Chapter Text
Across the sky, various stars decorate the ebony canvas. Three pairs of eyes look at those, awed despite seeing countless of times, sitting side by side with each other. One of those however, slowly closes, its owner uses his ears instead to listen to the flowing life in his companion's body whilst his life is slowly slipping away.
"This must be our last journey," Ramuda whispers, the cold tone of his voice now dips with warmth, a tinge of regret and hope. It's such a short but one filled with thrill and happiness. Such fine pieces of memories to substitute to the ones he already lost.
He can feel the rest of the figures snap their heads towards his direction. One must be worried, probably Dice the most compassionate of the three, while the other confused, most likely Gentaro the shrewdest of them. "It has been such a wonderful trip," he continues muttering. "And I do not think it would be better if my companions are not you two."
"What are you talking about?" Dice screams, shaky hands wrap around the artificial skin of his. "We haven't reached your home yet!"
Ramuda leans on the warmth as his temperature cools further. Warning sirens embedded in his system blare and yet he finds no sense of urgency unlike how those suggest. "My home in this universe is where the two of you are."
"But we can't do this if you're gone!" Gentaro speaks next, voice uncharacteristically loud. Their infamous thief usually keeps his emotions guarded and tame yet just this once, he openly shows how fearful he is right now.
"If the two of you are together, I know you'll be fine." Ramuda hates to leave them like this. If he could, he would love to see them grow closer to their goals. He really does wish he could extend his life a bit further, not for such selfish desires as continuing his research until he finally finds the answer but for these two who became so much like the family he once had but lost to time.
"But we want you to see our journey 'till the end!" Dice insists.
"Don't leave us like this!" Gentaro pushes as well.
"I will always be with you two," he just answers. They continue screaming their pleas but it all sounds so distant in his ears. Ramuda didn't expect his death would be such a melancholy event not for him but for those he would leave behind. Funny how everyone left him but now, he is doing the same.
Through his fading functionality, he remembers that one time he forced fate to let him see the man he had been searching for earlier. Of how that person told him that in the universe, they are still together. "In some universe, the one that's very far from here, the three of us met and formed a team," although his voice is starting to sound strained, he is glad that he can say some final words to ease his companions' hearts. "Destiny is an absolute force, though unproven by science, that cannot be changed. If it willed us to meet even in another universe, for sure we will meet again here." He wills his lips to curl upwards as he leans his weight on the arms that carry him. "See you, Gentaro, Dice."
The final warning sirens drown out the cries of his posse. Then there is silence. A long overly stretched one that hinted of his departure.
There is no pain, as he already eradicated in his system any recognition of that sensation. His death is just like an irreparable system failure. And yet, he can now feel as if everything he took from his body is returned.
He can see the red covering his eyeball, presumably, his eyelids with sunlight falling on it. He can smell the sweetness in the air, perhaps coming from flowers. He can feel the soft fabric rubbing against his skin as he stirs.
Opening his eyes, it is indeed bathing in the warm sunlight. He sits up and takes a gander at his surroundings, soaking in the scenery of an unfamiliar place filled with greenery. It feels too similar to that planet before it became covered in snow. Too familiar to him that he can almost hear that person's voice once again.
"Ramuda-kun?" It calls him. Heart that once stopped feeling anything now aches. "Ramuda-kun!" The voice cuts through the chipper of the birds, too real to be a fragment of his imagination.
Ramuda finally turns towards the direction of the voice. There he stands, a few steps away from the bed of flowers Ramuda sits on. He still wears the coat Ramuda last saw him clad with. He still dons his long ash and lilac hair long, with those unruly strands of ash tucked behind his ear with a hairclip. Jakurai still looks at him with so much love for Ramuda though he already lost with that last argument they had.
All at once, memories flowed back. The times they were together to the time they waited for the other to return. The times they whispered tiny promises of being with each other for the rest of eternity, to that argument they had when Ramuda pursued it in honor of fulfilling those promises. "I-I'm so sorry Jakurai!" The words of apologies naturally flow from Ramuda's lips like how Jakurai's hair billows like silk behind him as he runs to wrap his arms around his estranged lover. "I just wanted to be with you forever. I never meant to stay away with you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry! I was so afraid of losing you that I didn't care about losing myself."
"I should be the one to apologize," Jakurai hushes him, those eyes of azure turn glassy as he holds back the tears from flowing from those. "It was too late when I realized all you did is for me. I left you all alone. It must be too tough for you. You must be scared."
"I lost count of the times I forgot your name. And your face. I remembered it soon but forgetting is so scary." Ramuda hugs him tighter, afraid that if he lets go, he will be gone again. "I tried everything I could do to see you again, to reach Stella, our home where you are." He lets go for a bit to plant a kiss on the taller man's cheek. "Did you wait too long?"
"It's just a short time, but enough for the rest of our fellow inhabitants of the previous planet to leave me all alone here." Jakurai's weight presses hard on him. He must be so tired, holding strong so he won't give in to the insanity of waiting. "Now you're here, will never be on my own. We can pass on together and be reborn inseparable." Jakurai lifts him up, arms behind Ramuda's knees while the smaller of the two wraps his arms around the taller one. "But in the meantime, let's make up for the time lost."
Through their merry walk towards Jakurai's house, the talk about their counterparts from the other dimension gets brought up.
"I wish they will finally be together like how we are," Jakurai says.
"They will be," Ramuda replies. "But not without some hiccups maybe."