Ink on Paper

Written by Whimsical Symphony

Been a while guys, but here is the next chapter of the story. It's mostly Jiggy and Elsa bonding over conversation and I like it for the most part though I wonder again if it's too fluffy. You know when you write something and then post it any something about it seems off? That's always how I feel, especially since this chapter had been half written for the longest time and I kept deleting the second portion like a moron.

Anyway let me know what you think! I'm glad you all are enjoying this story so much. Jiggy is a pain in the behind to write.

Chapter VI - The Intertwining Past

"Of course he lives in a place like this. I expected it, so I shouldn't be surprised. Come now Elsa, don't be jealous because you live in a rat hole by comparison. You know quite well you look horrid in green!" Elsa muttered to herself, standing outside Jiggy's apartment building, cheap first aid supplies in a white case in her hands, before gathering the courage and walking in like a woman on a mission.

She thought she probably scared several people by talking to herself the way she did. But she couldn't help that Jiggy's apartment was so nice, that it reflected the light given by the artificial sun, making its marble facings glow. All the light showed in Elsa's place was the wear and tear, the cracks and mould, the peeling paint and weathered, aged walls. The two buildings really shouldn't have been compared.

The inside was spacious, with leather couches, marble floors and a chandelier. A pretty young woman stood behind a wooden desk, probably to ask the purpose behind each visitor's entrance, who they came to visit. The one who opened the door for Elsa's entrance was a burly man in a button down shirt and slacks. Hesitantly, Elsa walked to the young woman.

"I'm here to see Jiggy Pepper in unit 10E. He told me I can just walk right up," Elsa said, even more self-conscious about her natural Yodakan accent.

Truly, she did try to construct every area of her speech, not wanting people to realize the poverty ridden place she came from, even if it made her shallow. And especially, she didn't want the people who lived in a posh place like this to know. Jiggy, she thought, was different; he wasn't ashamed of being from Yodaka, didn't hide it, though he could have passed as one from Yuusari. Regardless, Jiggy was Jiggy and it ultimately didn't matter, as he ensnared people with his words nonetheless.

"Of course, and you are…?" the woman asked.

"Elsa Marchen. He should be expecting me."

"Yes, he did say you were coming. Please feel free to take the lift up." The young woman gave her a small smile and gestured towards the small hallway where the lift was located. "10E is located on the tenth floor and right after you exit the lift."

"Thank you, miss," Elsa said politely, returning the smile.

She hesitantly made her way to the lift and entered it, clicking the button for the tenth floor and then waited patiently until it reached it. Each time it reached a new floor, it 'pinged', the only sound in the silence. Somehow, she expected more people to be in the lift besides her. Jiggy lived in a rather quiet building it seemed. She wondered if he got along with his neighbours or whether they were more like hers.

The crazy old man who lived next door to her was a miser who didn't particularly like young people living near him, because he absolutely hated loud noises and parties. Elsa assured him she wasn't the type to get drunk and hold parties, and she had a full-paying job and was therefore a fully-fledged adult, but he still didn't particularly trust her and waited patiently for the day when he could file a noise complaint against her.

Getting out when it reached the tenth floor, she took a deep breath and turned right like the lady at the front desk instructed. "Come now Elsa, why are you getting anxious? First you were green with envy and now you're anxious? I never fancied you for the anxious type."

However, she knew that was a lie because she was quite the worry-wart, as most people who talked to themselves in such a manner often were. Soon or later, someone would hear her and peg her as mentally unstable.

Elsa knocked on the dark wooden door a couple times before gathering her bearings and telling herself that she shouldn't have been nervous at all. She only came to ensure Jiggy didn't die or some other such nonsense.

The door opened a few moments later and the man in question silently invited her inside, looking just as exhausted as he did in the near afternoon. She took pity on him, wondering how he was able to even handle such a stressful job. Working as a Letter Bee alone was mentally and physically exhausting and foolhardy, but being an Express Bee required that a person have no regard whatsoever for their own personal health.

