Waking up, this time, wasn't an act of resistance against gravity and existence.
Waking up was opening my eyes and finding hers, already open, looking at me with an intensity that should have frightened me but, instead, made me smile like an idiot.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Rory whispered, curled up in the same spot where she had fallen asleep hours before, her head resting on my chest, her tiny hands tangled in my t-shirt.
"How long have you been awake?"
"About three hours."
"Three hours? And you didn't do anything?"
"I was watching you." She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"It's fascinating, you know? Mortals, when they sleep, are still alive. They move. They dream. Their eyes move behind their eyelids. They make weird noises."
"Do I make weird noises?"
"You snore. A little. It's adorable."
My hand, almost instinctively, found its way to her hair. Her black hair tangled around my fingers as she closed her eyes, enjoying the contact like a cat finding a ray of sunshine.
"Aren't you tired? You slept less than I did."
"I'm a goddess. Sleep is optional." She opened one eye.
"But with you, I think I'm starting to understand why mortals value it so much. It's not just rest. It's... being together, trusting the other, isn't it?"
I didn't know how to answer that. So I just kept stroking her hair.
......
We spent the morning like that. Well, part of the morning. At some point, my stomach decided it had had enough of the romantic moment and roared with the intensity of a hungry animal.
Rory laughed. That sound. That fucking sound. Ten years hearing it in my imagination, and now it was real, now it vibrated in the air between us.
"Looks like someone needs breakfast."
"Looks like it."
She jumped off the bed with the agility she'd shown the night before, landing on the floor without making the slightest sound. Her gothic dress swirled around her, and for a moment, under the dim light of the galaxy lamp still projecting stars on the ceiling, she looked like an apparition. A dream. Something that shouldn't be possible.
But then she walked towards the door, stopped, and looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Are you coming, or do you plan on staying there all day?"
......
Rory insisted on "helping" make breakfast, which meant she spent twenty minutes standing on the kitchen counter, watching me prepare the ingredients, making comments that contributed little about how I was cooking.
"Is that bread?" she asked, pointing at the slices with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
"Yeah. Sliced bread. The basic, cheap kind."
"It looks... fluffy."
"Yeah, it is."
She leaned forward, as if examining bread from different angles would reveal cosmic secrets.
"On Olympus, the nymphs made the bread. They'd knead for hours, sing hymns, and the bread would come out golden and crispy. Sometimes in animal shapes, for the banquets."
"And what did you prefer? Animal bread or regular bread?"
"Bread with honey. Always bread with honey."
"Bread with honey....."
"......."
"I'll try to get some for next time."
I smiled while spreading mayonnaise on one of the slices. Rory's eyes followed the movement of the spatula with fascination.
"What's that?"
"Mayonnaise."
"Mayonnaise?"
"Yeah. It's... It's an emulsion of egg and oil. With a touch of lemon."
"Emulsion."
"Do you even know what that word means?"
"Rory, please, I'm a writer."
"......."
"Actually, no, I thought it sounded cool and fancy for a goddess. Something like a substitute for 'panacea.' And it's made of egg and oil."
"Mortals are so weird."
"Says the goddess who eats bread with honey."
"Honey is divine!" she protested, offended.
"Literally. The gods used it as an offering because it was so hard to get, especially something sweet back then."
"Well, mayonnaise is my personal offering to the god of sandwiches."
Rory squinted, evaluating me.
"Are you making fun of me?"
"A little."
"Heh, heh, heh."
"I like it."
I placed the slices of ham and cheese on the bread carefully, almost ceremoniously. Rory watched every move as if witnessing a sacred ritual.
"And that?"
"Ham and cheese. The classics."
"The classics?"
"Yeah. Ham and cheese is the basic sandwich. The one that never fails. The one that's always there when you don't know what else to do."
"Like me," Rory said, with a smile that disarmed me.
"I'm here when you don't know what else to do."
I looked at her. Her expression was mischievous, but her eyes shone with something deeper.
"You're not a basic sandwich, Rory."
"I know. I'm much smaller."
"And annoying."
"Cesar."
"Yeah?"
"Shut up and finish breakfast."
I smiled and closed the sandwich with the second slice. Then I cut it into two perfect triangles, because that's how it's done, because there's an order in the universe and that order demands that sandwiches be cut into triangles.
"Why did you cut it like that?" Rory asked, tilting her head.
"Because triangles taste better."
"Is that scientific?"
"It's cultural. But also personal preference. Something about the edges and the flavor distribution."
"Mortals are so weird," she repeated, but this time with a smile.
