Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aesop sees the boy every single time he passes by his own reflection, through frost-tinted windowpanes in the streets, through puddles he steps across or every glass he peeks at. And in mirrors too-- most in particular, mirrors.

Mirrors in all sorts of shapes and all sorts of places-- mirrors that hang in living rooms, mirrors glinting in shops, mirrors that reflect off sharp light.

And the boy speaks to him sometimes, too. In witty remarks or sarcastic comments, words that Aesop doesn’t return back. Won’t. But sometimes the boy just says his name.

“Aesop,” the boy calls out to him from the reflection of a store window as Aesop hurries past, clutching his mother’s hand tightly.

Aesop does not look back. He knows what he finds if he does.

But to escape is futile-- another turn on the corner of the street and the boy is everywhere.

The boy’s appearance is polished, all kept and pristine-- carefully polished like one of those beautiful green gemstones his mother keeps as a memory of his father. Glimmering softly in the glow of the morning dawn, almost hypnotizing as it was enchanting, but when he reaches out-- the flinch back, all sharp edges and pain. His eyes are cruel-- far too cruel for someone who looks his age, if not barely older than him.

He’s dressed like the son of a noblewoman with his formal white button up dress shirt, ribbon brooch glinting gold in the rays of the weak sunlight and his black solemn shorts. White strands of hair frame his face, contrasting his otherwise dark hair.

The boy always looks the same. Only Aesop can see him.

Aesop has never mentioned the boy to the adults, but they don’t react to the boy’s sneers or the comments he makes when they talk. Or even when he joins them through reflections, mockingly, in the fashion of typical grown-up laughter, uproarious and empty.

Aesop thinks that he doesn’t like them. The grown-ups are noisy. Aesop hates when they talk to him.

They never speak to him in the same grating and rough voices they use with each other, and only talk to him in soft tones. But that doesn’t change his dislike for them. They talk to him only when they want something, and Aesop is scared because he never knows what is expected of him.

The grown-ups scare him.

Too loud. Too confusing.

He sticks close to his mother.

She’s warm. Comforting. And that is more than enough for Aesop. Nothing ever harms him when he’s buried in her arms, listening to her sing old nursery rhymes and lullabies while Aesop dozes off. There are times where he wishes that he could stay like that forever.

But even so, time is not on their side.

Aesop is no stranger to death. His father died when he was younger, too young, the other townsfolk whispered, yes, too young and what a pity, how tragic that his mother would soon follow, leaving their only son behind.

Is there any mercy left in this world? Despairs the pastor.

Aesop doesn’t understand it. Not really. But his mother tells him to not listen to the others, and that to die is a privilege.

“If I must die,” His mother had murmured, relaxing into the bed, “let it be a happy death.”

But must you go through a miserable life for it, mother? Aesop had wondered, lying next to her. He had turned to face his mother, blinking as she started to comb through his hair. 

The doctor had gently held her hand. In it, Aesop can see all practiced worry and fabricated sympathy, from the contorted eyebrows to the anxiousness in each deepening line of his forehead. “Don’t say such things.”

“Inevitable.” His mother had rasped. She convulsed, and Aesop reached out to her.

The conversation had ended as another bout of coughs wracked her body, with the doctor rushing over to help, real panic scrawled over his features.

Aesop had been sent out of the room shortly after that.

He knows that he will be orphaned soon.

Orphaned.

The other children say it like a curse. Aesop doesn’t blame them. It’s a label. Of being unwanted, of loneliness, to have a place amongst them but to never belong. That no matter what, even with another mother or a father that he will never feel the same way again, that the loneliness will linger forever like it’s a vulture circling over him, starved for the rotten carcasses of attention throw his way, all while that the terrible feeling in his chest will grow bigger and bigger until he can’t hold it inside any more and Aesop’s chest will explode.

Aesop sometimes wonders if the boy in the mirror understands that at least, because it’s only in those moments that he doesn’t talk to Aesop. Just shows himself and sits next to Aesop.

Listens to Aesop’s sobs, his wails and then his inevitable gasps for air when the terrible feeling becomes too much, choking on nothing but the presence of emptiness.

The boy never mentions those moments elsewhere.

Does he know how it feels to be lonely?

But Aesop has seen the way his mother fights, even when it's painful for her. He knows she tries to hide the blood sometimes when he crawls onto her bed, scarlet stained bedsheets shifted on her side. How she’s quick to reassure him that she’s feeling alright when he asks.

So he tries to do the same.

Ignores the murmurs from the other children when they see him, the stifled laughter after. They don’t bother to muffle their laughter anymore now. Tries his best to tune out the bits of stationary or crumpled bits of paper they throw at him. The notes they stick to his back are a bit mean of them, though. Whenever Aesop reads them (he always does, he can’t help himself, that selfish want to belong, to hope), he can’t help but wish they’d stop.

The boy, who observes him through classroom window reflections, is outraged by them.

“Are you really letting them do this to you?” The boy will hiss at Aesop.

Aesop won’t reply. He’ll brush off the bits of eraser dust from his shoulders.

“It’ll get worse. Eraser bits and papers now, but cruel children grow up to be devils.” The boy will pace back and forth in the little space he’s confined in.

Then a wicked smirk, that nasty curl of his lips, will appear. The boy will lean in closer, far enough that he’s still a good distance away but close enough to be imposing. “I could help take care of them for you, Aesop. Only if you properly listen to me. Wouldn’t you like that? To finally stop being tormented?”

Aesop will pack his books into his bag and leave.

There’s no sense in engaging with the boy. What he was, where he came from-- Aesop didn’t know, but it wasn’t normal. Aesop was sensible enough to avoid him.

The boy will follow Aesop as much as possible, from the windows of the classroom to the ice that forms on the ground on Aesop’s way home, and then through the mirrors of his own house.

There are times Aesop doesn’t mind the boy’s presence, though. When the nights are darker than usual or when the wind on the way back home from the walk to school whistles around him to fill the silence.

On those days, the street lights seem less harsher than usual.


































Fridays are Aesop’s least favourite days.

Nothing ever seems to go well on Fridays. It’s when his mother, before she fell sick, never comes to pick him up because she has to work her extra shifts. It’s also on Fridays when the homeroom teacher leaves early before noon and has the class sit quietly by themselves before the bell goes off.

Except that, of course, they never do.

“Aesop! Ae-e-esop!”

Aesop hates the way his classmates say his name. Gaping wide mouths, gleaming eyes. They look eager, too eager whenever they crowd around him. Sometimes Aesop thinks that they’re no different than the other adults, too.

Aesop usually excuses himself before the homeroom teacher, Mrs. Rossi, leaves. She never really acknowledges him properly or says a thing whenever he tries to, but she doesn’t stop him when he leaves the room either. Aesop wonders if she even knows his name.

Today is no different.

He can hear his classmates giggling as he leaves the room.

