A Small Step Forward

“A-Aren’t you scared?”

Ze’Seki’s question came after nothing but silence for the past five-ish minutes. We still held hands, which wasn’t something I thought for a second would happen this whole trip. I guess we were finally getting into the date part of this not-date.

But to get to her question—

“Definitely,” I answered, “If we don’t get out of here soon, I won’t have time to study.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?!” she squeezed my hand.

“Hey, I take my studies very seriously.”

“That’s too much!”

Anyway, while I wasn’t entirely lying, a smidge of fear did linger at the back of my mind. I mean, this isn’t a situation you found yourself in every day—or ever for that matter. The fact this was happening at all only added to the bucket of weirdness that’d begun ever since the day Ze’Seki and I met.

Did I really do something to anger Arra? No—she’s not the type of goddess to do that—as far as I know.

“Speaking of studies,” I started, “Does your vast knowledge of this place not give you an idea where we are?”

“It’s not just of this place!”

“I like your enthusiasm, but that was not my question.”

Another squeeze at my hand. Thankfully her grip wasn’t too strong.

She sighed, “Akaratara had a bunch of tunnels under the structure that could be entered through secret entrances. Many of them led nowhere, but some had special exits,” she explained.

“So you think we’re in one of those?”

“…Basically…”

Her shaky response lacked confidence, but it was all we had. As long as an exit was known to exist, we’d have to try to find it.

In the meantime, all I had was the echoey ruins, arid air, and the soft hand against mine.

The silence was awkward, but I didn’t have anything to say. I was good at ending conversations. not starting them, but I guess I did have something lingering in my mind.

“You must really like studying history. I can’t imagine myself going through an entire book or even a page about something like this…willingly…” I motioned to the ruins, but it was pretty pointless in the dark.

Ze’Seki turned her eyes towards me, only noticeable because of their vibrant glow.

“…Y-Yeah,” She tightened her grip on my hand, but she held no malicious intent behind it. “My dad taught me since I was little…I just…ended up falling in love with it.”

“…I see,” Was all I could say.

I could easily relate to her situation. For me, it was my uncle who showed me the beauty in math. While many hated it, I always saw it as something greater. Maybe I didn’t see it the same way I do now, but my love for it was still the same.

Maybe…my perspective on it changed after he, my uncle…well…

“Hey, that hurts.”

“Oh, sorry.”

My heart was racing. I really shouldn’t be thinking about that. It made me accidentally squeeze on Ze’Seki’s hand.

“Um…how about you?” Ze’Seki awkwardly asked. “Do you have something you really like…or are good at?”

Had she realized how I was feeling? If so, I couldn’t let that keep going that route.

“Indeed. You could even say I’m good at everything! I’m just that good.”

“I don’t believe that for a second—oh.”

We stopped.

“What’s up?”

She didn’t answer, but I heard her pass her hand across a rough surface.

“There’s…a wall…”

“A good wall or a bad wall?”

“What does that even mean?”

I sighed, “Are we dead or not?”

“I…don’t know…”

That’s not reassuring, but since it wasn’t an entire no, maybe there was hope.

“…The warriors built of iron and blood…” Ze’Seki said in a whisper, “…From The Immortal King do their wills bud…” She trailed off.

I could imagine she was reading something on the wall.

“Oh…” Ze’Seki, concerningly, let out. The golden rings turned to me. “Um, do you…know how to do this…?”

I looked to the wall at the same time Ze’Seki did. The dim light from her eyes illuminated enough for me to vaguely see.

“This?” I pointed at a collage of shapes inside an indentation with numbers around the perimeter up to 360. Without waiting for a response, I began moving the shapes, which happen to be all triangles, to what I knew it should be.

From what I could tell, it was a simple problem of angles that were purposely positioned in a way that looked more confusing than they should be.

However—

“Huh, nothing happened,” I said after finishing the last triangle.

“A-Are you sure you did it right?”

“Hmph, there isn’t a doubt in my mind,” I crossed my arms while looking it over.

The light disappeared from the wall for a moment, turning to me. I took a glimpse to my right, where Ze’Seki stood, but she flinched before turning back to the wall.

Weird.

She cleared her throat and reached for my completed work, “Um…maybe there’s—”

Crchnk

““Huh?””

The moment Ze’Seki touched it, the wall rumbled and slid to the ground. Behind that wall was—more darkness.

“What even happened?”

“I don’t know…I-I just touched it…”

Well, there was no use thinking about it. As long as we got closer to finding an exit, that was all that mattered.

Like it was second nature now, Ze’Seki and I held hands before walking into the room.

Frsh!

A loud breeze passed by us. The room lit up with torches on the rocky walls. One after another, they burst into flames until the entire room filled with an orange hue. The place was massive with inscriptions on every wall and even on the floors. The room was shaped as a hexagon with an altar placed in the center.

“What about this place?” I asked the history buff, “You know what this is?”

She thought for a moment, then answered, “…No…”

For someone who has studied history since they were young, she was really missing a good chunk of info. Yet again, I couldn’t very well blame her. History can be annoying with events and missing details.

Anyway, still hand in hand, we walked up to the altar. The thing only reached up to my knees, but there was a mystical aura radiating out of the pentagon-shaped rock. A small transparent crystal dug into the rock at the edge of the side closest to us.

Ze’Seki had been touching things the whole trip, so I didn’t think much when I reached out for it with my free hand—

“Ouch!” I let out as the crystal punctured a needle-sized slit on my finger. Blood dripped to the floor and stained the crystal crimson.

“You idiot!” She took my hand with both of hers, “Why would you go touching things?!”

