Archive of Our Own

Satya burst through the academy door, fresh eyed and determined. Now that her parents had made all their appropriate arrangements, and she had completed orientation, the only thing she had left to do was sort out her room. All the other students were still chatting away in the free hours of the day, but she wanted an early start at setting up. It was a cramped space, one bed tucked away to either side and a lone window housing a desk just wide enough for two people to work simultaneously. Fortunately, it seemed like she was rooming alone, considering the lack of belongings on the other bed. Good. Less distractions. 

Although admittedly, in the deepest corners of her journal, hidden away from where her parents could see, thought sometimes but not often and never aloud, she had desired intellectual company.

Being early was in her favour though, it allowed her time to organise everything to its exact place. She began to unpack the suitcase on the floor. There was an order to these things. Each item of clothing meticulously folded to its smallest, neatest form. It meant they fit perfectly in each drawer, with minimal intervention on her part. She took her time, eyeing the door in case any surprise roommate appeared. 

But there was no one. 

And she denied her heart being sad about that, because it was definitely better like this, and it meant she could arrange some of her personal decorations up. She had few things other than clothes, mostly her required books for study, the tablet her parents had bought as a prize for entering the prestigious Vishkar Academy, and her several award trophies from her previous successes. Gently placing them on the shelf, a small smile lifted her lips. She would do well here, just as she’d always done before.

The light from the window was slowly beginning to dim, the pale brightness morphing into a softer, blueish hue, as the night began to yawn awake and the academy lights outside took their first breaths. It was getting late, and she could feel the weight of the day dragging tiredness into her bones. Slipping into a more comfortable set of khameez, she began her ritual of nightly stretches to keep her muscles strong and nimble, before setting her alarm for 7am and carefully attending bedtime.

The academy beds were not plush, nor the same scent as her bed at home, nor was the mattress completely smooth, but it was still soft. She’d taken bed and duvet covers from home, and clutched them tightly to her chest. Her mother’s embroidery pressed comforting stitches against her fingertips - the over blanket of thin maroon resplendent with flourishing images of nesting birds, blooming flowers and leaves. They were static, unchanging. Her favourite constant.

She never found sleep easy, especially not now. But it was quiet as she waited for it to arrive. With her last conscious breath, she whispered her wish aloud, only while alone able to admit desire. 

“I guess I’m by myself now…”

She did not tear up as her eyes closed, but it wouldn’t have mattered. No one would have seen.

~♡~◇~{※}~◇~♡~

“Hello!!! Are you awake?”

Abruptly, Satya sat up, alert by the sudden noise. However, the person speaking had been standing over her sleeping face, leading to their foreheads colliding instantly. Both yelped in pain, as a harsh throb pounded across both of their heads. Recovering quickly, Satya jabbed a finger accusingly at her attacker. 

“Who are you! How did you get in my room?”

In front of her was a young man, his white hair styled into a mullet, a longish swooping fringe swept to the side of his nose, framing a warm light-brown face that was currently groaning in pain. His deep brown eyes blinked open to look at her, and the pouting wince instantly transformed into a wide, beaming smile. Holding out a hand, he straightened and puffed out his chest.

“Ah! I didn’t meet you last night, did I? Ahem–! You are Satya, right?”

She refused to answer until he did, her frown ever-growing into a scowl, although she did take the hand to shake. Taking it in stride, the strange boy merely laughed.

“I fear I’ve frightened you for sure, if you are. My name is Niran, your roommate.”

Flipping her hand over, he gently kissed the back of her palm.

“A delight to meet you, and apologies for the scare.”

Satya barely heard the words, her mind stuck on one phrase. Your roommate.

A roommate? Truly? Had she woken to a dream come true? Could that mean she might possibly find someone to share space and theories and thoughts with? Someone who could possibly become her friend?

As her eyes sparkled at the opportunity, they glanced behind him and her jaw dropped in shock. Muffled behind her flurry of thoughts, Niran was clearly taking her reaction as awe, “humbly” laughing at how she didn’t need to be so surprised to have such a stunning roommate, he knew how to tone down his charm. Little did he know, he’d already relinquished all concept of charm from her mind.

