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In retrospect, it was obvious, really. But you've never really been known for your observation skills, either.
Looking at him now, it's impossible to see his lithe form as anything but more than human. At the time, you'd passed off his skin's unnatural pallor for a fault in perception, a result of going without seeing a human being outside of your little circle for almost a decade. His skin was pure white, while yours and everyone's around you was a warm brown. It could've been the fact that there was no natural light in the place - maybe you'd just forgotten what a pale person was supposed to look like. It was for similar reasons that you easily looked over his unblinking stare, the extremity of his stillness. Given a decade around Mimiga, anyone would feel weird about anything less than constant twitching, blinking and moving.
In reality, it's obvious, and it honestly makes more sense. Peering through the crack in the wall, even then you wondered whether such a thin and young frame was really capable of toughing it out on the island alone. Soon you were wondering how such a body could be so strong.
You weren't - disappointed, when you found out that he was a robot. That this young nameless boy you barely knew wasn't a person. That would be ridiculous, even for you. What would you be mourning over? A potential friend? The simple comfort of a human presence?
Something more?
You don't even want to consider it, feeling something like that towards him. It definitely must be the product of years of desperation and loneliness, nothing else. Past the guise of masculinity, of youth and fragility, the boy isn't human. A robot, and a recon robot, at that, designed for combat and a singular purpose. You can't even let yourself hop ethat he'd be able to experience emotion, or at least anything as burdensome as attraction.
In any case, even if, by some stretch of the imagination, that he did, there's little reason for him to direct them at you.
You still can't stop yourself from asking.
"Want to escape with me?"
His stare is unflappable as ever, wide and unmoving, and he pauses. In this moment, more than ever, you're reminded that he isn't alive - his chest doesn't rise and fall with the rhythm of his breathing, his throat doesn't bob with the need to swallow, and he doesn't make a sound. You're almost not sure if he'd heard you. You'd like to think that he's considering your offer, even for just a moment. You'd like to think that his silence is full of thought for what could be, of the life you two could lead, safe and secluded from the threat of the Doctor and the Mimiga and the war.
You'd like to think that he wants it too.
The wind outside is heavy, its force felt in the prolonged silence. He looks down.
He says no.
You expected nothing less.
"I see..."
Maybe he does have emotions, and is a more compassionate person than you, kinder and braver. He'd helped you, after all, when you were just a disjointed voice beyond a thick wall, with no identity and no ability to help him. He'd helped Sue, even when she'd most certainly been rude to him, giving him no reason to help her against the Mimiga convinced of her hostility. At the very least, he must be a person not cowardly enough to consider abandoning his own sister, his mother, the innocent people on the surface. You're glad he turned you down. It still doesn't quell the sickness in your stomach. It didn't happen, after all, but it could have.
You tell him that it's impossible to defeat the Doctor, even for him. His gaze remains resolute, determination simmering beneath the cool exterior. You have no idea how he can be so sure of his victory - heck, you're not sure how he even thinks he has a fighting chance against the Doctor and the rabid Mimiga. The Doctor's kept the entire island hostage for years, the power of the Demon Crown more than enough to keep the inhabitants docile and cowering, and with him in possession of the red flowers, the idea of being freed from his subjugation seems even less than a speck of light on the horizon. You've tried, all of you have - you, and Sue, your mother, Professor Booster - made plans that fell through or could never be accomplished. For years, you've tried, each and every one of you, resisted and struggled and despaired and failed, and here he comes with a resolve you've forgotten.
You want to be angry, and think him naive. He arrived with nothing, knowing not his past or what he was meant to do (though you're not sure if that's still the case). The gun in his hand is worn and scratched, looking about a single blow from being scrap metal. You want to tell him that even his strength won't be enough against the Doctor and his army, that even his adaptability and intelligence will be overpowered. You want to tell him that there's absolutely no way he can do it, and going in there alone is a death sentence. You want to tell him that you don't want him to die.
At the same time, if anyone could do it, it'd be him.
"I'll wait for you."
It's all you can do, now. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you when they register surprise in his gaze. It's silly, even to your ears - here you are, confessing a blind faith in him, a belief that he can do what you've just told him is impossible. Actually, you're regretting saying it, now - you've basically told him that, more than anything, you're here for him. A moment ago, you were ready to leave friend and family to escape with him, leaving the world to fend for itself, and now you're telling him that you'll put off your own safety and freedom to wait for him, let your life remain in danger if only to make sure he was safe.
If he noticed - your true thoughts laid bare, leaving you vulnerable and utterly pathetic - he doesn't show it. He nods, instead, following you to the Outer Wall. He parts without so much as a goodbye, leaving you standing on the edge of nothing, a step away from falling to a long and painful death.
