Christie felt so bad that she wanted to puke. She had screwed up. She had screwed up badly. She loved Agatha so much that she… that she had hurt her. Oppressive love. The exact same thing her dearest father had done to her. Perhaps she hadn’t enclosed her in a single building for a decade and a half, but that didn’t make it any less bad.

  The redhead softly whimpered as she looked over the horizon. She sat on the verge of the floating island of the Skyscraper Academy. Once upon a time, she would have been terrified of the sight, let alone sitting on the edge, but now she couldn’t care. Not just because she had recently found a way of flying herself – or rather, very efficient gliding - but because she was more terrified of herself than the heights.

  The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Agatha, no matter how minute the slight was. A prickle would hurt her as much as a stab. So she sobbed, yelped, and spasmed as she silently let out her grief. It hurt knowing that she could inflict hurt. Though she also understood very clear that it was only because she had hurt her ladylove. Imagining that she had hurt other people would only result in impassiveness, which somewhat helped as she needed to relax a bit.

  “This is… awful,” Christie passed her fingers through her greasy mane, her head cocked backwards. “In stories, the enamored girl would have a friend or confidant, but… Agatha is that confidant to me,” she chuckled grimly. “And even if I went to someone else… what can I tell them? That I am dating another girl?”

  Christie screamed.

  Never before in her life had she raised her voice, yet now she shouted so harshly that blood vessels popped up on her neck and her throat trembled with violence. She just felt awful. There was no helping or fixing that. A gross feeling that permeated her whole being as she just couldn’t throw.

  “This is awful,” she reiterated, her posture now crestfallen. “How is one supposed to know that some actions will hurt others…”

  The void called for her.

  A two-hundred-meter fall.

  For better or worse, she knew she couldn’t do it. There were people who loved her, and that would hurt even more if she did it. And if she somehow ended up deciding on doing it, she would still activate her agates because she was a coward.

  Still, the void was a place of morbid curiosity, so Christie stood up and looked forward. Her knowledge and instincts told her that it would be long but nevertheless painless. A long procedure but an instant execution. Like paperwork.

  Bureaucracy and death had a lot of similarities now that she thought about it.

  “I would recommend against jumping,” a voice said behind her.

  Christie turned her head and found a familiar face. “You are that… soldier.”

  “Yes, that is indeed me. That soldier,” the black-uniformed woman chuckled.

  “Sorry, I am unable to recall your name.”

  “No issues, it has been a year, I will not hound you over it, Christina.” The redhead frowned. Considering you recall my name, it seems that you are, in fact, hounding me over it, she didn’t speak those words aloud. “But I still recommend against jumping.”

  “I… was not going to jump,” Christie took a step backward.

  “That pause does not inspire much confidence.” Even though the soldier thought the student was going to jump, she still kept a collected fa?ade with her hands clasped behind her back.

  “I will admit it sounds bad,” the nouveau riche sighed and walked over to the soldier. “I was just having a bad day, and I wanted to unwind.”

  “Pretty bad day judging by the screams.”

  “You heard?” Christie instantly turned bright red the moment the brunette woman nodded. “Sacred be the earth,” the girl cursed in the politest way she could as she covered her face.

  “You do not need to react that way,” the woman chuckled. “You are far from the first person – student or not – that has come to the edge and just let it all out. Euphoric, is it not?”

  “I… guess,” the redhead sighed. “Could I have your name again?”

  “Sandra,” the soldier bowed with a hand on the opposite shoulder, betraying her as some high-class individual. Though that was barely a surprise considering most people here were nobles, even the soldiers. Or rather, especially the soldiers.

  “Acknowledged,” Christie bowed in kind. “I will then get going, Miss Sandra.”

  “Sandra is fine, but stop right there. I cannot just ignore a damsel in distress.”

  “Are you not a damsel yourself?” The student arched a brow.

  “You are lucky you are a girl. The last man that called me a damsel, I kicked him in the balls,” Sandra snorted. “Not hard enough, as the bastard is still using them.”

  “Right…” Christie was so alien to crass language that she became petrified whenever someone used it. She wasn’t against cursing, but that type of language did make her uncomfortable.

  “So what is it in your mind? Is it a boy?” The woman of brownish-red eyes asked with her arms crossed.

  “W-what makes you say that?” The myriad-eyed girl reacted violently to the preposterous question.

  That made Sandra smile. In a familiar manner at that, almost vulpine in nature. “I can always detect romance in the air. Smell it, practically.”

  “R-right,” Christie reiterated nervously. She is not wrong… I guess that no one would typically think that romance involves a boy when talking to a girl instead of another girl.

  “So what has it been? Was he cheating on you?”

  “No!” The sheer implication of the question enraged Christie.

  How dare this woman suggest Agatha could do that? Whilst she didn’t put those words into thoughts, the mess floating around her head basically said that. Not that Agatha has anyone to cheat with… Those cynical thoughts she did manage to put a name to.

