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“Close your eyes.”
Stelle does so without a second thought.
“Keep them closed.” Firefly reaches a hand to her own head, grabbing the hair band from her hair before placing it over Stelle’s head and pulling it over her eyes.
“Firefly?” Stelle’s voice is puzzled — perhaps a little concerned — but it doesn’t hold even a hint of fear.
“I could kill you, you know.”
Stelle’s expression is unmoving despite her sudden hostile words.
“Blindfolded, defenseless; it would take less than a second. You wouldn’t even feel it.
“And I've done it thousands—no, millions of times. It would be easy for someone like me. It’s what I was made for. To burn and to kill — it doesn’t matter which order. The outcome has and will always remain the same.”
Firefly pauses. “I lied to you. And now, I could kill you.”
“Oh,” Stelle finally says. “Go ahead, then.”
Firefly shoots Stelle a bewildered expression despite the latter unable to see it. She opens her mouth only for nothing to come out as her mind tries to decipher the words just spoken. When she fails, she opens her mouth once more. “…what?”
“Well, it’s not like I could stop you, could I?” Stelle pinches her chin between her thumb and her index finger. “But I’m pretty sure I’d already be dead if you really wanted to kill me. Unless you always blindfold and talk to your victims before you kill them, but that sounds kind of annoying to do every time.”
Firefly flails her arms in front of herself, which is once again, futile. “Wh—Wait, just… just stop for a second—”
“How many did you say again? Millions? So, do you have to come up with different things to say every time, or—no, never mind. It’s already enough effort to put the blindfold on, so it’s probably easier to just use the same words. It’s not like they’d be able to tell or anything. Hey, does that mean—”
Firefly clasps a hand over Stelle’s mouth. “D-Do you not see the situation you’re in right now?!” she cries, exasperated. “Seriously, you say so many words and none of them make any sense!”
Stelle pushes the hand away to reveal a grin. “I get that a lot.”
There’s no trepidation nor malice in that smile. Even Firefly can tell as much. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she can’t help but ask. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can tell that this isn’t what you wanted.” Her voice is level, calm.
She speaks so matter-of-factly that it makes Firefly sick to her stomach. It irks her; makes her so inexplicably angry and she wants to yell — to tell her that she’s wrong. Monsters like herself selfishly take what they want, by force or through other means like ‘the script’.
That's just something that someone like Stelle would never be able to understand.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she snaps. Her heart is heavy, aching, and she places a hand over her chest. “So—”
“—why?” Stelle cuts in to finish her question for her. “I don’t really know why.”
Stelle shrugs, tilting her head as if deep in thought.
Then she perks up, lips upturned when she seems to have reached a conclusion. “I guess it’s because I love you. Firefly, Sam, or whoever you may be.”
Firefly wants to cover her ears, to turn away and pretend she didn’t hear, solely because she’s not sure how much more her heart can take. But her head is shaking, eyes squeezed shut as the rest of her is frozen still. Swirling, overwhelming emotion swells in her eyes, threatening to spill over. “You… you don’t understand what you’re saying,” she says, in part to herself.
“I guess not.” When she opens her eyes, Stelle’s expression becomes somewhat somber. She reaches a hand out blindly, managing to find Firefly’s arm and moving upwards to rest it on her shoulder. “But we must’ve known each other before I lost my memory, right?”
The touch is cautious, but caring, and warm. Firefly can’t help but indulge in it.
“Sorry. Even after talking to you like this, I can’t remember anything from that time.” Stelle’s face drops and her brows knit together. “There’s thousands of things I don’t know about you, Firefly. All I have is this… feeling that I’ve forgotten something important.”
The words are like a knife in her heart, pushing, twisting, breaking.
“And well, maybe it’s stupid of me to say, but I just wanted you to know.” Her tone is gentle as she softly speaks, “I love you.”
There's a lump in her throat and Firefly lets out a shaky breath. “Never mind. I changed my mind,” she rasps, grabbing the cloth over Stelle’s eyes and pulling it off.
Stelle squints, adjusting to the light as Firefly curls her fingers into the fabric of her jacket.
“I want you to see this.” She tugs, pulling her closer.