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At nights where he failed to sleep, Leo would think back to the days of endless nightmare.
They still haunted him, in a way he didn’t want them to. They haunted him on the days where he felt dread taking over his mind, or when he couldn't think of any melody to write. They taunted him like sweet prayers spoken to a dead body, over and over, and they were never gone. They stayed within him. Alive, roaring, screaming.
In moments like this, the first thing that his instinct told him to do is to put his head in his hands and crouch down, hiding under the blanket like those nightmares will swallow him whole. He knew they wouldn't, but it felt like they would.
Or sometimes, he would force himself to repeat the same melody in his head. Keeping his mind busy, taking control of the rationality he has left. Breathe, breathe , he would beg himself to. Breathe for me. Breathe for them. Breathe, please, breathe .
His mind would obey him on lucky days. It would tell his system to breathe, to inhale a certain amount of oxygen before letting them all out slowly. And then it would teach his heart to beat steadily, to stop jumping so fast that it felt like his heart would fly off his chest. And minutes later, he would feel okay again. As if nothing happened, and that was just a part of another nightmare.
But on bad days, on unfortunate days where the Goddess of Luck didn’t attend to her poor vassal, Leo had to fight himself alone. He had to plead, but his mind would ignore him. It halted all the melodies from coming, destroyed the happy memories, and left him to cry, to wail, to falter under the haunting nightmare.
Just like tonight, where the thunder outside knocked on his window as he covered himself with a thick blanket, the nightmares came alive and surrounded his room. It is your fault, they tell him. The fact that dreams were crushed is your fault.
It is his fault, isn’t it? Leo often blamed himself too. He still did. A few years had passed but he couldn’t forget about the ache he carved on other people. He broke them; their heart, their dreams, their youth. The youth he spoke carefully about. The youth he gained back when he became one with Knights, did they get them too?
They didn’t. And it’s because of you.
“I know, I know! Shut up!”
Leo screamed. He stood on his bed for a few seconds before falling back on his knees. “Shut up! I know… I… I was a terrible one, wasn’t I…?”
On nights like this, he couldn’t think straight. This was the time when his devastation would take control of him, plucking off every bit of rationality and sanity Leo had left. As if he was a tree and they were the remaining leaves, ready to fall only by a single punch.
“Forgive me,” he sobbed to the silence. “I thought it was the best. I only wanted to make everyone happy… was I wrong? Did I hurt everyone instead? Did I truly become the naked king, oblivious to pain and only care about happiness?”
He laughed, bitterly, like a madman. Leo laughed like he didn’t know how to stop. He buried his face in his hands and cried with a forced out laughter trailing. “I was! I was the genius who thought he was turning this world to a better place, when in fact he was igniting wars!”
It was coming back to him. All the pain, the feigned smiles and laughter. The hollow eyes and the same option they chose. Leo or his songs? Leo or his songs? Everybody wanted his songs, no one wanted him. The people he thought were friends turned out to be thieves. Or maybe , he thought. Maybe he was the thief, he robbed their dreams and hopes, and like a ruthless king, turned them to dull soldiers with only battlefields in mind.
“Ah… I’ve done it,” Leo whispered, ”How do I atone for my sins? How do I… how do I live again…?”
Maybe he didn’t. Perhaps he didn’t deserve to feel alive again. Because Leo lived and breathed out melodies, but now that the nightmares had arrived to remind him of his deplorable sins, the songs in his head were nowhere to be found.
The happy song emerging from his heart turned to a sorrowful elegy, his visions blurry from the tears streaming down his cheeks. Leo felt a surge of emotions in him; a storm of sadness and regrets crushing every bit of joy left.
Leo breathed in. His surroundings were darkening as he desperately tangled his hands together on his back, biting his lower lips until it bled out fresh blood. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t. He couldn’t go back to those habits. He could make amends, he could atone.
But first, he must forgive himself. And that means he shouldn’t leave any bitemarks behind.
“Hold on, Leo,” he said. “Hold on, it’s fine. This time, it will be fine. It will be fine. It’s fine. It will be fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. It will be fine.”
Will it? The nightmares asked him. No one is here to save you. What does that mean? The voices in his head prompted. No one cares about you, Leo. Not even yourself.
The world around him began to blur again. Leo knew his body was losing its ground when his knees wobbled and he fell face first to the bed. He didn’t say anything. He stayed calm, quiet, but his mind was a raging war. His right arm crawled closer to his mouth, but Leo gritted his teeth. Anyone, please, he begged the void. Save me.
No one is going to save you . The voices came back. You are utterly alone, Lost King, with no shelter and no one to hold you. You’ve been abandoned.
Have I? Has he? Maybe the voices were right. Even though they shared the same jokes and merriment yesterday, maybe they’ve had enough of him. So they were abandoning him. It made sense. No one should want anything to do with a broken composer.
Not when he couldn’t even make out or hear any sound.
