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“What time is it?” Rizka looked up at the boy from the travel bag she was sitting on.
“Ughhhh” Sam moved a sleeve of his shirt, still barely awake, and glanced at his wrist watch “6:45 AM”
“Neat. Pre-flight waiting starts earlier than expected.”
The girl let out a tired sigh and wrapped her hands around her knees. The halls of the Arena dorms were empty. All the residents had already left. Motes of dust hovered in the warm morning light leisurely, as if mocking the duo. “We can move whenever we want, and you have to wait until all of you are ready”. Rizka buried her head in her arms.
What could she occupy herself with? It was boring to stay on her phone, boring to listen to music, boring to pace the corridors, to do literally everything. Sam wasn’t a good company this time of day either - a European he was, that boy was way into sleeping late. Ask him anything now, and he would surely make a snarky remark on your cognitive abilities.
Goddamnit, the waiting was killing her!
If it was possible to wave goodbye to Cyberraya students, she would’ve done it right now. She would’ve hugged Roza and Mika again - the people she liked the most in there - would’ve had another rematch with Chris (the rascal still believed he had a chance), and maybe preach to Ali on how to protect his face in fights. She would shake her hands with Alicia, congratulating her on her victory once again. Heck, she would even say goodbye to that ever-irritated inviso and his blustering neuro friend, who she only now learned were named Rudy and Jet.
Alas, their way had already parted. She is propping up the wall, waiting to head out to the airport, and they’re in the middle of their ride back home. Given how many things divide them, both metaphorically and physically, it was likely that they'd never meet again.
Crap. To share so many moments with these people - and all the memories would go to waste.
Sam was standing on her left. This morning, despite being half-asleep, he had already cursed himself dozens of times for only bringing his London clothes. In the rising heat he felt like a chicken inside an oven, so he took off his brown vest at last and finally rolled up his sleeves. That’s better.
He was bored as well, but instead of observing duct particles, his gaze was turned towards Rizka. The girl was sitting on a black bag, listening eagerly for a command to take off. She looked exhausted from all the recent events, but her tiredness was only a facade - he knew she was ready to jump on her feet any moment.
That was the second time he saw her in something other than a MATA uniform, and the first time he paid attention to it. Unlike Sam, she didn’t separate her civilian life from the agent business, but that surprisingly didn’t mean she was dressed all in blue. Instead of the Combat color she was wearing a red shirt, similar to what techno agents would typically put on, and cargo shorts. She also had lots of piercing. The girl had probably taken them off to look appropriately for Arena, but now the metal in her ears was shining bright. Shame he didn’t notice it sooner.
In his defence, he was too caught up in his own thoughts the first time they met in the airport to mind it. To think of it, a couple of weeks ago they were total strangers. And now she was his closest friend. Sometimes life works in mysterious ways.
Does she realize how much red suits her?
From their late night talks he knew her favourite color wasn’t blue. It wasn’t even red, now that you think of it. It was orange. When he asked her why, she just shrugged and said that had the right vibe to it. He remembered smiling as she said it. Orange is not so far away from yellow, after all.
Still, red suited her perfectly. He regretted not telling her this while they both were Techno, and saying it now would be just awkward. Saying literally anything would be awkward. The Arena binded them no longer, so he should come to terms with them becoming strangers again. Still, it was kinda painful to let go.
“What’s taking him so long?” Rizka finally broke the silence.
The girl knew Sam had been watching her this entire time. And strangely, she allowed him. There was something in his glance that she liked terribly.
She expected “What am I, a clairvoyant?” or “Go ask him yourself” in return, but Sam just shook his head. They both knew they only had before Aleks showed up and neither of them wanted their last shared memories to be that of a quarrel.
“He said something about ‘sitting on the road before going’”
“Ah, so he’s outside then? Man, he should’ve told us” Rizka said, standing up from her bag. Zakariiev rarely brought them up to speed, but not letting them know he was already waiting for them? That was antisocial even for him. Then the situation, absurd as it was, caught up to her. “Why the heck would he sit on a road?”
