*I think I have a crush on this girl… And it's not too awful.*
I liked to lie to myself. Stalling for another two months and letting them pass me by like clouds, I showed up to every castle meeting more and more anxious to seem cool to her when the night arrived. Leo always picked up on my try-hard attitude while mocking me each day. The other advisors seemed to whisper behind my back, and I felt myself becoming paranoid. (Though they couldn't have known a thing.)
"You know? She…"
"Yeah, that one…"
Maybe they weren't even talking about me. ("Advisor" could sound like any number of other words… totally.) Yet I was still cautious and wound up like a catapult. Someone only needed to nudge the trigger, and I became a rambling mess while thinking about Koharu.
"Shut up!" I yelled as I sat up in the chair, overwhelmed by the noise in my mind.
Jisoo glared at me while swirling a silver piece of lace. "I didn't say a fucking thing," they said.
Shit. I forgot I was sitting in their office to help them organize their shelves.
"Sorry." A bruise blossomed on the back of my head from the impact. "I didn't mean that at you."
"Something on your mind?" they asked, standing on the tips of their toes to place a bookend on the top ledge.
*The whole world it feels like!*
"Yeah. It's not a big deal." I handed them a series of books about the specifications of weapons.
They replied bitterly, "You look like three glaciers ran you over."
"Thanks."
"Of course."
"Needed the reality check."
They turned to me. "Always here to give you one. Let me know if you need help or something."
As they hopped to grab a succulent from above the shelf, I zoned out with my gaze fixed on the rungs of wood.
*I might consider taking you up on that eventually.*
***
Despite never having a dull moment with Koharu, something heavy settled over us throughout our silences most days after my epiphany. Words were aplenty, but they never seemed like the *right* ones. Everything we said felt like a diversion from something more important—as if we dodged the point as much as possible like skilled soldiers.
We stared at each other—never uncomfortable—but I always shifted around like I was troubled. Her eyes pinned me down until I squirmed, and then, she would laugh and say something ridiculous as if the strong glances meant nothing.
"You think one day people will figure out how to communicate from different places?"
*Where did *that* come from?*
I supposed she wanted a clever answer, so I coolly replied, "If you stick a person in a room for long enough with a lot of toys and glue, I'm sure they can figure out anything." I removed the teabag from my drink as drops fell to create dark ripples on its surface. It smelled of chai, a gentle breeze of spices giving the room a warm, sleepy scent.
"Someone ought to be made to do that," she said, blowing at the steam from the top of her glass.
"Why? So we can talk all the time?" I went in for a bite, testing the waters while I brushed against her hand atop the table. While wondering how attuned her senses were, I kept my arm there.
She grinned. "You already know me so well. Then, we could speak morning and night."
"This is already a daily highlight," I said as a counterargument, though I was glad to indulge her if she wished. (I got sick of my own voice, but I never tired of hers.)
She took a pair of chopsticks and dipped a piece of sashimi in a mixture of wasabi and shoyu. The wood tapped against the table, clicking as she let the brown sauce trickle into the shallow bowl.
"If something's good, you should have it all the time. Then, you get rid of anything bad or unpleasant."
*I beg to differ.*
"You sound like a hedonist," I joked, not trying to go down that rabbit hole.
She chomped down on the vermillion tuna. "Hedonists… They like pleasure, yeah?"
I nodded my head, claiming a piece of bright pink salmon for myself.
"Am I a hedonist if I always want you to stay here and chat with me?" she asked casually as if it didn't sound like some shit straight from a novella proposal.
*How many steps did you just skip there?*
I swallowed the soft fish, using the time to formulate an appropriate answer. "If that makes you happy, then maybe. You could just be clingy." I smiled, a devious insinuation arising. "Remember—"
"I'm sorry I was so drunk when I met you the first time! You're not going to let me live through that one."
As she pouted, I succumbed to her charms and giggled. "Nope."
"You just need a better memory of me then to replace it! Anyway, I can be both things at once!"
"That's a fair option." I tilted back, but my feet couldn't reach the chair opposite of mine. I let them plummet to the floor.
Noticing the hand I kept near hers, Koharu grasped it, and my face warmed up.
*So you are paying attention.*
"How's the job been? How's your family?" Her silly happiness became a calm and solemn one as she struggled to eat with her non-dominant hand. I applauded the effort, but she got sauce everywhere, cleaning it with quick bouts of magic.
"My family's good. Dad's happier than ever, and my mom is still busy doing… something." As I talked, Koharu nodded along. "About the job: It's boring, though it's mostly okay. I feel like the advisors are out to get me or something, but I've gotten closer to them. I think. Your dad is nice enough, but he kicked Leo out the other day."
"He needs to let people have some fun." She grasped my fingers tighter. "He's so focused on getting the meetings done—and for some unknown reason—that he doesn't ever let any mischief happen. Not like he does anything himself."
*You can say that again about him… I can't even get any hints about why he and Hikaru fought (unless it was over that).*
"I think plenty happens. Sinclair's kind of clumsy." I shuddered while recalling their first… *ceremonious*… entrance.
"*Preventable* mischief then. They're sorta out of Dad's control."
"What kingdom do they work for then?"
It seemed fairies had a set purpose: to defend a designated kingdom. Yet Sinclair was an anomaly. They always moved around delivering letters, but they never did anything else for the kingdom. I wondered why Inei tolerated them intruding if they weren't even delegated to him. It was nothing against Sinclair. They acted kindly towards everyone, but they always struck me as being odd.
"Leo once told me there are only two reasons fairies could be 'unattached' in a sense." She placed her chopsticks across the top of her bowl, keeping them away from the food. Taking the hand, she made a peace sign with it.
"The first." She accidentally bent the wrong finger and flipped me off before we both laughed. "Sorry. The first is their kingdom doesn't exist anymore, so they were assimilated into another. The second is they could be the child of two other fairies. That's why fairies take precautions to not have a lot of babies. They'll just go make a bunch more magicians with no purpose, and then everything gets too cluttered."
Almost spitting my drink as I swallowed a sip, I commented, "Gah, imagine a mini Leo. I think I'd cry."
She widened her eyes. "Someone needs to write a horror novel like that. Make it 'The Invasion of the Purposeless Fairies'."
"I would one-hundred percent read it if you wrote it."
She giggled. "I'd try for you, but even my paragraphs are hardly coherent."
"Bullshit!" I stood to accuse her but ended up smiling. "I love reading your letters!" Recalling the thick parchment between my fingers every morning, I felt elated.
"I spend like ten minutes writing them!" She rolled back in her chair, sitting an awful lot like Inei. "I probably misspell like half the words."
"I haven't caught a mistake."
"Are you perhaps a walking dictionary?" she quipped.
I shrugged. "No. But I know tomorrow has two 'r's and one 'm'."
"I'll have to ask you how to spell that tomorrow then. Gives me another reason to see you."
*As if I didn't plan on coming anyway.*
"You know that, too!" I called her out. "You write it a lot."
"So?" She moved her head to the side, smirking. "I need a reason to bother you again!"