Page 188 of A Soul to Touch

The tiredness finally pulled her under, and Mayumi’s knees eventually buckled. Her last snowball fell only a foot from her hands when it crashed into the ground.

She watched as her teardrops fell into the snow to crystalise while she knelt there on her hands and knees.

“Why did you have to be so damn funny and caring and so damn perfect for me, Faunus? Every day you pretended to be okay when I could tell you were just as broken on the inside asyour stupid face, and I couldn’t help falling for that part of you... because it was just like me. I hate you. I hate you so much for leaving me here like this. I hate your stupid, pretty face and your stupid, warm body and your stupid personality. I tried so hard to save you. I tried everything I could think of that wouldn’t cause you pain.”

She turned her head up so she could look at him pacing at the end of his tether on all fours. Misty white breaths blew out of his nose hole in heavy bursts.

He didn’t understand her, didn’t recognise what she was saying or the sound of her voice.

“I’ve never lost someone who made me feel so whole. How am I supposed to find my place in a world I know for certain you’re not in?” Snow, like soft, light dandelion puffs, started to fall around them both. “How am I to find someone who felt like they were the other half of me when I know it was you... in all your big, fluffy glory? I hate you so much for doing this to me.” Then she whispered, “And I love you so damn much that it feels like my heart is burning.”

Mayumi fisted the snow as she sniffled.

“I was fine being numb,” she sobbed, her saliva so thick in her throat it stuck together. “I was fine being... alone.”

She didn’t want to get up, knowing that the next thing she did would be regrettably drawing her sword.

I don’t want to do it,she thought as she clenched her eyes shut when it was too hard to look at him.If I do, then I know for certain that there’s no way at all to save you.

Her chest heaved with shuddering breaths; her nose dripped from her tears. The cold crept into her aching, trembling body while she was on her hands and knees only a few metres in front of him.

When it was too much for her fingers, the tips of them burning from the frost, she cupped them to her chest as she laid over her folded knees.

The only person Mayumi had ever cried this hard over losing was her mother. Her father had sent her a message, and she had been given a small leave of absence from the guild so she could be with her in the final days.

Holding her mother’s frail hand, her face pale and sickly, Mayumi had watched her pass peacefully.

She’d shed not one tear, nor had her father, who didn’t allow either of them the comfort of a hug.

Instead, Mayumi just helped him dig a hole in their family graveyard in the forest, an hour’s journey from their home, so they could give her the respectful burial she deserved with a gravestone. Then, once they were done, Mayumi packed her bags and left – only to break down and cry half a day’s journey from her home.

She’d also never seen her father again since he had disappeared when she was on duty, and she’d stopped receiving his letters. He’d most likely been eaten.She didn’t cry then, instead pouring herself into her work with even more tenacity in his honour.

She thought no other death could be as painful as theirs, yet here she was... on her hands and knees, unable to stand, unable to breathe. She was moments away from choking on the heartache that was nearly tearing her apart.

Why does everyone I love leave me?

She shook her head, unable to bear this.

“So this is where you are,” she heard a masculine, impossibly deep voice utter softly.

She’d heard no footsteps or the sound of someone huffing from walking through the snow as they approached. Thesuddenness of it shocked her so deeply she opened her tear-filled eyes to look upwards.

At first, she thought it was nothing but a shroud of black cloud that was taller than it was wide. Then, suddenly, a black face made almost of chalk coalesced, only to disperse seconds later. A black, chalky hand formed as it lifted to touch Faunus’ face, which had turned to the voice that had spoken to him. The hand was gone before it made contact and a small black cloud wafted over his snout.

A chalky leg appeared, a hip, the part of a shoulder, all of which faded almost as quickly as they came – yet the cloud itself never faded.

“W-who are you?” she asked with a stuttering, coarse voice, when really... she should have askedwhatthey were.

That face appeared out of thin air, with no neck, head, or body attached, to look in her direction. It tilted before fading.

Yet, she heard that voice speak once more.

“I didn’t expect to see a human with him,” the cloud said before it moved to the other side of Faunus. The face appeared at the top, close to Faunus’ skull. “Are you the one that tried to stick his face back together?”

“Yes,” she answered as she crawled to her feet so she could put herself into a defensive stance.

A normal human may have been weirded out by the cloud freak, but Mayumi thought she had seen enough of the strange things the world had to offer to no longer be surprised by it.

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