And the World Shall Forget You

[Zach Kaiser]

"A-Alright, thanks." Only now we he suddenly becoming conscious of how close Maya was sitting. He wouldn't have thought she would; she usually tried to avoid him. It was probably due to necessity, there being only one book and they both had to look at it.

He quickly finished the rest of his tea. "Sorry I bothered you...I suppose I should be going now."

He was grateful for her help, but he didn't want to stay too long and make her any more uncomfortable than she probably was already.

[Nayt]

"You're welcome."

Maya quietly finished her tea, as well, and thought over this entire awkward scene they'd developed for themselves. Eld really wasn't intruding on anything. She was home alone and had nothing to do. She could have gone over to see Toushikyo or Sarah or someone, but she was in her pajamas and didn't much feel like getting dressed to go outside. But someone coming over was just fine. She got over her shame in wearing her pajamas at this time of the day awfully quick. In fact, she didn't much care about that whole deal by now.

And even before this, Eld would've never done her harm if he paid her a visit. But his frequency of visitation was few and far between. Since they broke up, he'd been over to her house . . . what, three times? Twice with friends, and then just now alone to borrow a book from her . . .

It wasn't that he was a user, though. Maya knew users all too well. She attended church twice a week, and had been doing so since she was five. She'd seen her fair share of users and fair-weather folk in the congregation. The overly devout were the worst at that. They always had something to hide, and they were always terrible at hiding how poor their social character really was. Eld wasn't like them, though. If he was, he'd have been over numerous times, asking to borrow any number of things. Eld was just . . .

Distant.

"Um-- hey, Ts-Tsukimono-san?" She was going to hate herself later for saying this, but she'd hate herself right now if she didn't. "Y-you can come over whenever you want, you know?"

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld had gotten up and was getting read to leave when Maya said that last thing. It caused him to pause. Part of him wanted to say "yeah, okay" and then just leave. Because he knew she didn't really like him anymore, she was just being polite.

But...some part of him wasn't willing to accept that assumption without hearing it first hand. He turned back to her. "You don't have to say that. I mean, you're always kind of avoiding me...you don't really want to be around me anymore, right?"

He tried to sound dismissive, like he'd already accepted this fact. But his voice trembled just slightly, because it was always just his assumption, and he didn't know if it would be worse to find out that he was right or that he was wrong and had been an idiot for the past three years.

[Nayt]

This time it was Maya's turn to be surprised. She was wide-eyed at first, but quickly furrowed her brow and looked at Eld with a confused and vaguely hurt expression.

"What?" she asked, shock too audible in her voice, masking how stern she wanted to sound right now. "Why would you even . . .?"

But it was a moot point, wasn't it? Maya looked down at her lap. She felt a whole torrent of emotions swimming about her heart-- all things she'd pushed down and tried to forget about over the years. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just a matter of losing a boyfriend way back then. Sure, they did some things she was ashamed of for awhile, but that would've been just fine in the end-- just losing her first (and only, to this day) boyfriend. But she didn't just lose a boyfriend. For the longest time, it'd felt like she lost a friend with that relationship, and that feeling-- while dulled by now --never truly went away.

"You're the one that never . . ."

Maya trailed off and looked away from Eld. She balled her hands up into weak fists at her knees, squeezing onto the cloth of her sweatpants.

". . . mind," she breathed out, "Nevermind."

[Zach Kaiser]

Again, part of Eld wanted to leave. To accept that non-answer and just go back to not thinking about it. But...if Maya didn't hate him, or at least dislike him enough to avoid him, where did that leave him?

"No, not nevermind." He shook his head; he didn't want to leave it like this now. He didn't want to go back to them awkwardly avoiding contact with each other when possible.

"I was the one who never...what?" he asked. He wasn't angry or even indignant. He just wanted to know; more than anything, he wanted to know why Maya had been avoiding him since that time. If it wasn't that she just disliked him, then why?

[Nayt]

"You never tried to patch things up," Maya finally said.

