Chương 5: Ne Valent Pas Un Bon Amì

The disjointed jumble of voices washed through his still-heavy head. In the dark behind his eyes, he could barely feel his own body. He opened them at last. The clear morning light blurred everything to soft shapes: a pair of figures at the side of the bed and one more at its foot.

"Shhh! He's waking up!" He heard it as he pressed himself upright with some effort. The sensation of white sheets and a well-cushioned mattress was already familiar to him in a way it shouldn't have been.

"I'm starting to get sick and tired of hospital cots..." His eyes finished adjusting. The three figures came into focus: a woman in a blue T-shirt with an embroidered cat, an elegant man in a white hat with a red tuft of hair visible beneath the brim, and a tall figure in a gas mask wearing a pale blue-striped lab coat.

"Monica... Lucas..." He looked at the third.

"And Mr. Ross?" The words had barely left him before Monica's arms closed around his neck. Her warmth and the faintly fruity scent of her hair engulfed his face. Lance's convalescent fatigue kept him from expressing much about the experience. He settled for a muffled sound of mild distress while she laughed with pure, unguarded joy.

"I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE ALL RIGHT!" She announced at full volume, squeezing harder. Lance's face had more or less ceased to exist, absorbed entirely into the fabric of her shirt and the curtain of golden hair.

"Come now, Commander... The boy is barely awake."

"Let him breathe." Edvard chuckled, lifting a small blue teacup to his lips. It was decorated with a neat nest-shaped engraving.

"His recovery rate is genuinely incredible." Lucas began, checking his readings on a thin black glass panel no larger than his own hand.

"After exertion of that magnitude, a novice Meta would normally require weeks, but his body adapted to the stimulus almost immediately. Within two days, every signal had stabilized perfectly."

"Right! Sorry, Lance." Monica released him, slightly flushed by her own impulsiveness. He exhaled, a deep, deliberate breath. The air was welcome. It took him only a moment to find himself missing that faintly fruited scent, though he would not have said so aloud.

"I slept for two days?" He rubbed his right temple.

"After the fight, you went down like a stone and didn't come back up." Edvard delivered this in the same tone he might have used to discuss mild weather, sipping peacefully from his decorated cup.

"Torn quadriceps, multiple fractures in both humeri, renal collapse, perforated left lung, four fractured vertebrae, severe burns, and an internal hemorrhage."

"A Meta would normally survive that, but continuing to fight in those conditions?" Lucas grabbed Lance's hand, nearly vibrating with excitement.

"You astonished everyone present." Only then did Lance register the needles in his arm, the same thin tubes filled with dark fluid that had been attached to him on the Pietas. His right arm was still bandaged, but it didn't hurt at all. Neither did the leg. Under the collective stare of the three, Lance reached up and pulled out the IV line in one clean motion. A thin stream of blood mixed with the unappetizing nutritive fluid dripped onto the floor.

"Lance, you really shouldn't —" Monica began. The boy stopped her.

"How are Jeanne and Maliard?" He repositioned himself on the cot. Monica's expression changed into something genuinely warm. Embarrassment moved through it alongside an unmistakable current of joy.

"She visited you for hours over these past days. She wasn't here this morning because she was exhausted since she stayed up with you the whole night."

"Maliard apologized to her several times. He seemed sincere." Monica lowered her head, smiling. Lance went still. The memory of the preceding days returned all at once. He reached forward and took Monica's hands, looking directly into her eyes.

"Did he apologize to you?" He asked, holding her gaze. Her face colored. She looked away, twirling a strand of blonde hair between her fingers.

"No... I asked him not to. In the end, he had a poi—" Lance was already off the bed. He stripped the bandages from his arm with mechanical efficiency, stepped into the slippers waiting on the floor, and moved toward the door. He wasn't wearing a standard hospital gown; what they'd put him in was something closer to a combat uniform: grey, with small metal fittings at the shoulders that were probably the stabilizer anchors Lucas had mentioned.

Monica latched onto him immediately, trying to steer him back toward the bed. It accomplished nothing. Lance was entirely decided. He took her hands, and with a vitality that made it quite clear two days of unconsciousness had done nothing to slow him down, he marched them both through the door, Monica's protests echoing in the corridor behind them. The morning sun lay quietly across Maliard's room.

