41. Blur (4 – In the clear)

"I couldn't tell you that time… but I felt it. The… feeling of good. Pureness," I tell Antonia.

"Opposite of the room full of businessmen?"

"Way opposite, yes."

"More than…" Antonia asks, and I look at her. "What you felt with Toni?"

"Okay, how about this…" Toni says, while smiling… in the purest of smiles I could've ever seen or known, while placing her cup down. "If you could go anywhere at all… any place at all… where would it be, and why?"

She was quite full of energy from her coffee.

"I do wonder how Northern lights look," I say, giving it some thought.

"Right? They describe them in such a pretty way. But would you want to leave Earth… see something else?"

"Wait, does that include fictional?"

"Sure."

"Hmm… I don't know. Northern lights don't sound bad. What are you thinking?"

"You know that one episode of Kurius Cate, where they play that game of some superheroes and stuff?"

"That had way too many episodes though," I chuckle.

"Well, yes, but that one episode… with the stars and all that. Shooting stars. It sounded pretty. Looked pretty too. I wonder how it'd have been to look at it directly."

"That really does give a good perspective to the scene. They were frustrated at that place, because they had to fix it."

"I know… don't make me feel more bad. But… you know. So many shooting stars… it just felt like a great idea, to not not consider."

"Only universes apart. But surely wish I could see it too, yes. Sounds good."

"How many girls have you kissed?"

"Wow. Why do we keep coming back to my sex life?"

"Well… I'm just curious."

"At least this one's the lightest of them all," I laugh, and Toni just shrugs. "Well… two."

"Wait, me and Antonia? That's all? Wow. I was your second kiss…"

"Yes… so don't ask which was the better kiss."

"Curious… but nation secrets will be respected."

"And you?"

"One," Toni says, and my smile fades… I feel myself looking at her lips again. "Kidding. Five."

"Five? Wow. My second kiss, but… I was your fifth?"

"Well… you were my third actually."

"You had your fourth and fifth after it?" I say, and she shrugs again. "Alright… some nation secrets need to be found. You NEED to tell me. Or my spy Black-one will find it."

"Well…"

+

"Okay, trust me on this…" Skott says, giving me a bottle of scotch-labelled… something. Something alcoholic surely.

"You just are so weird," I sigh. "Is there no stop to your jokes?"

"Nope."

"No way I'm getting out of this easily?"

"Well… you'd have to kiss me for that."

+

"And that somehow was the easier thing to do?"

"What, you jealous or something?"

"No, I'm just… astonished. Is… well, and fifth?"

"Okay, this was no easy one."

+

"Black-one, you are so lovely," I kiss Black-one around his face.

+

"Okay, really? That's your fifth?"

"Have patience, it is no one line story."

+

"Aw… he really is a charmer," a random guy says, approaching the table in the café I'm at.

"Do I know you?" I ask, wearing a serious face in a heartbeat. The person looks straight into my eyes, and shakes at my reaction.

"Sorry. I just was… I was not hitting on you. The… excuse me, you are not even that good looking."

"Huh," I say, feeling my ego rise. "Sorry. I was rude. You can greet him if you want. He's nice, unless you're a lady."

The guy just chuckles. "What now?"

"Tried biting me a few times," I say, and remember some details. "I think I do understand a little of why, but doesn't really make sense."

"Did you get naked in front of him?" he asks with a grin.

"Shut up! How… what? Okay, as embarrassing as that is… is that just ok and common?"

"Common in some aspects, yes. But not really. Or nothing to do with… you."

The guys looks at me and laughs while shaking his head.

"What?"

"Nothing. Sorry. I just got something weird on my mind to say. Never happened."

"No, I do want to hear it."

"You really don't, it was a one-liner which you wouldn't like."

"How come?"

"A bit… cheesy. You might cringe or find me as a creep."

"I'll take the challenge… if I do feel that way, I'll buy you anything here."

"Hmm, and if you don't?"

"Tough… I could get something from you."

"Deal. I wanted to say that you're very bite-able."

I press my lips against his, after taking him on a date to the bar.

+

"Wait, wait, wait, no," I say, halting Toni's story. "You guys… you lost your… Toni?"

"I didn't lose my Toni," Toni says, and I calculate how that could even be. "He passed out. I left."

"Oh man… so anti-climatic. No second date?"

"No… I just got scared."

"Toni…"

"No I'm fine. Maybe I could actually lose my mind for once one day, and let loose properly. If that can even happen."

"We could hook you up with Skott."

"See, that's why I didn't want to tell you. Besides… that thing isn't my type."

I chuckle, and even Toni bursts into a small laughter.

"I think as unfair as life is," Toni breaks the ice. "Some things are just… so beautiful, you know?"

