Flame Touch

Chapter 35-Knox

"Honestly? Where did you find dangos?" I asked five minutes later while eating sticky dough on a stick. Semba shrugged and replied by saying that we flew over Japan and they were on sale. It was quite a happy sight, seeing the three of us sitting in a circle eating dangos together.

In the blazing hot sun.

With nothing but sand for as far as the eye could see.

Just. An. Amazingly. Happy. Sight.

Ugh.

I decided to change my thought pattern to something more interesting.

"So, does anyone know where Melody and Taris are?" I asked in a hushed tone, "They've been acting weird ever since we got out of that weird light thing." I looked at Semba, who looked like he knew something and then I looked at Sunny, who also looked pretty up-to-date.

"What? Why are you guys looking at me like that?" I demanded hotly. Sunny stood up from her spot (and yes, for those of you who want to know, there was sand all over her tookus), "I'll just leave this one to you Semba, someone's gotta make sure the, uh, water doesn't run out!"  she finished hurrridley, ran over to the water bottles, and seated herself over there like a watch dog as if someone was going to magically appear and steal our water.

Well, stranger things have happend.

I eyed Semba as hard as I could to make him feel as awkward as possible. he finally spoke, "Listen, just give those two some time for them to work things out, they've been through alot."

"And we haven't? And why does Sunny seem so updated on the whole conspiracy with Melody and Taris? What aren't you telling me?" I asked imagining that I was in a detective movie. Semba looked at me, then at the ground, which peeved me off enourmously, 'See?! Even you haven't been able to look me straight in the eyes for a good five seconds since that illusion thing."

"That's not true!" he yelled.

'Then prove it!" I yelled back, at which point he looked me in the eyes.

For two seconds.

Then he looked back at the ground.

I groaned in frustration, "Look, if you can't talk to me directly, I'll just go over with Sunny and watch the water." I said and started to get up.

"No, don't go!"

"Then tell me what happened with Melody and Taris that made you unable to look at me!" I said, my back to him (yes. also covered in sand.)

"They're not connected!"

"Then tell me separately!" I said, spinning around to face him, my face just inches from his so that he couldn't look anywhere but at my eyes. We stayed like that for a while, me angry and him kind of just paused in space, when he finally stared talking.

"Ok, look. What happened with Melody and Taris is none of our business, just like it's hard to talk about what happened to us, it's hard for them to talk about it too."

"Well, it's not that hard to talk about it. All that happened was that we got attatcked by a goat-crazy lion with shredded skin that was actually supposed to be your fathe-" i stopped when I saw his expression, "oh. You meant hard for you. Uh, sorry."

He stopped wincing, "It's ok, but do you get what I'm trying to say?" he asked as i nodded my head impatiently.

"Yeah, but that still doesn't explain your sudden uncomforatbleness around me." I said, trying not to point out that he was, once again, looking at the ground.

"It's nothing, just forget about it." he said and I looked at him with a 'really? you expect that to satisfy me?' look on my face and he mubled on, "It's really nothing, I swear, I just-you know...kind of just-ya know," and before he could get another incoherent word out I concentrated on the lower half of his face and made blue flames spread across his mouth so that they were iced shut.

"I'm going to count to three and then I'm going to unfreeze this because it's honestly taking alot of energy to keep it going. When I do, you're going to tell me exactly what you did ok? One...two...three" I exhaled and let the ice unfreeze. When his mouth was uncovered he took a deep breath, "okIjustfellreallystupidthatIfroxeupduringthathallucinationandthatyouhadtosavemyassagainandagainandagainandwelliguessIhaventsaidthanksyetbuthonestlyIthinkthatyoudeservemorethangoingaroundsavingmeandstuffandthatyouwerekindofforcedintothisfromthestartandthewhatthenotesaidgotmethinkingthatyou'llhaveto..."

"Wait,what did the note say?"  I asked and he took another deep breath.

'Slowly!" I said and he exhaled.

"Well, what the note said basically meant go home, and the dorms is what we came up with right?"

"Right.  So what's wrong with that?"

'well, you can't have two homes right?"

"Just get to the point already!"

He hesitated, then, "Well, the Purists assumed you were the major balancer even though it's Sunny. Caprin may know this, but Sunny told me that he hasn't told anyone else."

"but how does Sunny know that-"

"Just wait. i think they may have gotten that we're returning 'home', so they're going to target."

"What?" I laughed, 'My two story house with barely enough room for five Scorpio monsters?" I expected him to laugh with me.

He didn't.