The pte was empty, only some crumbs remained on the table, Luca scooped them and pced them on his pte, he began standing up to clean it, but his mother stopped him, grabbed the pte from him and began cleaning it along with hers and his sister’s. She smiled at him, but he knew that the smile was for comfort not for happiness, that fact was what bothered Luca the most, the three of them knew that going to Zenith was a good thing, some people live their lives with the sole purpose of going there, but they couldn’t be happy, they’ll be separated for the first time in their lives, lives in which they always had eachother and sometimes had only eachother, they wouldn’t be together.

  Luca gnced at his sister, Lana had her eyes pierced on the table, same as he just did, she then felt his gaze and met it, but then looked to the table again, no comforting smile or anything, he couldn’t bme her, he probably couldn’t have done it if the roles were reversed. He stood up, dragging his chair backwards as he looked forward, then to his sister who had a hint of fear on her face, finally to his mother who looked at him as she was putting away the dishes.

  “... I’m gonna get dressed” he felt it coming out drier than he wanted to, but then again he probably couldn’t put much emotion behind it if he wanted to without overdoing it.

  “Alright hon, make sure you get the good clothes, gotta look nice” Luca was astounded at how well his mother kept her voice in check, he thought that if he had to say that to her, he’d have a voice crack for every word.

  Nodding and turning around to go up the stairs, Luca couldn’t shake the bad feeling that pgued him, it was as if with every step, his limbs would fall asleep and he had to feel that stinging sensation at every moment, still he somehow made it up the stairs, went to his room and closed the door behind him, leaning into it and bumping the back of his head on it. He rubbed his face trying to discern a solution to the situation, but instead he simply straightened his posture and walked over to his wardrobe, he grabbed the clothes he prepared and set them on the top, front of the small mirror, he dressed himself in some basic brown pants, and a military green t-shirt that fit him kind of loose. When he put it on, he looked in the mirror.

  Luca saw his disheveled red hair, all standing up, he tried to fix it by running his hands through it, and it did manage to shape it up a bit, but only slightly. He noticed that he had a bit of facial hair, so he grabbed his razor and carefully cut them off, never saw himself with a beard, at least not yet, he then tried to fix his hair a bit more, but then stopped, and just looked at himself.

  He didn’t see a man of Zenith, he didn’t see someone ready to explore an infinite dungeon or someone with the knowledge and bravery to save people from a monster, he saw a boy, a scared little boy who never went out of his region and that knew only a fistfull of things about the world. The bright scarlet hair he had was not of a warrior but of a country boy, his amber eyes with the bags below weren’t from sleepless nights training or studying, but from staying in bed looking at the ceiling fantasizing or talking with his sister about said fantasies. His face had no battle scars and his jaw and mouth weren’t delicate like a royal… he forgot to brush his teeth. Luca sighed as he walked over to the bed and began putting on his boots, he knew he wasn’t destined for that world, the world of adventurers, heroes and legends in the making, even if he dreamed of living a story like that, he now realized that what he dreamed about wasn’t to live and adventure, but to be worthy of one.

  Luca stood up and walked to his door, he yearned for the feeling he had felt that morning just after waking up, the feeling of his life continuing like it used to.

  “LUCA! I NEED TO-” Lana burst into the room, bumping his left arm and pushing him back from the scare, he stabilized his footing so as to not fall, and looked up as the scare pulled him into reality, and he wasn’t pleased by this reality.

  “What the f-... what was that Lana?” He said, rubbing his left shoulder to alleviate the impact while he felt his heart pumping rapidly in his chest.

  “I- Well sorry, how could I know you were behind the door?!” She said, defensively.

  “I don’t know, knocking?! For fu- pete’s sake haven’t there been enough accidents with that already in this house” he stopped rubbing his shoulder and threw his hands up in disbelief “I mean really, I was shaving a second ago! What if you scared me then?! Do you know how sharp that thing-” he stopped the yelling when he looked at his sister again, she was teary eyed, her hand clenching her fist over her chest as she looked at him. She had his hair color but the hair itself was completely different, it was long up to her middle back and it was very well taken care off, she prided herself in that fact. Her chin was more delicate than Luca’s but her eyebrows required more care than his, a fact he loved teasing her with, however, her eyes right now, the same amber colored eyes with only a hint of tiredness compared to Luca’s, were now filled with tears, and it made his heart crumble. He dropped his arms and tilted his head, looking at her as her lower lip trembled, he then raised his arms again as he approached for a hug, one that she ran into as she pced her face on his shoulder and started crying against it with a strength that Luca knew she tried to contain.