Once he’s out of sight from the door, Aesop dashes away. His heartbeat thuds excruciatingly loud in his throat. It doesn’t take long until he hears the footsteps behind him.

Aesop is sprinting now, running as quickly as his legs will carry him. The cold pinches at his knees, but the memories of past bruises throbbing through his body pushes him to go faster, faster.  He doesn't know what they’ll do to him this time when they catch him, but Aesop doesn't want to know.

A sharp turn and too late-- Aesop realizes that he’s unfamiliar with this corridor. Maybe it’s not surprising. Aesop knows the school is huge and that the classroom had been in the senior student’s wing for the day. Aesop hesitates, his feet shuffling for a second.

“Oh Ae-e-e-esop! Where are you?”

Dread creeps up his spine, and Aesop helplessly looks around for the nearest spot to hide in. He’s just small enough to slip through the gaps of a nearby door soundlessly.

It’s a small room, and it looks like no one has really been here for a long time, from the way it’s organized. The ground is littered with old trinkets and broken children's toys, splinters from wooden toy trains and cotton stuffings from dolls with torn limbs. But most unnerving of all was that in the middle of it was a mirror, dust caressed and cracked.

His reflection stares at him, almost hauntingly. The cracked shards of the mirror reflect multiple reflections of Aesop, all of them tiny and small, until Aesop is left staring at broken pieces of himself.

Aesop wants to leave. Would have too, if not for his classmates outside. But before he can do anything else, the door swings open with a screech.

Aesop whirls back in alarm.

There are two of them. A boy with scummy green eyes and his smaller friend with unkept curly hair. Crumbs are all over his uniform. Aesop has seen them as part of his class before, but he doesn’t know their names.

The bigger boy grins darkly.

“Found you.”

A shove at Aesop’s back, accompanied with the smack of paper.

It’s something new his classmates have come up with recently-- to stick a note on his back, won’t tell him that they’ve done that, forcing him to walk around school with it taped to him to make their friends giggle.

Like he’s the main attraction of a circus. Their words stings longer too. Aesop’s careful enough to make sure he never has them before he goes home, just in case his mother sees. 

The first boy shakes Aesop, shakes him so hard that Aesop can feel his ribcage rattle, shakes him so hard that the note they’d just stuck to him flutters to the ground. “Did you really think we were going to let you get away?”

It hurts.

“S-sorry.” Aesop whispers, nearly pleads.

He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing, just that he wants it to stop. And that when someone says sorry they’re forgiven and it usually means the end of all of their pain.

“What was that? Can’t hear you!”

“I… I’m sorry--”

But something in the corner of his eye, something that Aesop was sure wasn’t there before he entered the room, catches his attention.

Aesop’s breath stills as he looks beyond the boy.

Because in the mirror, it’s no longer his reflection.

It’s his homeroom teacher, Mrs. Rossi instead-- wearing her frock, dark haired and smiling. But she’s not the same. Her skin glints, like it’s made of porcelain, and as Aesop watches in horror, cracks are forming through her entire face.

Her cheeks are gaunt, a sickly pale yellow, and her eyes pitch black. Staring into them was staring into an abyss of nothingness. Mrs. Rossi’s mouth opens, but the sound that comes out of it is barely human. It’s a series of clicking noises, metal and clockwork-like.

The creature in front of him is something out of a nightmare.

Aesop’s breaths come out in quick, shallow paces.

“Cat got your tongue?” The first boy scoffs, trying to push him into a corner again, but shakes him rougher when Aesop doesn’t react to that. “Did your dead mamma not teach you to--”

“L-Look.” His other classmate interrupts. His face is pale, shaking as he gazes up at Mrs. Rossi behind the first boy. His mouth trembles, gaping. “A--a--”

The first boy snorts. “What?”

The boy is gripping his shoulder, knuckles white, expression frozen.

It’s only then that the first boy glances up.

He stumbles back in shock. The boy raises a finger, pointing from Aesop first, before slowly, directed at the mirror. Almost accusingly. A sharp cry hitches from his throat.

“Monstro!”

“W-wait…” Aesop stammers. “Wait for me--”

But it’s too late.

Whatever spell keeping them stunned has broken. The fear in the boy’s eyes swirls into disgust easily, too easily, and he slaps Aesop’s hands, that were timidly reaching out, away.

“Don’t touch me!”

He spares one last glance at the monster in front of them. His expression changes to one of horror as Mrs. Rossie leers at them, before grabbing the arm of his friend.

“Run!” The second boy shrieks.

The hinges of the door squeak just as they slip out, slamming the door.

Leaving Aesop by himself.

Mrs. Rossi bares her teeth, and her mouth turns upwards. Her lips stretch impossibly wide, wider than humanly possible, cutting into her cheekbones and then her eyes too, in a bloody, gruesome smile. Drool drips down her chin, yellow fangs gleaming amber in the darkness of the mirror. 

Aesop cowers.

Her breath ghosts against the mirror, fogging up her reflection. And Aesop suddenly remembers.

What’s in the mirror can never hurt him.

“I-It’s you, isn’t it?” Aesop calls. He tries to hide the tremor in his voice. His heartbeat is thudding in his ears, but Aesop is sure of it. “The boy in the mirror?”

In the reflection, Mrs. Rossi pauses.

The clicking intensifies, getting louder and louder. A sharp hissing accompanies the clicking.

No, not quite.

A laugh, Aesop manages to realize faintly. The reflection of Mrs. Rossi is laughing.

Her porcelain skin smoothens, face moulding into features Aesop recognizes. A sharp nose, high cheekbones, and frosty blue irises. Her long dark hair vanishes with a sweep, shorter strands of black and white in their place. Her frock morphs into familiar attire, a white dress shirt and ribbon brooch, and the boy in the mirror is there instead. It’s like Mrs. Rossi was never there to begin with.

The boy is laughing like he’s just heard the funniest joke in ages.

“Did you see the look on their faces?” The boy chortles, a hand clutching his sides. “They were shaking like leaves!”

Aesop doesn’t know how the boy was able to transform into Mrs. Rossi, or how he somehow transformed back. He’s always seen the boy. Only the boy, and never anyone else in the mirror, either.

In that moment, Aesop’s curiosity wins his fear.

“Are you real?”

The boy looks amused. He angles his head towards the direction the other children had run off. “They saw me. Although,” he adds, “You’re lucky. Most people can’t even sense my presence, and it’s rarer for others to see me even for a split second.”

Aesop takes a step back.

“I suppose this is technically our first time meeting, isn’t it? I’m Désire Mélodis.” The boy looks haughty now, arrogantly lifting his chin. He sticks a gloved hand out. “But you can just call me Joseph.”

Aesop wavers, eyes nervously darting around. From Joseph’s outstretched hand and to the edges of the mirror and to the ground.