He had recovered and was in the process of sipping black tea, allowing a gentle nurse to feed him apple slices cut into small cubes. The red skin caught the sunlight in flashes of deep ruby. Maliard opened his mouth at regular intervals and received each piece without ceremony, turning pages of a fashion magazine whose cover featured an attractive blond man in a tailcoat. Both the nurse and the boy paused. Something was happening in the corridor. Shouting and then various apologies.

Then what sounded like glass breaking and something heavy hitting the floor at considerable speed. A figure flashed past the open door, carrying a woman. The boy leaned slowly backward until he was aligned with the doorway. His breathing was audible and deliberate. He turned quickly, bowing slightly and apologizing to a nurse he'd collided with moments before. Lance was comprehensively decorated with needles and syringes from his improvised departure, which appeared to concern him not at all.

Monica was completely dazed. The unexpected speed and the number of impacts she'd absorbed on the way here had left her genuinely shaken. Lance and Maliard regarded each other across the room, pointing.

"There you are!" Lance yanked the remaining syringes from his skin.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Maliard's response sent several pieces of apple across the bedsheets. He crossed the room, grabbed him by the collar, and proceeded to shake him thoroughly against the headboard.

"I TRUST YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN OUR AGREEMENT?" He stopped shaking. Lance was, in most circumstances, an extraordinarily calm person, arguably too reserved. But when someone went after a person who couldn't defend themselves, he changed entirely. Maliard gripped the collar back, glaring with genuine fury.

"I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN A SINGLE THING, YOU ASININE MORON." The usual insult landed. Lance released him and dropped his gaze.

"I apologized to that... To Jeanne." Maliard said, smoothing his rumpled shirt.

"Good grief. It's something, at least, but don't you think you owe someone else an apology too?" Lance sighed, tilting his head pointedly toward Monica, who was slowly recovering from her concussion-adjacent experience on the floor. Maliard clicked his tongue. His irritation was plain, and it was directed specifically and exclusively at her.

"I apologize for my behavior... Commander." Aloud. Reluctant. Every syllable of it was flat and cold. Lance nodded, turned his back, and collected Monica, who had, without a word, lowered her gaze in quiet acceptance. They were nearly at the door when Maliard called after him. Lance turned. Maliard was gripping his sheets. His knuckles were tight. When he spoke, it cost him something despite his calm face.

"Lance Klint... I don't like you, but even though I despise admitting it... You are good. Only one individual was capable of defeating my ability so quickly, and I told myself it was luck. But your eyes during that fight, they told me it was your determination that won." Lance smiled, small, genuine, with a minimum of the warmth he'd been withholding from Maliard until now.

"For my part... I still don't think we're compatible." He held his ground.

"But I'll admit, you were extraordinary. I don't really know how I won, really. It felt like I was a different person in that instant. If we fought again, I would lose for sure." He said it critically, without performance.

"That ability of yours... The yellow eye." Maliard didn't look at him." Vergehen. I've never felt interference in another person's Frequency like that before. An ability that disrupts the Frequency of others, that's what I perceived. Call it luck if you want, but managing something that complex is still a considerable feat."

"I appreciate that, Maliard." Lance turned and escorted Monica from the room.

"Enjoy your rest..." The moment the door closed behind him, his conscience caught up with everything.

"WHAT DID I JUST DO? NOW IT REALLY FEELS LIKE I'M DELINQUENT!" The imagined version of himself took to beating on the walls of his mind. The actual version stared straight ahead at the corridor wall. Maliard watched them leave through the door, chewing his lower lip in quiet frustration. The nurse looked at him nervously, then settled and approached.

"Can I bring you anything?" She asked, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. Maliard glanced at her sideways. A small, involuntary smile surfaced on his face.

"Some water, please. Thank you, Lisa." He spoke calmly. His lips had found the shape of something friendly.

"I honestly don't know what to do with you!" She said on her way out, shaking her head.