The dragon is young and impatient - you're afraid your hand is going to get bitten off if you lay it on its shoulder in an attempt to placate it. It huffs, smoke trailing behind you in the wind, and your hand remains thankfully intact when it finally shakes its head and resigns itself to waiting, curling itself up on the stone. Your wait begins.
You regret it already.
There's too much time on your hands.
It's all out in the open - you can't pretend the feelings aren't there.
These feelings - you don't even want to name them. What good would it do you? You may not even see him again. If you name these feelings, you're just giving yourself something else to become attached to, something else that'll just get ripped away from you. It'll be just another thing you're too clumsy to hold, unable to deal with, another thing you'll never be given back.
What do you even see in him? He is small, smooth, strong - indicators of his inhumanity. He's quiet, saying nothing, while you're prattling off your nervous energy in incessant talk. He doesn't smile - you don't know if he can. Standoffish, aloof, unfriendly - that's how he should be coming off, as someone to be avoided, ignored and left alone.
The complete opposite of what you'd thought when he first stepped into the shelter, your ears still ringing from the explosion.
Small, smooth, strong, sure, determined and immeasurably kind. He was everything you weren't. Maybe he was really something you wanted, more than anything you'd ever wanted to actually be.
Maybe it's the fresh air making you feel heady, the coolness of the night breeze in your hair and skin. You've never been good at hiding things. Leaving this fluttering in your stomach, the seize of your chest, the tingling of your fingertips unnamed - there's suddenly no point in it. Even nameless, these feelings make their home there, in the back of your mind and the forefront of your heart. You like him, an infatuation of the likes of schoolyard romance (a feeling you've admittedly forgotten). You like him, even not knowing his name or his past, knowing only his kindness and grace, the warmth of his hand extended to you. You like him - and, saying it again and again like a prayer, it's a small secret against the howling void spread out in front of you.
You like him, and you don't know if he'll survive.
Your heart feels like it's bursting when the island begins to fall.
Beat, beat, beat- it hammers with the sound of flapping wings, the dragon's roar resonating deep in your ribs. You thought - you'd hoped - you can't believe he actually did it, defeated the Doctor and destroyed the Core. You'd known, somewhere, that he could do it – it being whatever he put his mind to, whether it be saving a man he didn't know or killing a dictator who'd long terrorised the island's people. This floating land you'd been trapped on for so long is falling apart right in front of you, a deafening quake shaking your trembling legs and pieces of concrete and plaster careening into the surface.
A heavy chunk of concrete shatters the ground beside you, and you're leaping off the island without time for thought. You're falling - then rising, buoyed like boats in the current. Up till this point, you'd actually been worried that the dragon wouldn't be able to carry your weight - it was large, sure, but also young, never having flown before. Seeing your feet in the air, hands fisted tightly into green scales and clouds whistling below, it hardly feels real. You're starting to miss the island, your decade-old prison, and it's so ridiculous that you want to laugh.
You're lucky you hadn't, because the dragon is suddenly turning, wind stinging your face as the dragon flies beneath and beyond the island to the other side. You don't know what you're doing there, but there's no point asking a dragon, and also, it might just be the sound of the wind, but you think you hear - screaming?
Then you're screaming, because suddenly you're dropping several yards down in a second, anchored by a lapful of something slamming into you.
Turns out that something is Sue. Relief spills out of your chest and is lost to the wind. You forget that you'd literally forgotten about her until this precise moment, and decide that the disappointment unfurling is better left forgotten, too.
"Oh, thank god," she wheezes, paws trembling on your arms. "I thought I was a goner."
"Did you really just jump off the island without knowing I was there?"
She looks at you, unimpressed (and you're sort of offended by that, because you're on a dragon, the most impressive thing you can think of) as she says, "I didn't have a choice- I was gonna get squished!"
"Did you - did you see the boy?"
You couldn't stop yourself from asking. It must've been hours, waiting at the Outer Wall, worry building with each passing second. Of course you feel bad - here's your sister, who you weren't even sure was alive until she literally came out of nowhere. Of all things, you should be worrying about her- was she hurt? What happened to Misery and Balrog? The Doctor? Their mother and the Professor? - but you have to know what happened to him, whether he's alive and made it out. Before the hope spreading becomes too much to bear or disappoint.
Her eyes widen in horror.
"He was - he was right behind me! That boy, he beat the Doctor, and Misery, and me, and then the place started falling apart so we ran and he was..."
