still have her heart.”

“I have a rule to never kill anyone, but with the anger I feel now, that rule’s as good as gone. I won’t hesitate to kill you,” Hatasuko spoke with an unwavering glare.

“If I can’t have her, then this life’s a waste anyway,” Harvey grumbled as he opened the door to the pouring rain.

After Harvey stepped out into the street, the door fell shut behind him with a quiet thud. The innkeeper glared at the door with an infuriated gaze, but he was still breathing too heavily to stand back up. Every exhale sounded like a loud sigh.

“The one who did this… a kind old woman… who poisoned our tea…. She was staying upstairs… in the second room on the right… she went back upstairs,” rasped the innkeeper.

With his shield handle clenched in his right hand, Hatasuko rushed up the staircase, though he had to duck the whole way so as to not bump his head. When he reached the aforementioned room, he forced it open and saw that the window was open. The pouring rain left the windowsill and the nearest shelf soaking wet.

Though he was still drenched from the rain himself, Hatasuko ran over to the window, closed it, and searched for any trace of the woman who had done this. The whole room seemed empty; she had not left anything behind. He sighed, walked back down the staircase, stepped over the innkeeper, and walked over to Vaida. She stared dead ahead just like before, motionless except for her constant shivering, with the scarred part of her face hidden beneath her hair.

The innkeeper whispered, “That bastard said that… the dose he gave me… was much stronger than hers…. Since I’m awake now… I think her poison’s wearing off… but she’s still stuck in that state….”

“I think she might be having a panic attack. Vaida told me a little about him before, about how he used to be her only friend. The poor girl’s overwhelmed. She’s been hurt in the worst possible way, and I wasn’t even there to help her. I can’t believe I let this happen,” Hatasuko confessed to the struggling innkeeper.

Hatasuko leaned over the edge of the sail-rana and lifted Vaida into his arms. She shivered even as he held her. Her eyes were both open, but they looked frozen in place. She continued breathing faintly, but other than this, she showed few signs of consciousness.

“I know you’re upset with me, and I know it’s all my fault, but no one else can watch over you right now. I’m going to carry you upstairs and keep you safe until you’re better,” Hatasuko whispered to Vaida as he carried her.

The innkeeper pulled himself onto his feet by climbing with the rail at the foot of the stairs. While breathing heavily, he held onto the rail for several seconds. As Hatasuko walked up the stairs with Vaida in his arms, he asked, “Will you be okay? Do you need anything?”

The innkeeper answered, “I’ll pass this on my own…. We can’t really go… find the police or the doctors… until after the rain stops… so I’ll just relax in the back…. Please take good care of Vaida.”

Hatasuko nodded and climbed onward. The ceiling above the staircase was too low for him to stand tall, so crouched with his chin just above Vaida. When he entered an open room on the right side of the hallway, he walked toward the large bed. He balanced Vaida’s shaking body in his left arm, pulled the covers back with his right hand, and then set her down in the middle of the mattress. He pulled the covers over her, moved a pillow under her head, and then sat on the corner of the bed with a quiet sigh. He kept his head twisted to an unnatural angle, but his golden eyes stayed on her as she trembled beneath the covers. Even in this panicked state, her teary eyes shimmered from the reflections of candlelight.

            After about thirty minutes, Hatasuko felt Vaida stop trembling. The sheets above her chest rose intermittently, and her expression gradually transformed. She slowly emerged from her catatonic state, and after a minute, her eyes blinked.

“Hatasuko…” she whispered with her little voice.

“You’re awake! I hope you don’t mind that I brought you here. If you want me to go, then-”

“Please don’t go,” she said.

Vaida’s face trembled again. Tears surfaced in her eyes, but she blinked twice to hold them back. Hatasuko reached out his hand, but then she grabbed his arm with both hands. As tears fell from her eyes, Vaida pulled herself upright and buried her face into his chest. Though his shirt was wet from the rain, he felt her tears running down her face.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just, I was, um, I’m so sorry I made you worry. I know that was shitty. I think, I guess, I was never supposed to have friends. You were never supposed to have to deal with me. I’m sorry,” Vaida whispered as she sobbed into his chest.

“Please don’t say that. You mean more to me than anyone or anything! Please be nicer to yourself.”

Though she said nothing, Vaida’s sobbing slowly died away. It took many minutes for her tears to stop flowing, and while she wept, she dug her fingertips into his back. As she steadied herself, Hatasuko sat there in silence, wishing he could find some way to help her. When Vaida stopped crying, she let go of him and ran toward the closet at the corner of the room. She closed the door and left him to sit in silence for another twenty minutes.

