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There are snotty tears running down your face. You’re sitting on the steps of your school, and hoping your sobs get lost in the wind - but the air is still. The town is empty. You don’t want to think about the future, the past, or the present. You don’t want to think at all, really, but you’re thinking nonetheless.
You hiccup into your sleeves. Susie is sleeping in Castle Town tonight. She’s there with Ralsei. She wants Noelle to come to Castle Town. Noelle’s dad fell down at the festival earlier today. Your dad is-
You sob. You feel nauseous the more you think about it all, but you can’t stop thinking. You miss Susie. She’s right there, and you could see her, but you can’t - you miss her, instead. You miss Noelle. Do you miss Noelle?
You bite the hem of your sleeve.
You feel very lonely. You also feel something else - something you can’t place. Something akin to the jolt in your stomach you’d get before a drop on a roller coaster. A creeping suspicion that there are things you can no longer hide. Or something like that.
Suddenly, your phone is ringing. It looks like your fingers had dialled in a number while you were doing all that introspection. You avert your eyes from the caller ID.
“Kris?” Says a voice, concerned and bleary with disrupted sleep - “Oh–” then, hurried, “Waitam–”
Click.
They hang up.
He hung up? You make an involuntary whimper - this is a real hit to the ego, and even worse, a reaction so pathetic you begin to feel a renewed kinship with your brother. Your brother. You feel a bit nauseous at the thought of him. You feel nauseous over a lot of things.
You look down at your phone; at the open contact page. Your eyes linger, but don’t focus. They cross over the blue blur of an icon, and soon enough, tears obscure all the vision you had left. It isn’t long before–
Your phone rings.
You pick up before your brain can narrate the action.
“Kris! Sorry, my mother was not all too pleased to be woken up to the sweet song of your custom ringtone - the trumpet fanfare from Character 3 Remix, of course, and– oh my sweet Gamora!” He whisper-shouts down the line, “Are those CRIES I hear?”
You go mute on principle.
“Mother Mary, Kris, don’t tell me they knocked you down a bracket!? Oh, wait, the internet…” Your breath hitches, and you sob into the microphone. You held it together for all of five seconds. Way to go. He pauses for a moment at the sound, erring, then speaking, “I too am brought to tears, by… the ranks I will never make on this week's battle pass… So-” He hurriedly continues, tone growing more and more self-conscious, “What brings you to my cellular address at this dark hour?”
You speak shallowly, congested and barely intelligible. Despite having been the one to initiate this call, you aren’t really committed to telling him anything.
“Um, no,” He says, quietly, and you think he might be hesitating, “I don’t think you could, actually, um…”
You don’t say anything for a second.
“Are you okay?”
“Actually– Don’t answer that, um,” He cuts you off. You hear the creak of floorboards on his end of the call. “Where, are you?”
You mumble something into the receiver.
“Oh… Well, I…” He yawns, then continues, “Suppose I could come to your side as a valiant saviour in your time of need…!”
You say the words quickly and hang up immediately, face heating another three degrees celcius. You sniffle - you hate the metric system. Your mouth quirks slightly up in bemusement at the thought, before another wave of guilt, despair and overwhelm washes over you. You sob again. A few times.
It really isn’t right to do this, but you’ve already called him. He’s already on his way. You don’t even know how he’s going to get here if his mom’s awake - it’s not like she’d let him leave the house this late in the night–
“A-ha, Kris!”
Comes a far away - but not too far away; in fact, rapidly approaching - voice. Nasally and hi-fidelity, unlike the bitcrushed timbre you’ve grown so used to over the course of many, many calls over This Cord.
You blink. How did he get here so quickly?
“You’re probably thinking,” His face appears in your line of sight, blurry, and he heaves a breath for a second before he continues his beeline with a near-delirious resolve, “How did I get here so quickly?! Well!”
He wheezes, now about five feet away, hands on his knees as he pants. He raises his index finger - haha, one. He’s not wearing his glasses. His feathers are tousled, and he’s still in his night clothes. You sniff through your tears, making sudden, bleary eye contact.
“... I ran!” He smirks.
You look away, those residual tears rolling mercilessly down your face. Your mind is fuzzy, and you feel thoroughly conflicted. You swallow a hiccup. Susie’s in Castle Town. She’ll be setting up for Noelle - to welcome her into the Dark World and tell her it wasn’t just a dream. Surely that’s all much more important than talking to Berdly. Maybe you could just close your eyes and…
As you shut your eyes, you think about how you couldn’t have possibly made a better choice.
“Um… Nice decorations, Susie…!”
“Heh, thanks. Made ‘em myself. With, uh, Lancer. Lancer made ‘em, for us. Myself.”
“Well that explains, all of the, um… the… Pf-”
“What? WHAT?!”
“Pff—”
“HEY, KNOCK IT OFF!!!!”
“Hehe- I’m sorry, they’re very… Um…”
“... Blue.”
“Yes, blue.”
“... Yyyeah…”
“... Um, Susie?”
“Yeah?”
“... What do you think Kris is doing right now?”
“Huh? .. I mean… they’re probably going back home, right?”
“I… Well I guess so, but…”
“Why? ‘Think they should be helping us out instead?”
“No! Well… I mean, they’ve… They’ve probably had a long day, but… I thought they’d–”
“Yeaaah, but they’ve probably gotta… Pshh, I dunno, go eat chocolate-chip pancakes or- like, butterscotch pie, or something?”
Susie flashes a smile. Ralsei gets a feeling.
