#r.aus

“You’re not Anaxa, are you?”

A breeze passes over the whispering foliage of the Grove, distilling the question among the quivering leaves.

It’s not a question, really. You know you’re right. 

Beside you, Anaxa hesitates. He turns his head toward you, right eye narrowing. The red circle of his pupil glows with an unnatural light. His stare is arresting, and beyond the silent calculating lies something… not quite shocked, but intrigued. Like an unexpected variable has suddenly appeared in front of him. 

He tilts his head. “How did you know?”

How did you know? 

Images flash in your mind. Images you tried to—can’t—forget. Of running, running, running to the ritual site in the darkness, lungs burning, head spinning, feet pounding until—

(The body, sprawled in the centre of the array. Hair strewn across the ground around its head. Like a ragdoll, you had thought. Blood trickling from the mouth. Lips frozen in an almost-smile. Eye glassed over, and skin so white it’s grey. You don’t dare touch it and yet—you have to—reaching out your hand, it’s—

(Cold. Unmistakeable, undeniable, irrevocable.)

How did you know?

Your eyes fall to your hands. “I just got this feeling. You look exactly like him, but… you’re different, somehow. If you aren’t him,” you say, turning to him, “then what are you?”

The thing which is Anaxa stares at you. For a few seconds nothing happens. Then half of his face… melts. Slides away like ink. From behind his eyepatch emerges a twisting mass of something, pulsing and contracting like a living thing, composed of swirling patterns and shapes which shimmer like oil in water: mesmerising coils of turquoise, indigo, crimson. The writhing mass stretches outwards, winding through the air towards you. You freeze, pulse spiking with the realisation that it’s going to–

The creature (is that what it is? A creature?) halts a few millimetres from your face. There it lingers, swirling, undulating, folding dimension and light into itself and back out again. Staring at it makes your head swim. This thing is not—of this world. (Your vision lapses.) Not meant to be comprehended by the likes of you. 

“You were not supposed to find out,” he says calmly. His—its—voice distorts as he speaks, phasing out of sync and then back together like a viscous liquid congealing back together after being run through with a knife.

Your mouth is dry. Forcing down the lump in your throat, staring into the eye shining in the midst of the living void, you whisper, “What will you do?” Does it plan to kill you? Suck out your soul?

The thing regards you for a moment. Its swirling tendrils hover above your skin, tips wavering lightly as if caressing the air. Its silence is devoid of malevolence. Instead, you feel it unpicking you with its incomprehensible mode of perception, dissecting you, even—you shudder as one of the tendrils just barely ghosts over your cheek—tasting you, with the same curiosity and intent of a scientist peering through a microscope at a new discovery. 

Strangely enough, with half of his face warped into a swarming, psychedelic splatter, it feels the most like Anaxa since this thing took up his body. Something in your chest gives a heavy throb. Because this isn’t him. He is dead. However much it might act, or look, or speak or stare like him, you know it isn’t, because you saw…

The mass draws back, receding slowly as if it’s being sucked back into his eyepatch. The last few wisps flail and vanish behind the dark cloth. It concludes, in Anaxa’s voice, “I will not harm you.”

Stars swim behind your eyes. Your heartbeat flutters in your chest, which is so tight it might burst. Short, sharp gasps of air are all you can pull down your constricted throat. “Why?” you stammer out, barely audible.

The question seems to puzzle him. Plainly, he replies, “I don’t want to.”

You exhale a breath. “Oh.”

The world tilts around you. Your head drops forward. You don’t fall. A hand on your shoulder keeps you upright as the grass beneath your feet turns into the waves of a green ocean. It feels like a human hand. You force yourself to glance over at him. He looks normal; as normal as Anaxa ever looked. His gaze is firm, not unkind. Not his. Its. Why do you have to keep reminding yourself of that distinction? 

“You may pretend I am him, if you find it easier.”

Pretend it’s him? You almost want to laugh. It’s unthinkable. Anaxa is gone. You saw him. You can’t ever forget that fact. And yet…

Having this thing here, wearing his face, speaking in his voice—this thing, which is so utterly alien to everything you have ever known—having it here is almost like having him here, for all of its fundamental discrepancies. And having something almost like him here is infinitely better than not having him at all. 

