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Sung sat in the lounge of his spacecraft, fiddling with a synthesizer. He didn’t get much time alone, and incredibly thankful for it, he was. He’d fused himself at the hip to a mute robot to solve that problem. Ironically, silence bothered him; scared him a bit, even, he’d admit. Though, with Havve Hogan’s company, he created a certain comfort within it. Despite the silence there would always be an echo back at Sung. In lieu of his companion, he turned to music to fill the absence.
Whether he was awoken from the noise or simply by his natural magnetism toward rhythm, Meouch soon walked into the lounge of the spacecraft, groggy and only half-awake due to it being dead of night local time. “Why are we stopped?”
“Just a pit stop on some terrestrial for some mechanical servicing then we’re back on our way.”
Meouch’s ears perked on instinct despite his tired daze as he heard a click from the other side of the ship. “I just heard the door.” Sung snapped his head toward the cat.
“What?” The word left Sung’s mouth with palpable panic. Considering the mechanism being serviced, and the cat that stood across from him in the lounge, there was only one unaccounted for body that remained.
“I heard the door open and close,” Meouch followed up nonchalantly. “So, either your monster boy toy ditched you, or Phobos is about to be a mile from here.” Ignoring Meouch’s jape, which was totally wrong anyway, I’d be his boy toy, obviously, Sung feared it was the latter.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he repeated, tossing everything aside. Practically shoving Meouch out of his way, Sung rushed down the lengthy corridor of the ship toward the main entrance.
“Phobos!” Sung yelled out into the distance the moment he exited the craft. His vision darted out into the horizon, he was met with a breathtaking view; a reddish-yellow, glistening haze that shimmered underneath the twinkling night sky, but no gangly alien. He seriously booked it? Defeated, Sung hung his head and jumped back when he saw Phobos crouched down low staring off into the dirt only a few feet away. His arms squeezed around his knees, and pressed his legs tight against his chest. He looked so small compared to his usual long, lanky figure. “Phobos?” Sung offered far more gingerly this time. Phobos sat unresponsive, tranced in the nothingness of the dirt in front of him. Sung’s shoes crunched against the regolith as he shuffled over to join him on the ground.
Sung would never claim to understand Phobos, or anyone for that matter, though he’d be closer to the truth of that claim than any other. It was no secret that Sung was emotional, how strongly he felt the universe, being eternally linked to it. He shared a particular intimacy with each part of it, to say he was empathic would be the understatement of eternity. He felt Phobos’s ache, and a familiar one at that. A hollow type of hurt he knew all too well; a man gifted with eternal life, equally burdened with eternal grief.
Sung watched out as the stars gleamed in the night sky far, far away. There was an immense vastness to the universe he was tethered to, an infinite life chained within an infinite boundary.
“Such a pretty view,” Sung commented.
“Shut the hell up,” Phobos snarled back. First the words bit, then the feeling hissed deep within Sung. He was fairly confident if he said anything else he’d get a fist to the face, so he complied. Sung twisted his shoes into the ground, crushing and crunching pieces of rock and dirt, keeping them company in the silence between them. He watched out at the stars while Phobos instead watched Sung’s restless feet kick at the dust beneath him.
The glimmering mist drifted with the crisp breeze; It was a gorgeous night with a beautiful view on a planet he nor Phobos had ever stepped foot on before. Looking up at all the stars twinkling through the haze, he considered it all once again. Everything and everywhere, all the time, and here he was–here they were–together, right now. It was special, and for that reason, despite the compassion overflowing Phobos’s grief inside of Sung, he kept his mouth shut and waited.
“I can’t look at the stars anymore,” Phobos lamented, he spoke low, making eye contact with the least amount of things possible. “My planet was very philosophical in its studies, but I yearned for what was really out there–the planets, the people, the cultures,” Phobos let out a deep sigh, and followed it with an even deeper breath. “Now, I just think about what’s gone,” he squeezed out. Weight tugged heavy on Sung’s heart. He thought about his own lost planets. It wasn’t ever fair.
“I know I’ve said it before but I’m sorry for your loss, Phobos. I’ve lost planets before and I know it’s not easy.” Phobos sank further in his sulk, and Sung felt a pang of tired pain reverberate through him. The kind of ache that screamed I just want this nightmare to be over already.
Head up to the stars, Sung closed his eyes and searched Phobos’s feelings deep within his own. It was rare he delved into another's feelings like this. The burden of the universe at a surface level already weighed enough, to get personal with each feeling like this would crush him. Within, he doused himself in Phobos’s hurt seeking for anything he could say to tend to Phobos’s wounds. In the ache that weighed his limbs down, pinned his shoulders, made his heart twinge and wince a bit, in pain that brought a few thick tears to his eyes, he sought after an answer for Phobos, anything at all.