  “It is, uh…” Christie tried to answer, if only because she had the feeling Sandra wouldn’t leave her alone if she didn’t, but it was hard to put it into words with another person. Is this not what you wanted? A confidant? A part of her whispered. “I… might have done something that has offended this… person.”

  “Fuck him,” Sandra said nonchalantly and shrugged.

  “Excuse you?” The nouveau riche blushed. “W-why would I n-need to do that in response to the issue? Is that n-not an overreaction?” She fanned herself with her hand as she got too heated.

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  “What are you… Oh!” The soldier made a perfect ‘O’ with her mouth. “Not like that!” And she laughed gutturally. “It is an expression, girl! It means sending someone to the depths! I mean, sometimes fucking them solves things, but in these cases, the real solution is to just ignore them, or curse them. Both work.”

  “Oh…” Christie relaxed, her thoughts no longer going to… debaucherous imagery, but her blush still remained. Mostly for grossly having misinterpreted the words. “B-but I am the one who offended h-him!” She almost said ‘her’ but managed to correct herself before a vocal left her mouth.

  “And?” Sandra looked attentively at her. “What I am seeing is that you are the hurt person, not him. I do not know what you have done to him to offend him, nor do I care, but if you are hurting this much, then it is not your fault at all.”

  “But it is!” It is I who tried to smother her with oppressive love! She kept those words to herself.

  “Well, if that is really the case, then why are you hurting?”

  “Because I did not want to hurt him!”

  “Hmm…” The brunette tilted her head from side to side. “Depths, girl. What a conundrum. It is always easier to just pin the blame on the man and just not care about it.”

  “T-that does not seem responsible at all. Or just.”

  “Welcome to the world of the adults, you will get neither,” Sandra smacked her lips. “Okay, let me tell you this. If you are really at fault here and you are hurting because of it, then try to fix it yourself. How about an apology?”

  “That is the first thing I did…” Christie looked at the ground with lament.

  “Oh, that is the worst-case scenario.” The black-uniformed soldier groaned. “I hate it when that happens. But there is a virtue there.”

  “And it is?” Gingerly, she raised her head.

  “By not accepting your apologies, he has also become a perpetrator. If you are hurting because of your actions and have sincerely apologized over it, and yet he refused to hear it, then he is also to blame. You are not the only one at fault now.”

  “That is… a substantial leap in logic.”

  “No. That is the truth,” Sandra pressed her hands on Christie’s shoulders and smiled at her. “Apologizing is hard. It is easy to distinguish a void word from an apology, and if it gets ignored, then it is not that different from a nation ignoring a peace treaty, is it?”

  “I… guess?” The analogy was quite a bit skewed, but she could understand where the woman was coming from.

  “So that is that. Show him that you are both at fault. Unity and whatnot.”

  “You…” Christie carefully thought her next words, “are not a great motivator.”

  “Well, in my defense, I will say that I live my life stumbling from one objective to the next without worrying much about anything. You might get sad or hurt, but if you are yourself, you will never be left unsatisfied.”

  “That is… almost a good line.”

  “What do you mean ‘almost good’?” Sandra frowned and pressed her hands against her hips. “I have been trying to help you, and I have only heard belittling from a private.”

  “Technically, I am not a private.”

  “Technically,” the soldier reiterated, “you are. By studying in the Skyscraper Academy, you are part of the army, and anyone in the army without a title is considered a private by law.”

  “Really?” Christie arched a brow, non-verbally saying ‘Are you making this up?’.

  “Oh, yes. But I do not recommend you get into law. It is a megalithic and life-draining endeavor.”

  “I cannot say I ever pondered it,” the redhead giggled. “Your displeasure over the law has been far more motivating than any of your attempts.”

  “A common enemy always helps people focus,” the brunette grinned. “But my advice still holds. Try to confront that man. Anyone who ignores an apology does not deserve to be called a human being.”

  Whilst Christie intended to recriminate Sandra for being too superlative with her words, the soldier walked away without a care in the world.

  “I wish I could be so carefree…” The nouveau riche sighed and found herself looking at the setting sun. “I guess I should try to talk it out.”

  Yet when she came back to their shared room, Agatha wasn’t there. Not even an hour late. Or two. By then night had already come and Christie started to worry. D-does she hate me now? Anxiety had always been powerful within her as she had never built self-confidence, but now that she had managed to accrue a bit of hope in herself, Christie felt more lost than ever upon losing that small bit.

  It was impossible to imagine a life without Agatha now.

  She needed her.

  She needed her badly.

  She could have walked out of the room to try to search for her, but a voice screamed in whispers in her ear that if she did so she risked never crossing paths with that fulgurating radiance ever again. Agatha needed to sleep, so she would inevitably come back.

  So she waited.

