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You watch Susie leave to go get ice cream, leaving yourself and Noelle to share the sunset in silence. It's an uncomfortable silence. The whole day had been pleasant enough, with 'what they call "you"' seemingly invested in helping everyone have a good time. Even you. For whatever reason.
Noelle sits across from you at the picnic table, still riding the high of her time at the lake with Susie, with 'what they call "you"' helpfully made sure the image and sounds of which were painfully seared into your mind. Maybe it wanted you to suffer as the third wheel? Who knew. You certainly didn't.
"So...um. Kris?" Said Noelle, brushing a stray lock of hair behind one of her ears. "Today was...fun! Amazing, actually. I-I was kinda worried at first Susie bringing you along might just make you feel...weird and left out? But it seemed like you enjoyed yourself too. I think. It's...kinda hard to tell, these days."
A hesitant shadow crosses her face, as she looks up into your eyes. "...Uh. You can...tell me, if you weren't having fun. I'm sure we can figure something out?" Swallowing suddenly becomes much harder. Not because she's showing concern for you, almost the opposite. Noelle looks...tired. Like this conversation is a straining bore. When she notices you looking at her so intently, she quickly tries to hide it, but only succeeds in looking about as flustered as she did back on the lake.
"S-Sorry! I-I must look so tired, it's just been a long day! Don't get me wrong, Kris! I loved hanging out with you, playing the hammer game, going on the Ferris wheel...voting for each other as Festival King and Queen." Noelle sighs, both wistfully and with a deep-seated pain you yourself were familiar with. "...Those moments...WERE nice, Kris. But, I have to ask...what did you mean by them? Why are you doing all this stuff with me today? I mean, I know it's the festival and all, or at least will be for the next few hours, but we haven't gone in years."
'What they call "you"' prods you to speak what's on your mind. To appeal to all the time spent together as kids, when people joked you both would be the second union between Dreemurr and Holiday. Or when Noelle would put her head on your shoulder, only for you to make up an excuse that her horns were too pointy when it started making you feel weird and warm.
The time Noelle made you a Valentine, because you had never received one before.
'What they call "you"' prods you to open up about ALL of that. And while you never obey its wishes directly, you recognize that for once, this is truly just an honest admission you shouldn't shy away from. So you do open up. You tell Noelle that ever since Thursday, something has been...changing, with you. That it's been making you want to spend more time around Noelle.
You tell her that you no longer want the self-imposed distance between you two to be quite so large.
She doesn't respond, at first. When you finish speaking, she seems at a loss for words, like yours came at the cost of anything she might have been prepared to respond with. Then there's this curious...calculating. The gears of her mind click and whir almost audibly, her gaze cast away from you as she considers and thinks. Thinks. Thinks.
But then her gaze hardens. Her looking away becomes not a momentary motion, but an intentional choice to prevent either of you looking into the eyes of the other. Something you find you desperately want back the moment after it's gone. "...You say that...now?" She breathes. "You say you want to be close again...now? Not Thursday, when you said you apparently started wanting it. Not Friday, when you bailed on study group with me for so long me and Berdly went to sleep?
That she had been ensnared within the grasp of a Dark World, the reality of which had been intentionally kept from her for various reasons by yourself and everyone else you knew, you couldn't begin to speak up about. Not that she would have let you, as she kept talking. "Not Saturday, when you were literally beating the heck out of Dess' stuff or - whatever you were doing in her closet, while you heard me and Susie planning our date? ...Let's just skip the pretense. Yes, we both knew you were there the whole time. It was weird, because...we both wanted you there? I mean, I assume Susie knew. Just like today, she wanted you here for...whatever reason. Maybe she's like me, and it just feels wrong not having you around."
Noelle balls her hands into fists, on top of the table as she continues to look away from you. "...Or maybe it was the 'decision maker' role she shoved you into. You know something? I'm mad at you about...what we're talking about right now, and I'm also mad at her, too?" She laughs, a dry, almost sarcastic thing that scalds your soul. Almost sarcastic, as though she can't actually summon the willpower or desire to try and intentionally be hurtful. Somehow that's worse than her actually hurting you.
