Chapter Text
When Aether regained consciousness, he was walking on a bridge.
(Where?...)
He didn't remember how he got there.
After he got out of the detention center... he had told himself, that he wanted to be alone for a while.
And then, after that... it had all become so... blurry.
Apparently... instead of going home, he had gone in the opposite direction.
Go home... what for?
Why?
(Kazuha...)
What was the point of going back to him?
What could Kazuha have done for him?
What could he have said, done, that would have given meaning to all this?
Fragmentary images came back to him.
Aether walked, walked, walked.
Without being able to think of anything.
He had a huge lump in his stomach.
He didn't remember crying, yet his eyes were heavy, wet, painful.
Painful like the rest of his body.
Aether felt like his chest was being squeezed, by an invisible hand.
He was in pain, so much pain.
Even his throat was tight, so tight that he thought someone was choking him.
And most of all... everything felt so empty, so meaningless.
That was all he felt: pain and emptiness.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Lumine was...
His sister was...
Even when he thought about it again... the truth wouldn't change.
He could have saved her.
He could have remembered her.
He could have done something.
But it hadn't been like that.
It didn't make sense.
Aether himself was surprised by his train of thought.
He couldn't focus his eyes, which invariably pointed downward.
He could not think, and was aware of it.
Because everything, absolutely everything, now seemed meaningless to him.
Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing seemed important anymore.
Everything meant nothing.
Everything seemed futile to him. His thoughts, his memories, his hopes, his feelings.
The world had lost its colors.
No, it wasn't.
It was he, Aether, who had lost his colors.
With this feeling, of not belonging to this world.
Of not deserving to be there.
Because of what he had done, unconsciously.
"I will save you," he had promised Lumine.
What a joke.
He couldn't save her.
She was already dead.
Aether, couldn't save anyone.
Not even his sister.
Not even himself.
He was so arrogant.
How could he think, after all this, that he was meant to save anyone?
He was spending his time being saved, instead.
All his resolve, all of it, had been for nothing.
Except to make him feel better to overcome his ordeals.
But from there to imagine that he would help anyone, that he would become strong...
What was the point?
Why become strong, anyway?
While this goal had guided him, now it seemed to him, like everything else, bland, meaningless.
Maybe that too was just another lie.
Like his whole existence.
(Ah...)
Aether stopped walking.
He understood.
He didn't deserve to be strong.
Since there was no purpose behind it, no meaning to it.
He didn't deserve to be happy. After what he had done, it was logical.
He didn't deserve to be saved, to taste love.
It made sense.
Someone as filthy, as despicable as he was, had no right to any of it.
Realizing this made him want to cry.
Because it was true.
It wasn't self-pity.
He wasn't the hero of a tragedy, who decided he deserved what happened to him.
Aether didn't deserve anything.
So it was only right that he should have nothing.
He had spent all this time lying to himself.
So...
He lifted his head and looked down at the water that passed under the bridge, about twenty meters below.
Aether stared into the void.
He expected to feel something.
A shiver, fear, doubt.
But nothing.
Apart from the pain that gripped his chest, nothing.
He felt nothing.
Perhaps unlike anyone else who looked at it, he didn't see the same thing.
He saw... a proper ending.
Aether tried to force himself to smile.
But he couldn't.
If...
If he no longer felt anything at all about it.
If he had no right to anything.
If everything he had dreamed of was meaningless.
If everything he had done, had been in vain.
If he was empty, if he felt nothing but pain, this pain that he did not want, that he wanted to disappear.
So, yes, maybe...
(It's okay if I die, right?...)
Aether climbed onto the railing, as if in a dream.
He still did not feel anything.
However, images flashed before his eyes.
Everything that had happened recently.
The hell at school.
His meeting with Kazuha.
The hell at home.
His hopes.
His wishes.
His fears.
Kazuha.
His father. His beating. The darkness.
Kazuha.
Their life.
His life, which was worthless.
His life...
Lumine's.
Lumine.
Lumine, who was no more.
Lumine, who—
Everything was mixed and intermingled. As if his mind was making him see the good and the bad, to decide, to hold him back, to—
Aether jumped.
The last thing he heard was a scream.
It was strange.
It almost sounded like his name.
Kazuha was waiting, slumped in his chair, with a blank stare.
He usually stood straight, but he didn't have the strength at that moment.
His head was hanging down, just like his eyes.
He was unable to raise them. This was beyond his strength.
A dull pain pierced his stomach, gripped his chest, and spread viciously throughout his limbs like a snake.
The last time Kazuha had felt something like this was when he thought Aether was dead.
When he had discovered him lying unconscious in his house.
But that was nothing compared to what he was feeling now.
He was seeing the same thing over and over again, whether his eyes were closed or open.
Aether, standing on the railing.
Jumping.
