Chapter 389: 389. Crater of Memories (Part 7)

The wind felt good.

It was one of those simple sensations that Nicholas Arc would remember for the rest of his life, though the boy himself had no way of knowing that at the time.

The afternoon sun hung over Ansel, washing the roofs and streets in warm gold, while the wheels of his bicycle rattled pleasantly against the pavement as he leaned forward over the handlebars and pedaled as hard as his legs could carry him.

He was young enough that the world still seemed enormous and yet small enough that his entire universe could be contained within a few familiar streets, a handful of houses, the local shop, the school, and the little hiding places that he and his friends had claimed as though they were kingdoms belonging exclusively to them.

Beside him rode Kernel, his black-haired childhood friend, while slightly behind them came Taz, Nicholas's younger brother, who was struggling desperately to keep up.

"Come on, Taz!"

Nicholas shouted over his shoulder, laughing as he stood on the pedals.

"You're too slow!"

Taz shouted something unintelligible back, which Nicholas interpreted as an insult and therefore considered grounds to pedal even faster. Kernel laughed beside him, shaking his head.

"You're going to kill him, Nicky!"

Nicholas grinned.

Nicky.

That was what Kernel and Taz called him, and Nicholas secretly liked it. He was the leader of their little band of misfits, a title that had never formally been declared but had nevertheless somehow become an unquestioned fact.

The three boys had decided, with all the solemnity available to children, that they would be the best of friends for the rest of their lives. They had no idea what the future meant, what adulthood was, or how easily the years could tear people apart and send them down roads they had never imagined.

As far as Nicholas was concerned, there was simply him, Kernel, Taz, and whatever adventure they could find before dinner.

Then Taz's front wheel struck the edge of a shallow rut.

The bicycle swerved violently.

Taz yelped, lost control, and went tumbling into a large ditch beside the road, his bicycle clattering after him. Nicholas slammed his own brakes so hard that his rear wheel briefly lifted from the ground before he jumped off and sprinted back.

Kernel was already there.

"Taz!"

Nicholas dropped to his knees beside his brother. Taz was scraped up, his knees and elbow stinging, his face scrunched up as he fought against tears. Nicholas looked at the injuries, then at his brother's trembling lip, and immediately decided that the situation required the most sophisticated medical intervention available to mankind.

"How about we get ice cream?"

Taz blinked at him and Kernel stared at Nicholas.

"We don't have money."

Nicholas slowly looked between them, and then a grin spread across his face. It was the expression that would eventually become familiar to everyone who knew him, the particular grin of a boy who had just thought of something that was probably a terrible idea.

"Heheh," Nicholas said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I have a plan."

The plan, as it turned out, involved criminal enterprise on an impressively tiny scale. The local shopkeeper had a freezer full of ice-cream sticks near the back of the store, and Nicholas had decided that acquiring three of them without paying was a perfectly reasonable solution to Taz's emotional distress.

Kernel was assigned the role of distraction and Nicholas would crawl along the floor, retrieve the ice cream, and return before anyone noticed. It was, in Nicholas's mind, flawless. Kernel approached the shopkeeper and began asking questions with such enthusiastic persistence that the poor man eventually looked as though he regretted opening his store that morning.

Meanwhile Nicholas lowered himself to the ground and began crawling across the aisle, inch by inch, trying desperately not to laugh at how ridiculous he looked. He reached the freezer, pulled out three ice-cream sticks, and began crawling back. He was almost there when his foot caught against the lower edge of a metal cabinet. The resulting clank sounded, to Nicholas, like a cannon going off.

Both Nicholas and Kernel froze.

The shopkeeper slowly leaned over the counter to see what the noise was.

There, in full view, was Nicholas Arc, lying on the floor with three stolen ice-cream sticks clutched in his arms like a dragon guarding treasure.

The shopkeeper stared and Nicholas could only stare back. For one miraculous second, nobody moved. Then the shopkeeper's expression changed as understanding dawned upon him.

"You... thieves!" he shouted, realizing immediately that the two boys had been working together. His hands slapped against the counter as he started moving around it.

Nicholas did not wait for further clarification.

"Run!" he shouted.

