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Soushirou couldn’t ‘sleep’. He woke up in the middle of his hibernation, crawling out of the giant white sheet that cover all of the gems that were sleeping as well. Looking at his friends sleeping peacefully, he quietly walked out of the hibernation room. Of course, he made sure to not step on any of the sleeping gems and close the giant door.
When he walked down the corridor, he walked past Director’s room. Curiosity got the best of him, leading him to peek behind the door. There, he saw an unfamiliar gem talking to Director.
“How long has it been since I fell asleep?”
“Exactly a hundred and twenty-six years, Gen.”
Soushirou was watching closely as Director, Isao, spoke to the gem named Gen. However, he was too caught up in his own quest to be a peeping tom that he forgot his step. He was leaning too much on the door, unintentionally pushing it open with his body. Loud thud could be heard echoing and when he looked up, he found Director and Gen were staring at him.
“Soushirou? What the hell are you doing here?” Gen walked toward him, forcefully pulling him to stand up. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“I uh… woke up, can’t sleep,” said Soushirou with an awkward smile, “do I know you? Have we like ever met before… Gen?”
Gen looked at Soushirou in disbelief. He was about to yell, but looking at the purple gem’s legs he already found his answer. Immediately he rushed to Isao’s side, being huffy and puffy. He was grabbing Isao’s body by his shoulders. If one were looked at Gen’s pink irises, one would’ve found out that he was that angry.
“Hey old man! I demand an explanation!” Gen pointed a finger at Soushirou. “What happened when I was sleeping?! Why is he looking like that?!”
Soushirou was quick to pull Gen away despite not knowing why the seemingly older gem looked so mad. “Calm down! Don’t be like that to the Director! I can explain it!”
“You—” Gen took a deep breath, slowly calming down from his rage. “I’m all ears.”
Soushirou told him about his previous fight that left him unable to retrieve his shattered legs. From the start to finish, he couldn’t help but notice the hurt in Gen’s eyes. While he didn’t have a clue about their past relationship, he could feel his feelings were resonating with him. Seeing Gen’s somber face, the pain grew even more aching than he liked it.
“I see…” Gen sighed. “Parts of your body have been shattered beyond repair and that sea slug gave you agatized shell as legs? No wonder you can’t remember me.”
“I’m sorry Gen.” Soushirou felt sad, but he was quick to cheer up in order to lighten up the mood. “But hey, we can always create new memories, right? At least my legs are sturdier now.”
Those words made all the anxious feeling within Gen disappeared, leaving a smiling him for Soushirou and Isao to see. He proudly crossed his arms in front of his chest, nodding in agreement. He then grabbed the sword from his back and tossing it to Soushirou. Watching him stumble as he tried to catch it was fun.
“Hey! Don’t throw that at me!” Soushirou protested. “So… does this mean I’m going to help you?”
Gen nodded. “Yup, we’re both going to do the winter duty together. You better try to beat my record, bowl cut.”
While Soushirou had little understanding of his relationship with Gen, he found himself nodding to Gen’s words. He waved goodbye to Isao as he followed Gen out of the room, happily listening to him talking. They were going out to the field, but before that, they made a quick stop at the weapon storage room to pick up an extra sword.
“So… I’ve always been a light sleeper?” Soushirou muttered after he listen to one of Gen’s stories. “I guess I’ve lost a lot of myself that I even lost the majority of my memories of you…”
Gen couldn’t help but chuckled as he unsheathed his sword. “Well, knowing how fragile you are and the chaos with those sea slugs, I’m more surprised you still remember the Director. Anyway, we’re going to destroy these huge lumps of ice and snow.”
Soushirou looked at the scenery in front of them, he felt a bit nervous as he held onto the sword in his hands. Seeing this for another first time made him worried about the what-if scenario; Soushirou was afraid he’d get shattered and Gen had to deal with it. He didn’t want to be a burden, as he was already fragile and easy to break, the least he could do is trying not to get shattered.
“It’s going to be okay, Soushirou.”
“Eh?” Soushirou blinked a few times, staring at Gen in disbelief as he watched the older gem getting into position. “Gen?”
“I’m going to make you The Strongest after me.”
Soushirou was mesmerized by Gen’s movement as he watched him dashed through the huge piles of snow. The longer he followed Gen’s movement, the more he saw those snow piles gone one by one. It was fast, a bit too fast for Soushirou to follow yet somehow, he managed to do so. He held onto his sword tightly, mustering courage and will power to do the job.
‘You can do it, Soushirou!’
“Now that it’s almost done, I can teach— hey!”
