Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What do you think of the idea?” Tahira asked, enthusiastically, bouncing her legs. “I’ve always wanted to! Besides, won’t it be, like, exposure therapy for you?”

Kairi looked at Tahira, cos big eyes were downcast, fidgeting with the zipper of ones hoodie. It didn’t spark something in Kairi as much as it would spark in, say, Joy, or maybe even Mayra — the former would do anything Tahira did as her most loyal friend, the latter seemed fascinated by entropy and decay and the passage of time.

“C’mon, please! I chose that place for you! You gotta go with me,” Tahira kept insisting, as stubborn as she always is, her lively eyes looking at Kairi’s own morose ones.

Co did want to go, to some extent. Co just didn’t expect to be so soon and so sudden. Tahira hadn’t warned co beforehand, just saying she had a surprise for the big-eyed girl.

Tahira was pouting, sitting with her arms crossed like an irritated child, looking to the side. It wasn’t unusual for Tahira to act like a cartoon or anime character, she even said multiple times she didn’t notice when she did that.

Kairi and Tahira had that much in common, at least: playing a role. Even if Kairi was formerly forced to, and Tahira did so subconsciously.

“Seriously, I planned it all out for us to go! Pretty please?” Tahira kept insisting, her angry demeanor melting to a softer one, yet slight impatience coated her voice.

After co thought a bit more, even if it wasn’t an irrational choice…

“I will go. Just allow me to get ready.”

Upon hearing those words, Tahira beamed — her previous anger became energetic happiness soon enough.

“Okay, okay! Good! I even have a playlist for us to listen to while we’re there!” Tahira says, as she opened the big bag she brought with her. “I brought us food, if we get hungry there, some things to drink, flashlights for me and you… Hm… What else…” Tahira pondered to herself. “Oh, yeah, MedKits!”

Tahira was wearing boots that no one even knew she had, and from where Kairi was seeing, she had also brought goggles for the two. She was wearing very long sleeves — a sturdy sweater — and pants, as opposed to how she was fond of skirts and shorts.

Co knew how Tahira was. She was smart and resilient and resourceful, she probably would dare herself to not go with anything if she could, only the long sleeves and strong pants.

She probably was doing this to offer Kairi a semblance of comfort, with most of the gear necessary for urban exploration.

The two girls were standing in front of the abandoned church. It had a rusty gate, a tall brick wall that was falling at the seams, overtaken by ivy plants. Tahira didn’t have time to lose as she held Kairi’s hand firmly, searching for some kind of entrance — if they couldn’t find one, they would have to jump the wall.

It wasn’t a problem for Tahira nor Kairi.

Yet, soon enough, co found a smaller rusty gate behind, and Tahira managed to break it open with the hammer she brought. “Okay, first step in!” She announced, her voice coated in cheerfulness.

Tahira was faster than Kairi, running to the entrance of the abandoned church as Kairi followed. Co was also wearing boots and long clothes of lasting material; Tahira’s advice, it was actually good.

“Hey, Tahira… How late is it?” Kairi asked Tahira, and Tahira took out her phone — that, unlike her other things, was in her pocket — and looked at it. She seemed slightly surprised.

“Damn, time seems to be flying. Already 5PM,” Tahira states, her eyes still on her cellphone, “I was pretty sure it was earlier? This place isn’t even that far from your place, Ri-Ri.”

Indeed, it was odd. Something didn’t feel right to Kairi, like a hair out of place, maybe a broken toe, maybe a missing number.

It didn’t feel right.

“Let’s continue, you’re not a coward.” Tahira says, as she finally unlocks the entrance and waltzes in. Kairi hesitates for a moment.

Something didn’t feel right.

… One swore there was something following, maybe someone. All co was sure of is that eyes were burning on the back of cos head, patient yet judgmental as always—

“Earth to Ri-Ri!” Tahira’s voice brings Kairi out of cos fog, and despite ones face rarely changing, co felt genuine, unfiltered fear. It was familiar. “You keep daydreaming, y’know?” Tahira stated, a hint of concern in her voice.

Kairi shakes cos head. “I’m just… nervous, is all,” Kairi says, grabbing at the skin around ones index finger.

“It’ll go away, I’m here. I can protect you.”

Tahira’s voice was confident enough to bring Kairi comfort, but not enough to make the burning eyes against cos head stop staring.

