Love is Pain
Part Four
Fifteen days (more or less), and still Lambdadelta hadn't spoken to Bernkastel. In fact, Lambda's steadfast attempts to avoid Bernkastel might have been good for one thing. They inspired Bernkastel to at least attempt to keep track of the time.
Humans might have measured time in days or minutes against a calendar or a watch. That was not so for Bernkastel. She measured time in the amount of days it had been since Lambdadelta spoke to her.
Was that pathetic? Was that needy?
It didn't matter.
Bernkastel didn't care.
She couldn't explain how she felt. It was all jumbled and confusing, and poking around inside the swirling contents of her head stung terribly, like dashing salt water against an open wound.
But one thing was clear.
Lambdadelta's absence had affected her quite badly. That much was immediately obvious just by looking at her appearance.
One didn't even need to dig around Bernkastel's her heart to see how she was feeling. Her emotions were displayed all across her face.
Bernkastel's skin was ashen and pale. Ugly purple marks surrounded her eyes. She couldn't concentrate on anything because she constantly expected, or maybe even hoped, that Lambdadelta would interrupt her by saying stupid things in that childish way of hers'.
But she never did.
Now, Bernkastel couldn't even sleep properly.
She felt like a cat who had been thrown out by its master onto the street- and although that comparison worried her (Lambdadelta was not her master; of course she wasn't!), she couldn't deny there were shards of truth buried in that painful realization.
Bernkastel… … missed Lambdadelta.
If she stated it as a fact, her words would have dripped bloodily with the same red truth witches used in their games.
Bernkastel didn't feel right without Lambdadelta. It was almost like part of her was missing. After all, a monotonous person like her couldn't exist without something bright and silly and childish and colorful to offset her own dreary way of looking at the world.
They complimented each other.
Bernkastel had never realized it before, given Lambdadelta never left her side, but… …
She didn't like being alone.
It made her think too much of that place.
It… was painful.
So, even she needed somebody, hmn?
Urgh.
How annoying.
That pissed her off. It made her feel sick- sick right to the stomach. She wanted to take those stupid feelings out of her chest and tear them out with her fingernails, just like a gardener would rip out weeds from a flowerbed. She didn't care if she got blood and soil over her fingers or her nails ripped off from the root- she didn't even care if she bled to death; she just didn't want to feel this… this sentimentalanymore, she didn't want…
S-she…
"O-ow…"
She had a headache.
Bernkastel winced, pressing a hand against her head to stave off the dull, crushing pain. It felt like somebody had been beating her head against a brick wall.
Maybe she should go to bed. Curl up in on herself and feel lonely.
Haha. Maybe she should just curl up and die.
"Aaah~ The pain of two lovers, separated by naught but their own pride, is a terrible thing, isn't it?"
Who… was that?
Bernkastel recognized that voice; but it was far too low to be Lambdadelta's high, girlish tones. It sounded mocking.
Who dared to mock her?
Maybe it was some lowly demon who didn't understand her status, or their place. Well, she'd teach them. She'd teach them why she was called the cruellest witch.
She'd tear them apart.
Bernkastel lifted her head. It felt heavy, and took more effort than it should have done. This only made her angrier.
With eyes narrowed dangerously- a stark contrast to the expressionless, impenetrable mask she usually wore- Bernkastel glared at the foolish person who daredinterrupt her when she was feeling miserable.
She was met with a mess of blue hair, gaudy clothes, too much jewellery. Wide, bright blue eyes. A large smile.
It was Zepar, one of the demons of love.
"How marvellous," said Bernkastel coldly. "My kitties are getting restless. I think they would like somebody to use as a scratching post."
"Aaaah, you wouldn't be so cruel!" said Zepar theatrically, throwing their arms wide. They acted as if they were on stage, so everything looked and sounded stilted, unnatural. It was almost as if they were waiting for applause. "I'm only trying to help!"
Bernkastel wasn't one to be fooled by pretty lies so easily. How many people would have wanted to 'help' her, anyway? It was laughable. The only person who even cared, or at least, said they did with the most persistence, wasn't there.
