"Put that back down!"

Tira stilled as the person's voice had surprised her due to its loud volume. She knew that there was someone else walking by, but couldn't tell who, and having a light beaming onto your face in the middle of the night was not the most helpful way to identify the company in the area around you.

 

What a weird timing for the other person to come out of the bushes as she was holding a turtle though. 

 

"But it’s cute." She reasoned.

 

"Look I- just put the thing down,"

 

For once, Armand massaged his temples, his brows knitted together in less tension than his usual not-glaring eyes for once. "It's going to die if you keep holding onto it upside down like that."

 

"Ok." 

 

Regretfully, she let the flailing turtle go, set it down on the ground, and watched as it ran as fast as it could back into the pond.

 

Dark water rippled as the weight of the animal dived into it broke the surface tension with astounding force, and in the time it took her to blink; it had already disappeared from sight.

 

Taking a short look at Armand, Tira noticed he looked a bit conflicted on whether he wanted to say something or not, as he awkwardly stood around, which she mirrored by staying absolutely still as she observed him.

 

Tira's legs felt a bit numb after squatting for so long that she couldn’t remember just how long as she hadn't brought any timekeeping devices with her. But it wasn't bad enough for her to immediately fold when she tried standing up, but the tiny ant bites from her nerves were protesting her weird decision to do an impromptu stare-off contest.

But finally, the standoff broke after a while when he asked, "Why are you out here?"

"Night stroll." 

 

She tried to stand once more, giving more hoist to her lower body as it barely registered her brain's command to get up and let blood flow once again unobstructed to her lower limbs and bring warmth to her legs.

 

"You?"

 

"I’m patrolling, duh." The senior boy said with so much pride and confidence as if it should have made sense without her asking in the first place. 

 

Which turned her into the face of confusion since she couldn't remember anything about the night shift. "I didn’t know that there was an inside patrol nowadays, sorry."

 

She didn't miss the momentary twitch of his lips that made Armand's smile falter, although she didn’t pursue the thread as to why her words had struck him so, moving to continue on her way and attend to her own business. "Good luck on your patrol then, take care–"

 

"Woah, hold on, you can’t just leave!"

 

"I can’t?"

 

Armand crossed his arms, something flashing by his face as he walked over to her with an almost maniacal grin, wider and more sinister than before, "Now that I caught you out in the streets after curfew, I think we oughta dole out some punishment for that, yeah?"

 

Oh. He was up to something, and from the sound of it, it felt like this wasn’t going to be a fun time for her.

 

"I suppose so. That would be fair." She played along, not backing away as the man stood one head taller than her, her eyes meeting his downward gaze with sincerity. "Should I head back or…?"

"You..!" 

 

The boy paused and let the silence stretched dramatically with his pointer finger slowly raised at her, grinning sadistically.

 

"Are going to go on patrol with me!" 

Ah, that.. didn't sound so threatening. She tilted her head, curious as to why he wasn’t just sending her back, and immediately asked for his reasoning. "Why?"

 

"As if I’d believe you're going to go back after I made you promise? No." 

 

Armand hugged his hips with the domineering confidence of a bossy man. His smirk curled with a sinister vibe as the lights from the street lamp fell behind his head.

 

"You, are going to patrol with me, so I can keep a good eye on you for not breaking any other rules," he enunciated clearly each word for some reason. "-understand?"

"Ah, I see, very well then. I suppose it couldn’t be worse being your henchmen for a night." Tira nodded and took a few steps closer to stand by Armand's side, just ever so slightly behind him, and crossed her hands behind her back.

 

Not much of a punishment, but at least it wasn't another volunteer cleaning effort. "Lead the way, boss."

Since Tira had chosen to walk behind the senior boy's giant build, she couldn’t see his face, but she did note that he needed a moment to process it before once again taking the moment to boast.

 

"Y-Yeah! Let’s go."

 

And thus, the two of them walked in silence.

 

Exiting the little pond area by the park side, she followed Armand as they traversed the red brick road to come out back to the main roadside.