This is it, then, Leo mind mumbled to him. We’re going to rot here. Alone. Because we’ve been casted away.
But is this really how he’s going to end?
“... Leo-san?”
His eyes shot open to the familiar voice. Leo mumbled. “Mikejimama…?”
“Leo-san?”
When Madara opened the door, a blinding light forced Leo to shut his eyes. But he managed to catch a glimpse of the man, the ray of light behind him made Madara appear like a hero in Leo’s eyes. Or like an angel, with the light as his wings. Leo swore he could see a halo above his head, but maybe it was an illusion. He hadn’t slept for nights.
Madara ran to him, so fast that Leo almost jolted when he felt an arm around his wrist. Leo flashed him a weak smile. “Mikejimama, you’re here! Wahaha!”
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“I held myself,” he said. He looked up at him. “I held back so hard, Mama. I resisted.”
Madara traced Leo’s wrist gently with his thumb. “You are. You’re doing really well, Leo-san.”
“I fought against the voices.”
“You did.”
“And against the nightmares too. And against myself. I won the battle.”
He saw Madara smiling under the dim light. Why did he turn off the lamps again?
“You won, Leo-san. You’re a winner, a survivor,” Madara murmured. His soft tone soothes Leo’s racing heart down. He survived. He did. “You have belonged to yourself.”
Leo fell silent. He stared at Madara with weary eyes, his hands trying to reach out to him. Madara pulled him closer, grabbing Leo’s wrists carefully. He landed Leo on his lap, his face on his back, hugging Leo from behind.
“You don’t have to say anything, Leo-san,” he whispered. “I know.”
He knows. Of course he did. Madara had been with him since the start; when he reigned as king and when he lost the battle. He was his salvation, he made him human again.
This was the time where Leo could feel gratefulness overflowing in him. It knocked on a door he didn’t realise existed within him, gently, almost without a sound, as if it didn't want to scare him. It felt as gentle and delicate as Madara. To people, Madara might seem like a loud, festive man. But to Leo, he had always been a safe place.
“Have you eaten yet?”
Leo shook his head. He couldn’t remember.
“Would you like to?” Madara carefully asked. Leo shook his head again.
“No,” he replied in a small voice. “I want to stay here with you, Mikejimama…. Can I?”
Madara shifted when Leo crawled off his lap. He nodded. “That’s precisely why Mama is here, Leo-san.”
Their eyes met for a fleeting second, but Leo took Madara entirely in that moment, boring his emerald eyes with Madara’s serene, viridian eyes. It reminds him of a deep forest, and himself a fallen leaf. Leo could be lost at any time, but he would always find home among the trees.
A question striked his mind. Leo opened his mouth to speak. “Mama… why did you come here?”
“Izumi-san told me that you didn’t reply to any of his messages and calls,” Madara answered. Leo noted the worry and relief dancing in his eyes. “I was planning to drop by tomorrow, but I decided to go today.”
“I’ve never been so glad,” Madara muttered, and Leo could feel the sincerity in his voice. What would happen if Madara didn’t come today? Would the same thing happen again? Would he be devoured by his nightmare and sorrow with bite marks all over his wrist? Or maybe, something even worse would happen. Maybe Leo would get lost in his emotions, in his laments, unable to find his way back to reality.
Madara smiled. “Everyone is worried about you, Leo-san. My phone is full with their messages,” he said.
He fished out his phone from his pocket, showing Leo the screen, the notifications wouldn’t stop popping out. He saw familiar names: Sena, Naru, Suo, Ritsu, and somehow, he thought he saw Keito and Rei, too. But maybe he was hallucinating. He hadn’t slept a wink, and he didn’t know how many days had left since Izumi went to Japan for work. Leo couldn’t remember. He breathed deeply, slowly trying to remember what happened before he once again sank to the bottom of his despair.
Leo felt himself turning back to reality. He could see a noodle cup on the table, a few bottled coffee, an empty and dirty plate, and himself, on the sofa, curling up with a pillow over his head. The room was dark and quiet, the only voice that could be heard was Leo’s desperate sobs.
“Ah… I was… watching something,” Leo mumbled. “The character was similar to me back then, and then the light went out, and I….”
“It triggered me,” he blurted out. He closed his eyes, blinked, and took a deep breath. “He… I… He made me think of what would happen if I didn’t….”
“Leo-san.”
“My phone died and I was alone, so I….”
“Leo-san.“
It took Leo a few seconds to realise that Madara was embracing him tight. He felt Madara’s breath on him, tickling his ear with the warmth, destroying the cold that almost made a home out of his soul. He heard him calling his name, Leo, Leo, Leo , as if he would slip out of his fingers if Madara stayed quiet.
Maybe he would, Leo didn’t know either. He felt as if he had grown wings of misery, ready to lead him to the sky, back to the kingdom he once descended from. Back to Heaven. Back to Celestia. Back to somewhere Leo thought he lived in. Back to a strange place that he knew will bring him peace.
