Something Precious

           I don’t make a point to remember my dreams, since they tend to only confuse me more than I usually am by default. So I can’t say I quite remember the subject of my dream, only that I felt something crushing down on my gut. I heard a strange rattling sound, mutters fading in and out around me, and the occasional metallic screech. Everything shook, including the surface I lay on, but the weight pressing down on my stomach seemed constant. Time didn’t make any sense and it felt as if everything was looping, over and over and over...

           A sudden jolt shifted my body, and something thudded against the top of my head, snapping me out of my slumber. Above me hung a gray, curved ceiling, and as I peered up I saw what I had slid into. It was a partition that separated a door from the row of seats I was currently lying across. That instantly reminded me that I was on the subway, which explained the noises and movement from my dream. I could still feel that weight on my stomach though.

           It took only a glance down at my body to see a familiar boy seated smack in the middle of my abdomen. My brow crinkled, and as I spoke to catch his attention my voice came out more strained than I intended, despite him not weighing all that much.

           “Syke.”

           He had been staring blankly ahead, likely out one of the opposite windows, but his gaze immediately snapped over to me.

           “Hallo Nyoka!” He was as unsurprisingly chipper as always.

           “What up with sitting on me?” I glanced around briefly, noticing the car was oddly vacant. “It’s not like seating is limited.”

           Syke raised an eyebrow at me. “Was up mit schlafen im Zug?”

           “Point taken.” I lightly swatted at his back with one hand to coax him into standing so I could sit up, and he plopped back down next to me. “So what are you actually doing here?”

           The boy shrugged. “Well, Izaac sagt to find du. Nyoka take zu lang coming back from mail run.”

           My eyes darted away from him as I tried to remember what he was talking about. “Mail run…?” I did feel something weird in my pocket, and I pulled out a crumpled receipt from the Emdrean post office. “Oh yeah, that thing. I took care of it. Isaac doesn’t have to get all worked up just because I’m a little late coming back from an errand.”

           Syke tilted his head back and gave me an odd look. “Er sagt, dass vor einer Woche war.”

           I frowned. “What day is it?”

           He pointed at one of the digital screens above the subway doors, which indicated the date and time, and lo and behold, it was indeed one week since I left. That was quite the nap.

           “Wow, I’m an incomparable slob,” I sighed.

           With a shrug, Syke remarked, “Izaac’s Wortwahl war ‘hot mess.’”

           “Isaac thinks I’m hot regardless if I’m a mess or not.” A minute longer of staring at the screen showed that Emdrica was the next stop. “Were you planning on waking me when we stopped?”

           Syke sighed. “Zyke tried. Du schlafst wie ein Felsen.”

           “How long have you been sitting on me?”

           The boy paused to think. “Ich weiss nicht. Wir stoppte in Emdrica… fünfmal?”

           I would’ve held that awkward eye contact of utter disbelief with him for a solid hour if we hadn’t slowed to a halt at the Emdrica station about twenty minutes in. “I ought to take you out for ice cream then, if you’ve been seated on me for that long.”

           “Spitze!” Syke bounced to his feet as the subway door slid open, and I followed him out into the station.

           While I kept pace beside him, I noticed his head was a few inches higher than I last recalled. He stopped flouncing ahead for a moment as we reached the exit, and I lifted my arm as if to rest my elbow on his shoulder. Sure enough, his shoulder was higher than usual.

           “You hitting a growth spurt or something, kiddo?”

           Syke peered up at me. “Was?” He didn’t seem to notice my arm-rest measurement test and tugged me by the arm down toward the Emdrican plaza.

           As I followed, it did occur to me that his voice was slightly lower pitched than usual, although it was still pretty high considering how high his voice was before. Even that “Was?” had a small hitch to it. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me considering a few years had passed since the Enlightened fell, and he was thirteen at that point. It didn’t make it feel any less weird to see the kid growing up.

           Maybe I only felt that way because I hadn’t changed at all since then.

           Syke led me through the crowd toward the ice cream shop that was across the plaza from Emdrica Fly. We stopped here every once in a while despite the fact we could get free ice cream from Jack. This shop had one flavor that no other shop in the area had that Syke almost always wanted. I could never remember the name of it, but it was the flavor of a Transvanan fruit of some kind that Syke used to eat all the time when he lived there. He dragged me to the counter, and I stared blankly at the various flavors behind the glass as Syke ordered his usual double scoop cone of that flavor.

           I wondered if he noticed at all. It wasn’t likely, considering I’ve looked about the same since we’ve met. Everyone thinks that, so it’s not hard to imagine he wouldn’t pick up on it either. 

           “Nyoka, was willst du?”

           I glanced over at him, already rocking on his heels in anticipation while the person behind the counter prepared his ice cream cone.

           “Uh, same as you… single scoop though. Might as well try it finally, right?”

           His face lit up in that oh so familiar way. “Ja!” he beamed as he took the first cone from the worker and relayed my order as I absently pulled out a wallet from my pocket. The only reason I had it at all was Isaac pushing cash off on me to run his mail errands, and I had enough leftover to cover both cones.