She followed him inside and slipped off her shoes in the entryway near the beige doormat. Looking around, she noted his place to be cozier than she would have expected from such a cold, frankly pretentious looking building. It looked homey, somewhat rustic, with a short staircase leading up to a second level, dark hardwood floors and a main sitting area furnished with cozy armchairs and loveseats. A small, arched wooden door connected to a study which she had no doubt in mind Jiggy Pepper didn't use. The chill on her skin from the outside air disappeared more immediately than it had in the main lobby, due to a brick fireplace burning brightly with crackling flames.

Near one of the couches, she saw a tall perch which Harry currently sat upon, crowing loudly at her arrival.

"Nice place you have here, Mr. Pepper. I daresay you have a fine taste in furniture," Elsa pointed out, when he shut the door behind her.

"It's nothing special." Jiggy shrugged. "Make yourself at home."

Elsa looked around the place further, noting it to be rather clean, especially for a man living by himself. But then again she shouldn't have been judging that way either, since she, a woman, often had her place in disarray. Jiggy's place seemed warm, comforting, just a little bit of clutter like a cup he drank coffee out of sitting on the table and a blanket he used on the couch left with folds in the shape of a crescent moon when he threw it off his shoulders.

"That'll be easy to do. It's rather… a friendly looking place. I like it," Elsa couldn't help but say, hugging her arms close to her, wanting to feel warmer than before. "It's different than the cold outside. Or in Yodaka."

Jiggy remained silent for a moment, then glanced at her expression, her lips pulled into a frown. "I wanted it to be as different from Yodaka as possible. That way when Nelli comes here, she won't have to remember it."

Elsa noticed he said 'when' instead of 'if'. One had to hope as much as they could, living in the desolate, lonely world they lived in, hope that everything would in fact turn out for the best. It was terrible that they did in fact have to hope, when people in Akatsuki had no need to. Perhaps she wished to reach the sun if only to relieve herself of these social inequalities, to find a way to believe in the system, to have them legitimize the reason for why conditions were the way they were. The Empress, the mysterious leader of Amberground, surely there was a reason, even if deep down inside her bitterness and resentment made her believe in the woman much less than she perhaps should have.

She saw too much death in Yodaka of the kind that could have been avoided. The kind caused by pure and absolute poverty where in Yuusari, they could have been saved, and in Akatsuki, it was a possibility that no one died at all, that death was some obsolete, foreign concept only experienced outside their secure bubble.

But then, despite all this, Elsa did love the artificial sun, more so since the Day of the Flicker when the world became shrouded in darkness. The fear that they would have no sun anymore made her realize how much she took it for granted. So that reason remained too, to reach Akatsuki so she wouldn't be parted from it: a purely selfish reason.

"I should tend to your wounds first, shouldn't I? It's why I came here after all." Elsa squashed down her nervousness and led Jiggy to one of the leather couches. The man sat without protest and didn't say a word when she set down her little white first-aid kit on the coffee table, and then began to unravel the cloth bandages on his head. "It's rather shallow, but it still looks painful. It's swelling too…"

She saw the doctor shaved some of Jiggy's hair where the wound made its way to his scalp. Elsa saw a shallow, scabbed over gash with much bruising in the general region of his forehead and the front of his scalp that looked much like a child colouring messily in marker, of blues and purples, black, and a tad of green. It honestly seemed quite painful, looking at it. But her imagining such pain now only made her think that Jiggy must have been in quite a lot when he received it, possibly on the verge of passing out. Yet he somehow rode his motorcycle to seek out a doctor. She didn't know whether to accuse him of being inhuman, or whether to praise his tenacity because many people would simply fall asleep, only to find out by practice that they actually sustained a concussion.

"It's not serious. Appearances can be deceiving, never trust what you see on the surface," Jiggy told her, not reacting to her calmly taking out the antiseptic to clean the wound. He didn't hiss when she calmly applied it to his skin, despite the fact that Elsa was certain it burned. Afterwards, she applied a balm to make the ache from the swollen region dissipate somewhat. "You're used to treating injuries like this."

