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When Nezha dies, Rin is waiting for him.
The youthful face that emerges before her is both familiar and strange.
"Hi."
"Hello."
Time is a mystical thing. Time dulls everything. Time fades out the color in emotions. Time smooths down sharpest stones, smothers everlasting flames, blurs the edges of fiercest memories. Time erases history. Time sinks down countries and lets a new one be born. Time twists and leers, and both breaks and mends people.
Time is a mystical thing.
But if time is a mystical thing, death is even stranger.
Time has almost erased his face from her memory, little by little, bit by bit, eroding off of her like a raindrop at a time that she doesn't even know she's lost his face. Yet death brings back everything in one cold shock.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" he lets out a strangled laugh. "You did what you had to do. It's not like I don't understand—"
"No, not that. Not about that. I'm not sorry about that."
Nezha looks genuinely puzzled.
"About what I said. After you told me."
"Oh."
Time, mystical time, when stretched on for years, does wonders to one's mind it seems. Before, Rin would've died before she admitted that she did regret what she had said to him.
But she did die. All that remains is regret.
Death indeed is a strange thing.
"I shouldn't have said that."
She would be lying if she says she's doing only for his sake. Dead or not, she's still selfish and Rin simply wants the feeling of guilt lifted off her chest. It's the only thing she is truly sorry about.
Time is a mystical thing, yet it still didn't manage to erase everything.
Nezha doesn't move and when Rin glances at his face, she can't fathom what he's thinking. "I had done worse to you."
"And me to you. We're so fucked up, aren't we?"
"Were," he says softly. "I don't want death to be as fucked up as the life we had."
It's like clicking a checklist off.
They talk. About their lives.
It's such an endless list of unspoken words and moments between them, that at first Rin wonders if this will ever end. Her feelings for Nezha—whether it be hatred, love or something in between—runs too deep to be searched and understood overnight and she fears she'll never see the bottom of it. She fears she will see the bottom of it.
"I wanted to die."
"I know."
But they try. They try. They talk.
After all, death has all the time in the world.
"I never thought you would hurt me."
"Neither did I."
They dissect each moment of their lives. When they saw each other for the first time. When she grabbed his wrist and he nodded back in her unspoken question. When he saved her life. When he pushed the blade on her back. When she forced his hand to kill her.
One thing at a time. One moment of their lives at a time.
"I wanted to kiss you."
"I wanted to kiss you, too."
It's slow, it's agonizing, it's so hard that sometimes Rin wants to bury her feelings back deep in her mind again. Never bring them out. Burn them out of existence.
"Have you ever missed me?"
"Every moment."
But she no longer has her fire. And nothing left to fight against.
So she stays. And they talk.
"Did it hurt?"
"I remember the pain."
Every step sends her into flashbacks and into memories she does not want to see. Time is a mystical thing and it has managed to blur down most of her fury but time is not everything.
But at some point, at some point that she does not know, it gets easier.
Just a bit. Then a bit more.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too."
They say they're sorry it happened. Neither of them say that they're sorry they did it.
Incredibly, miraculously, one night both of them run out of things to say.
After that, they sit in comfortable silence, the wall crumbled down and scattered between them. Every word they had spoken spread and blatant on the ground. There's nothing left inside Rin's mind, and neither in Nezha's.
But neither of them move away.
Instead, they study each other. They spilled all they can say and all words can express. But words aren't encompassable of handling every bit of their stories.
Sometimes, silence and glances and expressions do more to convey. So that's what they do.
They sit together night after night.
They sit together night after night in silence.
They sit together night after night in silence until one day Nezha stands, holds out his hand and speaks.
"Come here."
Rin doesn't hesitate before sinking into his arms.
This doesn't feel wrong, like it did when all three of them held hands under the stars so many years ago. This doesn't accompany heavy unspoken words and history. This doesn't drown her in incongruity. This doesn't feel like pretending.
No, this feels right.
Time is a mystical thing, yet it doesn't erase how they fit together perfectly.
He holds her carefully; as if even though neither time or death managed to break her, he will if he holds her too tight. Maybe because he is perfectly capable of it. She knows it. He knows it. His hands slide upwards, her waist, arms, shoulders, neck, till they cradle her cheeks. She lets hers trace and touch his scars. He lets his fingers brush over her face, eyes, the contours and her mouth. Then slowly, he leans down and fits his lips to hers.
Their kiss is aching but relief, burning but bright. Their kiss is a new beginning, a slow but steady start. Their kiss is correcting the tangled mess and twist and curves of their intertwined lives. Their kiss is everything that's opposite of their history but also everything that's the same.
Their kiss is right.
Time is a mystical thing, yet death is even stranger.
Death is a finished circle. Death renders time in vain. Death changes and picks out trajectory in the course of history. Death is an eerie loud silence. Death stops time. Death destructs, razes, and burns. And yet death wondrously, inexplicably, gloriously sharps people awake and alive.
Death gives them something time never has, ever would have, ever will.
Death somehow, paradoxically, gives them a chance.
When Nezha dies, Rin is waiting for him. They go into the afterlife together.