At the Very Least... (Adella)

I froze.

Is he being serious? He’s not smiling or laughing. He’s…

“What are you saying?” I asked, surprised by my concerned tone. “You’ll die? But how?”

Midas looked off into the distance.

“Wow. I was sure that you’d laugh it off as a joke,” he said.

My eyebrows knit together. “...Is it a joke?”

He gazed at me and smiled.

“No. I’m telling the truth. I will die sometime in the next few days.”

There was sorrow behind his expression. He definitely wasn’t lying.

“...Can you tell me more about it?” I asked. “How do you know this?”

He leaned back against the brick wall.

“Do you have time for a story?”

I nodded.

From there, he told me all sorts of things, some of them sounding completely insane. He said he was born in an abandoned village where he was the only child. He told me about growing up in a cult that worshipped the Devil, and about a woman named Romka. He told me how he was able to see the future but not control it.

He also told me…about how he was a vessel for the Devil.

And with all this new information, I couldn’t help but question whether or not he had made it up on the spot. As I looked at his solemn expression, though, I wasn’t even able to bring myself to show my skepticism.

This was the first time he had ever been vulnerable with me. It seemed like he was trusting me by telling me everything, so I realized I had to trust him by believing what he said, no matter how crazy it sounded.

But still…

“How can you just accept that you’re going to die?” I asked. “Why don’t you try to find a way out of it?”

He was quiet for a moment, then responded.

“I’ve been seeing the future for over five years now. If there was a way out of it, I would’ve found it,” he said. “It’s impossible. As soon as I saw my own death yesterday, I accepted it.”

I clenched my fists. “...So now you’re just anxiously waiting for it? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird today? You were just trying to have fun before the end?”

He chuckled. “That’s right. And you know, Adella, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.”

“...What?”

“When I first started to see the future, I hated it. I didn’t have any say in my own body’s actions. No matter what I did, the Devil would win. He’d take control and carry out fate. I didn’t even know if I had free will at that point. I mean, is there any purpose in seeing the future if you can’t even change it?”

A slow smile crept in on Midas’s face.

“But then, I started to notice something: my will had begun to intertwine with his. I began to want certain things to happen, and then when I later received visions of the future, they were of those exact things. I realized that he and I had similar interests. What I wanted, he wanted too. We carried it out together. The Devil and I were alike!”

He looked up at the sky.

“This even applies to the situation between Soren and Katerina. When they got together, I knew what would happen, and I knew what I wanted. I wanted their relationship to end up like how it is now. And before I knew it, a path was laid out for it to come to fruition. The Devil took control and followed it, as if he and I were headed towards the same end.”

He snickered.

“I guess this is what happens when you let him join in on high school relationships.”

I really hated what I was hearing. No matter how much sense he seemed to be making, seeing him so defeated just wasn’t right.

Midas looked over at me.

“You get it now, right?” he said. “My will is shackled by fate, and the Devil holds the key.”

His smile faded.

“It’s either that…or I am the Devil. And if the Devil were to die, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to hear any more. Raising my hand, I struck with a sudden, forceful motion.

Smack!

His head had jolted to the side. He slowly looked at me, surprised at the fact that I’d slapped him.

“This isn’t like you,” I said. “You’re saying too much.”

Midas placed his hand against his cheek.

“...I guess I deserved that,” he uttered in a low voice. “Sorry, I probably ruined your entire image of me.”

“That’s not it! Are you even hearing what you’re saying? You’ve convinced yourself that it’s okay to die! And didn’t Romka sacrifice herself for you? How can you just throw that all away?”

He averted his gaze.

“...She didn’t know that the ritual had actually succeeded. She was sacrificing herself for Midas, not the Devil.”

“You keep mentioning the ‘Devil,’ but how can you be so sure that he’s the one who takes control, anyway? It doesn’t seem like it.”

“Who else would it be? That was the purpose of the ritual. Even now, I always cause mischief, which is the job of the Devil.”

“I think you’re jumping to conclusions. I don’t know about everything that happened in the cult, but I do know a lot about you now. And to me, you aren’t the Devil. So stop calling yourself that.”

Midas chuckled.

“Sure, fine. I don’t think it changes much, though.”

An awkward silence fell between us. I was worried about being too straightforward, but I didn’t know any other way to talk to him.

“...If you really believe that you’re going to die,” I asked, “why did you come and tell me all of this? You know I can’t change the future, right?”

He thought for a moment, then smiled.

“Well, you wanted to understand me.”

So even in distress, he was quick-witted.

“Did you see that in the future as well?” I questioned.

“Nope. I just had a hunch. I actually haven’t been able to see anything besides my own death with my clairvoyance now.”

“Wow, must be traumatizing.”

He looked over at me. “You don’t seem to care much. I spilled everything to you, and now you’re just being sarcastic. How cruel. You absolute sadist.”

I laughed, glad that the mood had been lightened a bit.

“Like I said before,” he remarked, “you have the second-prettiest laugh I’ve ever heard.”

The compliment actually felt sort of endearing now. I didn’t mind it so much anymore.

“Is Romka in first place?” I asked.

He nodded, smiling.

“I thought so.”

We went silent for a few seconds, simply staring up at the bright sky.

“Midas,” I said, getting his attention. He looked over.

As gentle as I could, I placed my hand on his cheek, the one that I had struck a little while earlier. He was a little taken aback at first, but he eventually accepted it.

“...I don’t think you deserve such a fate. I really don’t,” I said.

“You’re not the first one to say that, Adella,” he replied. “But fate is indiscriminate. It doesn’t matter who I am.”

He continued.

“Still…spending the little time I have left with you might not be so bad.”

His words made me happy. I didn’t want to admit it, but I felt the same. But that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He couldn’t just give up so easily.

“...Then why don’t you just try to live? If not for yourself, then how about for me?” I asked, looking into his eyes.

He smiled. “If it could be solved by simply ‘trying,’ I don’t think I’d be in this situation in the first place.”

I made a quiet frown and lowered my gaze.

“Yeah…right…”

“Even so…”

He spoke.

“At the very least, I would like to live.”

A soft smile formed on my lips.

Something had changed. Maybe the situation hadn’t been solved, and maybe he was still set to die soon. But…he had hope now.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that too.”

Hope was something, right? Could it help in any way? Even if the odds were against us, could it allow for a miracle?

I didn’t know, but I hoped.