"Yodaka needs everyone to know how to take care of basic wounds. Contacting doctors is near impossible, or when they are available, some refuse to treat people because we don't have the money. When someone is in a life or death situation, sometimes we only do the best we can." Working with her hands, she wrapped the bandage around his head. Musing over the fact that Jiggy's hair actually seemed softer to the touch than plenty of women, she silently continued to work. "I've no doubt you've experienced the same."

Jiggy remained silent for a minute before he added, "Darkness leads to loneliness, isolation, and in that comes injury of the body and the heart."

Elsa snorted, trying not to be awed by his advice that would have made someone like Zazie either squeal like a little girl or melt into a puddle of goo. The boy was Jiggy's most dedicated fan, and somehow, she did want to see the two of them talk. She predicted that it would be either a one sided conversation from Zazie's end, or neither would talk because Zazie would get tongue-tied around his hero.

"Some people are closer to the light and still feel the need to injure themselves, correct Jiggy?" Elsa gave him a scathing look. If it were anyone else that received that look, she thought they might've looked at least a little bit sheepish, but not ever stoic Jiggy Pepper. She finished tying the bandage and exclaimed, "Finished!"

"Thanks." He nodded at her and gave her a miniscule smile. Elsa wondered if he attempted to work at looking cool in front of the mirror on his days off. It would explain how effortlessly he handled what should be considered a mere façade. Despite how inept he was at basic conversation, the man made up for it with poetry and a smile that made one think that just by viewing it, they potentially travelled up a few rungs in social standing. Even his perceived flaws, he somehow made up for. His messy hair made him have a devil-may-care attitude instead of looking like a lazy bum like most would, especially since Jiggy was more of a workaholic than a lazy-bum, if she could judge by his current state. "If you want dinner, I ordered in some pasta earlier. It's sitting in the kitchen."

Her stomach rumbled lightly almost in reply to his statement. She was tired, and hungry, and therefore truly didn't want to go through the trouble of stepping out the door and buying her usual nutrient-lacking food. Eating here seemed the much more logical choice, especially since Jiggy asked, and offered much better food.

"Thank you, my dear Express Bee. How kind of you. Shall I heat you up a bowl too?" Elsa asked, smiling. Wanting to tease him then, she ruffled his hair and said, "The injured need to eat to get better. Wouldn't you agree, hmm?"

"If you don't mind." Strangely enough, Jiggy let her do what she wanted with his hair. His eyes closed and he seemed like he enjoyed it, for just a little. Physical contact must have been sparse for him indeed. He looked every bit like a child, vulnerable and innocent at that moment. "Thanks."

Elsa chuckled, and moved to serve them both the pasta sitting in take-out boxes on the kitchen counter. Rather a nice change from bread and fish and rice – this meal seemed both hearty and warm, and Jiggy ordered enough for two people. He did wish to eat with her, she thought as she smiled.

They spent time just like that, sitting and eating like old friends, across from one another at the wooden table in the dining area outside the kitchen, reminiscing over old times.

Elsa wondered when it became such a common day to day activity to spend time with Jiggy like this, when they actually became friends, if she were brave enough to call it that. The last she remembered, she lived life alone doing nothing but boring paperwork and reception jobs around the Hive all day, occasionally spending time with Mana and the few people she knew from her work at the bar. To have friends, she thought, was odd, at least in the sense of friendship that occurred with Jiggy.

Naturally, because of his rather unsociable personality, Elsa imagined him to want as little time spent with her as possible. But he humoured her every time, and dare she say it, enjoyed the time they spent together. Even though it was always her talking about how Yodaka was lonely, and how she didn't want her time spent in Yuusari to be the same, and Jiggy said he understood, Elsa never imagined that perhaps, he felt lonely too.