  He was only a year older than her, so they knew each other for all of their lives, they had always been alone, only knowing their mother personally and whoever was in their side of town in a less personal way, until they got the house. Then Lana had started being more social, even making friends with the other few girls her age on the town, at some point this worried Luca, thinking that he would lose his sister and their bond, he didn’t have her talent for making friends, but that worry ended long ago, even if she went out till te hours in the night, after receiving a reprimanding from her mother, she would enter his room, knowing he would console her from the scolding, and they would talk about their day and tell stories they dreamed of. They had their times of war of course, but time had passed, Luca was 22 and he no longer understood why he used to enjoy bothering her so much during his adolescence, though he did enjoy it thoroughly, this though brought a chuckle to him, all while his sister kept wetting his shirt.

  She pulled back slightly after hearing his giggle and said, sobbing:

  “W-what…” she sniffed a bit, and wiped a little runny snot from under her nose “what’s so funny huh?”

  “I’m just… remembering… thinking about how easy it was to annoy you when we were younger” he gave her a smile, a genuine smile brought forward by the good times of the past.

  Lana leaned forward again, pushing her face on his shoulder before saying, “Yeah, well… tends to be easy when you are so annoying.”

  Luca smiled, happy that she wasn’t so sad she couldn’t banter with him, reached to his table and handed her a handkerchief, then pulled her off gently from the hug, she offered some resistance but followed the movement and released him, taking the handkerchief in her hand, she wiped as much tears as she could, then she straightened herself and looked at him, she cleared her throat and said:

  “Brother, I’d like to ask something of you” her voice was cracking and her breathing was ragged, but she was trying to be serious, so Luca took her as such. “Please… please don’t leave.”

  The words felt like a dagger, a dagger that buried itself deep in his gut and twisted, but this wasn’t the first time the dagger found itself there, so Luca sighed.

  “Lana… I can’t do that… and you know it” He used all his strength to contain any tear or voice crack, so as to sound as convincing as possible. “When was the st time a guy from the middle of nowhere was accepted into Zenith, and not even the institution! The guild Lana! The fuc- flipping guild! Have I not only not studied in their university, I’m not even from the city! And they picked me by some weird ass twist of fate!” Luca dropped his arms and shrugged “I have to go…”

  Lana looked red, with anger or frustration wasn’t known but red with an emotion, she knew he was right. From all the world’s regions people begged for a chance to enter Zenith university, to let them study there and grow up to be an adventurer or a mapper. Rare was the occasion in which one was accepted without submitting a letter, and even rarer was the occasion in which one was accepted, not into the university, but into the guild directly. However the ones that were accepted into the guild without a request or attendance at their institution? One could count them with their hands, and some fingers would be left without use, Luca still barely believed that it was real, but all proof was too much to deny. So even though it was weird, and terrifying and weirder again, he had to go, he just had to, he wouldn’t deny an opportunity that most would sell their soul to get. And Lana knew this as well as him, but she was a bit more stubborn this time.

  “Okay! What if it’s -” before she could end the sentence Luca interrupted.

  “We know it’s not a trap, we’ve talked about this a million times.”

  “You don’t know! You don’t know if it is, you could be like, the son of a legendary hero with a bloodline that can-”

  “A hero that has sex with drunken women and then disappears forever?”

  “I said legendary, not good…” She wiped some new tears from her face with her hands and looked at him angry “Do you even want to go? You might not be good at it.”

  “Then I’ll be here in no time won’t I?” He offered her a smile but this time it wasn’t effective.

  “So that’s it? It was nice, see ya and you go? After all that we’ve gone through?! We are family Luca!” She was red and crying, the sobbing started coming in, and Luca wanted more than anything to do what she wanted and make it stop, but he couldn’t and by some force he didn’t know was there, he stood stoic, he knew she was aware, she was just expressing everything she had to “You’ve always been here, this is your home, you are stronger than mom and I and do all the heavy lifting jobs! The town needs you! Mom needs you! I-” her breath caught up to her and after a wavy deep breath she said “I need you!!” And Lana stood there, looking at him, with tears flowing in buckets and fists closed so tight her knuckles were white, Luca was starting to break, he opened his mouth to say something.

  “No! No… save it” she then cut him before he started and turned around “if you want to leave go… I won’t cry for a brother who doesn’t care” She smmed the door behind her, leaving Luca to look down and hold tears on his own. “AND HAVE FUN AT YOUR FUCKING DUNGEON DIPSHIT!!”

  Luca heard their mom yell Lana’s name from beyond the door, and then he felt the world was spinning, since he was given the opportunity a couple months back he felt like he was having panic attacks more often than not, he sat on the bed and clutched his head, tears escaping from his eyes as he tried of thinking of a solution to the problem, but nothing came, just the image of his sister crying.

  A couple minutes ter he emerged from his room, panic attack successfully suppressed and tears dried, he went down the stairs slowly, only to find his mother on the bottom floor, clutching his bag in her hands as she looked at her daughter’s room door, when she saw him, a small gasp and a quick wipe to her eyes were all she needed to get back into the mom-mode of seeming okay, she handed him the bag he had all the Zenith necessary documentation in and smiled.

