A Part of the Whole

He promised to take me fishing.

For the longest time, that was the only thing that kept me calling, hoping that someday he might be free enough to take me out for a day. But when he was free, it was only for a couple of hours, and we rode the Ferris wheel as if a tradition between the two of us. Just once, just long enough for him to whisper sweet words under his breath when he thought I wasn't listening.

But I was always listening, always waiting for him to ask me on that trip, even though I knew his job kept him too busy. And then our day together was over, and like always, he was walking away, back to his secret life.

I wasn't sure he knew that I knew. That one time that he called me in his work clothes was completely forgotten between the two of us—or at least to him. He brushed it off, saying that his colleague answered, but I wasn't an idiot. His face was the same, his voice—despite the fact that he hung up almost as quickly as he answered, which didn't give me a lot of time to hear him—was the same.

I always wondered why he looked familiar, but that only confirmed it for me. He was a celebrity, someone with his whole life planned out for him. While I was honored that he even gave me the time of day considering who he was, it made sense why he wouldn't ask me out a bit more formally. It made sense that I wasn't worth the fishing trip.

Despite this, I continued to call him whenever he showed up in my contacts, laughing when he laughed, blushing when I saw him doing the same. Somehow, one way or another, I fell in love with him, and I was quite certain that he fell for me, too. And yet… we were from two different worlds, faces meant to stay on opposite sides of the screen.

The last time we met at the Ferris wheel, I sat inside in silence as it circled around. It stopped at the very top to let more people into it, and it was only then that he even seemed to notice something was off with me. Maybe it was just because he had been trained how to talk, but he did an awful lot of it.

And I couldn't. When he asked me what was wrong, I never responded. I just stared at him, that familiar face looking more and more like something I didn't know at all. And just like that, the wheel moved again, and he grabbed my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. He told me over and over that he wish time would slow down, but I wanted it to go faster.

This time when he said goodbye and waved, I didn't wave back. He promised, yes, we would see each other soon—as soon as he could get off work, he said, but he was never the one to call me anymore. He was busier now than he had been when I first found his Xtransceiver. But he promised, always promised, to see me again.

I didn't call him this time. It was unusual for me to go a day or two without calling him, but the days turned into weeks as quickly as I wished. By the time the month passed into the next, he finally called me, apologizing over and over for not calling soon—he was so busy—and he knew that I was busy, too, being the strong trainer I was.

I had to turn the feed to audio only because I began to cry as he spoke, and I brushed it off as a bad connection. I missed hearing his voice and seeing his face on my screen; I missed the reality of him in person, at that Ferris wheel or elsewhere. But all he gave me were apologies. There was nothing redeeming, nothing to fix any of this.

"I'll call back soon," he promised—promises on top of promises on top of promises he couldn't keep. "I lo—"

And then he cut off, letting the line fall dead before he said too much. I was no fool. He could hide his true self as much as he wanted, but I would always see him for who he truly was: the celebrity who felt too much for me. And the more he felt, the more it hurt. I wondered if that was why he didn't call.

This time, though, he did call me back—several times, and I never answered once. I finally turned my Xtransceiver off when I couldn't stand it anymore, wondering the whole time while it was turning off why I was making it harder for myself. Why was I such a coward? I couldn't even end this properly.

I found myself watching the television more often, though, all the signs pointing towards the fact that I didn't want it to end. He was such a star, more charismatic than anyone I had ever met, but there was something different about him now. When he sang, it wasn't so beautiful, and when he spoke, there was something dry about his words. I wondered if it was me or him.

But it wasn't me—at least not only me. He was becoming even more popular now, and I saw him on talk shows all the time, whether performing or being interviewed or both. All the hosts noticed it, though they waved it off as him becoming more mature. The melancholy of his new songs was just knowledge and age, wisdom of love that only the brokenhearted knew.

"Your songs have such an edge to them now," one host told him, and I pushed myself to the edge of my seat, leaning closer to the television screen. "You write many of your songs, right? There has been such a… a… conspicuous transition in your music. It could have once been defined as electronica or dance, but the songs on your new album are much darker. What is your inspiration for this change?"

"Well, you know," he joked, laughing with that ubiquitous smile, and I had to wonder how he could write anything dark. "Girls are complicated."