Throughout most of the walk, Tahira talked. The hallways of the Church seemed near endless, they were dusty, the paint was peeling, and the wooden floor creaked, which sent Kairi into a panic in some moments.

“Tahira,” the word — name — came out of cos mouth involuntarily, an edge of panic that was oddly calm. The tired-looking girl looked at Kairi. “Yeah?”

“Please, we cannot be separated,” Kairi states, as if it was the most important thing to announce. “If we do… I don’t know what will happen, but I know it won’t be good.”

Tahira only looked at Kairi confusedly, before she giggled. “Don’t worry, Kai-Kai. I’m not gonna leave you behind!” Tahira puts her arm around ones shoulder, trying to offer the most sincere smile she could to co.

“Do you promise we won’t be separated while here?”

The seriousness in Kairi’s gaze must have been enough to make Tahira contemplate. She wasn’t planning to send Kairi into a possible breakdown. “Yeah, I promise. Pinky super-duper promise.”

But this was still a church, abandoned or not. This would send Kairi into a panic either way, even if co was good at hiding it, or didn’t even realize cos panic.

“Good, we may keep going.”

Tahira herself was getting nervous, her thoughts were filled with, “what if someone else is here?”

(Just beat them to a bloody pulp.)

“Will they try to hurt me?”

(You will kill them before they do.)

“What else could be in here, other than old church things?”

(Don’t touch anything. It might be a trap.)

But she couldn’t lower her facade, she did it once and it was the worst she ever did. Even if Kairi’s treatment of her didn’t change, Tahira feared it would. She wasn’t lovable when she was her true self.

She knew that much.

And she tried not to care, but how could she not?

“Hey, Ri-Ri… You seem to be acting out of it a little. How bad was your church and family for you to almost be having a panic attack?” Tahira said, hoping she was right about the “panic attack” bit she threw.

If anything, she was also close to one.

Kairi looked at her, sweet unblinking eyes that stared right through her. “It was… bad,” Kairi said, co didn’t feel like co was there again, and Tahira knew this was ones trauma and all — but this was supposed to be good, exposure therapy was supposed to be good!

“The churchgoers berated me when I did something as simple as kicking my legs,” Kairi finally adds, and this time, more firmly. “I didn’t care about the churchgoers, I don’t I ever did. They were just… numbers.”

Tahira laughed at that. “Well, everyone are numbers! One more or one less doesn’t really make that much of a difference, if anything, I prefer less.” She knew she was supposed to be working on her more aggressive outlook, but it wasn’t bad relapsing every once in a while — Xiomara did say that relapse would happen.

She could be watching less gory things, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t filled with rage.

She was still at her cousin’s house until she found somewhere else to go, and just the idea of being that close to her mother made her sick full of hatred and anger and rage.

It was something out of her control, and she didn’t mind it.

It was better than the mind-numbing boredom.

“My father used to beat me up, too,” Kairi adds, breaking Tahira from her own trance. “Oh, that sucks,” she said in her kindest tone.

Kairi just nods.

“Oh, look!” Kairi says, an emphasis in cos voice clear.

“There seems to be some old hymnals, too…” Kairi wandered off, as co grabbed one of the hymnals and opened it, clearly without thought behind ones actions.

Tahira just “hums” alongside co, trying to read the hymnal.

“The words are hard to understand…” Tahira complains, and Kairi tries dusting off the hymnal.

It didn’t work.

The hymnal still didn’t make sense to Tahira. It felt like reading a forbidden language, or a text that no one else spoke.

“I don’t think I can read it, either…” Kairi laments, but co still holds the hymnal close. Tahira was confused by the action.

“Are you keeping it?” Tahira asks.

“Yes.” Kairi responds.

This didn’t make sense to the tired girl. “Why? Isn’t it something traumatic for you?”

Kairi looks at Tahira, and gives a little smile — the kind that doesn’t reach the eyes — and nods.

“Why keep it, then?” Tahira asks, once more.

“I believe it is control.” Kairi responds, once more.

The answer didn’t make any logical sense to anyone outside of Kairi — a form to hold close something that once caused co fear, but that co has mostly overcome — but Tahira seemed to understand, merely nodding.

Every creature is starved for control, Tahira believes. It is only foolish to not want it.

“We’ve seen the sanctuary before the altar… How odd,” Kairi ponders, and Tahira chuckles. “Of course, we entered here through a backdoor!”

Kairi looks at the weird-looking hymnal.