"I get it," I say, to find her smile wryly. "But name me some."

"Like the times with you," Toni says, looking straight at me.

I look back, and we don't break eye contact. But I couldn't allow myself to stay here.

"What, are we going to kiss again?" I chuckle.

"What? No… I just… come on, Varon."

"Not happening ever. Just kidding. Just breaking a little ice."

"Still you were… the best kiss of them all, alright? Don't let me have to make you hear it again."

"Okay."

"As I was saying," Toni says, thinking.

I feel something from her, something different. Something… I didn't know to describe.

"Life is joyful, without having everything too, right?"

I just look at Toni, feeling myself nod a little, and my eyes trying to fill up.

"Varon?"

"Go on."

"I think with that last guy… it wasn't just that I went on a silly date. But… it felt nice, interacting with a random stranger. In a nice way. Thinking and understanding the complex life they possess. How they like some things… how their heart flutters too."

"Like butterflies."

"Yes… kids on the street. Sometimes chasing butterflies, sometimes jumping like butterflies. It gives you… butterflies inside, you know? You could just… look and look."

I smile, holding my tears.

"Then you think… that's a good world. Only…" Toni says, making my feelings go away… as she feels blank within. "Some things haunt such happiness."

"All the bad things. The war."

"Yes. The fear. The… sadness. The anger… the hate. It feels meaningless to me. So… useless. All of that."

"So frustrating."

"Very… and so sad," Toni says and blinks her eyes, looking at me. "I like your smile. The way you… smile."

"And I love talking to you, the way-Toni?"

"Yeah?" Toni rubs her eyes. "I think… something was in the milk."

"What?"

"Ah… Skott," Toni says, feeling dizzy. "I will g- f- th- a- vah-"

Toni just falls down, and I quickly move ahead to check her breathing. She was just unconscious… nothing seemingly wrong.

I move to the fridge and check the milk carton… it had a… little pungent smell than normal milk.

"Ah, what did that idiot replace this with?" I ask myself.

"Varon," I hear Toni mumble, but she was too sleepy… and probably drunk, evidently, to be making sense.

All this makes me sigh. And laugh a little even.

Toni is usually the… quite serious sometimes, quite silly sometimes type. But this must be her. Or maybe at least when she's drunk. That feeling… was pure. She cared a lot. Deep down. She… was a… lot more than a nice person.

"Varon," Antonia says, snapping her fingers. "I just was curious but… are you still in your Blur?"

"Maybe not that much now," I say, bopping my head up-and-down.

"Well, I still want to crack the code. So let's continue the story."

"Well… I just…"

"Aw… you don't have to be embarrassed."

"Well, no… well yes. But… I think I remember a little. And I'm not sure if… we…"

Antonia chuckles looking at me ponder on my words. I throw her a glare.

"Sorry, sorry, you just are…" Antonia says, and tilts her head sideways while smacking her lips. "Anyways," she clears her throat, "give me the story now."

"Oh, you're… here again," Toni says, awkwardly smiling, while holding her clothes to her body tighter. "Welcome. Hi."

Toni was just wearing her towel after bathing, and holding her clothes in her hand. The sudden entry of the second time guest… I feel sorry for embarrassing her.

"Toni," Rem says. "I see you've… made yourself comfortable."

I feel a jolt while remembering what Toni's opinion on Rem's vigilantism was. What if she just says it now?

"If you'll excuse me," Toni says.

To my surprise Toni drags me alongside her, into her room.

"You need to understand that this looks weird to a bystander," I say.

"Oh come on, what haven't you seen?"

"Now that part sounds weird to even me. When did what happen?"

"Well, Rem happened, again. Why? First that… girl… what was her name? Then now… she is a vigilante now."

"Yes, but… that is not exactly… she isn't staying here."

"Then?" Toni asks, with a baffled look.

"Get dressed up."

---

(Speed) Pack fact 8:-

Rog is somewhat of a look-alike to Rem, and luckily her secretary. It is hard to find someone coincidentally that way… and expect them to be good. But for the most part Rog WAS good. The best friend to Rem, almost like Antonia and Varon. But deep down she wished to be a hero. She envied Rem. While Einya talked about Rog having killed an innocent suspect… it was still a villain, someone Rem had a tough time to put down. But seeing that the crime that they suspected him for… he never committed… Rog knew that Rem would face a hard time with that guy again. Rog never opened up about knowing he hadn't committed the crime, to Rem. Instead she made it look like the guy tried to escape and she had to kill him… at the loss of her kidney, because she made it a real scenario. Adleon obviously used such an opportunity to put down the one large thing which kept Rem moving forward. Maybe if Rog were alive, Rem wouldn't have turned out to be the person doing the blame-game on Varon, in Einya's time.

See you next chapter!