Archive of Our Own

A rumor began circulating around Grand Chokmah. As it went, there was said to be a nigh inaccessible cave along the coast. Vague on the details, the rumor stated that an ancient stone tablet inscribed with a verse that sealed a massively destructive fonic arte rested somewhere within the cave. Difficult to find and supposedly even more difficult to traverse, whether it was real or a hoax, the cave was just as dangerous as a rumor.

Unless travel along the coast became restricted, there was no way to prevent the locals from following their curiosity to what was almost certain death. Worse (though unlikely) was the possibility of the stone tablet being found and held in private hands.

An investigation needed to be performed to ensure that that possibility didn't occur. In the process, it was the emperor's hope to calm the people's nervous whispering about the potential of such a destructive arte.

The emperor entrusted the investigation to the two who would be the most knowledgeable about such an artifact. Those two also happened to be two of his closest friends. Naturally, Colonel Jade Curtiss's name was the first from his mouth, but also, the fontech genius who had been recently released from prison, the ex-God-General, Dist.

He was better off putting his brain to use for the sake of the Malkuth empire than as a rose that withered day by day behind bars. That was the reason purportedly given by the emperor, at least.

Dist, for his own part, was looking forward to the expedition as an opportunity to demonstrate his usefulness. He could hardly go five minutes in the capital without a Malkuthian soldier breathing down his neck. There were eyes watching every step he took.

On the bright side, they had him working directly within the military base, giving him access to his own laboratory and an adequately-sized library. The security surrounding him was concentrated, but that was expected within the base. Besides, all of the attention was a small price to pay when he was able to be that close to Jade.

Working in the same building, he ran into him on occasion, but, even when they passed by each other, Jade would rarely say anything unless Dist said something first. He couldn't blame Jade for ignoring him, but, after the things he'd done, he wished that he would, otherwise all of those things would've been for nothing.

With no small amount of regret, he admitted that the 'golden era' he wished to return them to was never a thing that existed to begin with.

He'd wanted to go back to before Peony stole Jade away, back to when the professor was alive. He wanted so sit beside him again. He wanted to undo the events that pulled Jade away from him.

It hurt, realizing that they had never been tied together to start with.

The week he spent behind bars had given him time to reflect on everything. It sucked the life out of him when he realized that the thing he'd been searching for had been an intangible thing. He could've replicated the professor a thousand times and it wouldn't have taken them back to the past. The sunny spot in his memory was his optimism; the rose-colored glasses he wore as an adult that made hindsight appear favorable compared to the darkness in front of him. Weak, phony confidence shattered, the beacon that shone on the past was swallowed up in the present's black hole.

Everything he thought he knew was erased. All that was left behind was a feeling of betrayal.

He'd betrayed himself. He made himself look like an idiot; a stubborn child clinging to a misremembered past.

A week alone in a cell felt like a long time, both torturous and cathartic. During that time, he only saw guards, but, on one surprising occasion, Jade had come to visit him. They tossed insults at each other like always, but something felt different, unfamiliar. Something had changed, even if it was just a little.

The thing he'd been chasing may not have had a shape, but, if he reached out for it, he had the feeling that he could still reach it. He could still grasp it if he wanted to. It was a mistake to have looked into the past for it. It was out there – somewhere ahead of him, in the future, in a time without the professor. Standing back to back, he and Jade departed from their hometown and walked one step after another, getting farther and farther away from each other, but if he'd only wiped his eyes and looked up, he would've realized that all of that walking had taken him in a circle, bringing him toe to toe with the one he thought he had to be chasing.

The river of time had a strong pull. Swimming against it had nearly drowned him.

Though Jade was just as tight-lipped as ever when it came to what he was really thinking, even Dist could see the hand that was stretched out toward him. The decision to release him hadn't been made by Peony alone.

Each day since his release, Dist held up his head and looked ahead. He wasn't going to catch up with Jade if he kept looking back to the past that Jade had already decided to move on from. Without his God-General title, he felt like he'd been stripped of half of his confidence which was all he had to start with, so the road ahead was rough and wore him out and made him feel weak, but something filled up his chest whenever he passed by Jade and caught his eye. That little glimmer of something behind his glasses gave him new courage and made him want to try harder.

He was going to show him that he could change too.

“Be on the lookout. There may be monsters lurking in this cave.”

