"He's like water. Like a stretch of water so silent and still, even fish avoid it. When you look into it, the only thing you see is your own reflection. You can't see his true nature. Even though he's right in front of me, I can't shake the uncomfortable feeling that no one's actually there."
~
Profe laid on the ground, no longer moving. He had expected his death.. He no longer felt or desired anything. Some hunters wanted to remain alive, some wallowed in bitterness desiring destruction, and some felt impending fear of the end. Yet.. Profe was left to wonder if he would feel nothing to the very end.
----
When he invited to become a hunter, Profe had accepted without a second thought. “Why not?” He extended a hand. The hunter stepped forward to warn him, “The life that you’re accepting may be a cruel one. You will face dangers beyond your comprehension, face the death of your comrades and even yourself.”
“Sounds fun~ After all, there’s nothing here for me.” It wasn’t that he disliked the world or human beings. Profe simply hadn’t found a place within the world for him. People, society, rules -- they were always a game to him. It was something that he played simply because there was nothing else to do. If what they were offering him was an entirely new life, a new game with new rules, then Profe would accept it. But even after he became a hunter, despite the fact that Profe found life vastly amusing, there was still nothing that touched him. He felt no remorse for his actions nor sympathy in the sadness of death.
“I don’t get it. I’m smiling, aren’t I?” He had once asked a frightened hunter. Had he changed that much? He wondered if his uniform or appearance was out of place? “I-It’s not that!” She answered as Profe examined his coat. “It’s your personality. Y-you’re always so nice at the headquarters and on missions.. but you’re so different when it comes to killing. I’m scared.” She hugged herself instinctively, as if she was trying to protect herself from him.
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“I can’t understand you.”
“I can’t understand your point of view either.”
“Why? Why can’t you see it? I would understand if you hated those monsters or did it out of anger. But when I see you, i-it..” She shivered at remembering his expression, “It’s all fun to you! All you do is kill. You’re no different from a murderer!” Her words echoed in Profe’s shadow. People would always draw the same conclusion afterwards. Ever since becoming a hunter, he had killed mercilessly and without discrimination. But that was his job. Whether they were humans or monsters, he didn’t care.
--
He could no longer recall her face, her voice, or even her name – yet Profe knew that he had forgotten something important.
In the past..
The sun hunter extended his hand to a fellow sun hunter. “I like you.” For the first time in his life, Profe had taken an interest in a human. Rationale, calculations – he would discard them all for this one person. He didn’t understand why but he supposed it didn’t matter. “How about it?” Tilting his head, he waited for her answer. “You don’t even know me.” She countered. But it was something that he had expected. “I’m completely complexed as well.” Profe held out his hands, shrugging in bewilderment. “But I’ve already decided. And once I’ve done that, nothing can change my mind.” And he grinned. Seeing her hesitation, Profe took advantage of her uncertainty to beckon to her. “Take a chance on me.” Without waiting, his fingers trailed lightly down the side of her face. His forefinger lightly urged her to tilt her face upwards, bringing his lips to kiss hers.
~
Once again, he was covered in blood. He couldn’t tell if it was his enemy’s or his own.“Who next?” He said idly, wondering if there would be anybody else to play with him. However, he was surprised to feel somebody throwing themselves at him from behind. “..? What’s wrong?” The way that his voice sounded so gentle -- even amidst his blood thirst, sent chills down her spine. “I don’t want to see you like that again.”
“Are you scared of me?” He remembered that girl’s once long ago words, wondering if she would be the same.
“I’m not!” She denied. But her body was still trembling. “It’s not that.” She repeated. “I am afraid. But not of you. I’m afraid for you.”
“For me?”
“When I see you killing like that, it feels like I might lose you to that darkness. Y-you always come back but what if you don’t one day? I don’t want to see you chained to that dark blood-stained world.”
“If it’s for you, then I suppose I can hold back.”
~
But what would begin would always have an end.
They had been assigned on a mission to the front lines as sun hunters but they were fiercely outnumbered. She had suffered a fatal blow to her abdomen, leaving Profe to turn around. “Damn it--!” Profe narrowly missed a blow from a nearby monster, and pulled his partner out of the fray. They had no other option as Profe picked her up and jumped out of the battlefield, running until he found an alleyway to temporarily hide.
