Chapter 79: We Keep Learning
The moment Blanche laid eyes on Eva's aura, she immediately understood that reading it fully would be difficult.
The colors around Eva were in constant motion.
Nothing about her truly seemed fixed. Shades flowed into one another with an almost elusive fluidity, as though her aura categorically refused to be trapped within a single definition. Certain tones appeared only briefly before vanishing again, replaced by others that were brighter, sometimes more contradictory.
Change.
It permeated absolutely everything about her.
Not merely as a personality trait, but as a way of existing. Eva gave the impression of always moving forward, always evolving, even if it meant rebuilding herself several times along the way. Even her energy seemed incapable of remaining still for very long.
Communication stood out immediately as well.
Her aura vibrated with social warmth, spontaneity, that natural ease in creating connections with almost anyone. Blanche suddenly realized why Eva always managed to fill silences, defuse tension, or turn an ordinary conversation into something alive. With her, emotions circulated freely — almost too freely sometimes.
And then there was that hint of confidence.
Fragile.
Recent, perhaps.
Not the deep certainty Arthur possessed, but rather a confidence built piece by piece, sometimes wavering, sometimes radiant depending on the moment. Part of Eva still seemed to seek validation from others while desperately trying to learn not to depend on it anymore.
But beneath all of that...
...something darker lingered.
Blanche perceived it as a colder shade buried deep within her friend's shifting colors, almost invisible beneath Eva's apparent brightness. It was not cruelty. Nor malice.
More like an old fear.
Something wounded.
A quiet loneliness carefully concealed behind laughter, chatter, and the constant energy she projected around herself like colorful armor.
And suddenly, Blanche had the strange feeling that all of Eva's light existed precisely because she knew darkness so well.
She did not have time to look deeper into it: someone was waiting for her.
The intense concentration she had maintained all morning triggered a migraine.
Pretending she urgently needed something, she disappeared.
After her martial arts session with Derek, she was beginning to understand him better.
Or rather... to understand just how contradictory he truly was.
During training, he remained entirely himself: brutal, demanding, unbearably precise. Every mistake was punished before she even had time to understand it. Derek corrected her posture with sharp glances, anticipated every one of her movements with irritating ease, and seemed to take almost personal pleasure in pushing her toward complete physical exhaustion.
And yet, behind that controlled violence, something felt false.
Or incomplete.
His aura said a great deal: dark orange for creativity in execution...
The burnt shades surrounding him vibrated with a strange intensity, shifting, almost dangerous. Nothing about Derek was rigid or mechanical. Even in combat, he constantly improvised, adapting his movements with disturbing fluidity. His style looked less like a sequence of learned techniques and more like a work in perpetual creation — instinctive, savage at times.
He transformed violence into language.
Every movement seemed designed to surprise, circumvent, destabilize. Blanche suddenly understood why he was so difficult to predict: Derek did not simply apply techniques.
He invented them as he went.
And then there was the black.
Not an empty or monstrous black.
An elegant black.
Dense.
Almost beautiful.
Mystery. Pain.
That color drifted around him like a perfectly tamed shadow, discreet yet omnipresent. At times it softened the burning flashes of his aura before immediately returning again — deep, silent, impossible to ignore once noticed.
Blanche felt a faint discomfort tighten in her chest.
Because that black did not speak only of secrets or darkness.
It spoke of old wounds.
Of things buried far too deeply to ever be spoken aloud.
Derek gave the impression of having transformed his suffering into a weapon until he no longer knew how to exist without it.
A murderer with a filthy temper... but one who had suffered.
And that realization unsettled her far more than she wanted to admit.
Because it would have been much easier to hate him if there had only been brutality.
He struggled to trust people — except for a few rare exceptions.
Surprising, considering his borderline temperament.
When he offered her water, she understood that she had now entered the restricted circle of people he tolerated. He was almost pleasant — as much as possible, at least — enough for Blanche to suspect Aaron had spoken to his alter ego.
At the very least, Derek had stopped treating her like worthless trash, even if kindness and Derek still belonged to two entirely separate worlds.
After lunch, knowing she would not see Kiyan again until Thursday afternoon — which meant roughly two weeks in the Otherworld — she moved on to Plan B. She left her best friend and sat beside Roberto in philosophy class, to his delighted surprise.
She spent the entire hour openly flirting with him under the eyes of a dismayed Arthur, who had been forced to sit beside Evanescence instead. Her plan worked perfectly. Eva had been right: both boys were completely crazy about her.
It was incredible how much she could perceive now. If Eva had not pointed it out to her, she would have remained blind. Sometimes things needed to be named before they could truly be seen.
She still did not know the meaning of the red threads surrounding certain auras: love, passion... or danger. In the boys' case, it was clearly some form of love — or at the very least powerful desire, judging by Arthur's obvious jealousy.
But for Kiyan?
She did not dare think about it.
During the break, Eva grabbed her by the arm.
"Can I ask what exactly you're doing?"
"I'm testing your theory. You were right."
"Well, obviously! It's been painfully obvious since last year!"
Blanche gestured for her to be quiet: Arthur was approaching. Embarrassed, scratching the back of his head, he interrupted them.
"Blanche... do you have a second?"
She nodded. Eva sighed and walked away, though she kept glancing back at her as though a silent conversation were still taking place between them.
"Are you doing anything this weekend?" Arthur asked hesitantly.
"Yes."
"Oh..."
"But I'm free next weekend," she added.
She figured she at least owed him that after her performance in class. The young man's face immediately brightened.
"A movie?"
"Why not. Say... you haven't seen Mister Ardachir today, have you?"
"Well, no, we didn't have history..."
Blanche had an idea. Arthur cared about people, as he had shown with the librarian. Why not ask for his opinion?