Cybil (2018) #projectsuper

Chapter 30: Silent Treatment

There have been a few times in which Ryu had been truly distressed. One of those times was so vague in his mind that he could barely see it as reality.

Unfortunately, that time was on perpetual repeat, much like a DVD player playing the same movie over and over again.

That lead him early on to spend most of his nights in the Guardian Base's Library.

This was one of those nights.

He was skimming through the bookcases for something particularly interesting when he heard footsteps piercing the formerly silent room.

He knew their origin.

"So... You're back here again, eh?"

Raelynn had a soft tone to her voice, as if she was walking on eggshells just to talk to him.

The truth was, she was. He didn't respond, instead choosing to pick out a random book, plop on a nearby chair, and start reading it.

"You okay?"

It was a book on ships, which didn't interest him in the least. He supposed he could "fake it to make it" this time, though.

Raelynn seemed to catch on to what Ryu was angry about. "If this is about what I said to Commander Luke, I'm sorry!"

He gripped the book a bit more tightly, but didn't look behind him. He wasn't happy with her right now.

Raelynn walked up to his couch and put her hand on its end. "Are you going to talk to me or not?"

He refused to answer, so she decided to take another tactic.

She sat in his wheelchair.

Irritation flared up in the boy. Unless it was her birthday, his sister was not allowed to sit there. Her birthday was months off (though that was just a settled date to celebrate it, as she didn't know the exact date of her creation).

Ryu took a deep, exasperated breath. He opened his mouth to tell her to get off when he heard another round of footsteps. Both of them shot a glance in the direction of the footsteps.

A rather odd boy with matted black hair and a twitch that defined how he carried himself came in. He wore an outfit that wouldn't be out of place on a janitor or some other type of cleaning crew. His yellow gloves which almost never came off his hands added to the image.

"Hi, Danny," Ryu greeted, careful not to betray any knowledge of the previous argument in his tone. He wasn't interested in explaining the subject of it if Danny didn't already know.

"Danny Boy, hey!" Raelynn said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Hey," he greeted nervously. Not all of the nervous energy in that response was due to how he was. Part of it, as both brother and sister knew, was because Raelynn was in the room.

"I'm... uh... gonna be cleaning the library now."

"You still have that deal with Commander Luke, huh?" Ryu glanced at his sister and she got off of his chair immediately and helped him back onto it. "Okay then, we'll leave you to it, then. Thank you."

He made a quick nod and disappeared in the back of the library somewhere.

"You have got to stop leading him on, by the way."

Raelynn offered to roll him out to his room, to which he gave no declination to.

"What? He's kind of cute. Besides, he knows that we're both... like this."

"Did you ever tell him that we're not even human?" Ryu asked plainly. Both of them knew that while human DNA was their base, other things about the two (like the fact that their blood was colorless instead of red) alluded to them being something other than human altogether.

"'Human' has had a pretty loose definition lately." the girl pointed out.

"Still..."

"Fine, fine." Raelynn didn't usually give up on arguments this quickly, but she seemed too tired to put up much of a fight this time. "I'll let him down gently. Thanks for talking to me again, by the way."

Upon hearing the last part of that sentence, he yawned and then face-palmed. So much for talking to her again on his terms.