Behind the buffoon shaking her hand was a typhoon of clothes. An open suitcase, mostly unpacked, lay on the floor in the middle of the room, while a plethora of other clothes had been strewn across the bed. At least none were on the floor, but the desk had been desecrated, with half of her books chaotically shoved to the side with no purpose other than to make way for his various sets of skincare. Their shared bathroom door had been left half open and she felt her eye twitch at the wet streaks trailing out of the tiles and staining the room itself. All that work last night to make sure her space was impeccably clean – gone, in a night’s worth of sleep.

She was wrong.

She had woken in a nightmare.

Curtly, she let go of his hand, brushing it against her blanket as she spoke.

“Satya. Good to meet you, finally. I thought no one else would be coming.”

It was easy to make that sound comfident as a jab at him, it was true after all, even though she was hidng her real thoughts on the matter. Niran didn’t notice and loungingly sat on her bed, leaning onto her legs immediately.

“Haha yeah… I was up really late last night, talking to some of the others.”

Incredulous, Satya moved her legs away and began to leave bed, huffing as she checked the time. It didn’t improve her mood to realise she’d missed her alarm and it was now 7:30.

“On your first day? Ridiculous. What time did you even arrive, last night?”

Shrugging, Niran hummed in thought.

“Hmm~ Not too late, I only got back a half hour before midnight! It takes some time to get through my facial routine so I left a bit earlier than I would’ve, I wanted to be well-rested for today!”

Satya turned slowly back to face his easy-going grin, oblivious to the psychic damage he’d just projected into her brain. She looked him up an down. He had yet to get dressed either, sitting with a leg crossed over the other in just his shorts and a silk robe that left little of his chest to the imagination. Her eyebrow twitched.

“Very well. Niran. If you are to be my roommate, we must set some ground rules.”

~♡~◇~{※}~◇~♡~

The first few weeks were hell. It took forever to ensure that Niran’s mess at least stayed confined within his side of the room, but the very sight still irked Satya each time. She’d clean up for him sometimes, setting things neatly to the side so they wouldn’t fall to the floor, and she was shocked by his audacity to get mad at her for moving his things. 

“Put them away so they do not bother me then!”

Throwing his hands up in the air, Niran seethed, trying to gesticulate at nothing.

“Satya, dearly beloved, they are ‘away’! I left them there so I know where I put them! You can’t just move my things without asking!”

"It is not an 'invasion' of privacy when my privacy is also yours! Keep your things out of sight, it disgusts me to see them."

"You can't be serious, I do keep them off your side. Look! Not a thing on your bed."

"I found your underwear on the chair again Niran-- I'm not going to let you get away with acting like an uncivilised rat under my roof!"

Something about her words seemed to strike him. Hard. Niran froze, staring at her with an expression she didn't usually catch on him. Hurt.

It was gone as soon as it appeared, as he rolled his eyes and wiped his face, turning around with a grand gesture. His elbows shook fervently, the shivers travelling up to his hands that he flapped about angrily as he huffed.

"Fine! Very well! You win, Satya. I'll put everything I ever want here, and nowhere else."

He jabbed at a corner of the room which could feasibly hold a pile of junk. Satisfied, Satya nodded approvingly, smugness dripping from her voice.

"Appropriate. Good, thank you Niran."

"But."

Niran held up a finger and a devilish smirk swept across his face, as he hid his hands behind his back and strode confidently towards her.

"You must trust my word Satya, I'm a very honest and truthful person. So I'll do as I say now, and I will also promise you that you will pay for moving my stuff all the time..." 

Satya rolled her eyes.

Later that night, she regretted her scorn. Deeply. Holding the pillow to her ears, she wondered if there was a way to muffle the air around her to mute her screaming. Or alternatively to ram the pillow into Niran’s face and suffocate him. Currently, in the dead of night, he was singing, cleaning and cooking somehow all at once, making an absolute racket. He’d invited a friend to the room, after double checking with Satya that it wasn’t against the rules - regrettably, it was not - and they coincidentally only arrived after she’d gotten into bed.

Loudly shushing this “Sol” person, Niran began to aggressively introduce them to every aspect of the room, in excruciating detail. Satya had snapped a couple times for them to be quiet, but Niran had gasped, dramatically, and reminded her that she promised to be polite while his guest was there and if she was in the habit of breaking promises, then so could he.

It was infuriating.

