Chapter 22: Moonlit Confessions
Sleep wouldn’t come. The space between my cot and Tsubaki’s felt like a canyon, the signed externship form a boulder lodged in my chest. After several nights of staring at the ceiling, listening to her even breaths, I gave up. I pulled on my boots and a thick sweater, grabbed my sketchbook, and slipped into the silent, stone-ribbed hallways.
I found myself on the roof of the upper classroom gym, a place officially off-limits until next year’s externship privileges kicked in. The lock was broken. The night air was a slap of cold clarity. The sky was a breathtaking sprawl of stars, sharper and more numerous here than anywhere on Earth, punctuated by the slow, graceful arc of two shattered moons. The neon spill of the city below was a distant, muted bruise of color.
I sat with my back against a ventilation shaft, the obsidian still warm from the day’s phantom sun, and opened my sketchbook. I wasn’t thinking. My pencil just moved, tracing the elegant, terrifying line of a distant spire. Then the curve of a cloud. Then the familiar, comforting slope of a friend’s shoulder. I fell into the zone, the world narrowing to the whisper of graphite on paper.
I surfaced with a jolt, a disconnect so severe it felt like vertigo. One moment I was sketching a star pattern, the next I was blinking down at a completed image that had taken no time at all.
But it had.
The time on my academy phone read 02:23. I’d checked it at 01:55. Nearly thirty minutes lost.
My heart thudded against my ribs. I looked down.
I’d drawn Tsubaki.
It was her, unmistakably. She was wearing a dress, one I’d never seen, a simple slip of dark blue satin. She stood under the arched entrance of the Academy’s main building, the grand doors a blur behind her. In her hands, she held a piece of paper, clenched tight enough to wrinkle it. Her eyes, rendered with heartbreaking detail in blunt pencil, were brimming with tears that had just begun to spill over, tracing shiny paths down her cheeks. The expression was pure, gut-wrenching betrayal.
The Solstice Dance. It had to be. The background, her dress… it was in two weeks.
A cold more penetrating than the night air seeped into my bones. I slammed the sketchbook shut, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet. I couldn’t look at it. I planned on telling Tsubaki during the winter break. I had pushed it off and pushed it off, focusing on my studies and training over everything. My classes had gotten harder, Borros more strict, Ren more demanding. The future was a cliff I was sprinting toward, and I’d convinced myself I could deal with the jump when I got there.
The next days blurred into a feverish rhythm of drills, theory, and exhausted silence in the bunkroom. The Solstice Dance was only two days away. My application for Ren’s squad had been submitted and I was still waiting for a reply; a secret, fearful part of me suspected I’d get rejected, since most replies had already come for other classmates. Tsubaki had already gotten hers—formal acceptance into the Military Police Academy in the Eastern Territory. The letter was tucked neatly in her footlocker. She hadn’t mentioned it. I hadn’t asked.
The tension was a live wire strung between us, humming with everything unsaid.
“We’re breaking you out of this mausoleum,” Aria declared, appearing at the doorway of our barracks room. She was already in civilian clothes—tight jeans, a flowing top that did little to conceal her figure, her diamond sword thankfully absent. Behind her, Hannah Moreno grinned, her caramel hair perfectly styled, and Alex Cross slouched, her beanie pulled low over her eyes.
“Dress intervention,” Alex said, pointing two finger-guns at us. “Your depressing aura is killing the vibe of the entire wing. Fourth wall break: it’s making me depressed, and I’m basically a narrative device.”
Tsubaki looked up from polishing her boots, her face unreadable. “I don’t know.”
“You’re coming,” Aria said, her tone leaving no room for argument. Her violet eyes softened when they landed on me. “Both of you. Hannah and Alex don’t normally attend these things, but they insisted this year.”
Hannah nodded, twisting a strand of hair. “Xenon mentioned he might make an appearance. So.” She shrugged, as if that explained everything.
Alex rolled her eyes. “She’s been like this for a week. It’s nauseating.”
And so, we went. The nearest town, Twilight Hollow, was a chaotic clash of the ancient and the artificial, market stalls selling glowing charms next to vendors selling synth-burgers. The dress shop was a cramped, cozy place smelling of velvet and ozone.
