4/15/06 Since early February, my main focus in the realm of writing has gone back towards original fiction, finally making it past the planning stage and going into the write-until-my-eyes-don't-focus-on-the-screen stage. However, by no means I have lost interest in Midnight Snack. It just means that I have a whopping amount of stuff to write and I'm loving every minute of it. On the plus side, I've been learning a lot about my writing style, namely about what I most love to write:
Relationships.
There is nothing more satisfying to write than a good, believable relationship between good, believable characters. I hope I've been doing a decent job of it so far and I will continue to do my best.
Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own Tales of Symphonia, nor does she own any of its characters, places or items.
.-.-.-.-.-.
"And he almost...?"
"Yeah."
"He was seriously going to?"
"I really think he was. I don't know why..."
"Oh, come on. We all know why."
"...Well, I guess..."
"...What would you have done?"
"Probably told him he could go take that soup and wash his ears out with it. Martel, some people are idiotic to the extreme."
It was at times remarkable to Alicia how many gossip-rich conversations went on in the kitchen that sounded exactly how Alicia imagined the talk she and Melissa might have that night would. While Roberto had made sure that she washed her face before returning to the kitchen, Alicia had seen him telling something to Melissa quietly.
Thankfully, Roberto hadn't asked her anything about why she'd been -- why it had been raining. Also thankfully, the odds that he would ask Melissa for any possibilities were tiny. Roberto was great in how he would either know not to pry or just be too afraid to.
Melissa, however, was lacking in that, and Alicia didn't want to talk to anyone about it until she knew how she felt about the whole thing.
And what had he been trying to say in the first place? The scaring her away from the Exsphere research could've been anything from concern to an unwillingness to agree to anything Adien asked of him. Everything after that... Calling him "Mister Bryant" had fully derailed the conversation from whatever track Regal had wanted it on.
Alicia hated not knowing things. It gave her a tendency to over-think everything.
"Hey, Ali. I was wondering--"
"Who was Julia Gallo?" Alicia interrupted.
Melissa and two other kitchen workers paused at the name. They all glanced about.
Rebecca Higwen, Roberto's mother, was first to respond, though not in any helpful way. "You've never heard about Julia before?"
"'Course she hasn't," Annie Janis countered. "Julia was before her time. How many years? Two, three?"
"Two," Melissa supplied. "It was a little before I found that... thing under the bridge by the rail." She shuddered, and Alicia managed to keep a straight face. What a silly story. "Her death, that is. They took her to the academy a few months earlier than that."
"Right." Annie nodded to herself. "So what was it that you wanted to know about Julia?"
"Well," Alicia began, "she came up in conversation, that's all. I'm not used to not knowing who people are around here."
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "In a conversation with who?"
Melissa nudged her in the side. "Let's not gossip, shall we? Julia was one of the workers here. Not kitchen staff or cleaning crew, but a secretary, I think."
"Yes, for one of the executives in the mine division," Annie agreed. That was good to know, but not what she was interested in. "Melissa, aren't you and Rebecca supposed to be--"
"Oh, right. Going."
Alicia chuckled a little. "So what happened to her? And why did she..." There went that little bit of cheer.
There really was no tactful way of bringing that up, was there?
"You know that she volunteered for the Exsphere experiments, right? The Exsphere is supposed to improve the human body as it develops, I think. That's why she wanted to give it a try," Annie explained.
"Did she have a weak body, or something?"
The older woman shook her head. "Not exactly. You know how some woman have difficulties having children, yes? The Gallos had been trying for a long while, but nothing ever came of it. They could have taken in one of the orphans of the Papal Knights, but..."
"But Julia wanted to have a child of her own," Alicia finished.
"You've no idea how much. And so when she went to the academy and was told that even with the Exsphere she couldn't... That was it."
Neither spoke for a good long while.
Alicia swallowed, tentative and not sure she wanted to know. "What happened to the husband?"
"I suppose you could say he's very protective of what he has left." Annie glanced around the kitchen once more, then looked back to her work quickly.
Alicia looked around, trying to see where exactly the other's gaze had gone.
...Oh.
Oh.
Well then.
...That explained a lot.
"So it wasn't the Exsphere that made her...?"
"If anything, I think the hope it gave her made her hold out longer."
That was a relief. Presea wasn't in trouble, then.
Annie continued, "It's a good guess that the fuss over the Exsphere is mostly company politics. It makes me sick. That poor woman. No peace, and if anyone deserved some, it was her."
She trailed off and didn't speak up again.
.-.-.-.-.-.
"Up to something, Combatir? It's unlike you."
"Wuh – oh, no, sir! Why would you think that?"
"Besides how you've been glancing at me every other second all morning?"
"I wuh?"
"It's disconcerting."
"Sorry, sir."
"So. Your reason?"
"...uh..."
"'Uh'?"
"...What does it say on your shirt, sir?"
"'Don't make me poison your meal'."
"...Oh."
"That was it?"
"Yeah, sorry about that, sir."
"Just come out and ask next time, Combatir."
"Sure thing, Cook."
.-.-.-.-.-.
Some days were so long that time couldn't be summed up in hours. This was one of those days. Getting called up to El Presidente's office, the Exsphere, Regal, Cook Gallo... It all made for one impossibly lengthy day.
"Sleeeeeeep..."