Soushirou ignored Gen as he began imitating his earlier move, getting rid of the other snow piles. It was rather easy for the older gem to follow the movement, creating his own pace that benefit his rather fragile build. However, perhaps he got a bit too cocky that he decided to try and break the ice surface. He raised his sword high, slamming it onto the ice and—
CRACK!
“SOUSHIROU!”
Soushirou was surprised to see both his arms fell off with a loud thud, along with the increasing creaks on his body and face. He fell on his knees, struggling to keep his body intact. He could only muster an awkward laugh as Gen approached him with an angry face, yet he wasn’t afraid at the slightest. The familiarity brought some sense of comfort, as if some part of his body remember that the younger gem was just worried of his well-being.
“You stupid!” Gen quickly used his hand to support Soushirou’s body, holding his waist after he picked up his fallen arms. “I was about to tell you that you can do the snow duty for today, not the ice too!”
“Hehe, I’m sorry.” Soushirou laughed as he was leaning against Gen, walking to their ‘home’ to patch him up.
Soushirou was surprised to see how gentle Gen handled him, a bit gentler than the way Mina handled him. It was nice to see he could rely on someone else for this duty and not always bothering Mina, because he couldn’t and definitely won’t wake her up.
“What? Am I that handsome to the point you forgot how to blink?”
“Ah—” Soushirou must’ve been staring for too long. “Well, I’m just curious. Gen, tell me… what are we, exactly?”
Gen stopped applying powder over the previously crack spot, now solely focusing on Soushirou. “What do you mean what are we? We are gems, duh.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Soushirou sighed. “I mean… why do you seem to know how to take care of me? Why do you know so much about me?”
There was a haunting silence between them, one that was so uncomfortable that Gen had to laugh to brush it off. He continued applying the powder over Soushirou’s cracked cheek, then he sat down beside him on the bench. He held Soushirou’s hand, shyly looking away to avoid the purple gem’s eyes.
“Gen?”
“We… were so close,” Gen smiled as he began to tell his story. “On that winter day three hundred years ago, when I was born, you were the first gem I saw. You taught me how to do the winter duty based on the research you did, observing my class with Director because you couldn’t sleep, then…”
“Then what?” Soushirou leaned closer. “Just tell me, please.”
“Then you asked me to be your ‘wife’. You said you want to explore the mankind relationship, asking me to be your partner for the rest of your life.”
Soushirou’s mind went blank. He did remember he do something like encyclopedia duty back then, but he didn’t remember to ever trying to commit an experiment about it. The cracked legs left at the bottom of the sea must’ve where he lost his memories of Gen. For some reason, Soushirou began to feel intense emotions of anger and disappointment.
“I… I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “if only I wasn’t this fragile, I could’ve—”
“Stop, there’s no need for apology. You only did what you could, besides,” Gen leaned against Soushirou’s shoulder, “we can always create new memories, us as husband and wife.”
The strange warmth that filled Soushirou’s chest brought a smile to the surface. Without even realizing it, he brought his hand to Gen’s cheek. He could feel the younger gem’s purr, thus he began to hum a song for him. It was another strange melody that he had no memory of, but some part of his body remembered it. A song to put them at ease, to forget that they were living in a world where the Lunarians always coming after them.
Their day went by just like how Soushirou normally did with the rest of the gems; doing chores then patch him up on his crack spots. It was tiring yet boring, but it wasn’t like that for him. To Soushirou, spending time with Gen brought some sense of his former self that he had forgotten. Building back his memories with new pieces, happier ones.
Alas, happiness weren’t meant to stay too long.
“SOUSHIROU WATCH OUT!!”
Too late.
Soushirou already caught up in a fight against the Lunarians that appeared from a strange sunspot. He was trying his best to deflect the rain of arrows directed at him, keeping the damage at minimum. Still, it’d be a lot if they collected lots of small pieces from his body. He didn’t know what to do, totally at lost that it messed up his rhythm.
CLANG!
Soushirou’s arms were torn off, falling into the depth of the ocean beneath the ice. He lost his balance, catching a glimpse of Gen rushing to defeat the Lunarians. While he couldn’t fully focus his mind on the battle, an arrow shattered the ice beneath him. It was revealed that a box made out of gold and titanium alloy, suddenly turning into liquid and covering all of Soushirou’s body. It almost felt like the thing itself was alive, trying to devour Soushirou and trapping him in a box made out of its materials.