Before going ahead with the experiment, Anaxa had told you that there was nothing to worry about. He had it all worked out; you would see him once it was over. Part of you is furious with him for making you a promise he didn’t keep. How dare he leave like that? How dare he lie to you? 

Staring at the thing that is (not?) Anaxa, it strikes you for the first time: maybe he didn’t lie to you. You are seeing him now, aren’t you? A close enough approximation, at the very least. (At the most. His insides are gods know what, and his mind has been hijacked by some bizarre entity you can’t begin to fathom.) If you simply… let him be what he now is… maybe he doesn’t have to be gone. And if he doesn’t have to be gone, you don’t have to be alone.

(Chapter Three, ‘In which you take a daring leap of faith into some unexpected encounters,’ will release this coming Monday, 23rd September.)

@psychopomp-enthusiast, @ilydanhengg, @jingsnuggler, @auranny, @1eaf-me-alone;

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@zeldadou, @cooldudejorts, @toki-mekii, @taurus852, @francisnyx;

@hydroid0, @monayposblog, @doumalove, @academiq, @ohmyfinggod;

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@thetwinkims, @huijintao.

The thing which is Anaxa stares at you from across the room, his arms folded across his chest. He looks exactly like the Anaxa you knew: mannerisms, posture, expression, everything. It’s so easy to forget, most of the time—until he does something which is decidedly not what Anaxa could do.

“You said you wanted to know how I dealt with that creature,” he says, regarding you coolly. 

You nod. “That’s right.” 

That morning, you, Anaxa and Hyacine went to the outskirts of the Grove to collect some samples for one of Anaxa’s… his experiments. The thing inside Anaxa has assimilated seamlessly into his former routine at the Grove, lectures, research and all. He’s told you he has most of Anaxa’s memories, and if you had any doubts, his unbroken continuance of his role dispels any possibility of him lying. None of his students have batted an eye. You don’t even think Hyacine has noticed anything off, or if she has, she didn’t make any indication of her suspicion earlier on.

As you were crouching knee-deep in foliage, a prickle on the back of your neck told you that you were being watched. 

You glanced over your shoulder. Anaxa was a few metres away, standing with his back turned to you, and Hyacine had gone on ahead. Both were preoccupied with their own tasks. Nothing out of the ordinary. You turned back to your venture, extracting a delicate tendril of nebulous matter from a willing druid. 

The feeling didn’t go away. 

It was probably some bird watching you from the trees, you reasoned. But something about this sensation… it wasn’t a curious stare from an unseen critter. There was something darker in it, like a predator watching its prey.

The druid in front of you vanished without warning. With a drop of dread, you realised it had fled.

You turned around and peered into the mottled shadows of the foliage which spread across on the steep valley walls. Your unease had sharpened into fear—a primal kind of fear, beating low at the base of your brain. 

—There! A shadow, distinguishable from the rest only by a low amber glow emitted by its… head?

The silhouette was humanoid. It moved in a lurching manner but its feet didn’t seem to touch the floor. Something was wrong with it—something seriously, seriously wrong. Its torso was thin. Not thin, you realised. The thing was split in two, top half and bottom. And the face—it wasn’t a face. Tendrils like twisting fingers branched out from the neck, curling around the source of that strange glow. 

You still couldn’t get a good look at it. What was it? Some species new to the Grove? No. What kind of ‘species’ was so close to human, yet so far away? If anything it was like a… mutation of some sort. A distortion of everything it meant to be human.

Whatever it was, it was getting closer. A rustle of leaves, twigs crunched beneath feet that didn’t touch the ground. The closer it grew, the more acute the pressure on your skull. It wasn’t fear anymore. It was a gnawing, a madness, a living aggressor, buzzing in your brain and threatening to consume you whole. Something reached out toward you—

—A deafening crack split the air. You whirled around. Anaxa had appeared beside you. At the same time as the noise, he staggered back a step, clutching his hand to his eyepatch. 

The presence was gone.

You stared at him, astounded. “What did you do?”

“I consumed it.” His voice betrayed a hint of pride; there was a touch of arrogance in the flash of his smirk. “Nothing but me can latch onto you.”

“Consumed?” you asked in bewilderment. “How did you—wait, are you okay?” A golden line trickled out from under his eyepatch, trailing a thin path down his cheek. You reached towards it without thinking. “Your eye…”

He turned his head sharply away from you. You pulled your hand back. 

