Three years ago.
Sizzling fire. Sunny skies.
Countless voices flood the air. The scorching sun would one hundred percent be giving me a tan if I wasn’t wearing sunscreen. Laughter echoes all around me, but what catches my attention the most…
Is the sizzling coming from the grill behind me.
Smoke hits my shirtless back, and the scent of deliciously marinated meat practically calls my name. With my hands on my hips, I stare up at the sky.
Any moment now, I’m ready to claim my reward for showing up to this party in the first place.
“Okay! Time to eat!” the grillmaster, our Testament teacher, calls out enthusiastically. Despite having a rough look, he’s treated and recognized as the academy sweetheart. Pivoting my bare heels on the stone floor, I make my way toward the stack of plates.
Without wasting even a second, I grab a paper plate.
“One carne asada, one sausage, and four tortillas please.”
The teacher laughs and gives me what I want. My mouth is practically watering at what’s in front of me. But just before I can indulge myself, I feel a slender pair of arms wrapping themselves around my neck.
“That’s no good Rommy~ You’re not only gluttonous, you’re also greedy.” she pokes my cheek playfully.
Despite having seen her in revealing combat uniforms countless times, something about a woman wearing a purple bikini does strange things to my mind and soul. Ignoring her smug expression, I take a bite.
“Oooh, we have a nonchalant man over here. I’m so proud of you for leaving your room and showing up to this party.” she giggles.
“Shut up! Go get some food already.” I say with a full mouth.
“I will, I just thought I’d check up on my favorite man.”
“Favorite man? How many times have you used that line on the other guys? After two years of being your partner, I’m completely immune now.”
She pouts. With a single chuckle, she unwraps herself and grabs a plate of her own. After requesting her meat of choice, we stand just beside the pool, stuffing our faces like no tomorrow.
“This is sooooo good!” she moans out.
“I know, right!”
Swallowing her food, her trademark smirk returns. “So, are you going to thank the ever so benevolent Cynthia Marrowell for inviting you to this party? All our other classmates didn’t even send Mister Gloomy an invite.”
Her words sting a bit. After recoiling for a second, I retaliate to the best of my abilities. “S-So?! I didn’t really care to show up. I only came here because you asked.”
“Hoh? You came here just for me? You always say you hate me, but you’re never being honest, are you?!” she lightly pushes me with her shoulder.
“No. I meant more so that I felt bad you’d be here all alone and sad without me.”
She points at herself, laughing flabbergasted. “Me?! I have like a hundred exes I can hit up at any time.”
“Exes. That’s the keyword.”
“You are the worst!” Despite her words, she laughs mid-claim.
Without realizing it, I manage to take one last bite of my food. There’s no more left. Groaning in despair, I grip my plate in order to go for seconds. Before I can, I feel someone pulling on my pants.
“W-W-WOAH! CHILL OUT!”
Cynthia laughs. “Hmmm? Shy, are we?”
“DUDE! You’re going too far! You never, ever touch a man’s pants!”
“Sorry, sorry. But you should probably wait until everyone gets a plate before you go ahead and clear out the entire grill.”
“Ghk-!” I look at the limited container of meat that has yet to be cooked. I gulp loudly. Even though every fiber of my being is telling me to go for seconds, Cynthia’s unusually logical statement pulls me back.
I close my eyes, refreshing my mind just enough to go back to Cynthia’s side.
Sighing, I say, “Fine. You win.”
“When don’t I win?”
Okay. She’s starting to piss me off. At this rate, she’ll make fun of me until the party is over. I need to find a topic that doesn’t result in me being so mercilessly bullied by the queen of comebacks.
“Hey, I was wondering if you finished the homework Zuki gave us.”
She tilts her head. “I haven’t. Why?”
“No reason. I wasn’t sure how to approach the questions. They seem a bit unfair, don’t you think?”
Rubbing her chin, she says, “I don’t think they’re unfair. If anything, I feel like it’s because you see faith differently from most of us. I don’t think the point of the assignments is to be logically correct with stuff.”
She smiles at me so earnestly that it rivals the brightness of the sun. The more I hang out with her, the more it makes sense why she’s so popular with the guys.
“Plus,” she continues, “there isn’t really a ‘logical’ or ‘definitive’ answer when it comes to faith, right? Just answer what you think is right and I’m sure Zuki will understand. The whole point of these exercises is to assess our potential in the field.”
“We’ve already been in the field a few times now.” I add on. For some reason, she seems to be quite annoyed with my interjection.
“Nope! I meant real missions where lives are at stake. All we did was kill a few low level demons. That’s hardly a challenge!”
