Disclaimer: I don't own Elsword or any of its characters
Chapter 4
When morning breaks with that first streak of sunlight through the lab her forehead was sticking to Yuno's cheek. She lifts her head, and finds a red spot on Yuno's baby face where she made her pillow.
"Good morning, Yuno." She grumbles.
"Good morning Echo!" Yunos calls loudly, making Echo release an amused grunt. "Another great day today, huh?"
She's running out of soda, so she makes a mental note to brew up some tea later and store it in the fridge. While chugging down a bottle, Echo rolls towards her computer to check on any progress her self-operating system has made.
"Yes, I think it's going to be." She says softly, wide-eyed and excited all of a sudden.
The system shows 90% progress. His entire body is almost fully repaired, save for the empty slot in his chest where the core is supposed to be placed.
She punches some commands through and smiles.
"I have a surprise for you, Yuno." She tells him.
"Oh, boy! What is it? What is it?!" comes the all-too-ecstatic response.
Echo giggles at him, and attaches a bunch of cords on the base where the glass ball is hovering on. The vessel and her computer synchronize with the flickering of the lights. As she was about to complete the relay of commands, she stops.
A sudden realization dawns on her – one she has never bothered with.
She pulls out a small mirror from her cupboard and starts removing all greases and smudges on her face. She redoes the ponytail after giving her long white hair a quick brush and readies herself in front of her computer. She presses the confirm key, and swerves her chair so she's facing Yuno.
"Yuno, try opening your eyes." She says, tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear.
"O-okay."
His face first gains a bit of color, then the eyelids begin to move, until they slowly open up into the biggest pair of blue orbs. He blinks, not focusing on anything at first, gets a grasp of things and then looks intently at Echo.
A large smile forms on his face, and he gasps.
"Echo!" he calls out loudly through his own lips. "I can see you! I can see you!"
Echo smiles, shrugs, and blushes, which are the only things she can do aside from compressing what petite body she has in her little chair. It's not like he's seeing him for the first time, which makes this childish excitement worth it for her.
After the sudden burst, he attempts to wiggle from his spot. His face contorts adorably with the effort.
"Don't move too much." She warns, but the boy-NASOD persists and finally gets his desired outcome.
Arms raised and leaning towards her. Echo blinks in puzzlement.
When after a few seconds she didn't move from her spot, Yuno frowns a small, yet heartbreaking frown.
"What are you doing?" Echo asks, just so she can play along.
"I want to give you a hug." He says with a disappointed tone.
Echo raises an eyebrow at him, loathing both the fact that her heart almost melted at such a sight, and that she has ultimately decided to humor him against her usual personal boundaries.
"Dummy." She whispers while walking towards him. His face instantly lights up upon seeing her approach and widens the scope of her arms further as if wanting to take more of her in.
She would've settled for a quick, tap-like hug, but he wanted a full-blown embrace, their bodies squeezed together in an odd way, and his face against her bare shoulder.
Yuno makes a satisfied 'm' sound and breaths her in. Echo wouldn't have allowed anyone to touch her, let along enter a certain distance to her, but now she couldn't find it in herself to peel him away.
Finally surrendering to the situation, she closes her eyes, returns the hug, and lets the earth-scented hair of this beautiful creature get the better of her senses.
They probably would've stayed like that longer had it not for a strange beeping sound from her computer. They both gently pull away and stare at the flashing screen. Yuno is getting a good look at her tech for the first time, and still he's the first to speak.
"Your system is very primitive." He tells her innocently.
Echo feels a vein snap at that. No one has ever dared criticize her tools before, much less so openly.
"Well, this primitive system actually brought you back to life."
"Cool! That just shows how talented you are, Echo." He says, and Echo swears she heard a bit of pride there. "Looking at that data series you got there, I'd say you have an issue with power."
Echo slams a fast on the table in sheer frustration, making Yuno flinch. He's right, and it didn't help that he had to discover this for himself. The reason that stupid 10% didn't complete overnight is because she doesn't have the capacity to actually jumpstart his system to initiate perpetual energy circulation – sort of saying she won't be able to get his heart running like it used to.
"Stupid tech." she whispers, completely forgetting the fact that she made the thing herself entirely from scratch. "I can't get you working fully with what I have. Which means now you're back to normal, but only for a short duration."
"Don't worry about it, Echo." Yuno says reassuringly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Now that you got my body fixed and my core intact, my terminal in Atlas Station can serve as the ignition. I can't wait to finally return home."
Echo stops the series of commands she had been typing in her console and processes that statement. She starts recalling the majority of subjects coming from Yuno, and ultimately surmises that all he could think of since getting his consciousness back is returning to Atlas Station. And yet in between his stories, his innocent flattery and sweetness she became absorbed at having him around that not having him with her anymore seemed unreal.