“From now on, don’t look at anything but me.” His voice was firm. “So long as that is the case, I can keep you safe.”

Hyacine burst through the trees. “Is everyone okay?” she said, slightly out of breath. “I heard a sound just now, and I hurried back as fast as I could.” Concerned eyes landed on you and then on Anaxa, at which point her concern deepened. “Professor, what happened to your eye? Do you need me to look at it?”

“Don’t concern yourself with it.” He cleared his throat and straightened his back, proclaiming with regal poise, “I fell into a thorny bush.”

Anaxa removes his coat, and then his tunic, until his top half is bare. 

Anaxa was never this brazen, you think, staring at the pale planes of his upper body. Not in this way, at least. He had a sense of restraint when it came to displaying his body, to exposing the more vulnerable parts of himself to prying eyes. It was a right one had to earn. 

His skin is stretched tight across his ribs and stomach. White scars, some tiny and some larger, litter his body like fine etchings. There’s a dark irony in it. Despite being dead, he looks no more unhealthy for it. You’re tempted to say he even looks more alive. There’s a flush in his skin which wasn’t there before. 

A six-pointed slit is cut into his chest, disturbing the smooth canvas of his torso. The tip rests just below his throat and the incision extends down to the middle of his pectorals. In the narrow space between his flaps of skin, you glimpse a shimmering shade of blue-turquoise, speckled with what looks like stars.  

“Well? Don’t you want to touch me?” he says, cocking his head to one side. The curl of his lip is expectant, like he already knows that you can’t resist your own morbid curiosity. “To know what it feels like?”

You swallow thickly. You do want to know, because this is—like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Even if it’s wrong, even if it isn’t him (even if it proves it isn’t him), you can’t stop yourself. 

You reach out your hand and place your fingertips on his skin. It’s warm, like a living person’s. Not like the cold stone you felt when you touched Anaxa’s body. You can feel the slight rise and fall of his chest of his breathing: up, down, in and out. A rhythm familiar to you, in yourself and others. You fight down the urge to clutch his skin and hold him to you. 

You doubt he needs to breathe, or even have a beating heart. It’s a performance, you suspect, adopted by this thing to make itself less alien to you. Can such an act be called considerate? Does he really think it’s enough to let you forget what he is, or what he isn’t?

As much as you rationalise it, you can’t deny the insurmountable relief of feeling him alive and warm beneath you. This far, he is human. 

Whatever is inside him will shatter that illusion.

“Are you afraid?” asks the thing that is Anaxa. 

You shake your head. You’re not afraid. You just need to steady yourself before you go into… that. 

He isn’t Anaxa. You know that, so there’s no illusion to shatter at all. No matter the thing which now resides in his body, it can’t hurt you like he did. 

You slide your fingers across his skin and dip them into the incision. 

A shiver runs through your entire body. It’s— 

Everything. Nothing. Cold and wet and fuzzy and hot and electrifying and spinning and your head reels like a mirror shattered to pieces and your skin crawls because this is beyond anything you should ever know. Every cell in your body vibrates with the awareness: This is wrong.

Steeling yourself, you push your hand further in. 

Once the initial shock subsides, you realise the sensation is… not as bad as you thought.

“You’re cold,” you think aloud. Or at least, it’s something akin to that. It doesn’t feel like a temperature as much as it’s like an… existence. Not an existence. It’s nothing you've ever felt before. But it resembles cold. 

Almost softly, he replies, “And you’re warm.” 

The experience is difficult to describe precisely, because no human tongue has evolved to have the words to describe a being which exists on another fundamental plane. His insides slide against you like a current, soft and wet like a tongue, parting around your fingers and giving way to you as you move through them. They pulsate lightly against your skin, almost ticklish; not unpleasant. The chasm seems endlessly deep; reach as you might, you find no bones, no organs. It’s like an ocean, vast and unfathomable. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was bottomless.

Anaxa, or the thing that is Anaxa, exhales a sigh. His eyelid flutters and he tips his head backwards. He places a hand (warm, human, alive) on your forearm and holds it in place. Not to restrict you; the contact is too light for that. To steady himself, maybe. To steady you.  