“Dunno. I guess it’s some kind of a russian superstition,” Sam made a gesture, inviting her to sit down again, “He’s inside, though.”
Rizka stared at him blankly. Then sat. Why were they even trying to understand that guy? He was so private it was odd he hadn’t become a hermit yet.
The only thing she managed to let out was “I didn’t know he was superstitious.”
“I doubt he is. Bet he’s just using our ignorance to get some time in silence before being stuck with us at the airport.”
“Can’t blame him, really. If I was him, I would lash out at you the moment you opened your mouth.”
Sam pouted jokingly and said, almost laughing, “I thought you liked my voice.”
“Not when you were trying to sound smart, pretty boy”
Gosh she would miss teasing him. He always makes such a cute face.
“Any plans for when you’re back home?” Sam quickly changed the topic, flustered by the ‘pretty boy’ thing. Rizka couldn’t help the giggle.
“Probably gonna make my brother take me to a restaurant. I mean, he promised me one if I win, which I didn’t, but perhaps supervillain intervention and a plane crash would be a great point to take me out. What about you?”
“No idea,” Sam said, to his own surprise, “I haven’t actually thought of that, to be honest.”
“Were too nervous conning your way to the finale, eh?”
“Yeah, and too busy pitying you for not joining me on that.”
“Awww, that’s so sweet of you.”
He definitely would miss that. He definitely would miss her.
“I think I’m gonna hug Diana when I’m home,” he said with a faint smile. His dog was the only creature he truly loved. Well, she used to be the only one. Now he had actual friends.
He could’ve come to his Academy with the newly-acquired insignia of a senior agent on his chest, could’ve bragged about being a finalist, of not dying here (despite the possibilities). But the medal was buried in the depth of his large suitcase, and for the first time in his life Sam didn’t want to prove anything. He was him, and that was finally enough.
“You should send me a picture of her greeting you,” said Rizka.
She couldn’t quite fathom that her MATA pals had a life outside of being agents. For her, being a martial artist was everything. To realize someone’s ambitions weren’t restricted by the Academy was groundbreaking. She was still way too used to Sam being her Neuro to perceive him as civilian. Crap, that might be a sign of professional deformation.
Anyway, Sam was the first person she really wanted to know outside of his agent shell. Despite their tricky personalities, they’d formed a strong bond. She didn’t want to lose it.
Sam wanted to say “You should come to London one day, I’ll introduce you to each other”. He really did. But as soon as he opened his mouth he was interrupted by a low voice from behind him.
“You ready?”
“GAH!” the duo screamed.
Aleks was standing right beside them with a puzzled expression on his face. Seemed like their sudden outburst confused him, but he didn’t push it, as always. Nodding towards the door, he invited them to head out.
Sam slowly detached himself from the wall he merged with out of fear. How the hell did a man of Aleks’ proportions manage to sneak up on them?!
“You were right about his ‘sitting on a road’ superstition” Rizka whispered, still shaken by Inviso’s sudden appearance.
“Sorry?”
“Look at his backpack. There’s no way it’s worth an hour of packaging.”
Sam looked at Aleks’ bag. Then at his own suitcase, that was twice (if not thrice) as large, yet took hardly more than 20 minutes to pack. Yeah, definitely not an hour.
He raised up his head to see Rizka trotting down the corridor towards the exit. She turned around to make sure Sam wasn’t falling behind and waved her hand, rushing him. He followed.
Damn it. Even if he renews their back-and-forth, it wouldn’t be the same. It was probably the last time they were able to talk like this. He didn’t want it to be like that.
He had mustered up the plan, a childish and stupid one, and gently took Rizka by the wrist.
“Hey” he said as she looked at him “I… um… can I get your number?”
Usually when Rizka was asked for a number (it happened much more often than she would like it to be), she just stared at the person angrily until he decided it was best to back off. This time, however, she found herself smiling like an idiot.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Gimme your phone, I’ll add it there.”
A couple of light touches, and Sam’s phone was with him again.
“Cool,” said Sam, sending her a silly corgi sticker
“Cool,” Rizka echoed him, responding with an equally silly cat one.