“A letter?”, Eric questioned.

Rally’s mother nodded.

“I-,”, she replied before stopping and going into deep thought and then smiling.

Eric wondered what was written in it so he said his thanks and went to his room.

Rally’s mother didn’t move from her position until Eric was out of her sight. Eric looked back to see that she was still standing there until her face was just black. She walked away soon after that.

Eric went inside his room and found that Orph still hadn’t returned.

He sat on his desk and looked at the letter for a while. He was kind of afraid of what was in it. But he was also curious. He opened the letter and started reading it.

“Dear Eric, I hope you have been well. I fear that we will not be able to meet again. My mother apparently knew who my father was and send me to him. A carriage came and picked me up. He’s very rich. My mother told me that I wouldn’t need to be worried about anything anymore. But she didn’t ask for my opinion and just sent me off... I do not want this but it’s too late... I’m in a room and I can’t go outside but all of my needs are taken care of. I do not have to work anymore. But I also lack freedom... I wish I could’ve met you again. I’ll miss you; I’ll miss our talks. Maybe one day we’ll meet again. I hope. Take care, yours Rally.”

Eric started to tear up while reading the letter, it seemed to have an additional effect due to what he went through today. He knew he’d miss Rally. He didn’t know what he could do, so he laid down on his bed and put one of his arms on his eyes, and kept crying. Soon, he fell asleep.

He woke up with teary eyes, it was already morning. Eric looked around the room and couldn’t find Orph anywhere. It looks like he stayed outside. Not that Eric can blame him but he hoped that he was alright.

Eric looked at Rally’s letter and felt his sadness grow again. He kept looking at it until something changed inside him, he suddenly got determined, took a piece of paper, and started to write on it.

“Dear Rally, I hope you have been well. I have been well too...”

Eric stopped; he never really wrote letters before. He looked at what he had already written and started having second thoughts but he wanted to write so he continued

“I have never written a letter before so forgive me if I make a mistake... I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, I will miss you too, I will miss you a lot. I too hope that we’ll meet again someday. I wanted to say this to you personally but since you’re so far away, this might be the best opportunity I’ll get. Remember the orphanage that we went to?”

Eric kept writing; he wrote everything that had happened yesterday in great detail. Towards the end, he looked at his letter and kept reading it over and over again.

After being content with what he had written he picked up his pen and wrote the hardest thing he could write at that very moment.

“I know that we can’t meet each other in person but would you like to send letters to each other?”

Eric took a deep breath and encased the letter inside an envelope after going through it again. He looked at the letter and smiled.

“What are you doing?”, said Orph who had just come inside and saw Eric smiling to himself.

“Nothing!”

“If you say so.”

Orph sat down and looked towards Eric who started to smile again.

He signed and spoke, “Are you going to sit and smile for the whole day?”

Eric looked over, and closed his eyes before speaking, “No.”

He got up with the letter in his hand.

Just before he went outside the door, he looked at Orph and spoke,” Do you want to visit Bk today?”

Orph looked over and thought it over for a few seconds before nodding his head.

They both went outside together, Orph was following Eric who looked like he had found who he was looking for.

He ran towards an older-looking woman who was sweeping the floor with a broom and handed her a letter.

“If it’s alright with you, can you send this to her?”, said Eric.

The woman didn’t say anything but smiled slightly and nodded before going her way.

“Who was she?”, asked Orph.

“She knows someone I’m close with”, replied Eric.

Orph didn’t inquire any further and soon they were outside the academy and on their way to Bk.