[chaptered] Breaking Zero Kelvin - Chapter 6 (Lost in Memories)
Title: Breaking Zero Kelvin (Multichapter)
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)
Pairing: Kazuyuri
Genre: Fantasy/Scifi
Summary: AU. They are two runaways, chased out of society through a deep-rooted stigma though they have no say in it at all. Only relying on word-of-mouth rumours and a set of sketchy directions, they now have to set out on their own journey to accomplish the impossible: escape.
Notes: Written for NaNoWriMo 2011.
Character list here.
Previous chapters: prologue | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
~
06: Lost in Memories
Tae woke to the smell of onions, and raised her head sleepily to see Kei poking at something in a can.
“What’s that?” she asked blearily, trying to get a good look at the brown substance in the can.
“Canned French onion soup,” Kei replied, poking at it some more. “Or at least, it’s supposed to be - it’s more like some gelatinous mess right now.”
Crawling over to the stove, Tae grabbed the spoon from Kei and examined the mess within the can. After switching off the flame and spooning some out to have a taste, Tae checked the can.
“It’s edible,” she said. “You didn’t follow the instructions, I guess. We can just scoop it and eat, it tastes decent.”
“If you say so,” Kei shrugged, digging out a quivering spoonful for himself.
They finished breakfast quickly, and began to pack up for the day’s journey. Tae’s shoulders sagged at the prospect of having to sit in front again for the whole drive.
“Can I sit behind today?” she begged. “I can’t stand having to drive the motorcycle.”
Shooting her a long glance, Kei heaved a sigh.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to drive,” he said at last, and she broke out into a wide grin. Kei rolled his eyes at this, and settled himself on the motorcycle.
“Let’s go.”
~
Eventually, Tae gave up trying to keep any sort of calendar in her head.
She had lost count of how many days they had spent ever since leaving District 12, and was getting slightly sick of eating peanuts and dried fruits at every meal, though that was all they had left.
By the time they reached District 11, they were both so tired they decided to go up to the district after a night of sleep.
Before going to sleep, Tae dragged out the name generator again, and found that her name was still not blacklisted or taken.
Thank goodness for uncommon names, she thought to herself.
“Erena,” she tried next.
The indicator light flashed a cold green, and all colour drained from Tae’s face.
“No,” she whispered, clutching the name generator hard.
“Erena!” she tried again, enunciating each syllable clearly in case the device had recorded the wrong name.
The light still remained green.
“…Tae?” she heard Kei’s voice, seemingly from very far away. “Your hands are glowing. If you’re not careful, they’ll fuse with the machine…”
She blinked and crashed down to reality quick enough to realize that her hands were indeed encased in pale pink and hurriedly dropped the device, forcing the magic to recede.
“Erena…is dead,” she whispered hollowly. “She’s dead.”
“She might have joined Central-”
“No,” Tae shook her head violently. “Erena isn’t - wasn’t - that kind of person.”
Kei opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again.
“My only friend at the convent,” Tae mumbled, “and she’s gone.”
Patting her back awkwardly, Kei said nothing, not knowing what to say even if he had wanted to. Numb with shock, it wasn’t until much later, when she was trying to fall asleep, did she realize that she had not checked up on Shizuna and Taisuke.
They’ll be fine, she told herself. They have to be.
~
She was still quiet the next morning, and Kei sighed softly.
“You can’t be upset about that for too long,” he told her quietly, and she shot him a look.
“You’ve never lost a family member, or someone who you were so close you she practically felt like family, have you?” she shot back, stung at how he seemed to brush off her best friend’s death so easily.
This, she realized a tad late, was not a good thing to say. Kei’s expression twisted and his eyes grew guarded.
“My father left us to go and work for Central,” he said tartly. “Ten years later, he came back for a visit, found out that my mother and sister had been concealing the fact that I was a witch, and shot them both right in front of my eyes. There is a reason for me telling you not to wallow in despair, and lack of understanding is far from it.”
He sounded genuinely upset, and Tae felt slightly guilty.
“Sorry,” she said in a tiny voice, but his face did not soften in the slightest bit.
Not knowing what else to do, she walked some distance away from Kei, and sat down against the tunnel wall. She pulled out her practice pebbles and began her regular magic practice.