I served the sandwich on a normal plate for me, and a tiny piece—barely a bite—on the lid of a Tupperware container for her. I accompanied it with a glass of milk and, for Rory, a few drops in a bottle cap that served as a tiny cup.
"Are we going to eat together?" she asked, with hope and shyness.
"Yeah, Rory. We're going to eat together."
The smile she gave me was worth all the lonely breakfasts of the last ten years.
We ate in my room, like always. But not like always. Her sitting on my desk, me in my chair, both watching the same YouTube video on my monitor. A stupid video of someone building a miniature house. Rory was fascinated.
"Can I have a house like that?"
"A miniature house?"
"A real house. For us." She pointed at the screen.
"But bigger. Obviously."
"Rory, that costs money. And I don't..."
"I know." Her voice softened.
"I know, Cesar. I was just... dreaming."
We kept watching the video in silence. At some point, without me noticing, she had finished her breakfast and moved to the edge of the desk, right next to my arm. Her tiny hand found mine.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For this. For everything. For existing. For letting me be near you, for answering my feelings."
I wanted to answer, but the words got stuck in my throat. So I just turned my hand and wrapped hers with my fingers, careful not to squeeze too hard. She smiled.
......
The afternoon arrived without warning.
Rory had spent hours exploring my room with the curiosity of a child in a museum. Each figure on the shelves received her attention, her comments, her judgments.
"This one is new. I hadn't seen it before." She pointed to a warrior in silver armor.
"I bought it last month. It reminded me of you."
"......"
"It reminded you of me?"
"It has a sword. And a mean look."
"I'm flattered."
But when she got to Tamamo, the newly arrived figure with her orange kimono and shy expression, Rory stopped. She observed her in silence for a long time.
"She's going to wake up too, isn't she?"
The question hit me with the force of a train.
"I... I don't know. I don't know how it happened with you. I don't know if..."
"You don't know." Rory nodded, as if accepting something. Then she turned to me, and her expression was hard to read.
"Do you love her?"
"Rory..."
"It's a simple question, Cesar. Do you love her? Like you love me?"
Silence stretched between us. I could have lied. I could have said no, that she was special, that the other figures didn't mean the same thing. But Rory had listened to me for ten years. Rory knew every night I'd spent talking about Tamamo, about her sacrifice, about my desire to save her.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Yes, I love her."
I expected pain in her eyes. I expected jealousy, or sadness, or disappointment. Instead, I found a smile. Small, but real.
"Good," she said.
"Good?"
"Yeah. Good." —She jumped off the shelf and landed on my shoulder with feline agility.
"Now, can we go out? I've been cooped up all morning and I want to see more of your world."
"Go out? Where?"
"Wherever. The city. The streets. That big place with lights we passed yesterday."She snuggled against my neck.
"I want to see it all, Cesar. And I want to see you in it."
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Her expression was lively, almost expectant. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the conversation about Tamamo had left something pending. Something neither of us wanted to address.
"Okay," I said.
"Let's go out."
"Really?"
"Yeah. But you have to go in the backpack. And you can't peek out when there are a lot of people."
"I can control myself."
"You can try?"
She looked at me with feigned indignation, but her smile was genuine.
......
Getting the backpack ready was quite the process. Rory inspected every compartment, every pocket, every zipper, as if she were choosing her new official residence.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"This is the spot," she declared finally, pointing to the front pocket, just under the zipper.
"Here I can see without being seen. And if I need to hide quickly, I just duck my head."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm a goddess of war. Assessing terrain is part of my training."
"This is a backpack, not four blocks of terrain."
"Terrain is terrain, Cesar."
I helped her get settled. Her tiny body fit perfectly in the pocket, her head right at the level of the opening. From the outside, it looked like I was carrying a strange ornament, but nothing that would draw too much attention.
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
"Let's go."
......
The city was a completely different spectacle seen through Rory's eyes.
Every traffic light was a mystery. Every shop window, an art gallery. Every person who passed by, an exotic creature worthy of study.
"Why is that man wearing such a serious suit?" she'd whisper from the backpack.
"He's going to work."
"And why is that woman pushing a cart with a baby inside?"
"It's a stroller. For transporting babies."
"And the baby doesn't complain?"
"Sometimes they do."
"Probably not as much as a tiny goddess in a backpack."
"Humans are so noisy."
"......"
"Wait, what was that last thing you said?!"
We walked aimlessly for a while. Rory commented on everything, and I couldn't stop smiling. It was absurd. It was wonderful.
At one point, we passed a shop selling small items: costume jewelry, accessories, things like that. Rory suddenly fell silent.
"Cesar," she said, in a tone I now knew all too well.
"Yeah?"