"You don't help people. You're a demon," said Bernkastel. Her voice was icy as the skin of a long-drowned corpse. "Demons are only contracted to obey certain witches. Demons who don't serve as furniture cannot be trusted."
"Ooh~ Sharp one, you are. Then again, I'd expect nothing less from the great Lady Bernkastel."
"You flatter me. Now leave me alone if you know what's good for you."
Zepar sighed deeply, clasping their hands at their chest. With a distant, far-off look in their eyes, as though they were a fair princess staring from the window of a tower, Zepar said, "If only I were able to distinguish what's good for me and what isn't! Love makes people blind- and, yes… even I can fall a victim to its cruel charms… Aah, it's so sad- so tragic!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Furfur- my darling Furfur! We had an argument, and we haven't spoken since! Aaah, it's so tragic! It's so upsetting I could cry!"
"If you must, do it somewhere else," said Bernkastel stiffly. It sounded as though her words had contracted rigor mortis. "I am too tired to converse with the likes of you. If you don't leave I'll drown you in strawberry milkshake and drink it out of your waterlogged body with a straw."
Zepar sighed petulantly, but they were still grinning. Bernkastel didn't think the demons of love had the required muscles in their cheeks tofrown.
"So you won't even spare me some sympathy, although our situations are so familiar… That's sad, that's truly sad- especially when Lady Lambdadelta has been sooonice to my lovely Furfur, who is surely suffering just as much as me!"
"Is that so…?"
Bernkastel tried to retain her monotonous tone. However, against her better judgement, she found herself sitting up a little straighter. Her tail twitched.
She didn't like the implications behind Zepar's words.
She didn't like them at all.
"Hmn? You don't knooowww?~" Zepar smirked. "Lady Lambdadelta has been spending a lot of time with Furfur lately. Apparently, they've become quite close."
…'Close?'
Unbidden, Bernkastel's fingers balled into fists. Her fingernails dug small crescent moon shapes into her palms, but she didn't notice. If she had noticed, she wouldn't have cared.
A strange, alien emotion had begun to bubble up inside her chest. Although she was loathe to admit it, she found she could give it a name quite easily. It was one of those disgusting human emotions she would mock others for displaying, and exploit to her heart's content for the purposes of creating a fun game; alleviating her boredom.
She had never expected shewould experience this exact same emotion.
"Yes, that's right~ Isn't it tragic, when it turns out the one you love isn't as dependant on you as you are on them?"
There was a horrible, writhing pain in Bernkastel's head. It felt as though her mind was filled with scorpions.
She didn't want to talk.
She couldn't…
"B-be quiet."
She tried to sound calm, but her voice betrayed her by shaking slightly.
She could stutter in front of Lambdadelta on occasions, but when she displayed that side of her personality around others, she felt… exposed. Weak. Just like that foolish young miko all over again.
But Zepar didn't stop talking.
If anything, they began to speak even louder.
"You're already aware, of course, that Lady Lambdadelta is rather good at winning the affections of others. Despite her antagonistic role in the upcoming games orchestrated by Lady Beatrice, she gets along with Beatrice remarkably well… and her furniture. Lady Lambdadelta is always spending time with them when she isn't with you. And who can you speak to when she's away?"
"I already told you to be quiet."
"Aaaaahahaha~ It's a shame, isn't it, a real shame? Lady Lambdadelta can still talk to people, can still trust people, even after what happened to her! You can't do that, though, can youuuu?~ Your initial reaction is to hate and everybody, to the point where Lady Lambdadelta is the only one who will talk to you!"
"B-be quiet…"
"And, what'll you do if Lady Lambdadelta leaves you, hmmm, or decides she's had enough?~ You'll be aaaaall alone again, and nobody will care even if you live or die because you've pushed them all away~ You might as well be back inside that twisted universe made by Lady Featherine, right? You might as well be dead! If nobody loves you what's the point in being alive? Gyahahahaha-"
"S-shut up! J-just shut up! W-what do you know, anyway?"
The voice that shouted that sounded foreign.