Stuck within this hell, Satya did her best to try to sleep anyway, tossing and turning with a groan every time Niran loudly remarked on how lovely she was as a roommate and how he absolutely loved to spend his company with her.
She failed miserably, and was still awake by the time he cheerfully guided his guest out the door and then plopped back onto his bed, at 1am, humming proudly.

“Such a lovely omnic! I’m surprised Vishkar lets it run around by itself so much. Especially after all those horror infomercials it takes part in, surely it’d give someone a fright. They really do need better security, it’s as if this place just throws whatever it can at us without thinking.”

Severely tired as she was, Satya still attempted at an answer, half slurring the words.

“The world is changing, I’m sure Vishkar must show itself as the epitome of progress.”

Amused, Niran looked back at her, having only understood ‘veh vorlf vish chaynim.’

“My~ someone sounds sleepy. It is a little past your bedtime for you to be up, no?”

Even despite his smugness trilling through his smirk, Satya’s immediate glare had him wither a little. With full clarity, she scowled once more.

“If you’re quite done now, dear Niran, perhaps it is both of our bedtimes. And it will be so, whether you are the one to close your eyes or I am.”

Nervously laughing, Niran held his hands up and nodded. 

“Of course. I’m done now.”

“Good.”

She turned away from him. Her bed was clean. The room was quiet again. And she was all ready to relax again and settle. But sleep never came easy for her, and it did not still. Her recent classes had been more challenging than she had anticipated, and coming back to Niran’s antics hadn’t helped her mood. She ground her teeth, seeking any comfort from all the thoughts running through her head. 

A soft noise broke through the clamour.

A snore.

Turning back in disbelief, she was shocked to find that Niran had fallen asleep almost immediately. How was it so easy for him? How did he make everything seem so- so casual??

She huffed again, watching his face shift into a neutral, peaceful look. He kept snoring, a constant, repeating pattern. He slept with his robe splayed against the blanket, his hair wrapped in a silk bonnet similar to hers, and he was the picture of a sleeping princess. Satya, strangely, couldn’t tear her eyes away. She didn’t notice as her lids began to droop, her eyes tracing the way his lips turned downwards to a frown she never saw him wear. Does he hide such things, perhaps? Is that why was always so annoyingly chatty? No, of course not, that idiot couldn’t have more to him than a pretty face. She knew he struggled in their classes, all he knew to do was to talk handsomely and let his face do all the work. Though, didn’t he sometimes return quiet and unspeaking?
He would never turn his face to her, those times.

Her last thought followed her as she floated into sleep, her mind’s footsteps each to the beat of his snores. And she dreamt of what it would look like to see him cry.

And how it would feel to comfort him.

~♡~◇~{※}~◇~♡~

Golden sunlight streamed through the open window, filtering glittering flecks across Satya’s hair. Absent-mindedly, she tucked the loose strands behind an ear, her dark eyes concentrating on the paper in front of her. Her brows were scrunched into a disgruntled expression, the same kind she would give him when he said something she found idiotic. Her smooth palms flicked between the pages of the book, seemingly searching for something and lightly scowling as the book refused to make things easy for her. Niran watched from his bed, long since abandoned his own book, enraptured.

It was amusing how she appeared to attempt glowering her own homework into submission. 

The hard-light sphere she was perfecting was slowly coming together in front of her, but each time a piece shattered, her entire body jolted as if struck with rage. But still, she continued, tirelessly. Each morphing twitch of her face just a new expression for him to observe. From the depths of his heart, it slipped out before he even thought to stop it.

“You look beautiful while you work, Satya.”

She paused, not startled out of a trance but certainly dispelled for a moment by the voice, before shaking her head with a smile. They’d grown more accustomed to living together now, half a year having passed and their initial gripes and fights working themselves out into a workable peace. Flicking to a new page, she retorted light-heartedly, a chuckle at the tail end of her words.

“Flattery will not earn you desk privileges Niran, you know this.”

Laughter bubbled within him, as he realised he’d spoken aloud. He inched closer, shuffling to the edge of the bed to rest his head at the desk and look up at her admiringly. 

“Ah, but Satya, jewel of sparkling light, starlight given human form, your beauty is unspeakable and merely must be praised! Especially within this insufferable academy, really have you seen the state of its dreary streets.”

Satya snorted, distracting herself momentarily to push his face off the desk. Niran yelped as he was shoved away, mock-pouting.