If there were, Jade could handle it. That was what he was there for. Dist wasn't skilled in the type of artes that could protect him from monsters, and headquarters hadn't allowed him to take any of his robots with him either, so he was going to have to rely on him should they encounter danger.

Humiliating...

“You don't have to tell me that,” Dist muttered, his temper simmering.

They had been met with no fanfare when they reached the mouth of the cave. Both of them had expected to find some signs of the people who had supposedly explored the cave before them, but they were greeted by nothing but the sound of the waves at their backs that echoed back to them hollowly from within the cave's depths.

It wasn't dark inside; the path illuminated by glimmering crystals. Rumors aside, it was surprising that no one had come to extract the crystals from the cave walls. They would have fetched a pretty penny. Given the cave's treacherous location, though, it may not have been that surprising. The farther in he walked, the more the cave reminded Dist of the cavern where he had conducted experiments. The only way the cave mouth could be accessed was either by boat or during low tide, which was difficult to predict. One had to be very determined if they planned to enter.

He was determined to find that stone.

On their way there, for some reason Dist couldn't parse, Jade had told him about how he planned to continue his research in fomicry. It came as no small shock to Dist after he'd heard him denounce it and swear up and down that he was abandoning the research. Jade claimed to be interested in using it to help improve the lives of the remaining replicas. Such a repentant reason didn't sound like Jade at all to him, but he could tell that he was serious.

Still, he didn't know why Jade told him.

For him to mention it, headquarters must have already come to an agreement and approved of it. But it still seemed strange that Jade had mentioned it – to him specifically. His only interest in fomicry had been for the sake of resurrecting the professor.

...No, that wasn't true. That was just what he told himself.

Even before that, it was because of Jade.

“You look like someone died.”

Dist jumped so hard, he nearly hit his head on the low ceiling.

“D-don't stand so close to me like that!” he yelled, heart hammering in his chest. For a second there, he thought he felt Jade's breath against his cheek...

Staring at him strangely for a moment, Jade straightened himself and began walking. “I'm going to go look ahead.”

“Fine. Suit yourself. I don't need you anyway,” Dist spat, glaring at his back.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that his heart beat so fast for someone who was always awful to him.

Watching the familiar sight of his retreating back, Dist's chest tightened. He wasn't afraid of losing him anymore. It was sad, but he'd gotten used to watching him walk away. Inch by inch, step after step, he always found his way back to Jade, but, sometimes, he just wished that Jade would stop and wait instead. That was all. It was too much to expect him to walk by his side.

He couldn't let himself get too down about it. That wasn't the reason why they were together in that cave. They were meant to be looking for the rumored stone tablet.

Telling his heart to quiet itself, he kept moving, the ground rough beneath his shoes. Nothing but crystal walls surrounded them, and he wondered how long it would before they reached an open area so he could breathe. He found it hard to believe that the cave was one long, continuous tunnel, but it already felt like he'd been walking for a while.

He could still hear Jade's footsteps, but he was somewhere far ahead, disappeared out of his sight. The white-and-pink crystals helped light the way, but it was difficult to see into the distance. About thirty feet away, the light seemed to disappear, and that darkness maintained a constant distance no matter how far he walked. It was dangerous for Jade to go that far ahead... With his artes, he would probably be alright, but he was only one person.

Dist would've been watching Jade's back for him if only he were able to see it.

After some time, he reached a fork. It was easy to miss, its paths poorly lit; one narrow path leading to his left and descending, another to his right. Quietly, he called out Jade's name. With that attitude of his, Dist didn't even feel like cooperating with him, but Jade needed to know about the other paths he'd found.

Where was he...?

When he listened carefully, Dist could still hear his steps ahead of him from the same straight path they'd been following until then. Without anything to explain it, he started to get a bad feeling, so he hastened his pace a little, heading farther into the darkness. Taking a glance over his shoulder just in case, he didn't see anything behind him, but that just worried him more. They had already walked so far that he couldn't see the light from the entrance. It was high noon outside, but not a single ounce of that light made it into the cave. As far as his eyes were concerned, it could have been midnight.

From a direction he couldn't place, he heard a sound.

It wasn't footsteps. It may have just been a rock... But, knowing that he wasn't the cause of the sound, his blood became like ice in his veins. In such a quiet place, void of any movement, even the slightest sound felt out of place.

“Jade...?” he called quietly. After becoming startled, he'd stopped moving, which made it hard for him to start walking again, apprehensive to step farther into the awaiting abyss and discover what had made that sound.

