[Alchemy] мне нужна удача (Conrad)

How was Conrad supposed to convince her she wasn’t a terrible person? All he could think of was that she was certainly not as terrible as he was, but he didn’t want to admit it to her. He’d lasted this long without making her listen to his problems or his instabilities or his weaknesses and he was not going to crack here, on the floor of the Alchemy classroom talking about her cousin who’d been goddamn poisoned. She couldn’t be feeling fond of him as it was.

But what else did he have? She had protested what he’d thought was a very decent reassurance, by his standards. Now Conrad was out of those, and had to fall back on pretending he was any authority on morality when he’d spent the last seventeen years careening out of anybody’s control.

He said, “No, you’re not.”

If Zhenya was going to cry in front of him, he was endlessly grateful that she was going to have the decency to try and stop. Conrad had, finally, the thought to root through his pockets for a handkerchief to hand over; her eyes were starting to look puffy. “You’re not weak,” he said, more emphatically, and held the handkerchief out for her to take. If she was letting her family down, he didn’t want to know what she thought of him and his.

“Nothing is wrong with wanting things to be better, I don’t know who made you think there is.” It’d been his mother who’d convinced him of it; it had been a friend who’d convinced him otherwise. He put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clasped hands. “Your family’s got a screwed up idea of responsibility,” he opined. “This shouldn’t be any of your problem -- what are you going to do about a murderer or a poisoner or whatever? You haven’t even taken your O.W.L.s.”

Zhenya smiled sadly as Conrad told her that she was not a terrible person. She did feel like one though and that made it hard for her to believe his words and appreciate them, really. After all, Zhenya felt that her friend only tried to reassure her to prevent her from crying - which clearly was a nice gesture - and not because he really thought so. Or maybe he even thought she wasn’t a bad person but could he really be the judge of that?

While she had had real trouble accepting his first reassurance, Zhenya wanted to believe him that she was not weak. She took the handkerchief, chewing on her lip briefly before using it to dry her tears. “Thanks,” she muttered to the floor, not really making clear if she was thanking him for his words or the offered handkerchief.

“Yeah,” she said feebly as Conrad stated that there was nothing wrong with wanting things to be better. He was right, of course. However, she felt that she had not made her point quite clear. It was probably not bad to wish for better times, but one should not look back and reminisce about the past instead of tackling the problems of the present. She opened her mouth, wanting to clarify what she had meant but Conrad hadn’t stopped speaking yet and she didn’t want to interrupt him.

Not for the first time her friend criticised her family and Zhenya wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure if her family was really putting her under pressure that much or if she felt that she ought to be better to fit in and be accepted by her family that was spoiled by success and always looking perfect and professional from the outside. She wanted to be just as successful as her older relatives, she wanted to be dignified and a real asset to her family. There were many artistic flyers of her generation in the family. It was hard to stand out there and not be overlooked.

“I know…” she responded to Conrad’s comment, sounding a little whiny before regaining more control over her voice again. “I don’t think anyone expects me to do anything about that person who…” her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I just need to play my part, you know?” Truth be told, she doubted he did and she wasn’t even sure she had a concrete idea of what her part might be in all this. She was a representative of her family, though. She needed to protect their reputation and she wanted to be there for those she loved even if she had no idea how she could actually help at all.

Nothing Conrad had said seemed to be convincing Zhenya of anything; disappointment and frustration with his own inabilities was starting to seep up his limbs and into his chest, that familiar feeling of inadequacy. At least when it came to Zhenya’s frustration or Zhenya’s troubles, he’d had some success in the past -- but more and more he was feeling like he might have run out of ways to help, like Zhenya might be better off finding a better friend than him.

But he didn’t really want to lose her friendship at all.

I just need to play my part, she said -- by now Conrad supposed he knew what her part was: to do what she’d been asked to do without embarrassing her family. If she was old enough to fly in competitions she was old enough to represent her family -- that made enough sense to him -- but it still bothered him. Her part was bigger than it should have been. He could tell his face was pinched and blotchy -- he was frustrated and confused about why -- it bothered him to imagine her being able to read his expression, but he had never had much control over it.

