Learning the World

The doors to HamHamPangPang swung open as a pair of customers entered. Mei turned to the door, prepared to give her routine greeting.

Her face lit up as she saw Asher. One glance beside him and her mood soared even higher. Yan glued herself securely around his arm, which she found absolutely adorable.

Messengers rarely had close contacts; Yan's curiosity of Asher's strange powers at first had changed to something else in the blink of an eye.

"...What are you looking at?" Yan shrank back, slightly uncomfortable at Mei's smug expression.

"Nothing~ What can I get you two?" Mei tried to keep her professionalism as an employee, but often found herself glancing at Yan as the Messenger squinted at the menu.

Soon they sat down at a table, having ordered and paid. Yan leaned her head on his shoulders as they waited.

Suddenly, she opened her eyes.

"Sayako came to the meeting, just like you said. How did you know that?"

Asher contemplated in silence, wondering whether to tell her the complete story. He quickly decided against it because of how unbelievable it was. Nothing in the world that he saw so far could explain how he travelled thirteen years back in time.

He didn't think the time travelling System was all that common, even if the Ruins contained magic.

'And wouldn't Yan think I'm some sort of creep if I told her about the rewind/memory sealing thing?'

He shivered at the thought, planning to not reveal anything.

"Hm... How do you think I knew it?"

"I wondered if you were a spy for the Thumb at first, but that didn't really make sense. It's fine. Don't tell me if you don't want to." She frowned, digging her finger into his side.

Asher's smile was mixed with pain as she put a bit of strength in her jab, bruising his stomach.

"Ow, haha! I just overheard one of her lackeys talking about it in the alleyways, nothing serious."

He could tell from Yan's skeptical glance that she didn't believe him, but it was the best excuse he could give.

She shoved him away, upset at his nonchalant dismissal of her question.

The awkward silence lasted for until Mei came by, dropping off their order.

"Here's your... food!"

Mei took one look at the strained silence before giving Asher a knowing nod of encouragement, allowing a moment of unprofessionalism to escape her before she left.

Yan rummaged through the bag, handing him his sandwich. She laid out her chicken nuggets and fries on the table, pocketing the toy that went with it, a nondescript black-masked man, and dug in wordlessly.

"...Are you mad at me for not telling you?"

"You know what? Yeah." She glared at him with a mouth full of fries.

Even her pout was cute; he couldn't help but inch closer to her.

Yan growled in half-hearted protest, yet quickly reciprocated. She bit his arm lightly, forgiving him yet also warning him that there would be no next time.

"Hey, Yan. Do you know any Offices around these parts?" As he finished his sandwich, he began to think about the advice that Captain Yun gave him, what seemed like years ago.

"Mm? You want to start making connections?" She saw past his casual question, cutting to the chase.

As an experienced Messenger of the Index, she had worked with Fixers for a substantial portion of her life. In the process of her work, she learned many intricacies of their lives that some of them didn't even know themselves.

Asher nodded his head.

Yan wiped her hands off on a napkin, deep in thought.

"There are a few I can think of around this part of the Section. Hook Office, filled with past murderers and convicts who managed to qualify in the mental examination. They take on Urban Legends and below. Have you heard of them?"

He had not, but he didn't really feel like making connections with an Office filled with killers.

Some might call him hypocritical, having slaughtered a few people himself, but he knew his own circumstances best. What if some of the Fixers in that Office hadn't been in the same situations as him, and simply enjoyed bloodshed? It could be a bad influence on him, he decided.

"Any other ones?"

"There's Dawn Office, too. They're one of the few Offices in this part of the section that accepts Urban Plague cases."

'Dawn Office...' Besides the pretty sounding name, they were very strong if Yan was telling the truth. If they could theoretically take on cases like the Carnival... He shuddered, remembering those disgusting creatures.

"Do you know where it is? I'll probably go there to check it out after this- Hm?"

Asher blinked as Yan tried to dig his phone out of his pocket, all while tutting loudly like she was disappointed in him.