Gone. A weight drops to your stomach, becoming heavier and festering there. She looks miserable, and you - you hope you don't look it, too. There's no way he could have been done in by a bunch of rocks, easy to dodge for someone like him - but there were a lot of other things that could've happened. Maybe the Doctor hadn't really been defeated, maybe he'd caught up with him, maybe this time he killed him for sure, maybe, maybe.
Your sister, mercifully, says nothing as you hover there, unwilling to part from your place, watching the island collapse. Maybe she's as worried as you are.
Minutes - that's probably how long you had till the island hit the ground. It plunged toward the surface, slowly but quickly, bits of it coming off as it went. Still, you watched as it went down, you and your sister on the back of a dragon, wondering whether the boy that had saved your lives made it out with his own. You almost don't hear the drone of helicopter blades spinning above you, past you - Sue is yelling and waving excitedly, but in the vacuum made by the sky it plays out like a pantomime, soundless save for the screaming of the gale.
The island stops falling.
When you're sure it's not going to keep falling, you - all of you, your mother, your sister, the Professor, Itoh - land on what's left of the balcony, excavating rubble and dust to return to the place you'd hoped you'd never see again. Disoriented Mimiga, no longer rabid, the Mimiga trapped in cages, a group of rusting robots, an old woman named Jenka and her puppies - alive with nothing worse than a scratch or a scuff. They mourn, they rejoice, they decide that they don't want to leave their floating island, their home.
There's no sign of the boy.
There's no sign of Misery or Balrog or the Demon Crown, either.
"It's strange," Jenka says, after you've all exhausted yourselves searching every part of the island, every hidden corner and every empty cave. The ceiling of her house has caved in on some places, but her dogs seem undeterred, some lying on its pieces while another - Hajime, she says - sits on her lap. "Did you know I have a brother, Ballos? Maybe it's 'had', now - for the island to still be floating, that boy must have killed him."
"You know him?"
The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. You are tired, all of you are, and you hang onto any string of hope like a lifeline.
She stares at you, eyes knowing and unspeakably old. She is tired, too. "He came here, once. Returned all of my puppies. I never saw him again after that."
The words hang heavily, the already stagnant air only deadening with the statement. Your mother sighs; Professor Booster still looks concerned, brows furrowed behind his glasses. Jenka leans back in her chair, the gentle rocking filling the quiet with soft creaks.
"In any case, if you haven't found Balrog or that daughter of mine, there's nothing to fear. The Demon Crown is gone - their curse is lifted. If they've made it out, surely, that boy has made it out, too."
You never visit the island again - that's what you'd like to say, anyway. Turning Itoh and Sue back into humans is going less than splendidly, so returning to the island was inevitable. Sue goes to visit Toroko's grave - they'd made one along with the grave for King. Your mother returns to make sure such a tragedy never makes a recurrence; Jenka assures her that it never will. You don't want to visit - you see no point, as there's nothing tying you there, anymore. Your mother makes sure to tell you anyway - Jenka's daughter, Misery, returned, but for only a while before leaving to places unknown. She'd told Jenka that she made sure the boy and the girl (who she was talking about, no one is quite sure) made it out safely, but beyond that, she's unaware of their whereabouts. Knowing Balrog, he'd probably stuck with them, and if they were all in the same place, they shouldn't be hard to find, she said.
So you wait.
It's pointless, you know - even if he did make it out, even if he is living safely, out there somewhere, with his friends, why would he come back here? He doesn't know where you are, and there's no reason for him to expend the effort to find out. The chances of ever seeing him again, even by coincidence, is too slim to even be bothered considering. Sue makes fun of you for it, and you probably deserve it, honestly (though you think her calling it 'pining' is completely unfounded). Waiting for him no longer holds the same sense of dread and worry, though. It's not weighted by the pressing concern of life and death, of uncertainty and fear.
You just feel... glad.
Glad that you made it out of the island, that you're alive and back on the surface, with your family. You know you're sort of a coward - you're not going to pretend that you're not infinitely happy that you didn't end up kicking it back on the island or worse, imprisoned there forever. But meeting that boy - even if you never see him again, meeting him changed you. You still think that nothing good will come of waiting, wishing you'd see him again, even if just to say 'thank you' and assure yourself he's okay, and maybe before, you would've abandoned such thoughts. Before, you would've resigned yourself to never seeing him again, always wondering, losing all hope.
If there's one thing meeting him has taught you, it's that there's always hope.
So you wait. One day, you'll look for him, maybe. When all this has calmed down and everything is sorted out. When Sue is human again. When your mom stops pestering you about getting married. (You never said you weren't a procrastinating dilly-dallyer.) One day, you'll see him again - what you'll do then, you're not entirely sure yourself. But so long as you hope, and do your best without thinking too hard about the consequences, it'll happen.
You'll wait.