It was too loud; raw; emotional- exactly the kind of thing Bernkastel scorned stupid humans for, because when they let their hearts take over like that they really were easy to manipulate. Humans were just pieces compared to witches. They couldn't even control themselves. How pathetic, how useless, how tragic- gyahahaha!~
Bernkastel was a witch, and she was superior to humans, so she did not experience excesses of emotion like that. Nobody could control her other than herself.
She wasn't a weak human anymore.
Bernkastel always had a firm control over her heart. That allowed her to judge everybody else, chewing popcorn and smirking as she did so. She was sat on a pedestal so high nobody could reach her, not even with the tips of their fingers.
But… maybe that was wrong…
Maybe… she wanted somebody to reach her…
Why else would she have been so upset?
Why else… was her heart beating so quickly?
Why else did her eyes sting?
Bernkastel might not even have realized that voice belonged to her, had each word forced from her lips not hurt her throat so much.
Bernkastel was breathing heavily, her face dusted with the light pink icing of an angry blush. Her eyes were wider than usual, and her mouth was twisted up into an ugly grimace. It looked like the second, rather more expressive, side of her personality- the side she always tried to repress- had finally been brought to the surface.
She could hear the blood pounding in her head; taste the bile at the back of her throat. She felt dizzy. Sick.
She hated Zepar.
But, most of all…
At times like this, she hated herself.
She hated herself for being so weak.
The demon's words were true.
They were all true.
Bernkastel had always assumed Lambdadelta would stay by her side forever, regardless of what cruel things she said or did. Lambdadelta was reliable only in her persistence; always following her, always, always, always... and, somewhere along the line, Bernkastel had grown to accept that.
She had grown… to like it…
Maybe even need it.
Because she was pathetic.
"Hey..." said Zepar quietly. "You'll have to forgive me for being cruel- but that's often the best way to make stubborn people listen. You need to slap them around the head a few times with your words, or they won't understand.
"But you know," Zepar continued, "it's really not too late. All you need to do is talk to her… and I'm sure this silly problem could be resolved. Yes; relationships would be infinitely simpler if both parties would communicate more… Fufu~"
Bernkastel glowered, no longer bothering to hide her twisted expression of disgust. Her calm mask had long since been shattered, so there was no point struggling to repair the damage.
"And why should I, the Witch of Miracles, take advice from you?"
"Oh, no reason~" Zepar giggled, coiling strands of hair around one finger. "Not unless you want your foolish pride, and your inability to communicate truthfully, to come between you and the only person you care about..."
Bernkastel winced.
"Hoh~ I know you're used to Lady Lambdadelta seeking you out, Lady Bernkastel, but isn't that selfish? Isn't that one-sided? Love can't work like that without both sides trying their best, trying to become one…~ Fufufu~ In this case… I believe you're the one who has to find her first. Talk to her… and you'll no longer have cause to be miserable. Wouldn't having a heartfelt discussion be a wonderful thing? Wouldn't it, though? Isn't that what you want?"
Bernkastel looked down at the floor, arms folded. Her lips were pursed, as though she had just bitten into a particularly sour lemon. Her long, blue hair fell before her face, bangs casting shadows over her eyes.
Those shadows were a good thing. It meant that Zepar couldn't see the unguarded look in her eyes…
And it meant Zepar would never know just how much those words had stung her.
F-for a great witch like her, to be reduced to a plaything by a demon… I-it was beyond insulting. Bernkastel wanted to summon her kittens from the darkness, with their glowing eyes and salivating mouths, and tear Zepar apart limb from limb for their insolence.
A-and yet, at the same time… …
Really… she still had a headache, and her insides were cold and twisted together, and that bitter jealousy still burnt inside her poor, broken heart… and, yes, being honest with herself… she just wanted somebody to distract her from all her horrible memories, of one thousand years of trying to break fate.
She just… wanted to be with Lambdadelta again.
Because she really was that desperate.
