Chapter 50 - Failed Prediction

“Umm.. That’s not my name.”

Rather than mince words, Yuzu decided to respond directly. Her eyes flickered away from Argus’ intense gaze as she was at a loss of how to respond to his introduction.

“Of course it is. Well, perhaps it is not the name you use in public.” Argus said confidently, turning to look back at the wall he had been examining when she had entered. “I’m sure you must be surprised. However you should know that I’ve been tracking your messages in the newspapers for months.”

He grinned smugly as he began to pace slowly across the room, “I know it must come as a shock to you that I broke your order’s cipher, but fear not, I am not an enemy. In fact, I come to you as an ally.”

Wasn’t I the one to come to you? Yuzu was about to speak when he suddenly interjected, “Have no worry, Soryana! I have not, nor will I ever expose the secrets of your order. Your secrets are safe with me. I am, after all, the Keeper of this region.”

Yuzu frowned. Not only did she have no idea what he was talking about, but he spoke in such a way that made her severely doubt his clarity of mind. He had a strange vernacular and spoke with a broken rhythm that made it difficult to follow his words. It wasn’t that he had an accent, more that it seemed like he was the kind of person who interacted very infrequently with others. Aside from his initial intense gaze when he had mistakenly called her by another name, he barely made any eye contact with her. Any eye contact that did happen while he was talking was brief and quickly broken as he continued on his monologue.

“You might doubt me-“ Argus continued, his voice rising, “I might be young, but I have skills that you would no doubt find useful.”

“I don’t doubt you-“ Yuzu said with a frown. This wasn’t at all what she had expected, although she didn’t actually know what she expected. She began to wonder if she really should have come in the first place.

“Hold that thought!” Argus said, dashing over to the wall by his bed. Jumping onto it, he grabbed a few sheets of parchment off the wall and then ran to Yuzu, thrusting them into her hands. “This should erase all doubts in your mind.”

“What’s this supposed to be?” Yuzu asked, looking down at the papers in her hand. The top one had a message written in the center, with various lines leading to other snippets of text that had been attached to the main parchment with pins.

She spotted a few newspaper clippings, an obituary and even an advertisement for a barbeque shop. The words “April 3rd” in its advertisement for its grand opening had been circled in red ink, with a red line drawn off the ad to the main message on the parchment. Similarly, a newspaper clipping that had the date of March 25th referred to festival preparations and a council meeting that was to occur on April 3rd, which also was circled.

The message on the parchment, which seemed to have been composed of a myriad collection of clues (some of which had fallen off due to Argus’ removal of the parchment from the wall), read:

You must find the Heart in Noga with its keeper by April 3rd.

The word keeper had been circled multiple times frantically. The date of April 3rd had been underlined twice. In the margins, interpretations had been scribbled trying to discern what ‘Heart’ symbolized. To the left of ‘You’, the words ‘Sender - ???’ And ‘Recipient - Soryana’ had been written, with an arrow pointing to Soryana whose tail went off the page, presumably to another sheet.

None of this had any meaning to Yuzu, of course.

“You...” Argus’ voice faltered as she quietly examined the paper, “You really aren’t Soryana.”

It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement from a revelation, discerning that she really had no clue what he was talking about.

“How could I have gotten it wrong?” Argus snatched the parchments back from Yuzu and ran over to the wall again, hopping on top of and over the bed rather than running around it. He stabbed the pins back into the wall, affixing the parchments to it, though in the wrong locations.

“That’s not how they were originally...” Yuzu pointed out his mistake.

Argus paused, then ripped the pages off and once again pinned them in a more correct but still slightly-off position. Then he stood atop the bed, looking incredibly distraught as he pulled at his hair. “The message said she was coming- and with the new moon the library is open-“

“It’s already the eleventh of April.” Yuzu said, feeling like she should point out the obvious in case it had eluded him. “If today was supposed to be the meeting it’s already way past the date of your message.”

“Fate is rarely timely.” Argus muttered.

Yuzu’s eyes narrowed at his use of the word ‘Fate’. “What was that?”