Melissa attempted to tug her pillow away and failed miserably. Finally, she settled for sitting in the middle of Alicia's bed. "Ali, come on, spill it. What happened up there?"
"Exsphere experiments," Alicia mumbled into her pillow. "Nothing important."
"...Say that again?"
She rolled over onto her back. "Horace's professor wanted to know some stuff about my sis and if I wanted to be experimented on." Alicia made a face to show how likely that was.
"So he didn't show?"
Alicia couldn't even pretend to be confused about who Melissa was talking about.
"Well, actually..." she trailed off, staring at the ceiling.
"Martel above, Ali! What happened?"
Giving in and sitting up, Alicia told her everything, as close to the exact wording as she could remember. Never the best of storytellers, she jumped forward to the elevator ride before she mentioned Regal being late and the pair kept coming back to that one instant. The Julia Gallo issue was mulled over for a while as well, concerns for Presea rising and falling as it became clear how little either of the two knew about Exspheres. The folder Professor Adien had given her hadn't helped much, if at all.
The entire story told and dissected more thoroughly than Alicia had thought possible, Melissa considered things for a moment with a thoughtful expression. "What would you have done?"
"Done when?" Alicia asked, taking out her pigtails. The whole mess was starting to give her a headache and having her hair pulled back tightly wasn't going to help anything.
"If he had kissed you," Melissa clarified. "What would you have done?"
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, holding her pillow, Alicia looked down at the bedspread, toying with her hair tie. "I..." She'd been thinking about that. She'd been thinking about that a lot. She'd been thinking about how sweet it would be to be held once more, to taste that taste, to drink in his scent. She'd been thinking about how badly she would have needed to shove him away, to yell that he had already made his choice, to curse him for all the pain and worry he'd caused her. Yet after all that thinking... "I don't know."
"It's been over a year already. Aren't you..." Melissa paused, frowning. "Well, aren't you over him?"
Alicia startled, looking up at her friend.
"You've got your own life, and you're doing fine with it. And as for guys, that Horace is crazy about you. He's probably been for a while now. I don't think Roberto would be against the idea of being more than friends, either. Just, you know, not at the same time," she added with a slight grin. That grin didn't last long.
Alicia could only stare at her. "Horace? That kid's like my little brother! And- and Roberto? Roberto is, he's what? Twenty? I don't care how 'adorable' his mother thinks we would be together: he's way too old for me."
Melissa stared back at her, gaping slightly. Alicia then fully realized the implications of what she'd just said.
Roberto Higwen was nearly three years younger than Regal Bryant.
She felt sick inside. If she admitted that five years older was too old, what did that make seven and a half, practically eight? She wasn't being disloyal to anyone by saying that. To be disloyal, a person had to need to be loyal, didn't they? Alicia didn't need to be loyal, to be faithful. She didn't. She didn't want...
She would have kissed him back. She would have clasped her hands behind his neck and felt his hair between her fingers. She would have closed her eyes and opened her mouth against his. She would have invited him back into her life, back into her heart. She would have begged for his love.
If only he had kissed her.
No. She would have slapped him. Or hit him. And then she would have been thrown in prison for assaulting a noble, but that was beside the point.
Fine, maybe it wasn't. Maybe she didn't know what the point really was. Maybe she didn't want to know. Maybe... No, not maybe.
She hadn't wanted Roberto to be the one to comfort her. She hadn't wanted to need comforting in the first place. She hadn't wanted Regal to stay with her, but then she didn't want to leave him. She didn't want... So many things had happened that Alicia didn't want.
Alicia wanted...
She wanted...
She didn't know what she wanted. Not exactly, anyway. All that she was sure was that it had something to do with Regal, love, and being held when she was crying.
The first, she didn't have. The second, she had a different kind of. But the third, that one she had.
"I'm sorry, Ali... I'm so sorry..."
.-.-.-.-.-.
"You know, I really hate good-byes," Horace admitted, hands in his pockets.
"Same here," Alicia agreed. "Well, first times the hardest, right?"
He laughed and immediately sobered. The two looked at each other for a long moment and hugged for a longer one. "Whoever said that never had to say good-bye twice," Horace told her, holding tight.
Alicia tried her best not to sniffle. "If- if you see my sister, tell her I love her, all right?"
"Yeah. Sure thing. Same goes for my sis, too."
"And I'll see you before I'm twenty or something."
"You'd better count on it."
"Promise."
"Promise."
The long hug ended and the pair hooked thumbs as if they were children again, saying in unison, "Promise, promise, Ozette tree. Bring back, bring back, my hope to me."
Awkward smiles were exchanged, both knowing they should have out-grown such rhymes long ago. Alicia didn't really care. This was the little brother she had never had and she was going to miss him more than she had realized she would.
Horace started to walk away and turned back, looking at her questioningly. "You think you're ever going to go back home?"
"...I think I'm already home."
"Yeah," Horace said. "I think you are."
"Go home, Ace."
"That's where I'm headed, Alicat." He looked as if he were about to say something else, but seemed to think better – or worse – of it. Alicia nearly asked, nearly addressed the fear Melissa had unwittingly placed inside of her.
She didn't.
Later, after she had dashed back to the kitchen without having eaten a bite during her lunch break, after the workday was over, after the lights were out and Melissa was fast asleep, Alicia was made to wonder.
If she had thought herself an adult before, what was she now?