He found himself looking out the window at the outskirts of the mansion. The metal railings surrounding the mansion always maintained that sheen of black paint due to the good maintenance the entire establishment received periodically. Suddenly, a white limousine pulled up in front of the gate. The men standing guard approached the window and immediately waved respectfully. Out of the limousine stepped a man wearing a beige suit and matching hat. In his right hand he carried a black briefcase.
The man adjusted his rectangular glasses with his ring finger and the doors of the mansion opened.
"Father...", Alek whispered as he saw him. From his room, peering out the window.
He looked down at his arms and legs, noticing the bandages covering him. He closed his eyes tightly and, opening them, stood up to change his clothes.
***
He walked between the aisles to say hello. Covering the bandages on his body, he wore a white long-sleeved shirt and black pants. The shoes he wore were shiny and black in color. In itself, the clothes were quite ordinary, but at least that will cover what he doesn't want to show anyone.
He stopped suddenly as he saw his father appear in the hallway. The man saw him and approached.
"Good morning Alek, how are your studies going?"
Alek opened his mouth wanting to say something, but the words got caught in his throat. He looked down and whispered shyly.
"I graduated from the tutor's classes two years ago..."
Jasha's eyes widened slightly in surprise. Then she nodded and bent down to look Alek in the eyes. The faces of both father and son were very similar. Both with the same almost expressionless face.
"I brought you this. I hope it's enough", he handed him the briefcase and stood up again. "I have some business to attend to here. Y..."
Alek looked at the man after looking at the briefcase curiously.
"Your glasses are broken. I'll have Frederica escort you to change them."
Alek squeezed the briefcase handle.
"Frederica was fired."
"Oh", indifferently, Jasha turned her back on Alek. "Then I'll tell Maria to accompany you. Keep studying as usual."
"Yes... father..."
Jasha didn't ask the reason why Alek's glasses are broken. He didn't ask about Biserka. He didn't ask why Frederica had been fired. He didn't even know that Alek had graduated from the private tutor's classes a long time ago. This boy had literally graduated from his classes just a few weeks after he started. That man knew nothing about his own son or the family he was supposed to have formed almost fourteen years ago. Jasha's gaze in itself was very indifferent to everything, even in front of his own son. He did not even congratulate him on graduating. His words were so brief that somehow Alek felt dizzy, something inside him was breaking.
"Father!", he called, stopping him as he walked away.
Jasha returned his gaze to Alek, waiting for the boy to say something.
"I... I..."
The wounds on his body ached. The pain he endured so much was boiling over. Alek was going to collapse in front of his father trying to tell him everything he has been going through. However, he couldn't do it. He remembered that day when his father hit his mother. He remembered the first time he saw his mother drinking and smoking in that room with the piano. There he thought of how his actions hurt those around him, for with Frederica it was that way.
Then.
"Fare thee well..."
Alek couldn't say anything to him...
***
When he returned to his room, he opened the briefcase on the bed and took what was inside. Before he did, he noticed that the briefcase was quite heavy. Holding a book, he realized why. The contents were about fifteen books of various advanced topics. Five of the books were novels of various genres. Dystopia, Detective, Horror, Mystery and one of Drama and Tragedy. The other books had topics related to mathematics, politics and some historical events in Russia and the world.
Drip. A tear fell on the book. Alek was smiling kindly. That smile that was almost gone. It no longer mattered what happened before with his father. At least he thought that man had thought a little about his son and bought him these gifts. He wanted to think that way.
Alek was happy. This had been the best day of his life.
-Twin Towers of Iselma, that very night-
The lights were already out and Reines slept in her bed, with a hint of worry in her sleepy expression. She hadn't felt so much stress all day. She had been the first to fall asleep. Well, in fact, she was the only one to fall asleep. Gray stared at the ceiling unable to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she remembered the shattered body of the Golden Princess.
"Assassin... you... you killed all those people", she whispered loud enough for the dematerialized Assassin to hear her. That got a positive response, as Assassin materialized next to her bed.
"I needed mana. I left no evidence. It was fine."
