Finally, Something

When our horizon darkened underneath the weight of apartments and malls, station roofs enveloping us and lush forests of cedars almost scraping against the glass, it seemed that we had been carried out into the serenity of some far-off haven where none of the past could follow us. No, somehow, it certainly felt like that melancholy of half-remembered regrets were pushing up against our skin in cool pinpricks of wind, but behind us we left the tangible grounds of that despair, and it muddied everything we took with us.
Behind us was my apartment, the alleyway where my tendons had been ripped apart and blood splattered like one harsh stroke of paint against the concrete, the small backroom that the poor employee had almost suffered a worse fate in...
My school, my family home...
It was like the streaks of light and darkness rushing against us were the memories clinging to our skin, reduced to blurred residue, dregs of themselves.
Cautiously treading down the hallway, stopping beside our row and falling into the empty seat opposite our side, Sorrow had approached with a concerned look, nothing like the almost self-aware smile he had on when shopping before our trip.
I suppose we're now in serious mode.
Although, I still have no idea when we're supposed to turn that on and off.
Against my shoulder there was a lightly expanding and contracting, warm and silky-smooth body resting lightly, all worn down from the excitement and, once again, asleep.
She really seemed like an angel carefully guided here from heaven, when her voice was silent but for low whispers of breath, and her face was relaxed and smooth, with none of the arrogant lines that stretched her cheeks and eyebrows whenever she was awake.
"She's sleeping again? Why do I get the feeling she's going to be an extreme handful for us down the line..."
"Down the line? She's a pretty extreme handful right now. At least you're not her babysitter. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm the first one she saw, but she's been clinging to me like crazy. Even when her haughtiness sends her away, she's always back to my shoulder by the end of her battery life."
"By that logic, I would be her father."
"Oi, don't put any gross images in my head."
Although, he did have the seriousness and job-mindedness of an absent or at least distant but extremely doting father.
After she had made a fuss at the station, he was the one that had approached us as I tore her away from the small group of high-schoolers by the wrist, shielding us with his shoulders like an agent shielding their celebrity from the paparazzi.
I guess he was kind of occupying a father role right now.
With Char as the big sister, it seems like we already have the found family trope in the bag here.
But what good is that without any character development?
That is, besides Char and I and Sorrow and I, we don't really know much about each other, so it's not exactly a very tight-knit family.
We hadn't exactly rushed on to the train, but between the getting all the food and supplies in order, wrangling this girl into a position that wouldn't draw too much attention, and making sure Char realised that this wasn't something that her constant attention-seeking could be allowed to jeopardise, I hadn't found the chance to ask Sorrow a question that was probably more important than anything else at the moment.
"I guess I should thank you for looking out for us, and definitely apologise for stringing you up like meat by way of Char's inhuman grip, and the second part stands firmly, but when I thank you for helping us out, I would really prefer if I knew what I was thanking you for."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I don't really know why you're doing any of this. Hell, you have a pretty decent position at our job, even if it's still pretty low level everybody respects you and knows you're incredibly skilled, so not only taking the risk of shielding my secret, but taking on those secrets I myself have chosen to carry with me and protect, seems unreasonable to me. I'm an unreasonably good person to, so I get sacrificing an irresponsible amount of things for the sake of chasing that ideal of virtuousness or whatever, but you at least have some restraints. You have a check on that part of yourself, for you it's a quality, not a flaw."
I looked down at that girl now lopsided and drooping her ashy almond hair into my lap.
I looked down the train corridor, fixing my eyes against the tall woman that stood out like a swollen finger against the tops of the other passenger's heads.
Out in the open air again, I looked out against a field of lush green vegetables that sprawled in square sets demarcated by rivers and taupe, dusty pathways.
"So, without being ungrateful, with a heartfelt apology for what we've done to you and what you'll probably go through trying to help us, why are you here, now, in this cramped train with two monsters, no, three monsters, verging on Jabberwocky levels of dangerous and uncontrollable?"
His expression lightened a little, and his dark, wavy bangs fell down below his long eyelashes.
Then, his mouth turned up into a wry smile, his jade eyes glittered and sparked like metal against metal, and he turned his head away from us, gazing out the green-streaked window opposite us.
"Because I'm a truly hopeless person."
Just as he seemed to want to elaborate, expand on what seemed a dramatic, depressing kind of answer that I could only take seriously because it was coming from him, a shadow moved between us, blocking our lines of sight, and glinting against its side was a long, silver blade.
Immediately, my brain flared up with all the training I had forced myself to undergo, and was accelerated and supported by all the training I had forced upon me by this worthlessly dangerous job.
Nothing in my body moved, only tightened and tensed, ready to make a sudden movement at any instance, on the basis of any stimulus.
Because, for everything it could have been, a watch, a bento box, a piece of jewellery, there was a distinct deep scarlet that subdued parts of its glint.
In my arms, that girl's nose began to scrunch up, and her eyes grew wrinkled and burst open.
"Yucky. What are you doing, weirdo?"
But that wasn't her usual annoying accusations against me.
That is, it wasn't my arms around her that were yucky, or my gripping her tightly that made me a weirdo.
"That smells awful. Just what kind of meat did you buy for lunch?"