It took going back to my dorm that night to realize how distracted I was. I sat at my bed, staring at his journal, but unable to comprehend any of it. Instead, I touched my lips, remembering him.

I wasn't an outgoing person. Obviously. My idea of fun was going to the library and learning sign language.

I never cared to go out much. Watching the history channel and reading historical fiction online was my idea of fun. Being around other people was uncomfortable. So the last time I kissed someone was back in my hometown about four years ago. She was a friend of a friend and my date for a dance. We started dating just because it was mutually comfortable but both of us were frequently busy with our advanced classes. And we both mutually just stopped.

Chaitanya though… Chaitanya was different. With my hometown girlfriend, I just wanted to kiss. With Chaitanya… There's a small part of me that wanted to kiss him- and admittedly, not just because he was a good kisser either.

But he was a good kisser. I don't think I could go any further with him, but I wanted to kiss him.

And I did like being around him. I enjoyed the books he recommended to me and how he challenged what I knew of the war and all the players. I thought about him all the time. What did he know? Who was he?

Every time I looked at him from then on out, Chaitanya seemed to have a flirtatious twinkle in his eyes, and I didn't hate it. I returned the look.

And we would bump shoulders, and his corrections of my signs when his hands touched me were just a little too long.

There were so many times where I wanted to kiss him again just to verify both of our feelings, but it never felt like it was appropriate. So we held each other at this awkward close-distance. We spent all our time together. We were closer than a lot of couples were. But we didn't talk or do couple-y things together.

I was just really confused about the whole thing.

(Line Break)

I didn't see Chaitanya or any other librarian when I strolled down the main aisle of the library. I was trying to prepare myself to tell him that I had to hold off on these meetings. My thesis was due in a week, and I was really behind.

I sat in front of the meeting room door, reading news articles on my phone. The latest breaking story had been on an equalist captain who had been kept under supervision until recent evidence came to light of her crimes against the state. She was due to go on trial early next week, but the news was detadetailing all the evidence that had come to light on how deep her betrayal ran.

I looked up the meaning of her name to pass the time. Maybe I could include her in my thesis. Wing.

Chaitanya came late to our meeting, frustrated and with red eyes. I watched him as unlocked the meeting room then sat beside me. He set one of his older notebooks on the table and flipped to a page as if he wanted today to be any normal lesson.

It was really obvious how distraught he was.

"What's wrong?" I asked, but he shook his head.

Nothing, he denied, pointing at the gestures for colors on the page. Do you remember how to sign these?

I learned them ages ago but didn't need to use them much, which I assume is why he asked. But I did spend hours hammering them in my head. I couldn't forget. Yes.

Show them to me.

I did so carefully. I was sure to be yelled at if I messed them up at all, but Chaitanya seemed distracted. He didn't correct me when I curled my finger just a bit too much, instead flipping to a page that had drawings of easy animals. He tapped them, asking me to sign them as well.

I did so slowly, confused by the point of this and confused by the normally carefree Chaitanya who now seemed to be anchored with distress.

I stopped signing, and he didn't even notice. He was staring out the window at the library.

I had been struggling to put my freebie question to use. It never felt right to ask, and it always felt rude. I still wasn't good enough to speak proficiently, but I wasn't just going to sit there and do nothing while he looked so helpless.

This wasn't a personal question. This was exactly the opportunity I had been waiting for.

I grabbed his shoulder and forced him to look at me. What can I do to help?

Chaitanya shook his head and turned away from me, declining the offer.

I turned him back to me so he could watch me sign. It wasn't a request. You have to answer me truthfully.

He stared at me for a moment before widening his eyes, realizing that this was the product of the promise he made. You're wasting your question on this?

He must have expected me to use it on something personal. I already learned that lesson.

I grinned, proud of myself. I think I already wasted it when I asked you what your name means. "Chaitanya doesn't mean firefly, but there are several ways to say it as a name, so I don't know what your real name is yet. But it means a lot that you would trust me with it. So I hope that you can trust me with whatever burden you're carrying on your shoulders now."

His eyes softened dramatically, and he exhaled a sigh of relief. It was like the question alone helped him through so much of what he was fighting. He stood up and walked over to the window, closing the blinds before turning to me.

