The next day.
As expected, Bookman appears to be unfazed and far too calm about the whole thing. But something in the air is off. The sensation is thoroughly discomfiting, and as it turns out, Lavi's precautions are all appropriately valid. After breakfast, when they're in their room packing their bags, Bookman stops and pauses, and changes his mind too. The look in his eyes is perfectly crystal in meaning—there are things to be discussed. Like what really happened yesterday, with that incident with the akuma, and more. And the more delicate, implicit things that neither of them will want to acknowledge.
Lavi takes a seat on the bed. This one, he imagines, will be difficult.
A moment passes before either of them makes the first move. Or any move at all.
Lavi's right.
This is difficult.
Today, Bookman is more honest and less Bookman than Lavi's ever seen him. Completely out of character is probably the best way to put it. That should have been his first sign.
Even Bookman is actually really bothered by this.
"I never thought," Bookman speaks first, and slow, and his short laugh is some mix between fascinated, disappointed, and grim. And honest. He's caught on more than Lavi had bargained for, but that's Bookman for you. "I never expected for things to turn out this way. The boy I first met... I never imagined you would be like this. To see you fall victim to time."
Lavi can't even crack a joke this time. "It's not like I want this either."
Bookman's tone is understanding. Distanced, but understanding. "I know."
"And..." He changes his mind. He can't confess to anymore. "Never mind."
Bookman pauses. "It can't be helped, can it?"
"Yeah." Pauses, hesitates, and not sure at all if he actually wants to know the answer to this one, "So what happens now?"
Bookman's words are closed, and decisive, too. Careful and measured. Bookman. "This is something you have to deal with all on your own."
"But—"
"You're not a child anymore," says Bookman in a way that's neither comforting nor severe. It just is. "You have to decide for yourself on how you want to deal with it. There's a time limit though, and you'll have to ask yourself too, Lavi. How much will you endure? How much can you give up?" A short pause. "Or can you even?"
The questions throb. Bookman has a way of cutting the cards one by one, but it's the next part that really kills.
"You're not giving your all right now, Lavi."
This isn't even disappointment. Disappointment would have been better. Disappointment would have been so much easier to work with, easier to handle, easier to fix. But this.
It's.
"Do you still really want to be a Bookman?"
The taste of summer is really strong this year.
"So it's been decided," he says cheerfully.
Elaine idly turns the brim of her hat, shades her face from the sun's heat. "Yeah?"
"I'm really gonna live the hell out of this summer."
A pause. She gives him a weird look before laughing, "Um yeah, that's usually a good thing to do."
He yawns lazily. "Well, I finally made up my mind, so."
Neutral, as usual. "Well... that's good then, I guess."
He stops and considers for a while. The clouds are lazy today. In the past two weeks, the daily news has been fairly mild. Bookman says that's usually the first sign.
"Oh yeah," Elaine speaks up. "You and your grandpa are traveling right? You guys have been here for a while, but is there anything that you want to particularly see here? I could show you around, and you know."
He waves it off breezily. "Don't worry about it, I've already seen it all."
"Really?"
"Yep."
A beat passes before she starts at a different angle. "Hey," she starts. And stops.
"What's up?" He says sleepily.
"What do you usually do around here anyway?"
"Hm?"
"'Cause, I mean, you don't go to school... and you don't seem like you're working either. So what were you doing all these days?"
"Oh, you know, just a little bit of this and that. Guess that's what being an apprentice is all about, huh?" He evades that point too. Explaining the whole Bookman thing is a little complicated, and he'd rather not get into it right now if he can help it. "You know," his mouth splits into an easy grin. "I once thought about being an artist. Or like an artisan. Something of the sort."
"And?"
"No good. Gramps said it just wasn't meant to be." He stretches and looks a little wistful. "It's kind of fun though. Sculpting and stuff like that."
"Yeah? What did you make?"
He reflects for a while and decides to tag Seral for just a moment. "I used to have this thing for masks," he admits breezily.
"Masks?"
"Yeah. I thought the whole thing was kind of cool. You know, with how they can look human but you know they're not." He pauses. "Okay actually, that didn't come out right. It's a little hard to explain."
She laughs. "No, I think I can kind of get your point."
"Yeah?" He gestures. "I was still no good at it, though."
"Well, you still have the rest of your life ahead of you."
That's one way of looking at it, he supposes. "Yeah." He looks up at those blue brushed indigo skies. "Yeah."
Bookman doesn't say much else after that. Instead, Bookman nonchalantly leaves the question hanging unanswered in the air, which, Lavi later decides, kind of figures. That much is to be expected.
Bookman brings it up again after they finish eating dinner that same day. He does it in a way that Lavi doesn't see coming. It is human and warm and comforting and Lavi doesn't know what to do anymore.
He had never imagined he would actually need Bookman to be Bookman.
Bookman starts, "I was in your situation once, at one point in my life too, you know."
"Situation?"
