You keep your books tucked firmly to your chest as you walk into your first class, wearing the spare clothes you brought to Sejanus's house on Friday just in case you had to change. In case you spilled something on your white dress, or just felt the need to change- ironically enough.
Your normal seat in the front centre of the room is obviously free, considering also that you were quite early this morning. You had some readings you needed to catch up on anyway, in order to be prepared for midterms which were apparently coming up quickly.
It isn't long after you open your book before others begin to shuffle in, and much to your surprise, you feel the chair next to you pull back and see someone sit down. "Hi, Victor." The boy's voice says, forcing you to look up from your book.
Dark hair and dark eyes, you think you remember his name was Cancor. "Oh, my name is Y/N." You correct him kindly, adjusting nervously in your seat.
"I know that." He says, eyes merely slits as he seems to look past your own eyes and into your soul.
"You're... You're Cancor, correct? I don't believe we've properly met." You add, sitting up straighter.
"Crane." He states. "My last name is Crane."
"That's... yes that's a lovely name." You smile nervously, unsure what to say but still wanting to fill the silence he seemed so comfortable with. "Alliteration is such a fun thing to consider when naming a child..."
"It means spider." He states. "Did you ever meet my sister?" He asks, ignoring your nervous ramblings.
"No, no I don't believe I have. What is her name?" You ask.
"Arachne." The boy says, raising an eyebrow at you expectantly while you take a moment to wrack your mind to place it. He's acting as if you should know her, and suddenly you feel like you do.
You tilt your head slightly, allowing the memory to hit you like a freight train.
The funeral.
All you really remembered until now was being chained to a truck and paraded down the street you now recognize as the Corso, the body of his sister's tribute swinging above you while people screamed and cursed at you. Then, Coryo sang the national anthem.
"Oh, yes. Of course." You nod slightly, a frown settling over your features. "I am so sorry for your loss. Truly."
"No, you're not." He spits. "You don't care, and the fact that you're pretending to is just vile. She meant less than nothing to you and those animals- otherwise, she would still be here!"
You stammer, pushing yourself back in your seat as you grip the bottom of the chair. "No, no- I am sorry, I am. That should not have happened. It- It was horrible."
"Cancor." You silently thank the universe for your professor's quick intervention. "If you wouldn't mind returning to your usual seat and leaving Miss Y/L/N alone."
"We were just talking." Cancor replies, suddenly sweet as honey- cool and collected as if he wasn't just berating you over your faults in his sister's death.
"Go." Dr. Nero tells him again, nodding up toward the back of the lecture hall. "Before I am forced to ask you to leave."
The boy sighs in quiet frustration, slightly aggressive about his movements as he grabs his bag and stomps up the stairs.
You look up to your professor who greets the look with a curt nod and the smallest of sympathetic smiles.
It does nothing to quell the lightness you feel that usually signifies the trembling of your hands, which would soon spread. You close your eyes trying to take deep breaths that wouldn't come, but all you can see is the bodies of Arachne Crane and her tribute by the bars that had separated them. You have to open your eyes to remind yourself you aren't standing in the street, wrists still shackled to a truck. You can feel the chains weighing your wrists down to the desk as you think about it. You had almost entirely forgotten about the whole event- and the guilt of that was suddenly clawing its way up your throat. Cancor had never had the privilege of forgetting the way you had.
Quickly, you shove your books into your bag and stand, heading for the door. "Y/N." Dr. Nero's voice forces you to stop and you just turn to look at him, knowing full well you're unable to speak. "It's 8:58."
You nod slightly, looking down at the marble flooring that lay between you. "Start without me." You mumble, not giving him the chance to respond before you're leaving, accidentally bumping shoulders with some of the final students to enter.
You hadn't missed a single class yet, attendance was important, but right now you couldn't care less. Why should you even have the privilege of attending classes at the university in place of some of the academy's brightest minds who never got the chance? Like Arachne, and the three other mentors who were killed because of the games. You knew it wasn't necessarily your fault, but you understood Cancor's anger being directed at you. In a twisted way, you felt like you deserved it. They were meant to survive, you never were. Yet, here you were- a walking reminder to those students' friends and families that for some reason, they had to lose someone they shouldn't have.
You quickly pace down the nearly empty hall, trying to hold back your tears as long as you could. Feeling like you can't breathe is making it exponentially harder, and you wonder how you even walked out of the arena as it was. Adrenaline is a crazy beast- and you wished you had some leftover now. Sometimes, in moments like this, you wonder if you had used up your life's supply of the chemical the last time you were here in the Capitol.
