Serious Business [Private]

'Matt' opened the door for Cyra, closing it when she entered. The entire way to the dorm had been dead silent and awkward. Not good if they wanted to have a serious conversation. "My dorm recently got redone, so it might smell a bit off," he warned as he took off his shoes, hoping that she would do the same.

He glanced at his freshly white hallway before entering the bright blue kitchen, nodding for Cyra to follow him. Usually the kitchen would brighten him up with its cheerful color, which he desperately needed in those shallow mornings of his, but right now it did little to help his mood.

He motioned for Cyra to sit at the little table in the middle of the kitchen, grabbing a kettle from a cabinet and filling it with water. He put the stove at high and placed the kettle over the flame. The junior then grabbed a tea strainer that hung above the stove, filling it with a couple of dried tea leaves from a little pot before dipping it into the kettle.

Closing the kettle, he walked to the center of the kitchen and sat opposite of Cyra. "Your first question?" he prompted, getting straight to the point.

As Matt took off his shoes, she quickly did the same. She sat down at the kitchen table and looked around. She'd never been here before. It looked a lot tidier than most boys dorms, but with Matt she wasn't surprised.

"Your first question?" She turned to Matt, who was now sitting in front of her.
"My question..?" Cyra asked, quite pathetically for a lie. Damn, busted, she thought. Deciding to just get it over with, she continued before Matt had the chance to reply. "How did you get it?" She asked carefully with a serious expression, which was a very rare thing to see Cyra with.

He was prepared for this question, but not amount of preparation would make the answer smoothly come out of his mouth. He paused for a second, staring at her evenly, then allowed his fingers to gently touch his blind eye behind his hair.

"You can say my mother gave me this," he started quietly. Before Cyra could say anything else, though, he continued. He was just going to talk until the story was finished, then allow Cyra to make any comments.

He continued, speaking slowly, but not so slowly that Cyra would get impatient.

"My mother was a beautiful woman.. Beautiful and extremely clumsy. So clumsy that it was lethal. But once she got her first child, she decided that she would try her best. She didn't drop me once. My dad admitted that even he was surprised." 'Matt' smiled softly at this.

"She also got stressed really easy, though. The smallest things would make her worry constantly, my birth being one of them. She was always afraid that something would happen to me and it'd be her fault... And it did happen.

"I was three at the time. My mother was nervous about a business meeting that my father was going to have on the same day." He paused as the kettle began whistling. He stood up and went to the stove, turning it off and flipping the little cap that covered spout. Getting two ceramic cups from the cabinet above the stove, he placed them on the table before getting the kettle itself.

"She was making tea, with this kettle, in fact. It was always her favorite. Her favorite type of tea was an expensive tea leaf, both sweet and spicy, and not to mention extremely strong..

"Well, at three I was learning how to say rather complex sentences. Me, being the playful toddler I was, decided to please her by reciting one." He said this as he slowly poured the tea into Cyra's cup. "She was surprised, all right. So surprised that she somehow tripped on her own feet as she turned toward me, the kettle still in her hand.

"You know how kettles work. The stream of boiling tea flew right toward me," he said, now pouring the tea into his own cup. When he finished he set the kettle down on the table, sitting down. "My mother, being the wonderful woman she was, stopped the rest of the flow by grabbing the bottom of the kettle with her bare hand, but enough had spilled out. Most of it hit my right eye, though some of it so happened to splash into my left as well."

He paused, staring at his cup of tea before gently taking a sip. The entire time he had been avoiding Cyra's eyes. "My mother called the police, the hospital, the fire department, and my father in a matter of minutes. She was going nuts, pressing an ice pack against my eyes, and it took them a little while for them to wrench me away from her. I was sent to the emergency room and was hospitalized for around half an year.

"When they finally took the bandages off both eyes, my eyesight was scarred. I couldn't see well out of my left, and my right was completely blind. It still is, and it's the same story for my left eye. They told my parents that the scars around my right eye were too serious, but they were able to make my left eye look reasonable with cosmetic surgery. It didn't take me long to realize that I had to hide my right eye without making others notice it, which is why I grow my hair out instead of wearing an eyepatch."

He finished the story, though it didn't seem like it. After a few seconds he looked up at Cyra. "Anything else?"

Cyra looked at Matt while he told the story, but when he finished and looked up at her, she couldn't help but to look away. She was close to crying. She never could imagine how hard it mustäve been, growing up with a scar like that. She took a sip of tea. It was hot, too hot to drink, but she didn't wince. She wanted to use her full attention to Matt. "Your mother seems to be a lovely person." She said with a low voice, remembering her own mother from when she was small, when her mother actually had time for her. Then something hit her, as if someone had slapped her in the face. She looked up at Matt and met his eye. "Why do you talk about your mother as if she..." The words wouldn't come out. She tried again. "She isn't..?"

