"...You heard that right, Felicia?"When Cole said this, Felicia stepped out of one of the shadows in the dimly lit corridor.
Her face clearly showed her unease as it always did and she was fidgeting.
"...Well, disappointed? That I"m not really the Cole you loved?"
"..."
"At least you found out sooner, it probably would have been worse if it was way later."
Cole spoke in a mocking tone, but both the people present knew that it wasn"t only directed towards Felicia, but also to Cole himself.
"...You know, I actually don"t smile or show my emotions easily."
"...?"
With the sudden remarck coming from Cole, Felicia was caught off guard. The only thing she ever saw from his was a very expressive person.
A person who would smile at her, a person who could get angry at his friend for telling his daughter an inappropriate thing, a caring person, and many, many more.
"If you"re wondering why, I was pretty short and timid as a kid and only smiled when I was alone with my mom, so I never made friends."
"I always sat in the back too and always wore a bored expression on my face so that didn"t help."
While Cole continued to talk about his past life, he didn"t turn back once at all and Felicia just listened on.
"... I was pretty smart but, all the things I"ve said are just excuses."
It was then that Cole had a change in his voice, as he started the new topic, Felicia could hear his voice... shaking.
"The reason they didn"t want to befriend me was because..."
"They were scared of me."
"Scared? Scared of what?"
Felicia grew even more and more curious about what Cole had to say. But decided not to push him for anything.
"If you"re wondering why, what else would there be to feel when a kid you"re age can make weapons capable of destroying cities, countries and maybe even planets?"
"!!!"
"... So he really is the hero of the〈Intergalactic War〉"
Felicia exclaimed to herself, not expecting one of her suspicions when listening to Cole"s story would come out to be true.
"But as for what you think of me... I"ll hear about it another time."
Cole then turned around to face her and showed her a closed eye smile, so she wouldn"t be able to read his emotions through his eyes.
"I"m quite sleepy now, after all."
And then he went down, with the sound of his shoes tapping against the wooden stairs the only thing he left behind as he left.
Felicia slumped onto the cold floor and huddled into a ball. She didn"t know what to feel for she had admired her "Cole".
And now that he was gone, she didn"t know what to think anymore. And when she thought back to what made her like him, she wasn"t even sure it that was really "love", or not.
"Now that I think about it, what made me fall in love with him...?"
Felicia muttered into empty s.p.a.ce, with no one to hear her question.
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The next morning, 8 am.
Cole was standing outside the house near the doorway with Felicia next to him.
"...Do you really want to be teleported to〈S. T. E. L. L. A〉?"
"Wow! The first thing she says to me this morning is out of concern! I feel flattered!"
"Hey!"
Cole had asked Felicia right after she woke up to teleport him to where she teleported the trip from last time to.
He wanted to have a little chat with them about their offer.
And, he wanted to use the time he would be away to give Felicia some time to think and some s.p.a.ce. He was concerned about Eva, but he would make sure not to take too long.
"What is it?"
"... Why did you decide to tell us so soon?"
"I already said why yesterday. It"s better to know sooner than later. But could you do me a favor and let me have your contact info?"
"Eh?"
Cole tapped on his headphones twice, making the wires extend from them. He then repeated Altair"s actions from yesterday and inserted one into the back of his neck while the other one was waiting for Felicia"s wrist.
"I experimented a little bit after that trio left and found out you can register other Mechanicas IDs and save them as a kind of phone number."
"You can do that?"
Felicia was suprised for it was her first time hearing this kind of function. It could be just because she never explored her body"s functions before.
"Who knows, maybe it"s because my neuro implant from my past life merged with my soul and found itself here."
"...?"
"Yeah, you wouldn"t get it."
Cole felt like laughing at himself for from the past two months he has been with and lived with Felicia, he could tell that she doesn"t know much about anime or games despite mostly being an encyclopedia because she usually had answers for everything
Seeing that Cole was still waiting, Felicia extended her right hand, albeit hesitantly.
Cole inserted the other headphone jack in and played around with the few icons that appeared at his sides.
『Would you like to register〈S- 390183〉as Contact ❝Felicia❞?』
Cole clicked on yes and a similar thing happened on Felicia"s side.
"I"ll tell you when I"ll go home, so for the meantime..."
Cole took a few steps closer to Felicia and then gave her a pat on her head.
"Stay safe, okay?"
And smiled, the same way he did most of the time to her. Felicia could only nod while still stuck with the question "Why is he so kind to me."
And then she teleported him away, and as the last particles of gray light faded, she thought.
"But it"s the same for me. I don"t know why I liked the previous Cole so much. Was it because I was indebted to him or..."
And then she stared at the monochromatic sky that she had grew accustomed to over the 5 years she had lived in the〈Neutral Zone〉