Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol) (16 page)

"So you said goodbye because you want to join The Spring?"

"I said goodbye. For what I don’t know. I feel close enough to them that I feel the need to say goodbye and yet I feel so far away from them emotionally that I just cannot stay… I don’t want to say goodbye because my life will end. I want to say goodbye because my time with them ends."

"But your life will only end if you join The Spring. And you don't have to. Even if The Spring picks you, you don’t have to join it."

"I'd be incredibly lucky if The Spring wants me. I mean, what if it doesn't work out?

"You are good at what you do, just trust in yourself. I certainly don't want you to leave but if that's what you think you have to do, then I want you to believe in your success. You can do it."

"It somehow has to work out. There is nothing more to want than becoming a Creator, so what am I going to do once The Spring has picked someone else? I can only strive for less after that."

"Right now it may look to you that becoming a Creator is all you want but you will get over it sooner than later and then you will find other things to want. And you don't have control over it anyway, do you?"

"I do. I have to work really hard. That's how I got nominated and that is the only way I will get summoned. I have to focus and ignore everything else. One step after the other and in the end I will succeed."

"So now you are sure that you want to go?"

"No…"

"Maya, look, I mean, you can just stay. No one is forcing you to leave but you."

"I know. Maybe. But how would that look? Each and every Islander is on Cosmo's Islands to get summoned and then I get summoned and turn it down? What a betrayal."

"Maybe you aren’t alone. Maybe others have the same fears, troubles, worries you have. Maybe you can be the one who takes their fears away. Maybe you can lead by example."

"But I just said that I don’t want to be for other people."

"I know but you’ve also just said that you don’t want to worry about the opinions of other people any more."

"Yes. But it’s not that easy, is it? You can’t just change like that. It takes time. And work. An essence changes very slowly. And anyway, what would I do if I didn’t join The Spring?"

"You’re still looking to complete your essence, aren’t you? You may do all of the Islands stuff for other people but completing your essence is something you’d only do for yourself. You are looking for someone to complete your essence. And you want to complete someone else’s essence."

"And whose essence is that?" she asks but I don’t answer. "Yours?"

"Maybe."

"I don’t know…" she says.

"Because you haven’t tried yet. Just give it a chance. Let us see what we can be. And if you still want to become a Creator, just wait until you get nominated again and accept it then."

"It doesn’t work like that. You get nominated only once. This is my only chance at becoming a Creator."

"Then maybe the timing wasn’t right. Maybe it just wasn’t for you. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be," I argue but I'm not convincing enough. "Look, yesterday I saw thousands of people who probably don’t care about Cosmo, his Islands, The Spring, and creation at all. And they all seemed to be just fine."

"That’s not what I saw. I saw a group of people who needed help. They were damaging their essence. They were feeding their revenge parasite. They need Meditosis."

Absolutely no one needs Meditosis. Ever. But I better don’t say or think that in public.

"But they are very happy, don’t you agree?"

"They are sick. That's not true happiness they are feeling. Instead of making them more sick in their training centers, the league should use those centers as Meditosis centers and help them heal," she states. "Lee doesn't understand that either. She is unable to really connect with other navees herself. And then those remarks at the dinner. About how I connect to animals and matter but not to other people. She is such a liar."

"Is she?" But as soon as I say that I feel I have overstepped a boundary.

She frowns for a moment.

"I would have loved to spend more time with other people and not as much with training. But it was her who chose to put status over social relationships." There is a moment of silence before she continues. "I befriended a boy from the neighborhood. We met in secret in the beginning. I told my mom I would train when in reality I had fun with him. I felt so free. So different. I was light. When I think back at my time with him, all I remember is laughter, warmth, safety, comfort… I was happy. I was so happy with him. He was very different, didn't seem to have a sorrow on his heart. And one by one, he freed me of my sorrows as well. Then, one day, I decided to bring him home. In a way I wanted to show everybody that I had a friend, too. That I could make friends, too. That, in a way, I was just like them."

How sad. But she looks rather happy. I have rarely seen her that content. I put my right arm around her shoulders again, but she doesn't lean on me.

"And Lee was even a bit happy at first. They were much nicer to him than they were to you. He was very charming, very empathetic, very caring. And then, halfway through the dinner, she finds out he has absolutely no ambitions at all. And that was it. He did not want to become a trainer or get selected or do anything else of substance. He just wanted… I actually don't know what he wanted. Anyway, Lee thought that equaled not being worth anything
— and she let him know it."

No doubt about that. But I don't know what to say. I can't say that I'm too excited to hear about her former boyfriend.

"In a way she is a bad joke, really. She is only an animal torturer herself. Her accomplishments have been in the past. And she doesn't push Kai or Maha. They don't seem to bother her," she claims and starts rubbing her forehead.

"Because she thinks you are talented, so she made you work hard. And look what happened. You were selected. Barely anyone can rival your skills now. And, maybe, you'll get summoned in the near future." My stomach
turned a little at this last thought.

"Barely… maybe…," she repeats. "That's not good enough… not for her."

"Shouldn't she appreciate you because of who you are and not because of what you accomplish or not?" I say, trying to cheer her up.

"But why would anyone do that? It’s not your accomplishment that you are who you are. But you can decide what you do. So if someone should like you, they should do it because of what you do and not because of who you are," she counters.

