Thi and Grub faced each other across the grass, a competitive edge sharpening both their expressions.
Wrighty sat cross-legged between them on top of the rock, his chin resting on his fist as he considered his options. His dark eyes bounced between the crimson-eyed doll girl and the pale, blank-faced boy, measuring something neither of them could see. Then his grin widened.
Grub prepared himself for a good competition while Thi cracked her knuckles. Both expected something difficult and physical. But neither of them expected what they heard.
"Let's do a competition of kindness!".
The world went still as the announcement rung out.
"After all, we're playing this game to get closer, right?" His sincerity was so thick it was practically visible. "So here's how it works. You two go back and forth saying or doing something kind for each other. I'll award points based on how genuine and thoughtful each one is. After a few rounds, I'll tally the scores and announce the winner."
His grin reached maximum wattage. "You guys have to be really good!"
Grub and Luthiel turned toward Wrighty with expressions so dark they could have blocked out the sun. The competitive fire that had been building for a physical showdown curdled into existential dread.
"Are you a moron, Musclehead?" Thi's crimson eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "That challenge is utterly idiotic."
"I must agree," Grub added flatly. "This is the worst possible use of our time."
Wrighty's grin didn't falter. "Come on, guys! Just do it." A sly expression suddenly crossed his face. "Unless you're scared of losing."
Thi's entire body went rigid. Her fists clenched at her sides and her teeth ground together audibly. "I will NEVER lose to this Bug."
Grub said nothing, but his jaw tightened. He didn't particularly care about being nice. However...He did care about winning. He was not going to be outperformed at anything, even something as absurd as forced kindness. His thirst for knowledge depended on victory.
Wrighty laughed and clapped his hand against his knee. "Then get ready, set, and GOOOO!"
He pointed at Luthiel.
"Luthiel — Thi? I'm not sure which to call you. But you're up first!"
"Luthiel is fine," Thi grumbled. She turned to Grub and scratched her chin, her crimson eyes darting sideways as if making direct eye contact during a compliment might physically injure her.
"I guess you're... not always wimpy, Bug."
She spun toward Wrighty immediately. "How many points was that?"
Wrighty's face fell. "I'm not telling you until the end! And that was a terrible compliment!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU STUPID MUSCLEHEAD! I SAID SOMETHING NICE!"
"Barely!"
Thi looked about ready to murder Wrighty over a kindness competition, which was a paradox that Grub found mildly fascinating.
Wrighty sighed and gestured toward Grub. "Your turn, Doc."
Grub sat there. His mind, which could calculate trap trajectories, Anima expenditure rates, and battle formations in real time, went completely blank when tasked with producing a genuine compliment. After several painful seconds, he shrugged.
"You have... nice hair."
Wrighty stared at him in disbelief. "Are you two actually this bad at compliments?"
Luthiel glanced away with a hint of color in her cheeks. "My hair IS pretty nice, though. Which one's hair do you mean?"
"All of you, I guess."
Thi crossed her arms and her face twitched with something she was clearly fighting to suppress. "Yeah. Whatever, Bug."
Wrighty pinched the bridge of his nose. "Luthiel, you're up again."
The next round somehow went even worse.
Thi huffed, marched up to Grub, and placed her hand on his shoulder with all the tenderness of someone handling a piece of furniture.
"You're not ugly when I watch you sleep, I guess."
Wrighty blankly leered at her with his mouth hanging open. "WHAT? That's not a normal thing to say!"
"What do you mean it's not normal?!"
"In what world is 'you're not ugly when I watch you sleep' a compliment?!"
"I SAID HE WASN'T UGLY! THAT'S NICE!"
Grub looked at Luthiel with an expression caught between confusion and mild alarm. Several questions competed for priority in his head, chief among them being how often she watched him sleep and why she had framed it as reassurance about his appearance during unconsciousness.
He filed those questions under "things better left unasked" and moved on.
The rounds continued. Each one was more painful than the last.