"You could try being pleasant more than once a decade!" Her pale white-and-red-striped uniform disappeared around the corner along with her reddish hair. Maliard looked down at himself, pulling the light sheets aside. His skin was as good as new. His strength had returned completely, but something inside him was off, and he could feel it with perfect clarity." No matter how many times they tell me I'm fine, every time I think back to it, I can still feel it. That emptiness.

I know that I held back, but that sensation of life disappearing from my flesh. That ability isn't something normal. Not even for a Meta." He sat with it for a moment.

"Even in that state, t hose blows should have been manageable for someone like me. But I could feel my Frequency being drawn out... While he grew stronger from it."

"Lance Klint..." He said quietly, watching Lisa return with an impractical amount of water. He began immediately cataloguing everything she had done wrong recently. In the end, both of them exchange a laugh. Net and Lance made their way slowly through the corridors of the medical wing, looking for the exit.

"Should be this way — oh, no. Maybe here? Not that either..." Monica searched with increasing desperation for a route out of a building she theoretically commanded.

"You're the Commander," Lance said, watching her with a complicated expression.

"AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR OWN BASE?"

"I'VE ONLY BEEN HERE A FEW TIMES! ALL RIGHT?" She turned in a circle, looking for any member of staff.

"Did you not get hurt when on missions?" She ignored the question, brushing it away with a puff. They had wandered into a detached corridor and had no idea how to leave it. Lance began pressing buttons on the wall panel at random. An unremarkable miracle occurred: it worked. A metal compartment slid open and projected a violet hologram of the medical station.

"We're here... Turn left... Take the second ramp. Got it." He smiled and struck the machine on the side to close the display. It produced a uniquely unpleasant sound, almost certainly unintended by any designer.

"You memorized all of that so quickly?" Monica turned to him, visibly impressed.

"When you work as a courier for years, you learn to remember complex routes." He was already tracing the path ahead with two fingers, his expression self-satisfied in a way that suited him. They moved quickly through the white-and-green corridors, dimly lit and quiet.

"Why did they bandage Jeanne? Isn't she a Meta like us?"

"Not everyone is like you. Most Meta struggle with their power at first. Well, I would say that Jeanne is as talented as you, but she ain't quite as instinctive as you are." Their footsteps made more noise than anything else. Lance wandered in thought for a bit, trying to break that echo.

"Why does Maliard have a problem with you?" The question arrived without preamble, and the way it was phrased made clear it came from curiosity rather than accusation. Monica exhaled. She began winding a finger through a strand of her hair.

"He never accepted that I took command after Bluette's death." Low and flat. The image Lance had built of Monica developed a crack.

"Bluette was your sister?" He asked, careful to keep his voice gentle. She nodded. Once, slowly, her chin dipped toward her chest.

"Yes. Bluette Oudin was my older sister. And Maliard's. Third Commander of NOIR and a former member of the Jury." She said it mechanically, in the way of someone who had built a procedure around that particular question.

"You and Maliard are siblings?!" The surprise on his face was genuine, verging on unsettled.

"Not by blood, don't worry. Bluette and I are considerably more charming than that crow-looking guy, hehe." The smile was there, but Lance had long since learned to read the shape of Monica's genuine ones, and this wasn't it. She caught him looking. His eyes held a weight that wouldn't let the facade stand. She found herself itching for something, but her will couldn't allow it. She pulled a long breath through her nose instead.

"Lance... Can I trust you?" She stopped walking and turned to face him. He nodded slowly, holding her gaze.

"Maliard and I are both orphans of the War that took place roughly ninety years ago. Though I imagine you know how many people share that particular story." Lance was young, but he remembered the history. He'd read it and had it told to him by the elders of Cael, his home district, more times than he could count. The Great War had been a catastrophic conflict between Andimica, Northest, and Termìe, lasting approximately a decade. Its true causes remained disputed.

The most widely accepted theories pointed to the destruction of commercial routes in Sun Nation's waters and Termìe's invasion of Andimican territory as the initial sparks. He set the history aside and returned his attention to Monica.

"Many of NOIR's members were recruited during and after that war. To be honest, it wouldn't be entirely wrong to say NOIR was born from it." She tugged at her sleeve with her other hand.