Are we friends, Yakone?

Were we going to talk about this now?

"Well, we kissed, so I was hoping we'd be a little bit more than that," I admitted. I was impressed by how confident I was able to appear.

Chaitanya looked away, and it appeared as if he were dealing with another storm in his heart. That's a different matter…

We couldn't admit that we were more close than regular friends?

"Look, I know you have trauma from the war, and if there's something about being in a relationship with me that's painful, I'm fine with that. But can't you at least tell me that's the reason rather than avoid it all together?"

Chaitanya continued to focus his gaze squarely at the corner of the room behind me, past me. My words were fueling the distress inside of him, and I hated seeing him like this.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, looking at the door for any shadows underneath. "I didn't want to talk about this. I just want to know what we…"

Chaitanya was starting to sweat from the anxiety, but even though it was selfish, I needed his help to understand how I felt. And it wasn't fair of him to drag me around either when he knew how conflicted I was. He was the one to kiss me. He had to take some responsibility.

He pulled his hair up into a bun, which I had never seen him do before. Strangely, it reminded me of old Fire Nation style...

No, it was Fire Nation. His name, Firefly, those narrow eyes and knowing gaze. How did he make it all the way here? I thought Fire Nation descendants were very proud of their lineage.

It's not that I don't like you. It's that… being intimate with another reminds me of the person I was before. It's the same with speaking. I want to talk more than anything, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll become that person again.

He didn't have to share this with me. He could have shut me out like before. He was making an effort.

It was a powerful confession, too. In an instant, it changed a lot of what I had thought of him. He didn't speak because of trauma. He created the trauma by not speaking.

I opened my mouth to ask a question I knew he would answer, but then I decided against it, closing my mouth and waiting for him to share whatever secret he was comfortable with sharing. Listening, not asking. I was learning. I was trying harder than ever to be respectful, and I already pushed my luck -- but only because I felt it had to do with me.

He pulled a chair into the corner next to the window, sat down, and allowed the silence to stretch. Then he signed, As you may have guessed already, I was an equalist soldier.

I had guessed that -- that his heart was so kind that it extended even to those genocidal murderers, but then seeing him admit to it made me sick. It knotted and coiled in the pit of my stomach.

I could feel some part of myself was an equalist and could sympathize after all the stories I had read, but it was a very small part that felt like that. I would never fight on behalf of benders, so I was able to admit my softest of sympathies. But Chaitanya was enough of an equalist that he felt he had to keep it secret. And he was a soldier, so it wasn't as if he didn't contribute to their cause.

But perhaps that was why it was so hard for him to admit now. He felt shame for what he did. I decided to give him half a chance.

I thought I could protect the people I cared about, he signed without mouthing the words to help. I goofed around a lot and thought that if I could just protect the people I cared about, the war didn't mean much to my life… but I couldn't protect those people. I ran away from the front lines and decided that more than anything, I wanted to change who I was and at least be someone who could protect others. But then Suluk…

The equalist captain that was on the news. He knew her?! And he was this upset over her? How close were they?

The sickness and jealousy was getting to me.

I don't want to be Chaitanya anymore…

She was making him give up this identity. This person that I was maybe trying to fall in love with.

I didn't want him to go. I wanted Chaitanya, not whoever Firefly was. And whoever was sitting in front of me right now was the equalist soldier, not my librarian.

I got up from my chair, dragged it next to him, and sat tucked beside him -- a gesture no different than the faint flirtations we were exchanging before. "I need Chaitanya. I'm falling in love with the person you are now -- not the person you were. And I think you know that the person you were wasn't a good person, but I can see you're trying to change. You're becoming so much more than you were, and I'd hate to see you give it all up."

I just want to be someone who can protect the people that matter to me, Chaitanya half-heartedly signed.

"Does she really matter to you, or was she someone Firefly cared about? If you want to get better, you have to draw the line between this life and that one."

He was taking my words to heart and listening very carefully.

"You only started becoming that person again because of her. I don't like seeing you in this much pain."

He wallowed in his own self pity for awhile, lost in his own thoughts. When I had to leave, Chaitanya let me go quietly.