Cynthia wiggles her finger at me scoldingly. “Killing demons is easy because they’re just straight up evil. What’s going to be difficult in the future, is when we have to deal with other, outside factors.”
“Outside factors? I highly, highly doubt there’ll be anything that’ll make us question our moralities and stuff.”
Despite the rather large size of the Holy Church, there have barely been any incidents where Testaments were forced into such gray situations. I always assumed that we just went around killing demons and stuff.
Which makes sense. Like Cynthia said, they’re evil and we’re humans. No matter how someone views their faith, the truth that all evil must be eradicated is a shared mission statement for all of us.
“Hey, are you listening?” The sound of Cynthia’s voice brings me back to reality. With my mind rebooting, I manage to take a good look at what she’s wearing again. She looks so stylish compared to me, it makes me kinda sad.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about what you said.”
Lifting her arm, Cynthia pats me on the back. “Don’t worry about it too hard! Just keep being you, Rommy. I feel like you’re the best when you’re just being yourself. When it comes to fighting and making the hard choices, you can leave it up to me!”
She puffs her chest out proudly.
“What? There would be literally zero purpose to me being your partner then. I need to pull my weight too, you know.”
“Aw, come on Rom. Being a support is more than just shooting bad guys. You give me plenty of support even when we’re not on the field.” Her vibrant smile loosens into a softer one.
An unusual heat starts spreading from my heart and across my body. “W-What is that supposed to mean?”
“Hmmmmm~ I wonder~”
Having enough of her smug expression, I crack a smile as a devious plan comes across my mind. While she’s distracted looking at some other partygoers in the distance, I gently grab onto her waist and playfully try to lunge her into the pool.
She lets out a yelp, followed up by her smacking my chest.
“Let go!” she says, grinning ear to ear.
“Nope! I won’t! You’ve been very mean to me today, Miss Marrowell.”
Wrapping my arm around her waist completely, I lift her up from the ground ever so slightly, hovering her just above the blue water. The people in the pool quickly move away, and some even encourage me to drop her.
Cynthia screams out, continuously slapping my shoulders in protest. “Don’t you dare drop me, Rom Sivongsa! I don’t want to wet my hair!”
I giggle, biting my lower lip. “Go ahead, apologize to me for being so mean.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Stop! What if this is a life or death situation! Would you really let me go?! If you really loved me, you wouldn’t let me go.”
“Good try Cynthia. All those exes and you still don’t know a thing about love, do you?”
I let go of her. Just before she hits the water, I feel a pair of hands tightly gripping onto my pants. Thanks to physics, I end up unwillingly lunging forward and into the valley of doom and despair.
Cynthia hits the water first. I follow immediately after.
My hearing is muffled, and the only sound I hear are the bubbles rising as a result of our impact. When I crack open my eyes slightly, I see Cynthia looking at me with gentle eyes. I don’t know if this is the right description, but it makes me feel warm and soft inside just looking at her.
She swims up. I do so as well.
The moment our heads leave the water, we let out loud gasps for air. I wipe the water and hair covering my face. Cynthia swims over in front of me. Her wet hair makes her look like a completely different person.
Poking my chest, she says, “I’ll make you pay for that!”
Just as I’m about to shoot back, I hear the voice of an older woman.
“Woot woot! You guys should just get married already!”
A lady wearing a casual Hawaiian outfit while holding a coconut shows up, standing on the dry land just above me.
“Zuki! What are you⸺”
Before I can finish, I feel a hand on my head. I don’t even have time to process what’s going on, as my head is submerged in water once more. No matter how hard I try to fight, Cynthia’s iron grip refuses to let me go.
From underneath the water, I see Cynthia say something to Zuki. Only after she walks away does Cynthia let me back up.
“Pahh!! What the heck was that for?!”
“Revenge! Now we’re even.”
Desperately gasping for air, I do my best to wipe all the water from my face once more.
“Hey, Rom.” she calls me with a soft tone.
“In a life or death situation, you better not let me go.”
Despite a dozen sarcastic replies popping up in my head…
“I won’t.”
A sincere one slips out.
My eyes gaze up toward the still shining sun. A part of me knows one day we’ll have to part ways. Either because we’ll be paired up with different partners, or one of us will retire. Even so, I hope I can still be there for her.
When I first met her, she was such a shy girl.
“I wonder how you turned out to be such a bad person.” I sigh.
“Hey!”
She splashes water at me.
I splash back.
“Wait, what were you saying to Zuki just now?! She looked super happy when you said something to her.”
“Hm? That’s a secret.” She winks at me.
Frustrated, I splash even more water on her. Even though we butt heads a lot, there’s a lingering thought at the back of my head.
I hope we stay together, forever.