Misunderstandings and Breaking the Ice

Early the next morning, Jingxing was crouched by the stream, washing his face, when Old Zhou came over and pressed half a black flatbread into his hand.

"Kid, there's something I've been holding in all night." Old Zhou lowered his voice. "Are you really going to Rovini? That place is a 'meat grinder' right now. Both sides are trying to pour every resource they have into it. If we really go, there aren't even enough of us to fill out the line."

"It's not a question of whether we want to go." Jingxing broke off half the bread and handed it back. "For the sake of peace, she has to go."

Old Zhou looked in the direction he indicated. Robin was standing in the morning light, sorting and distributing the supplies she had recently gathered from the ruined towns.

Old Zhou stared for a few seconds, then stuffed the bread into his mouth. "True enough," he mumbled. "Following her beats wandering around aimlessly out there. Even if I die in Rovini, I'll just think of it as a release."

Since the routed soldiers had joined them, Jingxing had spent all the energy he had previously used on keeping watch on sketching. Every day, whenever they stopped to rest, he took out his pencil and drew in his sketchbook. Unlike the still lifes he had drawn before, every picture was of Robin that day.

But from that day on, Jingxing had also begun to avoid Robin unconsciously.

It wasn't deliberate, just an instinctive avoidance of pain. Each time, he would look away a moment before his gaze reached her. Even when listening to her speak, Jingxing would only stare at the ground a few inches in front of her feet, rather than boldly meeting her eyes as he had before.

He didn't know what caused the burning pain, but the longer Jingxing looked at Robin, the worse it hurt. So he could only avoid looking at her.

The first time he gave himself away was yesterday morning. As the two of them crouched by the river washing up, Robin casually hummed a little tune to wake herself up. Jingxing merely looked up at her. Just one glance, and the needle deep in his eye socket came probing out.

The pain made him squeeze his eyes shut, and the cup slipped from his hand and struck the water, splashing his face with cold water.

"It slipped," Jingxing explained before Robin could ask, bending down to retrieve the cup with a somewhat exaggerated motion.

Robin looked at him for two seconds and said nothing. But she didn't continue humming the tune, either.

Although Robin hadn't asked, Jingxing noticed that she hummed less often each day. Sometimes, when their gazes met, she would be the first to lower her eyes. Something indescribable had come between them, like a thin sheet of ice on the river.

After two more days of travel, the group made camp by a patch of low woodland that evening. Robin sat alone on a rock by the river, gazing absently at the water.

Jingxing walked over and sat down a few steps away. He didn't look at her face, only at the river.

"Mr. Jingxing," Robin suddenly said, "are you afraid of me?"

Jingxing froze for a moment and looked up, meeting her eyes. There was no reproach in those emerald-green eyes, only sadness.

The burning pain struck again, and Jingxing quickly turned his head away, but he answered, "What would I be afraid of?"

"Because that day..." Robin's fingertips curled slightly against her knee. "I used my ability to make them put down their guns and start following us. Ever since then, you haven't been willing to look at me."

She paused, her voice dropping. "Mr. Jingxing, I would never use that ability on you. Not even once."

Robin raised her head, a careful earnestness in her eyes. "So please, don't be afraid of me."

Seeing that Jingxing still wouldn't meet her eyes, she felt a pang in her heart. "Don't treat me like an outsider. Don't distance yourself from me."

Jingxing opened his mouth, his throat dry. After a long silence, he finally spoke. "Um... actually, it's not your fault, Miss Robin. It's mine. And I'm not afraid of you."

Robin didn't respond. She just looked at him.

"Ever since that day, whenever I look at you, my eyes seem to hurt," Jingxing explained. "When you sing or use your ability, looking at you feels like someone's stabbing my eyes with a red-hot needle. It hurts so much I can't bear it, so I can only avoid looking at you. It's not that I have a problem with you. I just seem to have come down with some kind of illness for no reason. It's my problem, and I made you blame yourself for nothing."

The air was silent for a few seconds.

"...It hurts?" Robin repeated, unable to hide the shock in her voice.

"Yeah. As long as I don't look at you, I'm fine."

Robin looked at him and murmured to herself, "The power of Harmony would never have that effect on anyone. I've taught lots of children to sing, and no one has ever avoided me because of it."

She paused. "Mr. Jingxing, something isn't right."

Jingxing said nothing. He also felt something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what. Yaoguang had told him to stay away from Pathstriders of Harmony—could it have something to do with that? But he wasn't even a Pathstrider, so why was he the only one something was "wrong" with?

"Then..." Robin leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping a little further. "Does it hurt to look at me now?"

Jingxing hesitated, then raised his eyes to her.

Her eyes glistened in the twilight.

At that moment, Robin wasn't singing or using her ability. She was just an ordinary girl who wanted to grow close to him again.

"...It doesn't hurt anymore," he said.

Robin seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

She didn't press him about the source of the burning pain, nor did she offer to "examine" him.

She simply sat up straight again and gazed at the river. After a long silence, she said softly, "That's good. I thought you were going to distance yourself from me, just like my brother."

Jingxing watched the evening breeze stir her silver hair and clenched his fist. "I won't leave. We haven't achieved our goal yet. Even if I have to endure that burning pain, I'll do my best to overcome it."

Robin said nothing, but Jingxing noticed her hand slowly reach over toward him.

After that, the thin ice between them seemed to wash away with the river. Jingxing still looked away when she sang, but whenever they made camp in the evening and he began to draw, Robin would always appear silently beside him and keep him company.

After four more days of travel, the road became easier to follow.

There were more tire tracks on the highway, and military vehicles occasionally drove past, kicking up dust that mingled with the smell of diesel. The group also began encountering parties of refugees, pushing carts and carrying bundles as they fled in the opposite direction.

Whenever they passed them, Robin would stop and hand out a few portions of the compressed food she had saved from her sachet.

That afternoon, Old Zhou squinted into the distance and spat. "This is what the outskirts of the martial law zone look like. If everything goes smoothly, we'll reach Rovini tomorrow."

"What was happening in Rovini when you fled from here?" Jingxing asked.

"It's the government army's main stronghold, after all." Old Zhou bared his teeth in an awkward smile. "We didn't dare go in."

He paused and looked at Robin's back, saying no more.

Jingxing followed his gaze. Robin stood by the roadside, looking at the outline of the city faintly emerging in the distance, and said nothing. Her expression was calm, but she was breathing more slowly than usual, as if preparing for a performance.

Where weapons couldn't go, song could always reach.

When they made camp that night, Robin didn't sit close to him as she usually did. She sat in the shadows away from the campfire, her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap. From a distance, Jingxing saw a faint glimmer on her forehead, flickering with her breathing, almost too faint to see. To spare his eyes, he chose not to go closer and simply kept watch by the fire.

They would enter Rovini tomorrow. There would be no broadcast van, no stage, no lights. Her audience would be an entire city at war, and even the whole planet.

Jingxing didn't know how one song could drown out the gunfire of the whole world, but he was willing to believe in the superstar's ability.

Jingxing added a piece of wood to the fire. The flames flickered, stretching his shadow long.

He lowered his head, opened his sketchbook, and put pencil to a fresh page.

This time, he drew Robin's profile as she sat with her eyes closed, regulating her breathing. As the pencil touched the page, a faint ache returned to his eyes.

"In a few days, we should return to our own lives, too."