The woman grabbed the boy's hand while he was hitting his forehead repeatedly and squeezed his hand just enough to put an end to his self-punishment.
"Don't hit yourself!" she cried out.
The boy's hand didn't stop.
She continued. "You didn't say anything wrong. There's no need to correct every little mistake, ok?" she reassured him.
Even though the woman had good intentions saying all that, it had the opposite effect.
Why you telling me all this?
His headache lightened enough to return to his usual mental state. Though, just like always, he didn't share anything about his real thoughts.
His hand stopped protesting.
The woman's hands loosened on the boy's wrist. She walked closer, her thighs almost touching the boy's leg. Her hips lowered as her arms wrapped around his body and was about to descend to the boy's lap, but then stopped herself.
She glanced at his face: bitter. With each moment, it worsened. His head unmoving. Eyes weren't bouncing from one wall to another. There were no thoughts inside his head. The boy was completely still.
Pulling herself back, she unwrapped her hands as she swiped her pink nails across his body, scraping him lightly, then walked back to her chair and sat down.
Being at a loss for words, her troubled look eventually reached the boy's attention. Though, he didn't say anything. Just watched her as she tried to find something she could talk about.
Eventually, she found that something.
"So, you…" she began, hesitating a little to frame her question the right way. "You can't see red?"
In the end, she made a conscious choice to avoid bringing up the glass of water—which she still found a bit troubling to accept—and instead changed the topic back to the question of colors. Or, to be more precise, to the question of the color red.
When she saw that the boy didn't respond, she elaborated:
"Like, you can't see it at all? Even if I show you a picture of a red tulip, you couldn't see it?"
Even though the question was about whether he could see the color red or not, he fixated on a different part of it.
Tulip? Which one was that again?
He racked his brain over a simple question like that, trying to recall the times he might have heard about it in a biology class or something.
I know rose, that has that weird circle-like pattern on the top, but…
His search was semi-successful, though; the other half was the actual information he needed, so even with the data he could dig up, the entire process was as good as knowing the questions for the wrong history test. Which is to say, he wasn't doing so well. And after countless seconds wasted, he realized that, too.
Ahh, it's no good. I can't remember.
Besides the nightmarish memories of his high school years, the only thing he could rely on was his environment; however, his room didn't provide any of those things, so it was a given that he didn't know. It was honestly surprising he even knew what a tulip was. On the other hand, knowing what a rose is was nothing special. It is the flower everybody knows about. Even he.
After some hesitation, he opened his mouth, finally giving her a clear answer.
"I can see it, ok? I'm not blind."
She looked at him as though she didn't understand. But before she could've said anything, the boy continued, trying to make himself understood by her.
"It's not that I can't see it at all. In fact, I did see it. Many times."
"So…"she began. "You can see it, like here?" She pointed at her surroundings.
Hearing her request made him taken aback.
He muttered, "W-well, I had no time to prepare, so…"
"Prepare?" she interrupted. "For what? All you need to do is point where you can see this color and say the name of the object or whatever it is."
She couldn't understand him. How could such a task take so much preparation? There was nothing to be prepared for. And yet, that's how he was. No matter how hard he wanted to deny that, it was still a part of him he couldn't let go.
Some time later, when he realized nothing would change unless he guessed where the color red was in the room, he let out a small sigh.
Slightly raising his eyes, he looked at the woman's mouth.
"Maybe your lips. I guess they are red," he said, flicking his eyes away.
There was a short pause before she said, "Wow." She glanced at him with admiration. "That's kinda erotic, dontcha think?" Her mouth began to curve into a mischievous smile.
Huh?
The boy couldn't understand the words coming from her mouth. What did he say that made her feel that way? He was pretty sure that he was careful enough not to make any careless mistakes, but it seems that in the world of connections, you can never be cautious enough.
The woman's smile started to fade as she struggled to keep a steady posture.
After she said that, her cheeks gradually became more red, though, the boy obviously didn't see that. With her head low, she tried to cover her face with her hair. Then, after a little time, she picked her head up and put her elbow on the table, her chin resting on her fist.
"Hmm? You wanna taste them?" she said, her cheerful voice returning.
The boy, across from her, stood quietly in his chair, gazing at the table. A few seconds later, she let out an exasperated sigh.
"Hihi, I'm kiddin'. You'd melt away."
She paused.
Recalling everything that had happened some time before, she added, "Or even puke again. Yeah, maybe it's better if we don't do that…haha," she laughed with an awkward smile as a hint of guilt escaped her eyes.