"Hello, Lady Lambdadelta. How are you finding yourself on this fine, lovely day?~ Fufufu~"
Lambdadelta had been lying on her back upon her candy strewn bed, idly kicking her legs back and forth and pouting at the ceiling. At the sound of that all-too-familiar voice, however, she turned about, so she was now resting on her tummy. With narrowed eyes, still wearing the same childish pout as always, Lambdadelta glared at the demon of love who had dared interrupt her depression.
She glared at them hard.
Fortunately, Furfur was used to being glared at, and had developed a rather effective defensive mechanism for just such outfits. Their gaudy, tasteless, bright green and yellow outfit was far too much for the eye to take in at once. Looking at it for extended periods of time was like looking directly at the sun.
It would make you go blind.
Therefore, despite Lambdadelta's best efforts to be intimidating, she couldn't hold the glare for long.
"Urgh…"
Wincing, Lambdadelta turned her head away. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, trying to dispel any lingering green and yellow spots that had seeped across her vision.
"You know," she witch muttered, "you really should think about changing your color scheme."
"Oh?~ What's wrong with it?"
"It's painful."
"But you wear-"
"I know I wear a lot of pink, but it's offset by my amazingly fashionable black gloves~ People don't go blind looking at me; they just think 'awww, how cute!'" Lambdadelta flipped a few strands of blonde hair out of her face airily. "This outfit has the Gaap seal of approval, you know, so your comments about it don't mean anything."
"Is Gaap's fashion sense really that good? Well, I wonder…"
Laughing softly, Furfur walked towards Lambdadelta with a slow gait and took a seat beside her on the bed. The mattress sunk down a little to accommodate the extra weight, and some of the boiled candies rolled off the blankets and on to the floor.
"So." Furfur smiled. "How are things between yourself and Lady Bernkastel?"
There was a small silence.
Then, with a wail, Lambdadelta snagged hold of her favorite, pinkest, softest pillow, and crushed it to her chest helplessly. She held on to it like a baby would hold onto a blanket.
"Oh." Furfur sighed. "That badly, hmn?"
"You could say that! You could say that, even though I've been ignoring her for ages and ages, and making myself miserable, she doesn't seem to care… S-she hasn't come to see me once… Hic." Sniff, sniff. "U-uwaaaah…! I think I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!"
"Oh my! That doesn't sound healthy!"
"I-it's not! I-it really isn't! I'm seriously dying!"
Lambdadelta blinked up at Furfur with wide, earnest red eyes. Her irises weren't the only red things, however. The rims of her eyes were red, too- and they were puffy, from all her crying.
Some people might have thought Lambdadelta was only pretending to cry about her supposed misery- mainly because she liked being melodramatic about things. She never took anything seriously; not even herself, or her own emotions.
However, those red eyes, and that flushed face, and that running nose, all looked genuine.
Lambdadelta would never degrade herself like that in public, or deliberately try to look small and frail- not in front of a demon like Furfur. The trails of silvery tears trickling down her face, as though so many slugs had tracked a path down her cheeks, were real.
They had to be.
So was her sore throat, shaking limbs and pale skin.
Poor Lambda looked as though she was falling apart. That pillow, clutched to her chest, was the only thing she had left to hold on to.
"I-I don't even care anymore!" Lambdadelta suddenly declared, throwing her pillow aside roughly. "I'm sick of tired of ignoring my lovely Bern, and I want to talk to her right now! T-that's right! I'm going to go over there and-"
"No."
"H-huh?"
Lambdadelta had made to stand up on shaky legs, and was striking a serious pose; hands on hips, head held high. However, she was unable to actually leave the room.
That was because Furfur's fingers were clasped round her arm.
"What. Are. You. Doing?"
Lambdadelta's voice was clipped and cold- almost demonic.
When she turned to look at Furfur… there was a truly fearsome expression twisting her cute face. She no longer looked like a harmless child. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl, like a wolf's, and her eyes were blazing like those of a Jack-o'-Lanterns'.
Even Furfur had to tremble slightly upon witnessing that face.
But they still didn't let go.
"You can't leave right now."