“You’re Aesop,” Joseph says for him. He drops his hand, and leans forward. “I know that. After all,” he continues in a smug, sing-song voice, “I know everything there is about you.” 

Aesop can’t help it-- he trembles.

It goes unnoticed by Joseph.

“Are you scared of me?” Joseph laughs, more entertained than anything else. “You’re funny, Aesop.”

“I’m-- I’m not.” Aesop gets out. He stands his ground. “I’m not scared of you.”

Joseph makes a face. “You’re a scaredy-cat.”

Aesop freezes, and recoils like he’s been slapped across the face.

The insult stings. It’s like--- It’s like--

Aesop hears the voices of his classmates instead, taunting and scornful. They echo, voices amalgamating into a current of nauseating fear that swarms every other thought.

Aesop tenses.

Leave. Leave now.

This had been a mistake. He’d known that for the longest time though, hadn’t he? That nothing good could come out of responding to Joseph. Aesop, in a panic, shuffles around. His mind whirls. In a hurry, he grabs the note that had drifted onto the ground, ready to escape.

“Wait.” Joseph’s expression flutters to one Aesop’s never seen on him before. Dilated pupils, tensed arms, closed shoulders, tighter movements. Joseph reaches out again, but it’s frantic and urgent. Like he’s--

Vulnerable. Small. Hunched on himself. “Don’t go.”

His words are softer.

Dejected.

Like it’s a plea, a lost prayer, voiceless words like Joseph has already expected Aesop to leave but asks anyway. At that, something inside Aesop clenches, like his own heart is being tugged by a string on both sides.

Joseph is anything but pitiful. He has a twisted sense of humour, and laughs at the terror of the other children. Aesop knows how much he curses at the grown ups when he walks by them as well, how much he mocks them.

Joseph’s no better than his classmates who bully Aesop. Probably worse.

But Aesop hesitates. Maybe it was because he’s spent too long observing bits and bits of Joseph when Aesop looks at himself in a mirror, but Aesop can almost see himself being reflected through Joseph’s expression instead. 

“I’m sorry for scaring you.” Joseph mumbles, fidgeting with his arms behind his back. A small flush has crept up to his cheeks, and he veers his gaze away. “It’s just… I… didn’t know how else to talk to you.”

Aesop fails to hide his surprise at that.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Aesop blurts out.

“Of course!” Joseph looks startled. “It’s just been a long time and…” Joseph shifts his feet, shyly looking down again, before mumbling, “Well, no matter what I did, you wouldn’t even spare me a glance.”

At that, a small prick of guilt gnaws at Aesop. Aesop can’t bring himself to push him away. And he tells himself it’s solely because of that.

Aesop stays.

When he doesn’t move after a few more seconds, Joseph perks up, looking significantly hopeful. “Oh I know-- here!”

A flick of his wrist, and in the mirror, the paper note on the ground zips into his hand. Joseph, arms outstretched, presents the note to Aesop. “Look,” he says earnestly.

Aesop’s first instinct is to flinch away.

Why wouldn’t he? Large ugly letters, scrawled over the paper, just as loud and imposing as if spoken out loud. There’s no point in reading contents anyway. Aesop already knows what’s written-- FREAK, SHAME, ORPHAN. The others say many things about him, but it always revolves back to the same few things.

But staring at the note in the mirror, Aesop realizes that the words are different.

KIND. RESILIENT. And then-- Aesop’s hands tremble-- THANK YOU.

Aesop slowly looks down, turning the paper in his hands over.

FREAK.

The word seems to have more of its usual sting. Aesop sharply glances back up at the mirror.

“Sorry.” Joseph sounds sincere. Apologetic. He lets go of the note, and the paper flutters to the ground. “I can only change reflections.” 

The words on the mirror makes Aesop feel a little odd. Like he’s been seen. As if all of the torment he’s been put through for the past few years has been worth it, for a few kind words in the mirror.

“Why are you following me?”

Joseph’s face darkens. He lowers himself on the ground. “You’re like me.”

Aesop falters. Joseph and him felt like the furthest thing alike from each other. “How… so?”

“I lost someone close to me.” Joseph tells him solemnly. But then a grimace twists his features. He turns away sharply, and Aesop can’t see his expression. “I… I think so, at least. I’m not sure. I don’t think I remember.” Joseph’s smile has completely faded now. “I… I can’t remember much about my old life.”

Aesop doesn’t know too much about Joseph, but he understands forgotten memories. Like how he doesn’t remember anything about his father, but knows that his father must have existed at some point, too. “That’s okay.”

Joseph lifts his gaze back up at Aesop, but before he can say anything else, footsteps sound outside, signalling the end of class.

That’s enough to startle Aesop back into reality. “I should go.”

But Joseph urgently calls out to him. “Wait!”

Aesop glances back.

“Will you at least…” Joseph clings to the edges of the mirror. He fiddles a little with his gloves. “Will you at least respond to me now? If I want to talk to you?”

Aesop has no more reason to refuse. So he slowly nods. “Okay.”

Joseph smiles.

































Aesop’s mother always apologizes.

To the other townsfolk who sometimes come to visit them out of pity. That there’s no need to see her, that just sending letters is fine, no thank you, everything is okay and she doesn’t need any help, that yes, she and Aesop are doing just fine, thank you and sorry. To the doctors that treat her. 

To him, too. There are times where she thinks he’s asleep and will come in to check on him. Murmur soft words to him. Apologies for not being there when he grows up. Apologies for being a bad mother. Apologies for not being able to be there for him.

She always cries about her life afterwards, next to him.

Aesop doesn’t mind. It’s her way of coming to terms with her own death, after all.

So he always continues to sleep to the trickle of tears dripping down his arm.




























Aesop’s mother’s condition deteriorates one cold winter in June.

The doctors don’t state the obvious, but Aesop knows. That she’s just waiting for death. Aesop’s mother becomes more lifeless. She stops trying to put in effort.

Twelve days, the doctor tells her. And then no more.

There are days when Aesop’s mother doesn’t talk to Aesop or rise from the bed anymore. On those days, Aesop goes to school hungry, and has to try to make dinner by himself. The first time he tries to cook, he ends up with burn marks all over his arms. They’re an angry red, and heal just as painfully as he receives them.

The hardest bit of those days are feeding his mother. Prying her mouth gently open, to pour in some food that sometimes gets pushed away.

“Not right now, Aesop.” She mumbles. She never hurts him directly, but her rejection brings stabs of pain like needles prickling his eyes.

So Aesop spends the majority of his time by himself.

The days feel colder and colder.

The teachers don’t pay him any concern anymore. He’s overheard snatches of whispers by his teachers as he transitions between classes that they think letting him have his own time will help.

“A glorified excuse,” Joseph sneers, as they pass by another teacher, who avert her eyes when she sees Aesop. “But it is human nature, after all, to be uncomfortable with death.”