"The causes of the Great War are considerably different from what you were taught in school, though I suspect you'd already worked that out." His attention was absolute." Well... I have never been to school."

"The war broke out over control of the Hel Singularities that had begun appearing during that period. Every nation wanted the materials, the relics, and more than either of those, they wanted to study the Hel itself, and the human beings who came into contact with it." Her eyes had gone glassy. A light rose was spreading across her pale cheeks.

"Research institutes were funded and opened, but they were more like slaughterhouses than laboratories. I heard of people being tortured by the military and taken away to places that were never disclosed." Lance felt the weight of those words settle onto his shoulders. The pain in her voice was real, and it moved through the empty corridor like something physical.

"I was a victim of one of those experiments, together with my family." She was trembling, but the tears still didn't come. Lance laid a hand on her shoulder, gently, without pressure. She raised her face, and this time the smile was genuine.

"Don't say anything you're not ready to say, I told you already," he said, releasing her.

"It's a bad business, forcing words out of yourself that aren't ready to come." Monica nodded. The glassiness was gone, and so was the flush. She was herself again, the person he'd met on the tram.

"Thank you, Lance... But there's one last thing you should know." She had started walking again, a step or two ahead of him, head making small, slow circles.

"The reason Maliard hates me... Is that he still hasn't accepted Bluette's death, nor the fact that I'm her heir." Empty, precise, without apology.

"He must have cared for her very much." Lance lengthened his stride.

"To both of us, she was more than a superior. For Maliard, she was something more than a family member, in the simplest sense of the word." Monica's voice was steady now, unmasked, unhurried.

"I have at least some happy memories of my own family. Maliard has none. He was abandoned and never knew what it felt like to have a mother hold him or a father beside him. That's why Bluette was everything to him." Lance felt something tighten in his chest. Knowing it now, replaying their interactions, he found himself coloring with something close to shame. A few minutes later, they found themselves at the external observation balcony of NOIR's base.

The enormous pane of reinforced glass typically offered a poor view of the violent storms and cloud formations that settled across the summit, usually saw to that. This time it was clear. Lance stared. His eyes were wide and uncomplicated, the eyes of a boy encountering something he hadn't let himself expect. Snow-covered forests that were still green. Blooming meadows just beginning to receive the first white. A long, fine white beach. The quiet glittering of the sea, animated by its own slow rhythms.

"Beautiful view, isn't it? It still surprises me every time." Monica leaned slightly toward him, tilting her head with a smile. The open mouth he had in place of a reply was more than sufficient to answer her.

"Oh! before I forget." She turned and grabbed his arm. He found his field of vision suddenly occupied by two cards, one white and one black, held uncomfortably close to his face. Monica's smile was visible just past them.

"The white one is for your room, G-82. The black one is for the armory. The armorer is back and very curious to meet you." Lance smiled and took them. The moment they touched his fingers, his name and details appeared inscribed on the surface of each card, immediate and precise.

"The card will guide you to the room."

"How... Does it work?" He shyly asked, flipping the card multiple times.

"You mean the specifics?" She asked, scratching her chin.

"They are made of a peculiar material called Lambdite that's able to channel the frequency and..." She stopped, watching the boy fuming from his ears while wearing an outstandingly big smile. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"My my! Don't worry about such minor details!" She laughed, shaking him rhythmically. He gave a nod, still watching the card.

"I hope to see you soon."

"Likewise, Commander." He straightened, which made him look briefly as though he'd said something impressive. The effect was undone immediately by Monica's extended sequence of unimpressed puffs, her cheeks visibly inflated, her gaze truce-level severe.

"Don't call me that. Please... At least you..." The calm in her voice was real, and that made it worse than if she'd shouted.

"Sorry..." He murmured and turned into the corridor that the white card was indicating with a soft red glow. He looked back once just in time to receive a pointed tongue extended in his direction before the sliding doors closed between them.

"Hey Monica..." She turned, watching him shyly cast his eyes down.