"Isn’t that the same? I mean, how you behave depends on the share each need has of your essence, right? So you do whatever you do because your essence needs you to," I argue.

"But whatever you do changes your essence. So the important thing is what you do because your essence changes depending on your actions. You are in the doing," she claims.

"I guess we are trying to say the same," I conclude but she makes no attempts to agree with me. "I still wonder how personality fits into all of this. I mean, even if two people make exactly the same experience, it affects their needs and therefore their essence in different ways."

"Personality is the outside perception of your essence. It's how people perceive your essence."

"I figured you would say that but I think personality exists separate from your essence. I like to think that personality is like a lump of clay. While it's in The Spring it's wet and can be formed into anything but as soon as it leaves The Spring, it starts to harden. In the beginning you can make changes to it and those changes take little effort and leave barely any cracks because the clay is still wet. But the longer you wait, the more effort it takes to shape the clay and the bigger the cracks become," I explain.

Silence. I look over to Maya and she is still rubbing her forehead.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. It's just a little headache. Probably because of the
final last night. It was really loud."

"It was," I agree and more silence follows. "So when you're saying that you introduced them to your boyfriend because you wanted to show them that you had one, does that mean that Lee was right? Did you only bring me
along to make them appreciate you more?" I ask.

  "Yes, maybe I did want to rub your fame into their faces in order to boost my own status. But I also want you to know where I come from and why I do what I do. No one at Cosmo’s Islands knows about them, not even Cosmo. You are the only one who knows them. So yes, you can accuse me of overvaluing other people’s opinions but I didn’t bring any of them here. I brought you here."

"Wow."

"What?"

"Well, I mean, that was brutally honest."

"I won't lie to you."

"That's admirable but a little lie here and there to soften reality doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Lying devalues any relationship. Once you've lied to someone, it's unclear if whatever you say afterwards is the truth or not," she responds seriously. "I give out trust only once."

"Technically I've never lied to you. I might have decided not to tell you certain things, though."

"And I appreciate that. Better say nothing than lie."

"I've never lied to you and I have no intention of doing so any time soon."

"Good. I didn't think so."

"Okay, so back to us. Why me? Just because of my selection?"

"That is not why I like you. And I didn’t choose you for my first cycle as tutor. Aleeya assigned me to you. But to be completely honest with myself and you, then yes, your selection and the fame it gave you was the reason I wanted to get to know you. Cosmo was my tutor. I trust him. If he thinks you are special then you are special to me, too."

"So is that why you like me? Because someone famous was interested in me for no reason at all?"

"Initially, yes. But what we did then, the hand shaking, the hugging, all the other touching
, that wasn't because of Cosmo or anyone else. It was because of you. There was no one else on the Red Island. I didn’t put that night on MNOP, and neither did you. No one except us knows about it. I wasn’t looking to boost my fame with that date. I was looking to boost us."

Maya… I feel like the moment is right and lean my head towards hers. She pulls her head back a little and rubs her forehead again but I think a kiss will let the headache fade away. So I close my eyes and lean in a little further. For a moment I can feel the warmth of her lips close to mine but instead of my lips touching hers, a fi
st crushes my lips on my teeth.

I'm knocked onto my right side, sand enters my mouth. I
breathe in and more sand enters my body. I push my hands into the ground, cough, and try to spit out the sand in my mouth. What happened? I look to my right where Maya sat but she is gone. I look up, into the sun, then left, and see her standing at my feet. I reach out my hand to her to help me get up. She slaps it away.

"Someone punched me," I say, asking for help.

"Someone? How dumb are you?! Did I punch the last remaining snippet of acumen out of your dim-witted mug? I punched you!" she screams. 

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did! And I will do it again!"

"I was just trying to kiss you," I explain.

"You don't say."

"But you wanted to be kissed, too," I argue.

"Why do you think I punched your ugly face? What makes you think I want to be kissed by you?"

"I was looking to find out if our essences complete each other. Because you love me," I say.

"You're delusional. I don't love you. I don't even hate you. I don't care about you," she says calmly.

"No, you do care. Okay, maybe you don't love me yet but you will. I know it."

"I was using you, you idiot! How could you not see this? Everyone else did."

"So Lee was right? You only brought me because I'm famous? How could you do this to me
? I was nothing but supportive of you."

"Oh, you finally see it now? It was about time."

"So you will drop me once I've served your purpose?"

"Obviously! Yes! I just did!" she shouts.

"What's wrong with you? What have I done to you?"

"Yeah, right, because you are such a saint. Don't pretend you're not lying to me. You are putting absolutely no effort into Ravi's Meditosis
sessions; you are sneaking out with Vijay every night, and now your one of those animal torturers? You're disgusting," she snarls.

"You're just using me for your own purposes. You don't care if I get healthy or not. You make me go to those Meditosis sessions simply because that way I don't endanger your reputation as my tutor. It's also convenient how you didn't list the campaign. You take me to those campaign parties because you get more attention with me on your side."

"Dream on."

"Also, how did you know about Vijay and me?"

"Oh, please, grant yourself some dignity. Don't pretend you didn't know that I knew. How you stood there yesterday, arm in arm with Vijay and celebrated the bashing of Cryos. He was lying there, unconscious, and you celebrated."