Dead Reckoning - A Gregorio del Pilar x Reader story

XXX - Altschmerz

n. weariness with the same old issues that you've always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you've been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

* * *

A few days later and the photographer that Goyo had asked to hire arrives. And the first thing he had done after speaking a few words with him is to ask him to take a photo of him, to prove that he is truly remarkable as many people defined him to be. I am actually planning to head to the other members of the Cruz Roja that day, while the rest of the seven musketeers have their own jobs, one that is starting to be a daily routine after adapting with how things are to proceed on from here. However, before I can even make it out of the door, Goyo notices me and asks me to come.

Since our arrival here in Dagupan, with him indirectly telling me his feelings, and then at what happened during dinner at that night where I've confronted him, the gap between the two of us stretches much wider than I've anticipated. It is starting to make me fidget in worry because it could mean that I am leading him away from being truly heralded as a hero, that I am failing the mission that I truly am meant to accomplish on this game. But then, I also wonder that it could be because of the "damaged" done by the breaking of the disc and Gregory having to fix it. Perhaps, this is how it is supposed to be.

"Sa malayo lamang po ang tingin," the photographer tells him as Goyo sighs a little and crosses his arms across his chest, looking afar as he was asked of. "'Wag lang po sa langit, Heneral."

Goyo looks at the photographer for a second and lowers his gaze a little. "Pinagkakatiwalaan kita dito, señor. Naniniwala ako na magaling kang kumuha ng litrato."

The photographer smiles at me for a second as I stand next to him and then to Goyo. "Mapagkakatiwalaan niyo po ako, Heneral. Isa, dalawa, tatlo." He then presses a button, shooting the picture with a bright flash. It suddenly reminds me having to ask an ID picture of myself taken while inside a photo studio with all the blazing light. "Isa pa po, Heneral."

"Ah." Goyo immediately removes his sword from where it is chained by his belt and uses it as a stand before striking another pose. "Yung ganito?"

"Pang-mason yan, ha."

"Napoleon." He chuckles. The sound almost makes my heart drop in a beat.

As the photographer takes the shot, I hear a young woman calling for Goyo's name. Flirtatious. Just a few yards from where we are, I notice a cluster of young woman giggling with their fans covering their faces as they do so.

Ever since what happened during that dinner, Goyo started having such exploit with the young women in town. He is mostly out of the house to check the guards, or, as I've caught him once when I was taking a walk just a day ago, flirting with one woman after another. The gossips about me being his mistress slowly diminished due to that, and everyone seems to be talking that he is courting woman after woman. It's as if I have the right to be jealous. It's as if we are a "thing".

We even barely talk with one another since the time that I've returned. The only times that we've talked seems to always turn awkward when we are nearing the said topic.

However, that didn't stop me from wearing the necklace with his ring looped to it. It's as if he also asked for it, and I am starting to wonder if it is truly his; seeing that his fingers are still filled with rings.

Goyo turns to the two of us—to the photographer—specifically, and nods before walking toward the ladies.

I turn to the photographer as he smiles back at Goyo and watches him go. "Ayos na po ba yun? Hindi po ba't gumalaw siya?"