"Haven't you ever used your phone before? There's a map, dummy." She grabbed his phone, shoving it in front of his face to unlock it. Asher was actually thankful that the System automatically converted his pupils to Sophie's. Although Yan knew both of his forms already, it would have been very awkward if he had to interrupt her to synchronize.

He made a mental note to the System to change his pupils, but only if he were with his friends.

Yan leaned against his body, showing him how to navigate the phone's apps as she found the mapping function.

Her hair tickled his chin, distracting him with the smell of sweet shampoo.

Only when she looked back at him did he snap to attention again. Yan pointed to a small dot on the screen, labelled 'Dawn Office'.

"There it is, dum-dum. You're welcome." She went back to eating her chicken nuggies, resting her head on his body.

He zoomed out to his current location. It was a short, thirty-minute walk to there. He could probably go there today and still have time to spare.

He pinched the screen further until the map of the entire city was shown. The sheer size of the Sections of the City astounded him; the Dawn Office was an insignificant speck compared to Section 12, not to mention the City in its entirety.

Estimating the distance from where he was to the Sections nearest to him, it would take him a few days to walk to any one of them.

The City, unbefitting of its name as a 'city', spanned well over a thousand miles in length. The sheer amount of Fixers registered in the Hana Association made more sense now.

But it was still dwarfed by the Ruins surrounding it.

Only a few measly portions of the Ruins were mapped, and all were around the perimeter of the City. Most of the world was colored black, unexplored by even the greatest Colored Fixers.

'Really puts to scale how insignificant I am. There are probably billions of people out there, each with their own lives.'

The realization made him appreciate his own life even more.

No matter how many other people were out there in the world, Yan was someone special to him. His closest... something.

Asher was dropped into the City, cold and confused. He needed someone to share his burdens and secrets with. Some of his secrets, at least. But telling her the whole story of the System wasn't a good idea just yet. Maybe someday.

He wrapped his arm around Yan's waist, pulling her closer.

Yan scoffed, but she swayed onto him eagerly, almost like she demanded skinship.

"Hey, Yan. Do you ever wonder about who creates the Prescripts in the first place?"

By this time, they had already finished their food and were simply resting on each other.

"No? It's just there, a voice in our minds." She didn't seem to mind that she received the orders from some unknown existence at all.

"What if it told you to do something you don't want to do?"

Yan glanced up at him, her gaze muddled with confusion. She wondered why Asher would want to know such a thing.

"It knows everything. It protects its own. The Prescripts would never make me do something I wouldn't want to do. If it does, then that just means I hadn't realized I wanted to do it yet."

Asher stared at the girl beside him. That was such a twisted mindset, but he didn't know how to address it without hurting her feelings. Yan was possibly even more brainwashed than Twelve and Eleven, yet she herself did not know.

Remembering the hallucination he had with the Fragment, he tried to probe her twisted ideology.

"What if you got a Prescript which told you to hurt someone? No, what if it told you to hurt me?"

She froze in his arms. Asher could almost hear an audible snap as her brain tried to process his words.

"That's silly. It would never do that. I-Impossible. No way." Still, tears unconsciously welled in her eyes as she began to sniffle, imagining the scenario if it happened.

"I didn't mean it like that! I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Asher whispering apologies reflexively.

She shifted closer to him until she sat squarely on his lap. A slightly embarrassing position, but Yan didn't care, tilting her head toward him with a pleading expression. Asher complied, patting her head gently. She seemed to calm down afterwards, but her emotions were still turbulent from sudden question.

"Sorry for making you cry. Are you alright now?"

As physically adept as the Messengers were, their secluded training left them totally unprepared for social life outside their one-sided interactions with the Prescripts. Thus, the Prescripts usually shifted them away from people they could grow attached to.

And in the case of Messengers, they were constantly reminded that whoever they gave Prescripts to were below their attention and sympathy.

Somehow, the Prescripts allowed for this relationship to blossom. Whether it was a part of Its plan, or if It 'overlooked' the System that Asher had, Yan had grown very attached to Asher in the span of a few days.

