Chương 26: THE VELVET ROOM

He wasn't prepared to see her. It had been days. He didn't know why, out of all places, it was this one that he gravitated to. The place that made him the weakest. So when she came to him with that soft voice and comforting embrace, he fell apart into her arms. Even if it just lasted a moment, he remembered all that they shared between them. How many times had she seen him like this? Fallen. Broken apart. She could be there to put the pieces back together, even if she only applied a weak paper glue.

But his conscious mind caught up with him after a minute. And T'balt gently nudged Chosa away.

"Sorry. I…" He hesitated.

"I'll go now."

"Wait." She grabbed his arm before he could open the door. He stopped.

"No. I shouldn't have come here."

"I just want to know if you're okay." He didn't know what to say. Everything that came out of her mouth still felt like an act. He had seen her true side, and he couldn't let it go. And every time he looked at her, it just made him depressed.

"Am I okay?" he said.

"Yeah. You?" It was the most basic thing he could have said. She flickered a sorrowful grin.

"Lately, I've felt like a princess trapped in a tower. And my prince is looking in the wrong castle."

"Look, Chosa…"

"You don't have to explain." She stood and sauntered over to the windowsill, looking to play the princess as more than just a metaphor.

"I have ears. I have eyes. I can see what's happening…. The people downstairs say you're omnipotent. Not the T'balt I know. The one I know is light-hearted, a little clumsy, and keeps to himself. But you're not the T'balt I know. You've been afflicted by something. You knew all this was happening before it happened. So then I thought maybe he is really chosen. Maybe he knows the future. He's known everything else. Then it's easy to put together why you're upset with me.

Not for something that I've done but something I… will do." T'balt's eyes lit up. All this time, he'd been avoiding explaining it to her. He'd spent it avoiding this very conversation, only for her to figure it out on her own. She was always good at putting pieces together on her own. That's why she was attracted to journalism. But that didn't change anything. He couldn't help the way he felt.

"Yes. You're right. I'm not the same T'balt. I know… a lot more than I used to."

"I see." She looked regretful, but in a strange way, she looked more put off by that answer. It answered one question, but then sparked a million more for her. It almost made her angry, but he could see her repressing the urge to mouth off. She was making sure to be delicate with what she saw as a delicate boy who had turned into something she couldn't comprehend.

"What did I do?" she tried to ask.

"Chosa. Don't."

"Don't what?" Her voice rose.

"How can I even be sorry for something when I don't know what it was? I'm trying to make it up to you, but how can I if you don't speak to me?" T'balt exploded, letting his anger rush back to him.

"Who says I want you to make it up to me! I've seen everything so clearly that it pains me! It physically hurts because I know too much. There's no going back. So there's no point in trying."

"There you go running away from things again. Is that all you know how to do? Things get tough, so you turn your back on people and isolate yourself."

"That's not… I'm not the one who turned my back on people, Chosa."

"But you are… what have you been doing this whole time? I've been sitting in this room every night waiting for my so-called boyfriend to come tell me why he suddenly hates me. Why the world came to an end, and I can't reach or contact anyone I know. I don't know who's alive. I don't know if we're all going to die tomorrow. And you just leave me without even giving me the dignity of knowing what I did wrong." She sounded like she was ready to cry. She sat on the bed trying to wipe her face.

T'balt turned away from her.

"Did you ever think that maybe the circumstances were different then?" she explained.

"The future is not the same as the past. Whatever you saw doesn't have to happen. If the circumstances were different at all to what's happening now, isn't it unfair to punish me?" That was the shot that broke through the armor. He suddenly felt awful, remembering exactly what the circumstances were. This was not the same Chosa. She hadn't done anything wrong to him, and yet he pinned all of his hatred on this version of her who had done nothing wrong. One did not punish a crime before it was committed.

He sat on the bed next to her, unable to lift his sight from the floor.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I never blamed you. It was him. It was all him."

"Monan?" she said.

"I guess you hear a lot. Even up here." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"They take care of me up here. But I still take the occasional trip downstairs. Just to know what's going on. I really do feel like a princess then. Everyone knows that I'm attached to you, so they tell me what I ask."

"Right," he said. She leaned over against him.

"Don't you love me?" she rested her chest on his back, nesting her chin in his neck, embracing him softly. It was that undeniable thing she did that he could never escape. She knew him far better than he knew her.

"I do."

