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Lumine is immortal, born of the stars, a being of light. Perhaps she should feel special. Perhaps she should feel alive.
Xiao is immortal, a tool of war, a being of bloodshed, the conqueror of demons. Perhaps he wants a life outside the blood and the demons, perhaps he wants something more, perhaps he wants to feel her hands in his hair, perhaps he wants to have her in his arms —
Perhaps he wants a life with her.
Her first love looks nothing like him. A beautiful boy with messy copper hair and freckles like galaxies over his face.
It is all so sudden. Everything is always so very sudden when it comes to immortality — it is sudden — Lumine is in love and it is sudden. He kisses her and it is sudden. He dies in battle and it is just so sudden. The world detests their kind, her brother tells her. The world wants to purge them from existence, the world wants to purge them of their immortality.
The world can have her immortality. The world does not bring back her first love.
It is all so sudden. It is all so cruel.
He does not have a first love. Perhaps she is his first love — if she allows it, allows him, and Xiao —
Xiao looks at her, imagines himself intertwining their fingers together. Imagines a life together with her. Imagines himself watching her from an empty balcony, imagines that she is here to spend time with him and not for another commission she seeks to complete.
Sometimes he feels as if he is drowning. Perhaps he wants to feel as if he is drowning, wants to feel her lips press against his in an attempt to resuscitate him and keep him alive. Perhaps he wants a life outside the immortality and the blood and the war, perhaps he wants a friend, perhaps he wants Lumi —
It scares him.
The world gives him immortality and the world giving you immortality teaches you one thing: do not want. Want and you will want more; want more and you will disappoint yourself; want more and you will hurt yourself. The world gives him Lumine and the world expects him not to want Lumine but he does and it scares him, it fascinates him, it scares him.
She has had many loves. None quite like her first, but many nonetheless.
There is a boy in the library with cracks in his spectacles and all the beautiful stars in his eyes. There is a boy in the library who calls her beautiful, kisses her hand, gives her a heart stuttering smile as he carefully pronounces her name. There is a boy tucked into a corner of a lonely tower’s library she wants to fall in love with.
The boy threads their fingers together. Her brother warns her not to do this to herself again. Perhaps she heeds his warnings. Perhaps she tells the boy that they cannot be together. Perhaps he loves her so much he throws himself in the river opposite the lonely tower.
There is a body of a boy in the river. She pulls it out as hot tears stream down the sides of her cheeks and onto the starry-eyed boy’s body.
He is staring. Her floating companion tells him that he is. She doesn’t seem to notice.
He wants her to notice. He wants her to notice him staring, wants her to notice that he is drowning in the lovely gold of her eyes.
Her floating companion tells her that he is staring. She smiles at him.
He stops thinking. He wants to smile back at her, but her head is already turned away. Next time, he promises, fingers twitching, next time.
She does not meet Xiao so much as she sees him — one minute he is there, and the other he is sending them away — but there is something different about him that she cannot pinpoint.
What a strange man, she thinks as she walks away.
A kiss can mean many different things.
She kisses him. She does not mean it. He lets her kiss him. He pretends that she does. And oh: here is Xiao, pathetic and weak to her every touch. Oh: here is Xiao, Lumine tells him that she loves him, he pretends that she means her every word.
He takes her back to her room and memorizes every drunken profession of love she makes. And oh: she does not mean them. Xiao knows that there are many things about him that just cannot be loved.
He is really quite beautiful. She tells him as such.
He gives her a shy smile and her heart almost leaps out of her chest and she — she should not do this again — Lumine wants to fall in love with Xiao and it is sudden. She wants to kiss him and it is sudden. She tells him as such and he pushes her away and it is sudden. “Why?”
“Because you don’t mean it,” he says.
“But I do.”
“You didn’t mean it last time,” he whispers. “You don’t mean it.”
He vanishes from her sight and it is just so sudden.
Xiao kisses her.
It is sudden.
He had not planned on kissing her, but now she is in front of him, asking him why he thinks she does not mean it, he cannot tell her why — Xiao kisses her and she — she kisses him back.
He pulls away. He does not want to pull away — not when he has dreamed of this moment for so long — but he pulls away first, scared to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She takes him into her arms and it is sudden. She kisses him on the mouth and it is sudden. He tells her that he loves her and it is sudden. She tells him that she loves him back and it is — it isn’t sudden, she laughs and he picks her up and he kisses her. She tells him that they will be okay.
They will be okay.
Here is a story: there are two immortals. One loves the other, and the other loves just as much. They are okay. They will be okay.