26. In Which Darkrai Asks a Question

Twig sent back a note that she had some loose ends to tie up before she could visit Kip, hoping that the note would buy her some time thanks to how she hadn’t specified a day she’d be coming back to Treasure Town. Ark, confusingly, almost elected to stay home when she ran to the post office to deliver it. She told him she was heading out, and he replied with a distracted hum. Confused, she asked if he wanted to come along, and he seemed to snap awake and rushed after her out the door. He watched everyone and everything with a strange look in his eyes as they made their way through Verdant Village— somewhere between sorrowful longing and bitter anger. Whatever it was in his gaze, it wasn’t the awkward, distant sort of cheerfulness she was used to from him. He wasn’t regarding everything with a wide-eyed awe— it was a narrow sort of scrutiny that didn’t fit on Ark’s face. 

Honestly, he seemed a bit ticked in his distractedness. There were moments he was almost irritable— not enough to truly be called irritable, though, because this was Ark she was talking about. He just seemed a bit… short. Maybe a little snippy in how he responded to her questions about if they had enough food to make it to the next weekday market. Not enough to qualify as rude, but he was colder than usual. 

Weird. She could look past it though. She had her moodier days— he probably was just going through one of his own.

She ignored all of that, but she couldn’t look past him asking her that long-dreaded question as she sorted through the groceries she’d grabbed on the way back from the post office, glad to finally be home. “How long were you planning on keeping this up?”

She set down an oran berry she was examining for bruises, confused. “What the heck are you talking about, man?”

“How long did you intend to lie to me?”

“Dude, I’ve never once lied to…” 

Oh. 

She recognized the chilliness to his tone now, the coldness of his gaze. She recognized the way he postured himself and seemed to take all the light out of the room with his presence. 

It all belonged to Darkrai, of course, and fit so poorly on Ark. 

Suddenly a number of things made sense— the fact that he knew Kip had a cowardly streak, the way he spoke as he asked her about joining Team Venture, even the way that he held himself these past weeks— Darkrai remembered. He remembered, and he was mad. Twig had never once seen him upset. Never ruffled, never perturbed— Darkrai was always calm, always cool, always collected, and never the picture of burning cold rage before her.

She should be terrified. Something in her was definitely cowering at the sight of Darkrai so furious before her, but she managed to hold her ground despite the coward in her begging to run. She was tired. Maybe she was ready to die if it meant she could get some rest.

“Your answer?” He demanded.

She tried to come up with some pacifying response to give him, but could only summon the truth. She was tired. It had been a long time of lying to keep people safe. She had already messed everything up. Why not get some stuff off her chest before she kicked the bucket? “I was going to keep it up as long as it took.”

“You fully intended to keep my past hidden from me, tucked tidily away for all of time?” He loomed over her— or more like he tried to, at least. Twig didn’t back down. 

She gave him a weary glare. “Can you blame me?”

A long, tense silence filled the air. It felt like if she reached out a claw, she could pluck it like a string.

“Are you going to kill me?” She asked.

Conflict flashed across his face. 

“Just get it over with already. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Might as well get it done after all that waiting.”

“I’m not—”

“Not what?” She spat. “Not the type to get your hands dirty? Too bad. If you leave me alive, I’ll tell Kip and Cresselia— everyone— and we’ll be stuck in the same situation we started in. You’ll face off with us in Dark Crater, I’ll end up cursed or whatever that arm thing you did was, and you’ll end up without your memories again or something. I don’t care. Just get it over with.” Tears pricked at her eyes despite her frustration. “I’m tired. I’m done. I blew the shot I had at keeping everyone safe and getting a friend while I was at it. So kill me.”

Again, that conflict flickered across his features. He scowled and seemed to ready himself to deal that mortal blow… but he vanished instead, melted into the shadows. She could sense he was still in the room, judging by the heavy atmosphere that surrounded him remaining, but he was gone without a visible trace.

Twig got the feeling he didn’t want to talk. Too bad.

“You’ve got the perfect opportunity here, man. It’d be kind of stupid to pass it up when I’m literally telling you to get it over with.”

Silence.

“You’d be doing me a favor, you know,” she murmured.

No answer.

“… How long have you remembered?”

The heaviness in the air crescendoed, and then it lifted. He was gone.

Twig wondered why he left without finishing the job.