Grub exhausted his already limited vocabulary of kindness with mechanical efficiency. Her face was acceptable. Her arms seemed strong. Her dress was adequate.Then he complimented her hair again because he ran out of ideas. Each commendation landed with the emotional impact of reading a grocery list, and Wrighty's increasingly despairing expression told Grub his point total was suffering.
Thi fared no better. Her attempts at warmth came wrapped in insults like thorns around a stem. "You're smarter than you look, I guess." "Your coat isn't as stupid as I thought." "At least you don't smell bad. Anymore."
Wrighty's faith in them visibly eroded with each exchange.
"Final round," he announced, as he stared at them with the hollow expression of a man who had witnessed a tragedy.
The life had left his eyes and his smile was vanquished. He was now a broken man who sat slumped on a rock.
"Grub, you're next. Just one good compliment. For my sake."
Grub sighed through his nose. He had cycled through every surface-level observation he could think of. Hair, face, arms, dress, combat ability. Thi stood across from him with a victorious smirk already forming.
"What's wrong, Bug? Run out of nice things to say?" She tossed her messy red-streaked hair. "Guess I win. As expected."
She turned and started walking toward Wrighty to claim her victory.
Then Grub spoke. The words came from somewhere he hadn't authorized. They bypassed his analytical mind entirely and traveled from a place deeper than strategy and calculation, even deeper than the grey fog the Nihil pressed over everything.
"I just wanted you to know that no matter how strange you are or how much hatred everyone else throws at you, I think you're pretty incredible. Anyone who can't see that is being illogical."
Thi froze mid-step.
Her back was to him, so he couldn't see her face. But her shoulders went rigid while her fists clenched at her sides. The tips of her long pointy ears, visible through the mess of red-streaked hair, turned a vivid crimson that wasn't related with her aspect.
Wrighty's jaw dropped. Then his entire face split into the widest grin of the day. He slapped his crossed legs and rocked backward with delight.
"WOW! I didn't think you were capable of saying something that nice, Doc!" He wiped an actual tear from the corner of his eye. "What a way to end the game!"
Thi spun around. Her face was approximately the color of a ripe tomato, her crimson eyes blazing with an intensity that mixed fiery fury and overwhelming embarrassment.
"SHITTY BUG!"
She stormed in a circle, her mitten-like hands waving in the air, her voice cracking between outrage and flustered gratitude.
"SHITTY STUPID BUG!"
Grub stood in place with his hands in his pockets, genuinely uncertain whether the compliment had landed well or poorly. Her reaction could have been interpreted either way.
"Did I do it well?" he asked Wrighty.
"Perfectly, dude. Perfectly."
Wrighty wiped tears from his eyes.
"Wow. Actual kindness. We finally got there."
Thi paced back and forth, refusing to look at him, her face stubbornly heated. After several laps she finally stopped, stared at the ground, and muttered through clenched teeth.
Wrighty pointed dramatically.
"Your turn!"
She didn't immediately fire back. A long silence passed before she quietly spoke
"I guess I'll... try to help you when I can…Maybe." She kicked a pebble. "Stupid Bug."
Wrighty chuckled warmly, then drew himself up with theatrical solemnity.
"With that, the points are in. And the winner is..."
A dramatic pause.
"DA DA DA DUHHH!"
"GRUB!"
Relief washed through Grub's chest. Not because he won, but because he earned the right to ask his question. His eyes drifted toward Luthiel with quiet purpose.
Thi pouted magnificently. "Can't believe I lost to a Musclehead AND a dumb Bug in the same stupid day. This game was rigged."
Wrighty laughed. "That's rough."
Grub walked over to her and sat down on the grass. He gestured beside him, an invitation to sit. Thi huffed, crossed her arms, and dropped down beside him with a thud.
"What do you want, Bug?"
Grub looked at her. Every trace of levity drained from his expression.
"Tell me exactly why everyone hates you."
