Fate and Choices

Five: Gabe, The Fate

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I rested my chin on my elbow and looked at the girl sorting out documents in front of me. She got out the papers and started scanning them as she highlighted them.

She reads really fast... I thought.

"Rave, don't forget to eat," I reminded her.

She looked up from her papers and took a bite. Then she looked at her papers again.

"You shouldn't even be working on dinner table," I told her, with a crooked smile on my face.

The girl's hand stopped mid-air for a second.

"Sorry. I promised not to," she said as she looked at me. Then she quickly put away her papers obediently.

"Nah. Let's eat together," I said and grabbed my cutleries.

"Yeah," she said and nodded, a small smile adorning her face.

Silence fell between the two of us for a bit. The chatters, clinking of plates and cutleries, along with the occasional breeze stopping by to say hi came into the soundscape. Up above were the chirping of birds, perching on branches and landline cables.

It's a nice day... I thought, wonder if the triad have any time to enjoy it too? They left quite soon...

"By the way, I never expected the triad to be that lively," I said, opening a conversation.

"Oh, they're always like that before everything went downhill," Raven said, "they're the only ones who'd do things like... pasting notes on my bedroom window... like, 'let's play' or 'trololol' or some cringy things,"

"Really? Wow, who would've thought," I replied with wide eyes.

"Yeah, then they pull faces at me and they got caught by the seniors, who then shout at them and chase them away," she continued, there was distant look in her grass-green eyes, "I remember Matt also likes to slip magical monster pop-ups into my books... and Magda always insists on dressing me up... and Satoshi likes hiding whoopee cushions around my room..."

I nodded as I listened to her.

"That's really cute, it's just like having older siblings-" I implied.

"They're just bored 'cause they had nothing to do..." she cut in, "at that time, at least. They came in as interns. They were scouted after they just graduated high school, so, yeah... they're the youngest in the facility and probably didn't get along super well with the more... serious members,"

"Ohh I see..." I answered and nodded, "now that you mention it, those three are actually really young to be the 'right hand' elites... like 20-something?"

"Yeah, somewhere in their late twenties, I think... I forgot..." she said with her gaze darted upwards.

There was a bit of a silence as I watched her peridot-green eyes losing its focus on reality bit by bit, although her pale eyelids didn't close themselves over the two green orbs.

"...it's pretty lively back in your home, isn't it?" I asked gently, then took another spoonful of steamed rice.

Raven's eyes darted downwards, and in a flash, they seemed to darken for a moment.

"Before everyone changed, I suppose," she said and took another spoonful of her food to her mouth, "...but everyone is a mindless puppet who follows the boss around. If the boss wants to do something bad, everyone will do it without questioning him - which is why I'm grateful for every step I take far from my home. No one knows when that can happen again. That's what I think anyway,"