           It occurred to me that Syke might never notice. He was never all that observant to begin with. In some aspects it might’ve been better this way, but was it selfish to not let him know? It would break his heart if he knew now though. Maybe it was best to hope he’d handle it better when he was older.

           I rested my elbow on Syke’s shoulder, although it felt weird being a few inches higher than normal, and I set the money on the counter before promptly shoving the wallet into my mouth.

           “Nyoka, du ruinst deine appetite für Eis.”

           It took a moment for me to swallow it before I responded. “Ruinst?” I glanced down at him, still offset by how much higher his eye level was than before. As he stuck his tongue out at me, I noticed his face was less round than I recalled. I probably wouldn’t have picked up on it if I wasn’t already searching for differences, and that impish smile and gleam in his eyes looked the same as always. “And I almost thought your grammar was improving.”

           He only responded with a little jitter of excitement as the second cone was handed off to him, and he immediately pushed it toward my face. If I hadn’t flinched back an inch or two, he probably would’ve coated my nose in ice cream. “Keine Zeit für grammar, isst!”

           I gingerly took the cone from him before he completely mashed it into my mouth. “Yeah yeah, essen wir….” I made to finally give this foreign flavor a first taste, but Syke took me by my free hand and immediately pulled me along to follow him. The slight momentum was enough to get a dollop of the mauve colored ice cream on my nose. I really don’t know why I even bother.

           Syke led me over to the store’s outdoor seating, and we plopped down at a table at the corner of the street, giving us a clear view of the plaza. He eagerly began devouring his ice cream at a rate that gave me indirect brain freeze. I don’t think I’d ever seen him get brain freeze, but that might’ve been because he was an Iyce rifter. I tackled my own cone with more caution and was surprised to find it startlingly different than I expected from its weird color. 

           “So, wie schmeckt’s?”

           I scrutinized the pale purple treat for a long moment while occasionally attempting to lick the small bit on my nose with marginal success. “Hm… I would only be able to describe it as similar to a combination of fruits native to Nanika, which would probably be equally foreign to you and ineffectual at clarifying the flavor to anyone.” I glanced over at him, noticing the area around his mouth was entirely purple and his double scoop was almost gone. “Soooo, I’d say it tastes like… good.”

           “So wie Gut?”

           “Yup, tastes just like good.”

           Syke snickered as he resumed eating what was left of his cone. I wiped the now melting blob off my nose with my sleeve before doing the same, watching him out of the corner of my eye. By the time I had gotten halfway through my scoop, he had finished the rest of his and munched through the cone so quickly I thought he had inhaled it.

           As I peered at him, now staring out at the countless people walking in all directions, I wondered if I should tell him. It was unlikely he would notice on his own, so there were few other options aside from laying it out for him. But watching him bounce in his chair with that usual energy as his bright eyes scanned over everything bustling before him in the city… I just felt like it would be wrong to bring it up. 

           To bring down his constant cheer. 

           That cheer that kept me going when I questioned if I should still be here.

           No, I couldn’t do that to him. Not now. It would have to be another time, when he could be better prepared for it.

           Syke hopped to his feet, standing on his toes as though looking at something on the other side of the plaza. My eyes drifted in that direction, which was where Emdrica Fly was. Maelstrom was sitting in her usual spot against the corner of the large building, that corner that was specifically redesigned for her to sit on so she could tower over everyone without killing her feet. She was looking down at the entrance of the building, and there I found Isaac craning his neck to meet her gaze. It was clear that Syke was staring at him. Now that I was focused on them, I could vaguely hear his oh so familiar screeching over the white noise of the crowd as he had to shout up at her.

           By the time their inaudible conversation ended and Isaac glanced down at the plaza I had started nibbling away at my cone. Syke strained to make himself as tall as he could while waving an arm at him, bouncing on his toes more and more the longer he went unnoticed.

           I sighed as I finally got to the bottom of the cone, leaving only a tiny bit left between my fingers. Syke had started waving both his arms over his head, but he quickly stopped and rolled back onto his heels when Isaac finally spotted him. The boy looked over his shoulder at me, his silly smile still coated in ice cream.

           I knew in my heart there would be no better time in the future to tell him. I would be waiting forever for a good opportunity to tell him because it didn’t matter how much he grew up. He would never be fully prepared. I meant too much to him.

           “Izaac ist gonna be über-grumpy at Nyoka, ja?”

           I popped the last bit of the cone into my mouth and muttered, “It’s his own fault for sending me on errands. Everyone knows how terrible I am about that kind of thing….” I paused to swallow. “...how terrible I am in general, rather.”

           Syke rolled his eyes with a giggle. “Nein. Nyoka ist beste.”

           I shook my head but couldn’t help chuckling as I got to my feet and stood next to him. I could see Isaac flouncing across the plaza to meet us. “If you say so.”

           Maybe for a bit longer, I could keep pretending nothing had changed. That I hadn’t changed. I meant so much to him that he never seemed to see all my glaring flaws. That goofy grin he always had to offer, even as I leaned over and wiped that mess off his face, reminded me it was worth hanging on. The truth would hurt, but he didn’t have to hurt now.

           Because he was too precious to me.