He and Kernel bolted for the door, bursting into the afternoon sunlight with the shopkeeper's angry voice echoing behind them. They scrambled onto their bicycles and pedaled as though the entire Kingdom of Vale's police force were pursuing them.

Nicholas was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe. Kernel was laughing too, despite repeatedly shouting that this had been a terrible idea. They raced back toward the place where they had left Taz, and when they arrived, they found him sitting there looking miserable until he spotted the ice cream.

His entire expression changed.

Within minutes the three boys were sitting together in their hiding spot, licking their ice-cream sticks and laughing as Nicholas recounted the moment when the shopkeeper had discovered him crawling across the floor.

The ice cream tasted impossibly sweet that afternoon.

It tasted like victory, friendship, and freedom, like the world was an endless summer waiting for them to explore it.

Of course, because that area of Ansel, was only a relatively large town at the time, and the shopkeeper apparently knew their parents, their glorious criminal career lasted approximately one afternoon.

They were eventually found out, and their parents delivered the appropriate punishment, which included forcing Nicholas and Kernel to return to the shop and apologize. Nicholas remembered that part less fondly.

.

.

Another memory surfaced.

Nicholas was older now, though still very much a child, and he was outside with Taz and Kernel kicking a football around the street. The three boys had transformed the road into their own makeshift stadium, passing the ball between themselves and arguing over rules that changed whenever someone was losing.

Nicholas received the ball, took a running kick, and immediately realized he had put far too much force behind it.

"Oh, crap." The ball sailed over the street and directly into a neighbor's property. There was a sharp crack. The three boys went completely still. Nicholas slowly walked toward the source of the noise and found that the football had smashed into one of the neighbor's potted plants.

He closed his eyes and grimaced.

"I'm dead."

Kernel nodded solemnly.

"You're definitely dead."

Taz looked between them.

"Maybe she didn't see?"

The woman's voice came from behind them. "Nicholas Arc."

Nicholas turned around. He knew that tone.

"Y-yes, ma'am?"

Another scolding followed.

Nicholas endured it with the resigned expression of a boy who had begun to realize that perhaps adulthood consisted largely of apologizing for things he had done five minutes earlier.

.

.

Another memory.

The attic. Nicholas and Taz had decided that it was haunted. They had draped sheets over themselves, created strange noises, and convinced themselves that an invisible ghost lived somewhere among the old boxes.

Taz was terrified and delighted in equal measure, while Nicholas, naturally, was the brave one because he had declared himself the leader.

"Stay behind me," Nicholas whispered dramatically.

"If the ghost attacks, I'll protect you." Taz nodded seriously. Then something fell from a shelf behind them.

Both boys screamed and fled the attic at full speed, abandoning their heroic mission immediately. Later, they would insist that the ghost had been incredibly powerful and that their retreat had been a tactical withdrawal.

There were countless other fragments like that.

Nicholas eating pie at the kitchen table, his face covered in crumbs. Nicholas getting caught sneaking an extra piece.

Nicholas racing through the rain.

Nicholas arguing with Taz over something utterly meaningless.

Nicholas and Kernel sitting together after school, discussing what they would become when they were adults.

The world was simple then. There was only scraped knees, stolen ice cream, footballs, laughter, and the certainty that tomorrow would probably be much like today.

.

.

Then, Nicholas grew older.

High school came, and the mischievous boy of Ansel became a handsome young man who somehow seemed to collect friends wherever he went. Nicholas had developed into the sort of person who could walk into a room and immediately become part of the conversation.

He was popular, confident, quick with a joke, and possessed a natural charm that made him a genuine ladykiller despite the fact that he never actually dated anyone.

He flirted with some of the prettier girls, usually with exaggerated confidence and a grin that made it obvious he was joking, and they generally responded in kind. Nicholas enjoyed the attention, but none of it had ever truly mattered to him.

Then he met Seraphina.

It happened in the hallway on an otherwise ordinary school day. Nicholas was walking toward class when he rounded a corner and collided with a girl coming from the opposite direction. Books scattered across the floor.

"Sorry!"

Nicholas immediately crouched to gather them.

"No, it's fine," the girl replied, kneeling as well.

Nicholas recognized her.

They shared several classes, though they had never really spoken. She was beautiful, but there was something else about her that caught his attention, something quieter than the girls who usually surrounded him.