There are times when he feels like a ghost himself, haunting the hallways of his school, forgotten and left out.

Aesop doesn’t really care either way. He wishes his classmates would pay him no mind too, but their tormenting just increases. They used to at least leave him alone if he kept silent to himself in the back of the classroom, but now Aesop is the subject of their constant bullying. Some of his classmates who've never even interacted with him have started to join in, leaving Aesop perplexed.

He doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong.

“Aesop.” Joseph calls out to him again one day, when he’s walking home from school. It’s a cold afternoon, and Aesop is dressed in his father’s old coat and a grey oversized scarf. His knees are knobbly and red from the cold, but Aesop knows that his mother can’t afford much.

Aesop turns.

Joseph, who had been accompanying him ever since this morning, strolls closer to him. He passes by lamplight reflections and puddles before stopping next to Aesop by a store window. “Don’t you think your life is miserable?”

Aesop is caught off guard by his question. He doesn’t really know what to make of Joseph’s words. He’s never really thought of it.

“Pitiful.” Remarks Joseph, observing him. “Have you ever thought about coming here with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like,” Joseph gestures. “In the reflection. With me.”

Aesop hesitates. But Joseph’s eyes are innocent, not a hint of deceit laced in them.

“Can I?” Aesop bursts out. “I mean-- is that even possible?”

“Duh.” Joseph gives him a weird look. “How do you think I ended here?” He waves his arms around through the glass, stretching himself to the right and then the left. Joseph must have seen the skeptical look on Aesop’s face, because he sniffs a little. “Stop looking at me like that. You really can try coming in here, you know.”

“... Really?” Aesop eyes the reflection warily.

It seems to be just as ordinary as any other surface, and just as solid. 

“Yes, really, really.” Joseph nods, and Aesop is reminded of how Joseph can sometimes be impatient. “You can do that now too, if you’d like.”

“How?”

“Well, I can’t leave.” Joseph explained, as though it was obvious. “You’ll have to come here instead.”

Aesop hesitates again. “I don’t know if I want to…” He begins, but Joseph cuts him off.

“You won’t go all the way in if you don’t want to. It’s like stepping into another room. You can back out any time you want.”

Now Aesop eyes Joseph suspiciously. Then, because he was familiar with the pranks Joseph would play and Joseph’s personality, added-- “You won’t push me?”

“Of course not!” Joseph indignantly protests. He puts a hand over his heart. “You have my word for that.”

Even with his reassurance, Aesop doesn’t really want to.

Part of him feels ridiculous. It’s logic after all-- just as gravity would inevitably pull him down no matter how high he reached, there’s no such thing as using glass to go through another world.

But looking at Joseph’s earnest expression, Aesop can’t really bring himself to say no either.

And what was there to lose? Maybe Joseph would have a good laugh, and Aesop would look like a fool before he grumpily stuck his hands back into his pockets and headed home.

So Aesop finds his hand ghosting over his reflection. For a second, Aesop sees himself in the mirror instead of Joseph, nervous and small.

Joseph waits patiently.

Taking a deep breath, Aesop plunges his hand into the mirror.

To his surprise, his fingers brush against pale smooth skin. Joseph is cold to the touch, and it’s like he was made of ice.

Ice and the cold and snowflakes.

“Youre…” Aesop gasps, trying to stop his instinct from flinching from the chill that ripples over the rest of his body, fingers grasping over Joseph’s wrist. “Cold.”

“Am I?” Joseph laughs. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Yes. You feel like…” Aesop shudders. “Like ice. And winter.”

Then-- the realization hits.

“I can feel you.” Aesop whispers in wonder. His hand feels the fabric of Joseph’s sleeve, before he grasps Joseph’s wrist again.

Joseph’s still there. He’s not an illusion.

His sleeve is just as silky and soft as he’s imagined it to be. Caressing it feels like Aesop’s petting the fur of a small animal. “You’re… real.”

“Didn’t we clarify that last time?” Joseph looks amused, but his gaze is fixated on Aesop.

“But…” Aesop searches his face. “How did you end up there?”

At that, Joseph’s brows furrow. He purses his lips, almost into a pout, and Aesop wonders if he touched on a topic Joseph didn’t want to talk about. But his mouth settles into a line, and Aesop knows that he’s already set on telling him.

“I think I was once older.” Joseph rests his forehead on the mirror. “And I think I was… cruel. Meaner, I think. I did bad, bad things. I don’t think I was well liked, but… I don’t think I like the older me either.”

His lower lip trembles, but he continues talking. “An older version of me decided to enter the mirror world. I think he called it the camera world. And in this realm, I’m everything that was ever reflected. Every creature, living or unliving, but as long as they have a reflection, I am them.”

“Does that mean you’re not…” Aesop struggles to find the right words. He takes in Joseph: young and dark-haired, polished and neat. “You?”

“I’m the version of me you see.” Joseph looks a bit mournful. “I told you. I’m everything that was ever reflected. And this version of me is the one you’re looking at. But there are other versions of me-- other versions of you, too. There’s so many different spaces in time with so many different versions of you. Of us. And we’re always, always together.”

“Other versions?” Aesop’s mind is having trouble wrapping the concept around. “What do you mean?”

“Like…” Joseph pauses to think for a while. “Like different realities. We’re usually older in them, though. And we have actual professions too. There are so many different realities I’ve seen. You would, too, if you came with me. There’s a version of us where I’m an art professor and you’re a researcher. Or when I’m a count and you’re my musician. You play the piano so beautifully in that reality, and it’s the only thing in the world that soothes that version of me. Sometimes I go back to that universe to listen to your music too.” His voice is dreamy, and Joseph stares into some faraway distance.

“There’s another reality when I’m an auctioneer. I’m obsessed with antiques and no price is too expensive for me, while you’re a trickster that can always provide that version of me with what I need. There are other realities where magic exists too, where I’m a werewolf and you try to exorcise me. We didn’t really get along well in that reality at first.”

Joseph pauses, and then laughs. But his laugh is restrained. Scornful, like he’s mocking himself for it.

But Aesop… Aesop believes Joseph, despite the absurdity of his words. Everything Joseph is saying sounds strange, but the tone he’s talking in and even his eyes has a certain solemnity in. And then again, Aesop has always been able to see Joseph through reflections.

“Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? You asked me why I’m following you. And maybe… maybe that’s it. That in this time, in this universe… that I hoped that you might choose me again. I just want someone that can understand. Wants to understand. So…”

Joseph’s grip tightens ever so slightly on Aesop’s hand. But he’s gentle enough his grip is nothing more than just a slight increase of pressure on Aesop’s wrist. “Stay with me, Aesop.”

It almost seems too good to be true. And for a second, Aesop is tempted to agree.

Such a lovely thought to have. That someone wanted him, that he’s cared and thought about but most importantly to be wanted to that extent.