"If something bothers you, I... Don't hesitate to speak to me!" She moved so fast that both of his eyes failed to catch a glimpse of her. She struck him on the forehead with her finger. Lance recollected, massaging it instantaneously.

"Why did you hit me?" Monica brought a finger to his lips, and then hers.

"Young people should set out freely on their own voyage, without bothering too much about old ships!" Lance stood there, watching Monica smile while the sun shone through the dome.

"Go rest now, Lance... I will remember your offer when it's time." Lance grinned, with cheeks flushed with red. He followed those eerie lights, disappearing into the corridors.

"What a guy... Both of them really set me back." She covered her face with her slender fingers, sighing a bit at the sight of a single cloud.

"G-80... G-81... There it is!" It had taken him a full fifteen minutes to find the room, even with the card's help. He was about to slot the key into the narrow reader beside the door when a sound reached him. Quiet humming from inside. He considered it briefly. Given NOIR's size and evident resources, having housekeeping staff was entirely unsurprising." Probably Arte. That girl has monstrous strength. I wouldn't be surprised if she ran this entire base by herself. Though it would be rather cruel to let her."

He smiled at the image of a small maid running at full speed in seventeen different directions." Well, I guess I deserve some rest outside of anything related to the doctor, don't I?" The slot accepted the key cleanly. The door opened in silence.

The room was considerably larger than his apartment and far better equipped: wooden floors, a wide window overlooking the sea, a heavy work desk, and an iron stove for Dielmon's winters, a long dark-red sofa similar to the one in the main hall, and a proper kitchen island with appliances along the wall. On the windowsill, a vase of sunflowers. On the desk, a set of new brushes still in its packaging.

"Eh—?!" The exclamation reached his ears, and he registered, belatedly, that the sofa was covered in clothing and a matte black suitcase. Propped against the sofa's left armrest was a wooden easel, its canvas still completely blank.

"EH—?!" Again. And this time, he located the figure standing in front of him. Brown hair gathered in a loosely assembled ponytail, swaying in the afternoon light. Pale arms bare to the shoulder, catching the light from the window. A sweater raised, exposing a strip of skin above the waist and, beneath it, something dark. A pair of beige trousers, entirely unbuttoned below the hip, revealing the same dark fabric that covered her torso.

"EH—?!!" He recognized her immediately. The same girl who had shyly said goodbye to him before the fight was one of the inciting causes of that same fight. Jeanne stared at him, frozen, trembling mid-motion. She had arrived at the room about thirty minutes ago after hearing that Lance was all right and had woken up. She'd spent the past few days with Monica and had slept in the Commander's room, a peculiar enough experience, but what she was facing now was considerably stranger.

She'd wanted to shower and arrange her side of the room with the modest belongings she'd managed to organize for herself. Unlike Lance, who had been rescued by NOIR, Jeanne had some things of her own. And now, in front of her, the boy who had defended her and spent two days unconscious because of it had walked through the door and was standing entirely still, face pale and motionless. Lance was a complete disaster in social situations.

He could be competent at virtually any manual task and was genuinely capable in almost every practical domain, but when it came to managing an inconvenient encounter, he had nothing. He'd had a similar problem once with the landlady's daughter. The memory pressed on his temple like a burning splinter. He finally managed to look Jeanne in the eye. She was completely rigid with embarrassment.

He began to whistle, quietly, mechanically, and moved toward the first door on the right with the jerky precision of a puppet whose strings had been slightly scrambled. He turned the handle, waved once at Jeanne with an expression that probably looked like a smile, and the moment the door opened, he stepped inside, fell heavily to the floor, and closed it behind him with his foot.

On the other side of the door, Jeanne's embarrassment was so thoroughly eclipsed by the surreality of what she had just witnessed that it had more or less dissolved. Her thin lips curved into a small, involuntary smile. She gathered her clothes from the floor and moved them to the sofa.

"I'm finished." She murmured, pressing her face into the pile of fabric. On the other side of the wall, Lance paced, searching for the best possible words with which to apologize. In addition to his social difficulties, he had a deep and largely irrational anxiety about women, one he genuinely struggled to explain to himself, though the probable cause was years of isolation and the particular kind of secondhand wisdom that drifted through the corridors of apartment buildings.

