Notes: I always struggle with whether Piké is IC during such scenarios as this. I want her to not like Autor, but I'm never sure if she goes too far or not. I try to temper it by such things as her being honestly concerned for Ahiru and even feeling guilty wondering if she crossed the line. If you think she's OOC (or IC, for that matter), please tell me!
Akt the Second
Prompt: #5 – Betrayal
Autor tried, in general, to control his emotions. If he was angry or irritated, he was not likely to haul off and strike the offender; the recipient of his wrath, however, would probably be put in minds of If looks could kill.
Today, as he stormed into the music practice room, he shut the door tight. Though usually it was preferable to leave it ajar, he did not care. He wanted complete solitude. If the door had a lock, he would have used it.
His fingers were on the piano keys almost before he sat down at the bench. What came out was a fast and furious piece, one he liked to play to release pent-up tension. Even as he played, the memory of the conversation he had just endured repeated in his mind.
He really did not know how he had become so unlucky as to encounter those two girls who had been Ahiru's friends—and he used the term friends lightly. He had never been fond of either one of them, nor they him, but he was disgusted and repulsed by their audacity today.
He was minding his own affairs, as always. Morning classes had ended and he was going to the music building to practice. One of the rooms was generally available for him, which was sometimes one of the only upsides to a particularly frustrating day. He needed his periods of seclusion in order to stay calm when everything was going wrong.
He had not expected two female students to cut around a corner of the main school building too fast. He stepped back, desperate to avoid a collision, and several papers slipped from his grasp.
"Excuse us!" the pink-haired girl exclaimed.
He did not refrain from glaring before he bent down to retrieve his belongings. "These halls are for walking, not running or skipping," he said.
"Oh, you're your usual unapproachable self," the blonde declared, flipping her pigtails.
The pink-haired girl made a move to bend down and assist him, but he was already straightening, having collected everything. She stepped back, hesitant. It was obvious she wanted to say something.
He gave her a look of impatience. "What is it?" he asked.
She blinked in surprise before consenting. "I know it's none of our business," she said, and instantly he tensed, wondering what inappropriate thing she was about to say. "But that time when you were dead, Ahiru was devastated."
The blonde nodded, a bit too eager. "She still came to classes the day after it happened," she cooed, "and she looked terrible, the poor thing! Her hair was a mess and you could tell she'd been crying all night. She needed comfort more than ever!"
The pink-haired girl—was there an official word for people of that hair color?—crossed her arms. "And now that she's gone, the wonderful Fakir has never been the same," she said. "He was so angry for a while that almost everything set him off. Then he just lapsed into being colder and more closed-off than ever.
"But you're just the same as always, like Lilie said," she proclaimed. "After Ahiru always talked about you and said so many nice things, we thought you'd act more upset about her death."
The blonde looked more openly anticipant now. "Oh yes!" she said. "Maybe you didn't really care about her at all." This was said innocently, but the desire for fireworks flashed in her eyes.
Autor stiffened. Something flashed in his own eyes, causing the pink-haired girl to withdraw a step. The blonde watched, waiting.
His blood had gone from gradually heating to boiling. His fists clenched at his sides as he fought to keep himself in check. It was thoroughly enticing to completely allow his temper to snap, as Fakir was so wont to do. Instead, when he spoke, he found that his tone was frozen enough to inspire shivers—albeit not to cool his fury and indignation. He doubted any level of frost could do that.
"As I recall, neither of you have behaved any differently," he said. "You're still absolute, childish busybodies. Since the evidence is the same, perhaps none of us really cared about Ahiru." This he spat as he walked past, his shoulders back and his visage cold.
The pink-haired girl looked taken aback, then slightly guilty. Maybe she at least realized they had gone too far. The blonde looked delighted. Autor had not erupted loudly, but rather, quietly—and that was, perhaps, more dangerous than even expected.
Autor was clenching his teeth without conscious awareness of the fact. He continued to play, his fingers soaring over the keys.
How dare they! How dare they accuse him of such a gross travesty, when the blonde was surely the one actually at fault! He had never believed she had really cared about Ahiru. The pink-haired one had, he thought, but she still possessed a great deal of unwanted nerve to lay such crimes at his feet. Was she blind to her friend's behavior? It would not surprise him. How could she stand to be friendly with that sadist if she really understood?