The others dove into the racks with laughter. I hung back, watching Tsubaki. She moved with a quiet purpose, her fingers brushing over fabrics until they stopped on one. She pulled it out.
My breath caught.
It was a simple slip of dark blue satin.
Exactly like the dress in my drawing.
A coincidence. It had to be. It was a common style. But the chill from the rooftop was back, icing my spine. I said nothing as she held it up against herself, looking at her reflection in the tarnished mirror with a face I couldn’t decipher.
“That’s the one,” Aria said softly, coming to stand beside me. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, my throat tight.
Aria’s hand found my shoulder and gave a gentle, knowing squeeze. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but it felt like an anchor pulling me down.
Later, arms laden with bags, Aria steered us away from the Academy gates. “One more stop. Tradition.”
We ended up at the entrance to the research annex, a sleek, sterile building that clashed with the Academy’s gothic architecture. Aria typed a code into a keypad, and the door hissed open. “Mark! We’re hijacking your lab!”
Dr. Mark Kieran’s head popped up from behind a bank of glowing holographic screens. He was tall, tousled dirty-blonde hair, wearing a lab coat over a fitted shirt. His eyes, a bright blue, widened comically as he took in the crowd of women invading his space. His gaze did a quick, appreciative sweep over Aria, then Hannah, then Alex, before landing on Tsubaki and me.
“Aria, you didn’t tell me you were bringing a… delegation,” he said, a slow, rakish smile spreading across his face. He leaned against his console. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Need something measured? Analyzed? Personally calibrated—”
Whap. Aria smacked the back of his head without even looking, her other hand already pulling bowls and a dented metal mixing spoon from a cupboard he clearly didn’t use.
“We’re baking cookies, you degenerate,” she said fondly. “Your lab has the only oven on this side of campus that doesn’t taste like demon ash.”
“Ah, the annual pre-Solstice sugar and guilt ritual,” Mark said, rubbing his head but still smiling. He winked at Hannah, who blushed, and then nodded at Alex. “Make yourself at home. Just don’t touch anything that glows or whispers. Or both.”
The lab transformed. Holographic schematics of shadow-demons were minimized to make room for bags of flour and sugar smuggled from the kitchens. Alex found a stash of sterile beakers and declared them perfect for milk. Hannah took charge of the butter, creaming it with a focus usually reserved for archery. Tsubaki measured flour, her movements precise, her silence a dense cloud amidst the chatter.
Mark hovered, making terrible, lewd jokes about “activating yeasts” and “thermal reactions” that made Aria threaten him with her diamond sword, which she’d inexplicably produced from a shadow near the door. He just laughed, a warm, easy sound, and helped me line baking sheets with parchment he muttered was “rated for temperatures exceeding celestial forge levels.”
For a while, the tension melted. Flour dusted the air like snow. Alex drew a frowny face on one of Mark’s active monitor screens with her floury finger. Hannah giggled as she accidentally showered herself with cocoa powder. Aria supervised, a small, genuine smile on her lips as she watched us.
I watched Tsubaki. She was smiling too, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She caught me looking and held my gaze for a second. In that moment, I saw the girl from the rooftop drawing—the one holding the paper, the one with tears in her eyes. It was all there, just beneath the surface.
Then she looked away, and the moment shattered. The first batch of cookies went into Mark’s hyper-advanced oven. The warm, buttery smell began to fill the lab, battling the scents of ozone and metal. We were making a mess, a beautiful, temporary mess, and for a few more minutes, I could almost believe that everything between us could be as simple as sugar and flour, and not the complicated, painful future I had drawn with my own hands.
The smell of burnt sugar eventually drove us out, cookies in hand, the sweetness clinging to us like a feeble shield against the coming days. Mark waved us off with a smirk, his lab left in a state of cheerful disarray that I knew he’d complain about later with a hidden grin. The walk back to the barracks was filled with Alex’s terrible jokes about sentient ovens, but the silence between Tsubaki and me had returned, dense and unyielding.