But the answer is obvious.

Aesop looks back at Joseph steadily. There’s a small part of his heart that feels like it’s being torn, like his soul has been broken into shards of bits and bits and that it’s all going up into flames.

Part of Aesop wonders if he’ll regret it. But he’s never believed in fairy tales.

“No,” Aesop tells him.

He removes his hand from the reflection. His hand leaves the reflection easily, as if breaking the surface of water, cool and fluid. “My mother needs me.”

“Alright.” Joseph whispers, but he doesn’t seem surprised.

He doesn’t look at Aesop anymore.

His gaze betrays nothing, just endless spans of blue, blue, blue. Joseph closes his eyes, and his fingers brush the spot where Aesop had withdrawn his hand, as if he was searching for Aesop’s warmth.

“I understand.”























Seven days left.

A week. The doctor has given up on treating Aesop’s mother a long time ago, but he comes for the last time. Aesop sneaks into the room while they’re ending their argument over something.

“I don’t want to.” His mother is speaking, but she sounds tired. “Why take more medicine? There’s no point to it.”

“Miss, I insist…” But the doctor takes one look at his mother’s face and sighs wearily. “I understand,” he says finally.

Shaking his head, the doctor grips his briefcase. He makes his way to the door.

Distressed, Aesop clutches his mother’s hand tighter, desperately staring at the doctor’s back. He doesn’t know why his mother has chased the doctor away. She’s supposed to try her best to go on, and the doctor is the only one that can do something in her situation. But Aesop says none of it. He just stands next to his mother, whose frail body lets her only lie in bed now, silently.

Just as the doctor’s about to leave, he stops. The doctor turns back to Aesop’s mother and bows. 

And Aesop understands. A formal gesture of goodbye. Of farewell, of adieu.

I commit you to God.

But the man says nothing of it. He smiles pleasantly, and dons his tophat. “I bid you farewell, madam.”

“Good,” Aesop’s mother says softly. She closes her eyes as she hears the door slam shut. “Good.”

It only hits Aesop the next day, in his last class, a few minutes before the end of school.

Staring at his desk, Aesop slowly takes in the sight.

The lunchbox his mother had given him two birthdays ago, once clean and neat, had its contents dumped all on the desk. Muddy footprints stained on the surface of the box, and the plastic lid was bent, irreversibly damaged.

But on it, most noticeably, were the nasty scribbles that had been scrawled over it.

Aesop’s eyes trail over them.

Orphan.

He’s used to being called that now. Orphan and freak and shame, Aesop was all of them. But this time, there are no other words. Just-- orphan.

It’s like the word is taunting him. Aesop’s eyes travel across the desk. It’s all over the surface of his desk, even over its legs, his chair and his stationary. With different handwriting, different colors, red and black and red and red, but all of them spelling out the same word.

Orphan orphan orphan orphan orphan--

Aesop takes in the sight. Drinks in it, drinks it all like he’s a thirsty man in front of a river, drinks it in like it’s all that he knows, eyes wide and all over his desk.

Aesop’s used to being bullied. Have beatings thrown like stones on him, one after another, criticising and hollow. Has words like shards of glass pricking into his skin, words that feel foreign and oppressive all at once. But it feels different this time.

Oh, Aesop realizes, half-dazedly. It feels different because… because…

Because his mother doesn’t respond to him properly anymore. Because she doesn’t react even when he tries to feed her, letting soup dribble off her chin and staring at a faraway distance, eyes glassy. Because she has ribs so skinny she might as well be a skeleton, because what thin hair that is still clinging to her scalp is grey and dirty. Because, because…

Aesop’s mother has been reduced to a ghost of herself. What difference was she living from being dead?

It feels different because it’s true.

Aesop heaves, and something sour threatens to rise from his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut, and wrenches his head away. Aesop staggers.

He needs-- someone, Aesop thinks, hopelessly. Anyone.

But he’s at school, and his mom is far far away.

There’s only one person Aesop can go to now.

Aesop is barely able to keep his emotions contained before he stumbles into the small room with the mirror.  It’s been his sanctuary for the past few days, a place he’s able to escape to without anyone questioning or finding him.

“Joseph,” Aesop calls to the mirror, biting back the tightness that has begun to bloom in his chest. “Are you there?”

Silence.

“Joseph?” Aesop calls again, desperately. He claws at himself, scratching his chest. It feels as though something inside is inflating, growing larger and larger. Aesop wants it to stop.

“Aesop?”

Aesop hears Joseph’s voice before he sees him appear in the mirror. Joseph seems cheerful at first, but his expression changes to a look of concern as he notices Aesop. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not.”

“You look like you’re on the verge to.” Joseph brushes at the mirror. At Aesop’s face. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I thought I already knew.” Aesop whispers. “But Mother--” his lips wobble, and Aesop has difficulty talking. “She’s--” He chokes back the pinprick of tears. “She’ll be...”

Dead.

Aesop can’t say it out loud. Doesn’t dare to. Childish of him, really-- he knows it’s just a delusion, a fantasy he’s made up. But it feels better that way. That if he doesn’t say it, if he doesn’t think too much about it, if he avoids it long enough, that it won’t come true. 

That Aesop won’t have to live without his mother.

Aesop’s breaths are coming out in short exhales now.

Aesop will be by himself. Truly alone, without anyone. To live was to live through everything. All the good and the bad, even if some days hurt more than others. Even if--

A flash of green spiteful eyes. Of laughter, of jeering. Smacks of paper against his back, and the scalding humiliation that came with it.

But everything was bearable. Because he had his mother. But after that...

Inevitable as it was pointless.

Aesop has never understood his mother more vividly than in this moment.

“I’m scared, Joseph.” Aesop whispers.

He curls up on himself, grips his arms around his knees, tightening his hands as he goes on. “I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared.” The more Aesop repeats those words, the more real they feel, like an incantation.

It’s not fear, he thinks to himself dully. Fear can be felt in his chest, in his limbs when they grow tense and frozen. Can be felt in his heart. What he’s feeling right now is a numb, all encompassing terror but also the knowing, something like a horrified realization that’s started to dawn on him, a dark hazy veil that’s being draped on his head and then his shoulders before it will cover the rest of his body, slowly but surely. Aesop doesn’t know what he’s meant to do.

He breaks it off with a choke.

“Joseph.” Something sharp and wet creeps into his voice, and Aesop scrambles to his knees, trembling in front of the mirror. “Please, Joseph. Didn’t you say you could reflect anything?”

And Joseph, Joseph who’s stayed with Aesop his entire life, Joseph, who’s seen everything Aesop has to go through, has never refused Aesop.

“Of course.” Joseph props his head against his hands and smiles, staring at Aesop through the glass. “What do you want to see?”

“I don’t know.” Aesop sniffles. He rubs his face in his elbow, and sniffs again. “Something… something happier. My mother happy.”

