Chapter Text
I live my life empty.
I’m a wooden box, planks misaligned and nails bent over the sides. The wood splinters, having not been sanded. I was made with the hands of a child. Without the guidance and nurturing of a guardians love, the woodwork is unstable, an obvious outcome of ignorance in design.
In the end, it resembled exactly what it was.
A box.
Boxes are nothing but tools to have items jammed within them. Some are treated with more care than others. There’s jewelry boxes full of glittering necklaces, music boxes that play a lovely melody, but my box is a carelessly thrown together square left to collect dust, stuffed with everyone else’s burdens and junk.
Perhaps this sounds pretentious, as if I’m trying to find true meaning in my life where there is none. The words seem… flowery and pompous, especially for someone whose life is rather dull.
Nonetheless, I trudge on, through sinking mud, filling the tops of leather boots. I pick up each foot, as the mud squelches beneath every step taken.
I can’t think of looking back at the imprint left behind, for it brings back the hopelessness of being fixed to a certain place and time. I move forward, without thinking about the past or present, both too harrowing to acknowledge.
I am an empty box, made by the hands of a child. The adults in my life use me for their every need. I am tucked away under shelves and tables to be forgotten and ignored. Unless they remember something advantageous to their own goals, I am forgotten about until their next convenience.
I am remembered when I am useful.
. . .
Thumping could be heard from the corridor. The sounds of messy footsteps clambering throughout the hall, bumping into every corner on the way to the opposite room from the one where Mika sat. Someone had entered the home.
He listened out for the clang of armor hitting the floor across the hall, which had confirmed his suspicions.
Huffman finally returned from his nightly stop to the Tavern. Mika wasn’t so sure he’d be back in a timely fashion, or if he was going to be stuck with the task of groping through the dark alleyways in search of his drunk brother. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to drag him all the way home by himself, during ungodly hours of the night.
There was one time, in which Huffman had gotten so plastered, he started becoming belligerent to the other patrons in the building. He’d impulsively started a large brawl, with the massive amounts of alcohol coursing through his bloodstream completely negating any inhibition.
He ended up bruised and bleeding as a result, with cuts littering his head and hands, all too severe for a simple bandaid. Huffman was tossed outside in the back as punishment for his antagonism. The only way poor Mika had known his brother was safe and alive was through the rushed words of a younger recruit from the Adventurers' Guild.
The recruit had been in the tavern with his Adventuring buddies, drinking ale in the back on one of the long wooden tables, when the scene unfolded a few feet away. After several chaotic knocks on the front of the Schmidt residence, Huffman’s limp body had been thrusted into Mika’s arms. The interaction ended with an apologetic smile, to which the door was closed afterwards
At the very least, Huffman could actually walk himself home this time.
Mika, who had ceased all movement since hearing the door first open, waited patiently for the usual cacophony of snores and groans that would sound loudly each night as his brother slept. As the snores turned to white noise, He finally decided to move out of his frozen position.
Wrapping a long leather trim around his personal journal a couple times, and making sure it was secure enough for any random passerby to not be able to open it simply, he felt at ease enough to place it underneath his mattress, which he had deemed the safest place to hide the journal full of his innermost thoughts.
The ink he’d been using was starting to run dry, anyways. With a small sigh, Mika looked around his room one last time. Books? In the usual place upon a rickety wooden shelf, with parts of the bottom starting to break away with mold. Clothes? Put away, save for his clothes for that he’d folded and place atop his desk, well away from any jars of ink that could potentially stain the fabric.
Windows? Closed, with a metal hook for a lock, and drapes flowing loosely down to the floorboards. Everything seemed to be in order and where it was supposed to be.
Mika couldn’t shake the feeling like he wasn’t alone. While everything was perfectly orderly, it felt like something was inherently wrong with his room.
With himself.
This was not a new feeling, however.
At this point, the feeling of his life being askew was just his normal. Nothing ever felt particularly “right”. Just… “close enough”.
Mika unfolded his quilt cover, something gifted to him from his mother as a small child. It was a family heirloom, having been passed down from ancestor to ancestor for generations.
Sliding into the bed, he tried to quell the tightness in his chest and nausea in his stomach. The events of the day tried to resurface, to which he squashed them down desperately. The more thoughts flash behind his eyes, the worse the nausea gets. It was soon accompanied by sweat under his armpits.
He shouldn’t be sweating, it’s the spring. The weather is cool during the night, and breezy during the day. There’s no reason for him to be sweating outside of his jumbled nerves. He doesn’t even know why he’s feeling this way, why he continues to feel this way, every single night.
It’s become a ritual of sorts. Write in his journal after returning home from the Reconnaissance team, make sure everything is as it should be, and then get into bed and panic until falling asleep out of pure fatigue.
It’s always been this way, for as long as he can remember.
His mattress is lumpy. It feels like a pile of rocks had been slipped underneath a thin layer of moss. He can’t get comfortable, but he’s too scared to move. If he moves, something will happen. He can’t afford that.
He always sleeps the same way every single night. His back is against the uncomfortable mattress, his hands folded over his stomach, legs straight. He can’t help it. Any other position leaves him feeling vulnerable and small. A simple breeze brushing against his skin causes goosebumps to arise and his stomach to drop, the nausea rearing its ugly head again.
Oh, how he wished this time of day could be easier. He wished he could fall asleep right away, drifting into a pleasant dream about bunny rabbits munching on the lettuce of farms he’d passed on his journeys.
His heart rate was starting to increase gradually, and the feeling of being sick remained strong. Mika closed his eyes, sending messages into his brain, “I just need to sleep to get to tomorrow” and “nothing is wrong, go to bed”, yet it does little to actually help with his nighttime troubles.