  It was midnight by the time the door of the room opened. Christie almost jumped out of the sofa where she had been waiting all this time with a blanket covering her. Not even reading, just staring at the door, for she didn’t have enough concentration to do anything else.

  “I…” Christie opened her mouth, but no words left it as she looked forward.

  Agatha looked tired. There was no shine in her eyes. No radiance.

  All the courage Christie had mustered vanished alongside her hope, so she embraced herself underneath the blanket to contain her tremors. Must like her sea of stones, she felt like she would spill if she didn’t do so.

  “I w-will sleep on the sofa tonight…” The redhead said sheepishly. She didn’t want to hurt Agatha anymore.

  “Christie,” the blonde looked at her with an emotion that could only be described as hatred. “Bed. Now.”

  “B-but I…”

  “Bed. Now.” Agatha reiterated, her tone not accepting a ‘no’ for an answer.

  In a leporine manner, Christie stood up and made her way to the bed as she still hugged her blanket. Agatha changed herself behind the wooden curtains, and a minute later, she walked out in her nightgown and sat on the bed.

  “I… um…” Christie softly mused as she squirmed in her blanket instead of the bed’s. “I am…”

  “I am sorry,” Agatha spoke before she could, startling her in the process.

  “You… are sorry?” The nouveau riche almost gagged from her bafflement.

  “Yes,” the villager nodded. “I… was too aggressive. So you were, for that matter.”

  “I know. And I am sorry about it.”

  “I know you are, and that is the problem,” Agatha chuckled in a demeaning manner. “You apologized and meant it, and I just… well, ignored it. I am used to apologies not meaning anything that it is… disturbing hearing one that might hold water. So for that, I apologize myself.”

  “Er… apologies accepted?” Christie now felt awful as she was ready to hound Agatha like Sandra had suggested, only to find that there was no need for that. There had never been an issue; it was only her who exacerbated the issue and lamented herself over it. Though that raised a question. “D-did someone tell you to say so?” She said with the subtlety of a behemoth.

  “I know this might be surprising, but I am capable of coming to a complex answer on my own,” her radiant ladylove smiled self-deprecatingly.

  “Oh, I did not mean it in that way, mock sapphire,” the redhead freed from her cocoon and embraced the blonde. “I just… well, I was a bit afflicted after having hurt you, and someone questioned me about my mood, so I was just wondering if the same happened to you?”

  Agatha nuzzled on her neck. “The only person I talked with was Terráquea, and we only hurled insults at each other like always. But that does remind me of something.”

  Her ladylove pushed her away and grabbed her from the shoulders. The gesture felt infinitely different from Sandra’s. Both women were smaller than her, but this wasn’t a difference of proximity. Christie didn’t care in the slightest what Sandra might think, but she did care about Agatha’s thoughts. Their eyes met and she peered into those dual sapphires.

  “Christie, I love you, I truly do, but I do not like how you take my love for granted. I am… not comfortable with everything.” As Agatha spoke, Christie saw how in several words her ladylove almost looked away, but in the end, she never faltered. Agatha looked straight into her eyes all the time.

  That stung Christie, for she was forced to face her deficiencies, but at the same time, she greatly appreciated it. This was one kind of hurt she could understand. Just like she had her own approach to vulgarities, her ladylove had her own approach to passion. For neither to get hurt, both needed to learn how to dance without stepping on each other’s toes.

  “I… am aware,” Christie said softly. “I… uh… I have never had anyone to love. Like love in this way. Not even friends. So, I… it sounds pathetic and stupid, but this is the only way I know how to love.”

  “It does not sound pathetic,” her ladylove grinned radiantly. “Maybe stupid, but I already know you are a dummy.”

  The redhead snorted at those words and started giggling. She then pressed her forehead against Agatha’s. Not a kiss. Not a hug. But just simple and innocent skinship. Connection.

  “I am willing to learn, Agatha,” she uttered with the truest of veracities.

  “And I am willing to put up with you in the meanwhile, Christie,” her ladylove rubbed her nose against hers. Small and soft, like her whole being. “Relationships are a dance, and you have only been taught formal dances, while I am only self-taught in improvised bursts of sporadic and non-regulated dance. It does not mean we are incompatible; it means we need to learn not to step on each other.”

  Christie couldn’t help but blush at the fact that both had come up with the same analogy in a completely independent manner. She didn’t voice out this revelation and simply limited herself to rubbing her nose against her ladylove’s.

  A small conflict had developed into a greater one, and it all had been resolved in half a day, but the window of time didn’t matter. For Christie knew a valuable lesson here, that no matter what happened, she could always confide in Agatha and talk it out. There was no need for subtlety, for self-deprecation, for escape, or for hurting. She just had to remove any pretense, look at her ladylove’s eyes, and accept that this kind of hurt wasn’t bad, just the basis of mutual love.

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