But Madara clinged to his wings. He called him, “ Leo, Leo, Leo-san,” and Leo knew he couldn’t fly. He was loved. The love everyone gave grounded him back to earth.
Leo was loved. Leo had loved. Leo was no king. He was a genius who crumbled, but he was breathed back to life. He was an idol. He was a composer. He was a child. He was a teenager. He was a student. He was a brother. He was a human. He was Leo.
And Leo was a human, not some kind of tool to be used in the name of victory.
His hands began to claw on Madara’s sleeves. “I was so scared,” he cried out. “I was so scared, Mama. I was alone, I thought they would devour me this time. I thought that this was the end.”
Leo whimpered. “I was so scared… I don’t want to be alone, Mama. I want to live with everyone.”
“I know,” Madara whispered. He tightened his hug. “I know, Leo-san.”
“I want to be happy too, I want to be loved,” Leo breathed in. He held his breath, sucking in the air around him. “I want to love. I want to… I want to live like everyone else. I want to live.”
“You are alive, Leo-san.” He could feel Madara’s lips on his neck. He could feel him. He felt warm. “You are loved. Everybody loves you. I love you.”
Loved. Loved. Loved. Loved. Unlike before, he wasn’t used anymore. He wasn’t a machine factory that could only produce weapons for people to kill people, for comrades to betray their comrades, for humans to slaughter other humans. This time, he had a home to come to. He had a place to rest.
And the home came in the form of a person. Of people. Of a unit. Of lost souls. Of beaten souls. Of Knights. Of Madara. Of Madara. Of his saviour.
Leo felt the walls around him shattering to pieces. He built them at the time when the nightmares first came, sheltering himself from what they had to say. They made him defensive. They hurted people. They hurted his friends. They crumbled down as time went, the ice they were made of dissolved to the familiar warmth. But they came back as fast as they went.
Now, with Madara whispering love back to him, they were slowly fading away again.
Leo could only feel love in him. And pleasant melodies. And joy. And himself, gradually coming back alive, the nightmares leaving his mind, the dusty music box he thought was gone were now playing songs.
It was Madara, again. It would always be him. Leo didn’t know if it was because of his festive voice or buoyant personality. Maybe it was the chocolate milk brown hair that brought comfort for Leo. Or the lively, blazing, green in his affectionate eyes. Maybe it was the wide grin and loud laugh that made him home. Leo found himself comfortable in the way Madara would hold his hand and pet his head, even though he said he didn’t like it. He silently enjoyed the way Madara treated him like a child, in a way no one did when he was one. Lovingly, delicately, like Leo would burn if he loved too intensely. Madara understood the way to love him.
Madara was, in every way, a love himself.
He spurted out love whenever he talked, and love when he looked at Leo with those green eyes. Madara was an army of love, a force Leo had to reckon. He was the gentle breeze of spring, the subtle ray in the morning, the one who had saved him.
“I don’t know where I would be without you, Mama,” he whispered. Anywhere it is, it wouldn’t be here.
If he were a lost vagabond, then Madara was the kind-hearted inn owner that took him in. He sheltered him. He gave Leo food, a bed, blankets, new clothes, and a new life. Ha helped him to find his way back home with a lantern in his hand.
“You stood up on your own, Leo-san,” Madara said. “Mama didn’t do anything.”
But that wasn’t true, Leo grimaced. Madara had always been like this. He saved people, he brought them back to reality, but he didn’t take any credits. He acted like it was normal. Usual. But was it normal for a boy his age to sacrifice his life and youth for humanity?
Leo didn’t say anything. He let Madara take the quiet as his answer. He couldn’t say anything, because he was the same. He sacrificed his youth. He allowed them to use him in exchange for a fleeting happiness that destroyed his soul. He didn’t have the right to say anything.
He was saved by Madara. But if one day Madara tumbled, would he be able to save him?
The question had lingered in his mind for a while. Leo was barely able to save himself. Would he succeed in saving anyone else? He hadn’t even forgotten the pain inflicted by the betrayal and war. Leo doubted it. But Madara had never said he needed a saving either. He felt uneasy.
“Are you okay?” Madara asked. “You should sleep, Leo-san. You look like you haven’t.”
“... have you, Mama?”
“Mama doesn’t need sleep!” The cheerful voice sounded restrained to him. “But Leo-san does. Sleep. Mama will be here when you wake up.”
Leo knew he would, but he couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling inside. He stared at Madara, searching for something in those merry eyes, yet decided to give up.
Mikejiama would tell me , he assured himself. Leo knew he wouldn’t. If he needs help, he would.
For now, he would only observe him. Every human needs saving. At one point, they do. And Leo would save himself first before he reached his hands out to the little kid hiding inside Madara’s heart.
He would forgive himself first, if it means he can atone for the sins he made in the past.