Just as he began trying to convince himself that it was natural to hear a rock fall in a cave, he heard it again, but, that time, it didn't stop. The noise became a little louder, like rocks being turned over one another – like something digging.

At the end of his wits and thoroughly freaked out, Dist threw caution to the wind and started running. Along each of his steps, he heard another sound that seemed to be growing stronger. Something was definitely following him, tearing through the ground behind him. It had to be some type of cave-dwelling worm; the type that burrowed under the ground and waited for their prey to walk above them, sensing the vibrations of their movement.

It wouldn't have been a problem if he were riding in one of his robots, but... He didn't have anything like that to protect him.

Something grabbed him by the ankle.

Immediately, he lost his balance and fell, roughly hitting the ground. With as many times as he'd fallen in the past, one would've expected him to have learned how to fall more gracefully, but no – he fell forward with both arms awkwardly flailing, only narrowly avoiding smashing his glasses on the rocky cave floor.

He didn't want to call for him... He didn't want to look weak, but. Well. Whatever it was that pulled him down was crawling up his back, digging its small, sharp claws through the fabric of his lab coat.

“Jade...” he muttered, his voice weak and lacking confidence. Struggling, he threw back an elbow and smacked the monster in the face. He was barely able to turn himself around, the monster's long body, covered in scales, coiled around his legs and waist. It was going to be difficult to get it off of him, and it didn't look happy...

It opened its jaws, displaying rows and rows of tiny, razor-sharp teeth, and let out a frightful hiss.

“Jade, help!”

Not a second later, a bright flash cut through the tunnel and the monster that trapped him was set ablaze. As it cried and thrashed its body, its claws digging in deeper, Dist raised his knees and kicked it off, freeing himself.

Staggering to his feet, he frantically patted at the hem of his lab coat to put out the flame that had consequently caught him as well.

Turning, his teeth clenched, he found Jade standing right behind him looking quite nonplussed. When he casually lifted a hand to push up his glasses like that was business as usual, Dist lost it.

“What's wrong with you?! Were you trying to set me on fire too?!”

“I thought you said you didn't need me,” Jade replied calmly.

“Why did you even come with me if you aren't going to protect me? That's what you're here for, isn't it?” Dist asked incredulously, throwing an arm out to the side.

Jade looked perplexed, like he didn't understand why he was shouting. “You should have kept up with me, then.”

“You were the one who said you were going to go ahead! If you were going to do that, then you should have been keeping an eye on me too! What if I died?!”

For some reason, Jade didn't have anything witty to add that time. He just stood there and stared at him, but Dist had the feeling he wasn't really looking at him. He didn't know why, but Dist felt like he needed to apologize for something.

With a sigh, Jade turned back around, ignoring him and the sizzling, twitching body of the monster he'd smited. “What are you standing around for? We're more vulnerable if we stay in one spot. Keep walking.”

The atmosphere in his wake felt strange. Dist followed, feeling it pertinent to keep his comments to himself and his eyes on Jade's back. Something was wrong with Jade, but Dist couldn't place his finger on it. He feared that it was the same thing that followed him out of the professor's burning house on that snowy night those many years ago; the thing that clung to him like ash. Ever since he noticed it, Dist wanted to brush it off for him, but that feeling that twisted Jade was as intangible as the thing he'd been futilely chasing.

Dist didn't know if he could fix it for him. He didn't know if it was even possible.

He just wished that Jade wouldn't look at him that way. A thousand meanings could be read in those empty red eyes. It hurt. They made him feel inadequate.

At long last, the tunnel they'd been traveling came to an end, opening out into a much larger place than what they'd been expecting. At their side, the path was severed by a seemingly endless fissure that went down farther than the eye could see. They needed to walk carefully along its edge, staying close to the wall to reach stable ground again. Once they cleared it and were able to breathe again, they looked up, then looked at each other, sharing the same thought.

Directly in front of them, resting atop a pile of rocks that seemed to have been arranged by hand, surrounded by a ring of bright crystals, was a stone tablet that looked like just the thing they were after.

As Jade thoughtfully inspected the ring of crystals, Dist hopped right over them and made his way up to the stone pile. Having found it in such a conspicuous place, he was surprised that there were no monsters or dragons protectively guarding it, but he wasn't about to question it.

“Careful,” Jade warned, watching him.

