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"On a world that's far too vast, it's nearly too exhausting to bear. But I was able to meet someone like you..." ~ One Hundred Billion Minutes, Bell Supool
xxxxxx
If one would ask Saki, she probably lost count of the number of times she sighed that day. Not to mention, her wound from that battle was still hurting and it hadn't healed yet.
But she chose this. She chose to fight. That means she had to bear certain consequences for that choice.
One of them was getting hurt like that.
"Saki, are you alright?"
Saki nodded as a response to Bomper's worried question. But she knew it wasn't enough to appease her friend.
Once again, she couldn't help wincing at the searing pain coming from her wound. She would've gotten worse wounds than this if it wasn't for someone taking most of the attacks for her.
"Saki... You don't have to hide that you're hurt, you know?"
"I'm not hiding it, Bom-chan. But he... He got hurt as well because of me." Saki touched the injured part of her arm when another surge of pain came rushing. "At times, I couldn't help wondering if I'm truly cut out doing this saving people and becoming allies of justice stuff if I couldn't even protect me friends from getting hurt like that."
"But it's something that we all know will happen when we chose this path."
Of course, it surprised Saki to hear someone spoke like that from behind. She didn't have to turn around to know who it was. Once again, she sighed and touched her injured arm.
"Does it still hurt?"
She didn't try hiding it and just nodded. This time, she finally turned around and found Ren standing a few feet behind her. His hand was placed on the injured part of his left side.
Just seeing that only increased her guilt as she was still thinking the reason why Ren sustained those wounds.
"Ren, are you sure you're okay to move around like this?" Bomper asked in an obviously worried tone.
But Ren just smiled and walked towards Saki who only looked down and didn't face him.
"Are you sure you're alright, Saki?"
However, she chose not to say anything as she clenched her fist. Doing so, however, only made her wince because of the surge of pain that soon followed.
"Saki..."
"It's alright, Bom-chan," Saki only said just to appease her robot's friend's worries. "It will fade soon."
"Saki."
Though stattled at the sudden call, Saki chose not to show it. Instead, she faced Ren, still with that downcast expression she didn't even bother trying to hide at all.
"You don't have to be like this to yourself. It's not your fault. Okay?"
But she couldn't bring herself to do that. At the moment, she allowed the tears she'd been meaning to let go finally fall from her eyes.
"It's my choice to protect you like that, Saki," Ren continued before placing a hand on Saki's shaking shoulder. "I knew I would end up getting hurt like this. But I never regret doing so because you're an important person to me. More than just a comrade."
Saki couldn't even remove her gaze on Ren as he was saying those words to her despite the tears that still fell. There was no hint of pretenses in them. Well, he wasn't known to be a person who would lie just for the sake of comforting someone.
At least on that part, she was glad that Ren was such a person. More than ever, she couldn't help realizing the fact that it was this gladness that made her grateful about meeting Ren amidst all the chaos that they had gone through.
"Thank you, Ren. More than ever."
Though it appeared that the blue warrior wanted to say some thing about that, but chose not to. Instead, he smiled and placed a hand on Saki's head.
"You're welcome." To whatever it was that Saki was thanking him for, he wanted to say those words to her.
It was because he, too, was thankful to Saki about a lot of things. Above it all, he was glad and truly thankful that Saki came to his life...
