AFTER THE SEAL
Bloom
"When will she wake up?" I hear a familiar voice asking.
This raspy yet soft voice is supposed to irritate me. It annoyed me my whole life. Yet somehow, I'm relieved, having it as the first sound I hear after being in a deep sleep. After the seal.
So, he's okay.
The spasm I feel in my neck makes me groan. As the pain registers, I regain utmost consciousness on my surroundings.
"Bloom?" Hagane calls. "Hey, Beanstalk. Do you hear me? Can you see me? Are you awake now?" he asks, three questions without a pause in between, as he abruptly stands up from getting seated on the chair beside my infirmary bed.
"Yes, because you're too loud," I say, rolling my eyes heavenward. Ugh, I shouldn't have done that. Now, I'm getting dizzy.
I reach for my head, hoping to steady my vision.
"Does your head hurt?"
"Yeah, it hurts from your loud, annoying voice." I grimace.
He crosses his arms. "I guess you're doing fine," he says sourly. "You're back to being prickly."
"Welcome back, Bloom," Medina, who happens to be inside the room, greets me.
I try to rise from the infirmary bed. "Where's Arastus? Did we seal him?"
"You think we'd all be alive now if we didn't?"
If I just have enough strength, I would've punched Hagane on his face right now for talking sarcastically to me.
"What time is it?" I ask instead. I have no enough power to fight with him at the moment. My body feels so depreciated.
"You mean, what day is it? You were gone for a week," Hagane answers.
"A week?!" My eyes bulge out. "Wait...How about Pain and Season?" I remember.
"Pain just woke up yesterday. As for Season, she..."
"What?" I nervously ask. Hagane's hesitation to answer increases the worry within me. I lost consciousness before Season completed the seal. So I have no idea what happened after I passed out.
"She's in a critical condition," Medina answers for Hagane.
Critical condition isn't the worst case scenario that I have in my head. Even then, it still doesn't guarantee relief.
"Where is she?"
"Next room."
I readily head towards the infirmary room where Season is in, not minding the mild sting on my arm after I pulled it away from whatever is attached to it. But when I open the door, I find Pain looking at Leo with a clenched jaw.
"You said she will be fine, Leo. You said she has the highest chance of surviving."
Leo couldn't answer. I meddle with them to ease the igniting tension. "Hey," I try to calm Pain down.
Pain hisses frustratingly as he finally averts his gaze away, trying to control himself. My eyes find Season lying unconscious and pale. A tube is connected to her mouth to keep her breathing. But even with that, her breaths are unstable and slow. A machine keeps her heartbeat in check. The sound from the machine is also slow-paced, like her breaths.
"S-She's gonna be fine, right?" I look at Pain.
"Why don't you ask him?" He eyes Leo bitterly.
"Pain, this isn't Leo's fault. He was just trying to find a solution," I argue. My head still hurts, but I know it is nothing compared to how Pain is hurting now.
I haven't seen Pain get mad like this in so long. So frustrated that you'd think he's about to cry. But he's still controlling himself, caging within him the emotions he doesn't want to show. I only saw him cry once, when we were younger. It was the time when his chi showed up for the first time. It attacked him. He was the first subject of his chi. He cried out, writhing as the pain overtakes his small, fragile body, only at the age of eight. After that, he somehow got used to the pain easily. Or maybe he was just enduring it all throughout.
It was painful to watch. He screams but never cries. He never cried again.
Pain leaves the room, not saying any other word to Leo nor to me.
"S-Sorry about that," I say to Leo.
"It's fine. I understand him."
"But really, it isn't your fault, Leo. You were just helping us find a solution to seal Arastus."
"Then why am I guilty, Bloom?" Leo answers after a long silence. Even with his black-rimmed eyeglasses, I can see how his eyes mirror regret as he stares at the unconscious Season in front of him. "I knew how much Pain cares for her. As his friend, I shouldn't have forced him to help with that seal. I should've looked for another way."
"This isn't just your burden to take," I say, finding his eyes, but they're not on me. "We all took part of it. We all agreed. Season herself was the one who convinced us to donate our chis. If anything, I should be guiltier than you, because I participated in the actual act that had endangered her life."
"But I was the one who brought up the idea," Leo answers through gritted teeth. "I was the one who pointed at Season without batting an eye when we were deciding on the sealer. I told Pain I was sure she'd survive. That's why he agreed. I told him I was sure, Bloom!" He looks at me, wanting to convince me that I should blame him, too. He hisses. "He trusted my judgment. And now what? Season's in a critical condition. No matter how much we want to deny it, we may lose her! And I don't think Pain will ever forgive me if that happens!"
He paces backward, pulling his hair up. He's stressed. He's consumed by guilt. I know by the way he talks. Leo always speaks less than what's needed, unless it's something that requires elaboration. But now, instead of remaining silent, he's expressing himself in a high tone which only surfaces when he's stressed, when he's agitated.
Leo and Pain are close friends—best friends, even. Although they haven't explicitly admitted that to themselves. Pain and I grew up together, but I believe his bond with Leo is far deeper than ours.
They were authorized almost at the same time. They've done missions together for a longer time. They know each other's secrets, even when they don't actually talk about it with themselves. They're both too smart and observant, enough for them to know what's going on inside each other's mind even without discussing it out.