"It's so rude that she would do something like that. I mean I know she was...really mean to you, before, and I should have said something regardless. But anyway. I guess that's kind of the pattern, isn't it. You wait until the last possible second to say anything. Either you don't have an issue with what Susie said, or you're going to wait four days before you speak up? Is that it?"
What may have once been poised to turn to sarcasm in her voice rots away, leaving behind to a sardonic, bitter edge that hurts worse than any longing you've felt today. "Wait seven years to tell me you want to be close again, huh? Gosh, when you actually say that out loud, I realized something." Finally she looks back at you, and it's agonizing. She's beauty, and longing, and anger, and hurt, and every other confusing feeling that ever made your stomach flip inside of you.
"I've been waiting for you to say that, for seven FREAKING years, Kris. Seven years of never picking up a new hobby that you couldn't join easily if you wanted, seven years of ignoring the advances of others because I was sure if I just waited for you to heal enough to admit you wanted to heal together, I would get that bookend relationship I...that I hoped for. That I worried if you ever wanted for yourself. Angel above, I waited seven years for you! Do you realize how ridiculous that makes me sound?!"
Standing up, Noelle slams her hands on the table as the situation rapidly deteriorates. "I spent so long rotting away behind glass hoping you would at least admit one day that YOU. WERE. TOO. Don't deny it. Your voice sounds weird, you're way more talkative, and you even come to check up on my dad, but don't pretend for a minute you're any different than you always are, Kris. You never let yourself feel a thing! And what, I'm supposed to finally help you cross that bridge the instant someone else realizes it was never a hard one to walk at all?! The instant someone treats me nicely without it being some puzzle I need to decode?! Seven years, no nice words, no time together, not even an Angel-darned HUG when Dess' anniversary came around?!"
There's nothing for you to say. Nothing for you to even think about. 'What they call "you"' doesn't even try to move you, even though this is one instance where you would beg for it to run your body away from here, from this situation. Noelle calms down, eerily fast before sinking back down into her seat. "...Maybe I should've done something earlier, too. I'm not exactly a saint when it comes to initiating, myself. But if I had, would you have actually broken through the glass with me? Or would you have just brushed it off? Turned it around on me as a moment of me being 'cringe' or making some dumb prank out of it?"
You try to moisten your mouth and say something, anything. You tell Noelle that you know there's no excuse for it taking this long, but that you're not explicitly saying you want THAT sort of relationship.
"Kris." She sounds done. Like this conversation is a straining bore. "What else could you have possibly meant by the votes in the Festival King and Queen box? Even writing our names like we used to, back when we were kids and everyone just called it 'puppy love'? Or...puppy and fawn love, I guess. Or the strength tester, everyone knows the legend about it testing your compatibility. And of course...the Ferris wheel. Look, I might be...stupid in a lot of ways, but I can link patterns together. And being around you, it's a LOT of linking patterns together. You certainly don't like anyone trying to figure you out, even me. Even when we were kids, even before Dess left, you never let anyone get that close to you. Heck, when you used to play the piano at my house, you'd kick me out of the room so I couldn't see you do it. What was the point of that? You were really good, and I wanted -"
Gathering a shaky breath, Noelle now seemed like she was trying to contain stronger, more negative emotions. Ones that had been bottled up behind that 'glass' she mentioned for years. "- I wanted to share that with you. Like I shared everything with you. Welcomed you into my house, my life, my heart...but maybe this conversation is a long time coming. Or maybe I should just go. Susie's getting us ice cream, I'll just - go check on that."
In a moment of blind panic at seeing her turn away, feeling everything that this moment could have been turning into nothing, you reach out desperately and touch her on the shoulder. That one touch seems to release something wild in her, and she lashes out hard enough with her arm to launch you on to the top of the table, leaving you in shock and her panting.
