She gets up as I still lay there, averting my gaze and I avert her's. The both of us are not speaking as we take a moment to collect our bearings. After a moment, I silently got up as well, the look that she gave me still leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. A moment passes us by before she breaks the silence. Her sharp words cut the atmosphere as they ring out in my ears.
"Let's go."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
19XX Kunar province, Afghanistan.
12:48 pm
"....So that's how it is."
Just uttering those five words made her exhausted. It made her want to ball her eyes out, it made her want to sob uncontrollably and whimper. But worse of all? It made her want to quit. Made her want to render the actions of her men, some of whom have lost their lives to be in vain.
What happened? Why? How?
She was gone for a couple of weeks, a month at most. And now here she was back at the barracks. Her entire company quarantined, by the brass as she and her men were bombarded with question after question. The accusations seem endless as they interrogate her, sometimes even yell. Venom dripped in their faces as desperation and fury were in their eyes.
All she knows is that she was rescued by her men. And that the dead comrade in front of her was dead. All because he was the only one who stayed back behind everyone. The one who lagged behind. And as a consequence found her toy horse from childhood and was shot as he was the only one without a rock solid alibi.
Gently picking up the toy horse, she weakly looked at it. Her fingers tremble all the while as she does so. She was furious, tired; unconsolable….broken.
She saw all of the facts on the table. Looked at all the alibi's and possible motivations behind it all. And it made sense, it really did!
…But…
But in the end, she still doesn't understand.
She still questions, lashes out at everything.
This was unacceptable and yet she had to accept it. She had no choice BUT to accept it.
If she didn't, then her men would be picked off one by one….And…no matter how much she was fed up by the whole matter. She couldn't let that happen to them. No, WOULDN'T let that happen to them. They put their lives on the line for her. And she'll do the same, no matter how much her heart aches.
She doesn't know that much. But she was a smart woman, she could infer. Pick up the pieces and solve the puzzle by a simple manner of process of elimination. And every single conclusion led to the same answer over and over again. A conclusion that she didn't want to believe, REFUSED to even. And yet it still stubbornly remained. The only one that made sense, and the only one that she couldn't understand,
Why?
What went wrong?
Why were there cracks now? There never were any, not before HIM at least….
She still doesn't understand. He wasn't the type to do something like this! He saved her after all. Saved her men even from that ambush a couple weeks back. So why? Would he do this? What possible reason would he have to betray them like this? To bring the full weight of the fury and suspicion of the red army upon them to bear?
And worse yet, why would he get her men, her soldiers involved?
Why would…one of her men was dead because of him. One of her men was led astray by…him. He may have been a private, but he was still one of her's, Damn it! And he…he…he just caused him to get killed, and for what? For what? What could possibly have been the reason for this? All of THIS?
She thought better of him.
She truly did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The weeks pass by and she finds every day an increasing challenge. At first it was the little things, the small things. But it added up, and still continues to add up. First it was the brass, then it was her men; and now it was herself. And now she finds herself baring her teeth as what was once bearable, becomes unbearable. She was never right for the hero type of role, she admits it. But she still tries, every single waking moment she tries.
And yet it never seems enough. She can save people, there's no doubt about it. But she can't save them all. And that's what stings, what bites. Not what she can do, but what she can't. She can't tell the brass to shove it with their questions and demands, she can't coax exactly what in the ever living hell happened during her captivity from her men. And now she finds that she can't tell the lions from the dogs. All thanks to him of course.
She had thought better of herself, she really did. But now? She doesn't know anymore. She used to think that she was a somewhat decent judge of character. But his….betrayal put things in a new perspective. He would always act disinterested, hateful, but never disloyal. When it came to do his duty, he always did it, even if he complained, he never stopped fighting. And even with all that, at the end of the day he left. He left them, and he left her. He left with a truck, met up with the enemy and stole damn near a mountain of ammunition for the enemy. He left and hasn't come back. Nor does he want to. If she was in his situation, she wouldn't be back.
She finds herself furrowing her brow in annoyance more these days. She finds herself more irritable and more depressed as she carries on but it irks her. With everything that happened? Of course it does. And the fact that she can't speak about it, doesn't even have anyone to speak about it to make it even worse. Even then life was grim and barely bearable, but as much as she loathes to admit it. His presence was what made it a little better. She found herself laughing more, and she enjoyed the feeling in her heart whenever she was around him. It was good, not constantly being on guard. For how could you ever truly be on guard with a person that hates everything and anything and doesn't so much as to try and hide it, you included?
And that was exactly why this betrayal stung. She never thought he had it in him to commit such treachery, such deceit; but he did. And he was gone now, leaving her with a very big mess to clean up. The men are loyal to her. But they won't tell her the truth, the full truth. And now the fact that all of her men have a skeleton in their closet so heinous that they couldn't even tell her, their commanding officer; that was with them since the very beginning, the ones who went AWOL to extract her from the enemy makes her heart ache.
It hurts, it stings; and she has to pretend that it doesn't. That it's fine, but it's not fine, it never was and never will be. It bothers her and she has to hold her tongue or else the fragile walls come tumbling down and she really does lose everything. She exists, on a mountain of lies. And the one person that existed on the mountain with her was gone. He appeared suddenly and left suddenly, and no matter how much she tried to convince herself that it was just life. And shit happens, she wasn't okay with it and never will be.
No matter how much she tried to push him out of her mind, he just wouldn't leave. Despite his flesh and blood counterpart.
