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It’s Monday. Lucio wakes up with a panic he does not remember and a scream in his chest that will never finish hurting. It takes a second to recall he is Lucio, the Thumb Apprentice, and another to realize his master will beat him if he does not move.
He gets up. He ignores the knives in his stomach and the ones in his heart and he puts on his clothes. His body begs to break. Still, it is of no importance. It is proof he is alive, and that he can—must—endure this.
7:30 AM. He arrives on time. Valencina isn’t there, but her presence still hungers. He cleans up last night’s mess, he checks himself over thrice. He practices his forms.
She beats him anyway, when he eventually, inevitably, fails.
It’s Tuesday. Lucio wakes up with a panic he does not remember and a scream in his chest that will never finish hurting. Yesterday’s injuries have not healed yet, but they never do, and Lucio is used to tracking blood in his room.
He doesn’t have time to clean it all up, and there’s no point anyway, as long as he’s still imperfect. He gets dressed, pretends he is the stranger in the mirror and tells himself he deserves this, that he’s someone who’s earned these wounds.
On his way to training, he spots Kira in the Corridor. She looks skinnier than before, a little paler. A little lonelier. But he is Lucio, the Thumb Apprentice, the not-son to his not-mother. He is the Textbook Yoshihide will learn from.
He pretends to not see her.
It doesn’t work. She marches right up to his face instead.
“Geez, ya look like hamburger meat! Surprised you’re still breathin’,” Kira says. Her eyes are glued to the bloody mess that is his face. She stares in awe or fear, Lucio can’t tell. But it prickles at his skin in a way that makes him feel cornered.
“An injury like this is nothing,” he says. Mouth in a firm line, voice like cold steel. It has long since been the truth, enough that to voice it is no longer painful. “Are you simply here to gawk? Does the Middle Nursefather know that you’re here?”
Kira rolls her eyes, and for a moment, Lucio hates her. She has the luxury of such emotions. She doesn't have to be afraid. “Hey, can’t blame me for being bored! Papa’s busy with family stuff right now. Wait, that scary lady ain’t around, right? I’ve got this movie about the Zwei that lowkey slaps-”
“No,” he says, too quickly, too easily. “A Textbook cannot be permitted slack if it is to be perfect. I am to do as instructed until Yoshihide returns.”
She stares at him. “…Seriously? I’m startin’ to think you’re crazier than Albina.”
Lucio does not dignify her with an answer. He continues to ignore her, even when she says, “Offer’s still on the table, weirdo!”
He will not take her outstretched hand. He is not a dog that betrays its owner.
It’s Wednesday. Lucio wakes up with a panic he does not remember and a scream in his chest that will never finish hurting. Yesterday he was a corpse, but today he is alive.
He drags his body from one lashing to another.
A blow to his head when he fails to perform. Fucking useless idiot when he can’t recover in time. Blood coats his throat, and he wants everything to stop burning, but more than that--
He thinks of choking his own master.
It is only when she looks at him that he extinguishes that emotion. He cannot let it show; he cannot let her kill him first.
The lesson ends with him slumped against the wall. He is breathing, but barely; Valencina has left his lungs intact. But it is no reprieve. He stumbles through the Corridors, instinct guiding him back. Home. He wants to go home.
Ah, but he’s already there, isn’t he…?
Someone places a hand on him, and he flinches. A mistake. He braces himself for another wine-stained bruise, for another insult whet with dark burning poison.
“U-um, are you alright, Lucio?”
Lucio blinks. He turns around. Sora’s eyes are staring right where he’s bleeding. Full of worry or pity and not a single ounce of malice. She never hides how she feels. Her master even encourages such folly.
And out of all the Apprentices, she’s the one who unnerves him the most. Love me, talk to me, look at me, she begs silently. An open wound that gladly invites more maggots to infest. A not-daughter to her not-father, just like how he is a not-son to his not-mother. He hates how much of herself she’ll tear off for a single, paltry scrap.
He shrugs her off, pretends he doesn’t see her hurt. Pretends he isn’t relieved that it’s her, and not her. “I’m fine,” he mumbles. Her kindness means nothing. Not when she is leashed to the Prescript like he is to Valencina. To defy their masters mean certain punishment or worse. And yet, he does not envy her, despite her soft-spoken Nursefather.
Valencina choose him out of her own will. Her master had no choice but to choose her instead.
It’s Thursday. Lucio wakes up with a panic he does not remember and a scream in his chest that will never finish hurting.
He comes back in pieces, but not fully. Never fully. Every day, he loses something and he is a better Textbook for it. He forgoes his own pain so as to not question and think. He ignores his festering wounds to better obey his master's orders.
When he finally has time to eat, he’s still not hungry. An irony he finds no amusement in—all this food, but no longer the cravings. But he needs sustenance to keep going, despite being a Textbook in name and function.
A sound of scraping metal echoes from the kitchen. Something is there. No, someone.
