Chapter Text
y si te parece que yo estoy enamorada tuya, eso es un invento intuyo por dar crédito a murmullos by AlecisArneb (Arneb)
The candle in Ram's room had burned low enough to leave its corners in shadow, and she hadn't yet found it in herself to light a second. Perhaps that was for the best. Some things read easier written in poor light, when there was less chance of catching one's own hand shaking and having to build an explanation for it.
The door was shut, for what little that was worth; Rem's footsteps hadn't passed the hall in some time, which didn't mean they wouldn't. Ram had learned not to trust a shut door to keep much of anything hidden from a sister who shared half her soul. The first three attempts at her current endeavour sat crumpled somewhere near her feet, evidence of nothing she planned on explaining if anyone asked.
The most recent one had run four lines too long before she'd caught herself writing his name where hers should have gone. There was another she'd abandoned after the second sentence, unable to make it sound like anything other than what it was. The third she didn't much care to remember the contents of. She dipped the pen anyway, and told herself that the fourth sheet would be the one that finally stuck.
“Barusu,
If some rumor's found its way to your nosy ears that wrongly Ram's fond of you, don't waste your time giving it any weight. Rumors are for people with nothing better to occupy their mouths, and Ram won't be made responsible for what idle mouths invent.
It isn't as though she seeks out your presence. At times, entire weeks pass where she doesn't so much as glance in your direction unless there's a task attached, and even then she holds reservations. On the rare occasion she comes looking without one, it was Rem's name that she meant to call down the hall, and yours that she misspoke instead.
If you must know, Ram doesn't lie awake hoping that you'll knock on her door.
That would require wanting something she hasn't given herself permission to, and these days she's not in the habit of permitting much of anything, least of all that sort of thing.
Don't mention this letter to Rem, should it somehow find you before I've had the sense to burn it. She's got enough to carry watching you herself without wondering if her own sister's turned it into a competition. That's not a fight Ram has any intention of entering. She’d rather lose one she never fought than win one she stole out from under her.
You should know that she has watched the way she goes still at the door after you've left a room— a mere half a second where she forgets to keep her face arranged. Foolishly, she thinks nobody catches it. However, Ram has known her face since before she knew her own name, and she won't spend what attention she has left teaching herself not to see what's so obviously written on it, only because it's grown inconvenient for her to see.
Rem told her once, and Ram expects you to not make of this something that it isn't, that she thought you were the first person who'd ever looked at the two of us and seen two people rather than one broken thing unfortunately split in half. Ram told her that was a foolish thing to get sentimental over. That hasn't left Ram’s head since, and she'd thank you not to ask why.
Ram would thank you if you learnt to better care for yourself. That way, she'd be able to simply stop noticing when you're late for supper, or stop keeping count of which chair you take. She'd stop mending what tears too easily to have been accidental every single time, too. Ram has it planned to give you a proper scolding when the time is right, do her the favour of not enjoying it too much.
Ram still has the button from your sleeve, that one that came loose whilst you were hauling firewood, the one she said she'd stitch back on and hasn't gotten around to. It's sat at the bottom of her kit two weeks now— not so much because she's become sentimental over a scrap of dyed bone, but because unpicking a whole hem to match the thread properly is more trouble than the button's worth, and Ram doesn't spend effort on trouble that isn't necessary.
There was, too, the matter of two nights past, when you didn't come down for supper and she found herself outside of your door within the hour under the pretense of checking whether you'd left a mess for someone else to clean up after. You hadn't. You were only asleep, face-down over some ledger you'd nodded off reading, and she stood there. If asked, Ram still doesn't have an explanation for that so she'll simply say it was to check if you weren't faking. She's decided that doesn't count as anything worth reporting either.
That's entire truth. Ram wouldn't lie. Ram isn't fond of you, isn't losing sleep over you, isn't sitting up at an hour better spent asleep for any reason that should concern either you or her sister. If you want an explanation for why she's writing at all, you'll have to invent a better one than she had, because she's fresh out, it's late, and her hand's cramped from holding the pen far longer than it should ever take."
She read it over once, start to finish, and noted that nowhere across four pages had she signed her name. How very irritating. Whether that counted as oversight or self-preservation, she decided against examining too closely; a woman could only stomach so much honesty in one sitting, and she'd already found her limit.
A more honest woman might have started a fifth.
Ram folded the fourth into quarters instead, small enough to fit inside her sleeve, and told herself she'd feed it to the candle the moment she trusted her hands not to fumble the job.
Somewhere down the hall a door opened and shut again— Rem's, most likely, prowling for water or company, or both— and Ram sat very still until the footsteps receded the same way they'd come, her pulse taking considerably longer to follow suit.
The candle gave out first.
The letter didn't. She told herself that was only because reaching for the tinderbox felt like more trouble than the thing deserved.
She almost believed it.