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"You're gonna keep avoiding me like the plague?"
Jax stopped walking towards his room. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Pomni standing in between her door and his.
The awards had ended and everybody was most likely sleeping like logs after the gun "adventure". Ragatha, especially, had said lots of times how tired she was, though none of her comments pretended to make Pomni take the blame. Kinger had said nothing in particular, Gangle didn't have her happy mask but seemed quite content, and Zooble just kept yawning the whole ceremony. Once that was over, everyone just went back to their rooms slowly.
Everyone except for Jax, Pomni noticed. He'd been wandering a while around the circus's main stage, pacing, then he'd laid down on the floor and spread all his limbs out like a starfish. He stayed there for a couple of minutes just staring into the very high ceiling, then must have gotten bored and started walking back to his room. Pomni had been watching, hiding near the hallway's entrance. When Jax came her way and passed her, without noticing her, she just started following him silently.
So now there they were, both aware of each other's presence.
If tension and hesitance were materialized, there would be several blocks of steel separating them.
"I'm not avoiding you," his tone was betraying him. "You're just no fun to play with anymore."
"You're so full of it," Pomni whispered, her eyebrows drawing closer.
"Pomni, I told you to stop looking," Jax turned his head away from her.
"Yeah, you told me, doesn't mean you can make me."
Jax sighed.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Pomni was taken aback. She fully expected him to lash out again or for him to even ignore her so hard she'd have to resign to not talk to him again for a while.
Then she thought about it. What did she want? She wanted everything to go back to normal. Before the fight, the distressing speech he gave her, the quiet… before she hugged him. She'd never hugged anyone in the circus before, not willingly, nor by accident.
And so she understood her impulse as a want, one of the few she allowed herself ever since she appeared in this digital space.
She could've said that, that she wanted to hug him again. It wouldn't be a lie. But she knew he'd be unresponsive and evasive if she did. So this time she repressed that want and instead thought of Jax. What could he want? There appeared to be many things he wanted, and Pomni was sure Kaufmo and probably some other person was included in that category, but since she knew better than to trust his words thanks to his little outburst, she'd have to find other way to bypass his question.
"I wanted to apologize," she blurted out.
Jax's ears twitched a little, but he kept his back to her.
"I don't think I ever asked you to," he clarified.
"I know, but I also know you deserve it."
He didn't know what to do with this. Her kindness was suffocating.
"I saw the way you looked at me when I mentioned Kaufmo earlier. And when I said that your attitude was, uh… was the reason he may have ended up the way he did. I pushed you too hard. I was wro—"
"You know what I hate most about you, Pompom?" he interrupted her.
She jumped a little to the sound of her nickname, she never thought he'd call her that way again. Still, she kept quiet so he could talk more.
"Your stubbornness." Jax rubbed the back of his neck and turned a little to look at her agian.
His pupils weren't filling the yellow of his eyes. At this point Pomni had learned that those eyes were reliable, unlike Jax's words. His eyes could be serious and calm even if his pupils were not dilated as they almost always were, and so Pomni knew he was actually listening and engaging in the conversation.
"Even in the real world a lot of people used to tell me I'm very hard-headed," she gave a warm smile.
"Yeah, well, they were right," he looked elsewhere, he couldn't bear to look at her smile without feeling like he was going to melt.
A beat of silence, and then two.
"I meant it. I'm sorry. You can be frustrating, but that doesn't give me the right to poke at your past. I just… I don't know. I wanted you to react in a way that felt real, that felt like the real you, not the you that has empty eyes all the time," she confessed.
She only noticed the gravity of her words once they were out in the air, floating like very inadequate dust particles.
Jax had his eyes on her again, eyebrows arched a little, mouth slightly open. His look was not one of apallment or disgust, so Pomni knew she didn't screw up. But he didn't look happy or satisfied either.
"But… this, this isn't real, Pomni," he spoke suddenly.
She sighed.
"Are you afraid of accepting the fact that we're trapped here while our bodies outside are who-knows-where?" She didn't want to ask such heavy questions in such a light tone, but couldn't stop herself.
He almost began stuttering, Pomni could see his left hand— the one he'd pushed her with— was trembling.
"N-no, I don't really care. It's just more convenient to think about all of this like a weird alternate reality where nothing matters." He gave it his best at rolling his eyes. It wasn't the most convincing attempt.
"Well, if it didn't matter, you wouldn't have been as upset when I mentioned Kafumo, would you?"
Jax couldn't say anything to contradict her. She was like a sorceress with every key to him at her hand.
"Right," he muttered.
She blinked, then asked, "What else are you afraid of, Jax?"
He thought about it, but the answer was kind of obvious. It had been in front of him for the past five minutes.
"Hurting you," the confession came quiet. "Hurting you just like I hurt them."
And so, Pomni gave way to her want, holding his hand in the dark.