Li Tanrin waited impatiently before the crosswalk for the light to turn green. It seemed to wait forever before doing so.
His world was so, so fucking slow.
Ever since returning to his normal everyday college life in Beijing two months ago, he'd not been sleeping well. Memories of another world haunted his bed, and he would often awake in the middle of the night torn from slumber by some misshapen nightmare, usually of his betrayal by his fellow comrades' hand.
Comrades.
That was the word used by the God who summoned him.
What a load of bullcrap.
His skin tingled and his heartbeat roared whenever he remembered Thomas' sword running his gut, or when Alice's razor-sharp wires flew invisible from the floor onto him, wrapping across his chest and cutting fearfully close to his heart. Or when Herman stepped onto his staff hand and pulverized his entire right arm into a bloody mush.
Yes, he remembered them all -but most of all he remembered the gaze of Kiyoko, the girl whom he saved but she hid away like a coward and followed the others as they put him in the burning grave.
These memories chased him now like vengeful spirits, not allowing him rest, not in day, nor in night.
The light turned green.
He blared Guns N'Roses on loudest as he crossed on his way to class, and took out his pack of Japanese Mevius Menthol 8. A quick cig threw away his life as Ewan Sorrenswal and set his mind on today's lecture: European Papal Schism in the fourteenth century.
A bike ran into him out of nowhere, and without thinking, he grabbed the girl who'd ridden the bike and threw her down onto the floor in a deadlock.
"Ack!" The girl patted at his arm, going red in the face from air loss.
"Sorry, sorry," He quickly disentangled himself from the girl and pulled her up, "bad habits from another time."
The girl panted and stared at him as if he was crazy.
"That was some crazy reflex."
"I know right. Li Tanrin, History Major."
"Yen Lifeng. Same. European Church Schism?"
She picked up her bike.
"Yeah. See you there then."
She smiled wryly at him and began pedaling high on her bike. "I'll save you a seat!" She shouted back before pedaling off.
He settled into the seat next to Li Yifeng. She smelled nice. Something floral and woody. Probably French.
French.
The perfume brought back the harsh contours of a certain French girl who ripped open his thigh and made visible his femur.
He clenched his teeth.
And breathed.
That was in the past now. Time to focus on the totally normal and not isekai-addicted girl sitting to his left.
"Pssst. Earth to Li Tanrin. Where'd you go?"
"Sorry, must be something like past lifes." He smirked.
She rolled her eyes. "Never took you for the superstitious type. In fact, you'd be my last suspected candidate. You look hardy. Like a soldier. I dig it."
"Who knows? Maybe I've had a supernatural encounter here and there."
"Shhh. We're getting to the theological part of the Schism."
The professor kept droning on on stage.
"Look here to the map. As we've discussed, each pope claims spiritual supremacy on earth, as the speaker for the Catholic god. The famous saying goes, 'what the pope does on earth, happenstoo in heaven', now, the schism broke the church both quite literally and theologically, for now there were two popes. One in Avignon, France, and one back in Italy, the old seat. One could say that this schism very well played the most crucial role in ending medieval thought and propagating the Renaissance to the foremost of man's mind..."
Li Tanrin felt like he could fall asleep any moment. He glanced at Yen Lifeng. So attentive. It was as if she really paid attention to whatever was going on on stage.
The churches were fine in Iverssorn, he guess, there was no main church in the whole of Iverssorn, but in Moros Tyr, Ophalia the snake-like Goddess of Sacrifice and Order was without a doubt the spiritual totem. Even the Queen of Moros Tyr, Irena, listened without guard to the whispers of Ophalia's Herald, basically the pope of the Ophalion Church.
"Hey. You even listening?"
"No."
"Yeah, it's gotten real boring. Wanna ditch?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
"Gimme a cig." He handed her a mevius and lit hers with his own.
"Nice. Very smooth -smoke a lot?"
He gave a smirk, "yeah, you could say that. Been that way ever since I returned."
"Hah, so I was right! You were a soldier. Tsk tsk, can't believe you've fought for CCP."
He didn't respond. How could someone like her ever get it? He leaned against the rusting railings lining the rooftop. The stars were ever so brighter as the sun leaned further and further away from scope, like a blind painter's stroke of white paint, dazzlingly lovely against that purpling canvas.
She was staring at him. She smiled as he looked her in the eye. "Where'd you go again now?"
"Somewhere far away. I don't know. Maybe a few months ago I was called upon by God. Maybe I was dreaming. I don't know. Maybe he sent me to a faraway land called Iverssorn, where the trees grow little cats from the top like coconuts, and maybe it was in those stars splashed above us. I don't know. Maybe I had the adventure of my life, and journeyed to see all those places that I'd never see again, I don't know. I don't know, maybe I found such good friends there I thought I'd meet them here again in this world. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I died there and now I'm back. What do I know then? After all, I'm just a CCP soldier, right?"
She giggled. "You've got quite the imagination, mister. I don't know." Her face was full of mirth. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe we should hang out together again tomorrow."
"Sounds nice to me."