Chapter Text
Static:
“Suguru.”
He couldn't believe he was doing this as he raised his hands, ignoring the way they shook slightly. A quick jolt of cursed energy shot through Geto’s body, not even allowing him a final breath. Quick and easy. A problem neutralised in the eyes of the higher up's.
So why did tears fall from his eyes, and why did Suguru appear more at ease in his demise than he had in years? Why did the words that he wanted to tell him stay stuck in his throat? The words he could never tell him now, forever remaining on his lips.
He fell to his knees, cold without Suguru’s warmth. A warmth he hadn’t been granted in so long, as he held remnants close, and now the embers had faded. Wetness seeped into his trousers, crimson hidden by the darkness of the alley.
He could hear the faint pitter patter of feet against the cobbled pavement, faint cries shouting his name. Yet it sounded like static, everything felt wrong as he looked at the corpse, emotions welling behind his glasses.
A sentence escaped his lips, encompassing everything he wanted to tell the other and yet nothing at all
“Suguru. I’m going to be lonely at the top.”
His whisper carried across the skies, floating on the gentlest breeze, icy flakes following their journey.
The absence of colour:
“Cheng Xiaoshi.” The other’s eyes remained wide open, unmoving, unseeing as time passed around him, and yet Lu Guang stared at the lifeless body of Xiaoshi for what must have been the 10th timeline; in every timeline he stood transfixed, unmoving as blood smeared across his hands.
Xiaoshi’s body slumped against the floor, rail tracks, pavement, the wall. Each death overlapped in his mind as he held himself together, missing the warmth of Xiaoshi’s touch, his presence.
Every timeline, he would never save the other from his cursed fate, the node of death seeming more and more insurmountable in its rigidity as he altered timeline after timeline. Past and future changing absolutely nothing, no matter how hard he tries.
Qian Jin, Vein, Xia Fei, unnamed faces, and a figure who adorned an eerily familiar hat. All had some part in Xiaoshi’s demise throughout the timelines. He had made it far enough keeping the other alive this time, the other content, until Vein shot him. Again.
Crimson soaked into his hands, the stain following from timeline to timeline no matter how hard he scrubbed them.
He stared, raising his hands. A cold gust brushed past the mourning Lu Guang, the open window allowing his hair to be tenderly caressed by the wind, white strands falling in front of grey eyes.
Xiaoshi . The sound of a clap, carried by the wind as tears fell, taken away by the frigid breeze, the warmth slowly seeping away as it crystallised in the air.
Monochrome:
Dokja.
He blinked, watching as the other fell from grace once again, his body cold and unbreathing. It wasn't like before; he wasn’t going to revive. His skills had been removed, and against the power of the scenarios, he was an insect.
His modifier was the Demon King of Salvation, but what in this could be salvation? For him to see, to watch everyone he had ever known, everyone he had made connections with, die. To cling to a round so desperate, to hold on hope that they could reach the ◻️◻️◻️, the fates must be laughing at him.
His companion in life and death. He laughed, alone like just before he met him on that stupid bridge so long ago. His whisper was unheard by anyone else, as the wind carried his secret plea to a place no other could see, far from the reaches of the constellations. Come back, Kim Dokja.
He looked up, the trees rustling as a frigid breeze pierced the ambient temperature that had settled over Seoul.
He frowned, staring up at the sky, at the stars. Watching as one dimmed, silenced by the permanence of death in a world that was never made for him.