Joseph tilts his head, thinking for a moment. Then he smiles.

“I can do that.” Joseph reassures him.

The mirror blurs, and Joseph's appearance shifts. “A different world. And in it, you grew up with your mother.”

The reflection sharpens into focus.

Aesop's mother smiles at him. She looks older, but happier. Her hair is whiter, but she looks healthy-- with flush decorating her cheeks and her eyes shining with joy. But when she speaks, it’s Joseph's voice. “The both of you are happier here.”

“But that’s not-- fair.” Aesop’s voice shakes. Reaches hungrily into the mirror. Desperate. Frantic. All he touches is cold, hard glass. “Why couldn’t that be me here?” 

“I don’t know, Aesop.”

And suddenly it was Joseph again. Joseph, who smiles bitterly back at him. Joseph lines his fingers up with Aesop and for a moment, Aesop can feel him through the mirror. His touch lingers even when Joseph trails away. “We always want what we cannot have.”

“But I still want it.” Aesop cries.

Then, like venom tearing out of his throat, the confession rips itself out viciously. “I hate my life.”

And the worst part of it was that it was true.

His vision blurs with tears, and Aesop chokes it down quietly.

Joseph crouches down. “Don’t say that.”

“But I do,” Aesop sobs. “I do.”

“Still, it’s something you mustn’t ever say.” Joseph gently pats his reflection in soothing up and down motions.

“Don’t I have a right to hate it?”

“You’re not wrong for desiring better.” Joseph hums. He leans his head on the mirror. “I think it’s a very normal reaction. But this life is all you have.”

Aesop can’t respond. He’s shaking his head hard, still sniffling.

“I can’t help you with anything, Aesop. I’m not physically there. Believe me when I say I wish I could.” Joseph turns his head, so that they’re face to face, watery silver in calm blues. “But I told you I’d be here whenever you need me.”

“Really?” Aesop whispers.

“Yes, really.” Joseph reassures him. “Of course. As long as you’d like me to stay.”

Aesop opens his mouth to reply--

There’s a sharp, snapping sound by the door.

Aesop flinches. Joseph shifts his gaze up, looking at something behind Aesop, but Aesop already knows what’s happened.

Joseph’s expression becomes guarded. “Aesop,” He starts, “don’t--”

A laugh from behind, incredulous and mocking. “Is he crying?”

Aesop’s heart drops. He slowly looks back.

A few of his classmates are at the door. They’re clinging onto the doorframe, almost innocently, as if eavesdropping on a conversation, but Aesop isn’t fooled.

“Don’t you know? It’s probably because his mommy’s gonna die soon.”

“Are you by yourself again, Aesop? Awwh!”

“I-I’m not--” Aesop hurriedly rubs his eyes, trying to hide his face. But someone grabs his arms, and his expression is exposed to the others, vulnerable and defenseless.

“Such a baby.” A small girl sing-songs. 

Aesop is used to having some of his classmates bully him. It’s usually the same faces, the same voices, and that he can handle, maybe just one or two of them. But it's the first time all of his classmates who bully him are surrounding him together, eyes glinting maliciously.

He’s scared.

“Leave him alone, you brutes!” Joseph snaps. He’s on his feet, and his fists are clenched at his sides. Then a whirl, and it’s suddenly Mrs. Rossi in the mirror, imposing and tall.

Her eyes are blood red, and they glitter ferociously. Her skin is crackling and black, just like last time. It’s terrifying, and even Aesop, who knows it’s Joseph, can’t help a shiver of fear.

Mrs. Rossi towers over the mirror. Her voice is icy, a stark contrast to the warm and cheerful tone Aesop usually hears from her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

But the children continue snickering, not a glance even thrown at the mirror. As if they couldn’t hear at all.

Ms. Rossi falters.

A flicker, and it’s back to Joseph again, blue eyed and tense. He has the expression of trapped prey, cornered and haunted, but Aesop understands.

Joseph can’t help him again.

Aesop is alone.

The older kid continues his taunts, his face contorting into a leer. “I hear your mommy goes to the graveyard while you’re in school.”

“Really?” The girl gasps. “How’d you know?”

“My aunt tells me. She says Aesop’s mom gets on her knees in front of her husband’s grave while Aesop is in school to pray.” The kid roughly nudges Aesop with his shoe.

Aesop hunches, trying to curl into himself.

“Do you know that, Aesop? She prays to die quickly because she wants to be with your dad and because she doesn’t want a child who’s a freak.”

“She would… she wouldn’t say that.” Aesop whispers.

But trying to protest was futile. Once they got hold of something, anything that made him react, they would gleefully torment him about the same thing for days and even weeks. So Aesop closes his mouth and clenches his jaw firmly.

“What did he say?”

The other boy shrugs. “No clue.”

Hands lunge out at him. Aesop cries out, kicking them away, but the tallest boy steps in. With a grip on both his arms, he wrestles Aesop into place.

“Joseph--” He gasps, fear lurching in his heart.

Joseph scrabbles against the mirror. “Aesop!”

The tall boy frowns. With a rough shove, Aesop is pushed out of the room. “Who’s he talking to?”

The last thing Aesop sees of Joseph is his frantic expression, horrified and helpless, until the other children block his view.

“How’d I know?”

The small girl giggles. “Freak.”

Squeals of laughter. More curious eyes and fingers poke and prod at Aesop. He cowers away, wilting.

“What is he doing?” The boy imitates Aesop, exaggerating by pulling at his face and fake whimpering. “Look at him!”

“He’s so weird.”

Aesop says nothing. He silently casts his eyes down, head hanging, and waits for their judgement shamefully.

“Not very responsive today, are you?” One of them-- Aesop doesn’t remember his name, just that he was the first of his classmates to torment Aesop-- shakes him roughly. Aesop winces. He grins at the boy holding Aesop. “Shove him in the closet.”

“Where are you--” Aesop doesn’t finish his sentence. Another pair of hands grab his right arm. Aesop tries to pull away, but the boy tuts.

“You’re not getting out so easily this time.”

Ignoring Aesop’s cries, they drag him to the end of the hallway.

They only stop in front of a closet, before giving each other identical grins.

It used to be where their old art teacher kept her supplies, but after she had left, it was mainly empty, left to collect dust and cobwebs. Which meant… spiders.

Aesop’s attempts to escape grew increasingly frantic.

“No--” Aesop claws at the boy, but gasps in pain as the boy’s grip on him tightens. “Please--”

The cabinet has already been opened.

The boy holding him gives a grunt of effort, holding Aesop to the door. “In you go.”

Aesop manages to cling onto the outside of the cabinet, one last attempt.

“He’s not going in properly.” A frown. “Huh.”

The voice is answered by another scoff. “Does that really matter?”

