Jase ended up sleeping on the floor that night.
He'd just passed out there and the next morning he woke to sunslight trickling in through the curtains and Huraira snoring on the couch. Sitting up, Jase winced as he stretched his stiff body and pulled himself into his wheelchair, reattaching his legs.
Everything he once felt had fled, leaving only memories with sharp edges and growing pains. The emptiness seemed to grow and shift, eating away at everything he once thought was true. Smiles were people. Perhaps not like humans, but they were still people fighting for their lives. That information sat like a rock in Jase's stomach.
He longed for the ignorance he had held just a day ago. Twenty-four hours ago he'd been fine, but now he was past the edge of a breakdown.
Jase just... wanted to forget.
So he did what he always did when he needed to forget. He left his chair - and his apartment. Huraira would be fine alone. Hopefully. The cool morning air slapped his face. Jase ran without a sense of direction, just desperation.
He traced familiar streets and explored new ones until the entire world faded and he was running just to feel the ache of his lungs and the burn of where flesh met metal. He ran and ran, pain forcing the memories away so that he lived in a world without Smiles and without humans. Without a dead mom, and without a guilty conscious riding on his shoulders.
When Jase ran, he lived without emotion. There was no guilt or sorrow or anger. There was no fear, no worry at all. But there wasn't any joy, either. There was no hope that when he stopped running, his life would magically be put back together. He barely felt alive at all as his metal feet collided with cement.
Jase never felt anything when he ran. Sometimes that was good. Sometimes he needed to be away from his feelings for a bit. But other times, when he finally stopped running, even if it was for only an instant, everything would hit him at once.
People needed to feel. Jase needed to feel. But most days it was like... he couldn't. He couldn't feel less his body to be shattered into a thousand pieces and be blown away by the wind. Deep down, Jase knew that everything was made of dust. Something held that dust together in people-like shapes, but it would always be dust.
All Jase had was revenge. He had smeared it over his body like glue and used it as tape around his heart. Jase lived by the idea that one day he would kill the monster who robbed his life of light. The air he breathed was tainted by these thoughts and the blood that coursed through his veins might as well have been poison.
Red Riding Hood had been the glue keeping Jase together for years.
And now, he was supposed to believe that she had a consciousness. That she was more than a mindless monster. That she was a person, just as capable of love and redemption as anyone else. He had to believe that she had made a conscious decision that day.
Just like Jase did. Sure, he'd only killed eleven Smiles so far, but Kova had killed eight others. Jase had played a hand in the death of nineteen people. How much grief had he caused? How much more grief would he cause if he kept chasing after his revenge? When would it be too much?
Huraira had said Jase wasn't a monster because he felt guilty about killing Smiles. Because he wasn't Red- yet. But when would Jase become Red? When would he cross that thin line between person and monster? When would it be too late for redemption?
Somehow, Jase ended up by the river, his hands and knees buried in the dirt and his lungs on fire. He focused on his breathing. In and out. Up and down. Rise and fall. Just keep breathing and everything would be fine. Everything had to be fine. Even when it felt like his mind was in ashes, Jase knew everything was going to be fine because everything had to be fine.
And that was when he saw them.
Flowers had bloomed all along the bank of the river, coating the world in white petals for as far as the eye could see. Jase stared in wonder. He hadn't seen them running up. He hadn't even realized he had been running towards the river. He wasn't sure why he was here.
He just knew that he had to keep going, even though it felt as though he would die if he took another step. That didn't stop Jase from forcing his metal legs forward, walking down the bank, heading towards the twin suns that hung low in the sky.
And that was when Jase saw a willow tree, hanging over the river, with a figure sitting beneath it, graceful hands commanding white flowers from their stems, and weaving them into petal crowns. Kova.
Heart pounding in his chest, Jase made his way closer. Neither of them said a thing as Jase sat down next to Kova on the bank of the river. His ink hair was messy with white roots glaring accusations at Jase. Dark bags hung beneath Kova's dull blue eyes, which seemed entirely void of emotion.
"What did you do with the Smile?" Jase asked.
"Threw her in the river," Kova answered, his tone dry as he turned to look at Jase with those emotionless eyes. "Chē? What kind of question is that?" His hand jerked up and more flowers flew to his grip, weaving themselves into another crown. Kova already had dozens of them resting by his side.
"Is she ... going to be okay?" Jase asked, looking at his hands.
Kova froze. "Why do you care? You wanted to shoot her yesterday."
"I'm- I'm sorry!" Jase cried, pressing his hands against his ears. He had been told this a thousand times by the voices in his head. He didn't need Kova reiterating their point. "I'm sorry! I know... I know that I'm a monster. You don't need to tell me!" Tears burned the edges of his vision. He was going to break down again, here of all places in front of Kova of all people.
A breathy sigh left Kova's lips as he lifted one of the flower crowns he had made to Jase's head. Violent blue skies crashed against the twin gold suns as Jase looked to Kova in terror. "Juup, you are," Kova said. "And I am too. And so is everyone else." The wind picked up. "We're monsters making monsters. We're all made of terrible things."
Jase sat there, looking pathetic, his hair sticking up at odd angles, the crown of white flowers slipping off of his head, and golden eyes leaking both tears and wonder like he was a little kid again.
Kova tipped his head, lips curled ever so slightly upwards. "So you do cry," he whispered, unwavering gaze chipping away the walls around Jase's heart.
"And you smile," Jase choked out.
Kova hesitated. "Only for those worth smiling for." And then Kova did the impossible. He beamed. And in half a horrible heartbeat, every wall that Jase had ever built, each carefully constructed stone went crumbling down around Jase's glass heart, as feelings he had forgotten how to feel filled his chest.
Jase sobbed, surrounded by white flower crowns woven for white flower kings.
[author's note]
fun fact, this chapter is my favorite in the entire book and i cried when editing it