"Don't you dare. Don't you dare do the puppy dog act. This isn't some game where you get me to sneak you cookies so I get in trouble instead of you, Kris! So I accept all the heartache while you get the love! Do you honestly think that whatever flirting Susie said you were apparently good at, or pouty eyes is enough to fix this? To get things the way you want them?! No! Angel, I can't believe this! I should have said something the instant Susie dragged you along for today -"
Noelle stops herself, smiles far more bitterly than she sounded, and jabs her finger into your chest. "NO! Along for our DATE! Because that's what it was, Kris! Not just any random day that me and her were hanging out, it was our first date and you knew that! Susie doing it was bad, I'll be the first to admit it! But the fact that you said NOTHING?" Her voice tilts upward in an accusatory, disbelieving tone, offended by the very notion of what she described. As she probably should.
"You're stronger than me, Kris! All it would have taken is telling her that you didn't feel comfortable with her forcing you along, and you didn't! It turned my date with her into some awkward, three-wheeled affair where we were doing everything the way you wanted it! Who told you you get to make our decisions?! I'm lucky you didn't slip spiders down the back of my sweater, or - or - do something else weird with Susie, like you've been doing."
The bitterness abates slightly, as she grabs at her own chest with emotions flipping around in a vicious tempo. "You know what else I'm not stupid about? You two. I know about your...closet time, or whatever the heck you want to call it. I don't know what she wants to call it, and I don't even want to think about it. But again, I'm not stupid. Don't you tell me for a second you don't also have some kind of...messed-up, weird feelings about her, too! You had to have known I was interested in her, right? Right?! Don't lie to me and tell me that's the one thing about me you didn't know!"
Telling her it wasn't like that would require breaking a number of your rules. Your promise. Your heart. You can't do it, even though her words are tearing you asunder as she speaks them. Of course it looks that bad, any outside observer - especially one as close to you as her, would see you and Susie and assume...the worst, so to speak.
"...Angel, damnit." A rare curse escapes her lips as she brings one of her sleeves to her now-damp eyes. "Even just talking about it feels gross. Makes me feel gross all over, like you want to -" She grows hauntingly still. "...Are you...do you...were you thinking that by doing stuff with her first, that you would...oh, Angel, no..." She backs up, hands on her mouth as she stares at you with unrepentant horror. "That's why you timed this...like this! Why you tried doing all that stuff with me at the festival! You think you can muddy the waters between me and her, and that'll somehow get me to - to LIKE YOU?!"
Frantically, you wave your head and arms 'no', for once letting the words spill out without limit as you try desperately to explain that you would never, ever, EVER do something like that. Something so detestably possessive, so creepy and objectifying, so...so goddamn WEIRD, it belonged more in a horror movie than in any story starring Krismas and Elle. Even 'what they call "you"' seems intent on doing anything to help, providing you options you honestly wouldn't have been able to think of yourself in terms of what to say.
But what could it do against what looked like concrete evidence? Again, any actual indication to the contrary would expose Noelle to worse things than relationship drama. Worse things than hurting you. Though to some extent, there was a catharsis here. Oh, it was beyond embarrassing, painful, potentially friendship-ending in regards to both Susie and Noelle and how they interacted with you, but...
There was some retaliation from her. From Noelle. Instead of the agony of the cold, longing girl you could never figure out how to speak to, she was expressing her disgust and anger towards you so genuinely it almost felt like freezer burn. It wasn't worth that miniscule droplet of completion, the fragment of cathartic angst released, but it was something. Something rather than the nothing you had subjected her to for all this time, and you knew that was all you deserved at the end of the day.
When she was done shouting at you, seemingly half-convinced that what you had done wasn't intentional - though you were now uncomfortably, uncomfortably positive that you could never convince Noelle that you hadn't done anything outside the bounds of normal friendship with her now-girlfriend not days prior. After all, the closet couldn't be explained away. 'Hanging out in the closet' didn't exactly have much variety in the activities implied.