“An altar is inside the sanctuary. But let’s find it, then.”

Kairi’s sudden interest in their urban exploration excited Tahira, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth. Something was wrong.

Co wasn’t that emoting.

The two girls wandered off, seeing the altar up close. What was supposed to be neatly decorated was old and decayed now.

It felt almost impossible.

Kairi’s eyes focused on the calendar, the paper was kept in perfect state. It said, “November 20, 2024.” As Kairi also noted, there were many crosses.

“This is oddly nostalgic to me…” Kairi notes, dusting off the altar. “I remember standing here to say the blessings God had given me, I never really had much to say…”

Tahira chuckles. “Damn, Ri!” she laughs, grabbing the rosary from the altar. “This looks pretty.”

“It is a rosary,” Kairi states, “I don’t like it a lot.”

Tahira puts on the rosary, before taking off her cellphone and taking a picture of it. “Well… I can pawn it off, I think?” She says, carelessly messing with it between her fingers. The metal was still… clean, as opposed to the other metal things that were rusty.

Everything in this place felt off. Maybe looking at the calendar had given that feeling — a place forever frozen in time.

Kairi preferred to avoid the crosses, even if co had mostly “overcome” cos trauma, it still lingered.

“Do you think they would accept an old rosary at the local pawn shop?” Tahira asks Kairi, still looking at the calendar, almost entranced by it. This place was dead, and Kairi stood there, like how a deep-sea mollusc stands on the whale corpse it is eating.

Kairi grabs the Bible from the altar, not even thinking twice — if Tahira did it, co should do it as well. No matter how immoral.

Is it immoral to steal a dead place? It’s not like this belongs to anyone, anymore.

But as the strong pink-haired girl looks at the messy-haired one, there is a quiet begging in ones eyes.

“We need to go somewhere else.”

“So this is a… confession booth?” Tahira ponders, looking at the moldy wood, and sitting down as she stares to the other side of it.

Kairi looks at it morosely, despite cos unchanging face.

“Do you want to confess something to me, Tahira?” Kairi asks, trying to cheer up the environment, and sitting on the other side of the confessional.

Tahira is taken aback.

“Do you want to confess?” Tahira retorts, the idea of opening up making her too uncomfortable for now.

“We can confess to each other, then.”

The idea didn’t sound bad, if Tahira knew Kairi’s secrets, maybe she could trust co enough?

“I am angry,” Tahira says, not thinking before her answer. “Why?” Kairi asks, and co seemed genuinely immersed there.

Tahira takes a deep breath in. “I have every right to be angry all the time! And I know I’m getting better— But I can’t help but be mad, there is the feeling of getting worse at the same time and it sickens me! I don’t want to stay in my cousin’s house any longer! This world is—”

Tahira takes another breath in, and out.

“Your anger is pure, I can tell,” Kairi says. “If only mine was that pure, too…”

Her mood shifts, now giggling.

“Do you get angry?” Tahira asks, as if this was something surprising to hear. “Unfortunately, I do.”

“C’mon, don’t be a downer. Your anger is justified.”

Tahira, despite her sudden lightheartedness, still felt something was wrong. It’s like it wasn’t Kairi there, but someone else. A lingering fog amongst the mold of the wood of the confessional.

She gets up, not being patient enough to wait for Kairi to follow her.

“Tahira!” Kairi runs after Tahira, and it wasn’t hard to reach her. Her arms crossed like earlier, but genuine anger in her eyes, and something else — suspicion. “Are you alright? I haven’t yet confessed…”

“It’s not about confession, I just think there is something off with this whole place,” Tahira states, looking at the walls. “It feels like that cross shouldn’t be there…” she points to a cross, hanging on the wall, and both girls felt like it wasn’t there before.

Was it folie à deux? Was it paranoia? Tahira hated not knowing.

Kairi stands by Tahira’s side. “We can stop the exploration, if you want to,” co says, trying to sound comforting.

“I don’t want to,” Tahira says, “this is just… weird.”

Kairi nods, and cos hands pass by Tahira’s, a sudden shudder going through her spine. “Yes, now that I am recalling better… It never made sense to me, either,” Kairi says so simply, it almost baffles Tahira. “I never wanted to know what the animals were, they didn’t feel like animals. I never hung out with any of the other kids, I was seen as a spirit by them.”

There is understanding, despite Tahira’s confusion.