It was such a simple word, it was such a short, brief, yet horrifying vision, for all it meant.
His friend... his boyfriend, had wanted to put an end to his life.
Suicide.
Kazuha suspected what might have been going through his mind.
He had found out through his contact that Aether's sister was already dead, while his friend thought the opposite.
As soon as he knew it, Kazuha had rushed to the prison to inform him.
But it was too late.
Aether, who had gone there to question his father, must have heard about it too.
And...
Kazuha could only imagine the shock Aether had felt, he who thought his sister was still alive, and that he was determined to find her.
But there was worse.
If Aether had chosen to kill himself... it meant that Kazuha had not been reason enough for him to live.
Realizing, understanding this had been like the coup de grace.
Not only had he been unable to stop him from jumping, only able to shout his name as his friend disappeared...
But in Aether's eyes... his pain, had surpassed their love, their bond.
Yes, Aether hadn't even stayed for Kazuha.
No... that was wrong.
Kazuha was at fault here.
He had not been able to give Aether enough reason to live.
He had failed to protect him from himself, to be the one to save him.
As he replayed the same scene over and over again, Kazuha realized his arrogance.
He had had a wish, so arrogant, so selfish...
To be the one who would save Aether.
He had wanted to be the one who would pull his friend, his lover up, the one who would save him.
Kazuha had sometimes had this thought.
One day, by dint of his efforts, he would make Aether realize how wonderful he was, that he deserved like all the others to live and be happy.
Yes, one day, Aether would understand his value and be happy.
This was Kazuha's dream, his wish: that by dint of understanding, of love, he would succeed in breaking Aether's self-deprecating shell.
(It was so arrogant.)
He had wanted to become his savior, his reason for living...because Aether, sad as it was to say, needed a reason to live. A reason of his own, not the one he had imposed on himself, saving his sister.
Kazuha had hoped to become that reason.
But... it had not been so, in the end.
Sadness, guilt, fear, terror, and most of all, this feeling of helplessness, this mixture so caustic, so painful, made every fiber of Kazuha's body vibrate with pain.
(I couldn't save him.)
(Aether wanted to die.)
(I could not give him a reason to live.)
(Aether did not trust me.)
(He should have waited for me...talked to me...)
(Aether, why didn't you wait for me?)
(Why did he choose this?)
(Is it my fault? Because I was...)
(Aether...)
(Aether...)
(Aether.....)
Tears came to Kazuha's eyes again.
He did nothing to wipe them away.
His eyes were already reddened, puffy from crying so much.
It was not as if Aether could see them.
Aether, who was lying in a bed, in front of him.
Like the last time.
Like when he had waited for him to wake up, after his surgery.
But this time, he didn't know if he would wake up.
His brain had confusedly registered the information the doctors had given him.
Heavy fall into the water.
Internal injuries and bleeding.
Shock to the head.
Coma.
...
They didn't know when and if Aether would wake up.
And there was nothing Kazuha could do to help him.
Aether was out of his reach.
He could talk to him but his friend would not hear him.
He could kiss him, but he wouldn't feel it.
There was nothing he could do.
He was totally helpless, and this helplessness was so painful.
Kazuha knew that Aether needed help now more than ever.
Yet, there was nothing he could do.
Whatever he did would not help him.
So much so that he wondered if he could really help him.
He had wanted to be his savior, but had he ever really helped him in the end?
What had he brought to him?
Was it a good thing, in the end, that he stayed there?
Part of him wanted to hope so. That Aether would wake up, that they would cry together, that they would talk, and that everything would be okay.
But a part of him feared that all this time... he had only made things worse.
That their love, wasn't love, but infatuation, or something else.
That by wanting to save Aether, he had only condemned him.
(No...that's not true, I didn't do anything...I...)
...
He had been there for him, all this time.
He had waited, listened, reassured him, encouraged him.
Because he only wanted what was best for him.
But was this what Aether really needed?
Without him... without Kazuha, would he...
Would he have changed, would he have found the strength to continue living?
That other part of Kazuha feared the answer was yes.
Slowly, fearfully, he looked up at Aether's sleeping face.
For a moment, he thought he saw him awake, his big golden eyes glaring at him.
But it was only an illusion.
Aether was still sleeping.
Leaving Kazuha alone with his hopes, his doubts, his regrets, his guilt.
(Even my words are stained...)
Yet...
In spite of everything, Kazuha wanted, prayed for a second chance.
For a second chance to be given to him and Aether.
For them to try again.
To forget everything, to start all over again.
(So please...wait, Aether.)
(Please, wake up.)
(I'll simply stay here, in utter silence, so please...)
(Don't go.)
(Please...)
(I'll continue to hope forever.)
(Stay by my side.)
(I will be close to you, forever and always.)
(Please, Aether...)
(Don't leave me alone...)
fin