‘Are you still there? Kuja? Hello?’ Fei called up towards the canopy.
Kuja had left her side and clambered up a nearby tree about five minutes ago, gripping vines and latching onto branches in his rapid ascent. Fei had blinked once — only once! — and then he’d disappeared.
Her chest was starting to feel tight and her breaths came shorter and sharper with each moment he was gone. Fei had just convinced herself that he’d abandoned her when he slipped down another nearby trunk, clearly having switched trees somewhere above the canopy.
‘Just had to take care of someone — something,’ Kuja corrected himself. He wasn’t wearing a communicator on his belt and nor did he have an earpiece, so Fei knew he couldn’t have been talking to anyone. She had no idea what he’d been doing, but he had looked worried when he’d announced that he had to go up the tree. It must have been important to him and since he didn’t seem to judge her for her strangeness, she decided she wouldn’t judge him for his.
‘It also looks like there’s a storm coming,’ Kuja added as he walked over to her.
‘I don’t suppose we can run back to the village before it hits,’ Fei said, sighing, though she wasn’t sure if being caught in a downpour would be any worse than swimming in her own sweat as she was currently doing. Her vivid magenta tank top was drenched and plastered to her skin. Fei was fairly certain the suede was permanently stained.
But her anxious thoughts disintegrated when Kuja took her hand.
‘Come with me, Fei,’ he said. And she did.
He led her into a surprisingly dry hollow that had been formed by a Bagaran Strangler; its roots spilled all around them, like a frozen waterfall of wood, and the sight was so beautiful that Fei couldn’t stifle her amazed gasp. A few seconds later the rain began, white noise at first, but then it become a torrent that started driving into the roots at an angle. Fei drew closer to Kuja.
‘You’re going to ask me why I’m really here on Bagaran, aren’t you,’ she said. ‘You know I’m not very good with words, Kuja.’
Kuja chuckled. ‘You haven’t run out of any good ones yet.’
‘Oh alright, I’ll tell you, but you really need to stop laying it on so thick,’ she warned him, unable to kill her smile. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to concentrate if you keep complimenting me.’
Kuja ran a finger over his lips, as though sealing them shut. His silence emboldened her.
So she told him about her father, she told him about Zareth, she told him about her crisis of faith — she told him everything. Her voice croaked like one of the shingbats hidden in the foliage outside by the time she was done. At some point Kuja had wrapped his arms around her, which Fei couldn’t remember him doing, but she didn’t mind. He was warm. And gentle. And strangely patient.
‘I’m not particularly fond of the Creator God myself,’ Kuja admitted after a time.
‘Why’s that? Has he taken someone from you too?’ she asked.
Kuja’s eyes darkened and grew swampy. ‘Let’s just say I don’t agree with his version of free will. If he really wanted us to find our own paths, he wouldn’t rig it so we’d follow the ones he meant for us anyway.’
Fei blinked. ‘You’re — angry with him.’
‘It’s not unusual to be angry with an invisible deity, is it,’ he mused. ‘Especially when he stops being invisible and gives you an explanation for his actions instead of an apology.’
Fei pried herself away from his embrace, staring at him. ‘You’ve heard the Creator God?’
Frowning, Kuja scratched the underside of his chin. ‘Yes, I’ve heard him. Some might call it a privilege. I don’t. I’d rather follow Bagara — he guides and protects his people but he doesn’t insist they blindly accept everything he says or does.’
‘What did the Creator God say to you?’ Fei asked, wincing at how breathless she sounded.
She expected him to refuse to answer. She didn’t expect to see the sorrow lining his face.
Kuja looked down at his bare feet. ‘The Creator God only allowed my brother, Sandsa, to fall in love so that he could learn a lesson. Once that lesson was over, once the purpose of that love was fulfilled, the Creator God sent followers of his to tear apart my brother’s marriage. It destroyed Sandsa. It’s still destroying him. And now I can’t even get Sandsa to sit still long enough for me to talk to him because he just…he just…’ Kuja smeared a hand across his face, scattering his tears. ‘I suppose you could say he’s not…there’s not a piece of humanity left in my brother anymore.’
Fei leapt to her feet and smashed her fists against the inside of the roots, again and again. When the wind outside roared at her, she roared right back at it, until her throat spasmed painfully.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she said, turning to beam at Kuja.
‘…for letting you hurt yourself?’ he asked, looking bewildered. ‘Fei, your hands.’
He drew nearer and encased her fingers in his, probably to keep her from taking another swing at the Strangler, not that she needed to. Not anymore.
Fei shook her head, her voice hoarse. ‘No, Kuja. For making me feel normal. For letting me think and feel and doubt out loud. For trusting me with your thoughts and feelings in return. For being the only other sensible person out there. Well…maybe not sensible, because we’re stuck here when we could have stayed in Bagath, kept dry and just now be sitting down to the midday meal…’
Kuja was smiling again, except this time it made her feel hot and cold all over.
Her heart stuttered for a moment.
Oh no, she thought. This is just supposed to be a bit of holiday fun, Fei. And you don’t even know if he finds you attractive…
But it was difficult to worry about this when he was gazing at her like that.
Finally, Fei whispered, ‘It’s nice to know that I’m allowed to say these things, that I’m not going insane.’
‘That or you have met someone equally insane,’ Kuja countered, his face suddenly very close to hers.
Fei parted her lips, hardly daring to hope, waiting for a kiss that would set her ablaze — but then she was thinking of Zareth, of when he’d kissed her for the first time in that alcove, the rain pouring down around them. If she kissed Kuja now, she’d be doing it to wipe away an old memory instead of making a new one.
‘Not here, not now, it wouldn’t be fair to you, not that it was going to happen!’ Fei took a giant step away from Kuja, towards the gap in the roots surrounding them. ‘I think we should risk heading back. The rain should ease soon, right?’
‘No, I suspect it will keep pouring for another hour or so.’ He sounded so confident, stark him. But then he looked at her, really looked at her, and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’ she asked, biting her lip.
‘For being honest, for being you, for knowing we had to stop,’ he said softly. Then he winked. ‘I don’t mind waiting. It will make it that much better when it does happen.’
Flummoxed, all Fei could do was stand there in silence as he darted outside. She heard a violent snap somewhere nearby and he returned moments later, carrying a giant green leaf that could have seated a small child — it even looked strong enough to manage it too. Kuja lowered the leaf for her inspection, showing her how the water droplets rolled right off it. He then held it up like an umbrella, an eyebrow raised, his meaning clear.
Giggling, Fei let him escort her from their sanctuary and into the rain.