You move your hand upwards, and the incision spreads in your wake, creeping up his neck, his chin, cleaving him in two with a clean line of starlight. His lips split into a grin (a sharp tooth flashes at you) as you cup his cheek from the inside. 

“That feels good,” he breathes. You don’t think Anaxa would have said that. He would have borne the pleasure alone, in silence, like torture.

He goads, “Keep going.” 

You do. You glide your hand downwards (the split in his face closes without leaving so much as a line behind) and he shudders when you brush the spot where his heart would be. His grip on your forearm tightens, urging you deeper still. His eye has glassed over, grown hazy with delight. You curl your fingers inside him and he lets out a soft groan, almost a giggle. 

You still don’t know what to make of it. Whatever this thing is, though, you don’t think it’s evil. Just incomprehensible.  

A tug on your arm. The vast chasm contracts suddenly, clamping down on your skin. Your very being crawls. All at once it’s wrong again, your brain is blaring, your body screaming as the thing latches onto you. It’s slime, a thousand needles, countless tentacles and tongues suctioning your flesh. His insides pulsate against you and the force—it’s like it’s trying to suck you in. You struggle against the pressure in vain. Your elbow is swallowed up, followed by your upper arm.  

Inside him you can feel the thing crawling up your wrist, your arm, your shoulder, neck—oh Titans it’s in your head—

In a flash of strength wrought by panic, you tear your arm out from him and stagger backwards against the wall. At once, the terrible suction vanishes, but phantom sensations continue to tingle on your skin.

The thing which—which isn’t Anaxa stands in the same place, staring at you. 

“What—” You choke over the thickness in your throat. “What was that?”

He frowns. You’re not sure whether an entity like him can feel disappointment, but that’s the sense you get. “You touched me, and so I touched you back,” he says. 

Touched you… back? You glance down at yourself. On the back of your right hand is a pale red mark composed of intertwining lines. It definitely wasn’t there before. Though it doesn’t hurt, your skin itches with the memory of his touch.  

The huge, endless void has all but vanished, shrinking back into the narrow incision with blue cracks on his chest. Anaxa—it is so definitely not Anaxa—runs a thin, bony finger along the sharp outlines of the opening, his expression contemplative, before he looks at you again. 

“It is equivalent exchange, yes? I remember I…” He blinks. “No, Anaxagoras, was rather fond of this principle.”

“Why would you follow it, then?”

“Curiosity,” he replies. “A wish to reciprocate your warmth. You felt…” and here he sighs again, deep with satisfaction, “wonderful.” He pauses, considers for a moment. “You did not find it enjoyable.”

You stare at the floor. “Well, I—I thought you might…”

“Might what?” he asks, arching a pale eyebrow. The gesture makes your heart ache. “I have already said I will not harm you.”

You thumb the newfound mark on the back of your hand. Quietly, you mumble, “Maybe we have different definitions of ‘harm’.” 

After a moment, he admits, “It’s possible. I don’t yet understand the limitations of humans.” He turns his eye on you. “Can I learn from you? About being… human.”

“What do you have to learn?” you ask. It’s a question of genuine curiosity, not one of spite. “You’re already convincing.” Convincing enough that nobody else has realised the truth: that Anaxa is dead, and that this thing in his body is not him.

“I would like to understand the intricacies. To understand you, and myself.”

You blink. “You don’t know what you are?” 

“No.” He frowns. “Do you?”

“Don’t you pull that one on me.” The easy laugh is rolling off your tongue before you’re aware of it. 

“Why not?”

“It’s a big question. You can’t just spring it on me and expect me to answer you straight away.” You hesitate, catching yourself before you get carried away. A sigh breaks its way out of you. “Alright,” you say. “I’ll do my best to help you be human. To… understand the intricacies.”

He inclines his head. “Thank you.”

A knock on the door behind you. “Professor Anaxa?”

It’s Hyacine. You and Anaxa exchange a glance. You’d forgotten that you were in his office. Thank the stars the door is locked. If someone had walked in a few minutes ago… You shudder at the thought. 

“Put your clothes back on,” you urge, now all too aware of the fact that he’s half-naked. Without any apparent sense of urgency, even as Hyacine knocks again, Anaxa lifts his tunic back over his head and dons his coat. Your eyes linger on the blue incision as it disappears behind the fabric. Catching your eye, he smiles, sharp but not unpleasant, and you swiftly look away.  