"Stop."
I stopped.
"Look at that."
She pointed with her tiny finger at the display window. Among necklaces and bracelets, there was a small section of hair clips. Some were simple, others more elaborate. But Rory was pointing at a specific one: a clip with a colorful butterfly, small and delicate.
"Do you like it?"
"It's pretty."
"Do you want me to buy it for you?"
"I don't know if... I mean, it's for humans. For normal-sized humans. Surely if I used it, it would cover all my hair. But..."
"But you like it."
"Yes."
I went in. The saleswoman barely glanced at me. She was quite strange, a girl with light cyan hair and rabbit ears—not something you see every day. She had an extremely attractive body, too much so, but I could see on her face the rejection she felt at seeing a man in a primarily women's store. Probably judging me, degenerate, that's what must have been running through her head. I bought the clip, it cost next to nothing, and I got out of there as fast as I could.
When I got out, I handed it to Rory through the backpack opening. She held it in her hands like it was a treasure.
"Will you put it on for me?" she asked, with unusual shyness.
Carefully, almost reverently, I took the clip and placed it in her hair, fastening her straight black hair on one side. The butterfly seemed made for her.
"How do I look?"
"Beautiful," I said, and it was true.
"Also pretty big-headed; definitely not made for your size."
"Idiot!"
We kept walking. In another shop, I found a small toiletry bag that could serve as a purse for her. At a street stall, I bought a mini donut that she devoured in three bites, her eyes closed in pleasure.
The city, seen through Rory's eyes, was a completely different place.
She was in my backpack, her head peeking out of the opening just enough to see, commenting on everything that happened.
"That building is very tall."
"It's a skyscraper."
"And why do they call it that?"
"Because... I don't know. Because it scrapes the sky, I guess."
"It doesn't scrape anything. The sky is much higher up."
"It's a metaphor."
"Mortals and their metaphors."
"The goddess and her logic."
We walked through the park, and Rory fell silent as she watched children running around, families sitting on the grass, couples strolling hand in hand.
"This is... nice," she said finally.
"Nice?"
"In my times, when I walked among mortals, there was always tension. Fear. War. Here people... smile. Play. Rest."
"That happens when there's not a goddess of war nearby."
"Very funny." She said sarcastically while smiling.
"I like it. Your world. Your time. I like it."
"I'm glad."
"Cesar."
"Yeah?"
"Can we come here more often? To places like this. With people. With life."
"Don't you get bored?"
"With you? No."
......
On the way back home, we made one more stop: the supermarket.
"I want to see it," Rory said, poking her head out of the backpack opening with more audacity than she should have.
"I've heard about supermarkets in your monologues. I want to see one with my own eyes."
"With your own tiny eyes?"
"My eyes are perfectly proportioned for my anime figure body, thank you very much."
"Although maybe for a realistic human head my are massive big...."
We went in. On a Sunday afternoon, the supermarket was a controlled chaos of families doing their weekly shopping, kids running through the aisles, shopping carts crossing paths without looking.
But Rory didn't see the chaos. She saw wonder.
"Look at that. The mountains of cans. Why are there so many?"
"Because people buy canned food."
"And that? Those shiny boxes. What are they?"
"Cereal. For breakfast."
"And that? It looks like a waterfall of colors."
"Candies. Sweets."
Each aisle was a new world for her. The fruit section left her speechless (could so many colors exist in one place?). The frozen section fascinated her (food that lives in ice?). The cleaning aisle confused her (why so many different products if they all smell like chemicals?).
I bought a few things. Bread, honey, milk, eggs, vegetables. Basic stuff. And yes, also a frozen pizza, although Rory rolled her eyes when she saw it.
"Again?"
"It's classic."
"It's boring."
"It's affordable."
"It's..." She sighed theatrically.
"Fine. But next time we'll buy something different."
"Next time?"
She looked at me from the backpack, one eyebrow raised.
"Cesar. We're going to do this a lot. Go out. Explore. Buy things." She adjusted the clip in her hair with an unconscious gesture.
"Get used to it."
I didn't know what to say. But as I walked towards the checkout, I felt something expanding in my chest. Something warm. Something I hadn't felt in a very, very long time.
Hope, perhaps. Or simply the certainty that Monday, for the first time in years, wouldn't be a day to fear and hate. Maybe for the first time in my life, looking forward to the next day with hope instead of dreading it.
Monday arrived with its usual sound: the alarm clock.
But this time, when my hand fumbled for the phone to silence it, I found something else. A tiny hand already there, pressing the button.
"I already turned it off," Rory's voice said, thick with sleep.
"Thanks," I murmured.
