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Fade had never been one to get too deeply involved with other people. She loathed people. For all the selfishness, dishonesty, and greed they could have. Fade didn’t consider herself an exception to that. However, she at least felt she was better than the others who would deny the truth of their nature.
She was okay with being selfish and a liar because it was both those things that allowed her to come this far, to survive the cruel circumstances she had to live through. She never doubted that more circumstances of the same nature would come her way. But she had long since learned to adapt. It would be different. She would be prepared.
What she couldn’t accept was the greedy part of herself. It never brought any good to be greedy. You cut your losses before you lose more. For Fade who has lost everything already, she couldn’t lose the only thing she had left.
Herself.
She was a liar and she was vicious at times. She had to be to protect herself.
But a certain Filipino agent made it hard for her to stay that way. She just couldn’t stop being greedy. To give more of herself than she had to, so she could receive more in turn. It was a dangerous game she played. She didn’t know when it started, just that the closer she got to Neon, the greedier she became. A liar such as her could not bear to lie to Neon. She could lie to everyone, but never Neon.
Affection kept bubbling up inside of her and try as she might to pop these bubbles and pretend they were never there, they were the result of the boil that was already happening inside of her and she knew there would be no end to them. It boiled her blood, her bones, and her mind. She was going to melt because of her. And worse of all, she wanted to keep boiling. To burn, even.
Love was a dangerous game, and it would only hurt her. Even so, she wanted to be hurt. To feel that love she was barely able to feel until this point. If it burns her then she’ll learn her lesson, to burn and burn until there’s nothing left of her and she can continue to live as she’s always had.
A sick part of Fade wanted Neon to reject her, to break her heart and rip it to pieces so everything she’s always known could be proven right. She would hate to be wrong but she had always wanted to be wrong when it came to Neon.
Will she be right about Neon too, or will she be wrong?
Curiosity had killed the cat, as they had always said. But what if curiosity could save the cat from the narrow and small world it had always lived in?
Was surviving all she knew to do?
She was great at surviving, it was something she’s proud of. It was how she got this far, but now she was falling to her greed, to someone she shouldn’t fall for. She had crazy ideas in her head.
What if she lived instead of surviving?
It was stupid. Neon made her feel stupid because all those years of protecting herself only to meet her and let the girl chip away at her walls, underestimating the effect she could have on her only to look away for a second and realize that Neon had successfully opened a hole in those walls.
And she wanted to let her in.
Fade had become greedy and hopelessly in love with Neon. The girl who had taught her that people could be kind. That they could be selfless. That someone could give without asking for anything.
She had shattered the reality that Fade had always believed to be true. She wasn’t sure if she was happy or bitter about that but one thing was sure for her.
If Neon had just been a beautiful dream this whole time, she wanted to keep dreaming. She didn’t want to keep living in the nightmares day by day anymore. It strengthened her, but it broke her too.
Was it okay to ask for more? To ask to be given the chance to heal? Was it even possible for her to heal?
Neon had given her these silly little thoughts but she had created hope in Fade. It was something Fade had never gotten the chance to have or even allowed herself to. But now she hoped, she hoped for better.
Whatever Neon might feel about her, the mark that she had left on Fade was going to be permanent. There will always be a spot reserved for her in Fade’s heart whether she takes it or not.
And so, Fade steeled herself. Neon can’t take a spot reserved for her if she’s unaware of it.
She decided she would tell Neon about her feelings on the upcoming New Year’s Day.
The other agents were preparing their own celebrations, helping Raze set up fireworks and assisting Jett with the food preparations. Since they were located on a remote island, their celebration was all they’re going to have so everyone worked hard to make it a grand and enjoyable experience.
But she wanted to make it just a little bit more special for Neon so she pulled aside Raze for a favor. One the other girl was only too excited to help with.
The fateful day finally came and with it came a few pats on the back, and a few encouraging eyebrow wiggles from Killjoy and Raze as they exchanged knowing glances because of course Raze couldn’t keep the secret surprise to just herself.
“You got this, amiga! Get the girl!” Raze nudged her.
“Hmph.” Fade brushed her off. “Easy for you to say, you’ve already gotten the girl.”
Raze laughs while Killjoy lets out a smaller chuckle as she blushes.