She tried to concentrate, but her mind was so full of guilt and sorrow and confusion, rendering her so distracted she could not even try to access her magic, even with her eyes closed.
Eventually, she gave up, staring blankly into space. She never even realized she was crying until a drop of moisture fell onto her hand, leaving a sticky, salty trail down her face.
Sleep came quickly.
~
By the time she woke up again, Kei was playing with a can of peanuts, tossing it from one hand to another aimlessly. Tae walked up to him, and picked out a packet of dried fruit, before sitting down gingerly near him.
“I’m sorry,” she told him quietly. “I guess I was just…emotionally unbalanced.”
Kei said nothing for a while, but put down the can he was holding.
“Just…don’t mope about it for too long,” he told her. “Don’t lose yourself to despair. When a witch loses themselves to despair they lose all hold over their powers, and essentially get destroyed by their power running wild. Trust me - I’ve seen someone go like that and it wasn’t very pretty.”
Tae frowned.
“Not one of your circle of eight though, right?”
“No,” Kei murmured, shaking his head. “In District 16, I met this kid called Okamoto…something. He was very young, but he’d already found his powers when I met him. Surprisingly, Central hadn’t blacklisted him or anything though. One day, his mother died of sickness, and he just lost it. His power allowed him to have some control of wind, see, so when he lost control there was this huge gale that came, and it was so strong it swept him up and caused his body to crash into a building. He…didn’t survive.”
They were both silent for a while after that, before Kei sighed.
“So you see,” he said. “Don’t lose yourself to despair. I don’t want to have to lose another partner.”
Despite herself Tae smiled a little.
“Alright.”
~
Kei had been doing routine checks to see if night had fallen, and finally he looked down from the ladder and called “Coast clear!” to Tae, prompting her to begin climbing up the ladder as well.
District 11 looked completely different from District 12. For one thing, the buildings looked a lot less welcoming than District 12 as they seemed to be made out of a lot of metal and glass twisted into strange structures.
Harsh lights lit up the streets, prompting the pair of them to creep behind houses slowly instead of running through alleys and sidestreets.
Again, Kei was on the lookout for a grocery store. That was the one thing that seemed to be common in all districts - after dark everybody went home and stayed at home. Tae helped him search too, and was thus completely caught off-guard when something bumped into her.
She stifled her yelp immediately, and looked down to see a girl with chestnut-brown hair staring up at her from where she had fallen to the ground.
“You’re not supposed to be wandering around,” the girl whispered to them. “The bad men will come and get you.”
“I could say the same for you,” Kei chided. “What are you doing out so late?”
The girl raised her face up to look at Kei, and in that instant Tae’s breath caught in her throat - that face looked so familiar…
“Is something wrong with you?” the girl asked Tae curiously, and Tae quickly shook herself out of her reverie.
“No,” she murmured. “You just…look so much like an old friend of mine.”
Kei shot her a quick glance, but the girl seemed intrigued.
“I was adopted, so maybe you knew one of my sisters,” she said. “My adoptive parents are dead now, though…”
Tae was overtaken by a wave of curiosity.
“What’s your name?” she asked, a memory of the day she had left District 13 resurfacing in her mind.
The girl cocked her head at Tae, but answered anyway.
“Karina,” she told Tae. “That’s my name - I refused to let my adoptive parents give me another one…”
”I have a sister…her name is Karina.”
This girl had the same smile, the same eyes, the same face as the girl who had been her only friend for so many years.
“Erena,” Tae couldn’t help but whisper aloud, and Karina’s eyes widened.
“That’s my sister’s name!” she gasped, completely ignoring Kei now and focusing all her attention on Tae. “You knew my sister? Erena, from District 13?”
“Yeah,” Tae smiled, slightly bitterly. “She was my best friend back in the convent school.”
Karina did not notice the underlying tone of bitterness in Tae’s voice, and she broke out into a smile.
“How is she? Is she doing fine? I miss her so much, even more than I miss Anna because at least Anna’s living in this district…”
“I-I’m sorry,” Tae choked out after a long while of silence. “She’s dead.”
The smile on Karina’s face immediately disappeared, and she looked away.
“Oh,” she said in a tiny voice.
Tae did not say anything either, and silence followed it until Kei cleared his throat, looking slightly impatient.