It took a lot of effort for her to say that. And now part of her wished that Eld would just leave. This was a confrontation she hadn't expected. After years of expecting it and years of never experiencing it, Maya had contented herself to believe it'd never happen, and that things would always be distant between them.

"Tsukimono-san . . ." Maya fought to look at him again. "You-- you dumped me because of something my father said a-and because I wouldn't agree with you on it."

She paused and lost the ability to look at him. A year or two ago, she might have cried. But now? Now her skin was thicker to this matter. Now it was easy to forget things ever happened, assume a status quo, and stick with it mindlessly. It wasn't quite so hard anymore to forget they were ever friends.

"And then you avoided me f-for . . . for a-almost half a year, a-and then when I actually saw you again, y-you just pretended like it all didn't happen. And when I was uncomfortable? You just pretended we were never friends to begin with."

There was no real way of escaping how bad the end of their relationship had really looked. They were just kids, but that was the worst thing Eld had ever done to a person in the history of his life. And the worst thing was that he never fully realized how horrible it was.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld wasn't going to argue with her about how or why they broke up. He'd been younger and immature, he'd done and said things he regretting, and whether or not he was the one to blame he knew he hadn't help matters either.

But there was one part on which she was wrong, and that's what got to him more than being blamed for the break up. "I did too try to patch things up." He was less indignant and more...hurt.

"But...you didn't even care. You just gave me the cold shoulder and stopped talking to me. And so I figured...maybe you just needed more time. But you kept being distant. So I figured you just didn't like me any more, but you wouldn't say anything because we had the same friends."

[Nayt]

A lot of what Eld said was spot on, actually. She was upset with him for awhile, and because they had the same friends, she held back from ever confronting him about it. Instead, she hoped that one day he would confront her. A lot like this. Except this confrontation hurt a lot less than it would have years ago. It still hurt, though-- just not quite as much.

"Y-you pretended like we were friends again, a-and that the whole thing never happened," Maya repeated, "That's not-- I-- maybe you were trying to patch things up like that? But it just-- that didn't make me feel any better."

Maya pulled her legs up and hugged her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on one knee and averted her eyes far from Eld.

"I never hated you," she said, "A-and I never stopped caring. I just never felt like I mattered. I-- I've always been someone you could live without . . ."

And that's all there was to it. It was their entire relationship in a nutshell-- or at least Maya's interpretation of it. But in telling Eld that he could come by whenever he wanted, she was intentionally opening up her heart to him again. She was letting in hope that he'd come around someday, even though she knew it was probably going to be for naught and she was going to hate herself for even trying.

[Zach Kaiser]

"T-That isn't true!" he protested suddenly, before turning red and looking at his feet. "I...the reason I acted like that was because I wanted us to still be friends. If I acted like I wasn't upset, maybe you'd...you know...be less upset too. Maybe things could go back to how they were before."

His gut was twisting into knots. Maybe it was too late, maybe he'd screwed this up too long ago to fix now...but he had to try. He looked up, and hoped that she'd stop avoiding eye contact with him. "M-Maya...for what's it worth, I'm sorry. For everything." He'd certainly made a lot of mistakes, and they weren't things he could reconcile with himself easily except to say that he'd simply been immature at the time.

"You are important to me. Even though things didn't work between us as a couple. So...can we still be friends?" The uncertainty on his face would tell her she wasn't the only one putting her heart on the line. Even now, if she refused, Eld would still be crushed.

[Nayt]

And then . . . Maya could only stared up at Eld, wide eyed as he once looked at her.

"O-of course!" Maya cried, realized how surprised, energetic, and even enthusiastic she sounded about that, and promptly covered her lips in pseudo-shame.

Maybe someday Maya would see how silly they'd been all these years, that they both wanted to fix their relationship, but were mutually afraid of confronting the other about it, and how years passed between them that they'd never reclaim because of it, years spent in discomfort and awkward silences that should have never come to pass. Maybe someday she'd acknowledge the irony of all this and quietly laugh to herself.