 

It was quite a silent walk. Neither of them spoke. At some point, the sounds of cicadas' calls and the surprised howl of a cat echoed from far away in the night to fill the space instead.

 

Armand was pointing his flashlight everywhere, looking for something surely, although she couldn’t yet fathom what, so Tira kept all speculation to herself and continued to fall in step with the boy who had much longer strides than her own, to the point where she had to put in some effort to not get left behind.

 

They rounded an area not so far from the supermarket and Tira couldn't help but stare at the emptied building.

 

Though most of its supplies had been taken by the group and shared with the pilgrims already, the building still housed many more food resources, especially those that couldn't be transported to the gymnasium-turned-warehouse located by the schools.

 

As for those foods that had been given away, they were meant for the pilgrims and the escorts to make sure they didn't need to stop at all in order to rummage for supplies on the way, thus risking getting ambushed by other looters or worse; bandits. That way, the caravan could race against the ticking clock straight to the sanctuary without much worry.

 

Though Felicia and Rizal had armed the escorts with guns and ammo, they couldn't be sure that the way to the sanctuary would be a hundred percent safe, considering everyone in the province would flock to that nearest point of safety due to the sky’s announcement.

 

Though, if Tira's calculations were correct, Ginan and the rest of the refugees would, or rather, should have settled properly inside the sanctuary by now.

 

In short, there wasn't much left of the supermarket now. It was just another one of the freshly half-abandoned buildings amidst a sea of abandoned buildings. Nothing new in the path of ruins left by a fleeing civilization-

 

Tira pulled the back of Armand's shirt to stop him from walking further, the force and perhaps the shock were enough to send him a few steps back from the momentum.

 

The senior, of course, didn't take this treatment kindly. 

 

"What?!"

 

"Potholes, by your left foot." She pointed down to the bowl-shaped dent on the ground, masked by the shadow of another building falling over it. "Careful."

 

Armand shone the flashlight on the place Tira pointed where he finally saw the holes, then carefully shifted  where he was about to step and continued to walk as if it was nothing while grumbling at a low volume. "Of course I knew it's there! You don’t gotta tell me about it!"

 

"Ok."

 

She did as asked and didn’t say a word when he was about to step into another pothole, which resulted in Armand very nearly tripping forward, furiously shaking the beam of light while he flailed madly and fought against gravitational balance—and won—to right himself up.

 

"Fucking hell!"

 

"Why don’t you just enhance your eyes?" She inquired, curious as to why he was so adamant about sticking to the old tools like a flashlight.

 

"Enhance what?"

 

"Your eyesight."

 

Armand shone the light on her again, though not directly into her eyes this time but just enough that she was able to see colors and silhouettes about as clearly as a cloudy day.

 

"And how am I supposed to do that shit." Armand muttered with annoyance.

 

She also wondered what would be the best way to teach this and decided that a bit of demonstration would be in order.

 

"Hand."

 

Curiously, Armand eyed her up with such blatant suspicion yet still obeyed and gave her his right hand. Inching slowly towards her direction, his right hand was held up in the air in front of her, though his eyes never left Tira for even a single moment longer than to blink.

 

When she brought her own hands to hover around it, the blond pulled it back as fast as he could back to his chest.

 

She eyed him silently. He eyed her back with doubt. But finally, Armand gave up and groaned while he scratched his side-shaved short hair in exasperation, offering the hand once again with a grumble. 

 

"Argh, fine, here!"

 

Once again, Tira positioned her hands over his, hovering just a millimeter away from his skin, and concentrated as she slowly stimulated her powers so they would resonate with his.

 

Emulating the way that Dias always did when healing her, she guided it down in a way that followed the path of the veins and arteries, although localized to the hand alone. It was a lot harder to do when it wasn't a direct touch, but she could see that Armand registered the sensation as his eyes turned wide and attentive, focusing on the wordless lesson Tira was imparting.

 

Feeling she had given a sufficient example, she let the connection cut and disperse, pulling her palms away to her sides to rest.