"Jiggy, do you consider us friends? I daresay you've humoured me quite a bit, wouldn't you say?" Elsa asked bluntly. She definitely wasn't the type to be green with envy, or act anxious – neither was she the type to beat around the bush. Perhaps she should have been applauded, for asking such a thing to intimidating Jiggy Pepper, a person who most in Yuusari would wet themselves before asking such a question. "I'm curious."

Jiggy pondered over her question seriously, having himself a sip of water before answering, "I don't talk to that many people."

"And what does that mean?" Elsa raised an eyebrow, wondering if he was the type to beat around the bush before issuing her a harsh, callous rejection, shattering her heart in to many, many pieces. The thought made her want to laugh. "Does that mean you are my friend, or my acquaintance, or should I act like a jilted lover now?" Putting on an expression of feigned hurt, she cried, "Oh, so cruel, my dear Express Bee, you know how I love you so!"

To his credit, Jiggy didn't even flinch, used to her antics by now, not that he hadn't been at the beginning. Elsa suspected that none of this would have shocked him no matter at what point in their actuaintance she decided to lay it on him. Jiggy predicted he couldn't take her seriously, not with her acting like that. He was strangely good at understanding people after all.

He looked at her with those beautiful teal coloured eyes of his and replied without any hesitancy, "You're a friend. I don't know why you'd think different."

"Could this be," Elsa started, gasping, "you've fallen for me too?"

"No, I haven't," Jiggy responded calmly. "Cut the crap."

Elsa chuckled, continuing to eat her pasta. Her heart warmed at his words nonetheless. He considered her a friend, and wondered why she even thought they weren't. Jiggy was indeed quite unfamiliar with how other people reacted to him at the Hive, how to call oneself a friend of Jiggy Pepper would have been indeed a high honour. Zazie would be one such person to faint at an opportunity like that.

Elsa observed the cross shaped scar on his face that ran on the skin below and above his eye, so uncomfortably close. "Out of curiosity then, as a friend, where did you receive that scar of yours? It looks like it must have bee painful."

Indeed, it made her a little uncomfortable looking at it, and the bandages around his head. To see injuries like that in a place like Amberground could do nothing but make her feel hollow inside. It was lonely, and physical injuries seemed to be a manifestation of mental wounds. It reminded her of the danger they lived in each and every day because of Gaichuu, and how people in the capital lived in ignorance of it all, dismissing their suffering like it wasn't anything. Each time she sat down to have a meal, a warm and comforting meal like just now, she remembered any second and something horrible could happen, people could die just like they did in large numbers every day.

His lips tightened into a thin line before he said, "I saved Nello from a Gaichuu, when we lived in Kyrie."

"Did I step on another landmine? I apologize, I was merely curious and you well know I don't know how to be tactful," Elsa told him, recognizing that when he talked about his siblings, especially Nello, it must've hurt him.

"It's not a big deal," Jiggy told her, as if to reassure her, keep her from feeling too much of the guilt she was so prone to feeling. While Elsa pushed each individual penne to and fro in the bowl, feeling it festering within her nonetheless, Jiggy continued, "Ask what you want. I said if I don't want to answer I won't."

"But I brought up Nello again… there I go, stupid me," she exclaimed, voice drenched in regret. How could she be so horrible, to bring it up multiple times? "It isn't as if… I want my past in Yodaka brought up to me all the time, and yet I do this to you. It's insensitive."

"Being too sensitive fogs up the glass so you can't see what's on the other side." Once again, his words seemed abstract, metaphorical, and she take a moment to wonder about what he meant.

Elsa supposed this was a strategy of his, and if so then perhaps he was much more skilled at communication than she thought.

Communication… of course, he meant communication. "You mean that if I am so worried about being overly polite all the time, then we won't communicate properly. And I won't understand you."