Food, he mouthed to Tae, who sighed and nodded, straightening up.
“Wait,” Karina piped up. “Where are you going?”
Tae hesitated for a moment.
“To find food,” she said at last.
“I can show you the way,” Karina offered.
Tae glanced at Kei, and when he nodded she smiled slightly at Karina.
“Lead the way.”
~
Karina brought them to a grocery store that was closed for the night, with several boxes piled behind.
“They ordered the wrong kind of food, apparently,” Karina told them. “They threw it out, so I guess you can take some.”
As Kei began to riffle through the boxes, Tae turned to Karina.
“Why are you helping us?”
Karina shrugged.
“A friend of my sister is my friend,” she said softly. “I don’t really care that much about Central anyway, so it doesn’t matter even if you’re against Central.”
“Would you like to come with us?” Tae blurted out, not noticing how Kei stiffened ever so slightly behind her. “Your sister asked me to take care of you…”
Shaking her head, Karina smiled thinly.
“I am safe here,” she told Tae. “I think I’d like to stay here, though thank you for the offer.”
Tae cast a glance around at the stark shadows thrown on the ground by the harsh lights that looked nothing but sinister to her. She could not imagine how Karina found it safe, when to her it looked like a menacing forest of metal and glass, where drones from Central might be hiding in any corner.
“…Safe?” Tae could not help but let a small bit of incredulity colour her tone.
“Yes,” Karina said, laughing a little. “Safe. Don’t worry about me, I’ve been fine on my own for a long while already.”
Tae gave in as Kei came up behind her, his bag full of food.
“Let’s get going,” he said quietly, and Karina smiled, waving to them.
“Have a safe trip, wherever you’re going,” she told them, before darting off.
As she turned back to face Kei, she noticed his frown.
“She might have slowed us down,” he murmured. “Emotionally attached as you are, a third person would just mean that food would run out faster.”
“I know,” Tae sighed. “I just…she reminded me so much of Erena, you know. I don’t want the same thing that happened to Erena to happen to her.”
Kei ruffled her hair gently.
“She didn’t sound like she’d done anything against Central yet,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”
Tae didn’t reply, but she felt Kei take her hand and begin to lead her back to the tunnel opening.
Neither said a single word all the way back.
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)
Pairing: Kazuyuri
Genre: Fantasy/Scifi
Summary: AU. They are two runaways, chased out of society through a deep-rooted stigma though they have no say in it at all. Only relying on word-of-mouth rumours and a set of sketchy directions, they now have to set out on their own journey to accomplish the impossible: escape.
Notes: Written for NaNoWriMo 2011.
Character list here.
Previous chapters: prologue | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
~
06: Lost in Memories
Tae woke to the smell of onions, and raised her head sleepily to see Kei poking at something in a can.
“What’s that?” she asked blearily, trying to get a good look at the brown substance in the can.
“Canned French onion soup,” Kei replied, poking at it some more. “Or at least, it’s supposed to be - it’s more like some gelatinous mess right now.”
Crawling over to the stove, Tae grabbed the spoon from Kei and examined the mess within the can. After switching off the flame and spooning some out to have a taste, Tae checked the can.
“It’s edible,” she said. “You didn’t follow the instructions, I guess. We can just scoop it and eat, it tastes decent.”
“If you say so,” Kei shrugged, digging out a quivering spoonful for himself.
They finished breakfast quickly, and began to pack up for the day’s journey. Tae’s shoulders sagged at the prospect of having to sit in front again for the whole drive.
“Can I sit behind today?” she begged. “I can’t stand having to drive the motorcycle.”
Shooting her a long glance, Kei heaved a sigh.
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to drive,” he said at last, and she broke out into a wide grin. Kei rolled his eyes at this, and settled himself on the motorcycle.
“Let’s go.”
~
Eventually, Tae gave up trying to keep any sort of calendar in her head.
She had lost count of how many days they had spent ever since leaving District 12, and was getting slightly sick of eating peanuts and dried fruits at every meal, though that was all they had left.
By the time they reached District 11, they were both so tired they decided to go up to the district after a night of sleep.
Before going to sleep, Tae dragged out the name generator again, and found that her name was still not blacklisted or taken.
Thank goodness for uncommon names, she thought to herself.
“Erena,” she tried next.