“Hatasuko… there’s something I need you to see. There’s something… I need you to see,” Vaida stammered as she stepped out of the closet with her shirt and pants dangling from her right hand.

In the time that they had spent together, Hatasuko had only seen Vaida in her usual outfit. Her pants typically covered her legs, and long sleeves concealed her arms unless she was exercising or evacuating. She usually hid her dead eye beneath her hair. But for the first time, Hatasuko saw the near-full extent of his best friend’s body. She covered herself only with a thick bra and a small pair of shorts. Dark scars covered the right side of her body all the way down; they varied in darkness but never in presence. This dark, rough skin stained her right arm, most of her right leg, and the exposed part of her right breast.

Hatasuko opened his mouth as he tried to say something, but no words escaped. A look of sadness fell across her face as she dropped her clothes on the floor.

“You don’t look happy. I know it’s disgusting. I just wanted you to see how ugly I really am. No one has ever seen… all this,” she said as she faced the ground.

Tears welled up in his eyes. Hatasuko turned and wiped his eyes with his right arm, but Vaida saw the moisture glisten on his candlelit skin. He said to her with a grimace, “I don’t think you’re ugly; I promise you that. It’s just… your burns look so painful, so, so painful. I don’t want to think about you being in that much pain.”

“Please don’t cry! I didn’t… want to make you feel bad. Please don’t be sad. My scars don’t hurt anymore, at least not on the outside.”

“This whole time, I’ve been so proud of her for chasing the Interfecti, but that’s only a small piece of her struggle. She’s been fighting the demons inside herself,” Hatasuko thought.

            “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be the toughest man in the world. I’m insanely tall, I’m incredibly strong, I fight the Interfecti, and yet here I am crying like a little girl,” he said with rapid breaths, trying to suppress his own sobbing.

“I don’t think you’re weak! Besides, I wouldn’t have the right to call anyone else that. I just… feel like I need to let it all out. I’ve been holding in my past for as long as I remember. I’ve been so afraid to say it because everyone looks curious. I see it in the eyes of everyone who’s ever seen my face. Their stares are a reminder that I’m marked for life—that everything’s been taken from me. Can I please tell you? You’re the only one I trust. I need to let it out,” she asked with a heartbroken tremor.

He answered, “If it will help relieve any of your pain, I will listen. But are you sure you want to tell me? You don’t have to. I know it’s private.”

A redness swept over Vaida's face. She lifted her hands so that they concealed her cheeks; she folded her arms over her chest. Between her hair and her hands, only her eyes were exposed to the air. A deep anxiety blazed in her eyes.

“Yes, I want to tell you. But, I don't want… I'm gonna feel so exposed. I guess, I want, well… can I hold onto you? Can I hold you as I tell you? I think, I mean, I know this sounds weird,” she said, though her little hands muffled her shy voice.

“Of course you can,” Hatasuko answered, opening his arms for her.

Vaida glanced back at her clothes and pondered, but then she stepped forward and nervously touched his hands. Her left hand was cold, but the rough skin on her right hand felt warm. She shyly stepped forward until she stood beside the bed in the wide space between his legs. Her arms gently wrapped around him, and her soft hair pressed against his stomach. Through his thin shirt, he felt the fabric of her bra and the sudden boundary between her smooth skin and her scarred skin. She concealed the scars on her face by pressing them against him, and then she looked up at him with her blue eye. She still looked anxious, and her cheeks were red.

“I, um, I don’t exactly remember a lot about before, you know, before the fire. At least, I don’t remember much about myself. But I remember my parents. They were a unique kind of wonderful,” she explained, and as she spoke, Hatasuko felt her lips form a sad smile.

“My dad, um, he realized early on that I love learning. We spent many afternoons together, just investigating, experimenting with the world! He was smart in a curious way. His smile… he smiled so much when we learned together! And my mom was always so proud of me. She was a quiet woman, I think, I guess I may have borrowed that from her. But not back then. This may, I mean, this probably sounds silly, but I used to be a social child! I had many playmates at school, but Harvey was always my favorite. Harvey would even come play with me after school. We were all so happy then.

“I think it’s amazing that so much can change in a single night. I think that… that might just be the saddest thing about this life. Someone can build so much, they can have so much, and then just lose it all so quickly. That night, the night when the demon… the night came when the Interfectus attacked our city. I, uh, I didn’t know, I hadn’t heard, I guess, um, it wasn’t supposed-”

Vaida stopped herself mid-sentence. Hatasuko felt her fingertips dig through his thin shirt. She held her eyes shut, her breathing was fast, and her body trembled. He wrapped his arms around her. Despite the invitation to stop, Vaida opened her eye and forced herself to relax.