She was already on the verge of death, her breath labored even as he tried to administer aid. “Hell of a way to get injured.” He muttered, gingerly opening up her coat to view her wound. Although his expression didn’t betray the severity of the wound, she must have already known that she wouldn’t survive. “Neh, Profe.” She reached up for him, her hand already faltering in her weakness. He grasped her hand, feeling the coldness seep into her skin. “Save me.” She whispered hoarsely. Her wound was already festering and blackening at the edges. At this point in time, they couldn’t predict a fear’s effect or the actions of a halloweener.
Profe understood her request. An ironic smile touched upon his lips. “Cruel until the very end.” But the alternative, letting her die by anybody else’s hand but him was unacceptable. Holding her hand gently in his, he brought the back of her hand to his lips to gently kiss it. “Good-bye.” He murmured softly, only letting her ears hear it. His guns, always a part of him, now felt like heavy chains that would forever bound him. Taking out his gun, he held it to her head -- BAM!!
He lost track of how much time had passed, whether it was seconds or minutes that he held her now lifeless body. Pushing himself up, he could hear them approaching. “I wanted to at least be able to cry.. but forgive me that I can only see you off with this.” He remembered her smiling face. But now, his voice would no longer reach her. Holding the back of her head, he leaned over her, his breath touching her dead body. For the first time, death was such an unsettling feeling. “But I suppose I should finish the job, shouldn’t I?”
Standing up, he smiled over his shoulder. “Wait for me. I’ll be back.” It was a promise.
When the moon hunters had finally arrived as back-up, there were only bodies as far as the eye could see. But eventually, one could make out Profe’s silhouette surrounded by bodies, standing in a pool of blood. He held a body in one hand, dropping it carelessly when he determined they were no longer alive. A pair of broken glasses remained as his feet. “There’s no reason to hold back anymore, is there?” A stunned silence followed. But the sun hunter clutched his face with one hand and began to laugh -- a chilling laugh of a person who had lost their sanity. His other hand made a wide swoop, holding his runic gun unsteadily.
“Life. Death. Hunters. Monsters. I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“Neh.. should I kill myself right here and now?” He didn’t need the hunters. He didn’t even need his life.
But even that choice was taken from the sun hunter as the moon hunters immediately moved to restrain his movements. Profe ended up locked away in a dark room with only his mind to accompany him. He knew that people died in their line of work as hunters. They faced death with every mission, with every monster. It was a game of survival. Profe had seen teammates, partners, and fellow hunters all fall to their knees. But he could not accept her death.
Syringes laid scattered on the table outside of his cell, having been required to sedate him.
Several higher-ups were speaking. Ah.. what were they saying? “..We can’t let him die. We’re already short too many hunters.” They didn’t bother to conceal their words, thinking that a drugged man wouldn’t even make sense of it. Profe heard them yet he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Somebody arrived -- somebody he once knew -- shaking the bars of his cell. Some girl that he couldn’t care less about. “Profe? I heard that you were here. I also heard about .. her death.” She said hesitantly, coming home from her mission to the news. She seemed to be looking for words, peering around nervously. When she finally answered, her voice was strained with false cheerfulness, “It’s okay! In time, the pain will fade--” They must have been well-intentioned words. But instead of being grateful, Profe could only feel anger and scorn. “Fade? To become what? Are you telling me to forget her? To go on with my life?” He had heard these trite phases. They were only words. He saw her hurt expression. “Just leave. I want to be alone right now” Profe rejected them. He couldn’t accept their pitiful words, the way they so carelessly barged into his emotions without understanding anything.
Letting his hair fall over his eyes, he looked up at the dark ceiling. He ended up sitting against the wall, his arm resting on one bent knee. He had known that somebody would say that. But no matter how much he tried to understand, Profe had never understood.
I don’t understand .. I don’t understand. Will time be all it takes to make my pain disappear? Will forgetting really lead to my happiness? After I loved her so much .. and she loved me back, how can I forget you once you’re gone?
Burying his face in his hands, Profe vowed, “I can’t betray you like that.”
He didn’t know why but eventually the leader of the Life division would see him. The hunter dispensed with all formalities, asking him, “What is left in your life?” Profe would have appreciated his straight-forwardness, had it been any other situation. “I don’t know.” Profe sat in the corner of his cell, answering with a dull tone. He had no desire to do anything. Even if he were to waste away.. He had felt this once before, hadn’t he? This empty darkness before becoming a hunter, before meeting her. It had never bothered him then.. yet there was something different about it now.