 

"Like that, but with your eyes."

 

Armand frowned as he closed his eyes. His power began to stir and filled the cavity of his eye sockets, slowly integrating into his eyes themselves at the same pace that she had done it, although fluctuating a bit when it tried to project outwards.

 

The flashlight in his hand flickered. "Slower."

 

He slowed down, although the route was still not sealed off. The sidewalk streetlights began to flicker on and off following his heartbeat.

 

"Contain it. Make a circle. Follow the shape of your eyes."

 

The light stopped glowing from under his eyelids, rotating around the iris like it was a roundabout, establishing the path.

 

Every other man-made light source aside from the flashlight turned off right when Armand opened his eyes.

And when he did, thankfully, it no longer glowed. But Tira knew without a doubt that he could see better now because,

 

"What the fuck?!" 

 

Armand exclaimed while he glanced down at her, and she knew he was looking at her skeptically, although he did not voice it and only shut off the flashlight in the end. "That’ll save the battery I guess…

 

Then, as he started walking away, Tira heard a soft mutter of, "thanks."

 

She said nothing, and continued following the senior, somehow feeling a bit disturbed by the fact that the toughest man in the school was currently having a hard time being honest about his gratitude.

 

That explained so many things at once to her, but Tira wasn't about to process it now.

Right up to this point, Tira was pretty sure that Armand’s destination had always been the supermarket, although meeting her on the way was probably a coincidence, along with them confronting a few other guys smoking and drinking in the parking lot of said building.

 

"Oi!"

 

"Oh, it’s the capt’n! Look guys, it’s the hic! It's the boya!" One of the guys, probably a university student, slurred as he recognized the boy who had called them out.

 

His eyes were not in focus as those drunken gazes drifted to her, and even less so for his words to make sense,

 

"An’ da whore! You comin’ here ofta’, baby?" 

 

The man ribbed his friends as they giggled. With this much behavioral data, Tira didn't need much to understand what was said to know that this man was badmouthing her.

 

She was about to ask what to do, hoping to get a direct insight into how the gang boss usually handled these kinds of situations, only to watch as Armand balled his fist straight into the guy's face when she blinked.

 

His other two friends were shocked, momentarily, before they began laughing at the guy that got knackered onto the ground without much remorse as their companion was coughing and wheezing from that moment of impact. 

 

"Sober yet, you son of a bitch?" Armand growled, his gaze upon the man laying on the ground akin to someone viewing a shitstain while taking a walk.

 

"Ow ow ow!"

 

The adult man cried in pain, clutching his broken nose with both hands, hoping to stop the bleeding, but Tira personally knew that all it did was aggravate the pain even more. "Yo, what’s your problem?!"

 

"I’m patrolling, you piece of shit!"

 

He glared at the other two men who were slowly considering the situation, coming to the dangerous realization a little too late as Armand got to punt a set of kicks to both of them. 

 

"No loitering around after ten! You’re getting your sorry asses back to the main HQ on your own, understand?!" 

 

"Ye-Yeah.." 

 

Standing up on wobbly knees, the trio of dummies tried to support each other to walk away, though Tira decided to stop them from going by hovering her hands over the broken-nose guy’s face and trying to see if she could stop the bleeding.

 

She succeeded, even though it took a lot more effort and energy since her hand was not in direct contact, but soon enough, the bleeding stopped.

Watching as the trio huddled over in a swaying pile of barely coordinated limbs, she almost missed Armand’s voice when he asked with mild annoyance after mumbling incomprehensible words under his breath. "Why did you do that?"

 

Tilting her head, Armand caught up soon and clarified after catching hints of her confusion, "Heal that guy."

"Oh, I just wanted to try and see if I could." She answered honestly. Then, seeing Armand's face twisting into something sour, she added a bit more excuse. "And it’s…bad, if he walked all the way back with blood loss. We might get chewed out for attacking civilians and not escorting them when we return. "

 

"Huh, makes sense."