She said, “The Interfectus changed the world. That whole section of Bones City was basically blown away. My parents and I, we lived in a house very close to where… to where the Interfectus appeared. Running… we could not run. It would see us. It would kill us. Eventually the Interfectus, it eventually learned that people were hiding, people were hiding trapped in those houses. It probably heard, it surely heard me crying, or somehow sensed my fear. Our whole block was leveled, the whole thing, the whole block, was destroyed, it was, the scattershot, the third weapon, the-”

Vaida stopped again to fight through her tears. As Hatasuko held her in his arms, he felt his body go numb except for the parts which touched her. He tried to count her heartbeats to distract himself from the sadness.

“That night, my world ended in fire. I was so disoriented by the blast that I couldn’t see or think. I was so disoriented. I knew there were flames all around me. The sound of the crackle, the stench of smoke, the heat pressing on my eyelids—I knew the fire had caught us. I couldn’t find my mom, but I felt the weight of my dad on top of me. He was covering me, um, he covered me with his body. I smelled his breath, I saw his face, I heard him yell… as the fire took him from me.

            “It went through him. The fire, I mean. It… it spread through him. To me. I knew it would happen. I knew, um, I knew because all sides… I was surrounded by fire. I knew it would get me. I didn’t know it would hurt so much. I didn’t know it would hurt so much to watch him burn up on top of me. I don’t know why I didn’t close my eyes. The fire hurt so, so much… I don’t even, I can’t even remember it without cringing. There’s such a big difference between being in a fire and being on fire. I was, um, I was so helpless. Paralyzed by pain. My parents were dead; he died trying to protect me. I, helpless, in pain, I… watched the flames eat away at my right side. That stench… the sound of boiling blood… the searing pain. And then the flames reached my eye. The last thing I ever saw was the fire that took them from me. On the night my world ended in fire.”

Still holding her trembling body in his arms, Hatasuko slowly slid his right hand up her back until it reached her hair. He glanced down and saw that she closed her eyes with a frown, so he gently combed his huge fingers through her hair. As he did this, Vaida sighed and pursed her lips. She then opened her mouth but waited before speaking.

She said, “I was in the hospital for a very long time. At first, I was just in a little makeshift clinic since so many were injured. So many were hurt by the monster. Harvey came to visit me, and he cried when he saw me. He kept holding me and crying until the doctors made him leave. They were really afraid I’d get an infection. When I was moved to another hospital, um, a more serious hospital, the doctors tried something called debridement. It, um, it’s a procedure where they take sticky gauze, and-”

            Vaida dug her fingertips into Hatasuko’s back. She continued, “And they try to rip off the burned skin. They kept me in an isolated room after that. Very, very isolated. A room where no one was allowed in. Not that I had anyone or anything. But it just made the loneliness feel so permanent. I knew I’d be lonely forever. I knew I’d be empty forever. I slowly waited for the right side of my body to get back some skin, but it didn’t matter. The scars had already settled. I would be stained forever. I’m cursed to carry the weight of everything I’ve lost, and my curse sits clearly on my face.

“When I got out of the hospital, a city official wanted to put me in an orphanage. I guess, um, it makes sense. I had no home or family. They told me that I wouldn’t be stuck there for long. They said that families adopted kids all the time. At some point, I guess I just figured out that they weren’t actually giving me a choice. I wanted to argue, I wanted to sound strong, or somehow say I was better off. But I couldn’t say anything. I had already lost my voice. I lost the Vaida I used to be. So I guess I just went with them.

“They weren’t lying. All the other orphans didn’t last long before some smiling couple adopted them. I was, well, I was still new to being scarred for the first couple years, so I just… I guess I blamed that for the reason no one wanted me. Not that I wanted a new family, but it would’ve meant a lot to have someone want me. I used to think that they avoided me because of my burns, but now I know it’s more than that. They knew I’m worthless. They knew it before I did, or at least when I was still figuring it out. And the other kids there didn’t make anything easier. I was, um, teased a lot. Bullied a lot. Children are merciless with their words, and adults are the same but with their stares. I think that might be when I became afraid of everyone. Every person I saw was just a dispenser of pain. A walking reminder of my own worthlessness. Whether they said anything or not. I had never felt so alone.”

            “Please stop calling yourself worthless. I know you’re down on yourself, but if you could see yourself through my eyes, you wouldn’t ever doubt yourself again! If only you knew how much you mean to me,” Hatasuko said quietly.

With the scarred part of her face still pressed against his chest, Vaida looked up at him and smiled. She did not fake it, and she did not force it; Hatasuko could practically see the authenticity.

