A Name and A Pendant

“Why are you so far away?” Voidborn asked.

“I’m embarrassed.”

Jimin sat about two arm-lengths to the side away from him. Both of them were in their onsen-attire, soaking in the lukewarm water.

Voidborn looked at Jimin, staring at how beautiful she looked even though she was covered in nothing but a white cotton towel wrapped around her body. The only exposed parts of her body were her smooth and milky legs, her dainty and slender arms, and her upper body from her gorgeous face all the way to the curve of her chest.

“Your emotions disagree,” Voidborn said, looking at the pink mist of affection around her heart, as well as the red flush flooding her cheeks.

“Are you staring at me right now?” Jimin asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Yes.”

“I feel exposed.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a smooth talker, you know~” Jimin giggled.

“I only speak the truth.”

Jimin looked at Voidborn, finally finding the opportunity to clearly look at him after all the chaos.

His muscles were toned in the right places. Scar marks were spread across his body. His face was expressionless as usual, but it was something that Jimin could not peel her eyes off.

“Are you staring at me right now?”

“Yes.”

“I feel exposed.”

“You’re manly.”

“Manly?”

Jimin nodded.

“I like it.”

She shifted her body and waded past the water, settling beside Voidborn.

“How are you feeling right now?”

“Feeling? About what?”

“You know, about this mission… about Chaewon… Joy… Yuri or whatever she’s called…”

Jimin bit her lips.

“About me…”

Voidborn turned to look at her.

“It’s worrying.”

He looked back down at the surface of the rippling water. Water vapour steaming out from the surface obstructed him from looking at his own reflection, but there was a lot on his mind.

“The mission has been quite smooth despite the things that have cropped up, and now we have an express ride to Kandar. That’s a good thing.”

Jimin nodded and tucked her legs towards her chest.

“As for Chaewon, she’s having a hard time, but I can see she’ll tough it out. Robert likes her.”

“But she’s pushing him away.”

“On the surface. Her colours tell me otherwise.”

“That’s nice. But Chaewon will be returning to Kandar with us anyway so I guess nothing will happen.”

“As for Joy, she’s really strong.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. She’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t she?”

“But I think you are more beautiful.”

Jimin scrunched her nose and grinned.

“You’ve said it multiple times already. It’s going to lose its effectiveness.”

“Then I shall stop.”

“No!”

“I thought so.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Bleh~” she blepped, then giggled.

“What about Yuri?” Jimin asked.

“That woman… she worries me,” Voidborn mumbled, frowning as he thought of the conversation he had with her. “I think she’s like both of us, a Diviner.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You remember me telling you I can see all emotional colours?”

Jimin nodded.

“I saw her manipulating the white colour in every single one of us. I think she made us respect and revere her.”

Jimin’s eyes widened in shock.

“N-No wonder I couldn’t generate any offensive thoughts towards her at all!”

Voidborn nodded.

“However, it didn’t work on me.”

“Hmm? Weren’t you being respectful to her as well?”

“I was acting.”

“No wonder you could attack her towards the end of the conversation.”

Jimin paused.

“Wait… why though?”

“I don’t know. It seemed to be due to the pendant that I got from your family’s vault.”

“Oh, that pendant you picked that was not for me?”

“…”

“I’m joking,” Jimin chuckled. “You’re so cute.”

“Yes, that pendant,” Voidborn said. “It seemed to block her from manipulating my emotions.”

“Hmmm… maybe it’s a Diviner artifact after all. My dad said it was the first Unknown graded artifact they found, but since it was only determined to have the weak effect of mind and soul invasion, it was not placed in the deeper parts of the vault.”

“You remembered?”

“Of course! It’s something I had my eyes on.”

“Do you want it? I can give it to you.”

“I do… but—”

Voidborn reached behind his neck and unhooked the pendant, taking it off.

“Turn.”

“What?! No! I was just joking!”

“Jimin. Turn.”

Voidborn gave her a small nod.

“O-Okay.”

Jimin shifted and sat facing away from Voidborn, exposing her back to him. She looked down and saw his hands cross around her shoulders, dropping the pendant right between her chest, before pulling the two thin metallic chains around each side of her neck.

The moment his fingers brushed her skin, her body shivered slightly, sending sparks down her spine.

She gave a small blushing smile.

To help him, Jimin gathered her hair to one side, allowing him to gently hook the pendant, fastening the chain into place.

“Show me,” Voidborn said.

Jimin turned around and presented the pendant gracing her neckline, its prismatic gem sitting right in the locket that rested in the middle of her decollete, right above her cleavage.

“It suits you.”

Jimin’s face flushed into a deeper red.

“Why did you give it to me?”

Voidborn looked at her.

“During the confrontation with the Seventh Thread, I saw you being affected by her powers. I didn’t like that. If this pendant could protect me, I’d rather it protect you.”