 

Armand grumbled under his breath, looking at the crates of beer with a split second of longing before he had to forcibly pry his eyes away and started making excuses. "Weell, if we bring the evidence of those guys doing some shit, we might not get–"

 

"You can try."

 

She kept her eyes on him, not saying anything more, though it somehow made the senior go a bit defensive. "The alcohol. You can try it out if you want."

 

"What, so you can use this as blackmail?" Armand huffed with a deep set of frowns and crossed his arms. "No thanks."

 

Why was Armand getting easier to read the more defensive he got? It didn’t make any sense.

 

"Hm." 

 

Tira walked over to the open crate, the ice contained within was only half melted. Shs took one of the selections of alcohol; a glass bottle, and twisted it open– chugging about a mouthful gulp of the liquid that was going to burn the way down her throat. 

 

It burns. But it was a familiar kind of burn that Tira knew she could handle. "Tasty."

 

As for Armand?

 

Armand was so plainly, obviously curious, that it didn’t take much more to get the guy to finally move forward and, still denying it aloud as he took a can of beer for himself.

 

"Well, since you insist, it’s not like I’ll refuse my subordinate when they’re making bad decisions."

 

Cracking open the blue brand aluminum container, and without much hesitation, Armand took a big gulp of the beer. He was trying so hard to not do a spit-take, his face morphing comically as the boy forced himself to down the entire mouthful that he had already got.

 

"Fuck, that’s foul—Oh fuck it burns!"

 

"Here." She offered another can from the crate, this one an apple cider brand that should taste less harsh than that cheap beer. Not that she knows if the brand's taste was still the same, after all these years. "Palate cleanser."

 

"Tch!" 

 

He clicked his tongue in displeasure, yet Armand took the cider anyway, taking sips this time, though he did not stop after the first sip. "Should’ve checked the expiration date…"

 

"Mhm." She sipped the rum slower this time, savoring the taste on her tongue. Her alcohol resistance was not exactly that high, not as high as that person, but it was good enough for her to enjoy most things straight from the bottle.

 

Whiskey would have knocked her out in three hours if she let it, though. But thankfully, this wasn't whiskey.

It was interesting, however, to find out that the fearsome gang leader, now captain of the security team and general, didn't drink alcohol.

 

Inexperience was hard to mask about the taboo, so she was a bit surprised to have found out through the Black Book that despite fitting the stereotype to a T, Armand also apparently did not let his subordinates smoke either.

 

"The decision was stupid."

 

Armand said out of the blue. She glanced up to see him eyeing the stars and the moon, unfocused in his aim.

 

"Getting you booted out, I mean. ‘S not like murder has ever been off the table when they took the deal." 

 

Ah. The topic has suddenly changed. "I’m not getting booted out, boss, just on holiday."

 

"Holiday, probation, same fucking difference." He grumbled again into his can, glaring at it as if its mere existence had offended him on a deep instinctual basis. "They could say it however the fuck they want, those cowards, but it’s still the same thing! There's a literal deus-ex-machina in our team and they’re letting ya scrub toilets with it."

 

"Fuck, why am I gettin’ mad at this... Not even your sugar daddy gets offended... Those pussy as bastards…" 

 

The grumbling became more incoherent as it grew lower in volume, but she could still catch some of it.

 

It had been a long time since someone got angry in her stead, and even though Tira was aware enough to tell that it was happening more often lately. She still couldn't handle it well.

 

Affection was a sign of attachment, and attachment could become a weakness. She, who had been raised to not be weak, wasn't sure how to approach this momentary moment of affection from someone else.

 

So she took another sip down her throat. Tira knew she was not anywhere near tipsy enough to deal with this newfound knowledge at the moment, and thus, she ran away to alcohol.

"Dias hasn’t said anything because I asked him not to." Tira fessed.

 

"Bitch, are you insane?!" Armand had whipped his head with a speed that would have sent him bonking on the concrete wall he'd been leaning into. "You want to get alienated? On purpose??"