Waving a hand at him flippantly, Dist leaned forward to have a look at what was inscribed on its surface. “This has to be it. It's a lot smaller than I was expecting... If it had been hidden anywhere else, it would've been like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It's a good thing it was waiting here right out in the open.”

“...Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?” Jade asked, ever the skeptic.

“Why feel suspicious? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Jade. You should be glad that we didn't have to hunt for it.” Pinching his sleeve, he pulled him closer. “Look here. Doesn't this verse make it sound like what we're looking for?”

Wisely, Jade read it silently to himself. Even if it was just a fragment meant to act as a map to its other pieces, it wouldn't have been smart to read it aloud. Doing so may have risked erasing the tablet – or worse. Its words only sounded like instructions, but there was power in words.

“This sounds familiar,” he said.

“You mean like the arte that was sealing Nebilim's replica?”

Jade nodded. “Yes, precisely. All the more reason to take it with us.”

“So we just... Take it?” Dist asked slowly, walking around the makeshift stone pedestal to inspect it for traps. If Jade was suspicious of it, then there could have been some kind of trick to it, but, even if there were, it wasn't visible. It looked clean. It was like whoever placed it there had specifically put it in that place with the intention of it being found.

The rumors he'd heard about it now started to sound more suspicious when he thought about it like that. It felt likely that whoever had begun the rumor was the one who had placed it there.

Perhaps it was left there precisely with the intention of trapping them within the cave...

Without a word, Jade lifted the tablet from the stone pile.

Dist held his breath. They both looked around the area and waited for a moment, but nothing happened.

“Hm. Much ado about nothing, it seems,” Jade remarked smugly. He held out the tablet and shoved it into Dist's arms. “Here you are.”

It was a lot heavier than it looked. “I'm going to carry it?” Not exactly being the strongest individual, Dist swayed with its weight.

Jade shrugged. “I don't know what use you have otherwise.”

At that remark, Dist's breath got stuck at the back of his throat. He hated it enough when Jade teased him and made fun of him, but when he invalidated him to such a degree... It hurt a lot more than Jade probably even realized.

Jade was always like that. He was oblivious, but.

Clutching the stone tablet to his chest, holding it with all the strength he had, Dist turned on his heel and began walking away, wishing to escape from the cave as quick as possible. Since he'd been released, he'd learned that there was no talking to him. Without the right words, they would just end right back where they always did with nothing changing.

“Now who's running ahead?”

It wasn't like that. He wasn't running away from anything.

He wasn't.

As if the universe itself decided to reject his attempt to delude himself, the cave shook strongly. He kept a steadfast hold on the stone tablet, but the quake sent him staggering and made him trip. Before he could even think of a way to react, there was black before his eyes as he was pushed forward, over the path's edge, toward the crevice.

At that moment, there was, embarrassingly, only one thought on his mind.

Jade.

The ground at the edge of the crevice was crumbling away, but he managed to grasp onto a rock protruding from its side about two feet below the path. The tablet, too heavy to even carry, fell from his arms the moment he'd tripped and was lost to the fissure's depths.

“Dist!”

His heart pounding, his pulse in his ears, his vision half-blinded with shock, Dist lifted his chin and found Jade crouched at the path's crumbling edge.

“Oh for the love of- Pull me up, already!” Dist wailed, eyes on Jade, too afraid to look down.

“This is what you get for running ahead of me,” he said, sounding mad, looking...

Terrified?

Growling under his breath, Jade leaned forward and reached for the one hand that kept Dist from falling into the crevice. It was difficult for him to reach him without falling over as well. Just as their fingers brushed, the cave shook again. The rock Dist was clinging to, no longer able to support him, came loose. Before he could fall, he swung his other arm up and grasped onto the next protruding rock in the cliff's side, but, at that point, he was well out of Jade's reach.

Dist laughed pitifully to himself. He'd cheated death many times over, but it finally seemed like it caught up with him. He was at the end of his nine lives.

“It looks like I won't make it out of this one,” he said, looking up at Jade, memorizing his face, feeling it important to take it with him as the last thing he would ever see. “I made it so far, too. It's a shame. Just when I thought things might finally start to change.”

“What are you talking about?” Jade asked, the sound of something hysterical in his voice.

As he watched his face become painted in distress, Dist finally understood what that look meant earlier. Jade was the one who hadn't realized it.