“I don’t want to hear that from you.”

Without a comeback, Ze’Seki pulled out a small box from her pocket. She expertly opened the box with one hand and cleaned up the wound. The slow and careful movements were like that of a nurse.

“Do you always carry a first aid kit with you?”

“…Y-Yeah.”

“That’s pretty useful.”

She froze, then answered,“…right…” Her expression darkened for a moment, but she quickly wrapped a band-aid on my finger before turning away from me.

Once again, Ze’Seki reached for my hand and grabbed it—

“Wait, we don’t need to do this anymore.”

“Hm?” she looked down at our hands before awkwardly letting go, “O-Oh…R-Right…” Her cheeks reddened.

“Hey, if you just wanted to hold hands you should just tell me.”

“N-No I don’t!” she pushed me away.

I chuckled to myself as we continued to explore the relatively empty room. At the far end we found a familiar-looking wall engraved with the same design as the one that brought us here.

We stepped up to it, but neither of us dared to touch it.

“So, what does this symbol mean, exactly?” I asked.

Without missing a beat, she answered, “It’s a simplified symbol one of The Finisterras used.”

And now those people were popping up again. I really didn’t want to get into another fight with her about this so I used every fiber in my body to stay silent.

“The one before was already known, but I’d never heard of a second one,” she reached for the wall one more time.

Quickly, I pulled her back.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” she complained.

“Were you really going to touch the same thing that brought us here?”

“Yeah, why not?”

I sighed, “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

Didn’t she just tell me not one minute ago not to go around touching things?

“But…what if it takes us to an exit?” she finally asked.

“And what if it takes us further away from an exit?”

We glared at each other. Usually, when Kokoro and I would have arguments, we tried settling things with a game. I had no idea if Ze’Seki was the kind of person to be up to something like that, but I had to try.

“Alright, how bout we decide this with a match of Quickdraw?”

She grinned, “Oh, I’d be up for that.”

And just like that, I’d acquired my victory before it even began.

Quickdraw consisted of one person holding their hands like they were about to clap. The other person would do the same but would have their opponent’s left hand between them. The goal was for the first person to clap, but with the restriction of only being able to move their left hand up and down, while their right hand could only move left and right. Player two would try to prevent that by clapping their own hands to block their opponent’s left hand.

All In all, it was a game of speed. And with my reaction time, there was no way I would—

“…I…lost…”

I suffered an immediate defeat.

“I’m actually really good at that game,” Ze’Seki said before turning back to the wall.

“You should’ve told me before we started playing.”

“Why, so you could change it?”

“Yes.”

Well, no use crying about it. Anything that happened after this would be Ze’Seki’s fault, so I could just pin the blame on her.

And so, she reached out for the wall.

A flash of light enveloped us once more. This time, I had the added bonus of having every bit of air sucked out of my lungs.

When the hard rock hit my back, I also felt a now familiar softness on my chest. At this point, I knew exactly what it was.

“That’s…” I tried to catch my breath, “…the second time this week.”

I looked at the girl laying on my chest. She pushed herself off but didn’t have the strength to fully get up. That left us staring at each other as we tried to fill our lungs.

Her heavy breaths tickled my cheek, and her hair lightly brushed against me. We sat there for a few seconds, neither of us saying a thing.

“Hey, what are you two doing!” A booming voice interrupted us.

We weakly turned to see a security guard staring at us from down the hall.

On the bright side, we’d escaped the tunnels of darkness or whatnot. Getting kicked out of the place really was nothing compared to that.

Ze’Seki walking next to me was either still scared or eerily excited. Seeing as her body was shaking but her face was smiling, I concluded it was probably a bit of both.

What a weird girl.

Our walk back home was probably the most normal thing we’d done together. Simply watching the breeze against the leaves of the trees was calming to see…or something like that. I couldn’t very well focus with all that’d happened.

I checked my phone, which worked now, and saw it was already 17:30. At this point, we probably wouldn’t make it home in time.

How did we even spend so much time in there?

“Hey, um…Tsutsumi…”

“Hm?” I looked over at her. Ze’Seki twiddled her thumbs as she walked, nervously looking at the ground.

“Um…”

“Don’t tell me, you’ve fallen in love with me,” I chuckled dramatically, “Don’t worry, it happens all the time.”

“N-No, that’s not it!” she punched my arm.

She took a deep breath then flicked her arm.

“I just wanted to say thanks…you know…for coming with me,” she nervously bit her lip, “No one has ever gone with me…places…”

After this experience, I could definitely see why. I could easily rain on her parade by telling her my true goal for going with her—making her not hate me, but I just couldn’t after seeing her smile. Although thin, it was a genuine smile unlike any I’d seen before.

At that moment, Ze’Seki, against the backdrop of the setting sun and green trees rustling in the wind, was the most beautiful sight I’d seen all day.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“I see…so you really enjoyed our date,” I let out an exaggerated sigh, “Don’t worry, it happens all the time.”

Another punch on the arm.

We arrived home at 18:11, over ten minutes after we should’ve.

The moment we stepped on the front door, the door swung open by itself and revealed a girl with short blue hair, cat ears, and a small ch—

“Where have you two been!?” Kokoro asked with both hands on her hips.

We proceeded to be scolded thoroughly for being late, and by we, I mean mostly me.

---

[Hm…direct connection has been achieved]

The voice pensively hummed to itself as it looked into the emptiness around it. It had been a long time since it’d had anything going on. These new turns of events were lighting a fire inside the heart they’d long thought had gone cold.

[…After so long…]

With centuries on their back and eternity lying ahead, this wait was nothing more than a blink of an eye or a flash in an endless black.