"Um, Tira?"

 

"Yes?" 

 

Throwing a glance at Ayu, who had called her. Instead of the usual trademark smile that the class president always beamed freely towards people, what met her sight instead were confused and slightly panicked eyes as the girl did her best to calm herself down.

 

"H-How are you doing?"

 

Good question. How was she doing today? "I’m functional," She popped her knuckles and then, her spine as she did some light stretches,"-you?"

 

"I’m also... functional."

 

The girl looked away as soon as she replied and cut off as whatever was in the box in her hands rattled inside its compartment. She put it down on a table clumsily, nearly spilling the contents as it nearly toppled over from being placed on an even surface, causing her pretty face to momentarily swerve into panic before she slowly calmed down.

 

"Thank you for helping me move in, by the way... I—it would have taken a long time if I were doing this by myself." Ayu gently replied with an unsure smile.

Tira had run into the girl by accident when she had returned from consoling Hannah from her heartbreak, and had seen the girl almost stumble due to the number of items she was carrying. She had offered to help, and Ayu had accepted. So.

 

Here she was. Helping a classmate move into her new home because she had nothing else to do for the day. "You're welcome. Where should I put this desk–"

Ayu had yet to reply and flinched when a faraway, manly scream echoed from the distance. Followed by a few more indistinguishable others carried by the wind. It was honestly quite impressive that the sound of their suffering was loud enough to make its way here. 

 

"Don’t worry about the screaming; it’s just the Majoras doing some training." Tira tried her best to reassure the girl, whose face was getting paler by the second. "You'll get used to it after a while."

 

"O-Oh?"

"What kind of training are they doing that causes someone to scream that loud??" 

 

Professor Lucas came in with his luggage slung over his left hip, spots of sweat had dotted his face before the older gentleman paused to wipe his face with the small towel slung over his shoulders. "You’d think they’re getting murdered with how intense that one was!"

 

Thanks to Ginan's little gift in form of a Black Book, after reading a little bit on Sir Saputra and his past accolades, Tira had a rough understanding that those trainees were probably close to— if not already—having at least their feet into a grave by the time the second day of boot camp rolled around. 

 

Still, she could only speculate, as the information recorded in the book might not be close to the truth, after all. Ginan's sourced information always needed to be taken with a grain of salt since the majority of them were composed of rumors he had overheard and later, documented. 

 

But, for as exclusive and infamous as this book was, this was the first time that Tira ever had a chance to hold it with her own two hands.

 

All she could comment on so far was that… the handwriting was atrocious.

 

"I don’t think child murder would be on the agenda, you can rest assured." She shrugged nonchalantly and went back to continue cleaning.

 

Ayu chuckled wryly while Sir Lucas gave a more honest, open snort as he passed by her to put down his luggage along with the other unpacked boxes. "And why aren’t you there with them, young lady? Skipping on training by yourself?"

 

Another good question, one that she had to be careful to answer, to not make it the focus of their conversation. Tira had had enough of Hannah getting angry on her behalf. She wasn't sure how these two would take it if she told them the story as it was.

 

"I was told to not join and to take a break for myself." She said instead, passing the brooms to Ayu and the professor, and pulled out a disposable mask from her pocket in preparation for the incoming cleaning. "They gave me some time off, basically." 

 

Though they also didn't specify how long the break would take. 

From the corner of her eyes, Tira saw Professor Lucas shake his head with an amused smile directed at her. "And helping others move in is your idea of relaxing?"

 

"Organizing is indeed relaxing, though there are not a lot of people who would accept my offer of help without getting spooked out first." Mask fitted in place, she finally turned to fetch the bucket in the bathroom and began to wipe the windows clean. "I suppose it's your luck that you two caught me at a good time."

 

Ayu looked as if she had just undergone a moment of realization as her brows rose ever so slightly and gave a sympathetic look, though it seemed to be unintentional, as the girl went back to sweeping the emptied room again soon after.

 

Tira couldn't see Sir Lucas's face, though she'd assumed he would be nodding or something like that.

Since this apartment was one of those places confirmed to have lost its tenant on D-day, all of the furniture that had come with its occupancy had been moved outside to either get scrapped for Rizal and Felicia’s training material, or were being dried in the sun after a thorough wash for a second chance of usage.

 

The place that the two were moving into was a small flat, one of the many modest apartments that littered the area around the school. It was one of the perks of being sandwiched between two universities, that you didn't have to worry about accommodation surrounding the area, as many little lofts and apartments existed around both campuses, ready for the picking.

 

A handy situation for now, as it was guaranteed that there wouldn't be enough tenants to fill the space for a long time. It gave those who had stayed back some options for themselves to, at the very least, better their living conditions as a trade-off for braving the dangers of sticking with a demi-god.

Ayu told her that they had decided to move in as neighbors, perhaps due to the shared history the two had with Mr. Jaya. The old professor had no other family members in the town, although he had said that he hoped to get some news once the escort group for the pilgrimage returned; and Ayu knew of the old man well enough to call him an honorary uncle-grandpa when they worked together to move a desk downstairs.

 

It was almost a coincidence that she just so happened to live a few floors above them. Tira was starting to feel concerned about whether there was a personification of Fate somewhere out there that had been messing with her this entire time.

"Any progress into getting the internet back online?" She threw out a distraction to dispel her thoughts before it could run buckwild in her head. "...I'm asking for myself, not for a friend."

 

Professor Lucas, along with his surviving peers and students, had decided to tackle the task of connecting back to the national satellite to regain access to the internet. Henry had brought it up during the library moving day and made her curious of its progress.