Assassin's morals were very different from other people's. He killed for a living regardless of whether the victim suffers or not. Gray felt a chill. That moment when she felt all those souls around her came to her mind causing her to shiver.
"I think that the life of one murderer can be of use to another, that's why I took it upon myself to kill people who have committed obvious murders. It was not difficult. The digital security of this era is not that good, at least."
"I see... Then you won't kill any innocent people."
"Right. Seems unnecessary to me."
"You look tired, though. Even a few moments ago. are you running out of mana? We've been here for more than two days already."
"I still have enough mana left. I can take it. It's not like I'm going to disappear easily. It would be ironic for me to die easily."
Gray closed her eyes. She felt that this time Assassin was being sincere. There was no hint of a lie in his words. Though now that it was all in the dark, with each other side by side, she thought it was the perfect time to ask questions and reminisce about the things that went wrong.
"That day... I... I... I don't know what happened to me."
Assassin sat down on the floor. "I don't care, really. It wasn't something that bothered me, well... it didn't bother me at all."
Getting upset over something like that would be the normal thing to do. Even Assassin could still get upset. Even if all there was to his life was boredom. At that, Gray covered her face in embarrassment. She thought about that and that. Moments she shared together with Assassin as people very close, as distant at the same time.
"Ah... it's just that, whenever I'm around you I always end up doing really weird things. You always force me to be in such surreal situations..."
"I don't force you into anything. You just decide to do what you want to do."
She sighed. Slowly she dropped her hands to the sheets. Staring at the ceiling, she said, "I don't know. I don't understand. I don't understand anything. My head hurts from thinking so much."
"Hm... I wouldn't know what you could do in these situations. You could take a paracetamol tablet."
That sounded like a joke, although judging by Assassin's monotone, it sounded like he meant it. Well, those words finally made Gray relax for a few moments. In fact, she felt she should ask something of this servant so she stepped aside on the bed, leaving enough room for someone else to lie down.
"Hey, Assassin..."
"Hm?"
"Can you lie down next to me?"
"Are you sure?"
"Add would say we've already done much more embarrassing things."
"... ... Okay..."
He got up from the floor. He took off his glasses and put them on the small table between the two beds. He also took off his jacket, which vanished in a small cloud of smoke. When he finished getting ready, he grabbed the sheet and climbed into bed next to Gray. She rolled over and looked Assassin in the eyes. In fact, they were both looking into each other's faces at this moment. Although a lot had happened in a very short time, Gray felt no embarrassment this time. Compared to what happened with Reines that day, this was nothing more than child's play. She closed her eyes once more.
"When I was five, before I got Add, I used to sleep with my mother. Her body was very warm. It comforted me on cold nights."
"Well, I've always slept alone. I wouldn't know how to understand you. Although... well... I remember sleeping with someone a couple of times. Her body was warm. It was very comfortable..."
...
"I... I really didn't know what would happen to me next. This is all so different from my hometown. So many things have changed in such a short time. I can't get used to any of it. The magus, life in London."
"No one can adapt to something right away. Evolution takes time, that also includes humans and their minds."
"I understand that, but... it's so hard", she opened her eyes showing those two jewels sparkling like emeralds. "I feel lost constantly. There are so many things I want to know, but I never get what I want."
"... Life is not a magic lamp that can grant wishes. At least, from my own experience, it will never be that way. If you feel that your life is difficult, that you can't move forward, there must be something wrong with how you do things."
To tell the truth, she wasn't paying much attention to what Toru was saying. In an unconscious way, she was just venting everything that was bothering her mind. That last thing Assassin had said was what made her listen to him carefully.
"A hard life, huh... I don't think so", she smiled bitterly. "The days were always the same. I'd go out in the evenings to tend the graves. I always took Add with me. It was a relief to have someone to talk to amidst all the darkness and the fear of seeing any ghosts. Although... that went on day after day, all the while waiting for my inevitable fate..."
"Fate, uh... I've heard a lot of people mention that word. Maybe working in that cemetery was something like a story created just for you. Just like everything you've lived through, day in and day out..."
