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Yuder Aile remembered things he should not.
Bearing memories of a past that shouldn't exist. Knowledge He shouldn't possess. But he had them anyway. He became someone who overturned all human laws and did something no one had ever before- he returned.
With memories of the future. With knowledge of what's yet to happen, what had already transpired.
And sometimes, it was mortifying to be the one who remembered.
Every morning, Yuder Aile wakes up, drenched in sweat and breathless. He stares at his hands, at the black mark that wasn't there before and breaths in relief when he finds them clean of any red.
He calms his heart as he stepped on the cold wooden floor. The wooden floor of his room, of Yuder Aile's room. This cold is different, much more rougher than the one he was so painfully familiar with. This was Yuder Aile's room. Not Commander Aile's.
He breathes an air of relief. He stares at his reflection in the blurry mirror. Water drops slid down from his dark hair. He sees a young man, a face filled with youth and immaturity. Short black hair just above his eyebrows. He looks a little lower and sees the clean shoulders, no scar and no callus. He looks at his hand, worn out due to cutting and carrying wood, as well as some scars from recent sword practice. He looks back at the mirror and almost shatters it when he sees the aged and haggard face of a thirty one year old. He blinks, and the image is immediately replaced by the face of a youthful twenty year old. He breaths in relief.
He looked at his hands. Donned in magic-infused black gloves, much like his black uniform. Yuder clinged his right hand, feeling something akin to pain tingling in his palm. It was a feeling he was used to, a feeling that Yuder Aile was familiar with. Again, He takes a deep breath.
———
Yuder Aile remembers things he should not.
He watched as the Eldore siblings slump to the ground, beyond exhausted due to the rigorous training. He looked at Jimmy next, the youngest member who was still jumping up and down around the training ground, brimming with energy.
His eyes move onto Ever handing a bottle of water to Devran. She laughs as he fails to even properly drink water, too tired and out of it. Ever smiles as Devran groans in pain, both exhausted, yet all the more excited.
Yuder looks at Kanna who was still trying to read information from a book while not touching it. She was now an inch further from the book than she had been a day before. A tremendous improvement indeed.
He then looked at Gakane who seemed to be faring much better than the others. As if sensing his gaze, the red haired man turned his head towards Yuder. The green eyes widen before squinting into a smile. Gakane handed the towel he was holding to Jimmy and called out to him.
“Yuder!”
Gaken waves at him as others look at his direction, as if finally realising his presence. Their faces light up.
And before the rest can start calling his name, Yuder takes a stride towards the group- and suddenly, everything morphs into something else. Instead of their cheerful expression, Hinn and Finn glare at him with a sombre expression, There was no Jimmy, Devran or even Kanna, instead they are replaced by a huge glob of crimson. Ever looks older, her hair cut just above her shoulder with a scar on her cheek.
Yuder whips his head towards Gakane and instead of a smiling face,he sees a face smeared with blood, hair tangled in dirt, and probably dried blood along with a lost limb. Gakane”s lifeless green eyes look up at Yuder, sending a shiver down his spine. An unidentified voice whispers in his ear.
“Where were you?”
“Why weren't you there?!”
“Gakane died because of you!”
“Com..mand..er.”
“You? What could one more splash of blood mean to you?”
“Yuder?” Abruptly, as if a switch has been turned on, everything goes back to normal. Hinn, Finn, Ever, Jimmy, Devran and Kanna stare at him with an anxious expression. Gakane approaches him with a worried face. A worried face, alive and not pale. Alive and not dead.
“Hey, are you already?”
Gakane asks as he puts his hand on Yuder's shoulder. The cavalry assistant barely holds himself back from flinching. He feels something roll down his neck, sweat, why was he sweating so much?
“...I'm…fine.” “Are you sure? You don't look too well.”
Jimmy walked up to them and grabbed hold of Yuder's arm. As if sensing something was up, the others also stood up before approaching them.
“What's up? Oh Yuder, are you sick?”
“You don't look well…”
Yuder touched his face with his gloved hand. It was cold to touch yet at the same time, it was scorching hot.
“I'm alright, no need to worry.”
He looked at his fellow cavalry members and clenched his fist. What he saw wasn't real, not yet. Gakane was still alive, Hinn and Finn hadn't left the cavalry yet, Kanna, Jimmy, and Devran were present. Ever still had her long hair.
“Are you sure..?”
“Yes.”
He answered even though he wasn't sure who had asked. In the last game, nobody had ever inquired about his well-being, at least not with such concern. He takes Gakane's hand off his shoulder gently. All of them were looking at him, worried for him. Worry, not disgust. Yuder bites his lips out of habit.
“I'm fine.”
He assures them, though their worry doesn't seem to disappear. But Yuder doesn't stay long enough to settle their doubts. He should leave. Before everything starts getting murky again.
“Take care!”
Someone tells from behind but Yuder doesn't know who. No one had ever told him to take care, at least not in the previous game, so he feels a little unfamiliar with it. It will be fine. He will forget about this soon enough.