“Who’s to say you won’t have the same luck?” Raze says as she and Killjoy share a look so lovingly sweet that Fade thinks she’s going to get diabetes and die on the spot.
“Okay, you two need a room and I’m leaving before I see the two of you make out and I puke.” Fade leaves to join the other agents and she hears Raze let out a boisterous laugh while Killjoy squeals out a denial beside her.
When Fade joins the rest of the group, Neon was already there stuffing her face, plate in hand, with some of the food Jett had prepared when she sees Viper approach Neon, exchanging a few words she didn’t hear before leaving shortly after.
“Hey, Neon.”
Neon swallows down the food she just chewed. “Oh hey, Fade!”
“What was that about?” Fade glances over to Viper who was now putting a surprising amount of food on her plate.
“Oh, she was asking me which table I put the adobo on.” She says, putting some more food on her plate, taking small bites of what’s already on it as she’s doing so.
“That’s it?”
“She really likes the adobo. It’s kinda flattering since I cooked it, but I think that’s just how good my nanay’s recipe is.” Neon smiles.
Fade looks back at Viper who had filled her plate to the brim with nothing but Neon’s adobo. The sight is honestly surprising to Fade. She rarely ever saw the woman eat, much less that much. She watches Viper sit down at a table, a satisfied look on her face as she digs in.
Fade wondered if Neon just had that effect on people. That effect of changing the way people viewed things. Fade had an inkling that Viper only thought of food as fuel, having schedules for when to eat and eating only the standard meals from the cafeteria. But now Fade could see that contrary to the normally blank expression on Viper’s face as she ate, she looked like she was genuinely enjoying herself.
“So. . . aren’t you gonna dig in too?” Neon’s voice snaps Fade’s attention back on her.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah I will.”
Neon slowly eyed her. Fade felt the heat creep up the back of her neck.
“What is it?” Neon asked suspiciously. “Do you need a plate? I can get it for you?”
“No, no. I know where to find it.”
“So. . . what’s up?”
“Nothing?”
“You’re still here instead of going off doing whatever Fade does, so is it really nothing?” Neon continued to chew on her food.
Right. Despite Neon’s pretty and big doe eyes, there was a sharpness to them, similar to Fade’s.
“I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me later when the fireworks start. I know a good spot.”
“Just us?”
“Um, yeah.”
Neon chewed her food slowly, seemingly in thought.
Maybe Fade made a mistake but before she could say anything, Neon swallowed her food once more.
“Sure, I think I’d really like that.”
You would? Fade asked in her heart hopefully.
“I mean, it’d be nice to be able to watch the fireworks better somewhere less rowdy. So yeah.” Neon coughs. “I just know some of the others are gonna start screaming once the fireworks start.”
Fade sighed internally.
“I’ll meet you five minutes before the fireworks start.”
“Okay, make sure to eat some food before then okay?” Neon says.
Fade nods at Neon. “Sure, mother.”
Neon just glares at her but lets it go as she puts some rice on her plate and finally gets satisfied by what food is on her plate and walks to the table that already had her group of friends seated, Jett, Killjoy, and Raze. The latter two had made it to the dining room not long after Fade did. They give subtle waves toward Fade that she ignores.
Fade then grabs a plate, thinking she should try the mind-blowing adobo that had tamed even the venomous snake lady.
When the time finally came, Fade met with Neon and led her to their HQ’s rooftop.
“Okay, why and how did you even get access to the rooftop–actually, are you supposed to have access to the rooftop?”
“I’m not supposed to.”
Neon makes a scrunched face at her. “Of course. Should we even be here?”
“No, but you did want to see the fireworks better right?”
“I didn’t know you’d bring me to a restricted area.”
“So, no then?”
Neon sighs as she approaches the edge and leans against the railing towards the side where the fireworks would be.
“We’re already here, might as well take in the view.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
Fade stands beside her, leaning against the railing too but while Neon’s focus is on the night sky, patiently waiting for the fireworks to show up, Fade’s focus is on Neon alone. She was so pretty under the night sky, barely illuminated by the night’s light, but even then she was already so beautiful, unmatched by any other.
So when the fireworks finally shot up into the sky, lighting up Neon’s face in an explosion of colors as she turned to her, mumbling something about the fireworks, Fade could do nothing to stop the pounding of her heart, could do nothing to stop her breath from being taken away.
