The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Thirty-Six

She watched as the bee flew out of her hand and towards the other side of the room, perching on Ekko's mask.

"You were there too, weren't you?" he asked her, still on his knees.

Her lidded eyes locked onto his, and she stared at him in silence for several moments.

"I was."

Ekko audibly swallowed, his eyes dropping seconds before he pulled himself up to stand. "All those times in the gardening shed... that was you?"

"It was."

She raised her head to keep looking at him as he stood, studying his expression for his reaction. A mixture of things crossed his face, making it difficult for her to distinguish how he felt. She expected to find anger somewhere in the medley, but instead his eyebrows pinched in confusion, and he moved to sit beside her on the bed.

"I don't get it... why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

Her gaze fell to her lap.

"Same reason I let you think I was dead after what happened on the bridge."

There was a pause as Ekko recalled the conversation he had with Momo in the Vatalia infirmary after she saved him from the poison.

"That's your reason for not telling me you were alive?" he scoffed, shaking his head and moving away, his back now facing her. "You let me think you were dead for over a decade because I forgot to mention you during a conversation while I had a gun aimed at me?"

"I was hurt, okay? After that, I didn't think you cared whether or not I was alive. It's not like we were close as kids."

He mimicked her, looking down at his hands which lay atop his lap.

"But..." he trailed off, unsure what he was going to say before he even started talking. There were so many conflicting thoughts muddled together in his head that it made it difficult for him to string together a sentence. They'd spent two months together, where they would meet every evening and study calculations. He apologized to her. She said she forgave him. None of that was enough to tell him she was actually alive and from the same reality as him?

"I was going to tell you," she revealed.

Ekko's head shot up and turned to the side to look at her.

"—at the party. You know... the one for innovators competition... that you asked if I was going to..." She felt his eyes scanning her face but kept hers set downwards as she spoke.

There was a pause as she struggled to continue.

"I thought you were asking me to go with you..." She was on the precipice of panic, causing her to readjust her position on the bed, turning so that her back was facing him and she was hugging her knees to her chest. Her whole body had gone cold with the confession.

Ekko was the opposite, his blood turning molten with each raging thump of his heart. He felt the loss of her shoulder against his bicep when she turned, and it made responding even more difficult.

"I wasn't," he said, his body going taut as he started to speak. "I just... wanted to see you there... y'know... having fun after working so hard..."

Six dug her fingernails into the sides of her thighs, feeling the sharpness of them as they pierced through the fabric of her nightwear.

"I was an idiot."

"I was an idiot," he said, "I—I'm not sure how things were between you and the other me but in my reality, I was an ass to you when we were kids."