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"So, did you want to do anything today?"
"Mm?"
"I asked if you wanted to do anything?"
Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas offered a small sound of contentment as she snuggled against her boyfriend a bit tighter. "I'm alright with this for now."
Next to her, Odd Della Robbia responded with a gentle squeeze of his girlfriend's hand and a slight tightening of the embrace he had her wrapped in. The two were laying back on Odd's bed in the room he shared with Ulrich in the Kadic dormitories. When Sissi had shown up unannounced a half hour or so beforehand, he'd been worried at first that something might be wrong. Thus far, she hadn't said anything along those lines; once Ulrich had politely excused himself to give the two space, Sissi had simply asked if they could snuggle, and Odd certainly wasn't going to turn it down. So, here they'd been since.
Odd felt a small, hesitant tensing in his girlfriend, before she spoke. "I had a bad dream last night."
"About what?"
"It's hard to remember all of it…but I know it ended with you getting hurt. I've had dreams like that a couple of times recently." She tilted her head to look up from her resting spot on his chest, her eyes meeting his. "I know you're adventurous and all, but you don't do dangerous stuff…right?"
Odd felt a small lump catch in his throat. It was a simple enough question, and he knew the answer he was supposed to be giving. He and Sissi had only been together for two weeks now, and had tried to spend a good amount of time together. He'd been lucky thus far in that there had only been three XANA attacks in that time, and in all cases the group had been able to contain effects quickly enough to avoid Returns to the Past. His habit of bouncing from girl-to-girl hadn't really prepared him to grasp the long-term effects of a steady relationship as a virtual warrior with oodles of secrets to keep. And though he'd been able to play off any issues so far, suddenly he now found the concept of lying to Sissi very, very unpleasant.
Sissi clearly noticed the pause, even if it was really only a momentary one. Her gaze became more concerned, though not angry. "There is something, isn't there?"
Odd looked away slightly. "It's not…I mean, I don't go for the super dangerous stuff. I don't do skydiving or skateboarding in traffic or anything like that."
"But there is something." Her voice was a little firmer this time.
"…yeah."
Sissi took a moment to think, resting her head back on his chest. "Is there a reason you can't tell me? A good one?"
Odd let out a low breath. "Yes…and…well no, but yes, but it's a dumb…well, no, it's a good reason, but I don't like not saying…" He slowly withdrew his arms and sat up, slowly enough to let Sissi rise with him. She sat up straight, giving him a little space as he swung his feet off the bed and hunched forward a bit; as she watched his face, she saw the serious lines in it and the tight focus that showed how deep in thought he was.
It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, she'd almost completely hated Odd right to his core. Him and his stupid group of friends. They'd constantly taken verbal potshots at each other, and enjoyed watching the other go through all sorts of humiliations over the years they'd known each other at school. Then a short amount of time accidentally meeting in the school's online chatroom had let them talk at length, without even knowing who they were each talking to. He'd been open, caring, and vulnerable; she'd been sympathetic, gentle, and equally exposed.
When they'd agreed to meet and had realized who was who, they'd both first reacted with anger, then betrayal, then suddenly passion, and the dating had begun. It had been rocky at first; secrets and dodging his friends and her friends alike. She'd even called it off for a couple days, but he'd managed to undo both the nervousness and the secrecy with one big, bold, incredibly dumb yet brave move in announcing their relationship to the entire cafeteria during lunch. With that kind of devotion, she couldn't help being swept back in, and gladly so.
Since then, there'd been a couple small issues. Her father had given Odd over a month's detention for the stunt, though after seeing how much brighter she seemed in the aftermath, he'd trimmed it to a week. Her own friends had needed some adjusting time. Nikolas had come around the quickest; at first he'd been incredulous, but soon he realized that she had become on the whole more pleasant to be around, so he'd accepted and congratulated her. Herve had been mostly quiet on the other hand; she knew he carried a torch for her, but she'd never felt the same way, and had to turn him down. She hoped he'd be able to understand with more time.
From Odd's side of the social stratum though, she'd experienced nothing but total acceptance. Aelita and Jeremie had congratulated the two, and even had revealed themselves as lead members of the online chat where Odd and Sissi had inadvertently been acquainted; it was a huge surprise for Sissi to find out that Aelita of all people had been one of her best friends online going back several months. Ulrich and Yumi were on speaking terms with her, and she'd even been invited out shopping with Yumi and Aelita that past weekend; the amount of laughter and silliness that had ensued while trying on ridiculous outfits left her wondering how she'd gotten by with almost no female friends for so long. The group was wholly supportive of her and Odd, and she'd done her best to try and make up for her past actions, even as the group apologized for their side of things.
But certainly the biggest change had been learning more about Odd and who he really was. For all his laughter and jokes and cheeseball antics, Odd had a lot more depth than she'd ever really seen before. He had a great love of music to match hers, and a creative mind that could come up with intricate narratives holding much more complexity than the superhero comics he often read. More than anything, she'd been surprised by his enormous heart; when his brash exterior faded away, Odd was tender, thoughtful, and very devoted to her, often finding ways to ask just the right questions or give just the right answers. More than anything, he seemed to want to make her happy, but she'd made it clear that the line was drawn at any kind of self-sacrifice for the sake of her happiness.
That was why she hadn't asked questions or poked and prodded when he had to abruptly call off a meetup a week and a half earlier due to an "emergency", and why she hadn't poked him about seeing him and Jeremie vanishing into the woods around Kadic a few days before. She'd long suspected that there was something strange about the group of five, and although she'd been welcomed in, she always wondered how far that might extend. But she also hadn't wanted to stress Odd, so she'd kept it pushed back in her mind. Unfortunately, that had just led to her worried mind coming up with all sorts of disturbing scenarios in her dreams, almost all of them ending up with Odd hurt somehow. The previous night's dream had even ended with a vision of Odd disintegrating; she'd woken up crying, and the image had stayed with her and left her distraught right up until she was in his arms again.
Odd took a long breath, and Sissi was pulled back to the present, watching him run his hands over his face until he was resting his forehead on them.
"There are things I do…that aren't safe." He said. "I guess a lot of them. But it's not as simple as just…saying it all, or swearing off it. It's not me wanting to make you worried, or not wanting to tell you, or not trusting you or anything…there's just…arg, it's so complicated." Odd looked up from his hands, staring at the far wall, clearly trying to figure out what to say.
Sissi took a long breath herself, muddling through her own thoughts before speaking. "Does it have to do with the group?"
Odd didn't look back, but he did close his eyes. "Yeah. It's something we all deal with admittedly." For a moment, his voice became a slightly bitter tone she wasn't familiar with from him at all. "A big freaking stupid secret…"
"And you can't tell me?" Her voice was small; she was trying to not harass him, but she couldn't help feeling a little hurt by not being included.
Odd turned back to her, looking at her intently. His eyes met hers again, and she saw all the conflict in them for the first time; he absolutely wanted to spill everything right that instant, whatever it was. She met his gaze, and he saw the vulnerability in it again; if he told her nothing, she'd try to understand and accept it, but it would always be there until it was touched on, and the longer it went unsaid, the longer the pain and worry would continue, and the worse the feeling of not being trusted would fester.
He looked away slightly again, then stood up from the bed, hands clenched, and Sissi could tell he'd steeled himself for a difficult decision.
"I'm going to talk to the others tonight about it."
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