“You really don't know?” he asked. Jade's stubbornness was the only thing he could count on. Even if Jade acknowledged him and told him that he valued him, it was too late. “Perhaps I was wrong. At least I can go to my grave with the satisfaction of knowing that I understood something that you didn't. Though, frankly... If I'm allowed to be honest, I don't think that I can be happy with that.”

“Dist, I was put in charge of you. Do you really think I'll allow you to die here?” Jade yelled, clutching the edge.

“Allow me? Funny. I thought I always survived in spite of you, not because of you.”

The ground shook again, threatening to make more of the cave collapse. They were so stupid... It had to be because they removed the tablet from its stone platform. Even if it wasn't visible to them, there must have been a trap hidden in it somewhere. And he was going to die before he could even figure out how he'd been fooled! What an annoying way to go.

Suddenly, the rock he was holding on to began to crumble. It wasn't strong enough to hold a person for very long. In a minute – maybe less than a minute – he was going to fall to his death. There were a lot of things he wanted to tell Jade. There were a lot of things he wanted to hear. Ironically, he wanted to ask him if he thought he was replaceable. He would die with a thousand regrets... But, as selfish as it sounded, he wished to hear him say that no one else could be Saphir, that no one else could take his place, that he was someone important.

That distressed look on Jade's face...

Maybe that was enough.

“Jade...”

“Be quiet, I can still do this.” As Dist's fingers began to slip, Jade did the seemingly impossible, leaning even farther over the ledge to grasp his hand right before the rock crumbled completely. He began to slip along with him. As they continued to slip into the ravine, held only by one of Jade's hands, quietly yet quickly, he began to recite an arte.

His eyes opened wide, glowing red.

“Stalagmite!”

The rock ledge below them was lifted by his arte, raised high enough for them to safely collapse on top of it.

Breathing heavily, Dist lifted his head and watched as Jade pulled himself up and returned to the path. He was totally silent. After all of that, Dist thought that he would have had something else to say, but his expression was blank, his thoughts an enigma.

Facing the way from which they came, Jade began to walk away.

“Oh, I see,” Dist said, weakly dragging himself back to the path as well, trying to keep up with him, barely able to. “The one who tried to place the blame on me is walking ahead on his own again. Are you an idiot? What will happen if the cave begins to collapse again? Do you really want to be separated, or are you eager to fall into the crevice yourself?”

“I can handle myself, unlike someone,” he replied coldly, still walking.

“Are you referring to me? ...Jade? Jade, will you stop acting like a child and just wait for a minute?”

“And stand still as the cave collapses around us? I think it may be in our best interest to move on from this area while we have the time-”

Dist ran after him. Even knowing that it was stupid to run when the path was unstable, he didn't care. A moment ago, he thought for sure that he was going to die. He just didn't care anymore about holding back.

“Be quiet! Stop and look at me!” he yelled. Finally, Jade did as he said, though he seemed hesitant to turn around. Even when he did, it was still impossible to tell what he was thinking, but there were things Dist had to say; all the things he would've regretted not saying. “I am not your prisoner any longer. As Malkuth's chief fontech researcher, I am your responsibility. You are my escort, and you were chosen to accompany me for a reason; it is because of your strength as the Colonel – nothing else. To abandon me in a place where I cannot defend myself is to ignore your duty. Doing such tarnishes your title. I came here for that information and now it may have been lost due to your carelessness. I almost died for that stone, and whose fault would that have been?!”

Jade nodded mutely.

“You're right. I will include an honest admittance of my follies in my report.”

“Jade.” He wanted more than that. An apology would've been nice.

Jade looked away, like he wanted to run off ahead again. Of course, he couldn't, knowing that it would've been foolish after admitting his mistakes.

Mindful of the edge, Dist moved a little closer to him, trying to hold his eyes. “I saw the way you looked before when you were reaching for me. There was a familiar feeling in your eyes.”

Something flashed in them. “We need to hurry. If we stay here any longer-”

“You were afraid that I was going to die,” Dist said simply. He was trying to be serious. He didn't want Jade to think that he was trying to make fun of him. “You were afraid that it would've been your fault.”

“You? Die?” Jade tried to laugh it off.

Dist wished that he could laugh with him.

“Jade... I know that just looking at me reminds you of the past, but ignoring me is no better than turning away from the things you did. Haven't you had enough of that?” He certainly had. “I promised you that I would never attempt to resurrect our teacher with a replica again. It was my foolish idea that if we could bring her back, you would come back too. But I couldn't accomplish that with a mere copy of her... Nothing could. The past is the past.”