He nodded.

"She didn't dare touch me after that time. Only the lightest ones she knew she couldn't hurt me by, like a caress on the cheek or a kiss on the forehead, a fleeting second to show how much she loved me before she whisked herself away to somewhere else so that she wouldn't hurt me.

"She noticed, though. She noticed how quiet I became, how others treated me because of it. She couldn't stand it. Five years after the incident, when I deliberately went up to her and told her that it was okay, that it didn't matter, and attempted to hug her... She slapped me.

"The day after she went missing. Not for long, though."

He stopped. 'Matt' didn't like talking about this part. Sure, his tale of how his eye got injured was painful, but that was because his mother was in the story. This time his mother was the main character, and he was a supporting one. A supporting character that led her to her death. He took a sip of tea, willing himself to continue.

When he spoke again, his voice was hollow. "The police called my father while we were eating dinner. He wouldn't tell me what they had told him, not even at her funeral. I did some research and found out that she.. She jumped."

The calm, blank person that made 'Matt' before was more or less gone. He clenched his fist tightly, focusing on keeping his breathing even. "We moved to America after that, for business and personal reasons. My father didn't want to stay in the country where she died, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to, either."

[[Oops, made a mistake. Five years, not three lol]

Cyra bit her lip when she heard what had happened to Matt and his mother. It was as she feared. No, it was even worse. What a horrible thing to live with for the rest of ones life...
She took one of his clenched fist in her own hands, to reassure him that she was here. She had a terrible hunch, one she needed to make sure wasn't true. "You know it's not your fault, right?" She asked carefully, worry more than visible in her tearfilled eyes as she looked straight into his. If there was one thing she wouldn't let him do, it was blaming himself for this.

'Matt' barely took registered Cyra's hands over his right, just stared at her as she spoke. It was amazing, really, that she was in tears when he wasn't, despite that all this shit happened to him and not her.

"... You don't know what it's like," he said quietly, looking down at his tea cup. She had hit dead center on what he felt about this situation. "I'm always thinking, what if I hadn't went up to her to surprise her, what if I acted just a little happier, what if I didn't try to hug her. And I know the answer, Cyra. She wouldn't have died."

His clenched his fist even tighter at the last word, his nails digging into his palm.

She put one of her hands under his chin(this was a tremendous effort, since she was so short) and lifted his head enough to make him look att her. "Never, ever think like that. You cannot possibly know what would've happened. No one can." She took a deep breath, there was no good way to say this. "Look, your mother made a choice that day. It's horrible, but you cannot blame yourself, look where that led her. Do you think your mother wanted that?" Certain that Matt might very well think her as crossing the line right now, she braced herself. He probably needed to hear it anyway.

"Are you saying that she still would've died anyway?!" 'Matt' had practically wanted to shout there, but Cyra continued talking. And he felt it, something he hadn't felt in a while now. Anger. He jerked his chin away from her hand, the chair scratching the new, polished floor as it slid back an inch or two at the sudden movement.

"How could you even--" he stopped himself, chomping down on his tongue painfully to stop a stream of profanities from flowing out. No, he didn't want to fight, not here, not now, and not with her. He looked away, silently cursing himself for even thinking about it.

His heart slowed down as he repeated what Cyra just told him, probing the words like how a child would pick up a stone and carefully turn it over, analyzing whatever was underneath it. Let's just hope they don't shriek and throw it somewhere because it has grubs sticking onto it like leeches.

"... No," he finally choked out, spat even, as he thought of what his mother would say. He sighed as the answer came, all anger drained. He just looked tired now. 'Matt' turned his head back toward Cyra. "She would be extremely disappointed in me. She probably is."

Cyra fell back into her chair as he jerked away. As she thought, she crossed the line. It was the first time she'd seen Matt angry. He was scary when he was mad, she noticed, but then he quieted.

"No. She would have been, but I don't think she is disappointed." She looked down in her tea. I'd better back off now before I really cross the line, she thought.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have made you tell me." She whispered, not even sure if he heard her. Matt didn't know Cyra that well, but he told her his secret anyway. She wasn't sure if he felt that way, but she felt a connection to him, she felt secure around him. To be herself always felt natural, and she never had to care about being judged. She didn't know what would happen now though. He could still be mad at her. It was as if she was balancing on a thin thread which was their friendship. It could break any time now. She didn't want it to happen, but if Matt decided for it to be so, then she wouldn't fight back.

'Matt' raised an eyebrow at her statement (though raising only one had no effect, as the other was hidden by his fringe). He wasn't going to think about that one for now. He'd apologize to his mother later.

