Elrhain sprinted past the corridor, tumbled out of the doorway, and bolted across the wooden trail that led to the courtyard's garden.

'Those no good primitive buffoons! Child marriage is illegal, dammit!' he wanted to roar, yell to their faces how absolute fools they were.

His head was aching, and he couldn't think straight.

He stopped in front of the small pond at the end of the plank trail, grasping his temples in pain. The boy felt his knees go weak, and he plopped down flat on the grass bed with a gentle thump. His palms covered his red eyes as his legs now dangled on the damp slope.

Elrhain lost control of his cluttered mind in a storm of contemplation.

'Why this, of all things….'

A distressed groan leaked from his lips as he was struggling to soothe his nerves. The spring wind caressed his skin and ruffled his clothes like a gentle bystander. But it only made him sleepier; he wished to just let himself fall into a black fade far away from reality.

'Mother will be angry.'

With his headache also becoming a dull throb, his mind inevitably drifted back to the shadows of his earlier life.

'I…'

*******

"Listen to me. Calm down and think for a second!"

Memories flooded Elrhain's brain with relentless passion, and a picture from a lifetime ago played in front of his eyes like a black and white cinema reel. However, his eyes were still closed, but it was as if he could see, touch, and hear everything the visions presented him with clarity.

Once upon a time, Elrhain had desperately tried to stop Agwyn from making a grave mistake.

"Don’t touch me!” she shot around and slapped his hand off her shoulder; her eyes only showed disgust and not the usual playful smirk. “I thought you were my friend!”

“I am, and I always will be. I just don’t want you to regret-“

“Enough! You’d be thrilled if I broke up with Naomi, right? You could have me all to yourself, huh?”

“… Is that truly what you think of me?” Elrhain asked; the pang of pain in his voice that he tried heart and soul to repress slipped out nonetheless.

Agwyn clenched her fists, and an unsure look flashed past her quivering pupils. But she resolutely turned away, ignoring Elrhain’s plea, “You know nothing about her. So don’t act like you do. Please, I beg you. Don’t ruin this for me.”

Elrhain felt his blood run cold. He could no longer stop her, and she knew it.

Even half an hour after she had left in this cold rainstorm, he just stood there, staring at the door with misplaced hope.

He thought he could still run out, maybe catch up to her and try to convince her one last time. But he knew it was too late. She would be having a pleasant supper with Naomi by now.

Elrhain didn’t think he could hold himself back from punching that she-devil’s nose in if he had to look at that phoney smile one more time. And that would really be the end of all things.

‘No!’ He slapped himself hard. ‘If it’s Mrs. Hildebrand, then maybe…!’

Elrhain knew that this decision would wipe out any and all chances of a repaired friendship, of love he had with Agwyn. Yes, he loved her. But he would rather she loathe him than see her hurt.

He used the federal minister’s personal line. A few soul-rendering seconds of beeps later, the call went through.

A woman, the spitting image of Agwyn’s just twenty years older, popped up on the screen. She looked fatigued, which was expected considering her job. Yet her eyes glinted with youthful sharpness.

The minister was resting in an oval office. A giant insignia of the Collective was engraved in the marble wall behind her; the same insignia was embroidered on her sleek black office suit.

The pitter-patter of rain Elrhain picked up from the other end formed a sad symphony with the downpour outside his own house, making him feel like he was drowning in ice with no escape.

His words caught in his throat, and refused to come out.

“… This better be important.” The other side spoke first in her signature coarse tone. But Elrhain saw the smirk on her face as she sipped her tea. Her eyes were urging him to just be out with it.

Elrhain hesitated for a few more moments, his brain telling him he was making the biggest mistake of his life, that he would lose his best friend. Yet his heart…

… burst out with words before he could stop himself. He spoke for five minutes straight and sent her all the letters and evidence he gathered in these two days regarding Naomi’s true allegiance.

By the end, he was choking for breath and clutching the edge of the tablet. Even the air-conditional could not stop the outpour of cold sweat.

This was it. This was all Elrhain could do now.