The indicator light flashed a cold green, and all colour drained from Tae’s face.
“No,” she whispered, clutching the name generator hard.
“Erena!” she tried again, enunciating each syllable clearly in case the device had recorded the wrong name.
The light still remained green.
“…Tae?” she heard Kei’s voice, seemingly from very far away. “Your hands are glowing. If you’re not careful, they’ll fuse with the machine…”
She blinked and crashed down to reality quick enough to realize that her hands were indeed encased in pale pink and hurriedly dropped the device, forcing the magic to recede.
“Erena…is dead,” she whispered hollowly. “She’s dead.”
“She might have joined Central-”
“No,” Tae shook her head violently. “Erena isn’t - wasn’t - that kind of person.”
Kei opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again.
“My only friend at the convent,” Tae mumbled, “and she’s gone.”
Patting her back awkwardly, Kei said nothing, not knowing what to say even if he had wanted to. Numb with shock, it wasn’t until much later, when she was trying to fall asleep, did she realize that she had not checked up on Shizuna and Taisuke.
They’ll be fine, she told herself. They have to be.
~
She was still quiet the next morning, and Kei sighed softly.
“You can’t be upset about that for too long,” he told her quietly, and she shot him a look.
“You’ve never lost a family member, or someone who you were so close you she practically felt like family, have you?” she shot back, stung at how he seemed to brush off her best friend’s death so easily.
This, she realized a tad late, was not a good thing to say. Kei’s expression twisted and his eyes grew guarded.
“My father left us to go and work for Central,” he said tartly. “Ten years later, he came back for a visit, found out that my mother and sister had been concealing the fact that I was a witch, and shot them both right in front of my eyes. There is a reason for me telling you not to wallow in despair, and lack of understanding is far from it.”
He sounded genuinely upset, and Tae felt slightly guilty.
“Sorry,” she said in a tiny voice, but his face did not soften in the slightest bit.
Not knowing what else to do, she walked some distance away from Kei, and sat down against the tunnel wall. She pulled out her practice pebbles and began her regular magic practice.
She tried to concentrate, but her mind was so full of guilt and sorrow and confusion, rendering her so distracted she could not even try to access her magic, even with her eyes closed.
Eventually, she gave up, staring blankly into space. She never even realized she was crying until a drop of moisture fell onto her hand, leaving a sticky, salty trail down her face.
Sleep came quickly.
~
By the time she woke up again, Kei was playing with a can of peanuts, tossing it from one hand to another aimlessly. Tae walked up to him, and picked out a packet of dried fruit, before sitting down gingerly near him.
“I’m sorry,” she told him quietly. “I guess I was just…emotionally unbalanced.”
Kei said nothing for a while, but put down the can he was holding.
“Just…don’t mope about it for too long,” he told her. “Don’t lose yourself to despair. When a witch loses themselves to despair they lose all hold over their powers, and essentially get destroyed by their power running wild. Trust me - I’ve seen someone go like that and it wasn’t very pretty.”
Tae frowned.
“Not one of your circle of eight though, right?”
“No,” Kei murmured, shaking his head. “In District 16, I met this kid called Okamoto…something. He was very young, but he’d already found his powers when I met him. Surprisingly, Central hadn’t blacklisted him or anything though. One day, his mother died of sickness, and he just lost it. His power allowed him to have some control of wind, see, so when he lost control there was this huge gale that came, and it was so strong it swept him up and caused his body to crash into a building. He…didn’t survive.”
They were both silent for a while after that, before Kei sighed.
“So you see,” he said. “Don’t lose yourself to despair. I don’t want to have to lose another partner.”
Despite herself Tae smiled a little.
“Alright.”
~
Kei had been doing routine checks to see if night had fallen, and finally he looked down from the ladder and called “Coast clear!” to Tae, prompting her to begin climbing up the ladder as well.
District 11 looked completely different from District 12. For one thing, the buildings looked a lot less welcoming than District 12 as they seemed to be made out of a lot of metal and glass twisted into strange structures.
Harsh lights lit up the streets, prompting the pair of them to creep behind houses slowly instead of running through alleys and sidestreets.
Again, Kei was on the lookout for a grocery store. That was the one thing that seemed to be common in all districts - after dark everybody went home and stayed at home. Tae helped him search too, and was thus completely caught off-guard when something bumped into her.