He wouldn’t have wanted anybody to feel the way he did all the time -- he knew he was an embarrassment to his family, and had for years -- least of all Zhenya. She’d worked too hard for too long to deserve it. But it was inevitable. Athletes’ careers were short, and fame was fickle, and nothing good ever lasted -- she would disappoint her family sooner or later, and the later it happened, the worse it would hurt her. The more effort Conrad had put into pleasing his parents as a child, the longer he’d managed to succeed, the more devastated he’d been when it fell through. Zhenya was just unlucky enough not to have learned that early on.

But for now they were both sitting on the floor of this stupid classroom neglecting their task and he was desolately positive that if he tried to explain this to her, he’d hurt her feelings. He turned the words around his head for a moment -- I just don’t want you to hurt yourself trying too hard -- and said, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Uncomfortably he shifted onto one knee, picked his rag back up -- if they were going to be done by dinnertime they’d have to get moving again soon, and if he kept sitting here trying to explain what he was thinking without telling her why he was thinking it, he’d upset himself. Already his breath was short; he said, his voice faint, “I’m going to keep cleaning.”

Zhenya could see that her friend was struggling and would have thought more about it had she not been busy trying to keep her own feelings under control. As it was she did not try to interpret Conrad’s expression, did not wonder what he was thinking. All that the girl focused on at that moment was to keep herself from sobbing. She did not feel particularly sad right now anyway, just overwhelmed with conflicting emotions that made no sense even to her.

She looked at Conrad, a hint of surprise visible on her face, as he said that he did not want her to get hurt. It should be quite normal for a friend to feel like that, but it was surely not a common say to actually voice. To Zhenya it meant a lot more than Conrad could possibly imagine. Her reddened eyes lit up as she offered a slight smile. She blinked away a few tears. The girl was tempted to ask ‘really?’ just to hear more kind words but she bit her tongue, knowing that it was inappropriate to ask for more now.

“Thanks,” she muttered instead, unable to think of anything more sensible to respond. She lifted the handkerchief again to dry away the last hints of tears and blew her nose. Their detention together had at least one positive side - they were talking again, they were friends again.

Belatedly she nodded as Conrad said he’d keep cleaning. They surely should hurry up and get the last bits done so they’d be free to reclaim their wands and do other things. “Yeah, I should, too,” she said and looked around to figure out what they still needed to do. They had done quite a bit already before they had taken a break to talk. If they’d work quickly now they might be done within just a few more minutes.

Zhenya picked up a rag again and went over all desks, removing the last stains that might be there. They had done the ceiling already and the floor was almost done as well. The girl knelt down where she saw some more remainders of a potion and scrubbed it off.

“I guess we’re done?” she asked, hoping that Conrad agreed. Maybe the classroom wasn’t as good as new now but it was about as clean as it had been before their lesson had taken place which was good enough for Zhenya anyway.

“Shall we go to Galina Viktorovna’s office now and ask for our wands back?” she asked, dropping the rag back into the bucket and approaching the door already.

[out]

Zhenya smiled at him, which made Conrad want to smile back, but his chest was tense and he had made himself look stupid enough already; he shrugged a little bit, rather than respond to her thanks. She blew her nose noisily and, while it would go unnoticed, he lifted his head a little to clear his throat thickly, set his chin back down on his hands. It didn’t occur to him until she looked back at him that it might be odd to sit here looking at her; hastily he averted his gaze.

He’d left the little scraping knife on his desk next to his exploded potion; she was close to done with her own area, so he headed over to his, chipping chunks of congealed potion off the desk and dumping them with unappealing thump sounds back into his cauldron. Zhenya came by while he was leaning to get at the far end of the table, but Conrad ignored her and she moved on.

It didn’t matter to him if she didn’t believe him, or if she didn’t listen to him, or if she didn’t think he was right. At least, it shouldn’t have mattered to him. But he knew it would -- already it was sitting doubtfully in his skull, she thinks you’re stupid. Or, she thinks you’re crazy -- that was even uglier. He knew she couldn’t possibly think that he was in the right about this; she hadn’t broken over the same threshold he had. Not yet, at least. He sort of doubted she ever would, which was a shame to think about.

He was jolted out of this reverie when she spoke -- he said, “Yes” before he’d really comprehended her words, but he was done anyway, his seafoamy mess transferred over to his cauldron. He hadn’t even cut off any fingers in the process. But the year was young -- he’d surely have his chance eventually. Zhenya headed to the door -- he said “Yes” again and followed her out.

[out]