Coryo was already running late after spending probably far too long conversing with your brother in the car, but he couldn't resist taking a detour into the arts building. He would just pass through, past your room just to glance inside and see if you were really there. Just to get a look at you.
He doesn't need to, though, turning a corner and just catching a glimpse of your hair as you disappear with a left turn at the end of the corridor. He was sure it was you.
Walking past your classroom he looks anyway, just to double-check, and as he suspected, you were gone.
He quickens his pace, taking advantage of his height difference over you to try and catch up with more rushed steps. "Y/N?" He calls out as he turns the same corner, but you're already hidden from view and the door at the far end of the hall is slamming shut.
As he continues down the corridor, a furrow knits its way into his brow. You must be headed to where you normally eat lunch, that is all that would make sense.
Without thinking, he follows. The courtyard is almost empty, aside from your frame curled up on the grass, knees tucked to your chest and bag discarded halfheartedly beside you on the damp grass. The sun casts a shadowed glow where it isn't blocked by trees or buildings in its path of rising, the grass is wet under his shoes as he quickly approaches you.
"Hey- hey, Y/N/N, it's me." He calls out as he walks up behind you. You turn your head, and then stand quickly.
"It- It's okay. I'm fine." You stammer, wiping your cheeks frantically. "You should g-go, you're already late."
"I'm not leaving you like this." He shakes his head, holding a hand out toward you as you avoid his eyes. "Tell me what happened, love. Talk to me."
You shake your head, shoulders backed to an invisible wall as you hold your palms over your face. You can't look at him right now- especially right now, when all you want is for him to hold you.
"You're okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." He whispers, taking a hesitant step closer. By now, you know full well he wouldn't hurt you. Not in the way he's saying, at least.
"You should go." You choke over the words that feel heavy in your mouth.
"Y/N, love, I told you, I'm not going anywhere." He repeats calmly.
"I want to go home." You sob. "I shouldn't have won, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't even be alive!" You say, voice picking up in frustration. "It's not fair. Nothing is fair, nothing."
He frowns as you lower your hands, clenching your fists at your sides. "Of course, you should be here."
"You don't get it!" You snap, and you hardly even sound like yourself.
This was it. This was your breaking point.
Coryo is taken back by your outburst, almost flinching at the abruptness of your shift. He had never seen you angry- he didn't even know it was possible. Of course it was. He'd spent all this time, all this energy trying to convince people that you were human. Anger comes with that, hand in hand like your cat and the fur that's clinging to his clothes at this very moment. You couldn't have one without the other. "Then explain it to me." He urges you, trying to sound anything other than defensive.
Your eyes soften, as if you're suddenly realizing that your anger was not entirely placed on him. You shake your head. "It's not... I cannot explain it and that is the worst part." You sigh, but the rage flashes in your eyes again as you look down. "Why was it me and not any of them? Why did so many of your classmates have to die? Why did Marcus escape only to face a worse fate than the rest of us, when he tried to help me too? Why am I enrolled at this stuffy university when my spot belongs to Arachne Crane in rights?"
"Arachne Crane?" Coryo mutters, eyes widening with confusion while he wonders where on earth that came from. He shakes his head quickly to dismiss the thought. "Marcus tried to save you, yes, that could have been you who escaped, that's true- but you were too busy trying to save me. And you did." He knows better than to accuse you of regretting that. He knows you don't.
When you don't reply, just staring at him head on now, frustrated and confused, he continues. "If we're going by this unexplainable logic of the universe, I think that it was you because instead of saving yourself, you saved me. And you did it again in the arena, when you went back for Jessup when I was looking at the screen and begging you silently to just ditch him. Same exact thing when you tried to get little Wovey up into the rafters with you, and hell! When you stared down the barrel of my gun, shaking head to toe from fear just to save the life of the Mayor's daughter, who was nothing but awful to everyone!" He says, gesticulating wildly to get his point across. "I've been trying to tell you for months, Y/N. It was you because you are the only person in this whole damn country who cares about someone other than themselves."
You just shake your head, and it's frustrating to him that you're unwilling to accept what he knows to be true. "It didn't work." You sniff. "You're the only one who survived me."