It had led him to the conclusion that he was simply incapable, and he had decided to make peace with that." Don't let what happened with Sophie happen again. Ignore it. Nothing will happen if you ignore it." He kept repeating this, remembering the burning looks the women in his building had directed at him over the years. Twenty-five minutes passed. Lance was lying on his bed, rolling half-heartedly from one side to the other, when a quiet voice reached him through the door.

"Lance?" Faint, but clear. He moved to the door and opened it a crack. Jeanne was sitting on the sofa. Her posture was almost formal, upright, composed, arguably elegant, were it not for her hands, which were in constant small motion across her lap. She looked at him and smiled, patting the cushion beside her in a mild invitation. Her lips were trembling more than her hands. Lance was in genuine conflict; he couldn't refuse without being rude, but he was far too embarrassed to sit next to her.

He crossed to the desk, retrieved a chair, and placed it across from her instead, arranging his expression into something he intended as a relaxed smile. It probably looked like neither. Jeanne tilted her head at the sight of him. The boy who had fought until his body gave out was sitting across from her like a docile, unassuming teenager, which, she supposed, he technically was." Does he have something against me?

"She thought, setting aside the question of what had happened moments ago and returning instead to the fact that Lance had been in a coma for three days, in part because of her. The thought embarrassed her immediately. Her hands tightened in her lap." He definitely has something against me. It's my fault, after all..." The paranoia held the floor for a full minute before Lance managed to produce something.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at the floor.

"I'm mortified." Jeanne understood immediately what he was referring to. She colored, but she found she couldn't generate anger or distress toward a boy sitting in front of her with his head down. If anything, she found him more gentle than she had expected.

"It's nothing," she said, stumbling slightly over the words.

"Don't worry about it... I-I know you didn't mean any harm."

"I didn't expect to find you in this room. They told me the rooms were spacious, but not... Spacious for two." He kept apologizing, lifting his head. His natural register was returning.

"S-Same for me. Though at least there are two b-bedrooms." She swayed slightly as she said it, trying to disguise the awkwardness with a small laugh, which made it rather more apparent. He noticed that the suitcase and clothes had disappeared; only the easel remained, leaning against the sofa.

"If this is one of Monica's elaborate pranks..." He thought, imagining that girl's signature tongue aimed at him with maximum precision.

"It s-seems we'll be living together for a while." Jeanne smiled and extended her hand. Lance took it, trembling, but this time his smile was real. Jeanne noticed and smiled back with genuine warmth, partly because he hadn't asked a single question about the brushes, or about why her hands wouldn't stop moving." Maybe I'm safe." An imaginary sigh escaped from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. Lance was about to head back to his room when she called him back with a quiet sound.

"Monica left you some things in your room and in the fridge. She asked me to tell you." She pointed to the kitchen. He smiled, though internally he recognized that Monica's idea of a gift could range from something entirely innocent to an ironic label that would permanently ruin his standing at NOIR. He opened the fridge. A large red parcel occupied an entire shelf. A white note on top read: " For Klint and Jeanne":) — and the sight of it briefly brought to mind the meal Sophie had packed for his last delivery.

He lifted the parcel onto the counter and unwrapped it carefully: several cuts of red meat, yellow peppers, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and various spices. He was puzzling over the scale of Monica's generosity when he noticed a second note tucked beside the largest cut of beef." Dear Lancy, welcome to your new apartment — sorry for not mentioning the roommate situation in advance, though in the grand scheme of things, it hardly matters.

I managed to get some useful information out of her (despite everything, she is a good talker, you'll find), and I'm told you already offered to cook for her, so I've sorted out what she likes. You should thank me, honestly. Jeannette likes peppers and braised meat. Make her happy, considering she spent the whole time at your bedside while you were unconscious. I've left your clothes in your room, along with a few little gifts." At the word little gifts, Lance went slightly pale.

He chose, nonetheless, to keep his promise.

"I'll cook tonight," he said.

"We had an agreement, didn't we?" Jeanne's eyes lit up at once. It was, it occurred to him, the first time in a long time anyone had offered to cook for her.

