DEAREST

PART 3: IRREALITY, Ch. 3

3

"Where did you stay exactly?" I ask Luciana, regarding her confession in the hotel room.

She's walking beside me, with her hands in her pockets and her attentive gaze as she watches everything that surrounds us carefully. She has her shoulders slightly stooped. I guess this is a problem for tall people, especially for tall women like her. Wherever they go, whatever clothes they wear, they will inevitably stand out.

"If we lost, we would return immediately. But we won, so we went to this floating restaurant on the river. I don't know if it's still there... something about Mermaid... that's what its name was. Oh, and the hotel was close. I don't remember the name, but it had magenta curtains."

I laugh a little at the informality of her narrative. This is exactly the kind of things you would talk to with a friend, or on a date, while walking down the street.

"What was the result?"

"Ah," Luciana smiles. It's a bright smile, almost proud. "Beautiful. 3-0."

"Oh. I'm glad, then."

But it's also another thing that I feel happy about at the moment, and when I look at the same places Luciana is looking at, I begin to understand why. Even though Luciana and I are in the middle of a war, all these people around us have no idea. We're virtually in the same place, but our lives are very different. Seeing my body move, my feet walking forward, feeling my breathing and my pulse at a steady pace, I feel as if I'm part of this world like any passerby, and I'm not a lonely woman isolated from the world in a very strict castle on the top of a mountain. It feels refreshing, and wanting to know more about Luciana is basically wanting to belong to life like any other person.

For a brief moment, I have the idea of wanting to know about this place that she mentioned, the restaurant, but then I imagine it would be unfortunate to ruin her memories by establishing a new one regarding the place in question, so I let it go.

"Coming back to a city, after all the time you've spent with me in Bachassau... it must be a rather strange experience," I think out loud.

She shakes her head slowly from side to side.

"You must think me an alien. Always asking me questions like that. Always comparing..."

"Oh, that's not what I meant," I try to explain, and my tone of voice sounds like I'm apologizing to her. "Do my questions bother you?"

She looks at me immediately and takes her hands out of her pockets, shaking them in front of her as if trying to stop from thinking that.

"Oh no. No. It's, uh... sometimes I can't believe you want to know stuff about me. I'm honored that you want to know about me."

"You don't think it's rude?"

Luciana frowns, but maintains a gentle smile.

"Rude? Not at all," she replies with a soft voice. In fact, she seems happy, and I wonder if it is equally strange for her to meet me in this place. I'm sure she doesn't mean ill. "Being of your interest, I consider it an honor."

There is a lovely and adorable charm about her in this moment, the kind of charm that people who exhibit it themselves don't notice, something that even if you explain what it is, the charm would not be ruined at all.

Changing the subject, I say, with a more serious tone:

"I asked for your file the other day." I don't take my eyes off her while saying this, and she looks forward with a careful expression as if trying to discern my intentions. "I wanted to know more about the statistics of my favorite warrior, and with the file came a long list of weapons that you master. I read it while I was preparing for the bed and, I must confess, I had trouble falling asleep. To think that I'm sharing my house with someone so deadly!"