But right now, all she could experience was a torrent of conflicting emotions, a mixture of excitement, relief, and underlying sadness.

". . . I--" she paused, wet her lips, and gulped back her apprehensions, "I-- I miss you, so that's why . . . that's why you can come over wh-whenever you'd like to . . ."

Honest and blunt. That's all she could be right now, and in the end, it was going to be the best for the both of them.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld managed a small smile at her outburst. Things weren't truly fixed...they could probably never go back to the way they'd been before. But if they could continue to be friends, even if it was still a little awkward, that was enough.

"Alright, I'll have take you up on that. Right now though, I better get going. I have a mystery to solve." He held up the novel to emphasize this. There was a lot he wanted to get done today. Clearing the air with Maya put him in a more optimistic mood than he'd been in awhile.

"Thanks again; you've been a big help." While a novel wasn't necessarily a reliable source of information, it was quite possibly a step up from a hidden message of unknown origin.

[Nayt]

"Okay," Maya smiled back at him, "I-- I'll look forward to it."

It was . . . well, it was one of Maya's most genuine smiles. This girl's hopes had skyrocketed rather quickly. Maybe she didn't have feelings for Eld anymore, but back then, she'd lost a friend in him. Now she had a chance of gaining back the ground they lost. Hopefully.

Eld was a reliable guy, though. They may have had a few awkward years of discomfort and distance, but Maya never thought any less of him (just of herself). If Eld said he was going to do something and he really put his mind to it, then he was going to pull through-- and he was especially loyal to his friends. So if he really wanted to repair their broken and tattered relationship, then he was going to succeed without a doubt in the world.

Maya wasn't even remotely pessimistic about this.

She was going to have to cook him some sort of lunch or dinner next time he came around. Yes, that would certainly help things along.

"Um-- I-- I'm glad I could help," she said, "Good luck on solving this mystery!"

[Zach Kaiser]

"Thanks." His smile widened. While Maya was definitely the type that would be polite even to people she didn't like, he could tell she'd meant everything she'd said here.

He left without further ado, novel in hand. I wonder if Etsu's done yet. She'd had a while to work on it, and even if she wasn't done he could get to work on the novel.

Returning home, he entered his room. "How are you doing?" he asked as he walked in.

[Nayt]

Etsu still sat at Eld's desk, but the book was no longer open. Instead, it was cast aside to the corner of the desk and left shut. She nearly jumped out of her seat when Eld came in, and directed to him a look of displeasure with little more than the turn of her profile, but that was all. She had three sheets of paper all scattered about in front of her, and she only rearranged them neatly once Eld was in the room.

By now it was already starting to get late. The sun was going down and it was about time that they a candle or turned the gas up on Eld's desk lantern. Etsu hadn't got to that just yet; the whole of the room was still lit enough that she could read her notes. Couldn't read the book too well, but she didn't need to anymore.

Although she was a bit surprised by how Eld simply waltzed on in (a tragedy in the making! Why, what if she was in an awkward state of undress?!), she was far too proud of her accomplishment to bereave Eld for his potentially rude and uncalled for entry.

"I am done," she announced calmly, though it was hard for her to hide how good this fact made her feel, what with the way she sat up prim and proper and kept her hands folded over her pages of notes like they were some sort of super-secret document of dire proportions.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Wow, already?" He glanced outside; how had it gotten so late? He'd gone to Maya's shortly after waking up, and he couldn't have been there more than an hour or so. Maybe he'd just gotten much later than he thought today. "You work fast."

He hadn't knocked because it seemed unlikely that Etsu would be doing anything but continuing to pore over the book. And in this case he happened to be entirely right. (It was fortunate that he'd mostly avoided any incidents like that so far; he could only imagine how upset she'd be.)

"Can I see?" he asked, anxious to see if the message had any more clues about the graveyard, or what happened to Akizetsumei.