“Hey!! Now is that any way to treat an admirer?”

He expected her to merely return to her work, rolling her eyes as always, but found instead that she was smiling at him. Rainbow light speckled her rich skin as the sun hit her hard-light sphere, but it was her beaming grin that blinded him. She truly was stunning when she allowed her face to do more than scowl. But there was a warmth in seeing her so casual with him, as he’d only ever seen her hint a smile when she won her awards and affirmed her place at Vishkar.

Niran had never told her, but he’d grown quietly jealous of the slowly growing list of achievements living above her bed – a shelf of her pride mocking him every night he went to sleep. If he saw her smile like this every time she received one, maybe it’d take the edge off that hatred. Just a little though, he was still petty.

“If you were a sincere admirer, Niran, you would not be distracting me so much. I’m struggling enough as is.”

Though her smile had yet to fade, her eyes quickly returned to her work, the words still serious. More books were taken out of her monstrous pile she kept on one side of the desk, as she heaved different textbooks and onto different chapters, desperate to find the one she was missing. 

“Oh? A problem that has stumped the queen of quick answers? Now this must truly be a worthy foe!”

Niran sighed, admiring how hard she was working. There was a twinge of jealousy in him, still. The way she seemed to absorb information so quickly, when those same textbooks sometimes dwarfed his attention span, it was hard not to wish he had that. Still, he shifted to come closer again, picking up one of her discarded sheets as she pored over a book. From where her workings stopped, it seemed that she was struggling to parse a reliable way to control her luminescence, creating friction between her ability to hold it together. It seemed… familiar, actually.  

“...Have you tried running this through the Bishop Theorem? Perhaps if you combine it with your function in the Brimmonial format, it could simplify your third variable.”

Satya paused fully this time, blinking rapidly as she processed what he said.

“What did you say?”

Now it was her turn to see Niran’s eyes glow in curiosity, his concentration formed by fingers pinching his lips as he thought. Focused, he reached over to a book past her, one she’d not read through properly yet, and quickly flicked to a chapter in the middle, pointing.

“Here. I’ve found this author to explain it best. If you use the Bishop Theorem, you can connect its angular resonance together with the protonyllic bonds, and it gets a little easier to multiply out of the earlier variables that way.”

He smiled at her kindly – somehow the same smile that came up with idiotic requests to bring an entire field of roses indoors was speaking sense to her. Tentatively, she reached out and held the book, tracing the section he’d highlighted and flicking her eyes back to her own work.

“Oh– This is– Very helpful actually. I’d been rearranging it to suit the original parametric form, but this theorem eliminates the need to differentiate it altogether!”

“Right? And then if you just apply the results, you can amplify the waves generated–”

“–To create a new frequency that can uphold against stress! You are correct!”

Delighted, she threw herself into applying the new knowledge, eager to discover whether it would truly create sense into where she had erred prior. Niran chuckled, a soft pride stirring in his chest at being listened to.

“Where did you even learn of this? I haven’t ever heard of this theorem before!”

Satya’s voice was unnaturally giddy, her pen still flying across the paper as she asked. With a performative hum, Niran flourished a hand towards her, not quite seeing it as all that amazing but happy to boast regardless.

“Well, such genius can’t just give away his secrets so easily, you see–”

Suddenly, warmth enveloped his fingers, as Satya grabbed at his hand in her excitement, begging.

“This is genius Niran, I had no idea you had such knowledge! You must tell me where, immediately. Is it extra lessons? Have there been professors telling you things secretly?”

Startled by the compliment, he stared at where their hands were meeting, feeling himself stutter. He had hoped to avoid having to explain this part, but his mind was frazzled by the feeling of her skin against his. Satya never touched anyone, she was always weird about what others had touched and how their hygiene couldn't be trusted to be perfect. She never initiated anything, not even a handshake or a hug. And now she was grabbing his fingers, pleading with him to tell her.

“W-Well, it’s not really so complicated like that. Uhm–”

Cutting him off, she sighed, shaking her head, almost dreamy with how she cut him down.

“I don’t know why you let yourself lag behind like this if you’re actually capable. Why you waste your potential so much is idiotic to me!”

Ah.

Niran’s smile twitched a little, feeling the icicles stab into his heart. It was always unfortunate how that word always seemed to crop up, huh?

Potential.