Feelings began to crack through Jade's well-constructed facade. “You talk as if I'm dead.”

Dist just smiled to himself sadly.

Jade looked stricken.

“As much as I hate to say it, Jade, you were right all along. There may have been nothing to bring back. Ever since we were little, I've been chasing after something I never had to begin with, haven't I?”

“That's not...”

What was Jade going to say? That it wasn't true? That all of his efforts and all of his suffering hadn't only been for nothing?

“What, do you think you get it?” That feeling that he had. And that Jade was, to him, the only person in the world who was absolutely irreplaceable.

“If I didn't... would you call me cold?”

Dist smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, but you are cold. That's an inescapable facet of your personality, I'm afraid.”

“You're confusing, Saphir,” Jade said, as if he were explaining something. Dist was just surprised to hear him use his real name. Since his capture, Jade had stubbornly refused to refer to him any other way, no matter how many times he was corrected. It sounded significant to hear him say it then. “You were confusing. That was why I always ignored you. We were nothing alike, but you always came around, begging for my attention, and I never understood why. I don't know how you can still want to be near me when I treat you horribly. I don't understand. I still don't understand.”

He really wasn't kidding... Jade looked like he was admitting a failure.

“I don't quite know what inspires me to follow you now, either. Perhaps it was written in the Score. I guess we'll never know now, will we?”

“You may be right,” Jade said, surprising him even further. “Yes, I know, it's hard to believe – I'm agreeing with you.”

“As you should!” Dist huffed, turning up his nose.

“Saphir... I may never be the person you're chasing after. I may never truly understand the way you feel about me. You're alright with that?”

“Nonsense. The person I'm after is right in front of me. I was a fool for thinking I needed to change you somehow. In reality...” It was going to kill him to say it. “I-in reality, I just wanted you to turn around and notice me.”

“Oh...?” One of those awful, wide grins began to spread from one side of Jade's face to the other, his eyes gleaming beneath his glasses.

“Wipe that smirk off your face! I'm trying to be serious with you!” Dist growled, more than half-tempted to shove him or give him a good smack across the face. “Besides, it sounds to me like you're actually asking yourself that question. Are you alright with that? It's going to eat you up inside, knowing that I'm the one who's capable of fathoming something as simple and human as an emotion, isn't it?”

“The reason I joined the military was because emotions weren't a requirement. I could get by just fine without them,” he said, though whether he was proud of that fact or not was hard to say.

“What's this now? Are you experiencing a change of heart?”

“I'm experiencing... something.” Jade took a step back, his gazing falling out of focus, his grin falling away unconsciously. “One day, if I happened to look behind me and you weren't there, I'm afraid I'd feel like something was missing,” he said, sending Dist a quick, guilty glance. “That, and... A lot of trouble could have been avoided if I had dealt with you from the beginning. I've always recognized you as my responsibility, but I turned away from you and allowed a lot of people to get caught up in business that should have remained between us.”

“So I'm just your problem, am I?” A part of him was mad that Jade would even think of it that way, but it was nice not to be blamed for once. It may have been too soon, and it may not have been an apology, strictly speaking, but he wanted to accept it as if it were one nonetheless. “I don't mind if I have to keep chasing after you, Jade. Just make sure you stay at least ten feet within my sight so I don't lose track of you this time.”

Jade smiled, and Dist felt all sorts of confused and happy. Jade probably didn't even know he was doing it.

Even if Jade told him that he didn't understand, he did. Deep down, a part of him understood the way that he felt about him. What Jade struggled with was returning his feelings; finding a way to express them for himself.

“I'm not a child anymore, you realize,” Dist said. It was probably difficult for Jade to understand why he would even say that; he couldn't relate. Even when he was a child, Jade had never acted like one. That was one of the things that drew Dist toward him to begin with, though; he had always been so mature. “I always wondered why you acted like you hated me, but I never let that deter me. I just wanted to be on your level. 'If I bring him back, we may stand at the same height now' – that was the sort of motivation I had as a God-General.”

“...Your nose is running.”

“Whose fault do you think that is?!” he rebutted angrily. Defiantly, Dist swiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve and lifted his glasses for a second to wipe his eyes. “The difference between being a child and being an adult, I believe, is realizing that I can't make you love me the way I love you, but loving you anyway in spite of that.”

