Chapter Text
You have to be sensible, Jamil. I’m sure you can understand what kind of situation we’re in, you’re a smart boy after all.
(Yes, he understood. He hated it, what he had to do, but he understood.)
(There was no other option.)
(Not for a servant.)
(And a servant was all Jamil would ever be.)
The maddening thing about it all was just how easy it was for him to lie. Jamil didn’t even really understand himself why he got so frustrated, but… It was just so freaking easy, to smile at Kalim and pretend to be his friend. Easy to rationalise everything as fulfilling his duties. The “precious young master” wanted to say they were equals and parade him around like some sort of charity case, because look, wasn’t the Asim heir so very generous to be that nice to his own servant?
Hearing that, or any variation of it, always unfailingly made Jamil want to laugh in people's faces.
Generous?
Really?
All Kalim wanted to do was solve the problem of his own friendlessness the same way he and his entire family solved everything- by throwing money at it. Jamil was simply convenient, because as his servant he wasn’t allowed to refuse. And that was all there was to it.
But he didn’t say any of this to Kalim’s face no matter how much he may have wanted to.
Instead, he quietly and calmly listened to Kalim’s bright chatter as he worked, hoping that the extra tight grip he had on his mop didn’t give him away.
As soon as Kalim finally skipped away, called by his mother for a rare trip out with her, Jamil’s forced calm melted to nothing and turned into a disgusted glare.
‘What an idiot…’ he muttered under his breath as he dipped the mop back into the water.
‘The only idiot here is you.’
The sudden interruption of the unknown voice startled Jamil. He whirled around, looking for whoever had made the insulting comment. His frantic movements managed to tip over the nearby bucket of water entirely, spilling its contents out onto Jamil’s newly washed floor. The mop he’d been holding fell with a clatter out of his hands.
‘Who’s that? Who said that?’
Jamil stared and stared at the corridor around him, but the scene didn’t change. A perfectly ordinary corridor, one of countless in the Asim mansion. Fancy and overwhelming decorations that screamed wealth, power and “I’m rich and feel the need to rub it in your face”. One mirror, hanging on the wall beside Jamil. Serene, untouched except for the mess he’d inadvertently made of the floor.
Serene and…
…empty.
There was no one present except for him.
Jamil sank down to the floor with a groan.
An unpleasantly wet and cold feeling soaked through his clothes to his skin.
A puddle.
He’d sat right on the massive spill of dirty bucket water.
Now he would have to go and change too- right after cleaning up the spill and finishing mopping the floor. Again.
‘Oh fantastic…’ he said with an irritated sigh.
‘Grow up already. This isn’t the worst thing that could happen and you know it.’
Jamil’s eyes snapped up to the source of the voice.
There was someone staring at him from the mirror.
Or perhaps, to be more accurate, from his own reflection.
Instead of seeing his usual face and body when he looked into the mirror, Jamil saw someone much older- a boy in his teens. His hair was extremely long, going down his shoulders and back in a glossy black wave. The teen was beautiful, in the same way actors in movies and shows often were. Perfectly neat, not even a single hair out of place.
Certainly a far cry from the scruffy kid on the other side of the mirror. He fidgeted in place, abruptly all too conscious of the clothes sticking to his skin with an itchy wetness that grew more and more uncomfortable by the second.
(The teenager standing in place of his reflection was so much more well put together than him.)
(He seemed meaner too though, a permanent half-scowl seemingly stuck fast on his face, the glare in his eyes sharp and cold.)
Jamil stared and stared, fascinated despite the initial terror he’d felt.
Was this…him?
Him, but older?
‘Are…’ he stopped, swallowing. After a few seconds of thought, he continued his sentence, reforming his words entirely. ‘What are you?’
The teen smiled, warm and welcoming. It should have been inviting, should have set Jamil at ease, but somehow it only felt like something was horribly off.
‘What do you want me to be?’ his reflection asked, the –wrong wrong wrong– smile never wavering.
Jamil frowned.
How was he supposed to answer a question like that?
How was he even sure this wasn’t a hallucination born out of a desperate need for-
For what exactly?
‘I don’t know.’ Jamil answered, feeling like a total idiot.
(What was he even doing, talking to a reflection in a mirror? Najma would laugh herself sick if she could see this.)
(Still, he couldn’t bring himself to rip his gaze away from those impossibly dark eyes. Something about them in particular drew him in- and disturbed him at the same time.)
(The teen’s eyes felt unnatural and off-putting in the way the rest of him wasn’t.)
After a prolonged silence, during which Jamil began to feel like he was finally going crazy, his reflection spoke again.
‘It’s pointless.’
‘What is?’ Jamil asked, trying to feign polite curiosity.
His body gave him away, automatically tensing in defensiveness.
‘The pretending.’
The previously impassive tone changed in a split second, becoming cold and cutting.
‘You probably think you’re oh-so-smart, don’t you? That you can fool all the smug, stupid adults and your arrogant masters, play them all like toys? It’s hard though, so hard- and let me tell you something. It’s only going to get harder. No matter how smart or talented or better than them you think you are, at the end of the day you’re still their servant. They have nothing to prove; just existing is already enough. And you?
‘You will always be nothing but a servant.’