She looked down at the gem, tracing her fingers across the stone with a myriad of swirling colours.

“But why me? You could have given it to Rei, Derrick, or anyone else.”

Voidborn thought for a short moment.

“You know the question you asked about how I felt just now? The one about the mission, about Chaewon, Joy, Yuri, and you?”

“Mhmhmm?”

“I don’t really know what I feel about you. But I just know that I want to give this pendant to you.”

“I… You… since when were you such a charmer!” Jimin exclaimed, flustered. “Did Rei instigate you to do this?”

“No.”

She started fanning herself with her hand.

“Wow, it’s getting really hot in here…”

Jimin gripped the pendant tight, feeling the smooth stone resting comfortably in her hand.

The pendant was expensive.
It was rare.
It could go for millions of shells in an auction.

But to her right now, the pendant wasn’t expensive because of its rarity or price.

The pendant was expensive because it was the first thing Voidborn had ever chosen for himself.

And now he had given it away.

To her.

Voidborn looked at her.

A dense pink of happiness was pulsing throughout her entire body.

Looking at her smile, it somehow made his heart skip a beat.

Weird.

But it was not something he disliked.

It felt better than when he ate mangoes.

Right outside the onsen, Rei and Derrick peeked through the door.

The moment they saw Voidborn hanging the necklace around Jimin’s neck, the two clenched their fist in excitement.

“Hell yeah!” Rei whispered. “I didn’t have much faith in you, but god damn, I didn’t know you were such a smooth motherfucker.”

“Language, Ms Naoi Rei,” Derrick mumbled back, but his face was full of smiles.

“Alright, let’s stop eavesdropping and let them have time alone,” Rei said, before dragging Derrick away.

“Hold on, I wanna see more!”

“Anyway, enough about me. I want to know about you!”

“Me?” Voidborn asked.

“Yeah! Didn’t you promise to tell me about all your past jobs?”

Voidborn nodded.

“Which one?”

Jimin tilted her head.

“I wouldn’t know, you dummy.”

She pointed at Voidborn.

“How about this. You have many scars on your body. How about I point to one and you tell me how you got it?”

Voidborn nodded.

Jimin squinted and poked at a long, thin scar running diagonally across his forearm.

“That was from my… seventeenth mission.”

“Wow, that means it was way far back. What was it about?”

“It was a mission about saving a village from a bunch of mountain bandits. They had been harassing them, killing livestock, causing lots of trouble.”

Voidborn looked at the scar, touching it lightly.

“When I reached the village, a few of the villagers’ children had been kidnapped. I managed to trace them down, but most of them were already dead.”

Jimin covered her mouth in shock.

“Dead? Did the bandits kill them?”

Voidborn frowned.

“No. The bandits died too. They all had their heads chopped off by a serial killer.”

“Jeez…”

“It was unfortunate, but I was too late. I could only save the last two children. The scar was when I was shielding them from the killer’s scimitar.”

Jimin looked at him with a sad expression. His face was expressionless as usual, but that was not what she felt when she heard his words.

“I… failed my mission. I couldn’t save the kids.”

“Don’t say that. If you weren’t there, the last two children would have lost their lives as well.”

She reached for his hand under the water.

“And if you didn’t kill the serial killer, many others would have lost their lives.”

Voidborn looked at her.

“I know. But the dead remains dead.”

Jimin rubbed her thumb across the back of his palm.

“Then, what about this?”

She pointed to a cluster of small, puckered scars that dotted across both of his shins, remnants of old wounds that never healed quite cleanly.

“That looks painful.”

Voidborn looked at that and gave a small pause of silence.

“That was from… a few months back. I was captured by some pirates when I was out on a sea mission.”

“Captured?!?!”

“Yes. Sea combat is not my forte. After all, I am only good at slashing and nothing else.”

“Did the pirates cause that scar?”

He nodded.

“I was locked up and tortured for close to a week. It was complete darkness. The only thing that kept me conscious was the fact that I could still see the torturers’ emotional colours.”

Tracing his fingers over the wound, Voidborn muttered.

“I don’t know if it was an effective torture technique or not, but they used a set of dull blades to constantly scrape my skin. The dull friction was not enough to cause pain for me to scream, but it was enough to irritate. Over time, the skin was burned in, slowly sliced and pushed apart by the grinding blunt metal.”

“That’s… that sounds like something that would make one go insane.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps it’s because of my lack of emotions that I didn’t find it impactful to the state of my mind. Although, it was still not a nice experience.”

“How did you escape?”

“There was infighting in the ship, and during the scuffle, I managed to break free and kill them all.”

“Voidborn… are you alright?”

Jimin looked at him with concerned eyes.

“I’m alright.”

“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore.”

Voidborn looked into her eyes.