He opens the door. Hyacine stands behind it, her hand raised for another knock. She lowers it and glances between yourself and Anaxa, who’s leaning against his desk and flipping through some papers like nothing in the world is the matter. 

Finding yourself flustered, you exchange a quick greeting with her and head down the hallway. Your brisk footsteps echo off the cold stone floor. 

He doesn’t know what he is? 

It’s something you hadn’t considered before. You were under the impression that the thing that was Anaxa was sure of itself. That it had an agenda of some kind—not necessarily a malicious one, but an intention, a clear reason for taking up Anaxa’s body and assimilating undetected into what would have been his life.

Suddenly, this thing isn’t just an impersonator. It’s confused and vulnerable, like anyone else. It’s… alone.

You glance at the mark on your wrist. It doesn’t show any signs of fading. If anything, you think the red colour is getting deeper. Thinking back to the strange sensation of touching his insides, you suppress a shiver, not necessarily one of discomfort. 

Help him how to be human? You want to laugh at your own presumptuousness. You don’t know what made you say such a thing. 

He cracked open his eyes. They landed on a human, nothing too remarkable, tentatively pushing the sliding door shut behind you. From the rapid thrum of your heart rate, he could tell you were nervous—yet your eyes stared straight at him, like twin shards of light. 

It was not often that strangers sought him out. Consider his interest piqued. 

Heizou slid out from the shadows, separating from the darkness as naturally as a single stream diverging into two. His bright green irises glinted in the dimness which the paper lanterns set in each corner of the room failed to drive away. You gulped, but did not withdraw from his presence. 

“So,” he began in a conversational tone, a smile curling on his lips, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Tentatively, you said, “You’re Shikanoin Heizou, right?”

“The one and only.” Heizou bent low into a bow. His eyes did not leave your face. Straightening, he asked, “How do you know about me?”

“I’ve… heard things.” Your eyes darted around the room, no doubt trying to determine your surroundings beyond the suspended shadows. You were like a little bird, he thought; so skittish, so fragile, as humans always were. 

Heizou laughed lightly. With a single step he closed the distance between you. You took a sharp inhale as he leaned in and whispered, low and breathy in your ear, “What brings a lovely thing like you to me, then, hm?” You stiffened beside him. He drew back to face you and pressed his thumb to your lower lip. The sharp tip of his fingernail touched your Cupid’s bow. Knowing he had your full attention, he leaned closer again, leaving only a hair’s breadth between your faces. Your pupils dilated and swiftly flicked away to avert his sharp gaze. The scent of your fear, tinged with attraction—or perhaps the other way around—was positively intoxicating. “Tell me,” he murmured, almost against your mouth. “What can I do for you?”

He felt the quicken of your breathing, sensed the rising of your blood as it surged to your cheeks, and cracked a smirk. Hardly a minute in and he already had you wrapped around his finger. So pliable, he thought; and somewhat endearing, too.

You squared your shoulders and forced your eyes to meet his. For a moment Heizou was locked in place by the bright, determined spark burning behind your irises. The flame which draws in the moth. 

“I want to learn from you.” Your voice quavered a little, but your expression was set in determination. 

Learn from him? Now that was something new. He could appreciate originality. Typically the only requests he received came from the Tenryou Commission, when they encountered a supernatural case they couldn’t handle on their own. 

“Learn from me?” he echoed, taking a step back so he could see you properly. “How so?”

“Take me on as your assistant. Or partner, or whatever you want to call it.” Your resolve hardened as you spoke. “I want to learn more about the supernatural world and how to investigate it.”

Seeing you burn with such passion, he almost couldn’t bring himself to let you down. “Aiya,” he sighed, and shook his head. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to teach you much. My intuition—my one true companion—isn’t the kind of thing that can be learned. Plus, a lot of what I do relies on my senses, detecting things a human like you can’t perceive. Of course,” he mused, tapping his forehead in thought, “I could turn you”—something akin to dread passed over your expression—“but I don’t want that light in your eyes going out just yet.”

Your disappointment was evident. Your eyes dropped, their spark dampened by this revelation. Heizou found himself scrambling to reignite it. He reasoned, “Although, some company would be appreciated… and it’s not like there’s nothing at all you could learn from sticking around.”

