2-10

At night, it started to rain. The raindrops drifted into the house, leaving small, light gray marks on the floor. Glocara walked to the window and closed it. She turned around with her head down, observing her right hand held up to her nose. After pausing for a moment, she walked back and sat on the bed, still staring at her right fingers.

"What are you looking at?" Elin, noticing Glocara's unusual posture, moved to the left side of the bed and leaned his head closer.

"The window." Glocara's right thumb rubbed gently near the second knuckle of her middle finger. "It seems a splinter got in."

"Let me see."

Elin leaned in closer, but before he could get a clear look at her fingertip, Glocara moved off the bed. Awkwardly, she opened the bedside drawer and retrieved a small pair of tweezers.

"Let me do it for you."

Elin reached around Glocara's neck with his right hand to grab the tweezers. "Don't interfere," Glocara said, waving her right hand backward. She intended to push Elin away but accidentally hit his wound. Elin groaned, leaned back, covered the wound, and closed his left eye to endure the sudden pain.

"Who told you to move?" Glocara glanced back at him and then focused on her right middle finger, bringing the tweezers closer to it. Before the metal touched the skin, Elin took the tweezers and simultaneously grabbed Glocara's right wrist. "I said let me do it." This time, Glocara didn't object.

"Where is it? Are you sure you see it?"

"It's just in front of where my thumb is pressing."

Elin moved back slightly to shift his shadow from Glocara's finger. He saw the tiny gray-yellow splinter. It was hardly thicker than a cat's whisker and about a third the length of a sewing needle, trying hard to blend into the lines of Glocara's skin. Elin grasped the exposed end of the splinter with the tweezers and pulled it out. Though it was quick, he felt as if he moved slowly, watching the splinter slide out from under the skin like a tiny dagger from a transparent sheath. After the splinter was fully removed, a faint red spot appeared in the middle of the damaged skin: an amount of blood too small to even call a drop. He had barely placed the tweezers back in the drawer when he already forgot which direction he had discarded the splinter.

"Done." Glocara lined up her right fingers and blew on them before quickly lying down and staring at the ceiling. Part of the reflected light from the window illuminated it; shadows of raindrops continuously crossed the dim and silent glow.

Elin did not lie down. The pain near his wound had subsided. After a while, he spoke.

"Glocara."

"What?"

"I'm sorry I disappointed you."

They were silent for a moment.

"I have nothing to be disappointed about."

A man reluctantly apologizing, and a woman acting like nothing's wrong because she's still mad—today, is this happening to me?

"I promised to resign once we returned to Stormwind, to start a new life, to do what we need to do. That can't happen right now. Don't say you haven't felt anything; I know you've been upset." He paused and continued, "So am I. Things turned out this way, and I must take responsibility."

Having said this, Elin didn't know how to continue. Admitting his mistake should be followed by expressing his willingness and plan to make amends, but he didn't know what the next few days held. Whether he would stay or leave, Jorgen didn't guarantee when he would give his decision. Without knowing the future, he couldn't prepare.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Glocara sat up, looking at him. "I'm not disappointed."

"Don't make it hard for me. I'm seriously apologizing; you should take it seriously."

"It's true. Back in Arathi, we were both too optimistic. Everyone knew you wouldn't be able to get out that quickly. It was almost like a joke..."

"A joke? You think what we said back then was a joke?"

"Listen to me, idiot. We're not kids. When I was in Booty Bay, I always thought about leaving that house filled with corpses. But if someone hadn't set it on fire, I might still be there today. Your situation now is similar, not to mention that hellhole of MI7. I went through a lot before I met you. I already understand that some things just don't happen because you want them to."

"That sounds like you've lowered your expectations... Okay, I'm just rambling. Don't lie down yet, I was wrong. So... in conclusion, you're still angry, but not as much as I thought, right?"

"Think what you want. Hitting your head just now wasn't on purpose. If I were really, really angry, it might have been a different story."

"No need to clarify that; I have enough experience already. So..." Elin smirked and then lowered his tone a bit. "I still have some matters to resolve at MI7. So I'll need you to wait a bit longer."

Such a simple sentence, yet I only managed to say it today.

Glocara looked down at her knees, then at him.

"I can't wait forever."