A feeling that there are things Susie doesn’t know. And another feeling - this one, more subtle - a feeling that there are things he can no longer hide. He pauses. That’s more than a feeling. He watches Susie decorate, grin fixed to her face, glowing with passion and shining like she always does. She’s oblivious. Or, perhaps, just…
“They’ll be fine, dude.”
Hopeful?
“Right…”
Ralsei sheepishly returns her smile. Today has been a long day.
When you open your eyes again, you’re under a tree. It’s a tree you can’t be bothered to geographically describe the location of. You’re also under a wing, listening to gentle, rhythmic birdsong. This is rather novel, as you didn’t actually believe Berdly was capable of hitting a single note - let alone multiple. It’s impressive. He can almost seem competent when he wants to.
His chirps aren’t like normal singing. Monsters can be weird like that. He chitters and lilts, and being so pressed to his side you can feel the vibrations oscillate outward from his diaphragm. You try not to linger on the pit that’s forming in your stomach; the guilt that eats away at you for taking his kindness and time.
You don’t even like him that much. Your lip trembles at the thought. His arm tightens, and tears, once again, well in your eyes.
Your face drains of colour as you speak words you really don’t want to be saying. As your mouth moves, you consider puppetting Berdly’s hand - forcing him to make the plunge into your chest and rip out this terrifying, distorted, disobedient, needy part of you; the part you despise, the part that nags and controls and ACTs, and–
“Wh- Kris, stop saying…” He swallows. You feel it. “-Hah,! I mean, to say.. Your- Your dialogue tree must be looping!”
You sense the way he shoves down his concern. It’s familiar. And yet, even now, he’s still with you. He’s here, comforting you, even though you’ve done nothing but wh███ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████ ████ █████ █████████ ███████. You sniff, repeating like a broken record. Like it’s the only thing you can say.
“Kris…”
He hesitantly pulls you into a full hug. It feels wrong. So, so wrong. But you’re scrambling to reciprocate, and you’re clinging to him tighter than he’s willing to hold onto you. You’re still babbling. It’s the only thing you’re allowed to say.
“I know– I don’t know, I don’t.. I don’t understand…”
He mumbles into your hair. You feel his breath against the top of your head as he exhales, just as uncertain as you but surely much more dignified. You nearly laugh. But there’s only one thing you’re allowed to say. He says it’s okay - he doesn’t, but the way he holds you makes you feel like it might be. Your eyes squeeze tightly shut. Maybe, if you can only focus on the dark, you’ll find her there. Her smile. Her light.
But your head is swimming.
He brings a dull claw to the top of your scalp, and scratches apprehensively. It jolts you - it’s not what you expected to feel, and that’s your fault. Your thoughts are poisonous. A few moments pass. He scratches again. You lean into it. He laughs a bit, just as confused as he has been this whole time. You’re both confused.
You feel a gentle breeze against your body, pressed close against his.
“I thought… Well… I didn’t want her to be… Um…”
You look up.
“Actually– No, just…”
His eyes go wide. “About– About Noelle?” You pull slightly back. He holds you in place. You feel small - you can’t look at him. You didn’t mean Noelle. Maybe you did. You’re mortified.
“I- Um, well…” He lets up. You hold him tighter. He copies you, instantly. When you relax back into his arms - his wings, the way his feathers wrap around you - he continues, words puzzled and slow.
“I suppose that... If I had known she held such passionate feelings for Susan, well, I wouldn’t have dared come between them..! But…”
Your eyes move upwards, even though Berdly can’t see them. You want to focus on him. You need to know what he thinks. You need this. You hate yourself. You need it.
“I was so blinded by my own desires, I hadn’t the faintest clue they’d led me to my own downfall… I was, as one may say, overcome by my own hubris….” He pauses for dramatic effect.“Like a man confined to a cauldron with a sledgehammer as his only tool, I too have been doomed to scale endless heaps of my own emotional garbage in hopes of reaching a goal that was not designed for me to attain!”
“Alas, like him, I need to…” Berdly turns away, “Get over it.”
Right. You blink, three times, rapidly. Not like he sees.
“But, Kris– If… That’s what this is about…”
You panic. This can’t turn back on you. You can’t think about this in relation to you. You’ll scream. You’ll cry. You’ll bite him. No you won’t, that’s weird. Well, he’d probably let you bite him. That’s nice, at least.
“Then that’s okay. Maybe we can…”
He coughs. He lets go. You don’t look up.
“Well- now that they’ll be playing duos, surely you’ll need a new partner to help you clutch the ever-crucial victory royale, Kris! And, of course,” He aggrandises, faster and faster with every word, “That’s where I come in. When… The internet comes back on, at least…”
He deflates. And again, it’s quiet. You’ve said nothing. You’ve done nothing. Again. He places a hesitant hand on your back.
“But I’m– happy! .. For them.”
“Kris, wh– MPH?!”
You reach up and kiss Berdly.
Those horrible words die on your lips, pre-occupied on his beak as you burn with resentment, fear and guilt. He pulls back, a bewildered look in his eyes. You can’t meet them. His winged arms hesitantly pull you back into a hug. You’re sobbing into him without a second thought.
“You–...”
He goes quiet. He rubs your back, hesitantly at first, and then with more and more confidence. It makes you feel sick. Safe, and sick. What have you done?
“It’s– It’s okay,” He fumbles, confused, “It’s okay, Kris…”
This is the worst night of your life. As Berdly strokes your hair, and you take comfort you don’t deserve, you’re certain: it can only go down from here.