Even when she was praising him, she wouldn’t really understand would she? After all, Satya never had to struggle to focus in each class, to have to beg the professors for extra time on an assignment and then stay up so late she can barely keep awake in the morning classes. These things just came so easy for her. 

Niran retreated a little, not able to hide his discomfort behind a smile quite in time. He took his hand from hers gently, resting them in his lap. 

“Oh, you know, I’m just a bit lazy in class. I’m glad it helped, Satya, truly. I can leave you now though–”

“Wait. Why are you doing that?”

“Hm?”

“That face. You make it when you don’t want to tell me something?”

Blinking, he laughed in surprise, letting his emotions vanish from his face.

“Whatever could you mean? I have nothing to hide. You really have been reading too many books, perhaps your eyes are getting affected?”

Satya hesitated, staring at him. Niran shrugged it off and scooted backwards back onto the bed, moving to hide the book he’d been reading, but a voice made him turn.

“I’m not good with people.”

He almost laughed at her statement - after all it was obvious to anyone who’d ever spoken to her - but her tone gave him pause. She was still staring at him, at his lips really, where there had previously been a large grin. Her hands were stationary on the desk before her, work forgotten as she spoke to him in a quiet voice.

“Tell me if I’m wrong, Niran. Because I don’t like to be incorrect. I think that smile you use sometimes means that you are holding something back. If that is not true… Then tell me.”

He was staring back. 

There wasn’t just sincerity in her words, since Satya never said anything half-heartedly, but something he hadn’t noticed in her before. Genuine… concern?

He wanted to lie. Tell her she was wrong, and he knew she would just nod and turn back to the paper and then nothing would have happened, but the words struck in his throat. He was so good at this - he was meant to be good at this. He’s great at convincing people, that’s the only thing he can do right. So. Why was he not?

“...No, you’re correct. You’re… very observant, Satya. You aren’t wrong.”

Her eyes widened a little and she stiffened, straightening as the implications hit her. He waited for her to turn back to her work given the answer, but she didn’t. Biting her lip, she slowly choked out her next words, seemingly uncomfortable with the very process.

“Very well. Then. May I know what you are not telling me?”

Despite himself, he couldn’t help but chuckle a little. Surely the struggle there was to phrase that as asking for permission, rather than demanding upfront. He hadn’t known she considered him worth the effort.

Perhaps… She could be too?

The thought ran ahead of his mouth, already speaking out loud before he could bring his walls up again.

“I’m not sure you’d understand, but… ok.”

He shifted, pulling out the book from behind him - An Introduction to Hard-Light Principles - and sighed.

“I’m not good at our lessons. I can never tell what the professors are saying, even if they explain it to me after. Sometimes I think I know what’s going on, and then something new comes along and it all goes again. I started studying on my own time to learn - and I really like it when it’s by myself. But I can’t finish any of the work we’re meant to do still, so it feels like I’m still just lagging behind.”

It felt dull to say aloud. A hollow truth he’d stopped himself from admitting. His teachers just saw him as lazy, his parents hid their disappointment but he knew, he always knew. And as much as he laughed with everyone else, he could tell they knew he wasn’t like them too. His right arm clutched at the book, gripping onto his place in this school tightly. If he could hold it so hard his flesh bled, he would, the soft skin of his palms straining against the hardback of the textbook. 

“Oh.”

Right, Satya. She was looking at him with that damnable pity he expected. But… where he’d expected her mocking, there was none. There was just a silence as she chose her own words carefully, looking anywhere but him.

“Uh. Well.”

Awkwardly, she lifted a hand to brush some of her hair back again, tucking it behind her ear.

“Perhaps I can help with that. Would you be open to being tutored?”

~♡~◇~{※}~◇~♡~

“Satya, my blossoming spring flower! Light of my life, my reason to live!”

“Good evening, Bua.”

Niran laughed joyously as he waltzed in through the door, trailing little petals of light from his fanciful dress. The end of the first year was coming, and there was a ball to attend! With the help of Satya, he’d only just managed to get a high enough mark to be allowed to attend so all spirits were high!

Satya smiled as he entered, shaking her head a little as she returned to fiddling with her sari. Her mother used to wrap the scarf in such a way that her pleats were perfect, even without pins, and she was struggling to see what was going on at her feet. Glancing up, she saw that Niran had opted for a looser style, his chest once again on full display as his pastel pink dress draped over his shapely shoulders and left the majority of his legs uncovered. It was unseemingly. But, it was also so entirely him, so she had grown accustomed to it.