Either way, Noelle still regarded you like the lowest, most disgusting thing on the face of the Earth, which was pretty much accurate to how you felt anyway. In fact, might as well call it a fact at this point. "...I'm gonna go to Susie." She muttered, facing away from you. "I'll tell her you went home, or something. I don't want to be around you...for a long time. Despite it all, Kris...I still think she treats you badly sometimes. And I don't want her doing that, even after...whatever this was. I'll talk to her. Get her to apologize, so you don't have to come out from your glass."
You want to reach out to her, but nothing happens. She still moves further away from you, as if sensing your intent. "...Bye." And just like that, she walks away, leaving you alone and wanting more and more to shrivel up into nothing. There's no emotion other than that self-loathing for a long time, and thankfully nobody has to be bothered by your presence because nobody comes out to the lake area with you. You're all alone. Even if you called out, would anyone come? Maybe it would be better if nobody came.
But the loathing can only go on for so long before it transforms into something else, prompted by something seemingly innocuous. Not really innocuous, 'what they call "you"' never seemed to fail in pissing you off. This time, it seemed to want to get you moving. To where, you don't know and certainly don't care, as you reach inside your chest and yank it out before tossing it away.
For the smallest instant you panic, before remembering that it's not like the thing can get anywhere fast. As long as you keep a sliver of an eye out for it, whatever it does can just be filtered out. Right now, you don't need its input. It didn't help here whatsoever, after all. What would it be this time, you wondered? Would it try to traipse off to Noelle's house for more of the codes? Head to the stupid bone guy and look for his brother for whatever godforsaken reason?
No, no, wait. You let yourself guess. It wants to go hang out with Susie and Noelle more, leaving you behind where you deserve.
...You feel something nudging your head.
'What they call you', who could be trying to ram into your chest and repossess you, or run off to do any number of things...is staying with you. And unless it just doesn't know how to possess you correctly...could it be trying to comfort you? You don't even want to think about that. But it continues regardless, gently backing up and moving forward, never drifting downward or away or in any way for that matter to imply it wants to be anywhere else but at your side.
You grasp it in your hand. Such a tiny thing, yet so warm. Holding a power that you once had, as well as the fate of the world. Yet it cares more about making sure you're okay. Something you never will, and don't deserve to be, especially after how you treat it. ...You hate this thing even more, you think as you push it against your cheek, and tears pour down alongside it.
You hate it, hate it, hate it. You hate what adulthood looks like in the immediate future. You hate yourself for not keeping your mouth shut like your gut told you to. And you can't even blame 'what they call "you"' for providing the prompt, since you could have just said it with your teeth closed or put your hand in your mouth to prevent the words coming out at all.
To prematurely end any further closeness with it, you push 'what they call "you"' back into your chest, and feel your back stiffen up. You feel another prod, this time to think about a memory. When you realize what it's asking about, you freeze up even further. It wants you to think about the light only you can see. Or at least, that you could see once. Is it asking you if you want...a do-over?
You ask yourself why it doesn't just do that without asking. There's no reply. Shockingly, souls don't make for good conversation. The temptation is laid out in front of you however, and it cannot be taken back unless the soul does what it says it could. Undoing all the pain, the agony you've felt...as well as the truth. The ending of something that helped neither you or Noelle, and her promising to try and help despite it all.
...
...
...
You're not strong enough to face it. The truth unfiltered feels good in a way, but burns too much to keep. Maybe...Maybe there's another way. Another way you could have done it, and with this retry, you could find some way to do this where people are happier. Where she's happier. ...Happier with Susie, regardless of how happy she is with you. This fact will always happen, you accept wholeheartedly.
You nod once. And again. And half a dozen more times, increasingly desperate to wipe this stain of an event from history already. You don't know what it will feel like, but you gladly await the time in which you will have forgotten this moment...and then it's over. You watch Susie leave to go get ice cream, leaving yourself and Noelle to share the sunset in silence. It's an uncomfortable silence.