The warmth from the compliment evaporated from Thi's face in an instant. Her crimson eyes hardened and her posture stiffened.
"Huh? We already told you, dumbass. It's because I'm strange looking and different. You know how people are."
"No." Grub's blackish-green eyes held hers without wavering. "The real reason."
Thi opened her mouth to deflect but Grub didn't let her.
"I was going to wait for you to tell me yourself. But I've been waiting for a while and I know you never will unless someone pushes." His voice stayed level, controlled, clinical. "What Splot said at that meeting wasn't simple 'you're weird' disgust. That was something much more specific. Something everyone in this village seems to know except me."
His gaze sharpened.
"What happened? What are you hiding?"
Thi's crimson eyes flickered. Behind them, Grub could see the rapid-fire micro-expressions that indicated the three aspects were arguing furiously. A twitch of golden warmth. A flash of blue stillness. Crimson pushing back against both.
"I can't." Her voice came out tighter than before. "What Master says goes. And what she said was that I can't tell you."
"Still?" Grub's frustration broke through his usual composure. "Just say it, for god's sake! I'm sick of not knowing! I don't care what the reason is. Whatever it is won't change how I see you. But keeping secrets from me when I've told you everything about myself is—"
He stopped himself and allowed himself a deep breath. He tried hard to pull the emotion back into its box.
"Just stop hiding things from me."
The clearing went quiet. Wrighty watched the exchange with a frown, his usual brightness subdued.
"Doc..."
Thi stood. Her crimson eyes were unreadable, locked behind a wall of conflicting loyalties. Morrigan's order versus Grub's demand. Trust versus obedience. The desire to be known versus the fear of what being known might cost.
"I think," she said slowly, "I'll go check on Master."
Then she turned and walked away. Her pace quickened into a jog, then a run, her messy red-streaked hair bouncing behind her as she disappeared around the corner of a building.
Grub watched her go.
The frustration in his chest battled against a growing awareness that he had just made a mistake. The Nihil sitting cold behind his ribs made the frustration feel justified, reasonable, proportional. But somewhere beneath the grey, a quieter voice suggested that pushing someone to reveal a trauma they weren't ready to share was neither kind nor strategic.
Wrighty sighed from behind him.
"Dude. I think even you know that was dumb."
Grub rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Wrighty."
"I'm just saying."
"I said shut up."
Wrighty held up his one hand in surrender and let the silence do its work.
After a long moment, Grub sighed and rubbed his face. "I know it wasn't smart. But I need to know. The curiosity is eating me alive."
"Yeah, but she's not a puzzle to solve, Doc. She's a person. With feelings and stuff."
Grub said nothing. The observation was irritatingly accurate and he didn't want to acknowledge it.
Wrighty stood and brushed grass from his pants. "Well, I guess that's the end of the game."
"I suppose."
Wrighty smiled despite everything. "At the very least, I can already tell she's a pretty cool person. All three of her."
Grub glanced at him. "Yeah. I suppose she is."
"Come on, Wrighty." He stood and dusted off his coat. "Let's do some Anima training. Luthiel is probably fine. She just needs space."
Wrighty's expression shifted at the mention of Anima. Something uncomfortable flickered behind his dark eyes, quick enough to miss if Grub hadn't been watching. But Grub was always watching.
The one-armed boy said nothing about it. Instead, he simply nodded and fell into step beside Grub.
"I guess, dude."
They walked together across the park in the warm afternoon light. After a few paces, Wrighty spoke up again. His voice carried a lightness that was deliberately chosen, carefully placed over whatever sat beneath it.
"I hope we'll be the best of friends, Doc. All of us."
Grub looked at him. At the grin that never died, the scars, the warmth, and the stupid, relentless goodness that radiated from every pore of his dark skin.
Somewhere inside, past the grey, through the Nihil, and beyond the analytical walls he had built to keep the world at arm's length, Grub wanted the same thing.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Me too."