Unreality

18. The Door

Elsewhere in Ethos HQ, while Luther Weiss was just about to receive the call from Victor, Umbra was bashfully staring at the door to room 15 of the living quarters for Anima agents.

Finally, she knocked, and shortly thereafter Virgil appeared at the door. She quickly noted his casual clothing didn't differ much from the practical clothing he wore to the missions, other than the lack of his usual trench coat.

They exchanged quiet greetings, and the silver-haired girl demurely made her way inside, carrying a drawing paper pad under her arm.

Once inside, the first thing she noticed was how painfully unornamented the place was — something difficult to ignore with her strong sense of aesthetics — and how the only thing that kept the room from coming off as strikingly empty was the unorganized arrangement of the objects spread out throughout the place, including various remains of frozen food containers, which quickly made her realize her senior agent probably never cooked his own food.

While she was busy looking around curiously, Virgil offered her to sit on the sofa bed, while he reached for the rotating chair in front of his desk, bringing it near the sofa and sitting down on it.

'So...!' started the rookie agent with some degree of enthusiasm, 'got anything done? When we happened to meet at the marketplace inside HQ the other day, you told me you were finally going to get started, so I thought you might have something already if I dropped by today... was I wrong?'

'Well... sort of,' replied Virgil in his typically dry voice, and, after noticing her furrowed eyebrows, started to explain himself, 'I mean, I had come up with something then and I did start writing it... but after like four pages or so I thought it was turning out badly, so I ditched it and started over. Then I wrote about two pages... and ditched it again.'

'Wait, you ditched it? What does that mean? Can I still see it? 'Cause I might like it, you never know...'

'Well, I kind of... deleted it... permanently.'

'Both attempts?'

'...Yes.'

'...Why?' she couldn't help but ask bemusedly, but Virgil didn't appear to be able to offer any real explanation. '...See, that's the problem with doing your art digitally — you can't even go get the crumpled paper balls back from the trash can if you regret your decision to throw them away!'

The senior agent let out a small, half-suppressed laugh.

'What?' Umbra asked with a slight pout.

'Nothing... just... you sure have it out for digital formats.'

'Well yeah, can't you see why? Anyway, can you at least tell me what it was about? You never did give me any details...'

'Well, that's the thing — I don't think it would have... appealed to your sensibilities all that much...'

'Huh... you sound quite sure of what my sensibilities are like... now I'm curious,' said Umbra, her gray eyes — surrounded by black eyeliner — shimmering with interest. 'Do tell.'

Seemingly caught off guard by such an inquiry, Virgil took a moment to find an answer, looking away from her and around his room as if searching for inspiration.

'It's just...' he started at last, 'after seeing your paintings and such... you seem to like places that are... you know, colorful and mystical and whatnot, and, well, my story took place in a rather... gray world, so to speak.'