“There must be something.”
Something stirred inside of Profe. He could remember the taste of blood, the exhilaration of ripping their limbs apart, and the feeling of discovery. “I see.” The life division hunter had responded with a glimpse of a smile as if he could see Profe’s thoughts.
Yet, even those feelings would not bring him back if that was what this hunter intended. “If you’re asking me to re-join the sun division, I’ll save you the trouble now. I will never go back.” He would not betray his memories with her with some false imitation, some pretense.
“I had considered that. But seeing your feelings.. In that case, why don’t you join the life division?” The life division? Profe had never felt inclined towards research.. “I’ve seen your reports. Even if you choose to abandon the sun hunters, you have other talents as well. As part of life, you’re not required to work with anybody. And as long as you benefit the hunters, I don’t care what the hell you do.”
“If you’ll let me have as much fun as I’d like, I’ll join your division.”
“As you’d like.”
-------
In the days after, Profe learned once again to smile, to interact with others. Profe realized, even imitating a smile or cheerful personality could fool others. He was similar to the person he was yet he was different. It made things easier, stopped people from asking questions. It was merely a role he had to play. But even as he smiled, he refused to accept anybody else in his life. And still, there were people who persisted in making their way in. There were people that he had come to regard as more than acquaintances.. The word that he hadn’t yet grasped was the term, ‘friends.’ Those friends included Titania, Gear, Andy, and Caelius.
And gradually, that false smile had become real.
He knew that Andy had a fragile and easily hurt heart. But she would always stand up again. Gear was an idiot, the type that Profe couldn’t understand. But even beneath that cheerful idiocy, Profe sensed that Gear carried more within himself than he shared. Titania was far too generous -- caring more about other people than herself. Caelius, beneath his reluctant exterior, would have the potential to grow.
If it wasn’t for them, Profe might have abandoned the human ethics and morals long before. Some might term the hunters as cynical. But Profe was beyond that. He no longer held a regard for life or death, his blood thirsty curiosity only sated by murder and experimentation. It was a side born from the darkness of their lives. He lived for the amusement in death. Nothing else had mattered to him. And yet, there were people who pulled him back before he fell over the brink completely.
--
“What are you doing?” Andy had asked him sternly when Profe had climbed in through her window. “Shh.” Profe held a finger to his lips to indicate silence. Gear ran by, obviously running to find somebody. “DAMMIT PROFE! I TOLD YOU NOT TO MESS WITH MY FEDORAS!” His irritated voice reverberated throughout the campus.
Caelius opened the door to a hiding Profe. “Yo!” He waved, ignoring Caelius’s raised eyebrow. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Profe hiding out in somebody else’s room. Titania had entered soon after, holding a tray of desserts. “Oouh. It looks good.” Taking a muffin from the platter, Profe was happily munching on it when Gear caught sight of him again. “PROOOOOOOOOOOOFE!” And that had sent Profe running for his life. Again.
~
Or when Gear had found his way into his lab which would result in an unpleasant experience for the both of them. "Gear, if you don't stop touching my experiments, I will render you unable to biologically maintain life.
Do you want that?"
--
Those happy moments. Memories. All of them were reduced to zero. Profe himself had betrayed her and them.
“Did you have a fun life?” She asked above him. He was vaguely surprised to see her. Yet it would make sense as he was dying. With a wry sigh, he asked, “Answer me a question first. Are you a dream? Or a hallucination?”
“Mm. Only you can answer that.”
Profe didn’t care in the end. As long as he saw her once more, it would be enough. In response to her question, he looked up with a wry smile, “I suppose so.” He had done what he liked after all. What was there to regret? And yet.. “I didn’t cry for you.” It was what he always wanted to confess. He knew that his actions were irrevocable. Would the distance remain there forever between them? Was the time they spent together broken? "I think I became lost a long time ago. You were the only thing left showing me the way. And when you disappeared.."
“Mm. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t cry” She shook her head. “It was that you couldn’t. You might have lost your path for a time. But you didn’t betray me. Not at all. After all, there were people who brought you back.”
Taking her hand, the hunter was surprised to feel something streaming down his cheeks. – Tears? Bringing his gloved hand to his face, he found himself chuckling. “I am really useless for it to have taken this long.”
"Thank you Titania, Gear, Caelius, and Andy. When you eventually come to this side, let's all have the fun we promised."
"Until then, try your best ♫."