Gray paused for a while to think. "I've realized something. I feel like you're always forcing yourself to talk. As long as I've known you you've been like that. I wanted to know if that's true or just my imagination playing tricks on me."
...
Assassin took a second to answer.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Huh? So... well..."
"It was Sakura-sama's order. It doesn't bother me or anything, really."
That meant Assassin's words weren't always sincere. Maybe most of the things he said were just related to the conversation of the moment and not what he really thinks. If that's the case, then this conversation was just becoming somewhat empty.
Gray ducked her gaze. What if Assassin is just someone fake as his class dictates? What if his words are just a lie that he uses for his own benefit? She remembered once thinking about that. Though in the end she came to the conclusion that that couldn't be possible. Even now she understood that.
To avoid getting stuck, she changed the subject.
"Sometimes I wondered what your life was like, what you did in your childhood. I'd like to know the path you traveled to become a heroic spirit. And then I think about me. I think about my boring life, the same monotonous life of a country girl. Every morning, waking up with the same idea in my head. Each time, seeing a reflection that becomes clearer each day. Remembering the good times of the past and looking at how gray the present is. Always wondering so many things. I always have my mind filled with so many thoughts that it's hard for me to process additional information. My mind is so tired of it all...".
Assassin was silent. It even looked like he wasn't going to say anything about it as Gray hid herself more and more between sheets, putting on that same depressed expression she does when she's alone. But it was a surprise. Assassin let his voice come out as a soft, understanding whisper, but one that inside held something deeper.
"Maybe you feel that, every time you wake up in the morning, everything is boring, that everything is always the same. That everyday life has become so monotonous that it's hard for you to even get out of bed. Sometimes your heart feels empty, as if you have lost something you never had. You look in the mirror every day and you just want to punch it; you hope to cut yourself with the shards of glass to let out some of the pain you hold in the form of crimson red blood that spreads across the white bathroom floor. If it's that way, you could hardly understand what's going on. You would keep thinking about the same thing no matter what. You would become a monotonous person, just like your life itself..."
A couple of tears spilled out. Gray looked at Toru with tears running down her cheeks. Seeing her, Assassin sighed wearily.
"I think I mentioned it before. I had clearly told you to stop feeling what I feel..."
...
"That's not possible... I can't control this...", she replied, her voice cracking. "Every time I'm around you the same thing happens. It scares me. It scares me so much. I don't understand you. I can't understand you and it terrifies me. I want to know what's in you, I want to understand what you keep in your chest, but I'm also very afraid to dive into this", she closed her eyes tightly and contracted her legs and arms to her body. She hid in the sheets in fear trying to eliminate the emotions that affect her so much. "You're a ghost, you're already dead and I hate that. You should be resting in a grave. You should be peacefully living in death with the other ghosts. But yet you're still here. You have me so confused I don't know what to do anymore. All these mixed emotions, stabbing at my mind and my heart. I don't understand how you can stand it. All this, how can you stand it?"
A brief pause, followed by a few words. A pained, strange, soft voice was heard.
"That's the thing..."
A secret of the heart...
"I can't take it..."
It was Assassin's voice. Gray opened her eyes after hearing it, but he was no longer beside her.
"Assassin?"
There was no answer.
"Toru..."
No answer. The only thing in the scene was the soft breaths of Reines, who seemed not to have heard the conversation, as she was still sleeping. With that, the silence of the dark night took over the entire room. In the end, Gray was unable to sleep that night at the unknown of Assassin's words, the strange and painfully sincere words coming from Asahi Toru's heart. He is always so strange. Sometimes he acts so cold in front of others, but sometimes he changes that part of himself for no reason. She didn't understand that. Everything about Toru was so confusing. This boy was something she had never seen in her life. Maybe that had her puzzled to the point of telling him all that. Although both this girl and the servant know that the words they said to themselves was nothing more than out of the heat of the moment.
That same night, Gray was unable to sleep as she waited for Toru's return, who did not return that night.
To be continued...