Soren's Undoing - III

I didn’t say anything. It hurt my eyes to keep gazing at that bright image, so I lowered them. Things were a lot more comfortable in the shade.

She wasn’t very outgoing, nor was she confrontational. I doubt that she had come here of her own accord. Maybe Midas was planning something else against me. I was probably easy to manipulate in this sorry state.

As I continued to sit there, she continued to stare at me. She watched me like I was some kind of zoo animal.

I sighed. We’d have to interact.

“Hello, Katerina.”

A few seconds passed, and she didn’t respond. Instead, she came and sat down next to me, leaving a considerable amount of room between us.

A minute passed.

“...He was wrong.”

I glanced at her, saying nothing.

“I can tell,” she said, “there are no feelings left.”

“...No feelings?”

She looked up at me. “Someone told me that I still liked you. I wanted to see if it was true.”

“Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t really matter. I got what I came here for.”

Katerina stood up and began to walk away.

I wasn’t completely sure what she meant, but a part of me felt a sudden sting when she said that she didn’t have feelings for me anymore. I shouldn’t have even cared. I was in much deeper trouble than that right now.

But still, as she left, I felt an urge to grab on. I wanted to take a chance to try and float back up to the surface.

“Wait,” I said, grasping onto her sleeve. She glanced back.

“...What is it?”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

Slowly, she turned around and smiled.

“I didn’t.”

I dropped my gaze. I didn’t know what I was expecting.

“...I just kept looking until I found you,” she uttered.

My eyes widened.

“Bye, Soren.”

As she turned back around and started to walk, I felt an even stronger compulsion to reach out for her. It felt like I’d finally grabbed onto something. I just couldn’t let it go now. How was I supposed to?

“Katerina, I…”

I couldn’t find the words. She was going to leave. I only had a few seconds to say something.

“I…”

She looked at me with eyes of resignation. It was hard to bear. There had to have been some way to change them.

“I…”

“I’m sorry, Katerina.”

I didn’t know if it was good enough. I didn’t know if I’d even wronged her. But I felt like I needed to do everything I could to make her stop looking at me with such a distant gaze.

She didn’t seem surprised, nor did she seem any less far away. She just stopped in place and eyed me.

But then, she slowly made her way towards me. She came and sat down once again, this time a little closer.

“I don’t know if it’s right to forgive you,” she said. “But I’ll listen.”

I stared at her, a bit stunned. She was actually quite kind.

“...Have I really messed up that badly?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve tried to forget it all.”

I gave her a remorseful look. “In that case, all I can do is apologize again. I’m sorry.”

She warily glanced at me.

“...You know, you should have never told me you loved me back in the library. Nothing good came out of that lie.”

“Yeah…I see. I’m sorry.”

My second apology created a moment of silence. I felt the need to break it.

“...Did you love me, then?” I asked, gazing into her eyes.

Katerina seemed taken aback by my question. It took her some time to think about it. And then she smiled.

“No…I don’t think so.”

She continued. “If I had, things probably wouldn’t have turned out this way. I don’t think I would’ve been so willingly blind.”

Her words surprised me. She was being so straightforward.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I took advantage of that.”

She chuckled. “You don’t sound sorry at all.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I almost felt ashamed.

“Can you…teach me how? How do I apologize correctly?”

“There’s no need. In a way, I’m at fault too. I was the one who readily walked into it.”

Her words were gentle. They felt like ones I didn’t deserve.

“...Then what should I do?”

“Maybe just sit with the feeling. Let it hurt,” she said. “I won’t leave, at least not for now.”

I took her advice and went quiet, sitting with the feeling.

“I think this was our first real conversation ever. We never talked much,” she commented.

“Yeah. I feel like I never really knew you until now.”

“Maybe that was the problem. We couldn’t see each other.”

I never realized how keen she was. She was fun to talk to as well.

The events from earlier today still lingered in the back of my head, but…I felt like I could find peace here. Maybe I actually was deserving of being framed as the vandal. At least, it felt like I deserved it more than being able to sit here and talk with Katerina.

That’s when I suddenly noticed: she hadn’t brought up the incident at all.

“...Do you believe I’m innocent?” I asked, rather abruptly.

She gave me a puzzled look. “Innocent?”

“You know, with the emergency evacuation today and all.”

Her expression became even more confused, and she tilted her head with uncertainty. She genuinely had no idea what I was referring to.

Was she just not told? That’s impossible. Everyone should know the rumor by now.

I suddenly froze in disbelief.

…Did Midas really not tell anyone after all?

The thought was absurd. I was still waiting for some flicker of recognition within Katerina, but she just continued to confusedly stare at me. I decided to brush it off in the end.

“Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”

It made me wonder, though. If my reputation wasn’t actually ruined, his goal couldn’t have been to simply crush me. The only result here was that I had reconciled with Katerina.

…So was that his objective all along?

It couldn’t have been. This was all just wishful thinking.

He really was a strange one, that Midas.