Nyoka waved him over.
“As I tell you about her, why don’t you follow me?”
Kairos looked at him for a few moments before giving a small nod.
“Sure.”
The two of them began walking side by side in this strange place. It was hard to tell distance with how the world just melded with each other, but Kairos was eventually able to figure out he could see roughly twenty meters ahead of him.
It was far from the vision he desired to have, but it was still far better than being unable to see at all. While he was thinking about that, Nyoka spoke up.
“Say, has anything similar ever happened to you before?”
Kairos rolled his eyes with a bitter smile.
“How the hell am I supposed to know if you haven’t told me in the first place?”
Nyoka let out a chuckle and casually waved dismissively in his direction.
“Ah, that’s right. For some reason I just felt like you would’ve already known. Not that I think you’re psychic or anything, it’s just… the type of person you are.”
Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.
“Well sorry for not being a psychic. If you don’t want to tell me about it then just don’t. It’s not like I even care that much in the first place. It’s not going to change my life or anything.”
Nyoka smirked. He looked down and took a deep breath while inspecting the black fang in his hand. With how he turned it over in his hand, it was almost like that was his first time ever setting his eyes on it.
“Haha, yeah I know I don’t have to. We’ve only just met, but I have this strange feeling about you. I feel like you can tell as well.”
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly..
“That we are the same kind of person.”
Nyoka paused for a good few moments after saying that. He glanced over at Kairos, who similarly looked at him. But Kairos turned forward once more, breaking the contact. For whatever reason, Nyoka smiled to himself, like it was something funny.
“…Just promise me that you’ll be paying attention.”
Kairos took a deep breath that seemed more exasperated than anything else.
“It’s not like there’s something else to pay attention to.”
Nyoka gave a small nod.
“No second-transformation monsters are here anyway.”
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched. With an irritated look, he shot him a glance.
“Why do you keep saying things and expecting me to understand? If you’re going to tell the story like that too then you might as well not tell me. It’s not like it will get through.”
Nyoka laughed, even tilting his head back as he did so.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m just stalling. It’s a little hard to start. The beginning always sets the tone, so I don’t want to mess that part up.”
Kairos slowly shook his head.
“It’s not like you’re trying to write a book here… Or are you trying to do that?”
Nyoka smiled bitterly.
“I can’t argue with that. Then I guess I’ll just start, but don’t blame me if it’s a bad story.”
Kairos held back the urge to roll his eyes simply because he was tired of doing so. With this silent confirmation, Nyoka finally began talking.
“I guess she was my girlfriend or something. It wasn’t exactly a clear thing as we never made it official, but we basically treated each other in that way. It was all fine for the most part, but then one day this… thing came to me.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“A thing? Couldn’t you be at least a little bit more specific?”
Nyoka rubbed his chin, thinking to himself.
“It’s a little hard to describe. Even at the fourth layer, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that can compare to the strength that thing had. Well… or it could be because I was just a normal person at the time. Either way, the only real way to describe it, is a massive black blob of what looked like slime.”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“That sounds nasty.”
Nyoka smiled bitterly.
“Hah. Even though I was fairly sure I wasn’t dreaming at the time, my natural conclusion was that it was some sort of hallucination. That I was somehow having night terrors despite being nineteen years old. That was the only thing that was in my mind at the time.”
He blinked a few times.
“But regardless of what I felt, that thing directly spoke into my mind after showing itself. It happened so long ago, but each of those words are still so clear in my mind. The thing said that it was going to give me a choice in one year. He was either going to kill me or what I would call my girlfriend. And for him to make a choice, both of us had to choose the same person.”
Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly.
“Well, you don’t look dead right now.”
Nyoka smiled bitterly.
“My body has long died, but that’s not the point. At first, I treated everything that happened as some sort of illusion, even though there was some part of me that told me it was all very real. It seems like whatever that thing was, it didn’t like being treated as just some illusion. If I knew what it would’ve done…”
At this point, he paused. Though he continued walking, his expression was as still as a statue. Kairos was curious about what he had to say next but simply remained silent, matching his pace. After a few hours of the two of them walking side by side, Nyoka spoke up once more.