Time, which had vanished on the rooftop, now dragged its heels until the night of the Solstice Dance arrived with the subtlety of a hammer blow. Standing before the small mirror in our barracks room, I barely recognized the reflection staring back. The sleeveless red dress was a statement I hadn’t known I was making. It draped over one shoulder, the bodice hugging every new curve muscle and training had carved into me. The fabric was a textured cascade of wrinkles and crushed sequins that bunched at the seam, splitting just above my hip to reveal a slash of sheer black tights all the way down to my black heels. The back dipped low, and the front did the same, the cut of the cleavage both daring and strangely natural.
I looked… not like myself. I looked like a woman. The girl from the foster system, the scrawny recruit, was gone. This body was a Protector’s body. This dress felt like armor of a different kind.
The door creaked open behind me. Liylah, the new recruit who’d taken Aria’s old bunk, stopped dead in the doorway. Her eyes, always wide with a permanent state of fear, went even wider. “Arisa,” she breathed, a hand flying to her mouth. “You look… wow. I mean, beautiful. Just… really beautiful.”
A flush of warmth crawled up my neck. “Thanks,” I managed, my voice awkward in the quiet room.
Before I could say more, Tsubaki entered. She was a vision in the simple blue satin from the market, the exact dress from my sketch. It flowed around her legs like water, catching the low light. Her face was carefully composed, a mask of pleasant neutrality that hurt more than any frown. She looked at me, and for a second, her mask slipped. Something raw flashed in her brown eyes—surprise, maybe a flicker of envy, quickly smothered.
“You ready?” she asked, her tone perfectly even.
“Yeah,” I said, the word feeling too small.
The three of us walked to the Grand Hall in a silence that grew heavier with every step. The sound of music and laughter spilled out into the night long before we reached the sweeping obsidian stairs leading to the entrance. Glow-lanterns floated in the air, casting shifting patterns over the crowds of students and squad members in formal wear. We were nearly at the top when a shadow detached itself from a pillar.
Xenon leaned there, resplendent in a black uniform tailored to perfection, his silver hair with its red tips catching the light. His gaze landed on me and traveled down, then back up, with a slow, deliberate hunger that should have made my skin crawl. Instead, a sharp, foreign sense of power threaded through my veins. The look in his eyes wasn’t just desire; it was a acknowledgment of a weapon he wanted to wield. In that moment, I felt I could make him crawl, and the feeling was intoxicating.
“Well, don’t you three clean up nice,” he said, his voice a smooth purr. He pushed off the pillar and closed the distance, his hand settling possessively on the bare small of my back. The touch was warm, confident. “Allow me to escort the fairest of the evening inside.”
He guided us into the roar of the dance. The hall was a swirling mix of uniforms, dresses, and the low thrum of a bass that vibrated in my teeth. Aria, Hannah, and Alex found us almost instantly, a burst of color and sound. Aria gave my shoulder an approving squeeze; Hannah’s eyes darted between me and Xenon with a complex mix of admiration and jealousy. Alex just whistled.
“Red’s your color, Kashikoi,” she yelled over the music. “You look like you’re about to start a war or end one.”
The dancing began. It was a chaotic, joyful blur. Ren found me amid the crowd, his usual leathers replaced by a dark, simple suit that made him look strangely vulnerable. He took my hand, his grip firm.
“You look…” he began, his eyes scanning my face, then flickering down once before returning to meet my gaze. “Different.”
“Good different?” I asked, the music forcing me to lean in.
“Effective,” he said, after a pause that felt too long. He led me through a formal dance, his movements precise and leading. There was a distance in him, a wall I couldn’t breach even with my hand in his. When the song ended, he gave a curt nod. “Don’t drink too much. Borros will still expect you functional at dawn.”
Then Xenon was there, his hand replacing Ren’s. “My turn,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. His dancing was nothing like Ren’s. It was closer, his body a deliberate provocation against mine, his gaze locked on mine with an intensity that felt like a challenge. I met it, that strange power still humming under my skin.
“You’re enjoying this,” he observed, his breath warm against my ear.
“The dance?”
“The effect,” he corrected, spinning me out and then pulling me back in, closer than before. “The power. I can see it in you. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I just let the music move us, let his words coil around my thoughts. Across the room, I saw Tsubaki dancing with a cadet from her tactical class. She was laughing, but the sound didn’t reach her eyes. She looked like my drawing, a beautiful, hollow figurine.