‘I can’t see everything from here!’ Soushirou thought, trying his best to break out of the jail. However, having his arms torn off was the only thing that made him struggle. He couldn’t kick the solid materials because he’d lose his balance and drowned, bumping his head was also out of the question due to how fragile his composition. Again, his weakness made him agitated. The longer he watched the glimpse of Gen fighting against the Lunarians, the more desperate he became.
“Please… please let me go!”
“I have to fight with him!”
“Gen!!”
Soushirou was almost being swallowed whole by his fear, but it all came to and end as he watched the Lunarians disappeared. Gen fell down to the ground with a loud thud, one arm missing but everything else was good in his eyes. Soushirou was happy to see Gen came back, though he was beaten quite bad it still better than being turned to dust.
“Hey Sou, miss me?” Gen chuckled as he approached the box. “Little prisoner is trying to get out, eh?”
“Yeah.” Soushirou leaned against the box, still drowned in the alloy liquid. “You look half dead, haha! We should ask Director to help us patch our wounds.”
Gen nodded as he laughs. With his left hand, he tried to crack open the box to let Soushirou out. Still, it was a real struggle with only one arm. Soushirou who saw that tried to open it by pushing his back against it, forcing it to open from the inside. Despite the struggle, they were laughing with relief.
“We should really get back soon,” Gen kicked on the box, “but this damn thing won’t budge!”
“Yeah—” Soushirou groaned as he pushed from the inside, “—we should. We need to patch you up and—”
CLANG!
The sound of something shattered ring across the field, followed by the sight of Gen’s head falling off from his body. His neck was gone, shattered into tiny pieces and fell onto the ground. Gen, who still managed to maintain his consciousness, smiling at Soushirou as he moved his lips. There was no sound, but he was sure the purple gem could understand what he tried to say.
“Keep on living, Soushirou.”
Soushirou couldn’t believe what he saw. Gen, one of the strongest gems in the organization, being taken down just like that. His eyes and mouth were wide open as he watched the Lunarians took Gen’s shattered body and leave with it. The calm on his face, his wife’s face, it cut so deep in him to the point the alloy was starting to listen to him.
‘Don’t take him away…’
‘I only have him…’
‘Gen…!’
“GEEEEEN!!”
The box was shattered, revealing Soushirou’s figure desperately trying to reach out to Gen. The alloy mixture seemed to have become one with him, pushing him to the sky as he tried to catch up with The Lunarians. He was so close, so close to get Gen back to his side.
Cut them.
Cut them all.
Continue to cut until there was no more of them.
Still, even with his desperation, Soushirou was nothing but a small gem that couldn’t defeat The Lunarians all by himself. They were too fast for him to follow, so he made one last desperate act. He threw his sword toward them, hoping it’d reach them despite the fact it couldn’t. He stared in despair as The Lunarians disappeared from his eyesight at the same time as he fell down. Some alloy escaped through his eyes as he mourned for his loss.
‘Ah… again…’
‘I failed to protect someone again…’
‘Gen… it should’ve been me who being taken away…’
Soushirou looked below him, noticing that that he almost reached the ground. Closing his eyes, he didn’t care the fact he could shatter again. A weak gem had no place, after all. Still, it was by luck that Isao came to his rescue and Soushirou fell into his arms. With alloy kept flowing through his eyes, he looked at Isao.
“Sir, tell me… what is this feeling? Why—”
Why it’s not stopping?
“You’re grieving,” said Isao as he took him back to the building, “and crying is part of the process.”
Grief, so much grief his small body could handle. If he, a being made out of stones, was already overwhelmed by this, he couldn’t imagine how humanity handle this kind of pain. It was too intense, so intense that he passed out.
Another two hundred years had pass just like that. There was a single figure standing in the grass field, holding two swords on his back as he just finished fighting against another Lunarians. He put the swords back on their scabbards, then turning his back around as he heard someone called out his name.
“Soushirou! I came here as soon as I can, but it seems that my help is no longer needed,” the black gem smiled as she approached him. “You’ve really change, haven’t you?”
“Hm? What do you mean Mina?” Soushirou was frowning at the question.
Mina couldn’t help but sigh. “Ever since Gen being taken away, it felt like you… never mind,” said her as she shook her head, nudging Soushirou’s shoulder, “you really see Gen as your role model, huh? Let’s get back now. The Director is calling us.”
Soushirou looked at the puddle of water near him. Looking at his reflection, he could understand why Mina would say that. His hair was no longer in bowl cut, although it was more like a messy bowl cut his bangs slightly parted on his right side, revealing his eyebrow. True to that, Soushirou was trying to fill in the gap that Gen left. Still, it was useless.
No matter how hard he tried, he’d never be Gen. The hole that he left him with would never be whole again.