"Mmm."
A moment of silence. Then:
"Cesar."
"Yeah?"
"What day is it today?"
"Monday."
"Monday... is that university day?"
"Yeah."
More silence. Too much silence. I opened one eye. Rory was sitting on my chest, looking at me with an expression I was starting to know dangerously well.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"But you were going to."
"I was going to say," she said slowly, savoring the words as they left her mouth.
"That today I want to go to university with you."
"No."
"No?"
"No, Rory."
"Why not?"
I sat up in bed, careful not to knock her off. She slid down my chest until she was in my lap, arms crossed, expression defiant.
"Because university isn't like the park. There are people. Lots of people. In classes, in the hallways, everywhere. And you..."
"What about me?"
"You're... how to put it... tiny. And you shine. And you move. And you talk. And people would notice all that."
"But if I go in the backpack..."
"I can't have you in the backpack for hours, Rory. I have classes. I have to move around. And if you peek out at the wrong moment..."
"Cesar."
"...if someone sees you, if someone asks, if someone—"
"Cesar."
"...I don't know what I'd do, I couldn't explain it, and if they take you away, if they..."
"Cesar!"
I fell silent.
Rory was looking at me with a serious expression, but not angry. Patient. The patience of a thousand years.
"You're scared?" she said.
"Of course I'm scared."
"Of them losing me? Taking me away?"
"Of me losing you."
The word hung in the air between us.
Rory took a deep breath.
"No," I said for the tenth time, as Rory adjusted her position in my backpack with the determination of a general planning an invasion.
"Cesar."
"You're not coming to university."
"Cesar."
She crossed her arms from the front pocket, where she had already settled in without permission.
"We've been arguing for ten minutes. We could have arrived by now."
I sighed. She smiled.
The bus was more crowded than usual, and I had to stand holding onto a pole, with the backpack pressed against my chest to protect Rory from the jostling. Behind me, a group of girls from my university were talking animatedly, with that intensity that only conversations about things that shouldn't be exciting but are, possess. "Did you see last night? On the news," one said, and the others nodded seriously. "Another attack. In the southern district." "They say there have already been five people disappeared this week," another added, lowering her voice. "The police aren't releasing anything, but my mom works at the hospital and she says the bodies they find are... weird, you know? Like something drained them from the inside." I felt a tiny movement in my backpack. Rory had tensed. But before I could react, the bus braked at the next stop and the girls changed the subject with that ease with which we leave behind news that doesn't directly affect us.
After classes ended, while walking towards the exit, a hand landed on my shoulder. I turned around and there was Luna, impeccable as always, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Cesar, just the person I wanted to see. Got a minute?"
"I wanted to talk to you about a new project, a new job."
"Looks like my book is being well received. Sales haven't been explosive, but they're steady and growing little by little."
"The publisher sent me an email saying they'd be thrilled to publish my next book."
"They want you to write another book!? Isn't that a bit rushed?"
"Well, that's what I thought too, but they seem to have full confidence in me to support me."
"It's a relief really, this way I can follow my passion without my parents seeing it as a waste of time."
"They're so strict... you wouldn't understand."
Actually, I kind of did know how it was. That damn phrase "You like this thing, so you're good at this same thing, where are the profits? Because if you like something, it should make you money, right?" If I could change what I like for money, I wouldn't be here wasting time, but there's no point in wasting time on nonsense.
"And what are you thinking of writing this time? Another thesis about space and waves? Another essay on business techniques?"
"Umm, not really, this time I want to write something completely different."
"This time I think I'll take a bit more of a risk and write a novel."
"A novel? Seriously?"
"Yeah, I want to write a novel this time. I'm really tired of serious stuff."
"I want to write fantasy this time!"
"And what kind of fantasy are you thinking of writing?"
"I'm still thinking about the details, so nothing is fixed yet."
"I was thinking something like a girl starting at a new school, and then on the first day of classes, by pure luck, she realizes that the most handsome guy has something to hide from everyone else."
"He's a super strong and manly werewolf who's super romantic but has to hide that personality from others."
"........" "That sounds, overwhelmingly generic," I said doubtfully.
"If you're going to write fantasy, you should do it... more colorfully."
"I mean, you can write whatever you want, but if it's fantasy, why limit yourself to something so mundane?"
"If you take away the werewolf part, it's really just another normal romance story."
Luna raised an eyebrow, her wounded pride almost visible, like a cloak of hot air around her.
"Oh, and what do we have here, a connoisseur, I imagine?"
"Are you going to tell me now that you also write in your free time?"
Shit.
My backpack vibrated slightly. Rory was laughing. I could feel it.