"I'll just change... it would feel strange to cook in this." He pulled at the close-fitting grey fabric of the medical uniform. In his room, he found a white parcel in the wardrobe, considerably larger than the one in the fridge, and without any note. His own clothes, neatly folded, were retrieved from the locker room. His eyes lit up at the sight of the asymmetric windbreaker.

"YOU'RE STILL HERE!" He pulled it tight against him, entirely unselfconscious about the degree of feeling he was directing at a jacket. It wasn't that it was special in any objective sense, but it reminded him of everything he'd done as a courier, and the work that had made him who he was. A pledge to himself, wearing it. Along with the jacket: new shirts, new trousers, and a new pair of glasses, nearly identical to the ones he'd worn on the tram. Not that his vision required them.

They gave him a sense of security, made him feel more himself. He put them on every day for that reason alone. He emerged from the room in a loose grey shirt and light brown trousers cut wide to mid-calf." He's wearing glasses?" Jeanne thought, watching him put on the kitchen apron.

"It'll take me about an hour," he said.

"If you want to wash up or take a walk, you have more than enough time." He was already slicing the meat at a speed that was, objectively, somewhat startling. Jeanne was briefly thrown by how quickly the offer had come, and more so by what she was watching: without once losing focus, he had sliced the meat into thin strips and set them simmering in a mix of tomatoes, onions, and part of the peppers. The smell rising from the pan was straightforwardly excellent.

"I appreciate... The offer." She retreated to her room to sort a few things and retrieve what she needed for the bath. Lance peeled the potatoes and cut them to size for the base of his cream, working methodically.

"When was the last time I lived with someone else?"

"This reminds me of all the campfires I used to light when I was younger..." He had camped in the streets and in the abandoned zones of Sector 0, surviving on what charity and practical skill allowed. He had learned to pick locks, steal when necessary, repair machines, and do other unpleasant things. He knew better than most what it was to live entirely alone. That was why he had offered to eat with Jeanne.

"She has the same look... That sadness I used to see in the mirror."" When was the last time I ate with Sophie? I must have really lost the habit of company." The red sauce was beginning to bubble, a clean copper color rising through it." I spent years without ever enjoying a meal with a friend. I don't want that for someone else." He was so focused he didn't notice Jeanne slip out of the bathroom behind him, leaning close to watch every movement and quietly drawing in the smell of the kitchen.

Satisfied with her small reconnaissance, she slipped into the bathroom, where she was met with a space that stopped her completely. It was large and bright, the yellow tiles and white walls giving it an unexpectedly luxurious feel. The bathtub dominated nearly half the room, deep enough to submerge in entirely. A glass shelf lined with every kind of product ran along one wall, beside a black-and-white tile pattern in miniature that wrapped the corner.

The toilet and basin were also more than worthy of description, but her attention had gone entirely to the tub. She composed herself, arranged her clothes on the dark stone ledge near the basin, and turned the tap. Hot water was immediately poured. She found a violet bottle of bath salts on the shelf, took a handful, and poured it in. The room filled with lavender within moments. She lowered herself into the water, which seemed to present no difficulty, until she discovered precisely how deep it was.

She slid under the surface, completely disappearing beneath. Her head broke the surface. She grabbed her knee.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow..." She murmured, trying to find a comfortable position against the marble. She gave up on the knee and let her thoughts wander back to what had brought her here." I vaguely remember my dad. I know he was kind to mum, but I can't really picture anything. I should hate him cause he left us, but Mom never spoke ill of him..." The warm water tickled her thighs, while a delicate foam started to rise from beneath. She watched her toned and pearly white legs." Do I look like my mother?

Am I as pretty as her? All those men were happy to drool behind her, even if they did nothing but give me sad, disconsolate looks, before the redness returned to their faces."" When I picked up the brush, they stopped coming. There were other gentlemen and, occasionally, ladies, in those gaudy dresses. Was my mother sad when my hands were bleeding?" Jeanne lowered her head, making her hair float on the surface of the bath." I didn't smile anymore after my birthday.