Seeing him feeling a bit better eased her heart enough to let herself return to a previous state. Though, no matter how much she wanted to go back to a time when things were easier, she couldn't. Even if her deepest desire was to forget about everything and embrace what she held dearly, she could no longer do that.
She cleared her throat and asked, "What else is red?"
Aren't we done with this? the boy thought as he realized there was still more to come.
He had no idea what she wanted him to say, as he had already listed a bunch of things that were red. He even said her lips! What else was there for him to solve in this twisted puzzle game?
There might have been some things he thought about while he stayed motionless, stroking his chin with the tip of his fingers. But it was also possible he had already run out of all the answers he could think of. At least it seemed that way, but then an answer popped into his head.
"That flower that people used to symbolize death. I believe that's red," he said, lifting his head.
He could only dig up the memories of what they used them for, but not the flower itself, which wasn't at all surprising coming from him. It would've been more shocking if he had the answer fully figured out. But there was no change like that. No change at all.
She looked at him with a puzzled expression, blinking several times a second. For more than five seconds, not a single word left her mouth, only sitting there confused.
Then she said, "You mean Lycoris radiata?"
Lykores radi-what? he repeated in his head, trying his best to make the words even remotely close to what she said—that wish stayed a fantasy.
Is that even a flower? Why would she know this?
Though he had a hard time comprehending why she would know something as random as that, he internalized the answer pretty quickly.
Well, why wouldn't she? She's an adult, after all.
When the boy's look gave away that he hadn't had a clue of what she just said, the woman continued sharing her knowledge.
"Commonly known as red spider lily, or just spider lily in short."
She made a brief pause, inhaled, then continued. "It originated from China, Japan, Korea—"
"Don't care." He cut in.
"Huh? You were the one who—"
"I just asked for the flower, not for a history lesson," he snapped.
Even though he rarely interfered, there were limits to how much he could let others tremble over him. He didn't even care if he ended up offending the other person. Of course, he never had the intention of hurting anyone, but he was human, too. Even if only just a little, there were parts of him still alive. Parts that, no matter what, had to survive.
Once realizing the boy's unusual behavior, she stepped back.
"Okay, okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," she said, putting her palms before her face as she shuddered them slightly.
"You didn't," he responded immediately. "Why would something like this hurt? I was just not in for a history lesson, that's all."
Not knowing how to argue with him, she decided to let him have that one. She must have noticed that even he had nerves not meant to be touched.
Her hands descended, resting on the table for some time before she took her phone out of her pocket and grabbed the boy's from the edge of the table. Then she entered the boy's phone, which had no password, and started typing something. Before she could finish, though, she stopped.
Her hands frozen. Eyes dilating.
Ten seconds passed. She didn't breathe. The boy could see how her chest tensed from the inside.
Then, her mouth regained control, curling down.
Moments later, her breath escaped. The rest of her body started moving again.
Still holding a bitter expression, her fingers melted the ice surrounding it, and she continued fiddling with the boy's phone.
She swiped her finger from one side to the other.
Her cheerful smile reappeared.
"I didn't know you write," she said, looking into the boy's greenish eyes.
Without meeting her gaze, he answered, "I'm not."
She shook her head.
"What's this, then?"
Reluctant, he gazed at the screen, as though he was forced to learn something useless again.
Three seconds later, he said. "Nothing."
She turned the phone back to her. Glancing at the icons, her eyes returned to his.
"Doesn't seem that way to me," she said, swiping her fingers across his phone. "A person doesn't just keep notes that cover most of the screen with big panels like these."
Other than the titles of the "works" on his screen, nothing else was there that could become a point of interest in their conversation.
She put the phone on the table and started reading it aloud.
"'The Fallen'—what's this about?" she asked, staring at the boy with wide-open eyes.
He didn't answer.
"Hmm? Dontcha wanna tell me?" she probed him.
After three seconds of silence, she sighed.
"Fine. You're a tough nut to crack, I give you that," she said, already proceeding to move to the next "work".
"How about the other two then, hm? Can you tell me about those?"
She picked her head up from the phone. But after the boy didn't say anything, she returned to the screen.
"Could it be you don't remember the other two? Even though I just showed you a moment ago." She paused and looked into the boy's eyes with her sharp gaze.
"Or could it be you don't wanna remember?"
As she looked to the other side, only his dark brown hair was visible, covering his face as they almost reached the white table.
She pursed her lips.
"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "I'll just tell you then."
Tilting her head down, her mouth opened, already reading all the boy's fruitless ambition back to him. "One is 'Lifeless' and the other one is…"
She paused again, then continued.
"Hm? Whaccup with this one: 'To You'? Who could this 'You' be… It's about me, right?" She smiled, pushing her cheeks up to her eyes, narrowing them.