"Well, something like that, that's why I edit texts after all, you know?"
"Oh, seriously!? You write too!?"
"What's your favorite genre?"
"Favorite? I don't have a defined one as such."
"I like Sci-fi especially, but I also don't like it to be just science fiction, also add a bit of magic, different beings, spaceships and magic is more fun."
"But I also like action, I've read and watched a ton of action movies."
"I've often played war video games just to understand how weapons work or feel the stress of combat, see how a soldier would think in such a heavy situation, how I would react, and add it to my novel."
"Oh! Seriously!? You write too!?"
"Can I read your novel!?"
My heart stopped.
In my backpack, Rory went completely still. I could feel her tension through the fabric, her tiny hand pressing against my back as if wanting to hold me, steady me, protect me.
Say yes, I imagined her whispering. Say yes, Cesar. Show her what you've created. Don't be afraid.
But my mind was already a whirlwind.
Oh shit... I just made a gigantic mistake. By getting carried away for a moment, I revealed more than I should have. Now she knows my novel exists, this is a serious problem. What am I going to tell her, that my protagonist coincidentally has the same name as me? that within the story my protagonist turns into an attractive woman? that there's a whole episode of Tamamo comforting the protagonist about a curiously specific problem? No, I can't, she'll laugh at me, she'll throw my few readers in my face, she'll treat me like a newbie because she already has published books, I've been working on my novel when she was still in middle school. Her last essay only has 20 chapters, my novel has over 300 chapters, a million words, that's more than she'll ever write in her life.
But it didn't matter. Because she was Luna. And I was Cesar. And that's how the world worked.
Quick, I have to change the subject, I have to avoid this topic, I have to escape from here.
"Uh..." I started to say, looking for an excuse.
"Actually..."
A tiny movement in my backpack. Very small. Almost imperceptible.
But I felt it.
Rory had shifted position. Nothing more. But somehow, I knew what it meant. It was her way of saying "I'm here. I'm listening. Whatever you do, I'm here."
I swallowed hard.
But it wasn't enough. The fear was bigger.
"My novel," I said, and my voice sounded hollow, robotic
"isn't... it's not anything special. I just write for myself, nothing serious. I don't think you'd be interested."
The disappointment on Luna's face was brief, almost imperceptible. But I saw it.
"Oh," she said, quickly recovering her composure.
"Well, if you ever change your mind, I'd love to read it. It's always good to see the work of other writers."
I nodded, my head heavy as lead.
And then, as if the universe had decided to take pity on me, the bell rang announcing the start of the next class.
"I have to go," I said, standing up so fast the chair screeched against the floor.
"See you later, Luna."
And I left the classroom without looking back.
I walked down the hall at a fast pace, almost fleeing. My heart was pounding. My mind was a chaos of self-critical thoughts.
Idiot. Stupid. Why did you talk? Why did you get carried away? Always the same. Always tripping over the same stone.
I reached the bathroom—the men's, out of habit—and locked myself in a stall. I sat on the toilet lid, put my head in my hands, and took a deep breath.
The backpack moved. The zipper opened slowly, and a tiny head peeked out of the opening.
"Cesar?" she whispered.
"I'm fine," I lied.
She jumped agilely from the backpack to my shoulder, and from there to my lap. She sat cross-legged, her halberd resting against my thigh, and looked at me with those red eyes that saw everything.
"You're not fine," she said.
"No."
"Do you want me to go and kill her?"
"Rory."
"It's a legitimate question, as valid as any other."
"I don't want you to kill Luna. I just want..." —I sighed—.
"I don't know what I want, really. To be left alone, maybe?"
Rory leaned forward and placed her tiny hand on my cheek. Her touch was warm, comforting.
"I do know what you want," she said softly.
"You want someone to read your novel. You want someone to understand it. You want someone to see you through it."
"Rory..."
"But you're scared. Scared they won't like it. Scared they'll laugh. Scared they'll tell you it's worthless."
"Because I know you, Cesar. Because I've listened to you for ten years."
"Because I've been with you through every night of writing, every published chapter, every disappointment when you saw no one had commented." Her eyes shone.
"And because I have read your novel. All of it. And I didn't laugh. I didn't judge you. Quite the opposite."
"The opposite?"
"I fell in love with you." —She smiled—. "You think I'm here because I have nothing better to do? That's what TV is for."
"But I won't find your story there, not yet."
I stared at her. This tiny creature, this twelve-centimeter goddess, this figure that had come to life through love.
"Thank you, Rory."
"Don't thank me. Give me the next chapter of your novel."
"I've been waiting for weeks for you to add me as a character!"