"You don't have to tell me what happened. But don't walk away from me either. If this Monan is giving you so much trouble, then we'll fight him together." She caressed his hands with her black nails. And he actually felt relieved, like he could actually forget it all, a distant memory of a Chosa that technically didn't exist anymore. The Chosa that was manipulated by Monan to make him miserable, until Monan got done with her and killed her. And so when she leaned in to kiss him, he didn't turn away.

"Thank you, Chosa. And I'm sorry I put you through that." She then fetched them both cups of wine, glad to be done with the whole ordeal. And they would spend the rest of that night catching up on things. He explained to her everything he'd known and everything he'd done with the church. She would caress him, massage his head, and they even took a bath together. The room had a pristine state-of-the-art tub that still had access to the church's water supply.

They filled it with so many bubbles that they could hardly see each other. Chosa was her most playful self whenever they were in private, and T'balt was at his most exposed. She would kick water at him to tease him and blow bubbles in his face. She was always able to amuse herself even in the most mundane situations. It reminded him of the good times. When was the last time he had a normal night? Including all the iterations, it must've been around 2 months since he and Chosa last smiled together.

That was before he'd ever heard the term Zero Day.

"Be careful. You're gonna get soap in my eye," T'balt said.

"Oh, can't see it coming, Mr. Prophet," she teased.

"I'm not a prophet."

"Then what is it you are?" Every now and again when she was feeling especially playful, she'd start talking like a Shakespeare character. She was a relentless tease.

"Doth thou deny thine destiny?"

"Oh, haha. If being able to see the future has taught me anything, it's that destiny doesn't exist."

"So then, is it fate or is it free will or is it God?" she posed like she was reading from a philosophy textbook. All the while, she tickled him with the tips of her toes. She threatened to put a toe on his cheek. He grabbed it before she could, reflex loot taking over. But to cover it up, he started rubbing the foot, much to her pleasure.

"I still can't answer questions like that." He remembered her sudden call to belief before and was curious what her unmanipulated thoughts on it were.

"What do you think?"

"That the universe is not meant to be explained. It can do whatever it wants, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"That's kind of nihilistic."

"That's why I never cared for religion. Can't know what you can't know. But here I am at the top of the church as a messenger of god rubs my feet." T'balt chuckled.

"But just because you can't explain it now doesn't mean there's no answer. If you don't believe in a greater meaning of your actions, then what's the point of doing anything?"

"That's a good question."

"Do you have an answer? Aren't you supposed to learn all that stuff in college?" She moaned at the pleasure in her foot.

"Well, the professor said that it's not about learning how to answer the question but learning how to ask it?"

"Because?"

"Because philosophy." They laughed. He dropped her foot, and she put the other one on his shoulder so it could have its turn. He obliged. She sank a little further into the bathwater.

"But who really cares? If nothing means anything, just… do what you want. What's there to stop us if the greater meaning either doesn't exist or doesn't care?"

"What I want, huh?" She slid through the water to rest her back against him.

"What is it that you want, T'balt? More than anything?"

"I guess… the good ending," he said.

"That sounds nice… If there is such a thing."

"Yeah. Well, I might've already screwed this one up."

"You mean with the abbot?"

"Yeah. I didn't know what to do. I let the crowd get to me and… well, I still don't understand why Arthur would do something like that."

"I think it makes perfect sense."

"You do? Then please explain it."

"Well… the loot is what makes you and Monan so powerful, right? It's the reason why you're Redeemers."

"How'd you know Monan was a Redeemer? I don't think I told anyone that."

"Oh… I just assumed. How else could he be as big a threat as he is? Your power basically makes you invincible."

"Right." Chosa continued.

"Being able to see the future makes you the most powerful man in the church, if not the world. Before we got here, Arthur was the most powerful man in the church. People are following the one who they think can make them stronger... I heard Arthur was telling people it was too dangerous to apply the loot themselves. That's why they had to turn any over to him first. If he has all the loot, then he could be the one to make them stronger. Then…"

"You're saying he'd try to replace me? That's crazy."

"What else could it be? Remember that he refuses to tell you the truth."

"No, he hasn't said anything but… for the abbot to try to replace me. He wouldn't do that… would he?"

"If some stranger came in and took over my church... I'd consider it. Regardless, if he's been hiding all the loot we've collected and has a stash of it somewhere, that could be a problem for you. What if anyone else finds it first? I wonder what they would do with it." She lifted a handful of soap from the tub and blew it into the air. Dozens of tiny bubbles swarmed around the tub.

T'balt grabbed them with his telekinesis and spun them around in a whirlpool, forming shapes and pictures until eventually squeezing his hand and popping them all at once. Chosa clapped like a small girl at a circus.

"You're so strong," she said. And then she leaned back to kiss him.