“It killed her dad. Just to make it very obvious, the thing did it right in front of me, continually tearing him up until every single piece of him was no larger than a pebble. When it was all over, it ate up all the remains and blood. In the end, it was declared that he went missing. Only I knew what happened.”
Kairos continued looking forth, but his eyes widened slightly.
“Huh. So things like the supernatural existed a long time ago?”
Nyoka shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah. I don’t know exactly, but from what I’ve gathered strange things probably always existed. At least for thousands of years.”
Kairos cracked his neck.
“I wonder how I just missed it all.”
Nyoka chuckled.
“That’s because the less freaky stuff can be explained as a trick of the eye. As for the real scary things, you only know about them if they show themselves. And if they do decide to show themselves… you’re usually dead, with nobody knowing why. In fact, people may forget about your existence altogether.”
Hearing that, Kairos couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. He actually did feel a little special because of his future vision when he was living out his normal life. Yet it would turn out he was actually just a frog at the bottom of the well.
Nyoka shook his head.
“Anyway… what I decided to do after seeing him die was perhaps not the right decision.”
The corner of his lip twitched.
“I decided to treat her really awfully. If we both had to agree on one person to kill, then it would only work if one hated the other enough. It wasn’t something that could be done in just one fight, but over two years… I was confident in ruining our relationship.”
Nyoka let out a soft sigh.
“It was pretty hard at first, but I committed to doing it. She got really angry at me, especially considering that her only parent died at the time. I imagine she really needed someone to comfort her. But despite all of that, not once did she snap back, taking her anger out on me.”
A small smile formed on his face, but it didn’t look happy in any way.
“This made me panic a little bit. Even after months, it didn’t seem to be making any progress. I gradually got more desperate and did more… drastic things. I was honestly losing myself a little bit, and the amount of times I took things too far are uncountable. Especially for the things I said.”
Nyoka pressed his lips together.
“And by the end of the year, she snapped. And in the end, we were both yelling at each other, in a complete mess. It was both relieving and… uncomfortable. There was a part of me that considered pulling back, but I figured that I already committed too much. We continued for the rest of the entire year hurling insults at each other. It was just our daily routine.”
Kairos shot him a strange look.
“You guys met up with each other every day?”
Nyoka gave a small nod.
“…Yeah, why?”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“Nothing, continue.”
If the two of them really did continue meeting even after their relationship supposedly fell through, then that just wouldn’t make any sense. Though people would continue attacking one another out of their feeling of revenge, they would eventually come to realize it would be better to stop associating at all.
Nyoka cleared his throat and continued on.
“Eventually the day came, and I was able to trick her into picking me to die. Then, I naturally picked myself. But that thing didn’t tell the full story. He did kill my body, but he sent me down here, whatever this place is. The last thing I heard was her yelling at me. I couldn’t hear all of it, but she called me a bitch at some point. And… that’s it.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“That was pretty stupid of you. I mean… if one of you is going to die, most people would try to make the most out of the time they still have. Some would travel all over the world together. Others wouldn’t change too much, but just spend all their time together. Something like that is only what insane people do.”
Nyoka let out a soft laugh.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
A smile gradually formed on Kairos’ face.
“Though, I really can’t say that I would do anything different. Even if I knew that it was a stupid thing to do. Just like what you did.”
Nyoka slowly closed his eyes.
“Hahaha. Aren’t you just calling yourself stupid at any rate?”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“I never claimed to be a genius. Besides, just because you know what’s the most logical thing, smartest thing, efficient- whatever, doesn’t mean that you can do it.”
Nyoka looked up into the dark void of a sky.
“Makes you wonder why we can even think if we’re just gonna do some stupid shit.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I understand now what you mean.”
He sighed.
“That we’re the same kind of person.”