He watched the minister intently, waiting for a response.

“… That foolish little girl.” Finally, he heard the other party speak with the tone of a lioness.

The elder looked as if she had aged a decade in those short 5 minutes. Her relaxed attitude was long gone and what was left was animalistic fury. She slammed the desk hard with her fists, and the teacup cluttered to the side because of the impact.

The hardened minister suddenly let out a heavy sigh, leaning her forehead on her palms. The older woman sat there for a while as if all life had left her.

“Mrs Hildebrand?” Elrhain shouted into the line. He couldn’t see the other party’s face with the angle. Nevertheless, this was the first hint of frailty he had ever seen from the influential woman.

Of course, she was now not a minister of the Collective but a concerned mother.

“I’m fine.” The momentary respite gave Mrs Hildebrand a chance to gather her bearing. “Don’t worry. Leave the rest to me. I’ve already pinged an alert to the Agency. They should send out a command drone to her residence within the minute and will investigate the matter thoroughly.”

Elrhain slumped down on the hoverchair at the news, his shoulders sagging in relief.

“Thank you.”

“I should be the one thanking you.” Mrs Hildebrand peered at him for a moment with a complicated expression. Even with the digital distance in between, her gaze was both sympathetic and apologetic. “Even though that girl… I can imagine how she reacted when you told her all this. Did she even listen till the end?”

Elrhain let out an empty laugh.

“Thank you, really.” Mrs Hildebrand bowed her head. “It must’ve been a painful decision. But I am glad she made a friend like you, no matter how unappreciative that lass is. Now I just hope she will listen to her agency supervisors. It’s better to be safe than sorry even if this all turns out to be a false positive.”

She was about to continue on but then suddenly jolted straight. A few breaths later, her face turned ghastly pale.

“Mrs Hildebrand? Is everything alright?” He asked, a bad premonition rising in his chest. Then, to his shock, he saw the older woman almost stumble as she stood up and she raced out of the office, the floating chair swivelling around aimlessly in her wake.

Her voice still came through the call. She must have been connected with an implant. “Plasma bolts!”

“What?!”

“The drone picked up traces of plasma being fired in her apartment! She’s not there, that reckless little—”

Elrhain didn’t hear the rest. He had already darted out of his suite and practically slid down the staircase to the car park.

The next few minutes played in a haze. Elrhain didn’t know how many traffic rules he broke but was certain he would have his licence revoked, and perhaps face prison terms after this.

The rain outside grew heavier as droplets slammed against the windshield with anger and vehemence. The rustling gale deadened the noise of traffic around him. The blare of sirens ringing from someplace far away was the sole thing that made it into his ears.

He could hardly concentrate on the road yet forced himself to hone in on the map. Any shortcut he could take, he took. The last few words of Agwyn and Mrs Hildebrand kept looping in his head like a haunted tape recorder.

‘Please, I beg you!’

‘She’s not there!’

He never believed in god. But right now, he hoped with all his being that there was one. That god was merciful.

“… They found her.” Mrs Hildebrand’s voice appeared from somewhere in the car, and the surrounding haze retreated like the night’s dark at sunrise. His brain fell out from autopilot mode, and he gasped in a gigantic breath. The hovercar almost spun out of the maglev road as he kicked down the brakes.

Elrhain searched around for the source of the voice and saw his tablet on the passenger seat. He must’ve thrown it there when he started driving. He didn’t even notice that he carried it down with him or that the line was still connected.

“How is she?!” Elrhain wished he could teleport himself to Agwyn’s side this instant.

Mrs Hildebrand’s eyes were red; there were traces of smudges and tears on her exquisitely make-up’d face. His eyes went to the car seat behind her on the screen. An individual in a black suit was talking frantically into another tablet on her right. The scenery flashed past outside the window-glass on her left, and he could only make out the raindrops sliding down the transparent surface.

The rain was mocking him.

“… Hurt, but alive. They found her in the building’s parking lot, bleeding from her arms and belly. The agents caught Naomi Kristenn trying to escape towards the number nine underground shuttle hatch, the one that’s out of service. She turned herself in when she saw the Raptors and Stingrays in the sky.” The woman halted, speaking through gritted teeth, “I wish the Schlampe hadn’t!”