His mantras of reassurance continues, until dead into the night. As his body gets tired from the adrenaline wearing down, he lets himself slip into his own unconsciousness, unaware that it’s even happening.
Then the birds wake him up in the early morning.
. . .
The morning rays come delicately filtering through his bedroom curtains. The slightest movement of air shows the speckles of sparkling dust in the air. Mika has already gotten dressed, as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
He briskly grabs his cartography book and straps it into the harness. It was a useful accessory he deeply thanked the Favonius librarian, Lisa, for coming up with. With the soft click of the last buckle, he stood in the middle of his room with pause.
He glanced over to his window and gently opened the curtain to the side, unhooking the metal lock and pushing it open. The first scent that enters his nose is that of the flowers upon his window sill, all of them having been collected from past adventures. He felt a fondness for the memories, as he allowed himself to really take in the aroma.
Cecilias, Windwheel Asters, Qinqxin flower bundles, and Sweet Flowers. A wonderful mix of floral smells.
The next thing he notices was the faint smell of cooking wafting in. Good Hunter always opens at sunrise. Sara, the waitress, was always hard at work getting breakfast together for her upcoming patrons. She was always very nice, sometimes stopping Mika on his walks to hand him an apple and ask about his current adventures. The smell of pork and bread fills his nose as he breathes in deeply. It was a comforting feeling that reminded him of where he was.
Mika hears the bustling of foot traffic, seeing the night-shift guards slowly moving their way to the Knights Headquarters. That’s his cue to start moving. He steps back from the window, closing it, and leaves his room.
He stops right outside his door, looking forward. Huffman’s door is still closed, which means he has yet to leave the house. Mika needs to get him moving too, he doesn’t want him to get dismissed from his job with the Knights. They need as much income as they could get when it comes to money, as their parents left very little before leaving on their trek around the world.
Mika fiddled with the doorknob, trying to gain the nerve to enter. It’s just his brother’s room, it should be fine. With a shaky breath, he enters.
It’s dark, the side of the house in which his brother’s room is located doesn’t have a proper window, only a small slit at the top to let in some light. However, his brother had nailed a blanket over it months ago, too tired of the headache he’d get upon waking up to the light in his eyes.
He tip-toed over to the side of the bed, where Huffman was sloppily sleeping, mouth wide open with a pool of drool cascading down his chin and onto his shoulder. It reeked of sweat and alcohol.
“Eugh…” Mika thinks, as he reaches out his hand to shake his brother awake, “come on, bro”.
“Um… Huffman”, He calls out quietly, shaking his brother’s arm. Mika nervously waits for any response before shaking again, this time slightly harsher. “Uh, Brother?” He raises his voice ever so slightly.
Huffman groans, pulling his arm away and digging the palms of his hands into his own eye sockets. “Ugh…” He mumbles something indiscernible, to which Mika raises a brow.
“Can you repeat that?” Mika asks, making sure to keep a politeness to his tone.
“What. Time. Is. It.” Huffman grunts out, agitation showing through gritted teeth.
“Oh! Um… it’s like six? It’s time to head over to the, uh, Knights Headquarters to report in…” Mika trails off, scratching the back of his neck nervously. He always gets anxious having to wake up his grumpy hung-over brother, seeing as he’s never in a good mood.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Huffman huffs out, pun intended, finally sitting up in bed. His eyes were still squinted, and he held his head with an obviously painful migraine.
“I wasn’t trying to!” Mika explained, anxiously. “I just didn’t want you to be late, I—“
“Keep your voice down. God Damn.” Huffman hisses out, leaning away from Mika as if his voice is viscerally hurting his head more.
Mika nods, scratching the back of his neck, then his hand, looking down at the dusty floorboards of Huffman’s room. There is an awkward silence that fills the room, as neither of them move to leave.
Mika isn’t sure what to do, he doesn’t want to agitate his brother more, but they do really have to head over to the Knights of Favonious for report. He anxiously looks around again, deliberately not making eye contact, as he does.
Mika really doesn’t want to be late, he very rarely ever gets a tardy as it is, and arriving late gives him even more anxiety than he already has.
“Um, well…”he starts off, as he takes a step back towards the hallway. “If you’re not heading in now, then I’ll go ahead…”
“You think you’re better than me?” Huffman shoots Mika a glare, grinding his teeth together, painfully clenching his jaw.
It was apparent that Huffman wasn’t fully sober from his night of drinking.
“You aren’t better than me just because of your fancy little job, you know!” Huffman throws off his covers and stands up next to his bed.
“I didn’t say—“ Mika is cut off again,
“Just because you get special treatment from the Grandmaster doesn’t make your job more important than mine.” He turns and starts digging around in the piles of dirty clothing and armor, tossing layers onto himself sloppily.
Mika knows better than to respond. It’s not the first time people have pointed out the way Varka treats him differently than others in the Knights. He knows he couldn’t win that argument, even if he laid everything out on the table. It wouldn’t matter. His feelings would just be pushed aside, as they usually were.
Most found him to be oversensitive.
There wasn’t anything Mika could say, or do. He just stood there, staring at the floor until Huffman was fully dressed for work.
The back of his neck was burning bright red, the scratch marks as evident as his own anxiety. It felt constricting to stand in Huffman’s room. It felt constricting everywhere.
The tight ball of yarn that lodged itself between Mika’s ribs only wound tighter as the seconds passed by, the string feeling like it might snap, but never does.
“Let’s go,” Huffman grunts out, pushing Mika to the side, to head out the door before him.
Stumbling back with unsteadiness, Mika tries to find balance before following behind, staring at the square of Huffmans back. He’s used to it. this shouldn’t feel as bad as it does.
Mika wished Huffman didn’t drink so much, because then maybe the kindhearted brother he knew back when their parents were still in the picture would still be the one in his daily life.