"Listen to me," Coryo says, reaching out and holding your face in his hands- throwing caution to the wind regarding how he knows to handle your panic attacks. "I survived because I had to learn how to love you."
You look into his eyes, flitting your own back and forth between them in an attempt to place any signs of deception. Blue, baby blue. You find none.
"And I did. And I'll love you every day for the rest of our lives. I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm embarrassed by that fact." Your eyes are squeezed shut by the time he finishes speaking, his thumbs swiping over the tear stains left down your cheeks by anger.
"It's not your fault." You mumble, shaking your head under his hold. "I do not fault you for being embarrassed."
"I'm not." He says again. "Look at me, please, love."
You pry your eyes open to face him.
"I've... I've had all this pressure my whole life to be perfect, and now it's worse than ever and I should have never let that get pushed onto you. I want you to be happy, that's all. I want you to be free to do whatever you want, and right now, the cost of that comes with who we are in public. Do you understand?"
"Yes." You say softly, but he can see that's not fully true.
"Here, in the Capitol, everything is a social ladder. We cannot marry who we wish, we marry who we should. Rarely ever do kids here date for fun."
"Like Lucy Gray and the silly mistakes she made over and over again with Billy Taupe." You comment, trying to lighten the tension you feel radiating off his body.
"Yes." He chuckles, smiling hopefully at you, relieved that you understood. "But I want nothing more on this earth than for you to be the one I spend my life with. I want to make you happy, but first, in order to do that, you have to be someone that they will accept. And I am so, so sorry I didn't explain this to you sooner, but I want you to know I've never wanted you to change."
"We don't need them to like me to be happy. That will be an endless uphill battle, Coryo." You shake your head slightly, placing your hands over his as they slide down onto your neck.
"It will be uphill but we can do it." He assures you quickly. "You're already well-liked, we're-"
"Were you not happy in Twelve?" You ask, a sad look in your eyes.
He stops, tilting his head slightly at you. He was happy in Twelve, now that he considers it. He hadn't thought about it, he was so focused on hating everything but you that he just assumed it was awful, but really, it wasn't. Not in hindsight."Is that what you want?"
You smile in response. No one had asked in months what you wanted. What you really wanted.
"What do you want, love? I'll pack up and move us back to Twelve tomorrow if that's what you really want." He says again, nothing short of desperation in his tone.
Faced with the option, you're really not sure. Yes, of course, you'd like to go home. It was very tempting. But Coryo was right, this education was important. You imagine for a moment the life you could have back home if you stuck it out a few more years. And maybe by then, you'll be better accepted here. Maybe by then, the Capitol will be a different place, and you'll be truly happy here. With him, and he will have the power to make the games go away.
"No, no." You shake your head. "I want to do something splendid...something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday." You say, and he can tell from your change in notation that the words are not your own. It was something new, unlike what he had heard from you before. He smiles. "I want to be with you, first and foremost."
"You'll always be with me. Where you go, I follow." He assures you. "I was happy in Twelve, if only because I had you."
"That should not be enough, though." You insist.
"It has been for you, hasn't it?" He asks, and you nod, biting your tongue.
He grins. "Then I promise, love, that would be more than enough for me."
"O-okay." You agree, suddenly flushed by his stare. Coryo smiles, looking briefly at your lips as you speak. To him, they seemed more tempting now than ever.
He starts to lean in and you move your head back quickly, a worried look crossing your face and you look around. "Coryo, we-"
"I don't care." He says quickly, gently pulling you back to him and pressing his lips to yours. Consequences are the last thing on his mind right now.
You take hold of the front of his delicately pressed shirt, pulling him closer with his hands on your neck. Here, in the middle of the university courtyard with the sun shining down on your back, everything is okay and at least for now, the cold night has given way to a warm, sunny morning.
a/n:
the end!! omg!!
guys thank you so much for being here through this whole story and this was LONG!! over 110k words of a lot of nonsense but to anyone who's made it this far,, ilysm. i'm gonna miss them!! stop they were everything to me :((
ANYWAY same with LTPF if you've read that, there will be an epilogue coming soon and also definitely more oneshots and maybe bonus content that i wish i included in the original series but just didn't make the cut. so stay tuned for that!!
if you liked this series, i'm obligated as well to plug my NEXT series that's coming soon, 'requiem'!! i am so excited about it so please follow me for updates on when that will be posted!! def soon!!
just one more time i wanted to say ily, and thank you :')
see you soon!
xx, raye