Being that honest in front of him, the person he admired most since he was a child, was just as difficult as Dist expected it to be. His dreams of confessing had changed gradually yet drastically over the years, becoming less and less optimistic until he accepted the reality that Jade might never feel the same. Even so, his feelings didn't waver. His dreams adapted to suit reality. After he gave up trying to return them to the past, what he was left with was an image of a possible future.

That was why he wasn't afraid to tell him.

That felt like the closest he'd ever come to making a true confession. After everything, he wasn't sure how Jade really felt about him, but he felt certain that he wasn't hated.

However, Jade averted his eyes when he was finished, and, after a moment's worth of held breath, he turned and faced the other way, his shoulders straight, his hands linked behind his back.

“We ought to find our way out of here.”

Dist's heart sunk, disappointed that he wasn't allowed to even hear him react. After finding the courage to say something like that, he was hoping that he would've at least made fun of him or responded sarcastically; given him anything to help him find closure.

No, it was alright. He'd accounted for that as well.

There was no point in feeling disappointed.

“Jade...”

His name fell from his lips weakly as if it were his final plea. Over and over, he promised himself that he would never beg him again, yet he found himself doing it again anyway, finding new ways to do so without having to humiliate himself with 'please'.

Neither of them moved. The faint wind echoed howls from the cave's tunnels. Water from the river somewhere far above them dripped from the stalactites into the sitting pools of ancient water around their feet.

Hearing Jade's voice surprised Dist so much that the words he spoke took a moment to reach his ears.

“You bloomed quite nicely... Even if you have a few thorns.”

Once his ears communicated with his brain, Dist's body sprung into action and he launched himself at him and clung to him as hard as he could, nuzzling his cheek against his back.

“Jade...! Jade...!”

Jade sighed, but made no attempt to remove him. “Oh bother, what have I done now?” Lightly, he placed a hand on one of the arms Dist had firmly wrapped around his waist. “Must I remind you that we have little time?”

Though he wished to revel a bit longer in the fact that Jade had acknowledged him, Dist knew that he was right. The cave wasn't going to hold forever. They were lucky that no stalactites had fallen and skewered them yet.

Reluctantly, Dist removed his arms, then fixed himself, running a hand over the front of his coat. His once-white lab coat had gotten hopelessly torn and dirtied from his earlier fall. His ribs and elbows ached slightly as well, but the pain was nothing he couldn't bear for the moment. He didn't want to mention it and appear weak in front of Jade, besides.

“The stone with the inscription...” he mumbled sadly, stepping carefully toward the ledge to look into the deep, dark depths below them. It had to be down there somewhere. He only hoped that it hadn't broken apart upon its landing.

“What are we to do? It would be an embarrassment if we had to return empty-handed,” Jade said, stepping beside him to have a look as well. “It looks like we're going to have to find a way down into the crevice so we can retrieve it, although that might prove to be more difficult than it sounds. It appears to go down so far, even the light of the crystals isn't able to reach it. If it's that important to His Majesty, we may have to return with an excavation team.”

What was he talking about? Of course it was important. That stone wasn't some simple thing. In the wrong hands, it could be very dangerous, so it couldn't be left there for someone else to eventually discover. For both of their sakes, if they didn't want to be laughed at by Peony, they needed to retrieve it.

“At the entrance of the cave, there was a path that led down into this crevice. You would have noticed it if you hadn't gone ahead,” Dist told him, feeling smug despite his irritation.

Jade hummed in surprise, holding a hand to his chin. “Oh, is that so?”

“'Oh, is that so?' Is that all you have to say? For a moment, I was beginning to think that you would finally start taking responsibility.” Clenching his teeth, Dist told himself to remain calm. It wasn't Jade's fault, after all. No matter how annoying he was sometimes, no matter how sarcastic, no matter how unconcerned he acted, Dist knew that Jade couldn't help it. That was the part of his personality that helped him cope with the terrible things he'd done. Other people didn't understand it, and of course it bothered him as well, but it wouldn't have done either of them any good if he lost his temper with him. That wasn't going to help them get the stone back.

So, for the moment, he heaved a defeated sigh and waved a hand, simultaneously dismissing the thought and gesturing for him to follow him back to the entrance.

“Hopefully our path hasn't been blocked.”

“They were only slight tremors,” Jade said, walking at an even pace right behind him. “It was probably just coincidence that we happened to get caught on the weakest part of the path when they occurred, though whoever had laid that trap must have been accounting for that. I'll be on guard this time. The same mistake won't happen twice – although it may be difficult to avoid when I have a god of misfortune following me.”

