Wasuranai Kara

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, Rumo. I can't do this now."

"Gren…tell me what's going on. This is the third night in a row."

"Frustrated?" Gren said.

"That isn't fair, Gren! I'm worried about you. You're getting distant again."

Gren was silent. He reached under his mattress and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit one and took a drag.

"Doesn't nicotine count as a drug?"

Gren shrugged. After a few more drags, he looked at Rumo from under his hair. "You know what I wish?"

"What?"

"I wish we could escape from here. Just…you know…go somewhere where no one would bother us. Where whatever secrets we had were ours to keep."

"Places like that are hard to find, Gren."

"Mmmm. I know. Besides, I'm not getting out of here. Not while I'm still living, at least."

"You can't possibly have done anything that bad, Gren. You're not a bad person."

"That's just it. I didn't do shit. I'm not a criminal. I know a lot of people say that, but I really mean it. I'm not even completely sure how I got here."

"What happened?" Rumo asked softly, moving closer to Gren.

Gren inhaled deeply enough to turn the rest of the cigarette into ashes, then exhaled slowly. "You already know that I was on Titan. Vicious and I were in the same unit. There was always something about Vicious, you know? I wasn't really afraid of him at first. I thought he was great, really. Always so quiet, and hiding under his hair. And it was odd to me, how his hair could be silver like that. I know he wasn't that much older than I was. Maybe he wasn't older than me at all. I dunno. I guess I was attracted to everything about him. I was a stupid kid. I didn't know what kind of a man Vicious was. Even his name never clued me in."

Rumo nodded, but didn't say anything. He was afraid that if he did, Gren would crawl right back into his shell and clamp down tightly. This was probably the only time Gren would sit and talk like this.

"Vicious never talked to anyone unless he had to. One day, we were just laying around waiting for orders. I saw him sitting away from the rest of us, so I went over. He was holding a music box. I asked him what the song was called. He mumbled something about 'Julia.' I asked if he minded if I played the tune on my sax when I got home. He didn't answer me. He just dropped the music box into my hand and started to walk off. Before he walked away, he pulled out his knife and stabbed it into the rock next to my head. I was scared. I had no idea what was going on. When he pulled the knife out, I saw the scorpion that he had sliced fall to the ground."

Gren lit another cigarette. Rumo just watched him. It took him a minute, but he kept talking. "Vicious saved my life. I held him in even greater respect after that. And all the time on the battlefield, in the heat and the wind and the sand, he was never scared. I couldn't believe it…and when we……………"

Rumo lifted an eyebrow. Gren seemed to choke on his words.

"Well, anyway, when the war was over, I didn't get to go home. I was arrested. They said I was a spy. Of course, I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I still don't, really. But I found out later that Vicious was the one who testified against me. I think my heart broke. I don't really remember how long ago that must have been. More than two years. I was moved here after a while. I've lost track of time now. I guess drugs will do that to you."

"Did you love him?" Rumo asked, gently. Gren shrugged. He put out the cigarette on the cement floor.

"We were comrades. It's that simple. I guess…I guess I never thought anyone could do something that heartless. We fought together. We bled together. We're lucky we didn't die together. Vicious lives up to his name, I guess. He has no regard for anyone but himself. I know that now. What I don't know…is why they thought it was me."

"Could Vicious have turned you in?"

Gren shook his head. "I've thought about that. I don't think so…there was really no way he could have. Maybe I'll never know exactly what happened. Maybe it was Vicious..."

There was silence for a while.

"Gren?"

"Yeah?"

"We should do it."

"Do what?"

"Escape. Get out of here. Find somewhere where no one will bother us, like you said."

"But like you said…places like that are hard to find."

"We can go to Blue Crow. It's on Callisto. Lots of people with bounties on their heads go there. It's a good place to go when you don't want to be remembered."

"What's the catch?"

Rumo laughed a bit. "The only catch doesn't really apply to us."

Gren looked at him. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. The only catch to Blue Crow…is that there aren't any women there."

Gren laughed now, too. "I have no problem with that."

"We should do it, Gren."

"Yeah…we should."