“Somehow, I feel like I want to share the next one with you. Will you listen?”

She threaded her fingers in between his and held tight.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

He lifted her hand and pressed it on his chest, tracing her soft fingers across the massive, ugly scar stretched across the left side.

Jimin let out a pained smile as she felt the thick, raised, and brutal scar, as if something had tried to carve his heart out.

“This was from me trying to save Penelope from the beast that tried to destroy my house.”

“Penelope?”

“The woman who took care of me.”

“Penelope…” Jimin muttered. “That’s a kind name.”

“She was a kind person,” Voidborn said. “I was swiped by the beast and its sharp claw tore into my chest right as I sliced off its head with my sword.”

Voidborn went silent for a moment, before continuing.

“The wound hurt me badly, but that’s not what was on my mind.”

“Then what was?” Jimin asked.

“When I knelt over Penelope's corpse, I looked down at her. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to feel. Or rather, I couldn’t feel anything. Was I supposed to feel sad? She was a kind woman who didn’t deserve to die. She took care of me and sacrificed her all, devoting her life to someone unrelated to her at all.”

“And yet… and yet as I saw her dead body, no tears came out of my eyes.”

“Voidborn…” Jimin muttered, gazing at him gently.

“Am I a heartless person?”

“I don’t think you are a heartless person,” Jimin said. “In fact, I think you are far from heartless.”

“How so? My face doesn’t show anything. My heart doesn’t feel anything. I couldn’t even cry at all.”

Jimin took his hand and held it with both of hers.

“It may sound unconvincing, but let’s put it this way. The fact that you have thought about this shows that you are not heartless at all. It’s because you care, and that’s why you ask yourself these questions.”

She flipped his hand and traced her thumbs across his calloused palms.

“You don’t need to shed tears to feel sadness. You don’t need to cry to show that you have a heart. The moment you ask yourself why you don’t feel sadness is already proof of you feeling sad.”

Voidborn looked down at his hand.

“Perhaps…”

“I know it’s absurd, but sometimes, I really want to know what it feels like to feel sad.”

“What does it feel like to feel sad?” he muttered.

He stared at the water rippling between the both of them.

“Hey, do you really not have a name?” Jimin asked.

“I do.”

“Then why not tell me?”

“I haven’t found someone I trust to tell my name to.”

Jimin looked at him and gave a warm smile.

“I trust you with my life to protect me. Do you trust me?”

“I—”

Voidborn focused his eyes.

“Don’t use your ability. Just look at me.”

He looked.

He looked at her earnest eyes.

“I trust you.”

“Then tell me your name.”

“Elian,” Voidborn said. “Penelope told me it signifies light and grace.”

Jimin smiled.

“Elian. That’s a fitting name for someone full of feelings like you.”

He stared at her, taking in the words that came out of her mouth.

It felt… warm.

“Elian. Since you trust me, shall we try something?”

Right as she said that, she gathered a small ball of darkness into her palm.

“This is sadness. I’m not sure if my powers will work on you, but it’s the only emotion that I can handle.”

Voidborn nodded.

“It should work. The pendant is now with you.”

“Do you want to experience it?”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask you again. Do you trust me, Elian?”

A resolute gaze appeared across his eyes.

“Yes.”

She pressed the ball right into his chest, letting it diffuse into his heart.

In that instance, Voidborn started to feel a heavy pressure pressing over his heart. His chest felt tight and he felt empty, as if nothing could ever fill the empty void that had formed within him.

It became difficult to breathe.

The next thing he knew, his eyes watered and tears started streaming down his cheeks.

Jimin stopped.

She drew the darkness out from him, but somehow, he could not stop crying.

“Was this how Chaewon felt when she cried?”

“Maybe, but the reason why she cried was different. What you’re feeling now is just an eruption of emotions with no motive.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. How do you feel?”

“I don’t like this feeling,” Voidborn said, sobbing silently. “I don’t know how to get rid of it.”

“You said it yourself,” Jimin said. “Penelope taught you to give hugs when someone is sad.”

She stretched her arms outwards and pulled him into her embrace.

“It’s okay.”

Jimin patted his back gently, trying to calm the sadness within him.

Soon after, his tears stopped and his sobbing faded.

But they did not let go.

They held each other for long minutes, feeling the warmth of the lukewarm water between them, the rising steam, and the warm thumps of their hearts beating silently.

Jimin gently pushed Voidborn off.

“Jimin,” Voidborn said.

“Yes?”

“You aren’t crying.”

“Why would I be?”

“You used your powers, and yet you didn’t cry.”

She looked at him, a million thoughts running through her mind.

“I think it’s the pendant.”

Jimin looked down at her chest, watching a subtle dark mist being drawn into the prismatic gem.

For the first time since she was born, she had not cried when using her powers.

INFOGRAPHIC