Jiggy didn't reply, but with his lack of reply, she assumed that to be affirmative. Instead, he continued on from their previous conversation since she asked so carelessly about Nello, about Kyrie, about his old past in Yodaka, shrouded in shadow because of the lack of light from the artificial sun. Except perhaps, the reason why he was so willing to talk about it was because his past was his future, if he didn't have Nello then he wouldn't be Jiggy; those memories made him who he was, just like he told her in front of her apartment building not too long ago.

"It's why I became a Letter Bee. One of them finished it off – I was useless without a Shindanjuu. I wasn't strong enough for them, so I left Kyrie," Jiggy said, vaguely enough so he didn't talk about the whole experience, but enough so that she knew. Elsa imagined a Gaichuu, a little boy in the way, and Jiggy rushing to save him and getting that scar in the process – she didn't particularly need any more information than that. Talking about it pained him, yet he did so anyway. "All shields are different, some are useless, some are sturdy, because of how they're built."

"And getting stronger meant becoming a more useful shield. As a brother you wanted to protect them," Elsa finished, observing the brief flitting of nostalgia across his features.

He really did do everything for his siblings, and to learn that Nello died during his absence, she could only imagine that he blamed himself for it.

"Looks like a close call," Elsa noted instead, so as to not bring up his sadness to him. "Your eyesight could have…"

"It was close. There was blood, and Nello screamed. I blacked out. They said I was lucky to have my sight," Jiggy commented, in answer to her question. He paused briefly when he commented on Nello's screams, and Elsa imagined that it haunted him now, a fell voice on the air, a vengeful ghost of his past. "What about your past?"

"Hmm?" Elsa looked at him, a tad confused.

Finishing up her meal, she moved to put that bowl in the sink, as if to distract herself from the less than cheery conversation. Wanting to soak Jiggy's dish too, she found that he hadn't yet finished eating, so she took a seat across from him at the table and awaited his question.

"Your family, did you live with them?" Jiggy asked softly, rather uncharacteristic of him.

Elsa knew by how he phrased the question, just how many of them had been orphans in Yodaka. It wasn't a question about asking about one's family – it went straight to asking about what happened to them, whether they had the luxury of living together as so many didn't have. Family, how she felt some strange longing for that word when she didn't quite recognize it. She knew the concept, but never truly understood those bonds of love and affection, to have maternal and paternal love showered upon her.

"I didn't. I'm an orphan," Elsa said sadly. Well, she couldn't change what she was. But then she thought of how he phrased the question again, how he spoke of his past, and asked, "You too?"

Jiggy simply nodded. Resting his chin on the palm of his hand, a little tiredly, he said, "And Nello and Nelli too. Family is a choice like a lot of things."

Then it occurred to her, that he pointed them out because they weren't related to him biologically, but it didn't mean much to him. He loved them all the same. And that affection made family what it was, blood being irrelevant in the matter. How did he know that she still wondered what family felt like now, a true biological family, any of that. She'd been socially stunted, never knew how to properly make friends, no one did any of that for her properly. Well except one person.

"I suppose I… had a few people like that – family, I mean. There was a kind old woman named Luciel Sevante who took me in – taught me to read and write, taught me history and all of that; I got my interest in history from her. I'd been abandoned by my parents when I was a child. As expected, in Yodaka, children are seen as extra mouths to feed," Elsa explained; it all came back to her with vengeance, the cold air, no home, until that old lady took her in. The memories flitted around her mind, this way and that, chilled her heart a little too much to be comfortable. "I lived on the streets before then, finding whatever food I could. Then, she passed away and I went back to whatever horrid living conditions I came from. I missed it – the old lady had books for me to read and made me humble home-cooked food. It was warm. All of us street urchins worked together after that, and we mostly ate bread – pilfered it."

"What happened to them?" he asked, oddly enough. Elsa thought he wouldn't be interested, but perhaps he was, not merely asking out of some sort of obligation he had because he shared bits of his past, spoke about his brother who passed away.