"Nn. C-Can we stay like this for a bit longer?" She wrapped arms around his neck, like a small child. He could feel his clothes dampening as her tears stained it.

Yan's mind grew a delicate glass casing. The emotions she could feel widened in range, yet also became increasingly volatile the longer she stayed with him, like a bomb waiting to explode. It already did once, and it cost her life. The evidence had been erased by the System's rewind, but the groundwork had already been laid.

Mei chose that moment to deliver food to a customer sat at the very back of the restaurant. As she passed, she couldn't help herself from breaking into a wide grin. Asher shooed her away with his eyes, with Yan too disoriented and facing away from Mei to notice.

They sat there, connected, for a few more minutes. No words were exchanged, as both of them were too focused on their embrace.

Mei couldn't resist passing by them a couple of times. She didn't have anyone else to bring their order to; she simply wished to enjoy the sight of Asher and Yan as they relaxed in each other's arms.

...

Yan licked her dry lips as she opened her eyes, having fallen asleep on Asher's lap.

A voice mumbled into her mind, clearing the last vestiges of sleepiness she had in her.

"I have another Prescript to deliver now." She pulled away from him, only now realizing how she snuggled with him for over a dozen minutes. The blush on her face grew deeper as Asher stared at her with a glint in his eyes.

"Hey, stop looking at me like that, it's embarrassing..."

She punched his arm lightly, at least according to her standards. Asher rubbed his arm as he felt a light bruise forming.

"Alright, alright- I should get going now too."

They walked out the door, waving Mei goodbye.

"So... Bye bye?" Yan gazed into his eyes, hesitating to part with him.

"Yep, see you later!" They split at the entrance. Yan headed toward Mei's apartment to hand a Prescript, while Asher went in the opposite direction, following the marker of Dawn Office on his phone's map.

Yan glanced back one last time, staring at his back, but Asher did not turn around. She grimaced as her mood fell ever so slightly.

"...I don't care, anyway."

She watched him until he was engulfed by the crowd, still hoping that he would turn back at least once.

As the final traces of him disappeared, she pulled her cloak up, assuming her business face.

A Messenger that was calm and collected, emotionless at every situation.

The change in expression was instant, chilling the bystanders that noticed.

She thought about the Prescript she was just ordered to give.

'To Bellecote. At the midnight of this day, walk to the alley of any building. Chop a live fish in half along with your index finger.'

Pitiful woman. Yan could tell that this was a 'Death Prescript', one the Prescripts gave often to those It deemed unworthy.

She knew the woman, delivered many Prescripts to her over the months. As a soft-spoken librarian, even if she could muster the strength to chop off her own index finger, Bellecote had no defense against the Sweepers that prowled the night. Either she attempted the Prescript to be swept into a Sweeper's flesh tanks, or she hid at home to be punished by a Proxy.

Either way, she would die by the end of tomorrow.

She remembered the daughter Bellecote had. She held her once, after the woman warmed up to her presence. The child's name was Alicia, if she recalled correctly. She would be five this year.

The question Asher asked her floated in her mind, and she hesitated ever so slightly. Bellecote was his next-door neighbor. Would this Prescript hurt him indirectly? How would the woman's daughter live alone in the Backstreets?

But the shred of doubt was torn away by years of conversion and therapy.

Work was work, nothing else, she reminded herself.

The gold hoop on the Messenger's cloak gleamed ruthlessly in the dim afternoon light as she stepped forward.

The people around Yan gave her a wide berth out of fear, but she didn't seem to notice. She was used to it.

This was how everyone treated her in the end.

'Asher...'

If he discovered the details of her work, would he still hug her like before? Would he still pat her head and comfort her?

Or would he become one of the people in the crowd, pointing fingers at her when she wasn't looking? Would he show a thin veneer of respect and friendliness on the surface, all the while loathing her very existence?

Asher was a Fixer. If he found out how many deaths she caused with the Prescripts she gave...

Hate. He would never look at her the same way again.

Her lips quivered at the thought. If he did come to hate her one day... her only wish was that he did not hide it from her.