He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down before taking another look at me and bursting into laughter like he couldn't get sick of it.
My eyes rolled unconsciously.
"I get it, it's as ridiculous as it sounds, you can stop now."
I sighed before leaning on my hand and watching the boy trying to hold himself from crying any further.
"Fine, fine..."
He waved with his small hand as he took a deep breath and turned around, staring off into a blank canvas that stood behind him next to the window.
"...I'll stop now." His voice came out strangely calm, making my spine tingle as his hand soon picked up a brush from beneath scattered art supplies on the floor.
His hand was now stained with hints of dark blue and grey, as well as his brush, which seemed no bigger than his index finger with a small, sharp tip landing on the blank canvas.
'And he's back at it again.'
I tried to shake off the lingering backlash from the train's barrier, tightly gripping my pants so as not to shake any further.
The pill should have knocked me unconscious and maybe even put me in a coma-like state for a couple of days, but now, it seemed as if the effect of the pill had taken effect before it touched my tongue.
Miraculously, I didn't even feel as if I had swallowed anything at all, like it turned into flux before reaching my stomach and disappeared deep within my body.
Loki's hand was now going all over the canvas, drawing a thick dark line over its thick edges.
'At least he doesn't treat me like Sere, trying to monitor everything I do even without bothering to hide it.'
As the youngest person to become a delver and the biggest introvert known to exist, he was the very person who would have to become a great delver, no matter if he tried or not; his future was as bright and clear as stars on a calm night sky.
"I also forgot to mention it..." He said not turning around, clearly focused on painting whatever it was.
"...But Sera told me you bullied her recently."
Without even meeting my gaze, it seemed as if he was looking straight at me. Like a pair of eyes grew on his back and watched my movements carefully.
"Did I? I don't think so."
"So you're denying the fact that you bullied her even after she called me crying?"
"Crying?" My voice sounded pleasantly surprised to my ear.
"Really? Is she still such a crybaby after so long?"
"She isn't."
Loki said as he put his brush on the little tray that was on the windowsill, making it shake and almost splatter the paint it held straight on the floor.
He turned to me, looking at me with his blood red pupils that sent chills down my spine, no matter how many times I took notice of them.
'Even if they are brother and sister, the difference sure is striking.'
Unlike Sera, he didn't seem to have changed at all, still wearing that old vintage suit he bought from a famous craftsman and a pendant wrapped around his hand with a red gem embedded in a round golden shell. His straight hair was short and cut nicely, similarly to mine, which no one could compare to.
"I doubt that."
He grumbled after hearing that and returned to drawing his painting, picking up the brush from the side and dipping it in black paint.
"So? What did you come here to talk about?"
He got straight to the point, not bothering with small talk.
'I guess getting more information from him is a fail.'
Feigning a cough, I stood up from the little wooden stool he offered me when I entered his room, one of the two only stools and pieces of furniture this room actually had.
With hands in my pockets, I strolled over to him, looking through the window into the far-off nothingness behind the ancient stone walls.
"I actually wanted to meet you first thing after getting here. It's nice that you came yourself."
He glanced at me from the side before returning to his painting.
"Cesar wrote to me that you would know more about the invitation to Frigora-"
"He isn't with you?"
My brows furrowed as he drew another dark line on the canvas.
"Of course not, why would I be here alone?"
"But then why did you ride here?"
"There was... A small accident."
"Hm, alright."
He nodded to himself before bringing his pulseband closer to his face, tapping on it, and materialising a large screen unreadable to me.
It was one of the strange functions that implemented security for the pulseband, so no one else would be able to get a glimpse of private information over someone's shoulder.
'It is pretty long though.'
Even with that feature, you could see the blurry static and make out how much text had popped up in front of his eyes. It was almost like an entire paragraph of news was dumped right into his face, and he stared at it without even blinking.
"That letter you got from father."
"Should I give it to you?"
"No need."
He tapped on the screen a couple of times, not long before my wrist vibrated, prompting me to raise it and shake it on.
"The list got renewed, so half of those who were meant to come will not be able to make it."
"Why?"
Loki shrugged, returning to his painting.
"They probably challenged the rift to get even stronger and got too ahead of themselves. Father always talks about the first layer as if it were a nightmare from his days."
"..."
"Oh, sorry, I forgot you still want him dead."
"Those are your words, not mine."
"Don't worry, I understand where you're coming from since a couple of failures, like you wanted to kill him with a suicide attempt, for making their life a living hell, I'm more surprised about the fact that you look so healthy."
"Pfft! You're the one to talk."
He rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide two large eyebags under his eyes, as dark as the black paint on his canvas which looked like makeup over his pale skin. Who knew if he had ever eaten properly in this empty room?
"I guess that's all, Cesar will take the next train, and we will all go to Frigora tomorrow-"
"What?"
He asked with wide eyes as if he had misheard. His questioning tone made me freeze as if I had said something wrong.
"You're not going anywhere."
"Huh?"
"The trains can't move for a week after they ride to the Checkpoint. Did you think flux is infinite or something?"
"I... Uh..."
"Jeez, you're older than me, and yet you know as much as anyone on the street would."
He shook his head as he put down his brush, smiling to himself triumphantly and puffing out his chest with pride.
"Voila!"
"The hell does that mean?"
"I don't know, just some saying I picked up from the internet."
'...'
"..."
- Ekhem!
"I finally finished my painting!"
Loki said, pointing at the canvas with his chin.
However, I couldn't think of anything as I looked at it.
"Is this supposed to be entirely black?"
The canvas had nothing but black paint covering each inch of its previously white surface.