Is It More Important To Understand Your Partner, Or Your Enemy?

Gadiel

April 28, 2:22 pm, Canberra, Australia

"Whatcha thinking about?"

Tarik jumped, startled by Gadiel's voice. Gadiel smiled wryly. On the one hand, he was a little annoyed at how Tatik seemed to just be looking off into space the past couple days. Gadiel usually had to ask a question a couple times just to get his attention, and then he had to ask another couple of times to get a response.

On the other hand, Tarik's thinking face was adorable. Especially when he was trying to drink and kept missing the straw with his mouth.

It had been a few days since Ai's attack. Tarik had been almost done with his monster when Gadiel arrived, so there hadn't really been much for Gadiel to do. They had spent the rest of the day together, blowing off the rest of their classes to just relax a bit after the stress of monsters.

Which was why they were here now, at the library, trying to study together. They were in different courses, so they couldn't really help each other, but it was nice to have someone supportive around to study with.

Or at least, that was the theory. Mostly Gadiel found himself talking with an increasingly distracted Tarik, while being amused by his increasingly vacant expression.

"Just...been thinking about the battle..." said Tarik slowly.

"Instead of your assignments?" Said Gadiel, raising an eyebrow. That got Tarik to give him a look of sarcasm.

"Something is just...bothering me about it," he said, sighing as he picked up his textbook. "It just...doesn't seem right."

"What doesn't?"

"I don't know. It just doesn't."

"What's this 'it?'"

"I just said, I don't know!"

Gadiel looked at Tarik like he was making something out of nothing. Tarik crossed his arms and sat back in his seat.

"I mean, why would Ai go out of her way to tell you about the attack?" He said. "You would've known about the attack on me with our connection."

They had figured out after their latest fight that whenever one of them was facing a monster, the other would feel a weird pull towards them in their stomach. It was like a spider sense that could possibly be confused with diarrhea as Gadiel had put so aptly when they talked about it.

"So why did she warn you about the other attack?" Tarik mused.

"She's probably testing to see how much we trust each other," said Gadiel casually. "I mean, she wants to kill me and recruit you. I figure she's just testing us, trying to see what we would do in this kind of situation."

Tarik blinked in surprise.

"That...actually makes sense," he said, impressed. "I didn't think about it like that. Wow, that's actually a good point, Gadiel."

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Said Gadiel.

Tarik placed a hand on Gadiel's shoulder, his face full of playful, patronizing condescension.

"You look like such a himbo I forget you're not sometimes," he sighed.

Gadiel shook his head, wondering where Tarik was picking up his vocabulary from.

"Well what did you think she was trying to do?" he asked.

Tarik shrugged.

"I thought maybe she wanted to sort of divide and conquer us," he said. "That, or she really wanted you to save that other person."

Gadiel made a face.

"I don't think she thought I would go there," he said. "I'm pretty sure she thought I would go after you. It was half the reason I decided to leave that monster to you, and go after the one in Baldessin Precinct."

Tarik looked at Gadiel as if he'd grown an extra head.

"Why would she think you'd come for me?" he asked curiously.

"Like you said, divide and conquer, right?" said Gadiel. "I think she's trying to do that too. Except I believe she's been trying to do that from the start."

"From the first dream," said Tarik, realization dawning on him. "She told us different things, knowing that we would talk to each other about it. And she hoped that it would drive a wedge between us."

"But…" Tarik frowned. "If that dream was supposed to put a wedge between us, wouldn't that just make you want to go save the other person, and not me?"

Gadiel smiled wryly.

"Okay, not to get like, super gay on you or anything," he said. "But I felt like you were slipping away from me, I'd probably lose my cool a bit and try to keep you close any way that I could. And every time we fight a monster together we always end up going home together, so..."

Tarik laughed at that, which made Gadiel grin. He liked making Tarik laugh. It made him feel good.

"Too bad you never stay the night," said Tarik.

Gadiel blinked. Something in the air changed, and Tarik seemed to sense it too. His smile suddenly became very embarrassed.

"I mean, I just like spending time together," he said. "Not like..."

"Yeah," said Gadiel a little too quickly. For some reason, his voice felt a little weird. "Yeah, I know."

Inside, his heart was trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. Had Gadiel mentioned how much he liked Tarik? And he knew that Tarik liked him too, but...they had never...actually done anything together. Something had always stopped them from taking that one step to actually start dating properly.

Watching Tarik back out from the toe he placed over that line was a little disappointing to Gadiel. But also, it was a huge relief. It meant that they could keep going on like this, just with the friendship they already had.

"Do you really think Ai was thinking that far ahead though?" said Tarik, changing the subject back to what it had been originally.

Gadiel shrugged.

"Who knows what she's actually thinking," he said, looking back at his screen. He really needed to focus on this assignment. It was a group assignment, and he needed to his part, otherwise he'd be labeled at "that" guy. Gadiel shuddered at the thought.

"Because if that was what she was thinking, then I think that makes a little more sense," said Tarik slowly.

Gadiel sighed. He wasn't going to actually get any more studying done, was he?

He looked up at Tarik, resigned. Tarik had the gall to look like he didn't know why Gadiel was making a face.

"What?"

"Just...explain your theory already, I know you want to," said Gadiel.

Tarik grinned.

"Well, if you insist," he said, closing his textbook and leaning forward. Gadiel fought the urge to smack Tarik with his own textbook.