Maybe that's why all those rude, melancholic women approached me." In her mind, the sound of shattered bones and gnawing of flesh resonated loud and clear. She remembered the blisters that were eating her slender ankle while trying to find food. One of the ladies smiled in her dreams, prompting her to come as if she were a puppy. After that, she had survived on commission work from Sector I, mostly portraits of women on the margins. Prostitutes. Women standing at the edge of roads."

Some were pretty, but Mom was the most beautiful of them all." She dipped her brushes in the private grief of those faces and painted their exhaustion and the sorrow in their skin." I wish those paintings would stay with me forever... If I could have made a wish, I would have asked to never be hungry." Every time she sold one of those pieces, just to eat, she felt as though she were giving away pieces of herself, her soul distributed slowly across the walls of strangers.

Until Monica and Edvard had found her, painting alone in a forest, or at least so was told when she woke up." Not much has changed," she thought, in the quiet of the water.

"Here or in the forest... I'm still alone." Several knocks pulled her back. She had lost track of time entirely.

"I don't want to rush you, but it'll be ready in about fifteen minutes." A voice from the other side of the door.

"R-Right... I'm coming!" She stood, and water went enthusiastically in every direction.

"T-take your time. I can wait..." Lance lost his easy tone immediately, returning to a stumbling near-silence before cutting off entirely. The room filled with a warm current of air as she settled on the low stool by the basin. She pressed her palm to her cheek. Her face was strangely relaxed, and she couldn't remember when she'd last shown what she was feeling without managing it first. For a brief moment, she was simply happy, the warmth of the water still moving through her body. She felt light. Content.

A picture of Lance and Monica crossed her mind. Their words had been different in tone and phrasing, but the substance underneath was the same." We're friends..." She thought. Something settled in her chest, slow, careful, genuine. She had never had a friend before, or anything that resembled one, only the girl named Mann. Sometimes she felt a void, a longing for something she lost or never had to begin with. The water had dried from her skin by the time she'd dressed.

The smell of dinner had made its way through the wall, rich and layered, sweet vegetables and strong meat settling together into something wonderful. Lance had finished laying the table. He was wearing a small pair of white oven mitts to avoid scorching himself on the pot he'd just placed at the center. He smiled and gestured for her to sit. The embarrassment on his face was plainly visible, but he was working hard to suppress it in the service of his promise. Jeanne sat where he indicated.

Before her: a steaming terracotta bowl of potato cream, garnished with herbs and small drops of yellow. In the larger pot, the braise continued to bubble with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and meat, all of it still moving. Before she could reach for a spoon, Lance had already placed several slices across the cream in her bowl, careful not to spill.

"I hope it's good. I'm not particularly skilled, but I tried." He sat, served himself, and looked at the table. Jeanne took her first spoonful and ate it with the quiet precision of someone who was being attentive. The taste was immediately remarkable. She sat with it for a moment, slightly frightened by how good it was.

"Is it bad?" Lance asked, alarmed, as tears were forming in Jeanne's eyes.

"N-no," she said, almost crying.

"It's wonderful." She pressed the corner of her handkerchief to her face.

"I just... I've never had anyone who wanted to eat with me. It's new. I'm happy." The words came in pieces, interrupted by small, quiet sobs. Lance smiled. His own eyes had gone slightly bright.

"I am still sorry for what happened... I... I am not like this. I don't know what's gotten into me." He nervously adjusted his glasses, trying to avoid her gaze.

"Sometimes, I'm way too impulsive, and I know I might be a burden to others, but I really wanted to help!" He spoke with a louder tone, fidgeting with his finger, without even taking a bite.

"I'm glad we're friends, now." He said, no longer hiding his embarrassment, just wearing it honestly. Jeanne watched the scene unfold, trying to cover her flushed cheeks stuffed with food. She couldn't muster up a response, but that wasn't necessary to ease the heart of the boy. The dinner was a success. They exchanged goodnights and went to their respective rooms, both of them satisfied with the evening, both carrying the particular warmth of having found, unexpectedly, someone to share a table with. Tump. Tump.

Tump.

"Ehhhhh..." That was the entirety of Lance's response to the rhythmic knocking at his door and the morning light filling his room.