"How long are you willing to wait?"

"I don't know. A month. Three months. A year? Don't ask me that; it's not fair."

"What will you do when the time is up?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "I don't have any plans in that regard. Except for the promises I heard from you, I haven't prepared for anything. So don't let me down."

"No problem. I guess I won't ask more."

He kissed her.

After Glocara fell asleep, Elin began to recall some things. Some of these memories popped up almost daily without warning, while others were nearly forgotten. He wanted to gather them all.

About four years ago, after taking Elaine to the hospital to visit Jorgen, Elin anticipated that Jorgen would change, and so would he. While feeling immense sorrow and guilt over what happened to Jorgen and Dalia, he also didn't want similar situations to happen to him. The most rational but unspoken part of human morality: caring for others and protecting oneself can be separate. Elin wanted to have a family. For himself and for Elaine.

Having encountered many women, he no longer believed in the fantasy of "the one." Finding someone willing to marry him wasn't a problem, but this made him hesitate. If he needed a wife and Elaine needed a female guardian, she had to be special—though Elin couldn't define what that special quality was.

When he heard that Jorgen had brought Glocara back from Stromgarde, he spent some time recalling their brief encounter years ago, and then a sense of compulsion surfaced within him. He had to see her. To him, Glocara symbolized a starting point: that night in Booty Bay, when Jorgen exposed Elin's ruse in front of Glocara and questioned his abilities; it was the first time Elin felt that drifting between different women brought no real meaning to his life. Besides, though Goloka's life was tough and exhausting then, she at least managed to maintain some stability—before he and Jorgen arrived. MI7 brought catastrophic changes to many lives, and Glocara was one of them; if Elin had to conclude, he would say Dalia was the same.

The shared guilt between him and Jorgen.

Elin didn't understand the concept of religious atonement, but when he saw Glocara again, he felt he should have a similar sentiment. He wanted to try to protect her, making her someone special to both himself and Elaine.

At first, he didn't have much romantic impulse toward Glocara, only a sense of responsibility. The actions that initially pleased Glocara were ones he had used on other women before. He did his best to be good to her, leading her toward a stable life—largely to atone for his and Jozen's sins.

He still remembered the confusion he felt back then. In the worst-case scenario, it would turn into yet another pure pursuit of a woman. He tried hard to prevent that from happening. He thought he did pretty well, but occasionally he could see a look of confusion in Goloka's eyes. After all, she couldn't lie herself, yet she had seen too many deceptions between people.

Gradually, Elin got used to having Glocara by his side, and Elaine listened to her very well. Elin could feel things slowly changing; he no longer emphasized to himself that she was a victim. The prospect of forming a family with her transformed from a possibly vain hope into an approaching reality.

When carrying out the mission at Stromgarde, it was Jorgen's suggestion to bring Glocara along to deal with Tusha. For a peaceful future, Elin would have preferred her to stay home. He never saw it as a trip to strengthen their bond. But later, events kept unfolding in ways that far exceeded Elin's expectations.

The moment Glocara gouged out his eye for him, he desperately hid his panic. This panic wasn't for his own pain but for fear that she might not be able to handle it.

On the day everything was about to end, Tusha threatened Elin with Glocara's life. It was then that Elin finally confirmed Glocara was no longer a symbol of his past sins. She was someone he had to protect, even if it meant abandoning the mission and sacrificing his life. The promise made on the hillside after visiting the small village was so natural, though he once thought he would need complete self-deception to utter those words.

Now, Elin looked at Glocara's sleeping profile; her breathing rhythm, the subtle movements of her body, were all too familiar to him. He understood he could never fully convey this internal transformation to her, even if she might have already sensed something similar. It no longer mattered. The fact that he ignored over a hundred potential rioters behind him and threw that punch because of Bedro's nonsense indicated what truly mattered to him now. And the conversation twenty minutes ago showed that Glocara fully understood him. At this moment, Elin felt no regret, only gratitude. The initial idea of "atonement" now seemed laughable to him. He would definitely protect her and fulfill his promise. He thought, maybe the process and what people like to talk about, what young people yearn for, were somewhat different, but since this was the love experienced and recognized by him, Elin Tias, it was undoubtedly the best love in the world.