 

That wasn't what she was getting at. Tira decided to just be honest once more and explain properly since Armand was not showing signs of walking away yet.

 

Maybe, just maybe, he’d listen to what her thoughts were on the matter.

 

"The other seniors at the council needed some time to think. I’m not going to sugarcoat what I’ve done as something honorable as much as a wake-up call to them, because it was merely a side effect of what I did." 

 

She reiterated this again, just as she had told Dias, but adding more of her opinion than before, so her words would hopefully come across as intact and honest.

 

"The truth of the matter was, I hurt other people in their lowest time, and stomped on what morals were left by leaving them to deal with the fallout of a failed operation." Tira took another swig of the alcohol, savoring the taste and the heat it lent her to combat the chilling, cold truth. "At the cost of four lives wasted and now, a heap load of mental trauma."

 

Armand scoffed, disgust escaping his lips as he let out a breath, but did not say anything more. His brows no longer knitted as he doled out more sarcastic comments into his drink.

 

"That’s bullshit if they’re blaming you for that, which they’re not, really. If it’s not you, then it’s going to be someone else. It’s always shit like that." He pointed at her with the hand wrapped around the cider, using his middle finger.

 

"But you forget that they don’t deal with violence as closely as you do, boss."

 

Tira pointed out, placing herself on the perspective of the other side, on how normal people see the situation. "The other third years probably only watched from afar when your gang beat up someone, and not to talk about the uni seniors, they looked like they mostly came from out of town–"

 

Armand cuts her off immediately, "And how does that make them any different than me saying they’re hoity-toity, holier than thou kids?! Cause let’s be honest here, that’s what they are! Cowards who don’t want to get their hands dirty and tell us to do all the fucking dirty jobs!"

She let the man’s anger go over her, breeze over her shoulder like water on a wax surface. 

 

Her gaze stayed on him, unmoving, unchanging—she let him vent his frustrations that must have been so constrictive that he had to try and seek alcohol to run away.

 

Alone, in the middle of the night, nursing the bruises and an ego that others had overlooked.

Typical hypocrite behavior.

"I think you’re also kind of a coward too."

 

She may have played along with his antics and many denials, but she wouldn't resort to letting him spiral into an addiction that could cripple him permanently. Not when she could prevent it. "If you could deck a stranger in the face for bad mouthing someone you barely know, then you should make your friends own up to their entitled opinions."

 

"We’re not friends!"

 

"Rina seems to think so."

 

Somehow, bringing Rina's name had become the most obvious conclusion for Tira to try. It felt right to drag the kind-hearted senior into the discussion that way—just based on her gut feeling alone.

 

And it did work. Armand instantly shut his blabbering mouth and did not continue with his argument. He was still furious, still had anger rolling off of him, but his eyes had turned contemplative.

At this point, silence was the best option, and she allowed the man to be alone with his thoughts. He wasn't stupid, not in a million years. That quick decision to support her as Tira leaped for Purnama's neck was not something someone inexperienced and without knowledge of battle would have taken.

 

Most importantly, it was a decision that could only be borne out of trust.

 

So many new details were emerging tonight about the one man she had avoided knowing during the peace, and whom she had decided would never have crossed her path had the world continued to run as predicted by the economist and all the other branches of study she wouldn't even pretend to know the names of.

She mused that they should have tried to predict the end of the world, and maybe the world itself would never end because of it.

"My hour patrol… Is about to be over.." 

Armand said into his can of cider, sniffing the rim with somewhat of an interest that made Tira wonder if he liked it that much. "We should ask where they get these from if they’re distributing them secretly."

 

"Yes." 

 

"It could get dangerous if the younger kids get their hands on these."

 

"Right." 

 

"Maybe we can try… convincing the wedding people to serve some..."

 

"Senior Armand, are you drunk already?"

"Mhm." Armand hummed back. His answer was already sluggish as he leaned against the brick wall of the parking lot. "Whaaa...?"

She was wrong. He was not contemplating his decision whatsoever. Armand was drunk.