“In my years at the orphanage, Harvey came to visit me all the time. I think those were the only times I actually felt happy. Even in my sorrow, I was still a scientist. I was still an engineer. I learned as much as I could with little experiments, and I used my knowledge to make some fun projects! I made a stick that comes back to you when you throw it! I really liked that invention. When I was studying these things, or working on building anything, I could kinda ignore everything that happened. I could ignore everything I lost. It was almost like the science let me listen to my brain and not my wounded heart. That made me happy.

            “But I still couldn’t accept the way things were. Every time I saw myself in the mirror, I was disgusted by my burns, and then reminded of the night… reminded of the Interfectus. It had so much power over me. Even years later, I was still so hurt and afraid. I wanted revenge more than anything. I wanted to kill the Interfecti… and save anyone I could along the way. I guess it’d probably seem silly to anyone but you. But I had to do it. I just hated myself so much. I really felt like I had nothing to lose. Distance was the only thing stopping me.

“The idea of the sail-rana first came to me about four years ago. It all began when I saw a wagon shaking in the street! It was shaking from the wind. I spent a long time scribbling designs and trying to make every little thing perfect. I wanted a carriage that could take me anywhere in Agrideī! Soon I had a way to chase the Interfecti, but I still needed a way to fight them. So I started training! I exercised obsessively for almost a year. Every day was just school, exercise, construction. Again and again, until my sail-rana was ready. I stayed so busy that I kinda forgot about my loneliness. Either that, or I just accepted it would last forever. Or maybe, no, it’s no maybe, I know this for sure… um, I thought it wouldn’t matter. I, uh, I thought my sadness would die because, well, I thought I would die. I don’t know if I was hoping for it. But I remember thinking that the Interfectus was gonna finish what it started. Oh, I hate that I said that.”

Although Hatasuko winced at these words, he suppressed his reaction. Instead, he held her closely with his left hand raking through her dark hair. He tried to make himself expressionless, but his face fell into a frown when he saw the sadness in her eyes.

Vaida confessed, “I guess I was just welcoming the end. I set off into the world looking for the Interfecti. Looking for the thing that would either free me from my pain or die at my hand. When I finally, well, when it attacked a city, and I was there, I tried to fight. I tried to help. I was useless! Lazaro found me and saved me from a fire blast, so I guess, well, I just followed him around after that. Like a stray. He made it very clear that he didn’t want me around, but he was so strong… um, I just wanted to learn. I just wanted to be that strong! I just wanted to save people, so, you know… so there wouldn’t be more, so that I wouldn’t, so that there would be no more Vaidas. So I could stop it from happening.

“It was fulfilling, but it was also very hard. Lazaro, well, he hated me. He made it his duty to remind me how worthless I am! He’d never let me forget how ugly I am. He hit me so often that I just came to expect it. I needed him, but that was one of the most miserable times in my life.”

Hatasuko felt another cold tear soak through his shirt from her face. She began to tremble again for a moment, but then it passed as she opened her eyes. A warmth in her blue eye defied her previous sadness.

“But everything changed when you came into my life! I know I’m shy and ugly and whiny and clumsy and sad, but you saw passed all that. You became my friend, Hatasuko. My best friend! My only friend. And now you know everything, so… thank you,” she said.

Vaida pulled her face away from Hatasuko’s chest. Both her scarred cheek and her unscarred cheek glistened from a new layer of tears, but Vaida smiled beneath these tears. It was a wide smile; it was a beautiful smile that seemed to span her whole face.

Hatasuko said, “Thank you for sharing that with me. You’re like the living version of my mother’s words—that the important part is standing back up. You’ve gone through more than I can even imagine. And yet, you’re still amazing. And smart. And wickedly beautiful.”

Vaida blushed as she stood before him with a smile. She shyly glanced down at the floor and tried to hide her red cheeks with her hands, but then she stopped herself. Instead, she walked back to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. She pushed down on him so that he lowered his head, and then she softly pressed her lips to his. The kiss was brief and gentle. But when they separated and gazed into the other’s eyes, a stronger shade of red appeared on her cheeks. She looked happy and anxious at the same time.

“I’m sorry, I, um, it’s been a long day…” she shyly said, staring at the ground with a little smile.

“Please don’t apologize,” Hatasuko answered with a warm smile.

“Well, okay. I was, I thought… okay. Yes, let’s get some sleep,” Vaida said.

“Sounds good. And thank you, for everything. For telling me all this, for trusting me with this, for protecting me from the tempest—for everything.”

As she pulled her hands up to cover her blushing face, Vaida said with a shy smile, “I’m glad I did. I’m glad I could.”