Yawning, Catalina's arms stretch above her head, her muscles tight in fatigue regardless of her strong endurance. She woefully discerns she has underestimated the academy, but then again, hunger clouds everything.
For breakfast, she ate fruit and for lunch, she had her go-to snack. All because she wants to avoid people. She forgot the importance of healthy meals until Lightless.
Redoing her ponytail with lazy effort, she strides into the villa dormitory, her skin glistening in sweat. She heads towards the kitchen after taking off her boots. The brown tiled floor is cool and flat under her feet that are covered in thin white socks.
A silver chandelier hung from the high inward ceiling, casting a warm magical glow on the open large space. Dark green coffee pads mark the steel countertops lining the back of the creamy baby blue wall. A large sink was nestled between the refrigerator and stove, with a freezer left of the former and several cupboards filled with food next to the latter.
The space is tidy and clean. It's also empty at the moment, which is a bonus for her burdening nerves. The third-floor kitchen is rarely used by underclassmen. They believe it to be cooler to hang out in the cafeteria.
Before she can grab something to eat, a rosy perfume fragrance fills the air in a heavy wave, and she turns around in time to bump into someone. "Shit, sorry! Are you okay?" A clear, empty voice exclaims.
The person grasps Catalina's shoulders to prevent her from falling.
"Yeah." Catalina steps back and looks up to see a lovely fair woman about 1.7 meters tall. She is dressed in a white academy uniform, possessing prominent brows, curly shoulder-length chestnut hair, glossy lips, with black eyeliner accentuating cold green eyes behind unsophisticated glasses. The women's breast pocket is covered with 14 achievements; the colors ranging from gold to bright orange to dark red.
As their gazes collide, she notices the woman stiffening, her eyes blowing wide in a trance. "You have his eyes," she breathes.
His. Catalina does not really need to think as the answer comes to her in a flood of loss. Her appetite vanishes like a shooting star. Hurriedly and gut wrenching. Her throat swells in bile and she forces herself to swallow.
"You are?" She speaks only when she finds the confidence not to sound broken. Her quiet voice is a cool, usual indifference.
"I'm Iskra Misul," the beautiful woman says, her expression dazed. "I am Ziven… I used to date him."
"Oh."
She hadn't known her brother had a girlfriend. Then again, he possessed the talent to blab about personal things and leave the conversation a mystery. With sad awareness, she realizes she might not have known her brother as much as she thought she did.
This fact somehow sickened her in a way that surpasses his death.
'A person dies when they are forgotten—my favorite anime taught me that, however, what if that person wasn't even truly known?' Her ice blue eyes look as if they have been submerged under the shallowness of an ocean. 'Does that mean he didn't truly exist?'
She spins on her heel, retracing her steps without a look back, praying Iskra leaves her alone. 'Is Ziven a case of worse than death? How do we mourn someone we never properly met? I'm thinking too much…. My mind won't answer my questions by confusing them.'
****
"The amateur wasted his entire salary on a dumbass painting!"
"My money, my choice on how to spend it," Raiden replies.
"Said every rich ass ever," Akira says, sounding exasperated.
"What are you on about? You're the rich ass!"
"What business does an amateur have to waste money on a dumb ass painting?!" Akira says, pretending to not hear him. "Ishaan, you agree with me that it's ugly as fuck? It's shit if art could digest creativity."
"Ishaan's blind!" Raiden exclaims. "And stop speaking of me as if I'm not here. You're literally sending your voice into my head. I'm part of this conversation against my will."
Enigmatic Poet, with his hands tucked into his pants pocket, shakes his head in merriment, keeping silent. His companions employ telepathy to send their words into each other's minds from their location scattered on the Daruin Island, the limit of length depending on the strength of the individual.
Unable to hold her laughter in, Hazel chuckles. "Akira, do you have a money fixation or something?"
"I think poor people should be smarter," Akira says.
"You judgy motherfucker," Raiden hisses.
"Judgy rich motherfucker," Akira corrects.
"Continue this joyful chat without me," Ishaan says. He is currently returning from Universal Raider, Voyager Seeker's spacecraft, having finished issuing new orders to all members, sending each party to different missions. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Bye, bye!" Hazel cheerfully exclaims.
"See ya later, clean freak," Akira sings.
"Wait!" Ezra chimes in for the first time since the conversation began, their league's tech expert and Silent Wisdom. "Ishaan, are you heading to the villa dormitory or our cottage?"
"You're about to order food, yes?" Weather Singer cuts in, smiling in excitement. "I want that spicy ramen."
"Order me a beef sandwich," Czar chimes in. "With a side of cheesy fries!"
"Who's paying?" Raiden inquires.
Akira laughs with playful mockery: "Obviously not you're broke ass."
"….."
"I'm headed to the villa," replies Enigmatic Poet. "Order me cold tea. I'll cook my own food."
After saying goodbye, he shields his mind, advancing towards the entrance of the villa dormitory, pulling out a golden-brown pipe and twirling it between his gloved fingers, then dragging the herbal weed into his lungs.
The smearing pain in his amethyst glowing scars eases as he lets the weed sit in his system before releasing it. Clouds of light gray smoke float, streaming towards the evening sky with a soft earthy odor.