Fade could only hope that the fireworks’ loud booming noises could mask the louder thumping noises inside her heart. She wondered if Neon could hear the loud pounding of her heart that echoed so loudly in her own ears.
It was too overwhelming. She didn’t know she could love. To feel it with every inch of her being, body, and soul.
She didn’t know she could feel this way at all. . . or this much.
“I guess that’s it.” Neon says as the last firework shot up a minute ago. “Come on, let’s go back to the others–”
Then, the sky bursts into blues and golds, courtesy of Raze’s work. The colors of Neon that Fade grew to love so much. The colors that painted up the cold dark night sky of her life.
Neon mumbles to say something but Fade couldn’t wait anymore.
She couldn’t stop the words from coming out of her mouth so soon and so suddenly.
“I love you.”
“Huh? I didn’t know Raze made fireworks in those colors too–”
“I love you.” The words gave Neon a sudden pause.
Did I hear that right? Or did the fireworks just make it sound like that? She thought to herself but when she saw Fade’s face, so stricken with vulnerability in a way Neon had never seen her before, she had to have heard right.
Neon knew she had to give Fade an answer. But what could she tell her?
Neon had always been too afraid to get involved with other people. Not that she didn’t want to, she wished she could. But she was the problem. She felt destined to be the one to hurt other people. The easy answer would be to reject Fade.
That’s the first thought that came to her mind first but the words held itself back before they could come out of her.
Why?
Neon would call herself a fool at that moment for wanting to reject Fade because she knew that she too had been in love with Fade. The dull throbbing ache in her heart that appeared whenever she had been around her was soothed by Fade’s words. Now it has been replaced by something lighter. Like a burden had been lifted off her chest after a long time. Perhaps a part of her just never thought that her feelings would ever amount to anything. That she couldn’t trust Fade with her heart when she’d already given it to her without realizing it.
It was hard to say when exactly she had grown so affectionate of the other woman but if you had asked her when it was that she realized she had fallen in love with Fade, then the answer was so much simpler.
It was now .
It was when Fade had looked at her with so much love in her eyes at that moment that Neon knew she wanted to keep Fade looking at her that way.
Neon had to blink twice, then maybe a couple more times. It was so uncharacteristic of Fade to have such a softness to her. In those dual-colored eyes of hers were a gentleness she didn’t know Fade had in her. After all, It was those same beautiful eyes that had pierced through many others, she herself not excluded. She had always been good at reading people. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Neon.
Now she wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.
Fade had never been one to be affectionate. Neon knew her to be selfish, arrogant, and a jerk. But even so, Neon never felt her selfishness and arrogance to be malicious. And as for being a jerk, someone as self-centered as her would never care to sugarcoat her words, to add honey to all the bitter things she could say, she never needed to worry about other peoples’ feelings. She never cared or wanted to.
Funnily enough, it was those same traits that drew Neon to her in the end because despite all of those traits Fade had that most people deemed negative, it made Fade feel more honest to her. Neon wasn’t a fool though, she knew those were terrible traits and she couldn’t imagine being anything like Fade.
But it’s when Fade lets on more kindness, and sweetness than Neon thought she was capable of, she felt things . If it was that selfish Fade that showered her affection, then was Neon wrong for reading more into it, to feel more than she should because it meant more importance coming from someone like her? She wondered if she’d indeed been fooled by Fade, if Fade had intentionally made her feel those. . . things. She may have been too nice for her own good, and that was fine for her as she was raised that way, but a naive fool she wasn’t going to allow herself to be. So she buried the things she felt before she was able to name them. Stash it away into the farthest corner of her heart to bury and forget.
But while Neon had a wide vocabulary of bad words to describe Fade with, some even in. . . unsavory Tagalog, Neon could never describe Fade as a liar.
She couldn’t tell you if it was because Fade had nothing to gain from her that she had been such a jerk, but Fade had always been honest to her, brutally so. If Neon was being honest herself, she only calls Fade a jerk because of that brutal honesty. If there was ever an uncomfortable truth whether it be a small or a bigger thing, Fade would be the one to point it out.
So while she couldn’t let herself trust Fade, she had always believed her. Or maybe she was just being stupid and that in of itself was already trust and she was deluding herself into believing it wasn’t.
But she could tell you what she felt the moment Fade had told her the magic three words that unraveled everything in her heart and yanked out all the things she had buried in her heart out into the open and she was finally able to name them.