Somewhere along the way of this year, her daily routines and constants had begun to include him as a feature. She kept trying with the sash as she observed him walking to his wardrobe, producing a small jar and then walking into the bathroom. After a few minutes, she could hear curses of frustration, as the bountiful joy he’d walked in with was chipped away. It was a comforting sight to see that he was also struggling a little, surely fussing about with his hair that had grown longer, now resting by his elbows.

Niran glowered at the mirror.

He’d been trying this stupid braid a thousand times already, but he just couldn’t get it to look beautiful enough for his standards. He’d cherrypicked pink petals to interweave through the locks, but they kept falling - every attempt wilting their precious edges inwards. Groaning, he gave up and left the bathroom to fall onto his bed. The covers were littered with his previous outfits he’d put on, rejected, and couldn’t put back away again, and thus not very comfortable to lay upon. But he put up with it, because he was angrier at his reflection right now.

“Aurgh! This stupid academy’s mirrors are too small! How am I to fashion my beautiful face into something presentable like this!”

Satya giggled, turning away to hide from his glare as she did so. Calmly, she pinned her sash to an acceptable place (but it was still not perfect) and turned her attention to her own hair. Picking up a blooming pink hairclip, she pinned back her own dark locks into half-up half-down style. Niran watched her, feeling himself soften. 

He had given her that clip as a gift, and it delighted him to see that she was wearing it, pairing it as a strong contrast to the emerald green sari and bangles she’d adorned. He, himself, bore a verdant brooch over the front of his dress, a subtle connection between the two of them. A thread to tie them together during the party. 

Once finished with her own hair, Satya carefully walked over and sat next to him. Her movements were precise in order to avoid touching either him or any of his dirty clothes strewn about, but her face was gentle.

“Would you like me to do your hair for you?”

It took a moment for the words to ring true, but once done, Niran sprang into a grin.

“Oh would you? Thank you Satya, that would be splendid!”

Chuckling, she motioned for him to kneel in front of her, with his back to her.

“Very well. I will make it perfect for you, Bua. Trust me.”

He nodded and did as asked.

He felt her fingers as they rummaged through his hair, brushing past his scalp to gather it all up as one. Soon, she began to hum lightly as she worked, warm elegance grazing his skin as she slowly separated each section and threaded them together. Niran smiled, secretly. In truth, there were few he would trust with his hair, especially as he’d seen so many get it wrong before. But Satya was precise, and she knew him well, anticipating every shift of his head before he even moved and accounting for it with her own actions. There was a safety to the feeling of her hands that he only knew here, in this room.

He didn’t know what he’d do without her, now. She’d planted a special seed and grown such a fond place in his heart.

“There. Up, let me see.”

He already knew what she’d say even before he turned, flourishing the braid with a proud smile that mirrored her own.

“Of course. You look perfect, Niran.”

Rising to stand, Niran held out a hand in gratitude.

“My dazzling dancer, thank you. Now I truly do look great!”

He struck a pose, earning a small laugh as she took his hand and stood too.

“Allow me to return the favour. Would you like help with your sari?”

Surprised, she quirked an eyebrow up.

“You’ve dressed someone before in these?”

Lightly laughing, he gave her a cheeky wink as he grabbed some of her safety pins and held them between his teeth.

“No, but I’ve certainly undressed quite a few people in them before. Come here, I recall the basics.”

Despite her face furiously heating up, and despite her indignant whack to his head, she found herself trusting him all the same. Niran worked quickly, glancing at the reference image and recreating it perfectly. His fingers were nimble and as always, he was caring enough to limit touching her in any way. She adored that about him.

She hadn’t felt known until coming here, but perhaps her wish had come true after all. She’d finally found a place to stand beside, a person she loved to laugh and discuss things with, a conversation that felt natural to her. 

A friend.

“Done! Now, we are both perfect.”

Beaming at her with his handsome, wonderful smile, Niran stepped back. He pulled out his phone and gestured for her to join him.

“For the memories! Come on, we should aim to remember this night forever!”

Satya felt the grin that came to her face in the moment to be… perfect. 

This moment was perfect.

She wanted to stay in this moment forever.