A slam, and all Aesop registers is agony, white and searing, on his fingers. Aesop jerks his hand back, before he realizes what he’s done. But it’s too late.

There’s a final thud, before all light vanishes.

Aesop claws at the doors desperately. “Let me out--”

“Do you hear that?”

Through the small gap in the door, Aesop manages to make out the other children.

Aesop bangs against the door, louder this time. “Let me out!”

“Barely any noise at all.” The girl's voice floats out. “It’s like he’s actually dead. Maybe he’ll even thank us for letting him join his parents.”

A gasp, but it’s followed by snickers. “You can’t say that!”

“Like I care.”

They’re interrupted by a faint ringing.

Someone gasps. “The bell!”

An excited clamouring from his classmates. “It’s after school now!”

“I can’t wait to finally go home.”

Their footsteps sound through the hallway, echoing further and further. Aesop tries to wrench the doors open. They don’t budge, and Aesop slumps back in defeat.

A voice rings out in the dark.

“Don’t move.”

Aesop pauses. “Joseph?” He asks warily, lowering his hand. “Are you here?”

A sharp sting of pain shoots through his palm and Aesop yanks his arm back. The motion is accompanied with a sudden intake of breath. His throat lurches, and dust, sandy and rough, rushes into his lungs. He has a brief moment of panic when he realizes he can barely breath to begin with in the enclosed darkness.

Aesop gags, wheezing and trying to clear his throat.

“I told you not to move.” Joseph’s voice, irritated, floats from somewhere to Aesop’s left.

“Joseph…?” Aesop, still coughing, manages to get out.

“Yes, yes. I’m here.” Joseph sounds unamused.

The cabinet doors, although closed, weren’t firmly shut. A sliver of light peeks into the cabinet, enough light for Aesop to see Joseph’s frowning face.

“I think there’s some broken pieces of glass in this closet which I’m in now. Not the best, but given your situation…” His voice trails off, and then Joseph snarls angrily, “Those-- bastards!” 

Aesop’s eyes widen.

Joseph starts to pace back and forth. “Did you see that? The absolute deviants, all scuttling after their leader like mindless sheep.” He sneers. “Just a few days ago they were squirming on the ground at the sight of their angry teacher.”

“You too!” Joseph whirls around to Aesop. “Don’t just sit and accept… whatever miserable situation this is. Watching you is absolutely frustrating.”

Aesop jolts at the fury in Joseph’s eyes.

But the anger wasn’t directed at him. It’s not a bad feeling, but the idea makes him feel odd, like he’s unused to it.

That someone else feels anything for him.

So Aesop dips his head, intentionally to avoid eye contact. He raises his arms, and tries his best to knock against the doors of the cabinet. His fists pummel helplessly against the rotten wood. His attempts barely make any indents or even noise for that matter.

Instead, Aesop’s fingers brush against something wispy and moving. Aesop has to fight the stab of terror that shoots through him, and he gasps, shaking his hands.

“Help--” Aesop tries to call, but dust rushes into his lungs. He ends his sentence in a bout of coughing.

“Ugh!” Joseph hisses. “You’re useless.”

Out of the tiny hole Aesop can peek out of the closet, he sees Joseph materialize from the other side of the hallway, through the windows.

“HELP!” Joseph yells.

It’s still afterschool, which means the hallways are littered full of people. Parents walking with their children, teachers who chatter to each other, and the happy giggle of other children who can’t wait to go home.

But despite the amount of people in the hallway, no one reacts to Joseph.

Joseph stomps over to a woman with hair tied neatly in a bun. She's smiling and nodding at another woman who’s chatting to her. Aesop’s stomach lurches as he recognizes the child whose hand the woman is holding.

It’s his classmate who locked him up. He’s looking up at their teacher earnestly, eyes shining as his mother converses with her.

“Excuse me,” snaps Joseph. “But the child you are talking about--”

The teacher and the mother continue their conversation like Joseph doesn’t exist.

There’s no point, Aesop wants to tell him. He’s invisible to them all anyway.

But Aesop can’t get another word out. He’s still coughing, lungs filled with dust and cobwebs and debris. Every intake of breath is a struggle. His throat tightens, and Aesop smacks his own chest in a desperate attempt to stop, each effort punctured by another rippling cough that hacks through his body.

“--help Aesop! When have you done anything for him, you stupid buffoon of a teacher? He’s suffering right now--”

Spit flies from the edges of Aesop’s mouth. His throat hurts.

Aesop curls himself up into a ball, muffling his mouth with his elbows, whimpering, shuddering with the effort to even out his breathing, to stay silent. His body is still shaking, but the coughs are subsiding quicker this way.

Aesop lies his head tiredly on his knees.

“Agh--” Joseph helplessly turns to another man. “Can you hear me?” He demands. “My friend-- he’s trapped--”

The man walks past Joseph.

“Miss--”

The woman doesn’t take heed.

“Please!”






































Dusk is falling. The skies outside are darkening, and no one else is in the school. Aesop is still trapped in the cabinet. Next to him, Joseph is in shards and pieces of broken mirror.

He looks miserable.

They don’t say anything for a long time, side by side in the darkness.

Joseph’s voice is a whisper. “I wish you could have a happy life too.”

Aesop just shakes his head tiredly.

“I’m sorry, Aesop.”



























The clanging outside the cabinet jolts Aesop awake. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have at some point.

He can hear humming. Garbled lyrics, too.

Joseph’s voice speaks in the darkness. “It’s the janitor.”

Aesop doesn’t startle at it anymore. “How do you know?”

“I checked. He’s heading to the closet. You’ll finally be able to go home now.”

At the mention of that, Aesop’s eyes fly open in alarm. He forgets his exhaustion. Home. Which meant… which meant…

His mother.

Alone by herself, at this point for hours and hours. Scrambling forward, Aesop panics.

He doesn’t need to do anything else though, because there’s a sudden thump of something against the cabinet door. A light jostling of keys, and then there’s a final creak as the key twists in its slot.

Faint light and fresh air rush out.

Aesop crashes on to the ground. The janitor, a bulky man in a uniform, gapes at him. In his hand is a mop, and he has a bucket of water at his feet.

The man seems astonished to see Aesop. “What’re you--”

But Aesop never hears the rest of his sentence. He scrabbles up. And then, wildly looking around for the exit, Aesop flees.


















He doesn’t stop until he’s at his house.

Aesop bends over, gasping and heaving.

The skies are completely pitch black now. The nearby streetlamps flicker, but a few moths are clustering around the orange lights. Everything is silent. Not a single soul is out on the streets.

Still hunched over, Aesop leans on the door, letting the cool night air chill his face. A few minutes pass by that way, his heartbeat eventually slowing down, before Aesop turns to the door.

The door of his house swings open with a creak. He closes it behind him softly.

“Aesop.”

His mother’s voice.

Aesop freezes.

He slowly turns.