"What do you mean, I can't?" hissed Lambdadelta through gritted teeth. "Who died and made you the Princess of the Universe? Or… Prince? Or… I don't even know! I don't know what the hell you are, and I don't care! Whatever! I don't want to take your advice anymore- I just want to see Bern!"
"But you haven't been waiting long enough to see the fruits of your hard work. If you're patient for just a few more moments, I am sure-"
"You're sure about what? That I could make myself even more miserable, and
look even more pathetic? Is that what you want? To laugh at me?"
"I certainly don't want that- it was never my intention to laugh!"
"Then why do you look so damn happy most of the time, then? Why you smile, it makes me want to tear your lips from your face! I bet you were just messing around with my feelings this whole time for your enjoyment! If that's true, I'll drown you under a mountain of cake- and not even nicecake; don't think I won't!"
Lambdadelta knew her threats were getting a little ridiculous, but she was an excessive person. It was simply how she was. And, if she was feared by other witches despite the excessive amount of pink she wore, her childish tone of voice and her obsession with cake-related death threats, then her real temper really was a force to be reckoned with.
Furfur knew that, and that was why the theatrical bravado fell away from their face. Now, they were meek, and they stammered slightly.
"I think you should reconsider, Lady Lambdadelta. You have to wait to see how Lady Bernkastel reacts; she'll only realize her true feelings if you avoid her, because she's rather dense, and-"
"D-don't call my Bern dense! Only I can say things like that about her! G-get off me!"
"No; you're being unreasonable… I just want to help…!"
Lambdadelta let out a harsh laugh, in a series of giggles that crept up the spine like fingertips. Each giggle tapped on a separate section of the vertebrae, and left all who heard it cold.
There was something… not entirely sane about that laugh.
But when Lambdadelta spoke, her voice was soft.
Too soft.
"I'm being unreasonable?~ Me?~ Hehehehe… Well…"
Her eyes narrowed; chest heaving and falling. Her hat had fallen off her head, revealing messy blonde hair, and her whole body twitched with anger, nervous energy.
But… she didn't look angry anymore…
Not really.
Instead, her lips were drawn into a small frown…
And it looked like she was crying.
"Maybe I'm being unreasonable because the person I like will never return my feelings, no matter what I do! Maybe I've just given up on making her realize when I say I care I'm not lying, because no matter what I do she'll think I'm making it up! Maybe… M-maybe I've realized I'm in love, and my love will never be reciprocated, so it might as well not even exist! T-that's how I feel!"
When Lambdadelta pushed Furfur away this time, the demon of love didn't try to retain grip on Lambda's arm.
Silence descended upon the room. It was a thick, heavy, oppressive silence; so strong it seemed to physically weigh down upon Lambdadelta's shoulders… and also, on her chest… her ribcage… her lungs… and her heart.
It was difficult to breathe.
It felt like her heart was being crushed.
Her eyelids squeezed together so tightly it was almost painful, forcing tears to trickle down her cheeks hotly. Her hair stuck to her flustered face.
Love… Bernkastel… …?
It was true…
She really did…
S-she really…
A-and…
And Bern would never know- because she would never understand- because she was broken… and maybe she was too broken to be in love at all…
Maybe it was selfish to think she could.
M-maybe…
M-maybe…
"I… I…"
Lambdadelta sniffed, burying her head in her hands. She knew her whole body was shaking. She wondered, if she trembled hard enough, her bones would be knocked out of place and she would fall apart. She could end up like a quivering mess on the floor; a bright pink, Halloween-themed Lady Lambdadelta jelly…
Ahahaha…
Gyahahahahaha…
Not even Beato was that pitiful.
"I-I… I…"
Lambdadelta didn't even know what she was trying to say- and the words wouldn't come, anyway. She couldn't talk. She could only stand there, sobbing… just like a small child.
Useless.
Pathetic…
She really was…
"…pathetic, Lambda… I didn't know you had this side to your character, too."
H-huh…?
Lambdadelta's breath caught in her throat.
Her eyes snapped open.
Her hands fell from her face.
Somebody was standing behind her...
And they were hugging her.
Holding her tightly- as if they were trying to make sure she didn't fall apart.