Their interaction lasted perhaps a minute. It should have ended there. Instead, later that day, Nicholas realized he had accidentally taken one of her books with him.

He opened it and discovered that it was not a textbook but a diary.

Nicholas stared at it for several seconds, his first instinct being to close it immediately. He knew he shouldn't read it. Then curiosity won. He read only a little, enough to discover Seraphina's private observations about school, people, and several boys she considered attractive.

Nicholas felt increasingly guilty the longer he read, especially because this was clearly personal, but then he found his own name among the entries.

He stopped and read the passage again. Nicholas Arc was apparently one of the handsome boys in her school.

Perhaps the first time in his life, Nicholas became genuinely interested in a girl.

He tried to return the diary immediately, but fate seemed determined to interfere. Every time Nicholas spotted Seraphina, someone else would stop him.

A friend would call his name, a teacher would ask him something and she would disappear after class. By the time he finally found an opportunity two days later, he saw her standing alone in the hallway during recess, looking distressed.

Nicholas approached.

"Hey, Seraphina. What's wrong?" She looked up and seemed surprised that he had spoken to her. She explained that she was looking for one of her books.

Nicholas slowly produced it.

"This?"

Her expression went from relief to horror.

"Y-you had it?"

Nicholas nodded.

"I accidentally picked it up when we bumped into each other, the other day." Seraphina stared at him.

"D-d-did you read it!?"

Nicholas hesitated.

"Um... maybe just a little."

The look she gave him suggested that Nicholas's life expectancy had suddenly become uncertain.

She looked mortified, then angry. Her hand even rose as though she might strike him. Nicholas, possessing the survival instincts of a man who had spent his childhood stealing ice cream, immediately deployed the only weapon available to him.

"How about I make it up to you, Sera?" he said smoothly. "Pancakes?"

She froze and Nicholas smiled. He had seen the diary and knew exactly how much she liked pancakes.

The following day, they went to a breakfast shop together. Nicholas expected awkwardness, but instead he found himself laughing with her within minutes.

He told terrible jokes and Seraphina gave him exaggerated glares. He made another joke and she tried not to laugh, but failed.

They started spending more time together after that. Sometimes they were paired for school projects, sometimes they simply found excuses to be around each other.

Eventually Nicholas gathered enough courage to ask her to be his girlfriend. Seraphina accepted.

Their first kiss was awkward, sweet, and wonderful.

.

.

The years passed.

Nicholas and Seraphina graduated high school after spending two years together. Kernel and Taz graduated as well, though the three friends began moving toward different futures.

Nicholas and Seraphina went to university, while Taz developed a serious interest in martial arts, eventually pursuing MMA and related disciplines.

Kernel went his own way. Life was beginning to separate them, though they remained connected.

Nicholas reached twenty-two.

By then, he had saved enough money to buy a house. It was not a mansion or anything particularly extravagant, but to Nicholas it represented independence, adulthood, and the beginning of a life that belonged entirely to him and Seraphina.

She moved in with him and they built their routines together. They cooked, argued over small things, laughed, planned for the future, and eventually discovered that their future had already begun growing inside Seraphina.

She was pregnant.

Nicholas decided to marry her.

Their wedding was filled with laughter, family, and friends, with Taz standing beside Nicholas as his best man.

Not long afterward, Seraphina gave birth to their first child.

A daughter.

Eden.

Nicholas held the tiny newborn in his arms and suddenly found himself confronted by an emotion far greater than anything he had experienced before. The baby was impossibly small.

Fragile and warm.

His daughter and his child.

His responsibility.

The entire world had somehow become small enough to fit against his chest, and Nicholas felt love so powerful that it frightened him. Beneath it was fear, because for the first time he understood that there was another human being whose safety mattered more to him than his own.

He stared at the newborn and said, with complete seriousness, "I have absolutely no idea how to hold a baby."

Seraphina giggled tiredly from the hospital bed.

Nicholas looked down at Eden. "Seriously, she's so small. What if I break her?"

"You won't break her," Seraphina said through her laughter. "Beside, I've broken several things before."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

Nicholas smiled.

.

.

More time passed.

Jade was born. Then, a year later, Jaune Arc entered the world.