”Lucio,” Albina greets, hands greased in blood. “Are you hungry, too? Fascia here is simply starving.”
He's grown desensitized to the sight of gore, but he’d prefer it to not accompany the few times he eats. “No, I'm fine. I see that the kitchen is... currently occupied. I shall come back another time should the need seeks me again."
”Oh, that’s fine. We can make room, right, Fascia?” Fascia pulses like a heartbeat in Albina’s careful hands.
She beams up at him. “Fascia says she’d be happy if you’d join her. Ever since she first saw you, she always sought out your scent.”
It is a question he decides he does not want an explanation to. "There is no need. It is better if I leave both of you to your businesses."
Albina frowns. “Is it because we're not friends? Sora says friends always eat together.” Another human emotion creaks the metal frames of her face. “Oh, I know! Why don’t we become good friends then? We're already apprentices together. This way, Fascia will be happy and you won't be so lonely."
Lucio’s hands tighten into white-knuckled fists. He is not lonely. A Textbook could never be lonely.
“I have no desire for such an offer. My only role is to perfect the Palermitan Style."
Albina nods. “And mine is to learn Corporism art from my Maestro. This is so one day, I can be a Maestro that-"
“Your comment is noted. Goodbye."
He leaves, no emptier than before, and yet uneasier. Why don't we become good friends then? This way, you won't be so lonely Her voice rings inside his head. She had looked at him in a way he knows his master never would. Something to be cherished. Something to be beloved.
He hates that he knows this. He hates more that he wants it.
It’s Friday. Lucio wakes up with a panic he does not remember and a scream in his chest that will never finish hurting.
Everywhere burns—the purpling bruise over his eye, the one blossoming on his jaw, the tenderness from when she kicked him in the stomach. It doesn't matter. A Textbook cannot afford to linger on such trivialities. He learns. He practices. He obeys. And he fails. Every day is the same day, until Yoshihide returns.
Every day is the same day every day is the same day
When Lucio is aware enough that his mind is no longer static, when he is lucid enough to remember who he is and where he is, he is held—not by his collar, but an arm under his shoulder that is careful. Gentle.
And all too warm.
“You passed out,” Ren explains. His face is next to his. This close, Lucio is starkly aware of how hard his heart is beating. “My humble self simply decided to lend you some aid.”
Lucio’s first thought is that there must be a price for it.
He searches his eyes, a cursory glance that yields none. But it's not enough to assuage the churning that insists there will be one. “I’m fine,” he hoarsely says. It’s not a lie, not anymore. He pushes Ren off, relieved and disappointed when the Pinky Apprentice does not fight him.
“Lucio,” Ren says. His gaze is unreadable. It unsettles him as much as his touch. His gentleness. “I will not make you choose. However, my offer is naught but a gesture. My hand is not one in which you must give up something in return."
Lucio doesn’t answer. He leaves Ren behind in silence, trudging deeper into the Corridors, into its endless, winding halls. It doesn't matter. Only his master matters. That hand will never touch him again. He is Lucio, the Thumb Apprentice; Lucio the Textbook.
And yet, the ghost of his hand burns more than his master's ever did.
It’s Saturday. It's Sunday. Or is it Monday? He doesn't know anymore. This place has a way of driving him completely, painfully mad. 10 AM or 9 PM; he walks back empty and bruised and better. Time doesn’t matter here, not when it encases them like a cocoon. Trapping them further and further until they no longer remember if the sky was ever blue.
He blinks, and it is morning. He blinks, and it noon. He is on the ground, he is burning. Somewhere, another bone has been broken. He blinks, and he is bleeding and nothing has changed at all.
It is night again and it is morning. His face has been bandaged, his arm now in a cast. As always, he stands behind his master, even as his body begs to break and his heart is filled with knives. When she orders him to refill her glass to the brim, he obeys without question because he is Lucio, he is hers.
When she smashes the bottle in a fit of rage, he pointedly makes an effort to not flinch in front of her. When she gouges him with barbs that are sharpened with old misery, he accepts them as though they are food placed to his lips. He is perfect like this. He wonders if Yoshihide has ever been this perfect.
Three bottles in is when she suddenly touches him. Lucio does not cower. He has trained himself not to. But she doesn't inflict pain, instead moving her hand to stroke his hair. That same hand that once gave him a broken nose, a broken heart. Her mouth smiles, no longer venomous but cloying.
“Good job, Textbook,” she slurs pleasantly. Not his master, his captor-savior, but now his mother.
And it is then that Lucio understands why he cannot kill her. Why there is a layer of guilt, or even something like love. Why he could not bear the others’ open, softer kindness. Why he rejects their lavish offerings, only to lap away at this crumb.
With Valencina, it feels as though he truly deserves it. Like he has finally earned the right to drink water from her hand. She makes his pain worth something. She gives meaning to his anguish. He would’ve died if not for her. He would’ve been nothing if not for her.
And he also knows this: only when it is no longer enough can he finally kill her and put an end to this.