"People don't just choose to be Bookman, Lavi."
Lavi blinks.
"They are chosen." Bookman picks up his cup of after-dinner tea, and sips. "I've said it before and you probably remember, but Bookmen have a duty they need to carry out. Not just anyone can decide to be a Bookman. Bookmen are handpicked."
'Cause duty is duty, no matter how you choose to cut it up.
"Bookmen carry a burden that cannot be compared to any other. And you know what that is."
To see and record the war for all of eternity.
"Bookmen live alongside their records. If you are what you eat, then Bookmen are what they record."
There are years, of course, where little happens. By the same logic, there are also years where it feels like the world is on the brink of ending. There could have been so much more to live for, but the trick is getting that lucky chance to do so.
Bookman doesn't actually say any of that, of course, but all of that is already implied in his own records.
Bookman does say this, though. "History had never meant to be objective, Lavi. History is always subjective and is never written by the losing side. History doesn't lament as much as it glorifies. The biggest problem, probably, is that Bookmen realize this more than anyone else."
Bookman speaks with precision.
"You're slipping, Lavi."
In and out.
In and out of consciousness. In and out of the present and in and out of reality itself. He's already suspended in this dimension where all of time and space exist simultaneously. It's that dealer again, that card game, that non-interference, that knowing, that living like this, and all the mournful it's already too late that no one ever explicitly says.
It's all in his head and everything is just fucked up. Lavi doesn't even need Bookman to point this one out for him.
Bookman does anyway. It is not quite pity yet. "You're watching the past, Lavi," Bookman says, and this time, he knows this is just crammed full with touches of despair, "You've forgotten how to look forward."
A long moment passes before Lavi can speak.
"I know," is all he can bring himself to say.
She never brings up her conversation from that one night, and it isn't his style to ask about the things that are out of his place to mention, so the only thing he can do is warily watch for the signs of distress.
Sometimes, they're there. They are small, subtle hints—written in the subtext to her words, or pushed in the bags under her eyes, or folded in the press of her clothes. Small things, but still there, he notices.
Sometimes, she catches him watching.
She scratches at the back of her neck. "What?"
He blinks. "Nothing," he says and invents, "I was just thinking that your hair looks good today."
This time she blinks before laughing. "You're such a bad liar."
"Hey," he interjects, "at least I tried."
The words are familiar to both of them. At least, he's mentally rewinding to that night again, and her crying.
"Yeah, I guess," she accepts, laughing. "Though lying's not really something you should get any points for." A pause. "But what were you really thinking about?"
He stretches his arms. "Rather not say. Nothing much, really." Pauses. "But well, it does look good today, though," he tacks on at the end just because it feels right to do.
She grins again and drops the subject. The way her mouth tips up reminds him of that one time she'd said that He's always there listening. "Well thanks, I guess."
He yawns. "It's what I do."
The next night, he notices. The stars are done burning.
Daybreak.
Bookman takes this one solo.
Before Bookman leaves to record, all he says is that they'll be leaving back for the Order again in a week. Seven days, Bookman allows, is how long he'll give Lavi to find himself.
"It will not be easy," warns Bookman.
And leaves it at that. It's probably better for the both of them.
And it's not like it's exactly surprising, he supposes, given everything that's been going on with him lately, but it still hurts more than it should have. Maybe he's being too sensitive to the whole thing—hell, he knows he is actually, but still, it wouldn't have hurt Bookman to sugarcoat his words every once in a while.
He should know better than this. He thinks about the whole thing again while the sun peeks over the tops of the mountains. There's not much else to do at this hour.
"Hey, gramps."
He only speaks up once he knows that the current Bookman is completely out of range—too far away to hear a thing. He speaks in a language that is foreign and already long buried, and it's satisfying to exist – even for just this moment – in a realm where no one else can interfere. Because, after all, this is a story told in reverse. A confession of the most impossible desperation etched on both sides of the same coin that he'll never want to flip.
"You know, I've always wanted to be a Bookman. All my life, honest. Now that I think about it, it's the only thing I wanted that badly."
He thinks about it for a while. He's never tried this before. But he's feeling a lot wordier than he'd thought he would, and a lot more pathetic than he's felt in a while too.
"Actually, I think you probably know that better than anyone, huh?" He says sheepishly, "Since I stuck through all that for all these years and all." Laughs shortly. "But anyway, that's not really the point here, I guess."
A long silence passes.
There are actually people up and about now. He watches them from the far edge of the town, like the outsider he's always been. He leans against the wall of an abandoned, dilapidated building and watches the early morning working class get up and set up their stalls and open their shops.
The streets are empty, but they still speak of the terror of the akuma's attack from the day before. Their worn, stained surfaces discuss a lot of other things too, like common history and current political tension and hope already torn asunder. They remind him a bit of Seral's days.
