Self-sacrificing fool

After falling flat on her arse a few more times (which I’ll freely admit I laughed at hysterically on more than one occasion), Ran decided to leave the rest of us a little early and head on back home. It wasn’t too long after the fact that Pep, Yaki and I made the decision to leave the rink ourselves, primarily because Yaki had somehow found a way to wind down Pep’s near-unlimited store of energy.

Not that I could say much on that front myself. Some days I was exhausted physically, and some days I was exhausted emotionally, but it was a special kind of hell when I was both at once. I just wanted to get home, eat some dinner and go to sleep at 8pm like an elderly man.

Thankfully, the day had mostly drawn to it’s end, so all that was left was for Yaki and I to walk home together.

“I’ve still got some calories to burn so I’m gonna go for a run, see you at home, bro!”

“Wait, wha-”

Before I could even question her, Yaki sped off far faster than I could reasonably keep up with. Not that I’d have tried. She and I between us have roughly the energy of two normal people, it’s just balanced 80-20.

“She really is just the definition of ‘live life at your own pace,’ isn’t she?” said Pep, who was walking alongside me.

“Yeah, you said it. Sometimes it feels like this is Yaki’s world and the rest of us are just living in it.”

“You mean like how she dragged you along today so you could sort out your problems with Ranchan?”

“Geh- she told you?”

“She didn’t need to, I know what she’s like. What other reason could she have for trying to get you and Ranchan alone like that?”

“...sometimes I forget how perceptive you are.”

“I know you do,” she said with a grin.

Despite how well we knew each other, Pep still managed to take me by surprise every now and then. Knowing her, she probably figured out Yaki’s plan the moment she was dragged away. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she had realised that Ran and I were more hostile than normal from the very moment we got there. For as much as she complained about not being able to understand Sai and I, Pep could read the atmosphere better than almost anyone else I knew. Which made it all the more frustrating when she interpreted the reasons for the atmosphere wrong.

“So… what were the two of you arguing about?” She said, trying to sound nonchalant but clearly genuinely curious.

“Uhh… she and I just had a… bit of a disagreement over something.”

“Well duh. I’m asking you what the disagreement was about.”

“That’s… nothing for you to worry about. We already talked it out.”

“...was it about me?”

I didn’t say anything back, but my hesitation was enough to answer the question alone. After all, what else could it have been? What connecting thread did Ran and I have other than Pep? What else could we possibly have to argue over so vehemently? Even when the subject was Sai, the root of it was her relationship with Pep. It was an obvious and immutable fact.

“...don’t blame yourself for it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But I was the cause, right?”

“No, Ran was the cause. Or maybe I was, I don’t know. You were the topic, not the cause. You don’t get to carry the blame for that.”

“You wouldn’t be at each other’s throats if it wasn’t for me.”

“We wouldn’t talk at all if it wasn’t for you.”

“But that’d be better, right?” She smiled a sweet smile, though I knew her well enough to see the self-loathing behind it. Somehow, some way, she was gonna force herself to take the blame for this. “If I wasn’t there to connect you to her, all of the fighting and anger wouldn’t happen. If I wasn’t in the equation, the result wouldn’t be so negative.”

“Don’t be a bloody fool. The reason she and I even put up with each other is because you’re important enough to both of us to make it worth it. Stop pretending to be a burden when you’re anything but.”

“But… I don’t want to be the catalyst that causes so much conflict…”

“Conflict happens. Always has, always will. If it can’t use you as a springboard it’ll simply find another. Blaming yourself for something entirely out of your control is a fool’s errand. It achieves nothing.”

“Does it need to achieve something? Can’t I just… take the blame so no one else has to?”

Ah, how troublesome. You self sacrificing fool, you’re just saying it outright now? Even while keeping up that steadily faltering smile? Who do you think you’re fooling? Because you’re certainly not fooling me, and it hardly seems you’re fooling yourself either.

This was one of the fundamental flaws on humanity that I had been wrestling with all this time. Regardless of how unavoidable a conflict is, or how fair the perspective of the participants, or how amicable the resolution, humans were obsessed with blame. Anything and everything had to be someone’s fault for their peace of mind. There was the rare breed, who looked at the situation objectively and admitted fault where it was warranted, and there was the far more common type who sought to shift that blame wherever possible.

And then there was the type Pep belonged to. The sacrificial lambs. Inviting any and all blame onto themselves so others wouldn’t have to bear it. A feeble attempt to shield the people they care about from guilt and shame. Outwardly, it appeared selfless and noble. To take on the burden you don’t want others to carry.

But it’s naive to think one person can bear the brunt of blame their whole life.

You’re not a prophet, you damned fool. You can’t sacrifice yourself for our sins.

“The blame is split equally two ways, you hear me? Me and Ran, 50/50. I acted like a prick, she acted like a bitch, we butted heads, then we sorted it out. Nothing more to it. You’re trying to read deep into something completely surface level,” I said, though I was aware that it was an oversimplification at best. The truth is that there was further depth to it, but opening that idea up to Pep would just have her searching for more ways to blame herself. Not a white lie, but a mild omission of truth would have to suffice here.

“You’re trying to protect me from the consequences of my own actions.”

“I’m trying to protect you from yourself, you blasted fool. You’re so tunnel visioned on blame you can’t see the bigger picture.” I walked past her, beginning the journey back home. “For the first time in god-knows-how-long, Ran and I actually had an honest conversation without snapping each other’s heads off. We had an argument with a civil ending. Ain’t that something to be glad about?”

“I suppose…” she said, following a few steps behind me. “I… hope you two can get along better from here on out.”

“Well we can’t exactly get much worse, can we?” I joked, hoping she would laugh along with me. She let out a small chuckle, but when she caught up and joined me at my side, I could still see a sadness in her eyes, even when her mouth was smiling.

The whole walk home, she did her best to talk about any other topic possible, but I could tell she was still bothered by it. And I didn’t have the spine to bring it up again.

Somehow, even when our words seemed to match, even when our conversations seemed coherent, it felt like she and I were talking past each other.