Chapter Text
Today. It was today.
Veyda cracked open his sleep-ridden eyes, resisting the temptation to slip back into the sea of sleep, though he knew he would be drowned by the seemingly endless nightmares.
Any nightmare is better than his reality.
Veyda finally let his eyes drift shut, but sleep had ceased to burden him any longer.
So he sat for hours and hours, trying in vain to forget what day it was, images of his dead lover imprinted behind his eyelids.
Oh, how he wishes he could forget. His silky red-tipped hair, cropped short by his own hands. The freckles that dotted his nose, few and far between like stars in the city, but that just meant he could kiss each one more times than ever. The dip in his back, the way his nose crinkled when he smelled something spicy. The pretty mole on his right index finger.
But the one thing that would haunt him for eternity were his eyes. His stupid golden eyes that had held his own every night, his navigator for their ship that sailed the sea of dreams. The one who he would never see again.
Veyda opened his eyes finally, checking the time. He needed to distract himself. He couldn’t be thinking about him, especially today. His lover’s birthday. Veyda refused to say his name, even mentally. He fears his undoing if he does.
11:47 PM, the clock reads.
Damn it.
He needs to snap out of this, get over him already.
But he can’t.
It’s already a stretch for the Guild to give him the day off, and he’d just wasted it, drowning in thoughts of him. Veyda sighs. It’s unavoidable. He has to do it.
Veyda shrugs on a hoodie and his trench coat, and dons his boots. Slowly but surely, he makes his way out to the balcony of their–no, his, now–apartment. He stumbles as he climbs the makeshift ladder, step by step.
He hadn’t been out of his room in days, let alone up here. The wind chimes they had hung together tinkled in the breeze, and the potted plants wave their hellos. He tries not to look at the two lawn chairs that he knew were glistening in the moonlight, choosing the hammock instead.
Veyda lays down on the firm canvas, its wooden support beams creaking. It swallows him up, used to the burden of two bodies.
They did this every year. Cake on the roof, story to the moon. Veyda could not bring himself to get the cake, but the least he could do is talk to the goddamn moon. He lights a candle he brought, and stares at the flame.
The story had to be different every year. He remembers one time his boyfriend had sung him a song about rabbits. He had loved rabbits. Veyda could almost picture him now, talking quietly about the moon rabbit.
“Do you want to hear about the moon rabbit?”
“Moon rabbit? The hell’s that?”
“Hehe. I’ll tell you.”
“Once upon a time, the man on the moon came down to earth disguised as a beggar. He chanced upon a rabbit, a fox, and a monkey and decided to ask for food. So-”
“That’s stupid”, Veyda had said, “he’s the man on the moon. He should already have some!”
“Haha, well, it was a test.” Here he had poked Veyda, eliciting a giggle. “Be patient, love.”
Veyda, laughing, asked him to continue.
“The fox brought him fish from a stream, and the monkey brought fruit from a tree. But the rabbit could only offer grass, so he asked the man to build a fire, and threw itself upon it in offering!”
Veyda had bolted up in his lover’s arms, causing him to flinch.
“WHAT? WHY WOULD THE RABBIT SACRIFICE ITS LIFE FOR A RANDOM STRANGER?”
His lover only chuckled, planting a kiss on Veyda’s nose.
“It was all for good though, because the beggar, amazed by the rabbit’s generosity, pulled it out of the fire and transformed back into the man on the moon.”
“To honor the rabbit’s kindness, the man took it back to the moon to live with him, and there you can see it, dancing happily with the man on its surface.”
Veyda said the last part aloud. He knew it by heart. He wanted his rabbit to come back to him, and leave the moon behind.