"So, my old theory was that she was trying to drive a wedge between us by making you go after the other monster while I fought mine, and when we had trouble beating them, it would cause friction between us."

Gadiel nodded. He supposed that made some sort of sense.

"The problem," continued Tarik, tapping his forefinger on his textbook, "was that the monsters were too weak."

"Let me guess: you thought she had just underestimated us, but then you remembered the whole Chifley Incident," Gadiel butted in, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

Tarik raised an eyebrow.

"Okay Mr. Smarty-Pants," he said. "Go ahead then. Finish my theory."

They sat in silence for a while.

"I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me," said Gadiel in a monotone.

That was good enough for Tarik.

"I thought she had underestimated us, but then I remembered the Chifley Incident," said Tarik, his face splitting into the widest grin. Gadiel could help but snort in amusement.

"She should have a decent idea of our how we fight and what we can do," he went on. "So why did she send out such weak monsters? And why tell you about the monster heading for Baldessin?"

"But if we look at it through the theory that she was playing the long con, that she was actually hoping for you to come help me, then we have a little more to go on. If she wanted you to come to me, to help me beat a weak monster, we can assume that she just wanted you out of the way for the other monster's mission."

"That makes no sense," said Gadiel flatly.

Tarik stopped dead in his tracks.

"Why not?"

"Because if she didn't want me to go after that monster, then she wouldn't have told me about it," said Gadiel simply. "There was no way I could sense a monster all the way at Baldessin from Haydon Allen."

Tarik bit his lip, stumped. That was true. Unless…

"Maybe...she doesn't know that," he said slowly. "Since you were the one who discovered the Monster Nest, maybe she just thinks you have the ability to sense monsters. Which is why she told you about it. She thought you would know anyway."

Gadiel thought about that. He suddenly remembered Ai's words:

"Well, there's one after him, and the other one will be at the Baldessin Precinct Building."

She said "the other one will be at," as if Gadiel knew that there would be another one. From this phrasing alone, one could infer that Ai thought Gadiel could sense monsters no matter where they were.

Slowly, Gadiel nodded, acknowledging the legitimacy of this line of thought. Albeit unwillingly.

"Which brings me back to the big reveal, which you almost ruined," said Tarik. He took a deep breath:

"I think the other monster's mission was to kill that other girl."

Gadiel raised an eyebrow.

"Just answer me one question," said Tarik before Gadiel could say anything. Gadiel reluctantly let Tarik continue.

"When the monster came, who did it attack first?"

Gadiel thought about it for a moment.

"..."

"It went after the girl, didn't it?" said Tarik excitedly.

"...how did you know?" asked Gadiel.

Tarik punched the air in excitement.

"I didn't, it was a guess, but I only guessed that because I have a feeling I know who the girl is!"

"I thought you said the other thing was your big reveal?" said Gadiel petulantly.

"That girl is..." Tarik did a little drum roll with his fingers on the table.

"A member of the Shopkeeper's Monster Hunting Group!"

Gadiel stared at Tarik blankly.

"Oh come on," said Tarik. "It's a good theory!"

Gadiel started to speak, then stopped. He leaned forward, opened his mouth, then brought his hand back and fell into contemplation, elbows on knees.

"How exactly did you get 'the girl I randomly saved from a monster is actually a member of a monster fighting organization' from...anything...of what I told you two days ago?"

"I didn't get it from you," said Tarik smugly. "I got it from the university."

Gadiel groaned as he rubbed his medulla. If Tarik was right, he was not going to shut up about this, would he?

"D'you wanna know how-"

"Just tell me. Without the theatrics. Please," Gadiel all but begged.

Tarik watched, amused at Gadiel's tortured expression.

"Alright, fine, I'll give the short version," he said, sitting back down.

"Basically, everything we've done with the monsters has started some rumors, right?"

Gadiel nodded. Nowadays, the campus was filled with talks of rumored monsters, spirits, and government conspiracies. The Fourth Floor Fire (or the Chifley Incident) was the biggest one, bringing in rumors about government secrets being stored on the fourth floor of the library that had been destroyed by some secret agent. There were also talks about some sort of vengeful ice demon at John's Dormitory, freezing the doors of people who were cheating on their partners (Gadiel had no idea where that part of the rumor came from). And there was also the rumors about the incident from two days ago, where people said they saw a werewolf running into an empty lecture hall.

"But there is nothing about the monster at Baldessin."

(Gadiel pressed X to doubt.)

Gadiel twisted his face into an expression of doubt.

"That...isn't really much..."

"No," Tarik agreed. "But coupled with everything else, it kinda fits, right?"

Gadiel wasn't too sure about that. It felt like Tarik was kind of just forcing the pieces together, trying to make them work.

That said...if his theory turned out to be true, then that would mean they would finally have some contact with this other group that the Shopkeeper had been with.

That...was definitely something Gadiel was interested in. Anything that could lower his chances of actually fighting monsters, while staying close to Tarik was a good thing.

Wasn't it?

For some reason, Gadiel felt weirdly reluctant to go find this group now. He was surprised with himself; wasn't this what he wanted?

"Gadiel?"

Tarik's excited voice brought Gadiel back to the world, and he couldn't help but smile at Tarik's enthusiasm.

"Alright," he said. "I still don't think the evidence is convincing...but it's worth looking into, at least."

"Good enough for me," said Tarik.

"So," said Gadiel. "Where do we start?"