He thinks about Seral next. Seral, whose time had been up a while ago. Seral, who moves on to the next identity with an appropriate amount of ease. Seral, who had gotten punched straight in the face for the first time in his life and who had easily accomplished the thing he's never done before goal in that lifetime without any problems, hesitations, or delays.
Seral who lets go the way he's supposed to.
The next part is more for him than anyone else.
"So you were saying that I gotta endure through it and give things up. That I gotta take of this myself, otherwise it'd be meaningless, I know. But..."
Do you still really want to be a Bookman?
He looks at Deak now, another younger version of himself from not too long ago on the other side of that elusive, simultaneous mirror, and all that's there is that feeling of the cold glass he can't break through. Now he knows exactly how this won't end, but that doesn't really change a thing. Hell, time and space and even whole dimensions don't matter anymore.
A Bookman's proper role is to watch, and record.
Bookman's words are cutting him hollow again. They crawl in all the nooks and corners of his vertebrae, and their teeth sink in deep. You're not giving your all right now, Lavi.
He thumbs at his head wrap until the ethnic cloth slips down over his eyes and falls straight down to the base where neck and shoulder meet. He looks through the mirror of his eye.
The sun's burning.
You have a choice to make, Lavi.
Deak.
He's watching Deak. And Elaine, too.
The confession is next. He closes his eyes for this one.
"A choice, huh. The thing is, I don't think it's really mine to make anymore."
The next day is the brilliant kind of day. The kind with impossibly blue skies and not a whole lot else. It's that kind of lazy day where you want to take the kids out to the park, or just sit around and do absolutely nothing at all.
Even Bookman seems to be accepting the weather in his own way, somewhat. Well, maybe not. It's probably just coincidence, he decides.
"We'll end here for now, Deak," Bookman says.
Lavi blinks somewhat doubtfully. That makes the day's work a lot shorter than usual. "Really? What're you going to do now then?"
"There are things to be done."
He's still doubtful. "Well if you say so, gramps."
Bookman waves him off, and he takes that as his cue to leave the room. But as Lavi passes by Bookman, Bookman says quietly, "You should get ready to uproot yourself."
Outside, he takes another copy of the morning newspaper just to make sure and scans through all the headlines again. Bookman might be right. It might be time to leave soon.
It hasn't even been long, so Bookman's words are ringing in his ears, now etched in his memory for all of forever. You should get ready to uproot yourself. He takes another round around those buildings, and these streets, and the park too. It can't hurt.
Now, he can count the steps it takes to get from one place to another, can figure out when the shops open, can walk around the streets with the ease of a native. Maybe Bookman's right about the whole uprooting thing, even though gramps meant it in a different context. He's been getting a bit attached to this place.
After long enough, he figures she's not around today. That's what happens when you leave things up to chance.
So he goes back to the park, lies on the grass and soaks up the last of the sun rays, and the sky air, and everything else in between in the troposphere too.
Indigo episodes.
That's what these days feel like, he finally decides. What they are, actually.
The lull. The stillness, the silence, the standstill. The comfort. The carefree hours, and living in the easy. The kind of thing that doesn't last for long. That proverbial calm before the storm.
He can't see into the future – can only delve and sink in the past and present – but he can feel it coming closer with every tick-tock second, whatever it even is. Experience has taught him that newspapers can lie—they lie all the time really, and it's been sixteen years already, and his intuition is usually spot-on about this kind of stuff. And these headlines already speak for themselves.
He thinks of his first time here in this quaint little town, and his mouth tips up wryly.
A lot of it starts off all wrong, he has to admit. Completely wrong.
He had a plan – a whole routine, really – that he follows systematically with every entrance. After all, it's his and Bookman's agreed policy to keep things easy and breezy, no matter where they are or what situation they're in.
It's the best way for Bookmen to survive in this hell of a world. So he had a whole scripted plan going on, and he'd planned to just mind his own business and watch from afar as always. Keep the interactions down to a minimum too, since Bookman had been pretty explicit in telling him what he thought about this place's future.
Only, he'd gotten pity food and a supposed-to-be stranger who cared too much about too much. And a hell lot more delicate conversations than he'd ever bargained for. People, he reflects, can really be weak things.
He closes his eyes, whistles to himself, and wages his bets now. The sun beats down at him. It's blistering, and he considers how he should clean things up this time, 'cause all the streets are telling all the signs of a town on the verge of splintering.
He tries to picture what it might look like this time.
Instead, he sees the shadow of her silhouette pressed soft on the inside of his eyelids, blinks hard, and comes across a realization. He blinks again.
He holds his hand up out to the sky, looks at its contorted shape under that warning sun, and this time the smile set on his lips is a forced one. He laughs a short laugh before putting his hand over his closed eyes and seeing that familiar silhouette again. "So that's how it is."
This will probably be difficult, he supposes.
"I guess it can't really be helped," he muses to himself pseudo-cheerfully and reflects on it all, and doesn't really know what to make of it or what to do with it even. "Didn't think it'd turn out like that."