  “She’ll be okay” She assured “Are you ready to go dear?”

  “... I-I forgot to clean my teeth…”

  “Oh go ahead, I’ll be waiting here” she walked forward and grabbed his suitcase, all his necessary clothes for, supposedly the rest of the year at a minimum, fitted in one suitcase, a thought he didn’t know how to feel about. As he got to the kitchen and crouched down next to the clean water bucket, he thought about his sister, knowing that would be the st interaction with her, was the thing that made him want to stay the most, new reasons kept arriving even the day of. He finished cleaning his teeth with a makeshift brush he made long ago and the charcoal-soap mix they usually used, he cupped some water with his hand and rinsed his mouth, spitting out the window, like their mother always told them not to do.

  As he approached the door, his mother looked at him with a sad smile, the fight between him and Lana clearly hurt more than just them two, but still she talked without cracking.

  “Ready?”

  “... I guess I am” he shrugged and took the suitcase from his mother, she looked at him carrying it effortlessly and tilted her head, smiling.

  “My boy, my boy who cried into my p when we lived with just three walls, are you still there?” She reached up to cup his face, Luca leaned into the touch, feeling her soft skin on his. “Yes… you are still with me.”

  “I’ll always be ma.”

  She clearly was starting to get teary eyed, but still turned around fast to make him as least worried as possible, Luca smiled, regaining a purpose on why he had to go. As she opened the door, she gnced with a side eye towards Lana’s room but didn’t say anything, when it was time Luca closed the door, he froze, his hand on the handle, his mother looked at him worried, before he dropped the suitcase and went inside again, she looked wide eyed as he walked to his sister’s room and burst in. She was ying on her bed face down, she looked back at him with red eyes and a runny nose, her face turned furious.

  “For every day of my life” Luca felt the words choking as they struggled to come out at the same time “I’ve had someone I would know would understand me, someone that, no matter the day or the situation, I could talk to and feel understood, someone who made me realize that I am not alone.”

  Her face was still red, her furrow browed, she looked at him as she sniffed but didn’t interrupt, Luca sighed.

  “Now, I’m going to a new pce, to a region I’ve never been in, where people dream of going and getting eaten by who knows what, because the mother chose to have a pce on this world that everyone agreed is the best pce ever and if you got invited you had to go! … And I’m going to be alone…” Luca always tried not to cry, he didn’t know why, he knew it wasn’t a dispy of weakness but everyone always thought something was deeply wrong with him the couple times he did cry around others. This time his body realized that there was no safer pce to cry but this one, in his house, to the sister he always gave a shoulder to cry on. Said sister’s face started to break, her anger trembling and letting sight to a woman who’s heart was being tugged at.

  “But… if there is one reason to go there, is because they give as much money as one would think” he sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his arm, then looked at her serious and said “So I swear to you Lana, by the mother in the earth and the stars above the fucking sky” he hadn’t swore in front of his mother in a long time, but somehow he knew he would get away with this one “I swear to you, that I’ll write everyday, and every single coin I win, will be used to coming back… I have no idea how, but I will be back Lana” the tears coming out of his face could no longer be stopped, but as his sister got up from the bed and rushed to him, he stopped caring, he instinctively rushed forward and hugged her.

  She cried and sobbed loudly into his shoulder while he poured his tears on her hair, tilting his head to the side, the only thing he could think off as he cried was the sadness he’d have not having her in his life, this however, would become fuel for his promise to her, to her and their mother, who he heard behind him, sobbing at the scene quietly, covering her mouth with her hand. Luca lost himself to time as he kept crying, but at some point he felt a rub in his back, a calming touch that slowly cut flow to the tears.

  In the silence he heard an inhale from his sister, as he tried to control his breathing as well he then heard another inhale, confused by her actions Luca pulled back slightly and said:

  “Lana?” he pulled back further slowly only to be met by a kiss on the cheek, he looked at her, her face was probably as messed as his, yet she was smiling, she grabbed his hands in hers, wrapping them around.

  “B-Brother I…” she tried to get some words out, but couldn’t, Luca knew the feeling, so he tried to guess and help her, he grabbed her hands, which caused some surprise in his sister.

  “I’ll be back Lana, I swear it” he looked determined at her, her wide eyes and shocked expression softened, she took one of her hands back to wipe her tears.

  “I believe you…” then she hugged him again, one st time before he left.

  As Luca enjoyed the hug, he heard his mother sniff, she was probably cleaning her tears, Lana was hugging him tighter so he hugged back. After letting go, he went towards the door, picked up his suitcase and smiled at her, then got out of the house, and as his mother closed the door, he couldn’t help but notice how fast and hard his heart was beating, Luca couldn't remember the st time he cried that hard.