You glanced up, lips parting and eyes widening in rekindled hope. Really? your expression was asking. He winked at you and pressed a finger to his lips, as if to say, Keep this just between you and me.

An assistant… It was certainly an intriguing thought. Yet your emotions were so fragile that Heizou was almost afraid you wouldn’t be able to withstand the contents of your own request. That spark you had—he wanted to preserve it, not lead you down a path of your own destruction and smother it prematurely.

Heizou grew serious. His smile faded, and his voice lost its playful lilt. “If we are to be partners, I need you to understand this. Being at my side means entering a world which cares little for humans—in fact, often works directly against them. There’s a reason humans come to me to tackle these things instead of handling them themselves. You’ll see things you can’t unsee, the kind which keep you up at night. There will be things you encounter which want to rip you apart and I can’t guarantee your safety.” His pupils were narrow pinpoints. “Can you handle that?”

You lifted your chin, your eyes flashing. When you answered, “Yes,” Heizou believed you. 

The corner of his mouth rose to reveal a glinting canine. Maybe not so fragile after all. He spun around and sang, “In that case... Come along, my little human ‘assistant’. Lesson one of detective work, supernatural or otherwise: there’s no rest for the wicked.”

He heard you hesitate momentarily before your footsteps fell into step behind him, following him deeper into the house. Heizou chuckled to himself. 

Just a silly collection of incorrect quotes inspired by the fic, organised by chapter! A warning for shenaniganery and quite a lot of quotes ahead…

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Chapter One: In which you talk to kites

Reader: So when are we gonna tell her? Qingque: Just give her a minute. Sushang: *pulling on a door that clearly says push*

Qingque: *screams*  Sushang: *screams louder to assert dominance*  Qingni: Should we do something?!  Reader, observing: No, I want to see who wins this.

Reader: I currently have 7 empty notebooks and I have no clue what to put in them. Suggestions? Qingque: Put spaghetti in it. Reader: I'm currently taking suggestions from literally anyone but you. Sushang: Put spaghetti in it. Reader: I'm currently taking suggestions from anyone but you two. Qingni: Put spaghetti in it. Reader: I'm no longer taking suggestions.

Qingque: *Gently taps table* Sushang: *Taps back* Yukong: What are they doing? Reader: Morse code. Qingque: *Aggressively taps table* Sushang: *Slams hands down* YOU TAKE THAT BACK-

He remembers, vaguely, the face of his creator—no, his mother. Hardness written into the lines of her mouth, he recalls, and steel in her eyes. There was extension and dimension, and new appendages, appendages attached to veins attached to him attached to wires and humming tubes of golden blood. There is a memory of warmth—the fleeting touch of a hand placed upon his shoulder in the first and only gesture of affection his creator would grant him—and words, the first words he ever heard spoken: “It is a success.” 

He had not yet existed in the world for a second when he was overwhelmed by it, a faulty vessel unable to withstand the weight it was designed to hold. The newness of sensation and the assault of the world on his senses broke over him like a wave. Birth is the ultimate violation, through which one is thrust against their will into an existence which inevitably begets suffering. Human infants wail in the face of such violent confusion; he but slipped silently back into oblivion. 

I tried to look for a Japanese equivalent to a vampire but couldn’t find any, so I figured I’d keep his design similar enough to in-game…Anyways I’m not experienced with comic stuff so this helped me practice, I hope you like it!

OU MY GOD?? THIS IS SO COOL??? The comic panel at the end is insane. The lighting, the close-up, and the way you referenced his in-game pose… omgzjdorvskskf. It’s so so so so cool. Thank you so much for drawing it! (I also remember that kitsune!Heizou fanart which was banger as well)

I’ve actually been thinking of my own design for him, too, which I might post at some point — it’s really funny because I also had the collar layered the opposite way to show he’s dead!

So, you wanted to learn from him? That should be easy enough to arrange. 

Heizou slipped into his quarters (a small room, really, cluttered with old notes) and rifled through some cabinets, withdrawing a series of Kamera photographs, papers, physical evidence and the such. Returning to where he’d left you, he tossed the various bits and pieces onto a worn desk. “These are from a case I’m working on,” he said. “Try to solve it. If you succeed, I’ll let you become my assistant.”

Your eyes flashed with conviction. “I’ll do my best.”