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Yuribia is caught in time, frozen in a moment long ago. In this dream it’s summer, and the days are long. She’s laughing, or she’s drawing lines between his freckles with ink, or she’s hurrying to take her medicine before she misses a dose.
He’s in one of those moods where he’s channeling her again. He marches at Aeran’s side, not much listening to him, because Rubi is whispering in his ears.
‘Rio,’ she might say, ‘look at those bracelets! Aren’t they just like the one I lost at your last birthday?’
She is present in his life, even now. He desperately wants to talk back, to lose himself in wistful conversing, to pull a deep blue shawl off the rack and hold it up to her, to see the contrast of the fabric against the auburn of her hair. It suits you, Rubi! And she’d laugh, and throw it around his shoulders to lead him around town with.
It’s not fair that she’ll never grow past this. Refugio knows it’s unfair to keep her like this. It’s correct that he should remember her always, and it’s expected that her voice should remain with him for the rest of his life; his grief, after all, is just the lifetime of love he’d already committed to give her.
But not like this. It’s not fair. He’ll wind up just as stuck as she is if he does not move past conversing with ghosts.
“Ree?” Aeran asks, breaking through that haze. “Refugio? Hello? Aeran to Refugio.”
Refugio blinks and looks at him. “Hm?”
Together, they are standing beside the market stall with the blue shawl. Its fabric shimmers in the sunlight and Refugio glances at it before looking at Aeran.
“You realize you stopped walking?” Aeran asks. “I was halfway down the street before I noticed you were gone.”
“Something caught my eye,” he says, hesitating to explain. “It just—it reminded me of someone.”
Usually Aeran is annoyed with Refugio’s lapses in time, his urge to idle and his propensity toward distraction—but this time he says nothing. Aeran looks at him, a slight furrow in his brow. He steps towards the stall then, and, somehow, stunning in his accuracy, he reaches for the blue shawl.
For a moment Refugio doesn’t breathe. Perhaps his expression says enough.
Aeran holds the shawl gently, like one would a baby bird.
“Pretty,” he pronounces at last.
“Yeah,” Refugio sighs. “Sorry for getting distracted. I’m not myself today, I guess.”
“You’re okay,” Aeran says. He’s looking at him with some concern now. “I was… worried, that’s all. C’mon, let’s go. I’ll buy us lunch.”
Aeran moves to his side and loops and arm around him, carefully herding him through the crowd.
The shawl stays far behind them, and Yuribia, in Refugio’s mind, smiles.
‘Rio,’ she says, and her voice is very soft, faint, from the grave.
‘He’s so kind, Rio. He is kind.’