~♡~◇~{※}~◇~♡~

“Satya- Satya. S-S- Please- Plea-”

“NIRAN!”

Satya screamed as the door opened to a bloody mess.

She wasn’t even meant to be here. She knew that Niran had been taken to a separate class for specialty training. Considering how difficult she was finding her own… adjustment, she worried for him. He’d missed the course on how to properly adjust after the procedure after all, and she hadn’t been able to catch him afterwards to teach him. For some reason, the professors had sequestered him away after their last exam results had been released. 

He hadn’t returned to the room for the past few days, and normally she wouldn’t think more of it.

But. There was a nagging feeling. Stuck in her throat. 

And she followed it to the trail of her last professor, the one who had hated Niran the most, and who skipped off down a dark hallway, down to the basement. 

That’s when she heard the first whimper.

“Niran? Niran!”

He was gasping, heaving desperately against the leather straps chaining him to the chair. Crimson blood tainted his face, bloodying his clothes and the chair. It pooled at their feet and she screamed at the sight. There was so much blood. What had happened? Who had done this? Ivory white hair now softened to his beloved pink, but it was from gruesome splashes of his own agony. His face was contorted in pain, softly whimpering with every effort to breathe. It hurt her just to look at him.

She ran to his side immediately, dodging the puddles of blood on the floor in order to reach the buckles. Her fingers weren’t quick enough. Why was she shaking? She needed to be strong for him right now. She couldn’t shake. Why were these buckles so hard-

“Augh! Ah- A- S- Satya please- yo- I- I can’t-”

His lungs were shaking and his voice sounded so soft and weak and hurt and he was hurt and-

Finally, she released the buckles, and he slumped forward into her.

The weight of his body instantly solved the mystery of what had happened. 

Her metal arm, the one that the academy had gifted to all their best students, moved forward to catch his shoulder. And met metal.

The procedure. He’d received it? But he’d failed the exams - he never said this, but she had seen his face enough to know - and he hadn’t received the information lecture about how to upkeep it and what to expect–

Niran gasped, coughing blood onto her uniform. His metal fingers tried to push against her arm, but the movement was too weak to register. Instead, his head moved to the crook of her neck, whispering apologies.

“S- Sorry- Satya- I can’t-”

“Hush, Bua. I am going to save you.”

Clutching him tightly, she began to move towards the door, running through every route to the infirmary in her mind. Whoever had done this, they were licensed by the academy. Would the infirmary even help her? What could she do? Why had he gotten the procedure?

It didn’t matter. She was going to save him.

She headed for the infirmary, whispering prayers that he would be okay the whole way there.

It took a long, long time before he could speak. She stayed with him the whole night, bullying any authority that dared to go against her wishes. It was easy to get him medical attention, but it was easier to hold him as he sobbed. 

Niran’s eyes had dulled. Their once sparkling enthusiasm had died, left with a weeping husk of a man that could only clutch her close as his wails wracked through him. 

She got the full story out of him eventually. 

Vishkar’s procedure - the biomechanical arm they normally fitted in a surgery together with the others - had been painless for her. The anaesthetics and careful, calculated medicine given after had made the transition smooth. All things made perfect by Vishkar to allow the best use of their technology.

It turned out, on the failures, they performed this procedure without any of the decorum.

Through heavy sobs, Niran told her how they’d taken him, strapped him to the chair, ignored his screams as they put the laser to his arm, held his mouth down to the point of suffocation to silence him as the blood spurted everywhere. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt so so so much, he felt every piercing point of the laser as it bit down on each nerve, each mistake earned by his thrashing around, how they’re cut into his rib and healed it again and it wasn’t even a scar but it had hurt and he’d felt it. How the metal felt rough and alien against his bone and how the technology they were testing on him hurt to heal it, the veins all rotting painfully and growing anew to reattach to the arm. How he’d bitten the hand at his mouth and instead ended up choking on their blood as it flooded his throat.

How they’d just left him, after it was all done, the stench of blood heavy-set in his being and the agony left to sit within him.

Niran sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

And Satya sat there, crying with him. She’d failed. She’d failed to save him.

And she failed to go with him, when he left the academy just weeks later.

And she failed to find out what had happened to him, and surely that’s why he never found her either, right? After all, it’s what she deserves.

She’d failed her best and only friend.