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Nezha likes to talk to the stars when he can’t sleep. It’s the only time they leave him alone. He knows they used to have soldiers follow him out, but he figures they probably grew tired of listening to the Young Marshal cry. His mother used to always say he was so pretty when he cried. He begged to differ. Sometimes, when he catches his reflection in the water, he grows so angry at how weak he looks. He grows angry because he knows how his younger self would hate him so much. He doesn’t really care about looking weak anymore — there’s no one worth being strong for anymore. Weak as he is, he still keeps going. Keeps negotiating. Rin’s words echo in his mind every time he is on the brink of waking up. Fix this, she had told him. He had to give her that much. He owed her that.
Nezha sits down on the pier, like he always does, and looks up at the moon. He hopes he will reach her. He cannot know if he does, but he likes to pretend he can see her face in the stars. She was a god, after all. They should carve her into the sky for everyone to see.
“You’re making it really fucking hard to do what you asked of me,” He says, a hand aimlessly making little whirlpools in the water under him.
“None of them think I can do it. I think most people just want me dead,” he says, and he laughs to himself. As if though he too doesn’t pray that someone will come slit his throat in the dead of the night. As if though he doesn’t want it more than anything.
“It would be nice,” he starts. “I would get to see you again, at least. Is it quiet up there, Rin? Does he leave you alone there?” Nezha wonders what Rin is like, after all this time, without the Phoenix. Does she rest easy? Is her head not so loud anymore? Nezha cannot imagine Rin as calm, cannot imagine her as gentle. She was always chaos incarnate. He hopes wherever she is, it’s somewhere beautiful. He hopes she’s shown all the kindness she did not get in her first life.
“I used to have nightmares about you dying,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat. He doesn’t know why it feels like he’s choking. He doesn’t know why he can’t breathe.
“I always had the knife in my hand, every time. You must have known, right? Why else would you make me do it? Why would you make me do it?” Nezha can feel the hot tears start to stream down his face but he does not wipe them away. He allows himself this much. He has to.
“What the fuck is wrong with you Rin?” He’s screaming now, hands balled into fists. “It didn’t have to fucking be like this. We could have made it out, all of us. Gods, what the fuck? ” He bites down on his fist to muffle the scream he lets out, the muffle the wail that wracks through his body. He howls like the world is coming down around him. The funny thing is his world already fell apart that day on Speer. Slowly, his screams turn to sobs, which then turn into silence. He wipes at his face and lets out a laugh.
“They call me the Wailing Prince, you know. They talk about us like we’re some great love story. I never even got to hold you. I never even got to tell you,” he says, voice growing soft. He looks up at the moon and sighs. Is this how the Red Emporer felt after he lost Tearza? Is this what it’s like? To be the one left standing?
“The closest I get to being with you again is fire. Sometimes I press a flame to my skin just so it can feel like you’re here again. I would do anything to be burned by you. At least you’d be here then,” he says, swallowing the guilt in his throat. He would never really tell her this, but he knows she doesn’t hear him. In his heart, he knows.
“When I see you in my dreams you tell me you’re okay. You tell me the Phoenix doesn’t touch you there, that you, Kitay, and Venka are finally safe. You look so happy it makes me angry. You left me here alone, to take care of this all, and it’s too heavy. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. But you told me to fix this, and I owe you that much. I’m tired of this debt.”
“It should have been you,” he says. It should have been me, she would say. But you’re the one who got out. So fix what I could not. Be what I could not. I left you here because you’re the only one left who can do this. Don’t let me down again.
Nezha stands and turns his eyes to the sky, one last time. He resists the urge to rip his heart out of his chest and throw up until it collides with whatever star she’s made her home. He misses her so much it hurts. He loves her so much it hurts. Sometimes he thinks she must have carved his heart out in his sleep and press it into her chest so that she would always hold his beating heart in her chest. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go on when his heart is buried six feet underground with her.
He just wants to hear her laugh again. Just once. He would bury Nikan under the sea if it meant getting to hear her laugh again, if it meant getting to see her again. She would not do the same, he knows this. But it doesn’t matter. It never mattered.
“Until we meet again,” he says, before making his way down the pier and back to Arlong.