Nicholas held his son for the first time and felt something inside him settle into place. After two daughters, he finally had a boy. He looked down at the tiny baby and thought,

'Finally, after two girls, I get a son. Hahaha. Oh. I better not say that out loud, however, as Sera might give me a whacking.'

Jaune's baby-blue eyes opened and they looked up at Nicholas.

Nicholas slowly offered one finger and the baby Jaune's tiny hand wrapped around it.

The newborn's grip was weak, but to Nicholas it felt like a lifeline. His smile softened as he stared at his son, overwhelmed by the impossibility of the moment.

"My son," he whispered. "I would die for you."

.

.

The flow of memories changed again.

Jaune was three now.

Nicholas was lying dramatically across the living-room carpet, one hand clutching his chest while Jaune stood triumphantly above him with a plastic sword. Nicholas had decided that the toy weapon warranted the performance of a lifetime.

"You've defeated the Arc household's greatest warrior!" he declared, allowing his head to roll dramatically to the side.

Jaune burst into laughter and then he hit Nicholas again.

Nicholas groaned.

His daughters descended upon him immediately, piling onto his body and giggling as he pretended to struggle beneath them. "Mercy!" Nicholas cried. "Have mercy upon your father!" The children only giggled harder.

.

.

Another memory.

The entire family sat around a diner table. Plates covered the surface, pancakes were being argued over, and Nicholas was stealing fries from Seraphina's plate despite having his own.

"Those are mine," she glared.

"I don't see your name on them."

"Hah!? You have your own."

"These taste better."

"Because they're mine!"

Taz had also come to visit and was playfully fighting with the children, who had apparently decided that he was now part uncle, part wrestling opponent.

Eden and Jade were arguing over pancakes while Jaune was attempting to get involved despite barely understanding what they were arguing about. Nicholas watched the chaos and smiled.

.

.

Another memory.

Evening.

Nicholas and Seraphina sat together on the porch while the children played in the yard. The sunlight had faded into warm twilight. Jaune chased after his sisters, laughing as they ran around the grass. Seraphina rested her head against Nicholas's shoulder. Nicholas looked out at their children, then down at his wife.

For a moment, there was nothing else.

Just family and love.

Home.

Then Jaune turned six.

By then the Arc household had grown into a family of eight children, seven girls and one boy, a loud, chaotic collection of personalities that somehow fit together. Nicholas loved every one of them, yet life had begun becoming more difficult.

He had recently lost his job, and although the family was not in immediate danger, money had become tighter than he liked. Nicholas found himself embarrassed by it, especially when he looked at Seraphina and the children and wondered whether he was doing enough.

One evening, Nicholas held baby Celeste in his arms while Seraphina held baby Violet. The house was quieter than usual.

Savings existed and Seraphina still earned money from writing small books. They were not destitute and they would survive, yet Nicholas couldn't shake the feeling that he had failed somehow.

Seraphina saw through him.

She always had.

She did not put him down or make him feel inadequate. Instead, she reminded him, in her own way, that he was still the man she had chosen and the man who had held Eden for the first time. The man who had played with Jaune on the carpet. The man whose children adored him.

Her method of comforting him was, admittedly, rather enthusiastic.

Their bed broke and they had to buy a new one.

Nicholas considered that a victory.

A few weeks later, he received an opportunity that seemed like precisely what his family needed. A prestigious business firm in Ansel had invited him to interview for a Logistics Manager position. It was a serious job with excellent prospects, the kind of opportunity that could restore the financial stability he had lost and perhaps give his family an even better future.

Nicholas woke early that morning and dressed carefully. He kissed Seraphina goodbye and each of his children, too.

He paused for a moment with his hand on the door, looking back at the people inside. Seraphina smiled at him and the children waved.

Nicholas smiled back, then he stepped outside. He walked to his car, climbed inside, and started the engine.

The drive to the building was ordinary. The streets of Ansel passed by his windows and people walked along sidewalks. Recently, urban planning had occurred and Ansel had turned from a town into a city. Perhaps it could barely be considered a city for now, but it was getting bigger and bigger by the year with construction zones and projects popping up almost every day.

Many newer businesses were also following that trend.

Nicholas Arc drove toward his job interview believing that, if everything went well, he would return home with good news for his wife and children.

He did not know that this would be the last normal day of his life.