“W-where is she now?” That was all Elrhain asked before he hastily started the car again. Mrs Hildebrand didn’t disappoint and sent over a map marker.

“They are taking her to the Agency Hospital with a Medical Drone.” The woman whispered, “I’ve sent you the address. Meet me there but don’t force your way in. They will shoot you first before arresting you if you try to enter without authorization.”

It was 19 hours later that Elrhain could finally see Agwyn’s pale, injured visage again. He sat by her hospital bed, peeling an apple into a cute shape of a bunny.

The hospital staff had harnessed the young lady with many medical apparatuses, especially in those areas with the melted flesh. The wires, tubes, and flashing screens made her look far worse than she actually was.

“I’m sorry.” She wept, her voice hoarse. But her eyes weren’t looking at him. Those betrayed hollow pupils stared at the ceiling as if in search of answers. Her tears had long dried, and she could only weep pain.

Elrhain stood up, shaking his head. The tall man strode to the window and pushed aside the curtains. The air conditioner was freezing the room, and he could use the warm sunshine after two sleepless days.

“You know,” he said, sliding open the glass panels. A pleasant breeze drifted in, bringing with it the fragrance of lavender. The rain yesterday seemed to have washed away all the stains of the city’s industrial wounds from the air.

“I always thought of you as my best friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But I made a mistake. I was greedy, impatient, and selfish. I shouldn’t have hoped for more. So how about right now, right here, we make a promise?” The patch of purple outside the hospital building looked magnificent in his tired sight. The numerous shades of the flowers gradually formed the insignia of the Collective as they swayed with the wind.

Elrhain was astounded to find such a picturesque place inside one of the most secretive locations of the nation.

“I’m so sorry, A—l-, Momma.”

“I won’t fall in love with you, ever. I won’t hurt you. I’ll do nothing that will place you in harm's way. All I ask is for you to trust me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Trust me to wish for nothing but your happiness, always.” Elrhain turned around, facing his best friend, who lay there broken in both body and soul.

He had never felt so inadequate, so helpless in his life. But his smile was as radiant as the flowers outside. “I don’t want you to die. After all, life would be so boring without you.”

Agwyn wailed. Her broken cries hit his heart like a vicious curse, and he, too, could no longer stop the tears from shedding out.

*******

Elrhain opened his eyes. The headache had long passed. He glanced up at the sky to find an adorable snowy face peering down at him.

Agwyn had a pout, and she tried to make it meaner.

They just stared at each other for a few whiffs, letting the fragrance of fresh grass be their only distraction. Eluned and Bromwyn must have been studying them from somewhere around; their voices sounded muffled in Elrhain’s ears.

“Do you,” Agwyn finally asked, her eyes rife with a kind of tension Elrhain had never seen there, “find it that appalling? Dating me?”

Elrhain pursed his lips, not knowing how to respond.

Agwyn didn’t push for an answer, but he could see her holding in the tears. She just crouched there with her knees together, staring uneasily at his eyes.

“I don’t want to break my word.”

“That old promise? It’s stupid.” She sniffed.

“But Annie!” he pleaded.

“There is no one, not one bloody person in the whole damn universe who knows you better than me.”

“… Annie.” His gaze softened.

“Shirvan was a dick, a narcissist, and a dopamine addict. I didn’t know that. Naomi was a bloody spy spying on my mother, pretending to be my, who should be the actual spy’s girlfriend. I loved them but never bothered to actually look at them.” Agwyn’s small face scrunched up even further. She reddened in hatred, but Elrhain couldn’t tell if she was resentful at Shirvan and Naomi, or at herself.

“Ellie, I’ve been looking at you for the last sixty-two years, six long bloody decades of which in the last three, we have not spent even one minute out of each other’s company. I know you better than you know yourself. I know you better than your mothers know you!”

