3.2) Fated Night

14 years ago.

As Victor entered the community center, he immediately looked for Abigail. There were tables full of food at the center of the hall, prepared for the elderly and their families. Other tables were lined up by the walls, with prizes for the raffle protected by other volunteers. Both Victor and Abigail were there as volunteers. She was always punctual, but he was having trouble finding her at the moment.

As he began to wonder if she was still disappointed at what happened earlier in the day and had decided to not show up, he saw a brooding figure dressed in black, quietly leaning on the wall next to the emergency exit with her arms crossed. She stood out quite a bit, seeing that her blonde hair always contrasted sharply with her all-dark clothing. That was obviously her.

As he walked up to her, she closed her eyes, as if not wanting to look at him.

Victor sighed. “Uh, listen. About what happened earlier… well…”

Before he could finish, she took out her flip phone and showed him a message that Alice had sent her. It read: brother says you look even more beautiful when you smile~

She finally opened her eyes. “Are you really going to bring her into this, Victor Truman?”

He blushed. “What?! I mean, it’s true! You should smile more! You know how ugly you look when you’re scowling all the time?!”

She snapped. “I don’t care how I look–if it deters people from bad behavior, I’ll gladly look ugly!”

“What?! Then you’re gonna die depressed and alone, you know?!”

“What?!”

Then, an older volunteer tapped on Victor’s shoulder and spoke. “Hey, keep it down, man. Don’t ruin this event with your lovers’ quarrel.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Victor said. “And, uh, we’re not really a couple. We’re just childhood friends.”

The volunteer looked at him with his eyebrow raised, scoffed, then walked away.

Abigail snickered. “See? If I scowl, no one bothers me. He didn’t even look at me.”

“Or maybe he just thinks you’re too immature to be reasoned with,” he said. “Listen, Abigail. If you don’t smile, then you’re going to scare people you want to help, too. That means we get to help less people.”

She blinked, then turned her face away from him. It seemed that he had won the debate, though she would not admit it. But it was enough that she was considering his words–as long as they both improved themselves, they could continue striving to become an embodiment of their shared ideals.

Victor walked up to her and leaned on the wall next to her, the same way she did. Then, he looked at the ongoing scene, where the raffle had just begun halfway through the event. The various families clapped as the middle-aged lady holding the microphone announced a set of numbers.

“...Victor,” Abigail whispered.

“Yeah?”

She pointed into the mass of people gathered for the event. “Do you think we’ll end up like that, one day?”

He was slightly amused, knowing that they had already gone back to behaving normally. Then, he looked at the people gathered at the event, curious.

“What are you referring to, exactly?”

“Do you think we’ll… ever come to a point, where this is all we’ll be able to do? When we become old, will we be the ones who are cared for and pitied like this?”

“Heh. That’s a long way from now, Abigail.”

‘But if we live long enough, we’ll end up like that eventually. If we don’t, it would mean that we died prematurely.”

Victor laughed. “Well, I don’t really care. If I die, I die. What matters is the present and what I can do right now. That’s the point of our dream, don’t you think?”

Abigail sighed. “You hopeless fool.”

Victor stuck his tongue out. “And you’re even worse, for listening to that hopeless fool.”

“... Oh, shut up.”

“Still, Abigail,” he said, looking up and resting his hands on his head. “I wouldn’t mind getting older, as long as it’s with you.”

“... Huh?”

“Maybe it’d take that long for you to lighten up a bit,” he joked.

“And maybe it’d take that long for you to be more serious about our dream!” she retorted. “I mean, look at us. What are we doing, exactly? Standing around doing nothing, calling ourselves volunteers, and feeling better about ourselves? Why the hell are we here?”

“I mean, what do you expect, Abigail? Do you want us to run into a battlefield and save people? Are you insane? We're barely about to graduate high school! The least we can do right now is just… you know, help people be in a good mood.”

“But does it look like these people need saving?”

Victor sighed. “Maybe that’s the problem with you, Abigail. You only pity those who are being shot at or starving. Never the ones who simply want emotional support.”

Abigail scoffed. “No wonder you’re trying to be a writer. You’re trying to change the world with pretty words… ”

He frowned, offended. “Hey… what’s that supposed to mean?”

Her eyes widened, and she turned her head away from him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“... It’s alright. It happens.”

“Still, I sometimes wonder if it’s all worth it.”

“That’s fine,” he said softly. “I wonder, too.”

She sighed. “What we see here is the end. This is ‘the good ending’ of a human life.”

“Yeah.”

She pushed herself off the wall and stood in front of him.

“Victor… Do you really understand what that means? In the end, nobody is truly saved. Everyone dies, whether or not they suffer.”

“So you wouldn’t save someone who is right in front of you?”

She flinched. “I… well…”

He laughed. “No, you’re not the type of person who’d stand by and watch. You would fight. And perhaps that’s enough, Abigail. Don’t think too hard about why we do this. You do this because you choose to. Because you want to. Isn’t that enough? You can’t always apply logic to feelings. We do it because we think it’s right. That’s all it is, Abigail.”

“But… doesn’t that just mean our choices are simply arbitrary? If it’s simply based on how we feel…”

“Well, then let’s hope that our arbitrary feelings will lead us to a satisfactory conclusion to our lives. If not, maybe we can at least die knowing that we probably should have done something else. Heh.”

“Ugh, you make it sound so easy. Like it’s not a matter of choosing how we live for the rest of our lives.”

Victor laughed as his phone buzzed. Without checking who was calling, he simply flipped open his phone and responded cheerfully as he always would.

“Hi, what is it?”

“Hello, this is the Saint Joseph Hospital calling. We’re calling about an emergency involving your sister. She has been involved in a car accident and has been brought in unconscious and in a critical condition. So please come to…”

Right. That was when I blanked out, Victor thought.