He came to the end of the piece and leaned back. He was still every bit as angry as he had been upon coming here. He had no desire to be vulnerable; of course he would try not to openly display his sorrow and grief. But inside he had been, and still was, screaming.
He had lost his best friend.
Maybe he deserved to know what it felt like, after the pain he had caused Ahiru during the time those girls had cited—although hurting her had certainly not been intentional. But Fakir did not deserve to suffer like that again. And Ahiru was surely in agony as well. He remembered acutely how he had longed to be able to speak with her and Fakir and try to ease their pain, but had been helpless to do a thing. They had not been able to hear him the few times he had been allowed to come back.
He looked up with a defensive start when the door creaked open. Now what? Had they insolently followed him here? Or had the other music students heard about the incident and were anxious to join in?
At the sight of Fakir he relaxed, but raised an eyebrow. "You don't normally come here," he said.
Fakir grunted, stepping inside and pulling the door shut after him. "I heard about what happened with you and those girls," he said.
Autor sniffed. "I'm sure the entire school has heard by now," he said.
"They were out of line," Fakir growled. "The students who saw it think so too."
"Well, then perhaps there still is hope for the student body," Autor said. "Maybe they aren't all empty-headed, gossiping fools."
Fakir fell silent, searching Autor's eyes with his own. Autor was still deeply raging over the encounter, and with good reason. It was probably a good thing it had been Autor and not Fakir that the girls had approached, the writer reflected. Fakir doubted he could have kept from making the scene even worse. Autor had somehow remained collected.
At the same time, Fakir realized that he was angry by the unfair treatment of his friend. Piké and Lilie recognized that Fakir was aching, but had not been able to see that Autor was as well. Their accusations were really quite outrageous. Most people would know, or at least consider, that even if someone was apparently holding oneself together, they were likely devastated in their heart. When Fakir had made the mistake of accusing Autor of not caring in the past, he had spoken in anger and had been horrified moments later. Piké and Lilie fully believed what they had said. Or at least Piké likely did. It was hard to know what Lilie believed.
"I'm sorry," Fakir muttered, looking away.
Autor regarded him questioningly. "You weren't the one informing me that you believe I don't care," he said.
Fakir shrugged. "I said it before," he said, still half-grumbling.
"You didn't mean it," Autor said. "Anyway, that's all past and gone."
And so was Ahiru.
The unspoken words lingered in the air, floating around them and slowly lowering, closing in like a cruel vise. There was no escape from its cold truth.
Now Autor was the one to look away, his hand shaking as he adjusted his glasses. "She's really gone, Fakir," he all but whispered. He sounded so unlike himself with his haunted voice cracking in pain.
"We know that!" Fakir shot back. "We're forced to live with it every day." He crossed the room, coming to stand near the front of the piano. "And we're always going to wonder if we could have done anything to save her." Now his voice had lowered in his sorrow and grief.
Autor shuddered. "She would say we couldn't have," he said. "Normally I would be saying it too."
"But now you can't. Because you wonder too." Fakir continued to look at him, half-challenging the other boy to meet his gaze. When Autor abruptly turned to face him, however, Fakir rocked back slightly. The open anguish in Autor's eyes was startling and heart-wrenching all at once.
"Of course I wonder!" Autor snapped. "How could I not, under the circumstances?"
He clenched a fist in his lap. "Those girls basically accused me of betraying Ahiru," he said now, his voice quieting. "And . . . as long as I don't know if we could have done anything more for her, how can I say I didn't?"
Fakir stiffened. Slowly he came forward, sinking onto the piano bench next to Autor and ignoring the other boy's surprise.
"I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about the same things for myself," he said. "I try to console myself by knowing that Ahiru would tell us we could never betray her. And like you said, she'd tell us we did everything we could considering what was happening around us."
"And?" Autor looked at him expectantly. "Does it help you?"
Fakir shook his head. "Sometimes," he said. "But only marginally. Mostly it just sounds hollow," he growled.
Autor nodded in agreement.
Now they both lapsed into silence. There was no easy cure for this pain, no simple way to stop feeling that they could have done more. The fact was, Ahiru was dead. They had been left without the person whom they both loved more than anyone else.
And neither was sure the agony and guilt could ever lessen.