Love . She loved Fade.
Fade’s words echoed in her mind.
“I love you.”
More fireworks shot up and lit up Fade’s face and Jusko . . She was so beautiful her heart physically ached for her. The glistening tears in Fade’s pretty eyes as she waited for her answer threatened to fall until finally, she turned away, most likely to hide the tears that would fall.
Neon grabs her hand, squeezing gently. She needed Fade to hear this clearly, to see her clearly, because while it had always been difficult to trust herself to not hurt other people because of her radiance. Something in her knew that she could never hurt Fade. It was something she couldn’t even imagine doing (even if her arrogance makes her want to punch her sometimes). It was strange, that a part of her was so sure that she would never hurt Fade, when there had been so many times that she had accidentally hurt others out of carelessness.
Maybe it was because she knew she would never be careless when it came to Fade.
Fade turns back to her, the wetness on her face indicating that the tears have already fallen. She tried to keep her face straight, to hide the hurt and pain that had previously been on her face when Neon didn’t answer her.
“It’s okay, Neon. You don’t have to say anything.” Fade wiped her own eyes with her sleeve, just barely smudging her waterproof dark makeup. “I wasn’t stupid enough to think you’d ever like me back.” Fade laughs, so hollowly that Neon couldn’t bear to see Fade like this. “I mean who’d ever like someone like m–”
THUD
“Neon, what the fuck?!” Fade landed on the ground softly, having been shoved lightly by Neon so suddenly before she was suddenly wrapped into a hug as Neon helps her back up.
“Sorry. I didn’t know whether I wanted to punch you, hug you, or kiss you. Honestly, I mostly just wanted to kiss you but I didn’t know if you wanted me to do that yet so I just settled on a shove and a hug because I didn’t wanna accidentally bruise you or something if I punched you.”
“O. . .Okay?” Fade barely managed to breathe out from the bone-crushing bear hug Neon subjected her to. “Can you let go first?”
“Oh sure.”
Fade breathed a sigh of relief as she was released.
“I don’t get you.” Fade admitted. “You wanted to kiss me?”
“I did.”
“Why? Do you feel bad for me? I told you, I don’t expect anything from you. I don’t need some sort of pity kiss.”
“I know. It’s what I wanted for myself.”
Fade blinks at her. “Then why’d you shove me? I. . . I wasn’t playing a prank on you, you know.”
“Because I can’t stand to hear anyone insulting the person I love.”
Fade’s eyes widened at that. Neon could almost see the imaginary cogs in her mind turning.
“Even if the insults are coming from the person herself.” Neon lightly punches her shoulder and then takes Fade’s hands into her own.
Fade’s hands were so much bigger than her own, with fingers that were long and bony. She could wrap both of Neon’s hands with just a single hand. She admired the artistry of the henna that Fade decorated her hands with. She loved these hands and the comfort she felt when Fade held her with them. Usually, they were ice cold but now they were warm and mildly damp. Neon guessed that she had been sweating.
How cute. Was she really that nervous about confessing to Neon that her hands would sweat, and she would cry? Between the two of them, Neon thought of herself more as the crybaby but it was nice to see a new side to Fade.
She didn’t care about Fade’s sweaty hands as she wrapped her fingers around Fade’s.
“I love you too, Fade. I love you. Mahal na mahal kita, nasayo na ang puso ko, dati pa .”
Neon knew Fade wouldn’t be able to understand the second part but she knew she understood enough for fresh tears to begin falling from Fade’s eyes as even more fireworks lit up the night sky, this time the blue-gold fireworks burst open the skies alongside black-red ones.
Fade turned to see the fireworks, confused.
Neon didn’t know why she was confused but she liked the fireworks, it felt like they were together up there in the night sky, lighting it up, making Neon feel like it was them dancing in it.
But even so, Neon couldn’t help but notice how they illuminated the beautiful woman in front of her in such mesmerizing colors. And even though she was right there living that moment, Neon knew she would do anything to be able to relive it again and again and again, etching it into both her heart and mind.
Neon always thought that Fade had deserved so much more love than what she was given. And now she was glad she could become that person who could give that to her.
It was a new year and the start of new beginnings.
Neon couldn’t wait to see what the future would bring for the both of them.
Together.