“…”

“You would first jump into an annihilator with a smile if it meant me not being hurt. Those two would throw the annihilator at me and walk away feeling nothing the first chance they get.”

“Annie, you’re rushing this. We can’t just go with the flow and hope for the best. I don’t want to risk our friendship for some feel-good chemical spikes in our brains. It will be too late for regrets by then.” He hid his eyes with his arms, no longer daring to look at those hopeful eyes.

They stung.

“But I don’t want that! I’ve been waiting half my life, for God’s sake!” Agwyn screamed, which soon turned into full-blown bawls. Elrhain felt his eardrums almost rupturing as an indignant hand pulled him up from the ground by his tunic’s collar.

“What-!”

“I’m not that naïve little woman-child anymore! I don’t need you to jump into an annihilator. I… I just want you to forget about that stupid promise we made and carry out a new one right now!”

“Wait, the collar, I can’t breathe!” Elrhain tried to support his body by pushing his hands down on the ground. He had been lying face-up on the grass floor before, so the position now was really awkward. Agwyn was literally hanging him up by the neck.

“Trust me! Trust me, we can make this work. Trust me, I’ll love you till the end of the world, that no matter how much you hurt me or push me or make me cry, I’ll keep loving you till you beg me to love you more. You insensitive little jerk!”

“Agh, my throat, it feels weird.”

“No! Enough waiting! Waiting got me nothing but being old and childless! So many years of hoping, just hoping you would make a move, that you would respond to my advances, and did that do anything? You just fooled around with some Korean girl once, then broke up over bloody ramen!”

“That has nothing to do with this!” Elrhain whimpered out his protest, not finding the strength to even shout.

“It has everything to do with this. Do you know how long I practised making ramen after that? Why didn’t you ever look at me! Why didn’t you even tell me my ramen is the best?!” Agwyn was shrieking incoherently at this point.

Her face was pink to the extreme as she pulled Elrhain up even higher. Her eyes lasered straight into his from above like the death star, and he could feel the blistering heat scorching his mind.

He was tearing up.

“Please.” She pleaded, “Give me a chance. Love me again.”

Elrhain stilled. He went quiet, ignoring his aching hands and neck, then finally let out a long sigh.

“I… would have lied to you.”

“A white lie.”

“If this doesn’t work… what if we end up hating each other?”

“It will. It won’t fail even if we die.”

The stars in Agwyn’s eyes twinkled like a supernova. Yet, unlike a moment ago, the pain he felt from looking at them changed into something more tame, more surreal.

Elrhain sat straight after pushing away Agwyn’s weak hands from his collars. He looked at her long and hard, as if trying to etch the moment into his soul.

She was puffing. Her mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to say something, but she had to hold herself back. Her robe was muddy and a mess. There were leaves, and twigs stuck on her hair, and her nose was bruised purple.

Elrhain watched as he breathed.

A hundred million thoughts raced through his mind every second. He speculated all the possibilities, all the ways it could go wrong. But in the end, he came up blank.

He couldn’t foresee the future, neither success nor disappointment. Yet, the failures of the past haunted him like a ghost.

The breath in his chest slowly leaked out. The stale air left his lungs with a part of his demons; that moment was all it took for him to just… let go. Let go and live in the present.

“… fine.”

“W-What?” Agwyn perked, her pointy ears twitching. “What did you say?”

“… I said, let’s do it! I’ll make another damn promise with ugh- “

He couldn’t finish his sentence because his soon to be white imp of a fiancé crashed into him with all the force of a triceratops-in-love. She hugged him tight and started giggling like a crazy dolphin as they rolled down the 10-meter slope into the pond and plunged in with a splash.

“Gwyn!” “No, my son!”

Elrhain heard their parents’ cry. But at this moment, his mind demanded his attention elsewhere.

Forget drowning in water. A pair of incredibly soft, moist, and mischievous lips forced themselves onto his own like a kiss-starved vampire. And ignoring all the wrongness of Agwyn’s sudden aggression as a three-cycle old baby, in one quiet corner of his mind, maybe, just maybe, he felt his heart flutter for the first time in half a century.