“I was also a ghost to… everyone I met, if I wasn’t, I was the ‘easy target.’ Hope they’re all dead,” Tahira says, looking at the cross, slightly coming off the hinges. “I hated being alone, but I hated other people being too close to me.”

Kairi sighs.

“Sometimes, it is like that. We can’t choose what happens. I am still scared of the future, I just try to keep on,” Kairi says, cos voice being the most honest Tahira has heard in a while. “Keeping on despite everything is so weird, it makes me confused; shouldn’t we be dead?”

Tahira’s dry, yet sincere, response, earned a small smile from Kairi.

“But we are here, and I am glad to be here. To be with Freyja and Mayra. To have you as my friend. I never thought I would find comfort in other people’s presence.” Kairi says, such a genuine feeling coating ones voice that it almost made Tahira feel bad that she was suspicious of co.

Tahira could feel warmth, despite everything. Both of them are here either way, so no point in sulking about the past.

Even if it is impossible to avoid grieving what was.

“Well, no time sulking now! We need to steal that rosary, I want to pawn it off,” Tahira diverges the subject at hand, and despite Kairi’s usual moral high ground, co just shrugs it off.

Maybe tiredness, maybe confusion, maybe something else.

Whatever it was, it was a common ground between both of them.

Tahira goes straight to the altar, picking up the rosary she had left behind. It hopefully hadn’t changed in the meantime they were in the confessional.

Kairi follows Tahira to the altar, and co picks up the Bible, old and dusty and its pages almost glued together. Tahira glances at one confusedly.

“… I just… need to keep it,” Kairi says, no reason behind cos big eyes, not even sentimentality. Tahira still assumed it was for control. Tahira just shrugs it off.

“Do you want to get out of here now?” Kairi asks, holding the Bible close to ones chest. Tahira nods — she didn’t expect she was the one who was getting emotionally worn-out, rather than the religiously traumatized girl.

Kairi smiles, still not reaching cos eyes, at Tahira, and Tahira forces herself to smile back.

“I have a surprise for you when we get back,” co states, there was an odd spark in ones eyes that made Tahira deeply curious. “We need to leave from where we came from, though. Basic rules.”

Tahira didn’t understand what Kairi meant by that, but she still followed co, who opened the backdoor and looked outside.

Oddly enough for both girls, it didn’t seem like the weather had changed, nor the time. Kairi didn’t seem to mind it, just treating it like another day.

So, Tahira did the same.

Whatever they had to be afraid of seemed out of sight as soon as they left through the place they came from. The two girls just went back home, this time, in utter silence — Tahira was clearly feeling defeated that her first urban exploration plan didn’t go as she wanted to, all because of some weird bullshit going on with her.

At least, Kairi seemed content enough.

Kairi poured a glass of wine to coself and to Tahira, and grabbed a lighter with some alcohol co usually used for cleaning.

“What are your plans, big one?” Tahira asks, her eyes tired and slightly annoyed. Everyone knew this was going to deal a big blow to Tahira, something she planned from beginning to end just failing.

Still, Kairi didn’t say anything, going outside and Tahira only kept following. “C’mon, don’t be so mysterious all the time! And then, I’m the cartoon! Even though you’re very mysterious!!!” Tahira playfully complained.

As Kairi sat on the floor, co threw the Bible on the floor, and poured the alcohol on it, Tahira seemed to beam like earlier as soon as she figured out what Kairi was going to do.

The lighter was given to Tahira.

“Your honor to do so,” Kairi says, ones big eyes being understanding towards Tahira. She jumped at the opportunity, lighting it on fire and, not satisfied enough, throwing some twigs on the little bonfire they had improvised.

Tahira sits by Kairi’s side.

“Will you drink the wine?” Kairi asks, as co slowly drank it. “It tastes… nice.”

Tahira takes a sip of her own wine, her lips getting marked by it. It did taste nice.

“… Don’t you think Xiomara would scold us if she saw this?” Tahira playfully says, still drinking her wine quickly. Kairi shakes cos head. “No, it’s just one glass.”

Tahira rises her glass. “Toast?” She asks, smiling genuinely this time. “Toast,” Kairi says, and they do the toast to continue drinking.

The fire continues, consuming the Bible and the twigs, the smoke covering the figure Tahira was paranoid of.

“Do you want to sleep over?”

Could Tahira say “no” to one of her most understanding friends?

“Yeah.”