Argus didn’t acknowledge her as he groaned, “I’m the Keeper. The astrolabe points to the authority of natural laws. That’s me. The Domain of Fate rises from its slumber. That has to be you, Soryana.”

“I’m not Soryana!” Yuzu objected.

He suddenly stopped in his tracks as he looked at her with eyes as wide as saucers. His hands quivered as he spoke his next words with utmost seriousness.

“Can I touch you?”

Yuzu naturally backed away a step with an incredulous expression as she looked at the disturbed boy.

“No.” She firmly objected, “Definitely not.”

He hopped off the bed, his hand extended towards her, “Please. Just for a moment. I just need to confirm something.”

Where do you want to touch me? Yuzu lamented internally as she took a few steps to the side to avoid him, “Why do you need to touch me? Never mind, don’t even answer that.”

She ended up having to step around the bed as he walked towards her at an increasing pace. Argus called to her in an increasingly frantic tone. “Just for a second! Please. Then I’ll believe you’re not Soryana.”

“You can just believe me from my words.” Yuzu used the wooden frame of the bed to steady herself as she quickly went around the bed into the corner. A number of books fell to the floor off the headrest as she jostled it in passing.

“Okay I believe you, but please let me touch you anyways.” Angus said, starting to run around after her. This forced Yuzu to also run as she kept her distance from the boy, who still had his hand extended out to her. They did a full circle around the bed.

“Please! Just for a few seconds.” He pleaded, switching directions suddenly.

“I thought you just said it was for one second!” Yuzu protested as she dashed to the other side.

“Just like five seconds!” He replied. “Promise!”

He suddenly stopped running around the bed, letting Yuzu make it to the opposite side and have a moment’s rest. He looked distraught.

“Please! I only need to know if I was right about your domain.” He groaned, holding onto his head with both hands as he buckled over. “I only need to confirm!”

“Find a less creepy way.” Yuzu said sharply, not knowing what he meant by ‘domain’, but not exactly caring.

“Please. I’m sorry!” He moaned, sitting down on his haunches, staring at the ground as his whole body trembled. “I just need to know. I feel like I’m exploding. I’ll explode if I don’t know!”

His cries were filled with genuine distress as he gripped his hair so tightly with his hands that Yuzu thought he would tear it out of his head. He seemed to have given up chasing her and instead began wailing in a manner that made Yuzu severely uncomfortable.

As he groaned and rocked back and forth Yuzu relaxed her guard, biting her lip in concern. More than anything she felt repulsed by his distress, but though she wanted to leave, the compassionate side of her felt like it would be wrong to leave the boy in such a state. At the very least, he did not seem dangerous at all.

“Argus.” Yuzu said. He didn’t seem to hear her as he continued to pull at his hair and wail. “Argus!”

He looked up at her, his face contorted in pain. His cheeks were flushed and the whites of his eyes were red. It would have seemed exaggerated if he wasn’t so sincere in his distress.

“Is touching hands- I mean, would touching fingers be enough?” Yuzu asked.

“Yes.” He said, his eyes regaining their clarity even though his face was still scrunched up in the pained expression.

“Then... Here.” Yuzu extended her hand over the bed, pointing towards him.

She felt quite tense, preparing to draw her hand back in a split second if the boy did something strange or unexpected. But he only simply reached out towards her, leaning against the bed to get enough reach. The tips of their index fingers touched.

They maintained this simplest method of physical contact that had no strange or unusual qualities for an extended period. After about ten seconds Argus’ expression gradually calmed down and the tension released from his body. He seemed despondent as he finally withdrew his finger and nodded to himself.

“I see, you really aren’t Soryana.” He said quietly. “My divination was incorrect.”

“Divination?” Yuzu asked. “You mean... predicting the future?”

“Yes. Although, it isn’t a quality of my domain, I have some... talent... in the more analytical methods.” He then looked up at her, “It’s nothing compared to you, though.”

“What do you mean?” Yuzu asked.

“You know what I’m referring to.” He said, looking straight into her eyes.

“Yuzu, Candidate of Fate.”