The host, a woman, laughed with him, her microphone clearly just a little louder than his. If she laughed, so should everyone else. "You have a girl or are you trying to win one?" she asked, and he scratched at his cheek, a slightly blush breaking through his foundation. "You do a good job protecting her. The paparazzi haven't snapped one picture!"

I turned off the television then, fed up with myself and with him. Did he really think he was protecting me? Or could he not let the paparazzi see him with someone like me? After all, he still had never told me outright who he was. He let me guess at his work, but I never really said it. For the longest time, I didn't want him to know I didn't believe his façade.

I lifted my wrist and scrolled down my list of contacts on my Xtransceiver, praying that his name showed up. Sure enough, there it was, right at the bottom. I tapped the screen, holding my wrist closer to my face and waiting for his face to pop up. Ten seconds passed, the screen showing black and white fuzz, and he finally answered.

"Rosa," he answered, the first thing I noticed was how exhausted he looked. His eyes were sunken in and colored dark, which made me feel like it had been so much longer since we last saw each other. "I was just thinking about y—about calling you. Things have been so busy at work lately, and I haven't had very much time to—"

"I want to go fishing."

His tired face relaxed, his gaze becoming just a little softer. "That's a good idea. I love fishing. I've probably told you a thousand and one times." He laughed, and I forced myself to keep my wrist level with my face.

"I want to go fishing with you. Tomorrow," I corrected.

Silence followed. I wondered for a moment if our connection had gone bad again, as it had a tendency to do, but I could see the slightest change in his expression. He was a star—a singer, a celebrity, and expressions had to be big. But he looked so small, so human, and for a second I thought I might actually be wrong.

"That's right… I promised we would go fishing…" He seemed to ponder this for a moment, and he vanished from the screen as he, apparently, lowered his hand. When he showed back up on the screen, he smiled. "I'm sorry, Rosa. I've been so busy that I forgot all about it. But… I'll play hooky tomorrow. Can you meet me in front of the Pokémon Center in Undella around eight in the morning?"

I nodded, feeling hopeful for the first time in awhile. Part of me thought that he was going to say no.

Of course, words didn't seem to mean much to him. Wasn't that why he couldn't keep all of his promises? Where was the guarantee that he would be there tomorrow? I really believed he would—he had always shown up in the past to the Ferris wheel. This time, though, he was about to put me before work. It was different than just visiting me during a break.

He was notorious for showing up way before me, so when he wasn't there the following morning, I pretended not to be disappointed. I sat outside the Pokémon Center, the tiled boardwalk surprisingly cool despite the summer heat. There was a warm morning breeze, but the sun was already too hot on my face.

"Rosa!"

I opened my eyes, not having realized that I was starting to doze off. And there he came, running down the road with a fishing pole in one hand and waving the other hand above his head. I pushed myself to my feet, and he stopped in front of me, panting with one hand on his knee. When he finally looked up at me, my heart beat hard again. I couldn't even fool myself.

"Sorry I'm a little late," he apologized as we headed down towards the beach. There was a nice stretch south of here—maybe it was the fishing spot he mentioned once. "I had to, um, sneak out kind of. Playing hooky is fun, though. It's always fun when I'm with you." And he grinned, forcing me to believe him.

"I'm glad you could come, Christoph."

I played through the moment a hundred times in my head before now, each time never looking much like the reality. The name rolled easily off my tongue, even though I had not once said it: a normal conversation with a normal guy. It wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it might be. It didn't hurt me to face him now.

"Yeah, I'm glad, too. I thought for a second that I—" He cut himself off, stopping dead in his tracks, and I walked a little in front of him before stopping, too. "What did you just call me?"

I hadn't rehearsed the next part. "I'm not dumb, Curtis," I began a little hesitantly, and surprise etched itself into every crevasse of his face. "It was you who picked up the call that day, not a colleague. It's you who I see on TV. And I'm so flattered that you would give me even a little bit of your time. But don't treat me like a charity case. If you don't want me to be with all of you, then don't play with me."

He stared at me with wide eyes, his tiredness transformed into horror bound to life. He was wide awake now, the reality of my words setting in. And it really was so strange how real this felt—everything about him felt like fiction, like our lives were something behind a screen. But now, on the bay with him, it was like something had just come to life.

"I should have told you…" He stared me right in the eye, his expression solemn. "Too many people know who I am, and I've always loved my life outside of the stage. I love my job, of course, but… sometimes I just want to be Curtis, you know? And you were the first thing in my life outside of my family that felt like… like you were a part of me, not Christoph."