He stared at Cyra for a few seconds, wondering if she was regretting this entire ordeal. She probably wished she never asked to play basketball with him, that's for sure. To think this all had started for a stupid shot.

He closed his eyes. "... No, it's fine." And there he was again, being nice as he usually was. He opened his eyes, taking a sip of tea, which had cooled considerably. "It'd be better for you to know and think of it when you see me instead of looking at me and wondering how I got my eye the way it is now."

'Matt' paused. "If.. It may be alright, though.." he started. Now that they had both calmed down quite a bit, you could say that the atmosphere wasn't near content. "Will you do something for me, now that you know?"

Cyra smiled sadly and played with her hair as Matt returned to his usual nice self. I wonder how much of himself he supresses, she thought. She wanted to tell him that she hadn't started looking at him in a different way, he was still Matt to her, but he continued.

Caught off guard, Cyra frowned. "I guess? It depends on what you ask of me, but I'll try my best." She said. What was he up to?

'Matt' smiled ever so slightly when she agreed. "I'm pretty sure you already thought about fulfilling this request.. It might be something outrageous for someone else, but I think it'll be easy for you, Cyra," he said.

"Just treat me normally," he said, taking another sip of tea. He was sure she understood the question. "You don't have to pretend that we never had this conversation; in fact, if you want to ask more, go right ahead. Now that you know all this, I don't mind at all..

"However, I would mind if you treat me any more differently than how you did before. I would really like it if you still see me... As the person you once knew, because that's who I am."

He paused, then looked at her. "Is that alright?"

Cyra smiled at him and shook her head. "Listen, it's the past that shapes us. You're the same person as you were before you told me, so why would I treat you differently?"
She took a sip of her cold tea. After a brief pause she tilted her head to the right, as usual.

"Is that why you hide it? Because you don't want people to treat you differently?" An understandable reason, if that's what it was.

'Matt' smiled, his tense body relaxing ever so slightly when she agreed. Thank goodness.

"Dead center," he answered her question with a nod. "My middle school classes all found out. The outcome was.. Rather painful, you can say," he said, shrugging as he drained the rest of his tea. "I really hated how they treated me after that, so I decided that keeping a secret is the best thing to do. I was successful with that.. Until now, of course."

He shrugged again. Now that she had agreed to treat him the same, he seemed a bit happier. "Inevitability, I guess."

Cyra nodded, drinking her tea as Matt did. "Yeah, figures. I never understood why people would look at others for such trivial things." She reflected, remembering how people treated her before and after she became friends with one of the most respected girls in her old school. Suddenly people stopped bullying her, but once Ema disappeared it resumed, as if it was on a standby. She played with her tea, creating ripples by dipping her finger in it, caught up in her memories with a blank expression on her face.

Trivial? 'Matt' repeated silently. If the situation weren't so grim then he would've laughed. Yeah, his eye was trivial, but it made complete sense if she wanted to treat him differently because his mother had died. She had no idea that he was actually an orphan; his father was long gone as well. Orphans are treated differently because people don't know how to interact with them.

"It seems you've experienced it first-hand," he observed, noting the expression on her face. Since he was near-sighted, it wasn't hard seeing her, though the edges were quite fuzzy.

Matt dragged her out of her daydream. "Oh?" She paused, thought it through and then continued. "Yeah, well not exactly. You remember when I told you about Ema?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Well, once she became my friend people suddenly became friendly towards me, and I was really stupid back then." She said with a sad smile. It always did hurt to talk about that part, because she truly believed in it. "I thought that it was real friendship they were showing me. But when Ema disappeared, so did their so-called friendship." She shivered, remembering some of the things they did to her. "It's not quite the same, but people act differently if they know things like that. I was the same person when I didn't have any friends as when I had Ema, but they treated me differently. You were the same person before your classmates knew aboutyour scar, but they treated you differently once they knew, probably because they were afraid to hurt your feelings. I just don't get it."

Of course he remembered Ema. He remembered everything.

".. I see," he said. It felt good, veering the conversation away from himself and instead talking about Cyra. It was true that he wasn't the best at comforting people, but his own pain was a bit too harsh to console. Besides, time already did that.

"I think that's it, though. Fear," 'Matt' answered, shrugging slightly. It was a guess, though it made some sense. "They might have been afraid that they might hurt my feelings, yes.. And they probably feared Ema, too, which made them somewhat fear you once you became her friend. Indirect fear, may I call it... So they became your 'friends'. Once Ema was gone, though, the fear was gone, so they were free to do what they wanted."

He frowned. He sounded kind of harsh, even if it was a theory, huh? "I don't understand why they would treat someone like that in the first place, but... It happens." That was the cold truth, huh.