I look at Season again. Her sleeping face looks struggling.
"She will be fine. She will wake up. Season is a strong girl," I say, wanting to reduce the pressure Leo is feeling and to arise hope within me.
My mom, Terra, enters the room.
"Oh, thank goodness!" she exclaims in relief and embraces me. "Are you feeling fine now?"
"Yes, Mom."
Physically, at least. But I'm anxious deep inside. I'm afraid for Season. I don't want to lose my friend.
She doesn't deserve this. She saved us. She sealed the monster that we feared the most. She should live.
"Mom, what did Medina say about Season? She will wake up, right?"
My mom looks at Season before saying, "Medina said that it'd probably take months before Season regains her consciousness. As long as she's in a stable condition, there's a chance that she will wake up. But..."
"But what?"
"But if the potions Medina are giving her will cease working, her organs might start to fail one by one and..."
Mom isn't able to continue. I don't want her to continue either. I can't fathom hearing the next words.
I rub my forehead; the ache is still there.
"You should rest some more," Mom says.
"No, I've slept for a whole week. The last thing I want to do at this point is to lie down the bed."
"Then at least eat," says Hagane who has been standing on the corner. I didn't notice him entering. "IV fluids were the only ones keeping your body hydrated and sustained, Beanstalk."
He's right. I should eat. But I'm not hungry nor am I craving food after a week of being unconscious. I just don't feel like eating while knowing that Season is struggling here.
Hagane, Pain, and I are fine. Everyone here is fine, except for Season. She did the most job yet she's the one suffering. Her bravery and heroism has yet to end. Even now, she's still fighting.
I'm brought to my senses when Hagane holds my wrist and drags me carefully out of the room. We reach the cafeteria that's also located in the ground floor of the North.
Everything seems normal in the cafeteria. The other students are eating happily, unaware of the things that happened. After that attack from Arastus and after the seal, we injected sedative to all students to make them forget that he existed. We actually thought that the seal itself could erase those memories, like what happened when Red carried out the seal. It erased every person's memory of Arastus. But I guess the seal's after effects vary. The sealer being in a coma wasn't in the list of our assumed outcomes as well.
Since Arastus' existence is still inside the students' minds, Mom and the other trainers had to manually erase it by using the sedative that clears memories from the past 24 hours. They had to be quick with it. We can't let them know that there's some monster sealed in an unbreakable ice, hidden in the academy dungeon. It will cause clamor and encourage fear.
Also, after knowing that Psych betrayed us, we can't let anyone else find out about Arastus anymore. Who knows? Maybe evil is just lurking somewhere at the corners, waiting for its opportunity to wreck havoc.
As much as possible, we try to keep things hidden. Information is powerful. It could change a person's view. That's what Psych had—information. And with that, he shifted alliance from us to Arastus.
Speaking of Psych, he and his brother, Nightmare, is still locked up in the academy dungeon. It's located about a mile from here, guarded with trusted personnel. Bullet is also imprisoned there. I wonder if Hagane has ever visited his brother.
"When did you wake up?" I ask Hagane when he comes back from ordering a sandwich for me.
"Few days ago."
"And what have you been doing?"
"Waiting for you guys to wake up, too."
"Did you do some missions?"
"I couldn't possibly go out and do missions knowing you still haven't woken up yet."
I bite my lip upon his sudden declaration of...caring, I guess?
"You need to eat," he says pushing the plate of sandwich and cookies to my direction.
I suddenly remember Season upon the cookies. They're her favorite.
"What if...What if Season..."
"It has only been a week after the seal, Bloom. There's still hope."
Hagane only calls me Bloom when it's a serious topic. And since he's rarely serious, I get to be called Beanstalk by him more often.
"But she's in a critical—"
"It won't help if you keep worrying," he cuts me off. "Medina is trying her best to keep Season alive until she wakes up."
There's something in how this serious Hagane talks to me that instantly shuts me up. Maybe I'm just not used to him being uptight and rational 'cause he's always reckless and annoying.
"Now, eat," he demands.
I take the sandwich and eat until the food is gone.
"Have you visited your brother since he was locked up?" I ask.
"No." I'm about to ask why, but he already answers me. "I've no reason to see him."
The indifference in his tone spells how much he hates his brother. I've known Hagane since he came here in the academy. He looks up to his brother back then. Wherever his brother goes, he goes, like an underling, waiting for his boss to compliment him for his strengths and efforts.
But he was dark. The Hagane that I know now is too different from before. Different in a good way. In a better way.
I'm glad he get past that dark phase of his life. But now that he saw his brother again, I'm worried that he'd go back to the Hagane years ago.
The Hagane that never smiled. The Hagane whose eyes stare blankly, lost in himself, upon the sight of a dead body. The Hagane that grew up witnessing countless murders in front of him, whose young mind thought that taking people's lives is the only option for punishment, the only way to get money.
I don't want to have that back. I want this Hagane.
And if I have to meddle with their brotherly conflict to stop him from turning back into his previous self, I would.
"What?" he asks when he notices me looking at him.
"N-Nothing."
He flicks his fingers on my forehead. "Ow!"
"Stop staring at me, Beanstalk," he says, looking away.