 

Tira knew that she needed to act fast, as she did not have enough information on what kind of drunk man Armand would be. If he was a sleepy drunk, or violent drunk, or any other type of drunk. 

 

Now wasn't the time that she wanted to find out firsthand. "Armand, remember the cool little trick I taught you earlier?"

 

".. What trick?"

 

"The eye trick." She saw the man visibly struggling to find the memory through the haze of drunkenness. The cider only has a 3% alcohol content! Granted, they have been talking for a while, but that wasn't nearly long enough for it to take hold. How did he get wasted so soon?! "Can you do that but with your whole body?"

 

"My…body?" Armand was talking slower and slurred in his answers, although he finally took the last sip of the cider and let the can clatter on the ground. "You want it? My body...?"

 

She really hadn't thought this through. Her assumption shattered the blond’s image in her head as a new note was added; can’t take alcohol. And perhaps as an addendum, she added; a silly, thirsty drunk.

 

Not exactly a good combo if she wanted to get out of this encounter intact tonight. "I want you to try to concentrate and do it on yourself. Can you do that for me, senior?"

 

"Awh, not even you want my body..." 

 

Not the answer that she wanted to hear, for sure, but at least she obtained his cooperation. The man sniffed again, his nose perhaps running a bit cold, but he was still conversational, thankfully. 

 

"Alright… body… body…."

Slowly, the power rushed through Armand once again, streaming through his muscles and heart, pilfering the alcohol out of his system with each passing second marked by the blinking of his flashlight.

 

Tira also saw the exact moment that sobriety came back to him. Although his skin was darkly tanned and thus difficult to spot a blush, she recognized mortified eyes whenever she saw them. "You’re not going to tell anyone about this."

 

"Yessir."

 

"I’m going to turn you into a pretzel. I’m serious!" He threatened more, panicking as she kept answering in a disinterested voice. 

 

"Tira, I know where you sleep!"

 

"And so do I, don’t worry."

 

Since he had resorted to name-calling, she tried to reassure him for real this time by giving him a small nod, along with a promise. "I can swear it. Your secret is safe with me."

Armand said nothing and hastily walked away in large strides that only someone of his height could achieve.

Trailing after him at her own pace had proven to guarantee she would get left behind, which was what she thought he was doing, ditching her from embarrassment.

 

Nothing she would hold over or against him, as it was an understandable emotion to experience right after doing something horribly regretful in the company of a stranger.

 

But he didn't leave.

 

Armand had waited for her at the intersection. Staring down with an almost glaring gaze with none of the heat. Armand's eyes were something akin to an observing look; he was looking as if she was a puzzle for him to solve and he had none of the answers.

 

"You’d seriously make a great sub-leader for the gang."

 

"No." 

 

She had said that with utmost honesty, seriousness, almost instantaneously as soon as she heard the suggestions.

 

Thanks to the very same man standing before her, Tira had seen enough of what the role entailed, what it did to the right and left hands of this man; and decided right there that it wasn't worth it. "I still want to have my hair. No thank you."

 

He laughed merrily, almost bending over from the sheer force of just his body shaking in place and wiping away tears from his eyes. If she could say it, he looked almost... 

 

Unburdened. 

 

His smile looked lighter to accompany his unknitted brows. Something had been lifted off his shoulder, and she could not figure out what. Not that she wanted to, though. Some mysteries better remained secret to their keeper.

 

"Alright!" Armand grinned after he stopped laughing, clutching his sides with a sigh before he slapped his own cheeks hard enough that the sound of the slap echoed into the night. "Let’s do ‘nother round of patrol before we go back!"

 

And with that merry mood, they continued to make their way back to the school.

 

Tira followed like a good little subordinate as Armand once again led in the front, her bottle capped and forgotten at the roadside intersection.

 

They were definitely going to get chewed when they returned; the stench of their breath wasn't something easily disguised after all, but after that much alcohol and company, Tira decided tonight's adventure was worth the future nagging.