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I have dreamed. Even if I keep things like this to myself, in this room I can be me, or that's the so called freedom I allow for my person. Here I dream of hair as dark as a starless night and as soft as the finest silk.
I close my eyes and I see you, standing in front of me, but with a neutral expression, a rare ocassion, yet intriguing and enticing like a serene ocean that's usually stormy.
I reach for you, the tip of my fingers slide gentle over plump, rosy lips. Lips full of secrets, secrets they only whisper to me at the most unexpected moments. Your eyes are deep, scary yet comforting as they embrace me in their crimson gaze.
I return the embrace with my arms, wrapping them with care around your small frame. You remain motionless, and it is killing me inside.
After a few seconds, you place your hands gingerly on my back, burying your face in between my shoulder and neck, your hair smells so good...
I loosen my grip on you and you do the same, as a mirror of me. Now my hands cup your face, but my eyes dare not linger too much on yours, because their depth becomes abyssal and their shine is engulfed by darkness. But still, I...
"Judar", I call you, but...you don't reply. I bite my lip almost to the point of breaking skin.
"Please...", i continue, I don't want to face the truth, but the more I cling to your shadow, the more I yearn for you.
I wish I could go back in time, when we were children and played on the palace's garden. When life was disguised as simple, where you would laugh the loudest and I would dance to your tune. Even if our innocence was tainted by others, even so, you still...
My eyes open wide when I realize you are now far away. You slipped from my arms without me even noticing, as that time.
"Please don't go!", my voice is full of fear, but you just...turn around and start walking....walking away to the darkness beyond.
"Judar, no!", I start running towards you, but my steps become heavy and slower, roots have replaced my legs, digging into the ground, I manage to tear them from the soil, but with each step they become stronger and stronger...until I can not move further.
"Please don't leave me! You are all to me!", words from deep inside my heart flourish in the midst of dispair, to no avail. My arms are turning into branches, branches that can't hold you in place...like that time.
"JUDAAAAAAR!!!"
Your figure vanishes in the darkness. My anguished screams are muffled by my body finally turning into a tree.
And as if swimming out of the water, I open my eyes wide and take a deep breath.
**
*
The emperor was awake once again, in a room that now seemed too big for him,too empty. The air felt chilly on his face, where the tears had poured. It had been two weeks since he lost Judar. He had tried Belial's power on his own mind, to try and mitigate the pain and loneliness that consumed him. But it was in vain, for the souless shadow in his mind wasn't him.
His touch wasn't his, his eyes weren't his...but still, he tried recreating his magi every night, in false hope of bringing him back.
Hakuryuu buried his face on his hands and cried silently in the middle of a cold night, with no witnesses but the cold night.