————
Yuder Aile remembers things He should not.
“Yuder.”
A voice calls out his name. The man's tone is ever so soothing. Yuder looks up only to find red eyes already looking at him.A dazzling glance that had penetrated through all the walls he had laboriously constructed. Kishiar La Orr smiles at his lover.
“Yes commander?”
“Is something the matter?”
Yuder's hand holding the quilt stops. He doesn't understand the question. Nor the worry in his commander's eye for a matter of fact.
“I'm not quite sure what you are talking about.”
“Could you come here for a second?”
Kishiar asks instead of answering Yuder's question. Nonetheless, Yuder puts the quilt down and stands up.
Almost falling down as his right leg nearly gives up. He blinks, his leg is fine again.
Or is it?
He isn't quite sure.
He glances at Kishiar. The older man, with his golden eyebrows furrowed, watches his every movement with a piercing gaze. Yuder walks around Kishiar's desk and stops beside him.
Kishiar takes Yuder's gloved hand with a swift move and gently pulls the assistant onto his lap. A truly scandalous deed but both were more than used to it.
Yuder doesn't look at Kishiar's face. No, he looks at his hands.
Unlike his own, Kishiar's hands were much more soft and considerably bigger. It would be difficult to believe that these hands belonged to a swordmaster and to the wielder of the divine sword. And To Yuder's own dismay, these were the hands that cradled him like a delicate piece of glass.
But why do they seem so unfamiliar?
One hand holding his own, the other drawing circles on his back.
“You seem tired.”
Kishiar whispers in his ear, with a soft voice that seems to be trying to lull him to sleep. Did he seem tired? Yuder himself thought himself to be doing just fine, the sudden and random mersion of the past game and the current game was the only thing out of the ordinary however it too, was something that would come to pass.
Yuder Aile would be fine.
“I’m fine.”
“I knew you would say that, It hurts to see my assistant not care for himself.”
“....”
“Did you know you kept biting your lips throughout the day?”
Was he? Yuder did not notice. He wasn’t even aware of this habit of his, not until the Kishiar of the current game pointed it out.
Yuder didn’t answer this time, instead, he leaned onto Kishiar’s chest. The sound of the heartbeat, steady and loud, brought about a sense of comfort and security for Yuder.
“It upsets me to see my assistant neglect himself while taking care of others.”
Kishiar hummed as he continued to play with Yuder’s fingers. Even though he was speaking calmly, his racing heart made it obvious what he was truly feeling.
For a second, Yuder almost closed his eyes. Finding his commander’s voice to be incredibly serene. Perhaps had he not felt something cold and wet against his cheek, he would have completely dozed off.
Yuder blinked his eyes as he felt something liquidy on his cheek. It was not thin like water, something denser, yet still runny enough. From the corner of his eyes, Yuder sees something red.
Red.
What.
He pushes himself off of Kishiar’s chest. Only now does he realise that Kishiar wasn't speaking, nor was he playing with Yuder’s hand.
"..."
It’s not a shock that he felt when he finds the commander’s eyes closed. The handsome face now ghostly pale. Yuder looked at the chest he was lying on just seconds ago, blood flowed out like a fountain, staining the pristine white uniform with crimson red, a colour eerily similar to Kishiar’s eyes.
What he felt was something more akin to numbness. Numbness that turned into despair.
This time, he jumps away, unable to gather strength in his limbs, Yuder finds himself falling to the ground but he couldn't care less about it. His face morphs into something ugly as pain spreads through his body like wildfire yet not a sound escapes through his parted lips.
Kishiar’s lifeless face remains in front of his eyes. It doesn’t leave like the other times. The blood that seeped out of the chest looked real- it was real.
Suddenly, Yuder can’t really tell where he is. Was it the cavalry headquarters? Or was it Duke Peletta’s bedroom? The furniture takes on a hideous shape and the walls twist and bend. He kept his shaky gaze on the commander but the man didn’t look quite like the commander. Was it his commander Kishiar? Or was it the Duke Peletta. Whoever it was, he was dead.
He was dead.
Yuder had failed.
Yuder Aile had failed.
Y̶u̶d̶r̶e̶i̶n̶ A̶i̶l̶e̶ h̶a̶d̶ f̶a̶i̶l̶e̶d̶.
Yuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhadfailedyuderhad-
“Yuder! Snap out of it!”
And then like a thin thread, it all stopped. The furniture no longer twisted into horrid shapes, the walls stopped trying to draw close. The fire-like pain that ran rampant through his body disappeared, without leaving behind even a single thread.
Kneeling in front of him was Kishiar, donned in his pristine white uniform. His blond hair, that shined like hardened gold under the sun, swayed in front of his lively eyes. There was no blood or dagger on his chest, his hands bare of any gloves, his eyes were wide open, burning with vitality and life.
Right,
he had come back in time. Kishiar is still alive and well.
Everything is fine.
Yuder was just a little out of it.
He will be fine.
But really, it’s mortifying to be the only one who remembers.