Chapter 185 - 179. Irony
Something to remember his parents...
Zein mulled over those words as he came into the rooftop of the fifth floor. It was a place where the workers usually go for a smoke, even though there was a smoke room available inside. Zein did not smoke a regular cigarette--and the Golden Needle had no odor or harmful residue--but he liked to stare at the blue sky. There was a small tower he could climb where he could lie down hidden from others, just staring at the sky and thinking about...things.
He could borrow one of the private training chambers, but then he couldn’t see the sky there.
So there he was, laying down under the fortunately bright autumn sky, inhaling mana to calm his mind. Again, he repeated Radia’s words.
--Something to remember your parents
Zein hadn’t decided if he would be fine with holding into that. He recalled the heaviness he felt when he saw their wedding picture. Would he be able to face anything else?
He wasn’t sure. But he also couldn’t help but admit there was a small part of himself that wanted to cling to something about his parents, in the way he clung to the name his mother left for him--a string to connect him to them. Ironically, the longing he had for a semblance of connection, as well as the guilt he felt, both stemmed from the vision--the nightmare--he suffered when he touched the core.
Slowly, his fingers crept toward his chest, fiddling with the beads hanging around his neck that he hadn’t been able to take off for five years already.
Yeah...he realized it was five years already. There was no autumn in Araka; the place was constantly bathed in red and was either too hot or too cold. But he remembered it to be near the end of the year, because he passed the borderline unit entrance test just before the new year.
And during all those years, he had never taken the necklace off. It was a constant reminder that he had a life to carry; unfinished business, unfinished life. He had sins, he had debt to pay. It was his connection to his brothers. And however much it tortured him, he clung to it.
If he decided to hold into his parent’s keepsake...would it feel the same? Would it torture him even more?