Looking over his shoulder, Dist glared. “Just who is following who? I'm fairly sure that every misfortune in my life can be traced right back to you, Colonel.”

Jade's eyes narrowed and he shuddered. For a foolish second, Dist thought he might have actually been offended. “Please refrain from addressing me by my title. It sounds gross when you say it.”

Why did he like him, again...?

Ah...

Right...

Loathe as he was to admit it, that mischievous smile on Jade's face made him look especially handsome. A devil on the outside, he was still the clever young boy from their snowy town.

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?” Dist muttered, putting his eyes on the path ahead. Jade moved up beside him then, but Dist pointedly continued to avoid looking at him. If he turned and looked at him, he was sure that he would find him staring at him with that grin.

Jade chuckled. “You think so? I'm afraid I can't agree.”

No, of course not. He couldn't agree out loud, but he definitely agreed. He was having the time of his life. And... Even though it would embarrass him to look up and see him grinning, Dist couldn't be mad, knowing that Jade wouldn't have been smiling if he weren't truly enjoying himself. He was a difficult person to understand, but the time he spent with him all those years ago and the time he spent after, in their separation, had made him realize something.

Whether Jade realized it or not, his teasing belied his true feelings.

Dist always tried to return his remarks, but he wasn't very good at it and he always ended up as the victim of Jade's sarcasm. Peony had always been much better at it, and Dist would go to his grave cursing him for that.

But he was also kind of glad that he wasn't like Peony.

After all, as frustrating as it was, Jade only had an interest in someone who was easy to tease.

Once they were clear of the crevice's edge, on their way back through the tunnels they'd traveled before, carefully watching their step, Dist chanced another glance over to Jade. He felt somewhat surprised to find him with a serious look on his face. Perhaps he hadn't realized he would be looking. Unguarded, his expression was one of pensive thought.

As if not to disrupt the delicate cave and its even more delicate silence, Dist quietly raised his voice. “When we leave here, we won't just go back to the way we were before, will we? I hope you'll remember this. Promise me you'll continue to talk to me like you did back there.”

Although Jade laughed, the look on his face hardly changed. “So demanding.”

“Promise!”

His eyes changed, appearing soft. “You're too persistent for me to ignore.”

“Hm? That didn't sound like a promise to me,” Dist huffed, balling his fists.

“...Alright, then. As you demand,” Jade laughed. He lifted a hand to adjust his glasses like he was trying to obscure the smile on his face. “I promise. Does that meet with your satisfaction?”

“It's good enough,” Dist said, voice trailing, surprised that he really said it. “This will make your sister happy too, you know.”

“Nephry?”

“You only have one sister.” Jokes aside, he was equally surprised about what Nephry had imparted to him. “The last time I was in Keterburg, she had a word with me. She said that she would be able to rest easier at night if she knew that you and I were talking to each other. She probably intended for me to keep that conversation confidential, but I know how you are. You're more likely to listen to her.”

For a moment, Jade looked thoughtful before his eyes narrowed. “Right. I figured that Peony had sent us together for a similar reason.” He rubbed at his temples with an exasperated sigh. “Those two... I swear...”

“I should have expected as much from him. He's always up to no good.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Dist could feel Jade's stare, judging him. “If you're that desperate to sound like a hypocrite too, go ahead and judge me. Go on.”

“Oh, you're acknowledging your hypocrisy? I'm proud of you.”

Even when he managed to hit one of Jade's curveballs, it came right back around and smacked him in the face. How? How was he so good at that? It was infuriating.

It couldn't have been much farther until they reached the entrance of the cave where the path diverged. Dist was counting the steps until they made it there, eager to make it out of the cave so he could find someplace to be alone where he could bury his face in his hands and scream.

“Saphir.”

His ears twitched. He could feel them turning red.

Aghast, Dist spun around to look at him. The look on Jade's face was so... It was gentle – almost affectionate. It was like he was trying to thank him for putting up with him – or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Whatever it meant, it twisted a knot in Dist's stomach.

“D-don't just go saying my name like that out of nowhere for no reason! You demon!”

As he sped ahead, he could hear Jade laughing behind him.

“Hah hah hah! Careful now! Don't trip!”

He didn't have to tell him that. He didn't need Jade's concern.

But having it made him so happy.