“Phobos,” Sung announced, turning to the mournful man who remained in his slumped state, “Those people, your planet, they won’t ever truly be gone. It’s actually one of the harder things at first, the constant reminders of your pain, but honestly, I think it’s beautiful.” Phobos stared at him with a cocked eyebrow and seething glare. Sung kept talking so Phobos didn’t have the time to punch him in the face before he could get his point across. “You carry these people with you–their quirks, their values, their traditions– everywhere you go.” Without missing a beat, Sung followed Phobos’s distant fixation and demonstrated as he spoke. “Like, for example, when I was a kid, I had a teacher who taught me how to tie my shoes. Two bunny ears, under the hood, twist and pull,” he instructed himself rhythmically, stringing the laces of his hightops tight. “Phobos, that teacher was already long gone a few billion years ago, and that happened on a planet that itself hasn’t even existed in a couple hundred million years, but I still remember her voice, and the smile on her face when I finally got it right, because I still tie my shoes that way every single day.” As Phobos’s glare softened, Sung hoped it was a slight positive shift that he was sensing. “It’s not just shoes, it’s everything. Mannerisms, beliefs, jokes, habits, morals, the entire way you live your life. You’re an amalgamation of everyone you have ever met or known, Phobos. Their traditions are ingrained inside of you. How beautiful is it that so many different people can have a hand in building just one individual, and most of them without ever realizing or knowing it?” Sung wiped away at the tears that softly glid down his cheeks, his own grief surging its way through alongside Phobos’s. He hoped he’d said enough to not get punched. Surely, the urge was still there, Sung wouldn’t doubt that, nor would he honestly blame him, but he hoped he made Phobos think enough to reconsider. Maybe even think enough to get him to come back on the ship.
“I can’t force you to stay with us, Lord Phobos, but I really urge you to. The last thing I want for you is to suffer alone out there. It does horrible things to you.” Sung patted the mourning man, squeezing his shoulder as he planted his neatly-laced hightops into the red dirt and stood back up next to him.
He took in the landscape for one last moment; The stars glistening in the night sky, and the shimmering haze of chemical compounds mixing into something shiny. Views like these never failed to ignite that burning desire inside of him; that ravenous hunger for beyond. He wanted a chance to reignite that yearning desire for what’s out there deep inside of Phobos. Without another word, Sung turned and began back toward the ship, leaving Phobos to himself and his thoughts.
“Sung,” Phobos called out. When Sung turned around Phobos had fully stood and faced him without making a sound. Looking at him head on like this made Sung realize how red Phobos’s eyes had become. “Why me, huh? So many truly incredible people on that planet,” Phobos’s words burned up Sung’s throat, “and I’m the one who gets to live.” It was a choking sensation. Phobos’s words were choking him. “It’s not fair.”
“It never is, Phobos,” Sung bemoaned in sympathy. “You just have to keep pushing on with what you’ve got.”
“How can you not just want to give up?” Phobos asked, exasperated. With a deep breath, Sung pushed back against the exhaustion that rested heavy on Phobos’s shoulders. Billions of years under his belt, trillions of lives he’s outlived, it was a justifiable question to be asked, and one he’d had to come up with an answer for long ago.
“The cycle of grief is a vicious monster who mauls at you from the inside, tears the love from your heart, and plagues your thoughts. It churns your stomach, and from your fingers down to your feet, it makes you shake with anxiety. The cycle of love is an ethereal divinity who soothes the body, mind, and soul. She claims a stake in your heart and gets to work. Something to soothe the hurt and the hate, someone to help you heal your wounds, and turn you into something greater than you could have ever imagined. These cycles can not exist without one another. They’re interwoven as a singular infinite cycle, and I can’t give up, because the love just continues to persist on.”
Phobos only shook his head. Nothing Sung could say could bring his people back, and he knew that. It hurt to have to lower his expectations. Leaving it at that, Sung turned back to the ship and returned toward his synthesizer.
Sung hadn’t been expecting Meouch to still be in the lounge when he returned, but he’d made himself comfortable in a spot on the couch by where Sung had his instrument set up. “Where’s Phobos? You were gone a while,” Meouch called out.
“He didn’t run, so we just talked,” Sung said, almost mumbly. It was unlike him to speak with such lifelessness. “I didn’t want to force him back on so I left him to think about it.”
“You think he’s gonna come back?”
Sung shrugged, then nodded. “I believe in him.”
“Are you okay?” It was an uncharacteristic Sung he was witnessing. Sung was energetic and loud. Sung was chatty and annoying. Yet, he shrugged once again.
“Tough subject,” he said. Meouch offered a sympathetic nod. Feeling Meouch’s compassion surge through his mourning, it warmed Sung a bit from the inside when Meouch patted at the couch next to him, coercing him to join by his side.
Sung joined Meouch back over by his synthesizer, grateful to have company more corporeal than music at the moment, grateful for those who love him during his perpetual marathon of grief. Submersing himself in Phobos’s emotional state was cruel to his past, and yet bittersweet. Another thing about grief and love is even after all these years, neither of them ever go away. The grief weighed him down against Meouch, but it brought him an odd sense of comfort to be reminded that, though the years will pass, he continues to grieve because he continues to love.
Meouch’s ears twitched again instinctively. “I just heard the door,” he announced, and Sung could exhale again.