 

Replying with a sigh, the old man said, "We did manage to get the intranet going via cables, but wireless is so hard to crack. It almost feels as if something is hindering the stabilization of the connection. Despite us using all the tricks in the book, the LAN was barely able to work at an acceptable speed, and it was even doing worse outside of the barrier. Sir Dias said it was because of the saturation in the air, whatever that means..."

Leave it to the guy with vast magic knowledge to also not help out in restoring the internet they needed. She had a feeling that Dias could probably help out if he wanted to. The fact that he wasn't meddling in this meant that it was either too menial of a task for him or something bigger had occupied the majority of his attention.

If Tira had to bet, he was probably stalled by the latter. "I think what he meant to say was, it's the amount of something in the air, ether, magic, whatever you want to call it; that's somehow acting as a dampener to electronics sending signals across distances."

 

"So it is sending out reverse electromagnetic pulses?" Sir Lucas paused his floor-sweeping actions as he seemingly inquired further into her hypothesis.

 

"Isn't the entire cosmos of our universe a giant borderless microwave?" Tira quoted the lines from a show that she watched once, hoping it would be enough to show how shallow her understanding of the matter was. "I think the radiation has gotten amplified currently, though please don't hold me to that."

She dipped the browning cloth into the water to rinse it, squeezing it with the appropriate force so as not to tear it apart, before moving on to wipe the other window. "Lydia's phone got fried and almost blew up when she was holding it as she was powering up, but that proved that she had inadvertently charged the battery with her powers and that it was possible to do so in the first place."

 

Thankfully, Lydia had learned from the previous case and had her phone data backed up. Now they just needed to get her a new phone to plug the SD card into. "So I think there's something in the air, but I don't know… I don’t want to think about whether it's radiation or something else entirely. That is, without any disrespect, your job, sir."

Another round of snorts came out from behind her back, courtesy of the professor. "You would do well in science, you know that?" Sir Lucas said it in such a lighthearted tone that she imagined him smiling as he said it.

 

"I’m done with science; too much overthinking."

 

She shrugged off the teasing with another light-hearted comment, garnering what would be the first time Ayu smiled without her realizing it herself, while Tira had to hold back from scratching her itchy head from all the dust that had stuck to it.

The mood for cleaning became less tense after that, with the professor updating them on what they were planning to experiment with next and Ayu occasionally chipping in on the goings on at the logistics team, which she was still part of, with some reports of what had been going on with the division.

 

The news she brought for this conversation, which had totally escaped Tira's attention when Ginan told her while handing the Black Book, as it was not noteworthy at the time, were the stories of how many people broke up prior to the pilgrimage.

 

"So in our class, it seems only Bakti and Eli stayed as a couple since both of them are staying." Ayu concluded with a sad shake of her head.

 

"Not even Ruben and Siska?" She mentioned the PDA-throwing, dog-food-spreading, crowned most lovey-dovey couple in her class. "Really?"

 

"Not even them! Apparently, they broke up right before going on the journey. I remember having slotted Siska's family into a different time for them to go…" 

 

Ayu sighed wistfully as she resumed her wiping off the kitchen counter. "It was a bit…  Sad, having to schedule couples in different groups since they, for some reason, are taking us as the next best thing after the government got obliterated to file their divorces."

 

"Oh." That was unexpectedly harsh on the logistic team. "I’m sorry."

"Don’t be." Professor Lucas passed by while bringing the dustpan out to dump its contents on the trash bag outside the hall. "Some couples can only work if the situation is conducive for it. Now, since the world itself has changed, it was for the best that they separate instead of doing more harm to the rest of the family by staying. Though only if the topic has been discussed thoroughly and all alternatives explored, which I don't think was what was happening back then."

 

Tira rinsed the washcloth again as she listened. The water had become so murky that the bucket was due for a new refill. She could almost see her reflection in the dark, grimy surface of the still liquid, but not in the way that it should look; it was tinted with colors that weren't there and missing the ones that should be present as all shades were washed away in that one tint.

"Maybe that would be the logical outcome. But for some, the sunk-cost fallacy wouldn’t let them go their separate ways." She said, mostly to herself, though it did not matter if the room was without a sound before that and her voice was the only thing heard clearly in that moment.

So, Professor Lucas answered back with the ease and wisdom of old age coloring his voice and said, "Then there's no better time than now to find out what really matters, right? Disregarding financial stability, ignoring what others might say as they might be dead by now, stripped down to your most basic needs of food, sleep, and safety; what other burdens are you willing to carry with you?"

Tira turned her gaze from the pool of stagnant water to look at the two, seeing that Ayunda had fallen silent as well, her eyes contemplating what was just said. It felt almost like a lecture, with the old man asking questions where he hoped the two students would arrive with their own answers; kind of a mood.

 

Although the fact that Tira recognized it as such has rendered its purpose moot for herself, maybe Ayu could use this moment of contemplation instead.

 

"And what of you, sir? If I may ask out of curiosity, what other thing are you carrying right now?"

 

The professor grinned, the edge of his mustache curling up with his lips. "I’d like to say I carry compassion, but I’m not there yet. It's still too heavy for me, despite the years I’ve had it by my side—the weight never changes after all."

 

He groaned lightly as he stretched his back, standing just a little taller than he used to, and picked up the broom again. "It’s just me that has gotten older and with my knees weary."

 

That was one hell of an answer. One that Tira decided she would have to carry with her until she found one of her own.