Another day.
Same as always.
I guess so.
The morning started like every other morning since I'd come to this place. Eyes opened to sunlight, a real sunlight, golden and warm, not the gray filtered light of Aventic's military quarters.
The ceiling fan spun above me.
I counted rotations.
Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five.
Then I got up.
I ran. Did my training. The same exercises I'd done for years. The same forms. The same cuts.
The only difference was the scenery—rice paddies instead of concrete walls, birds instead of alarms, peace instead of tension.
At last, I took a shower and ate my breakfast.
Angy arranged plates with theatrical precision. Shenhe stood in the doorway, watching with that unreadable expression.
"I'm heading out, you two."
"Bye, Young Master! Don't do anything stupid!" Angy's head appeared in the window.
Shenhe's voice, quieter: "Be careful."
Same as previous day. The same teasing. The same deadass glare.
Why didn't I notice these earlier?
I've been living with them for more than a decade.
Seventeen years.
Since I was three years old.
They've been there through everything—through Mom disappearing,, through every mission, every nightmare, every time I came home broken.
Still.
I know everything about them. Their names. Their ages. The way Angy laughs too loud and Shenhe barely smiles. The way they bicker over stupid things and protect each other like sisters.
But I still miss everything.
It feels like it's all new to me now. Like I'm seeing them for the first time. Like coming to Ilsa didn't just change where I was—it changed how I see.
Maybe that's what peace does.
Makes you notice things you were too busy surviving to see.
My new cycle hasn't came yet. Father's contact said it would arrive "soon."
Whatever that means in a place where time moves slower than anywhere else.
I slightly chuckled.
There's no way anyone can see this chuckling.
I chuckled again for this thought.
I guess walking is the only thing I can do.
So I walked.
The road to school was the same as always. Rice paddies on both sides, green and gold in the morning light. Hills in the distance wearing mist like scarves. A stream running alongside, chuckling to itself.
Morning smells good here.
Different from Aventic. There, the air smelled like metal and fear. Like blood and ozone after too many battles. Like the inside of a hospital where people went to die.
Here, it smells like earth. Like growing things. Like life.
Our school starts early morning.
I mean, 11 AM isn't really morning though.
It's almost noon.
But it still feels like morning.
Everything feels slower here.
I passed through the river end of the village. The place where the water curves and the path splits.
Farmers were already in the fields. Kids ran past, laughing, chasing each other. An old man sat on his porch, watching the world go by with a cup of tea in his hands.
Why is his house at the end of the village though?
Probably some normal things.
Father, this is hard to adapt.
There's a waiting place where the two roads collide. One goes to school. One goes to the villages beyond.
The waiting place just a patch of dirt with a worn-down wooden bench that someone probably built decades ago and no one's bothered to fix since.
I was passing that spot when I saw it.
On the other road—the one that comes from nowhere, that leads to places I don't know—there was a figure in—
White.
Slowly coming toward the intersection.
Thinking.
About what?
I don't know.
She was wearing the same thing she always wore. White turtleneck. Black skirt.
Huh, does she don't have any other clothes.
Her blonde hair catching the light like it was made for it.
Walking slow, like she had all the time in the world. Like time was something she'd already trancend it and didn't need to worry about anymore.
Arcueid.
The name came automatically now. Not with the same shock as the first time. Not with the same terror as the jungle. Just... recognition of—
Her.
Again.
Why is she always on this road?
Why does she keep appearing?
She hadn't seen me yet.
Her head was down, slightly tilted, like she was listening to something only she could hear. Thinking. Wrapped up in whatever thoughts occupied a being who could erase existence by accident.
I could have kept walking.
Could have pretended I didn't see her.
Could have taken the school road and left her to her thoughts.
But my feet stopped.
Why am I stopping?
Why do I want to talk to her?
She erased my team mates.
I know they were already dead before she arrived but—
She's dangerous.
But she was also the only one with answers. The only one who'd survived that night with me. The only one who looked at me like she saw something even I didn't understand.
She looked up.
Saw me.
Our eyes met across the intersection.
For a moment, neither of us moved. Just stood there on our separate roads which connected by a patch of dirt and the strange gravity that kept pulling us together.
Then she smiled.
Small. Brief. Almost imaginary.
And started walking toward me.
You're early today," she said when she got close.
Early. Right.
"I don't want to call this early when the sun almost on our head"
"Sun?", She confused like she heard some unknowingly word.
"The thing on our head"
"Ah,You mean Hungsa." She nodded like this was important information.
"Hungsa?", I confused like I heard some unknowingly word.
"The thing on our head"
Uh what
"Anyway"
"Where are you going?" I asked. Why?
She tilted her head. Considered the question.
"I don't know yet."
She don't know.
"You don't know."
"Yes, I don't know."
How can you not know where you're going?
Every day?
Every time?
I wanted to ask. Wanted to understand. But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, I found myself saying: "I'm walking to school."
"I know."
Excuse me.
"Do you want to... walk with me? Partway?"
The words came out before I could stop them. An invitation. From me. To her. The being who'd erased my friends.
What am I doing?
She blinked. Surprised, maybe. Or curious. Hard to tell with her.
Then that small smile again.
"Okay."
____