THREE STARS BURNING

Unit 8

Rye didn't really consider himself someone who put much effort into his appearance.

After all, what did it matter what you were wearing as long as it covered your body and accommodated the situation you were in? During the first two calmer years of being in the training camps, all applicants had been forced to wear the same clothes to demonstrate the fact that they were all equal. It wasn't until the end of the second year that the colour of their clothing was changed to demonstrate their fighting abilities.

Black represented the best in the camp, so naturally that's what had been assigned to Rye. He hadn't really thought about it, or had time to think about it, what with training until he'd had pieces of his spirit broken every day for the next three years.

When he thought about it, he hadn't really had much choice on what to wear his whole life. Growing up under the poverty line it was never 'what do you want to wear?' it was more like 'do you even have anything to wear?' 

As he followed Konnor down the corridor, he found himself wondering what he would pick out. It was safe to assume from the many variations of clothing he'd seen in the dining hall that wherever Konnor was taking him would have lots of things to pick from, but after living most of his life without a choice, picking out clothing was a foreign concept to him.

He looked over at Konnor who was peacefully humming to himself, seemingly lost in thought, and picked apart his clothing choices. After giving him a once over, he'd decided that although bright colour combinations suited the other boy it wasn't the way to go for himself. Instantly he knew that he would prefer something that would allow him to stay in the shadows, possible grey or black.

Slowly they began to near what Rye could now tell was some kind of clothing store. He looked at Konnor to confirm before pushing it's glass doors open and entering the shop.

It was essentially what he'd expected, nothing fancy but it had a lot of choice. Once again he turned to look at Konnor and looked at him in the eye.

"What do you think I should pick?", he asked. 

Konnor looked up at him shocked, as if he hadn't expected Rye to speak to him - which he hadn't. After a few seconds of shock he quickly gave Rye a small smile and answered.

"Well I think you'd look nice in something like that." He answered whilst pointing to a black jumper.

Rye looked towards the jumper and then back at Konnor giving him a curt nod.

"I think so too." He said giving him a quarter smile and then turning to walk further into the store.

Ten minutes later, Rye scanned his eye into the payment machine so the money could be taken away from his account and his clothes could be deposited into his room. With Konnor's help, he'd managed to pick out some more black items of clothing that he could wear. 

He was lucky that upon entry to the Academy he'd received a small fortunes worth of money into his bank account.

 It was nice to feel cared for once in a while.

Once the payment went through, Rye deposited his clothing into the machine that would transport them to his room and then turned to look at Konnor who'd once again gone back to humming peacefully, wondering what was going on in his mind.

Konnor was having the time of his life. Although the two boys had hardly spoken to each other throughout the time they'd spent in the store, Konnor could sense Rye's gratitude and felt happy for it. 

Somehow, knowing he'd made the other boy's life easier made him feel extremely content, hence the humming and the smile plastered on his face. Even though Rye wouldn't respond to his smiles and often ignored him all together, Konnor still felt happy to be in his presence.

 Which was why he was so eager to spend as much time as possible with him.

"Do you want to go to one of the simulation rooms?" He asked whilst looking up at the clock positioned on the wall in front of him.

"Yes." Rye answered curtly. He'd been meaning to visit them that night anyway so he wasn't opposed to going with Konnor.

.+*+.

The Simulation rooms were essentially a place for students in the academy to train without going into the outside world. Each room had a transmitting screen with which you could transform the room's interior to whatever you wanted it to be, often seemingly transforming the room to ten times it's actual size. 

The screen also had the power to alter a persons pain threshold upon entry to the room and introduce deadly creatures for the students to master their fighting abilities.

The endless possibilities made both Rye and Konnor want to squeal in delight. Though the differences in their personalities were apparent, both of them couldn't deny the fact that the simulation rooms were a work of glorious art.

Konnor was shivering in anticipation. He'd already been in one of the rooms a couple of times but had never really considered going in after learning hours. Rye noticing and looked over at him with another quarter smile forming on his lips.

Quickly he stalked over to the transmitting screen and used his spindly fingers to rapidly input some instructions for the room to replicate. 

Slowly the door began to slide open revealing a long tunnel with silver walls. 

The teleportation shuttle.

Konnor instantly understood. Rye was still annoyed that the animal shifters had bested him and wanted to make sure he was ready for something like that to happen again. Along with that realisation came the one that told him that, if that was the case, then Rye probably wanted to do it alone.

He looked up at Rye trying to keep the sadness out his eyes as he watched him walk into the room in front of them.

Rye turned to look at him and noted his sad expression. 

He remembered his original goal. He wanted to become friends with Konnor.

Friends would invite each other to fight animal shifters in a long silver tube, wouldn't they?

So Rye decided he would do it by himself another time and stepped out of the shuttle to alter the intructions he'd inputed into the transmitting screen before grabbing Konnors wrist and pulling him inside the shuttle gently.

Once Konnor sent him a beaming smile, Rye instantly knew he'd made the right choice and he felt good about himself.

The doors closed as slowly as they'd opened behind them and the lighting in the shuttle adjusted.

Konnor looked around the room, nothing had attacked yet but they needed to keep on their toes. Suddenly two guns shimmered into their hands, which made sense since that was the only thing Rye had been equipped with in his earlier fight.

"What happens now?" Konnor whispered 

To which Rye replied,

"We wait."

Still on holiday but I felt generous.

Hope you like it, but it's not really edited since my laptop is about to die.

Thanks for reading,

.+*Sunchoke*+.