"It's me.
Everything is okay.
Was the lead you found credible?
I see.
Don't worry. This is nothing I can't handle."
Actually, the last part I told Melody over phone was a lie. Everyone knows how impossible it is to be with the Boss. Two weeks without Melody and Basho, I could already imagine, will be hell for me. I reckon that both of them needed this break since I was always out tracking the remaining Scarlet Eyes these past few days. Melody found a lead on the Sonata she's been seeking to destroy and Basho tagged along with the search.
Neon Nostarade may look like she's walking on rainbow boots and talking on candied lips but she's a walking minefield - volatile, unpredictable, an inconsolable outburst. Every move I make may lead to a possible tantrum and I pray that I have enough patience to withstand it.
The sun just sunk on the horizon, leaving aftertastes of orange and purple clouds and plunging the city in a dazzling aftermath. I let my eyes linger on the drowning light as memories of the previous week shuffled by - Neon screaming at her father. Neon shrinking like a melted candy on the corner of her room. Neon staring blankly at the window for hours. Neon coming home drenched in rain, shivering and eventually, collapsing into my arms. Neon sleeping a sleepless nightmare. Neon not being Neon.
Neon shedding her skin of prism neon.
Everyone around her, especially her hand maids, Melody, and Basho, grew squeamish being with this new Neon. She did not speak, smile nor laugh. Her room which was once bright and radiating with fiery laughter and childish cries plunged into dead silence and ghastly darkness. The new Neon was robbed of joy. Basho and Melody tried to cheer her up. Everyone in the mansion did their best too. But even the jeweled gifts and rare treasures from her father did not budge her from her gloom.
It happened without a warning. Everyone around her was caught off guard with this sadness that suddenly swept the light out of her.
Eventually, everyone learned how to move around to this new Neon dripping with sullenness from her every pore.
To be honest, it piqued my curiosity. I am still yet to find out what she is capable of doing with misery. There were times that my imagination would conjure visions of Neon pale as paper, her huge aquamarine eyes staring blankly at the ceiling with slashed wrists, blood dripping on the corners of her mattress. There were also times that I would see her inside my dreams - sapphire hair swinging gently in the wind, night gown hugging her body and gravity pushing her over the bridge.
Reality didn't sate the runnings of my imagination, however. There were times though, that I would see her wandering aimlessly on the corridors of the mansion in the middle of the night. And the little voice inside me would always dare me to follow her in which I would always answer. There were also nights that I would see her staring in front of her father's bedroom door, her hands touching the knob but would not dare turn it. Then, I would see her staring at the portrait of her mother - beautiful, unearthly and melancholic.
Oddly enough, no matter how much she's drowning in her darkness, I never did see a single tear fall from her eyes. Numbness, perhaps? Or does she simply do not know how to handle the gravity of this heavy baggage?
The familiarity of everything unfolding before me took me back to the day when I first met it - the reality that everything is not what you think it is. Life will always knock you off your knees and will leave you bleeding until you learned how to crawl or simply embrace the pain and live with it.
Neon, she has yet to learn how to face it - right now, she stands before it with clenched fists.
The day she changed. The memories of the day when she was swept away by flood still remains behind my closed eyes.
That day...
The room was stale and acrid. I can tell it from behind the door. It smelled of ashes, cigar and doom and these odors wafted through the door cracks. The withering man was sitting on his black leather sofa with his head back when I entered the room. Dusts danced wildly when I opened the door, scattered papers crumpled beneath my feet like dead leaves in the winter. Light Nostrade still wore the same stained suit from the last time I entered this room. He let out a sigh which smelled of rotten eggs and alcohol.
"Kurapika, you're here."
He looked at me with glassy eyes before pouring rum on his glass with shaky papery hands. He offered me a glass which I refused with a gentle shake of my head. With one long swig, he emptied the contents of his glass. The mahogany table vibrated when he placed his empty glass back on it with an energyless thud.
"A ghost. A shadow. Can we ever get back something our eyes cannot see?" He paused to look at me but I kept my silence. "I was on the top of my game. Money was pouring and power raining along with it.
In just one night, everything vanished. everything I worked so hard for was taken away from me as if someone had pulled a rug under me."
Tears rolled down his cheeks, the lines on his forehead were like craters. He met my gaze with red sunken eyes and said, "Without her power, I have nothing..."
The old man raised his shaking hands to his face and continued to cry with anguish. "Get it back, Kurapika, I beg you." he sobbed.
He made his way to where I was standing with unsteady steps and dropped to this knees. He grabbed both of arms and dropped his head, crying like a wounded animal.
"Bring me back my daughter, Kurapika!" he begged through hysterical sobs.
"But, she didn't go anywhere. She's -"
"No no no no no." He shook his head so violently that I thought I would see it snap out of his neck. "My daughter is the divine fortune teller! She...without her power...what can she do? Tell me Kurapika. What can she do?" he pleaded.
I looked away from the rotting old man. His whole body was shaking violently but he held on tightly to my arms.
"If she cannot tell fortunes anymore then I have no use for her."
A father without a daughter. A daughter without a father.
When he saw that I didn't respond from any of his painful monologue, he stood back up and made his way to his sofa.
"Leave."
"Excuse me" I said with a slight bow and made my way to the exit silently.
I was about to pull my phone out of my pockets when a presence behind the door caught me off guard. My heart was beating on my head, my pulse running wild and out of control. I was too tangled up in the sorrow of the old man that I failed to sense that someone was listening - the last person I would want to hear all of this...
Carefully, I pushed the door open and there she was staring at me with wide aquamarine eyes and her hands over her mouth.
"Boss!"
Before I could grab her, Neon Nostrade darted away from me and ran blindly towards the main door. The poor and confused maids shrieked with surprise as their mistress shoved them off her way. Clashes of the fallen plates filled the mansion. The air suddenly felt tight and hazy as if someone had placed a heavy and dusty hood over the room. All I could see in front of me was my mistress heading towards the exit dripping with orange light and pink rays from the setting sun outside.
Something took over me - a demon or madness - and before I realize it, I was racing towards the door, trying to outrun her. It took me another split second before I was able to block her way. She crashed into me, sending both of us to the floor.
I wrapped my arms tightly around her as if I was trying to keep her from breaking to pieces.
"Let me go, Kurapika."
I didn't move.
She was trying to pull away from me but I held her tighter. My heart felt like it was going to burn to ashes the longer I hold her.
"Please." she whispered. Her voice was shaky but her eyes were seething with rage and sorrow - those same eyes I had when my insatiable thirst for vengeance takes over.
I let go.
Melody and Basho came over with heavy footsteps and worried faces. I looked up at both of them and saw the horror on their faces. Melody nodded at Basho and said, "I'll go after her." She ran after our boss without looking back.
"I..." nothing else came. Words were sucked out of my breath.
Basho crouched beside me and inquired carefully "can you tell me what's going on?"
"More importantly, why are your eyes scarlet?" he added.
My reflection on the shiny grandfather clock reflected of a distorted man with glowing scarlet eyes. I let go of the breath I've been holding during my futile chase after Neon. I took a few mouthful of air, trying in vain to bring my eyes back to its normal hazel. When I saw that it has returned after a few tries, I answered with the best and steady voice I could muster.
"When I was consumed with anger and grief over the loss of my brethren, no one was there...no one was there to hold me...no one was there to keep me from falling apart."
I looked up at Basho and waited for a reply, but I was only greeted with silence. He stared ahead at the sun as it makes its graceful exit. After a few brief seconds, he stood up and ruffled my hair with his big burly hands. He beamed at me and said,
"Who says your heart is cold?"