Chapter Text
“Alright Sorey, we’re almost there… Take a right here… No Sorey, this way. Wait, are you peeking? Sorey, no peeking!” Mikleo teasingly scolded his friend and jabbed him in the side with his elbow. Sorey laughed as Mikleo continued leading him through the narrow caverns.
“Okay, okay, I'm not looking!” The grin on his face looked permanently plastered there. One of his hands was held over his eyes, blocking out his vision, and the other lay securely on Mikleo’s arm as he guided him along. The water seraph could feel the soft locks of Sorey’s long hair brushing against his arm as they walked. As he turned a final corner, Sorey still attached to him, Mikleo nudged him to stop there.
“Okay Sorey, open your eyes.” Mikleo said with a little note of excitement in his voice, which only made Sorey’s goofy grin wider. As he removed his hand from his face, light brightened his eyes through old cracks in the ruin walls. Mikleo saw his eyes slowly adjust and focus onto the mural that Mikleo was motioning towards. His face contorted with a frown and the littlest crinkle in his nose that he got when he was deep in thought. The sight was too cute, the white haired seraph thought, and he was worried at this point that his grin was wide enough to crack.
“Hold on… Is this of me?!” Sorey’s eyes lit up as bright and as beautiful as they do when he's excited, and Mikleo can't help but laugh at the reaction.
“It is,” he walked over to the newly born seraph’s side. “I believe about two hundred years after you started your sleep. Some artists came in here to carve it. I assume it's up to your artistic standards, your Shepherdness?”
“Mikleo!” He poked at the other seraph’s side, hearing a short gasp and feeling him flinch. There was a small moment of realization and a mischievous smile now pointed in his direction, and he knew then that it was on. With a swift movement, Mikleo ducks the next of Sorey's attacks and his hands go straight under his arms. A brutal move. Sorey bursts out into an uncontrollable laughing fit as Mikleo tickles his armpits, tears twinkling the tips of his eyelashes and his smile stretching from ear to ear. He locks Mikleo’s arms in his, leans his own hands to the other’s waist, and tickles the spot with absolutely no mercy. Mikleo giggles and tries to wiggle out of Sorey's grasp without luck. Mikleo is able to get enough air to shout out his surrender, and after another playful poke, they look back at each other with tired grins and hints of affection shared between their gazes.
“Okay,” Mikleo huffs, still catching his breath. He flashes Sorey a warm, gentle smile. “What do you think?”
Without realizing, Sorey blurted out, “So beautiful.” Awkward silence. Sorey snaps his head toward the mural, and then back at Mikleo, and he finally understands. “Th-the mural, right!”
Mikleo stares at him for a few quiet moments, in slight confusion at what Sorey had just said. He can feel his face get warmer, but he brushes the comment off with an eye roll and a “Wow, smooth move, Sorey,” which only betrayed the flush rising to his cheeks.
Sorey laughs and brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. He brings it back down to Mikleo’s and held his hand gently, fingers intertwined, only making his cheeks redder. “Well, the mural is beautiful, but you're even MORE beautiful.”
“...That was the cheesiest thing I have ever heard, Sorey.” Mikleo replies. “And I've heard your poetry.”
Sorey raises an eyebrow at the comment and gives him a lighthearted smile. “What? Is it really that bad?”
“Yes, it is really that bad. It's really, REALLY bad.”
Sorey and Mikleo share an amused laugh at Sorey’s expense. It all felt so natural and familiar to Mikleo, and he was delighted that Sorey felt the same. It was like the times they would share hundreds of years earlier as kids, under a clear blue sky in Elysia, the light breeze tousling their hair as they ran and played, sunlight filling the eyes of two innocent youths who had yet to see the evils of the world. Even after 600 long and lonely years waiting for his Sorey, his one and only, nothing felt different. He looked back up into his eyes, ‘like looking into a deep, sparkling pond’ he thought, but suppressed it.
“What do you think, Sorey? Wanna head back?” Mikleo grins kindly at him.
Sorey looks at him, then gazes back at the mural. “Um, actually…” He digs around in his bag and tugs out a rough looking pad of paper, a bottle of ink, and a quill.
“Ah, I see… You're going to draw the mural.” Mikleo observed. He knew how much Sorey loved to draw, especially for others. It was like the sketchbook had been an extension of him since they were young. While he wasn't so good at putting poetry into words, his art had a language so eloquent and divine that words could not compare. It's the kind of thing people wouldn't expect a guy like Sorey to be so talented in. But to Mikleo, this was as common knowledge as knowing the grass is green or water is wet.
“Well, not entirely.” He rubbed his neck sheepishly again. “I was just thinking about how empty the mural looks, and…” He looked at Mikleo with a gentle admiration. “I was going to draw the mural with you in it too.”
Mikleo looked back at him with surprise at first, but then that surprise melted into a small smile and slightly rosy cheeks. He walks up to the spot in front of the mural where Sorey now sat sketching and plopped down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. He snuggled his head into Sorey’s neck, resting it on his shoulder and breathing in the scent of his long, now blonde hair. Mikleo felt Sorey’s head nuzzle into his as Mikleo closed his eyes peacefully. It was such a content feeling, just being close to Sorey, feeling him there next to him. His first eighteen years were spent cherishing the moments they had together, short and fleeting as they were. As seraph and human, they could never spend their entire lives together. And now, Mikleo didn't have to worry about the threat of lost time.
They have an eternity now, after all.