I Want to Know More

“The man who cursed you also taught you?” Midoriko asked incredulously.

Ryouma shrugged. “Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?”

The sun had set, and the moon was rising. Ryouma only intended for them to stay a short while in order to get on the same page, but now it didn’t feel quite right to disrupt the flow of conversation.

“So if he taught you, does that mean you weren’t born knowing how to use magic?” She eyed him curiously.

Ryouma chuckled. He hadn’t expected her to be so interested beyond how he’d gotten the curse.

“Correct. I was just a normal person until I picked up that book.”

“I thought magic was something you were born with…”

“It is for some people like you and Xiǎomíng. People who are born with some level of magical ability are called sorcerers. A lot of them seem to descend from priests and shamans, but I have no such lineage. I guess you could think of me as something like…”

“A wizard?” Midoriko asked excitedly.

“At my age, I don’t like the connotation of that…” he muttered before forcing a smile. “But sure! I’m something like a wizard!”

“I remember a while ago you explained to me how it worked with, like, willpower and stuff. Is it like that for everyone then? How do people figure this stuff out?” Midoriko’s questions poured out like a stream, only for her to clap a hand over her mouth to dam it up. “S-sorry for asking so many questions. I just want to understand all of this…”

“Hm? It doesn’t bother me.” He couldn’t help but beam at her enthusiasm. This endless curiosity of hers was another thing Ryouma liked about Midoriko. “It all requires training to master. If you asked Xiǎomíng, he’d say magic has to do with the flow of qi or something, but I’m not sure if I fully ascribe to that.”

“Right, the way you described magic to me is a bit like the concept of a tulpa,” she said, scratching her head.

“A tulpa? What’s that?”

“It’s a concept that comes from Tibetan Buddhism but was adopted by Western philosophers. Basically, it’s a physical manifestation of a thought-form created through belief and meditation,” Midoriko launched into her explanation like a lecture. With their fingers laced together, she began drawing in the sand to illustrate her point.

“In Buddhism, it’s a creation that exists to teach and help those on the path to enlightenment. They can be things like a Bodhisattva, a moving work of art, or even a bridge,” she continued. Midoriko wiped their hands over the sand diagram and began drawing a new one. “However, the Western adoption of tulpa sees it through an occult lens. Usually, it’s used more in reference to a physical entity—like an imaginary friend—but the way you describe your magic sounds exactly like this concept.”

Midoriko met his eyes with her own intense and serious look. “You said if you believe it will happen, that it will. Does that mean even I can learn to do it too?”

“I’ve never heard of neutralizers being able to use magic themselves before,” he said, rubbing his chin. “But then again, until I met you, everything I’d heard about them sounded like a rumor.”

“Ah…” Midoriko visibly deflated. Had she actually wanted to learn how to use magic? Before Ryouma could offer to teach her, she changed the subject. “So what about the grimoire? Can I see it? Maybe there’s a way to break the curse–”

“I destroyed it,” he said, with a shameful smile. “I thought that would be sure to break it. But it didn’t.”

“And the man?”

“I killed him.” The smile faded from his face, and a more solemn expression took over. “But don’t be mistaken—I didn’t murder him in revenge or cold blood. I did it because he asked me to.”

She gasped. “He asked you to?!”

“He’d evidently cultivated his magic for so long that it had kept him alive for nearly two hundred years. He was so tired of living but couldn’t bring himself to end things by his own hand. So he had me do it under the guise of a final test.” He let the silence hang in the air for a moment before finally exhaling deeply. “Man, that feels good to get off my chest.”

“Ryouma, how old were you?” she asked quietly.

“Eighteen.”

Midoriko looked at him with sympathy. Other than the Russians, she didn’t know how many lives he’d taken since then, nor did she want to know. But she was starting to understand his immature streak—a childish coping mechanism for the dark life he’d lived.

Ryouma cocked his head to the side shyly. “Don’t look at me like that. You know, there are plenty of countries that send boys off to war at that age. And some that put young children on the battlefield.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Perhaps if he hadn’t been forced to do that, the trajectory of his life would have been different. Still, there had to be more to him than death and darkness. She could see it in his demeanor towards the children—a light still hidden within. Maybe that was why she was finding herself continuously drawn to him.