She stifled her yelp immediately, and looked down to see a girl with chestnut-brown hair staring up at her from where she had fallen to the ground.
“You’re not supposed to be wandering around,” the girl whispered to them. “The bad men will come and get you.”
“I could say the same for you,” Kei chided. “What are you doing out so late?”
The girl raised her face up to look at Kei, and in that instant Tae’s breath caught in her throat - that face looked so familiar…
“Is something wrong with you?” the girl asked Tae curiously, and Tae quickly shook herself out of her reverie.
“No,” she murmured. “You just…look so much like an old friend of mine.”
Kei shot her a quick glance, but the girl seemed intrigued.
“I was adopted, so maybe you knew one of my sisters,” she said. “My adoptive parents are dead now, though…”
Tae was overtaken by a wave of curiosity.
“What’s your name?” she asked, a memory of the day she had left District 13 resurfacing in her mind.
The girl cocked her head at Tae, but answered anyway.
“Karina,” she told Tae. “That’s my name - I refused to let my adoptive parents give me another one…”
”I have a sister…her name is Karina.”
This girl had the same smile, the same eyes, the same face as the girl who had been her only friend for so many years.
“Erena,” Tae couldn’t help but whisper aloud, and Karina’s eyes widened.
“That’s my sister’s name!” she gasped, completely ignoring Kei now and focusing all her attention on Tae. “You knew my sister? Erena, from District 13?”
“Yeah,” Tae smiled, slightly bitterly. “She was my best friend back in the convent school.”
Karina did not notice the underlying tone of bitterness in Tae’s voice, and she broke out into a smile.
“How is she? Is she doing fine? I miss her so much, even more than I miss Anna because at least Anna’s living in this district…”
“I-I’m sorry,” Tae choked out after a long while of silence. “She’s dead.”
The smile on Karina’s face immediately disappeared, and she looked away.
“Oh,” she said in a tiny voice.
Tae did not say anything either, and silence followed it until Kei cleared his throat, looking slightly impatient.
Food, he mouthed to Tae, who sighed and nodded, straightening up.
“Wait,” Karina piped up. “Where are you going?”
Tae hesitated for a moment.
“To find food,” she said at last.
“I can show you the way,” Karina offered.
Tae glanced at Kei, and when he nodded she smiled slightly at Karina.
“Lead the way.”
~
Karina brought them to a grocery store that was closed for the night, with several boxes piled behind.
“They ordered the wrong kind of food, apparently,” Karina told them. “They threw it out, so I guess you can take some.”
As Kei began to riffle through the boxes, Tae turned to Karina.
“Why are you helping us?”
Karina shrugged.
“A friend of my sister is my friend,” she said softly. “I don’t really care that much about Central anyway, so it doesn’t matter even if you’re against Central.”
“Would you like to come with us?” Tae blurted out, not noticing how Kei stiffened ever so slightly behind her. “Your sister asked me to take care of you…”
Shaking her head, Karina smiled thinly.
“I am safe here,” she told Tae. “I think I’d like to stay here, though thank you for the offer.”
Tae cast a glance around at the stark shadows thrown on the ground by the harsh lights that looked nothing but sinister to her. She could not imagine how Karina found it safe, when to her it looked like a menacing forest of metal and glass, where drones from Central might be hiding in any corner.
“…Safe?” Tae could not help but let a small bit of incredulity colour her tone.
“Yes,” Karina said, laughing a little. “Safe. Don’t worry about me, I’ve been fine on my own for a long while already.”
Tae gave in as Kei came up behind her, his bag full of food.
“Let’s get going,” he said quietly, and Karina smiled, waving to them.
“Have a safe trip, wherever you’re going,” she told them, before darting off.
As she turned back to face Kei, she noticed his frown.
“She might have slowed us down,” he murmured. “Emotionally attached as you are, a third person would just mean that food would run out faster.”
“I know,” Tae sighed. “I just…she reminded me so much of Erena, you know. I don’t want the same thing that happened to Erena to happen to her.”
Kei ruffled her hair gently.
“She didn’t sound like she’d done anything against Central yet,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”
Tae didn’t reply, but she felt Kei take her hand and begin to lead her back to the tunnel opening.
Neither said a single word all the way back.