Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 84- Try

The next day arrived with Felixe entering my bedroom without knocking.

Luckily for me I woke up early today. So I ended up looking decently presentable instead of startled.

"What are you doing?" Felixe questioned as I dried my face with a towel. I knew he wasn't talking about what I was doing at the moment. He could see what I was doing without asking. I knew that and it was too early to joke around about drying my face when I knew he wasn't asking that.

"Can you be more specific?" I ended up questioning him back as I racked my brain for acceptable answers. There were too many guesses available to me to guess what kind of answer he wanted from such a vague question. All I got from him asking the question was that the answer wasn't jokingly pointing out my immediate actions. For example, drying my face.

"You aren't trying your best in the competition anymore. Why not?" Felixe noted like he discovered a downright abominable act. His eyes looked like they were expecting something else from me. Something more? Maybe this was a look that was meant to tell me that he'll convince me to do better.

"I had a lot of things on my mind. Well, I've been like that for a while. Emma's gone now too. Trina has died too. So the whole... keep your mind off of those things and pay attention to this one thing." I took a breath before continuing with a wry smile on my face. "I guess I got tired and ended up biting into too many things. Yep."

"Yep? Well, even if that's the case, the last performance of the month is coming up and after that the finals will begin. You need to do better and at least try again. I'm not unaware that this whole thing has gone on for about two years and you might be tired of the routine... But at least try to some extent to make it look like you've put some thought into it, even if you haven't."

Sighing, I replied. "That's easier said than done."

"It is." He didn't reject what I said. His acceptance ended up making me laugh breathlessly for a few seconds before I spoke again.

"I'll try to do so."

"Aeon." He stated my name like he was commanding me to be serious instead of questioning me. I almost wanted to ask him if he was my parental figure with the attitude he's taken on. It made some sense to see it like that, but the whole notion of an parental figure made me uncomfortable to think about it like that. I didn't want to ask myself what he was to me, because I knew that I'd just be disappointed with whatever answer that would come up. It was something I think I should keep as a rhetorical question like why I didn't ask him questions about why the competition is important.

After a while of my being silent, I answered in a quieter voice. A calmer, more real voice. "I was being serious. I'll try to pay more attention to the competition."

"You don't need to come in first from the contestants, but you need to come within the top ten." Felixe finished with his command and left my bedroom, closing the door behind him.

"..." I was quiet. I wondered if I thought too much last night and ended up deluding myself with the thought that I could easily enter the top five of the competition. He'd probably been notified by someone that I was going to somewhat laze around more relaxed.

But he's Felixe. Felixe was more trained in this sort of thing, but it still hurt thinking that he thought so little of me. Barely making it into the top ten with practice? Maybe he thought I didn't care about music or dance. So he criticised me so readily.

I mean I admit that I don't care as much as the people who gave their all for those things, but I did care enough. The music and dance were emotional outputs that I prized. It's just that I've never thought of it being better being silly and messing around with music or dancing by myself. It was like all art to me, better done by someone else. Simply because if someone else did something that matched with my emotions even a little bit I'd feel like it's normal to emote as much as I did. Since coming to this world, I have tried hard in these artistic areas to be presentable. If I was too unpresentable I'd be lower in rankings. If I truly tried, I realise I'd be a hot mess singing sad songs like they were dead things that needed to be let out. Like dead skin and dust.

I looked down and changed out of the red and black hoodie I was in after Felixe turned around closing the door behind him. I was clearly getting ahead of myself. Once again the grey hoodie given to all the contestants of the show might be a comfortable norm that I'll need to come to terms with just how comfortable it was.

Looking at the grey hoodie all I could think about was sooty grey ash from the other day. Ash is said to be a good fertiliser. Seems like the colour alone is good for a lot of things. Too good to have a vesicle of life be reborn or carried within it.