When Xenon finally released me, I made my way toward her. The crowd seemed to part, the music fading into a dull throb in my ears. I tapped her shoulder. “Can we talk? Outside?”
Her smile solidified into something brittle. She nodded, not speaking, and followed me as I weaved through the bodies, out a side archway, onto the wide, empty steps beneath the star-strewn sky. The cold air was a shock after the hall’s heat.
“Tsuba, what’s going on?” I asked, turning to face her. “You’ve been… you’re a thousand miles away.”
She stared at me, the pleasant mask finally shattering. Hurt and raw anger etched new lines onto her face. “Don’t,” she said, her voice trembling. “Just don’t, Arisa.”
“Don’t what? I just want to know what’s wrong!”
“You want to know?” she laughed, a short, bitter sound. She reached into a small, beaded clutch I hadn’t noticed she was carrying. Her hand emerged clutching a folded piece of crisp, official paper. She thrust it at my chest. “I found this. In the common room. After you ‘forgot’ it.”
My heart stopped. The world narrowed to that paper. It was my acceptance letter. To Ren’s Protector squad. Dated and signed a week ago.
“You lied to me,” she whispered, the words carrying more force than a scream. “You looked me in the eye every single day and let me talk about our plans, about the Military Police Academy, about our future. And you had this.”
“Tsubaki, I was going to tell you—”
“When?” she cut in, her voice rising. “When were you going to tell me you’d chosen him? Chosen them? Over us?”
“It’s not about choosing him over you!” The words tumbled out, desperate and clumsy. “I can’t do the Military Police, Tsuba. I can’t be a bureaucrat with a gun. It’s not who I am. This training, the squad… it’s where I fit.”
“Where you fit?” she echoed, the betrayal in her eyes hardening into something colder, sharper. “Or where you get to be the special one? The one with all the secret potential? You’ve always been like this, Arisa. Even back home. Everything had to be about your mystery, your differences. I just never thought you’d use it to leave me behind.”
The accusation was a physical blow. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” She took a step back, clutching the letter like a knife. “You drew your little picture of your new, powerful future and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me I wasn’t in it. You just let me stand there, smiling like an idiot, while you made your plans.”
“It’s not a picture, it’s my life!” I shouted, the frustration and guilt erupting. “I’m not doing this to hurt you!”
“Aren’t you?” She looked at me then, really looked at me in the red dress, standing on the steps of the grand hall where she now felt like a stranger. “You know what you are? You’re a selfish manipulator. You use your sadness, your past, your otherness, to make people feel sorry for you so you can get what you want. And what you wanted was to walk away from the only person who ever truly loved you.”
She didn’t scream it. She said it with a calm, devastating clarity that lacerated every memory we’d ever made. Then she turned, the blue satin of her dress swirling like a storm cloud, and walked down the steps without a backward glance.
The strength left my legs. The world tipped sideways. I collapsed onto the cold obsidian stairs, the rough stone scraping through my sheer tights. The music from the hall was a mocking, distant thump. Her words echoed, each one a nail driven deeper. Selfish manipulator. I folded in on myself, the red dress suddenly feeling like a garish costume, the sequins scratching my skin.
I didn’t hear his approach, only sensed a presence. Then a warmth settled beside me. Xenon’s red jacket appeared in my blurring peripheral vision. He didn’t speak. He simply sat there, a solid, silent weight against my crumbling world. After a moment, his arm came around my shoulders, pulling me gently against him. He smelled of expensive cologne and cold night air.
“I saw,” he said softly, his voice devoid of its usual mocking charm. “That looked… painful.”
A broken sound escaped my throat, something between a sob and a gasp. I didn’t have the will to pull away. His hand rubbed my bare arm, his touch impersonal yet strangely anchoring in the void of my despair.
“She doesn’t understand what you are,” he murmured, his lips near my hair. “What you’re meant to be. They rarely do. It’s a lonely path, Arisa. But you don’t have to walk it alone.”
I let myself lean into him, the last of my resistance dissolving into the hollowed-out space Tsubaki’s words had carved inside me. The stars above swam through a veil of tears, cold and distant, as the music from the dance hall played on without us.