Chapter 13 #2
“That fact certainly isn’t winning you any favor, I’ll say that much.” I shook a hand through my hair, re-gathering my wits about me. “And it’s not some weak ass safe space. It’s just a space with a door that locks.” I scoffed. I wasn’t that fucking sensitive.
“It’s almost like the fact that it locks is what makes it… safe.”
This bitch…
I accidentally snort laughed even though he wasn’t remotely funny. How did I get stuck with Breaker part two? “If this was about feeling safe, you wouldn’t be an issue.” I groaned, because that was better than laughing at his jokes.
He sighed dramatically. “You know I didn’t choose my room, right? I wouldn’t have picked to room with someone who hates me so much if I’d been given the choice.”
I DON’T know that, to be fair. “I don’t care about you enough to hate you.” I deflected.
“And I don’t know you well enough to choose to bunk with you, so can we start over?
” He rolled his head to the side, making eye contact again.
“There’s no reason someone like you needs to be so intimidated by someone like me.
” The gentleness of his tone was disarming for making such an asinine fucking statement.
“Intimidated?” This time I did fucking laugh.
Though before I could tear him apart, I realized this was a good opportunity to get some intel if I played my cards more reasonably.
“Let me break it down for you. It’s wartime, and I’m one of the highest ranking soldiers in this entire compound—not to mention the most talented and integral to the effort.
You’re one of the lowest and most insignificant.
Pardon me for being distrustful.” I shot him a glare, and he flinched, like the words physically hurt.
They probably did with how frail he was.
“Why would they put you in my room, when there are thousands of others you could have been assigned to? Are you someone’s son?
Some Prince of the Protectorates?” My honest exasperation may have come out a bit too clearly that time.
Vann frowned. “Both of my parents were killed in the Star Crossed Conflict, and I never got a secondary guardian.”
That had my ears perked more than it should, and not for the right reasons, considering this was supposed to be an interrogation.
“Foster system?” I asked. “Never got picked?”
He shook his head. “Never got picked up. Made a point not to.”
Those words hit something deep in my chest, and I swallowed down the knot it trapped in my throat. Envy?
“I wish I could say the same.” I cut myself off again, really not looking to drudge up any of that. Certainly not with him. It was still undecided if my foster parents or my real parents were worse, but it was a tight race to a bar below the deepest gas layer of Saturn.
He simply nodded as though he understood, and that irked me.
I didn’t want him to understand. I wasn’t looking to share feelings or bond over broken childhoods or some sentimental shit.
Life just was what it was, and we all lived through our own versions of hell.
Everyone in mine who deserved to die was dead.
I was where I had to be, and I was stronger because of it.
I cleared my throat and returned my gaze to the ceiling, no longer interested in giving him the advantage of further eye contact, but also in an effort to prevent this conversation from shifting its focus to me.
“Seems like you managed pretty well if you were a Medic at Medella University. That’s hardly a place for misplaced war orphans. ”
“We had a lot of scholarship programs on Zircon that Mictlan carried over when we were acquired, and I took advantage of all of them. It wasn’t great, but it worked.
We kept a low profile, forged names of guardianship when we needed to, and collected the community kitchen scraps to stay alive. It could have been a lot worse.”
“We?” I wasn’t invested, but I was listening.
“Oh.” He looked away, clear that he’d slipped in saying so. If he was a liar, he was a phenomenal one, because everything about his actions came off as very unrehearsed and off the cuff. “I… had a little sister.”
‘Had’ was the only word that I needed to hear in that sentence. It would be needlessly antagonistic to ask at what point that changed to past tense, but considering he’d just woken from a war induced nightmare, I could wager a guess without needing to.
“So you’re just a nameless nobody who happened to be assigned to my room, my classes, and the top squadrons.” Not wanting to get sucked into compassion or my own bad memories, I forced the subject back to where it should have stayed.
“I might be nameless, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless.
I was top of my class at Medella.” He half scoffed, half laughed.
That couldn’t be explanation enough, but at the moment, I didn’t have anything else to argue with.
“But no, I’m not some aristocrat’s spoiled son who got drafted.