"Illness took many of them, Gaichuu took others, then we all separated somehow. The usual, for us. And so, I decided to leave the town and Yodaka for good, I wanted to work at the Hive. I tool what tests I had to and left. I'd always been intelligent, if nothing else." It didn't feel quite as painful talking about all of it to someone who clearly experienced the same thing. She remembered the faces of all those children – Anya's pretty smile, Killi's freckles. Somehow, she'd been one of the few left and then the group entirely broke apart after some time. "It's strange talking about this now."

"You can't escape your past. You'll always be from Yodaka." Jiggy rose from his seat and put his dish as well in the sink, soaking both of them with water, leaving to wash them later. His words rang true, as they always did. Perhaps she had been trying in her own little way to escape, to try to be from Yuusari, to pretend, just so that she didn't have to remember any of it. "You can let go, but you can't escape. The past is tied to the future."

"You're correct. But I find that with you, I'm not. It's not quite as hard to talk about it when I know you've experienced the same. And you shared some of your past with me too, and for that I'm grateful, my dear Express Bee." Perhaps he expected some kind of spiel about how she'd fallen for him, because he looked at her rather oddly, and Elsa didn't want to make it seem like he was intimidating or frightening, or Empress forbid ugly, because he wasn't at all, but his gaze was piercing and rather unnerving. Elsa thought it almost too ironic that it resembled the knowing gaze of a hawk, the same as his dingo partner. When she looked at Harry, who seemed to be preening himself, he looked at her with those same eyes. "Thank you."

"You don't need to," he responded with one of his enigmatic smiles. "Friends should know more about each other."

Jiggy acknowledged it, Elsa thought with surprise, he acknowledged it without her having to bring it up. Perhaps this talk did do them some good, through the pain they got closer to one another. It still comforted her, to have someone from her kind of background in Yuusari, someone from Yodaka who knew about the poverty there, the misery, the darkness. Or rather, he wasn't just someone anymore, he was a friend.

"Hearing you say that makes me blush indeed, Jiggy. Are you attempting to lead me on?" Elsa joked also sitting up and then walking to the door and slipping on her shoes. "I suppose I should head home now, as all is finished and I've taken care of your injury like I meant to."

Jiggy followed her to the door and opened it for her. "Thanks for that."

"Friends should always take care of one another, wouldn't you say?" Elsa eyed the bandage and said, "I would feel guilty if I didn't do anything about it. Seeing you injured is rather… out of place. I was shocked."

Perhaps she sounded more worried than she initially planned to sound, because he looked almost concerned when he looked at her – and it was preposterous for an injured person to feel sorry for someone completely well. "I'll do my best not to let it happen again. I was careless."

"You were," Elsa told him bluntly, supporting the fact that he scolded himself.

She could have sworn he laughed a little, just a breathy chuckle but something at least. Making Jiggy laugh made her feel like she was Amberground's greatest comedian.

"You'll be alright getting home." He said it like a statement, like he said most things like that, but she saw it like it was.

Jiggy wanted to know whether he needed to walk her back. Considerate, just like most people didn't think of him as. She remembered telling Aria much the same, that he went above and beyond for people when he perhaps shouldn't have. Or rather, he did what he wanted when he wanted and nobody could stop him.

"I got here on my own two legs didn't I? And besides, injured men should be resting, not taking a stroll outside." Elsa glared at him meaningfully. "You will be resting, won't you?"

"I had a lot of deliveries, I'm tired," he agreed with her. Indeed he rather did look exhausted and she wondered yet again how Express Bees even did their jobs without collapsing into a heap on the ground to take a nap in Gaichuu territory.

"I'll hold you to it. Goodbye, my dear Express Bee." Smiling at him once more, she walked out the door and was halted by his voice.

"See you around, Elsa."

Inside the elevator, Elsa thought that it really did make her pleased that they had the talk she did. Rather than Jiggy just being able to read her like a book, perhaps she'd be able to understand him a bit more too. Elsa needed to work harder to understand the enigma that was Jiggy Pepper, or else she couldn't truly call him a friend.