…
She wishes she knew how to quit him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can feel her gaze at the back of my head…as well as the rifle as it pushes against my back. Fuck. Just my luck. Out of everyone that I could possibly encounter, it's her. The one woman who can kill me, and knows it. But for some reason she doesn't. And I can't for the life of me, figure out why. The look that she gave me earlier bites at me as well. I don't know why, but I just feel so damn dirty from that. And not the good kind, which I never seem to have the chance to invoke these days. No. It was shameful. Shame and guilt. It was the kind of shame where you would go play at a friend's house, only for them to mess up badly and get chewed out by their parents. Even if you didn't do anything, you still felt like a jackass just for being there and seeing them get their asses handed to them.
That look makes me feel guilt for something I shouldn't even be guilty about, and I hate that. I don't know why she looked at me with those eyes, and I don't want to know. As far as i'm concerned, we're strangers, acquaintances at most. Sure I called myself a comrade even earlier when we met and I managed to get her to rage like a child, but that was just to get her to lose her temper. It was never personal. I never wanted it to look personal.
No. That look was pure, it was genuine. She was genuinely hurt by me, though I don't know why. We were never close, we had a professional relationship, strictly professional and I never spoke to her unless she spoke to me first. So why? Why was she looking at me like that? Was it because I proved my point? That guys like me were a dime a dozen, and that just as I would appear, I would soon be gone? Was it because I poked at her for wanting to participate in the olympics? why?
…No, Why was I even thinking about this? Why should I feel concern or guilt? I didn't do anything wrong! I was clear, as clear as the…what was it? Bai-Baiken? Baikal! Baikal river from the very beginning with her. It was her with the unrealistic expectations of me, not me. I never wanted anything to do with her, and I never will! Get your head out of your ass Hikigaya! Did that robot give you permanent brain damage, you scoundrel?
"...Where to, Miss.Pavlovna?" I asked after a brief moment my voice terse as I scan my surroundings. She doesn't want to be called comrade, and she was never my Kapitan, plus, something deep inside me tells me that if I call her Sofiya, I would get shot right then and there no questions asked.
So we're at the very beginning once more, except she hates now; and we're more than strangers and less then acquaintances, if that even makes fucking sense. Exactly what I wanted from the very beginning, though I could do without the mistrust and hatred towards me. It would be very helpful. But beggars can't be choosers. And for some reason, whenever I get something I want, I end up in a worse situation than before.
"..."
She was about to speak, before a loud noise cut her off. Correction, multiple loud noises. It was the all too familiar sound of semi automatic and fully automatic gunfire. Before I knew it, I raised a worrisome brow.
"Your men? Miss. Pavlovna?"
"Oh don't play coy you dumb bastard even IF they are with me, I'm not going to them. Chances are you'll do something stupid and unpredictable and get away again. No. If they're with me, then they'll be able to find me once they realize I'm not here in the camp."
"And where would you be?" I ask, both infuriated and concerned as I keep on scanning the environment around us.
"Why I'll be in the jungle with you, H I K I." My ears twitched with indignation as she said that. This bitch was doing that on purpose. If I'd known any better I could see her smirking most pettily, a small victory over a small man.
"...Oh, how scandalous, a woman of your class is alone with a man? After dark? Calling me by a nickname? If I didn't know any better, I would say that you're gunning for me. In more ways than one."
"..."
"Yeah yeah keep talking, that's all you're good for, now go left you pathetic man." She says after a short pause. It was noticeable, but I couldn't know for certain whether or not it was an annoyed pause or a calm pause. Because at this point, I'm pretty sure that we're both just done with each other.
I always was a pathetic man, small and petty, I'm a loser and I know it. Despite my talk and actions, I still to this day; hate being beaten. Whether it be in intelligence or conversations, something just bites at me everytime I lose a verbal match. Maybe because it was because I knew she wouldn't shoot me, maybe it was because of my injuries, and that my head still felt a little bit wonky; maybe it was because of all the bitterness, maybe it was because of those pills, hell, maybe it was the fact that my head felt strangely clear and yet muddled at the same time, but the dam broke just a little bit and I found myself speaking harshly once again.
I was this close damnit. I was this close to escaping, and this woman just had to ruin it! Everything was going kind of well. I made a distraction, there was fire and confusion; and people were running around like headless chickens. And I just had to stumble into her, for once. Just once, things were looking halfway decent. Sure I'm no expert in jungle survival, but I'm pretty sure I have a rudimentary basic on what to do, surely it couldn't have been that different from the dense foliage of some parts of Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure I could have laid low in a cave or something and hide from my pursuers, I was always was good at hiding. But then she had to appear near me once more, literally tackling me to the ground just when I was begging to get a little steam.
"You know, everytime we meet nowadays, it seems like you want me dead; or to shoot me. But you never do. I could say the same for you as well. When it comes to talking at least." I say, irritation most evident in my voice as I kept on moving. Slinking between huts and finding trees to crouch against
"..."
We move in silence after that statement. She says nothing and a cold silence fills the air around us despite the jungle heat.
It wasn't until we got near the tree line that she spoke once more. With the faintest traces of hesitation in her voice as we crouched behind a hut. Our silhouettes are hidden by both the hut and the encroaching darkness. It wasn't until I finally dared to look up and look her in the eyes that I noticed it. That crimson shade on her face. And that look that consisted of both self loathing, and pure hatred for me.
"....I…really hate you know that? A part of me just wants to shoot you and be done with it. But…"
bUT WHaT woman? What is it this time? What could you possibly have to say to me that is of any worth?
"I need you."