I was just another kid living on assistance programs and hoping I might better my station if I worked hard enough and believed in magic, only to have everything come crashing down on me, just like everyone else.
That’s it. That’s the story.” He made a motion with his hands as though he was drawing a rainbow between us.
“Welcome to my happily ever after. Sorry I’m not the Prince Charming you dreamed of getting as a roommate. ”
I was too late to catch the amused smile from showing on my face, and I had to wrangle that visible emotion back into hiding.
He was the sarcastic type. One of those ‘hides his struggles through dark humor’ kind of guys. That was easy to read at least.
I still didn’t like him, though.
But I also didn’t have any evidence to denounce any of those claims, considering it all made sense when you considered his smallness, his lack of military knowledge, and his lack of friends even among the other new recruits. Even if we got chewed up differently, we all still ended up in the shit.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that this truly was just an unfortunate coincidence. That they just ran out of space and picked my room in the draftee roulette.
Rather than dignify his jokes with a response, I just groaned.
“I’m tired of this conversation.” I grabbed my shirt and my headphones, ready to not deal with this anymore.
I was supposed to be getting information, and instead I was basically having some unwanted feelings session with a fucking dude that was making me think about things I’d spent the last couple years trying to forget.
I’d learned nothing, and now I was in a worse mood than I started. “Shut up and go back to bed.”
“R-right. Sorry. Good night.” Vann apologized too much, and that annoyed me, too. What the fuck was he sorry for? Existing? Answering my questions? Talking too much?
I didn’t get him at all.
Vann tugged his blanket back to his shoulder before turning his back to me, and scrunching back into that tiny human ball shape. Something akin to nausea rolled through my chest just watching him look like a scolded puppy, but I resented him too much to let him pull on my heartstrings.
Well, now I didn’t know what to think. Either he was lying about his origin, which seemed increasingly unlikely, or he was as unspectacular as everything else about him implied, and both possibilities pissed me off.
My instincts were screaming that something was off about him, and yet all I could discern was that he was a product of the universe just like everyone else.
With a frustrated sigh, I headed for the door to try and grab some sleep elsewhere yet again. This was not sustainable.
Morning came, and I’d not slept a wink, which was probably why I wasn’t exactly a bastion of sunshine when Breaker sat across from me at lunch with his always way too cheerful demeanor.
Basics had been its usual struggle, and once again the new guy fell behind, and I had to haul his sacks up the hill.
The only joy I got out of my mornings was sending him back down to do pushups.
Otherwise, it was like watching a duck try to pick up a grain of rice with its webbed feet, and I had no patience for it.
I needed to stop fixating on him, but it was tough when I had to see him over and over and over again throughout the day, from the first class to the last to my own fucking room. No one else seemed to have a problem with him, because no one else had to fucking care.
“You look grumpier than usual.” Breaker, always the brilliant observer, felt it necessary to note.
“Last time I saw someone with eye circles that dark, it was after getting punched in the face. Actually, I think it was when you punched me in the face, now that I think about it.” He decided to add with ho-hum cheer that made me want to recreate that for him.
“Been wrestling with your new roommate, Firefly?”
Fucking Breaker.
“I doubt Vann could do that much damage,” Seba interrupted as he sat down beside me.
It was to Breaker’s good fortune that Seba’s level headed personality balanced out his obnoxious one.
Breaker would probably say the same about me and Seba, in hindsight, but I wasn’t in the mood for self-aware revelations.
“Even if he landed a hit, his punches feel like a gentle tap. It’s going to be a monumental task to maintain my rank if we get graded on any team tasks.
” He lamented with a sigh, before cutting into his protein.
Ranks were always fluctuating among the recruits, but Seba and I had put a lot of effort into assuring we remained at the top. It would take a lot to knock either one of us off our podiums.
“Oh come on, I’m on your team. I can help out.” Breaker rolled his eyes.
“You’ve never applied yourself in your life, One-oh-one.” I scoffed to Breaker’s amusement. “You’re 899 ranks away from not even being allowed in a Shinka anymore.”