And painful.
"I'm going to pull the plug first to calibrate on a few things. Your body will detach from the core again." She says coldly.
"O-okay." Yuno says, catching the sudden unaffectionate tone from Echo. At first he leans back from her, but then decides to offer his arms again. "Can I get another hug before you turn me off?" he says with an unsure, yet also hopeful smile.
Echo immediately shoves away the terrible twinge in her chest when Yuno referred to himself as being turned off by her. She keeps her focus in the computer, and her tone indifferent.
"Maybe later."
"Okay." Yuno responds softly, leaning back to the vessel, and giving a worried and sad look at Echo. As soon as he settled in, Echo immediately begins key strokes after key stroke to complete a hard execution. In seconds, Yuno leaves his body and enters the fragments again.
Blue light gleams through each shard of the core. Echo releases a deep sigh and pulls the ribbon holding her hair in. Ashen locks falls all over the place pass down her shoulders and she rummages through them like she's never done in a long time. She realizes she's never been so stuck before. Everything has been smooth, calculable, and predictable. Since meeting him, he's taken her into a pace she's never been to before, and she's made more progress in such a short period of time just by having him company.
But none of those matter now. He's not staying, and she feels foolish for making him a part of her.
"Echo?" he finally calls her after a few minutes of steady silence.
She doesn't answer.
"Echo? Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here. What is it?" she responds with an aggravated tone.
"I just… wanted to hear your voice." He tells her weakly.
"If you don't have anything important to say, keep quiet. I need to concentrate." She says, contradicting the past few days when she couldn't even focus without his chatter filling her ears.
"I understand. I'm sorry, Echo." He says, sounding small and contrite.
A tight, squeezing feeling creeps its way into Echo's chest, but she suppresses it forcefully.
"You shouldn't have any problem not hearing me." She tells him, "You'll be used to it soon enough."
A short silence after that says Yuno gave her words a deep thought.
"What do you mean by that?" he asks.
"I'm sure Atlas Station will make things better for you. You'll have everything like it used to be, right? Everything you need, right there with you, and nothing else to worry about." She says angrily, mashing on the keyboard.
"Well, I'm hoping I'll be able to live peacefully again, and finally meet my brother in Elysion, my best friend Nono, Elsword and his gang, have the station running again…"
"What about me?" she interrupts in a quiet tone. "I guess you won't be needing me anymore after this, huh?"
When Yuno didn't give her an answer, she finally concludes she has no part in his life.
"Typical." She says, just to set her default, indifferent mode on again.
"Echo, I…"
"Rest up your core. I'll think of a way to temporarily power you up so I can take you to my client."
"Your… client?"
She opens rolled up prints and begins studying the contents, "Yeah, Add paid me a fortune to have you fixed."
"I thought you fixed me because… you're my friend." Yuno's voice sounds truthfully pained as he speaks, but Echo chooses to ignore how he said it, and instead gives a cynical laugh.
"Gee, feel free to think that if it makes your NASOD brain feel any better." She says afterwards, letting each word stab through, "I'm not sure how much you saw when you had your eyes open, but everything around my lab is junk. That's what I do for a living- people give me their junk and I make something good out of it. Add wasn't doing anything different when he brought you in."
By the time she realized what she just said, it was too late. Not that she'll find it in herself to apologize for it. On the contrary, with such a pace in her cruelty of words, might as well push the point across thoroughly.
"In a way you're no different too. All that junk you shared with me, hoping to get something out of me. I should probably charge you too…"
"You don't think I'm junk, Echo." He says firmly, but also desperately, his voice shaking through his words, "You don't. You're not that kind of person."
"Again, feel free to think that…"
"You're my friend!" he says, suddenly louder, more assertive, and more desperate, "You're… you're my…"
Whatever strength he found seems to have withered right after as his voice softens and weakens. He insists on saying that last line a few more times until finally, as the core succumbs to bleakness, he's lost in the silence.
Echo had been watching the monitor during the last few minutes. His stress level had used up most of the energy reserve she afforded him, ending up with his consciousness getting terribly worn out. He's now asleep, much earlier than usual.
It's a relief for Echo. As soon as she got her personal walls up again, hearing his voice from the other side was painful, more so that she's never heard someone so hurt before. But this isn't the first time anyone became a part of her life but then left ultimately. She's been through this phase– Elsword, Chung, Add – good people, with scheduled adventures that can't accommodate a simple visit to her unless they desperately needed her.
She pulls out a bag from her satchel and stares at the pile of red, glimmering stones inside. This is why she does it, no other reason matter. She wondered how much a life of a person actually costs – for Add, everything. For her, just a few billion Ed – at least that's what she's convinced herself of.
She wipes a single tear from her eye, takes a deep breath, and begins to attack the problem at hand.
End of Chapter 4