His strides pause for a moment; his spiritual senses picking up a boiling aura seated on the stone step. Ishaan did not anticipate an encounter with Ziven's little sister again. He planned to look after her if needed, but so far, she lacked the necessary need for his assistance.
'Her aura is yet to be perfectly forged or a true danger, yet it's there, waving as intensely as any trained Ophanim or God,' he thinks, mesmerized.
"Is this how we're going to keep on meeting each other?" He asks, a tease in his husky, pleasant voice.
Catalina's mind stutters in surprise, her stomach lunching in a rush of disquiet. With practiced ease, she ignores the shock of his appearance and replies flatly, "You can keep walking."
"Of course." He sits down stiffly and stretches out his long legs.
He maintains an arm's distance away, yet he can smell a strong sweet vanilla fragrance emitting from her, along with a snow odor clinging to her, eliciting a nostalgic feeling in Ishaan. He goes still for a solid moment, then relaxes his muscles.
"I want to be alone," Catalina tells him.
"Can I be alone with you?"
"That would defeat the point of being alone."
"You can be mentally alone for now, but physically? Ha, I'm not that generous."
As he stays seated, she finally looks at him, a slight curl of anxiety in her belly, her eyes a sapphire pool, narrowing on his stoic face, trying to get a read on him, yet comes up empty.
Catalina learned as a child that most people hate to make eye contact with someone appearing emotionless. It's like staring into a piece of death. On the other hand, she hates staring into anyone's gaze, emotionless or full of emotion—it matters not what they feel because she can already sense it in the air around them, as she intentionally searches for it like an addict on drugs.
While Moon Clan sense emotions, they don't feel them like their own as she does and it's not even a skill gifted by a divine existence. However, Catalina does not admire this; she hates this part of herself more than murder itself, viewing it just the curse of a human heart.
Because of the mysterious young man's blindfold, she can't see what he's feeling, and that loosens some of the pressure in her chest. He is a breath of blissful air after years of drowning.
With a new sense of confidence, she watches him without looking away once, seconds turning into minutes as the golden-haired boy inhales a puff from the pipe, a flash of relief passing his features after every exhale.
"How are you, Lady Catalina?" Ishaan asks casually.
"Huh?" She blinks, dragged out of her mind abruptly.
"How are you settling here at Lightless?"
"…. I'm doing all right."
"That's good."
An awkward silence descends into the space between them. Ishaan wonders why he sat down when he warned himself of burying the past. It's not like he couldn't ask how she was doing while standing up and then be on his way. He concludes it's all on a whim.
'Isn't weed illegal in southern and eastern lands? Is he from the western then?' Catalina observes him dumping the contents of the pipe on the ground. The dark brown pile sparks with white flames as a petite beam of sunlight dissolves it.
"Are you blind?" Catalina breaks the silence with a blunt question.
Ishaan rests his back on the cold railing as he answers: "No."
"Can I see your eyes?"
"No."
"I bet they're ugly."
A subtle twitch in his face hints at dark amusement. "Perhaps." He clears his throat, rubbing his hands, trepidation flooding through him. "Has…Has something been bothering you?"
She shifts in discomfort, her low voice lowering to a whisper, "It's nothing."
His brows raise with a 'you seriously bullshitting' look, as if her eyes don't expose her. He does not call her out, simply saying, "You and your nothings."
Catalina laughs softly, then quickly stops when she registers it, cringing. 'I hate my laugh. It doesn't sound right to my own ears. Neither does my voice. I don't exist in the correct way.' She leans forward, arms resting on her knees. "Why do you cover your eyes if you're not blind?"
"Aren't you full of questions?"
"I'll stop." Her tone carries a disappointment that causes Ishaan's stomach to tighten. 'It's not like I'm the one who started the questioning,' she thinks, intending to stand and leave before she stays longer than necessary.
"Don't." He clears his throat again and carefully turns his head away from her. "It's fine. I… I don't mind. Your voice is very soothing."
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
She tries to hold it in, but a small snort escapes. 'Why does it sound like I'm having trouble breathing? Should I practice my laugh? Just the thought seems comical.' Catalina stares blankly at him. She heard him, but she wants—needs to hear it again. The words made her belly flutter fiercely. She desires to feel that again.
Instead, her stomach growls.
Ishaan burst into unexpected laughter, and her cheeks grow hot in embarrassment.
"What's your name?" she asks him, hoping to turn the conversation away from herself.
With his face remaining stoic, the only sign of amusement in the fading laughter, he says: "I'd prefer to be your mystery."
Catalina frowns at the undertone in his voice she can't discern. "What will happen once I solve you?"
"Hmm." He rises to his feet in a smooth motion and proceeds towards the door in measured movements. "I guess we'll have to wait for that reality, darling birdie."
Oh, dear, he's a flirt. Catalina's heart leaps, racing like it's running from an inevitable destiny. Her gaze follows him until he disappears up the staircase.
'Darling birdie?' She wipes her sweaty palms on her pants, her face tight in disgust by her nervousness and regret of speaking to him, replaying the conversation like a dream in a nightmare. 'Doesn't he know us Northerners believe giving someone a nickname means you wish to courtship them? He doesn't know me at all so is he just ignorant?'
A breezing feeling flows, like someone or something is in the air behind her. She refrains from looking back, accustomed to the sensation, her feet lifting as she takes flight.
For some reason, she finds the process of unraveling him to be more fun than anything else at Lightless.