I shook my head, holding onto my fishing pole a little too tightly. "But that's the problem. If I'm a part of you, not Christoph, then I'm just a part of the whole. And I don't want to be just a fraction—I need to be something bigger than that. Yet… it's never felt like I'm worth more than just a fraction if you can't even tell me your job."

His lips quivered as he tried to think of something to say, and finally, he seemed to give up. I sighed, swinging my fishing pole across my body to lean on my left shoulder. "I understand that you're busy, but you don't have to make promises you don't intend on keeping, either."

I started off again, the awkward silence that followed my blow breaking as my steps crunched against the sand. But the crunch doubled in seconds, and he called, "Rosa! Now, wait just a second!"

I waited only when he grabbed my hand, the familiar touch of his skin burning now. "I might have been slow on the uptake, but I've kept all of my promises, haven't I? We're here… to your suggestion maybe, but we're here all the same. And… and I'm sorry that I didn't tell you outright about my job, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed—because it was okay. It was his life: his choices. But at the same time, that didn't mean that I was okay with it.

"No, it's not okay," he countered, throwing his fishing pole into the sand beside us, a little too close to the lapping waves. If the tide was coming in, it would get swept away soon. "You're angry with me, and you have every right to be." He curled his hand into a fist, his arm shaking. "I was just trying to protect myself, Rosa. I like you so much, and I was afraid that if you knew who I was, you would be drawn to him, not to me. I… underestimated you. I'm sorry."

"But he is you," I shot back.

He shook his head. "I've always wanted to lead a normal life. That was why I created Christoph. It was part of my deal in my contract—I would get to keep a part of myself away from the spotlight, and no one in the record company would be able to sell me out without facing legal consequences. So, to share him with anyone who knew me as Curtis… I felt like I would be betraying myself."

The wave I was expecting came, swooping his rod into the surf. I jumped into the sea after it, grabbing one end of it. I was only ankle deep in the water, but it felt so nice as the water lapped against my legs.

I really couldn't blame him when he said it like that. If I had every right to be angry, then he had every right to live the life that he wanted. I was more than happy to continue to respect his privacy, but it still meant that I would be missing out on so much of him. And was I willing to put up with that?

"Here," I said, handing his fishing rod off to him. He put his hand on top of mine instead of taking it, and I thought back to all of those rides on the Ferris wheel—all of those rides when he would tell me that he wished time would slow, and it felt like the first time in a long time that it really was moving almost backwards.

I couldn't deny that after everything that happened between us—finding the phone, calling each other back and forth, riding the Ferris wheel again and again, figuring out that he was someone famous—I still loved him. It didn't hurt so much being just a part of the whole; at least I was a part at all. But it still annoyed me enough to care even more.

"If someone sees me with you while I'm Christoph, they'll be after you, too. And once they know about you, then if they see me as Curtis with you, they'll find out about me." His voice was soft, but it was laced with pain. Keeping secrets was just as hard as making them. "I'm sorry if that sounds selfish, Rosa."

"It's not. You deserve to have your own life, too. I have mine. But all I wanted was for you to tell me—and ask me out and actually make time for me more often than a call a day and meeting one time per week. I've made my move," I told him, and that familiar blush lit his cheeks. I had a feeling that I looked the same.

"Fine."

He let go of my hand, and in my surprise, I dropped the pole to the sand. He cupped my face instead, kissing me so desperately that it was as if he had been waiting to do this for far too long. And when he pulled away, it was only so he could lean his forehead against mine. His eyes were closed, his breath cool on my face.

"I, Curtis, love you. And for the record, so does Christoph," he whispered, and I smiled.

That was the promise I needed kept—what I had been waiting for this whole time, what I wanted more than anything. Because in order for me to be more than just a part of the whole, I needed to be more than that in his life.

He picked up his fishing rod and held his hand out towards me. "Let's go fishing," he suggested, and I slipped my hand back in the comfortable spot, letting Curtis pull me along the shore.

Author's Note: Just did this sidequest recently, and Curtis is awesome.

Very intentionally, Rosa does not refer to Curtis by name in her interior monologue until the very last line. Not sure if anyone caught that, but I suppose it can be the fun fact for the evening.

I've been quite slow to update, as you are probably well-aware. The school year has already brought quite a long of work, as was expected. I hope everyone is doing well.

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