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The magic shop had never looked so foreboding to Asra. It loomed ahead of him like some truth he would never be ready to face. The red flag nailed to the door seemed to grow in his vision as he approached, leeching color from everything around it until it was the only vibrant thing in sight. It rustled in the wind as if to whisper “you left them, you left them alone, and now they’re gone, now they’re dead.”
He snatched it from the door as soon as he could reach it, tore it off and let it flutter to the ground behind him. He didn’t need any more reminders of what had happened to them. The dried blood on his hands and dusty ash caught under his fingernails were more than enough. He could feel the sting of the late-night air in the scrapes on his palms. He pushed the door open and finally, finally, went inside.
Everything inside the magic shop was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was clear that nobody had been inside in a while, but Asra still found himself holding his breath in anticipation of... Something. He stood in the doorway expectantly for a minute, then two. But whatever it was he was expecting never came, and so he moved on. He climbed the stairs to their shared living space and collapsed onto the bed, letting Faust curl up on his chest. He wouldn’t think about how the bedsheets still smelled like them, not tonight. He couldn’t, not yet. He squeezed his eyes shut and begged his brain and the gods for dreamless sleep.
When the morning came, he set to work cleaning up. Everywhere he turned there were signs of them. A teacup left on the table, whatever tea that had been inside it long since evaporated, and the chair next to it still pulled out as though they expected to return to it. A scarf crumpled in the corner as though it had been haphazardly tossed there. The desk was covered in notes in their handwriting that had been sorted into some piles. He tidied up on autopilot, letting himself go numb and feel numb, looking at his hands and their objects as though they belonged to some stranger.
Downstairs was even worse. Here, he couldn’t stop himself from reminiscing about happier times. His fingers traced over dents, dings, and stains, and he could feel when they happened, could remember all the giggles and curses and minor injuries as if they were happening all over again. The burn on one of the shelves from when he was helping a customer and got so distracted by MC’s beautiful smile that he didn’t even notice knocking over a candle. The small dent in the wood floor behind the counter from when he jokingly threw himself at MC, and they dropped a three-pound cube of copper onto the floor just so they could have their hands free to hug him back. If he closed his eyes and just breathed, it almost felt like they were still there with him.
He stood there and breathed and let the ache in his chest subside for just a moment. For just a moment, he let himself believe nothing had changed, that MC was on some errand somewhere. They’d walk in any moment now and tease him about how long they’d both left the chores undone. Everything was as it was. Eventually, Faust, who had been giving him space, wrapped around his torso in a comforting squeeze. Done? They asked.
He let out a ragged sigh and shook his head. There was still the backroom, which had been exuding a subtle sense of wrongness ever since he’d made it inside the night before. He drew back the curtains slowly, feeling himself getting tenser. The reading table had been pushed into the far corner, and the benches had been stacked against a wall. In the center of the room, there was a cot with several items neatly stacked on top. Asra’s hands shook as he reached for each item. As he picked them up one by one and fiddled with them in his hands, he found himself wondering just what he was supposed to do with any of this. There were two pairs of elbow-length gloves, an overcoat with a suspicious stain on it, and an apron with a small jar of some salve in its pocket. He didn’t bother touching the plague mask.
He thought the most interesting item on the cot was going to be a small leatherbound journal, bursting at the seams with extra pages, but when he picked it up, he noticed a folded note had been tucked underneath it:
Asra, I’m sorry.
The handwriting was loopy and shaky, much messier than MC’s normal handwriting, but Asra would recognize their handwriting anywhere. He turned the note over, hoping for more, but that was it. Three words. There he was, standing in the space where MC must have spent some of their last free moments, and all he had left were three words.
He felt a jolt of hysterical laughter rush through him. And suddenly, he couldn’t hold back his emotions any longer. He grabbed the plague mask and hurled it at the wall, satisfied with the cracking noise it made as it broke. What good had it done MC, anyway? What good had any of this stuff done? He tore the snaps off the gloves and the buttons off the overcoat, tossed the salve to the floor just to watch the glass shatter. Dimly, he heard Faust’s concerned questions, but he ignored her. He grabbed the note MC had left him and tore it in half. Then he froze, suddenly horrified. That was their last note to him. What had he just done? He looked at the scraps of paper in his hands and was surprised that his vision was blurry. How long had he been crying? He let himself slump onto the cot and cry until the night fell, let himself feel their loss in his bones.
A week later, he stood in the palace gardens with Faust wrapped around his shoulders. The bubbling fountain behind him was relaxing, but his attention was fixated on the massive willow tree in front of him and his newest addition to it. It had always been their favorite tree to visit during the Masquerade, so it felt fitting to do this here. He set his knife down, then put one hand over the carving of their name. He placed his other hand over his heart, and he made the world a solemn promise:
One way or another, he was making things right.
One way or another, he was bringing MC back.