“Then tell me more about yourself.” Midoriko let out a small yawn. She scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “If we’re starting over, I want to know what Enishi Ryouma likes. His favorite foods, his hobbies…Happy things.”

When he was with this woman, Ryouma constantly found himself acting out of character. He’d gone his entire adult life living secretively under carefully crafted false identities to the point where sometimes he didn’t know who he really was anymore. But for her, he was willing to tell her anything she wanted to know about him.

His birthday was January 20th. His blood type was AB, he was 185 centimeters tall, and he weighed about 75 kilos. He liked cooking—French cuisine was his specialty, but his favorite things to eat were simple dishes like roasted sweet potato. His other hobbies included normal stuff like reading and watching movies.

He told her how he never finished high school, but when he was in school, he was constantly hounded to join the basketball team because of his height. He’d never been interested in athletics beyond physical fitness.

When the seabreeze began to make her shiver, Ryouma offered to walk her back to her room and end the night. Midoriko, wanting to continue looking at the stars in the clear sky, insisted they stay a little longer. So he wrapped his arms around her, blanketing her with the fabric of his yukata sleeves.

As she fought to stay awake, he told her stories about his travels. How he’d traveled to every continent but Antarctica (nothing to steal there), and how he traveled alone from age eighteen until he met Xiǎomíng at age twenty-five. He told her stories—good and bad—about his attempts to care for and raise Itoko before Midoriko had entered their lives.

Finally, when he ran out of things to talk about, and Midoriko was too sleepy to ask questions anymore, they sat there under the stars until the tide began to lap at their feet.

“We should go back,” Ryouma said, nudging Midoriko. But she was fast asleep.

Chuckling softly, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to her bed. He wanted nothing more than to continue holding her through the night—there was something about this woman that brought out his greedy side. But he knew better than to push his luck with someone like her.

He could keep crossing lines, and she would just draw a new one between them. Ryouma knew that he reached a point where he had to let Midoriko be the one to cross the line. He wanted to know everything about her, but he would have to wait for her to open up to him.

As he looked at her sleeping face, he brushed the hair away from the spot on her face where he’d bandaged her up a month prior. A small scar remained.

He touched a spot on his own forehead and smirked. I guess we match now…

Ryouma kissed her on the scar, then left the way he came.

***

If it weren’t for the traces of sand in her bed and on her floor, Midoriko would have been convinced the night before was just a pleasant dream. Instead, the cold, hard reality of having shown Enishi Ryouma an embarrassing side of herself crushed her.

Why did she let him hold her like that? How could she get so comfortable as to fall asleep in his arms and sleep so soundly that he carried her to bed? It was wrong, wrong, wrong! She just got caught up in his pace again—that was all.

Still, she was able to learn more about who he was as a person. Ryouma felt less like an enigma to her. She felt like she could trust him that much more after he’d so generously laid his soul bare for her. Why was he like that? Why did he constantly go above and beyond for her like that?

Praising her. Saying she was important to him, not just because of her usefulness but because of who she was as a person. There was no way he meant any of it, right? She’d heard stuff like that in the past and swore to never get swept away in it again.

But worst of all, she had agreed to stay with him. Did it mean moving in together or just seeing each other for their little hand-holding sessions once a day? Does that even matter? I still have to see him again…Ugh!

But Midoriko didn’t have time to wallow in confusing feelings when her semester was nearly over. Permanently moving out of her two-room apartment was another thing to add to her already full plate.

PING—! A message from Ryouma came in.

“I’m glad we were able to talk things through last night. I’ll take care of everything for your move! You won’t even have to lift a single one of those delicate fingers of yours! ( >w< )”

“Argh! This man!” Midoriko wanted to chuck her phone out of the window. Instead, she opted to yell into a pillow and kick her feet on the mattress.

He managed to simultaneously give her one less and one more thing to worry about. But for now, she had to go to work.