She didn't stop. No matter how embarrassed, uncomfortable, or any other way he might've felt from hearing those things again, the woman just kept asking. There was a chance that the existence of those titles had long left his memory. And yet, now, they forced their way back. He had to remember. Or at the very least, he could no longer ignore them.
The boy squirmed in his chair. His stomach growled.
In that silence, it was as loud as when someone's trying to open a bag of chips in the middle of the night when everybody else is long asleep. Needless to say, the woman picked up on that without any effort. She would've heard him even if the cafe was filled with people, so it was impossible for the boy to keep his secrets from her.
While in the thick of it, she stopped nagging him and glanced at the side of the table where the noise came from as though she had thermal vision.
As if they were in sync, both looked behind the counter, the woman turning her head. Her feet were already to the side; the boy could even see her standing up. Before it, though, he reached his hand out, trying to stop her from getting to the counter.
Sensing what was about to happen, the woman motioned with her hand as she said, "It'll be quick, ok?"
But by this point, both knew nothing was that simple.
The boy replied. "I don't want to repeat what happened with the water if that's possible."
She put her hands down.
"I know," she said, clenching her fist for a fraction of a second. "But I wanna help."
"There's no need to. I'm fine. It was nothing more than a one-time thin—"
Grrr…
Slowly, he glanced at his growling stomach. Moments later, he raised his head.
"It was nothing more than a two-time—"
Grrrr…
He paused again. His head didn't turn to check the source this time around.
You gotta be kidding me.
Clearing his throat, he said. "Well, I just, uh, I uhm…"
Not knowing what to say, he resorted to the easiest solution as he continued, "Don't worry about it. I'm really fine. Just show me why you confiscated my phone and move on from this thing if possible, please."
She didn't say anything.
Her torso turned back with both of her feet on the ground, facing the boy. Eyebrows settled, she sighed and scooped up the boy's phone. For some time, her fingers rapidly tapped the screen. And when she was done, she did the same typing actions with her phone, though it took her way less time than with the boy's.
Once she was finished with the preparation, she put her phone away and stretched out her other arm towards him.
"Can you see this color?" she asked, a wide smile painting her face.
Looking at the screen, he shifted his head until the reflection of the sun that shone into his eyes disappeared.
[Love you! ❤ ❤ ❤ smooches]
His eyes widened. For multiple seconds, he sat silently, keeping his eyes open.
Is this a joke? She just sent me a message? Did I even have this thing installed?
He blinked several times a second, trying to wake himself up from the nightmare he was trapped in, but every time his vision returned, the text was still there.
"Any guess?" she asked, the phone covering her smile.
The boy caved in. Knowing it was impossible to free himself from that pressure, he paused, thinking long and hard on his answer.
"R-red," he muttered.
A few seconds went by as he was focusing hard on the heart emojis. His stomach compressed. Conflicted, he corrected himself.
"Actually, it might be pink. I'm not really sure."
The woman stroked her hair as she said, "Which one then?" she giggled with a warm smile on her face as she raised her eyebrows.
"I-I don't know," said the boy quietly. "I think it's better if I don't say anything."
"Aw, come on," she said. "Where's your confidence?"
Just before saying anything, he sat silently. His lips parted as a fragment of his voice escaped. Though, it was so quiet, she didn't even register that his first attempt to speak failed. Quickly adjusting himself both physically and mentally, he decided to say it anyway as though he didn't struggle at all.
"I left it at home," he answered, managing to let a joke of some sort out still on time.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows, surprised by the boy's words.
"Wow, that wasn't half bad," she said encouragingly.
Though after a few seconds, she continued what she knew best. Lecturing.
"Your delivery was smooth, though a bit too hesitant. You were so close to making me laugh if you just—"
As she was busy tearing his spirit down, she noticed his face becoming more bitter and dark. She immediately stopped herself from further poking holes into his soul and tried to correct herself with an awkward smile.
"But that's ok." She squeezed the words out. "Everyone has their strong points. Who cares if this is not one of them? I'm sure you have somethin' I envy in you. In fact, I—"
"Enough," said the boy calmly, cutting her off. "Please just don't even try to continue whatever that was."
This time around, he didn't apologize for his rude behavior, nor did he try to explain himself through long inner monologues just to justify what he thought he knew about himself. Instead, that was it. No longer did he think or say anything outside what he did.
Maybe his headache from what he had experienced in the previous chapter played some part in it, though, it was also possible that something inside him just clicked.
No one knew what made him act in that way. Not even he himself. Then or now, that forever remained something he could never solve.