Bleak yellow light pours from the open room onto the dark corridor. His mother’s shadow stretches over the wall, enveloping him.

Two mugs lie on the table, one in front of her and another opposite her. She’s wrapped her hands around her mug, one finger slowly tapping its rim. His mother doesn’t look at him when she talks.

“Do you know what time it is?”

Aesop shrinks back. He’s never seen her this angry before.

“Do you understand how worried I was?” His mother rasps from the table. “How many times I’ve called your teachers?” She rises to her feet unsteadily. “There was no response at all. No one knew where you were.” 

Aesop’s shaken. He tries to open his mouth to respond.

Sorry--

But the words don’t make it out of his mouth. Instead, Aesop coughs again, gagging. He fights it back, his hand instinctively moving up to cover his mouth. A flash of red.

“... You’re bleeding.”

Dread slowly pooling at the bottom of his stomach, Aesop wheezes, clenching his hands into a fist, ignoring the way the wound throbs, trying to hide the cut from his mother. Every inhale hurts, like there’s an invisible shard of glass piercing his heart, digging into the deepest parts of himself.

“What happened?”

He doesn’t answer, panting, glancing at Joseph who’s behind his mother, observing the scene from a glass cabinet.

A cabinet. Aesop feels sick, and a wave of nausea starts to churn his stomach.

He staggers, stopping only when he’s back to back with the wall.

“Aesop?” His mother crouches down. The anger is quickly starting to fade out of her eyes. In its place is worry, concern edged with panic. “How did you cut yourself?”

“Tell her.” Joseph murmurs. The reflections of light in the room glint faintly as Joseph makes his way next to Aesop. His expression is unreadable, but Joseph places a hand on his reflection. “You have to.”

No. Aesop fervently shakes his head, trembling. He’s been handling his situations fine himself. He won’t tell his mother, not especially when she’s all panic and grief and raw emotions, unsteady, like just another tilt would send her off the edge.

He mustn’t. He can’t.

“Let me see.” His mother firmly grasps his shoulder.

Aesop snatches his hand back. Only to realize what he’s just done and freeze.

But that’s all Aesop has to do before his mother understands.

Aesop’s mother’s gaze flickers all over his body, the first time she takes a good look at him ever since he came home. She takes in the dust on his clothes, the scrapes where his knees have battered against wooden doors, and the gash on his arm. A moment passes, and the realization crosses her features as she connects everything for herself.

She exhales sharply, her voice hitching.

Aesop stammers out before she can say anything first. “Mother, it’s not what you think--”

He stops speaking when Joseph shakes his head grimly.

You have to tell her.

Aesop swallows.

His mother wobbles forward. Her body is frail now, nothing but a vessel for her bones, skin barely stretching to accommodate them. One more step forward, and she collapses on the ground in front of Aesop.

“How long has this been going on for?” She whispers, and she sounds weak, so weak and tired and defeated.

Aesop’s voice is small when he answers her. “I don’t know.”

His mother puts her hands to her face and wails.

And it’s like watching a flower unfurl on itself. Folding and then flutters of red and white, to crumble and then remade again, a hundred different times in a hundred different petals. Various emotions flicker all across Aesop’s mother’s face.

To bloom only to be swallowed by itself, death everlasting.

“My life has passed.” She breathes, and pain shines like tiny stars shining in her irises. They shine brighter and brighter as her eyes tear up. When she goes on, she seems to be talking to herself more than Aesop. “Mine, but I will be your only mother. And I have wasted it all on nothing instead.”

The stars have burnt out, but their scorched marks mix together in a swirl of anguish. A tear slips off her eyelashes.

It leaves a wet mark on her shirt.

“Oh, Aesop.” His mother is properly crying now, tears fully streaming down her face. “Angelo mio,” she whispers, and she pulls him into a hug. She gathers all of him, and holds him to her chest. To her heart. “My baby. Stellina mio. Mamma is sorry. So, so sorry.”

Aesop can’t move.

It’s like he’s made out of plaster, all dry and frozen and crumbled. Aesop wants to comfort his mother, to say that he’s okay and it wasn’t that bad and that all he needed was her anyway. That he’s strong and big and that she doesn’t have to worry about him anymore.

Aesop doesn’t know when he started to cry. But once the tears start, it’s impossible to stop them.

He wishes he was older.

Aesop hates his tiny body, he hates how clumsy he is with his fingers as they tremble as he tries to wipe his mother’s tears, he hates how it feels like the plaster is sloughing off his heart with every breath his mother takes, gripping him like he’s her lifeline, her anchor amidst everything else that’s gone wrong. Like Aesop is the most important thing in her life, and to see him hurt is worse than being wounded herself.

But he’s just a child.

So Aesop clutches onto his mother just as tightly as she is onto him, sobbing into her arms, snot running down his face, finally letting himself release all of his tears.



























“Do you still feel sad?” Aesop asks Joseph. It rained the entire morning, but the skies are clear and blue now. He’s talking to Joseph through a puddle while drawing stick figures in the mud.

“Huh?” Joseph is still laughing at something Aesop had previously said.

“For the person you lost.”

“Oh.” Joseph’s smile vanishes. He touches his chest, and curls his fingers reflexively together. Like he’s prodding his heart. “I… You know I don’t remember anymore. But I do. Constantly. There are just days where it hurts less than others.”

“Do you think he misses you?”

“I don’t know.” Joseph says thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

Aesop hums, and finishes his drawing. He completes the last stroke, the arm of the taller winged figure with long hair and a halo, so that both stick figures are holding hands. “Maybe.”




























His mother acts differently after that.

Poor thing. The older ladies shake their heads as they see Aesop’s mother giggling with him, skipping through streets, holding hands. She’s gone senile.

They do say people act differently right at death’s doorstep.

Aesop doesn’t care. He’s having too much fun, laughing and smiling with his mother. His mother lets him skip school these days, and they spend their days wandering around town.

Today, they go to a cafe. His mother orders a whole cheesecake-- Aesop eyes widens when he hears that-- and a small coffee.

They sit on a table on the cafe’s second floor, next to the window and overlooking the street. The cake has been packaged up prettily for them in a gold and red plastic wrapper. His mother had unwrapped it the moment they got to their table, handing Aesop a fork before she had started to eat, daintily cutting off an edge before bringing it to her mouth.

Aesop tries the cheesecake. Tentatively at first. The cake, smooth and rich, melts in his mouth immediately. His eyes sparkle and he reaches out for more of the cake.

“You haven’t tried coffee before, have you?”

Aesop shakes his head.

His mother takes one spoonful of her drink in the little spoon on the side. She blows on it before carefully handing it over to him.

“Try some of it. But be careful,” his mother warns, “it’s still hot.”

Aesop takes a sip and immediately spits it out, coughing. The pretty red-and white checkered table cloth is stained with coffee.

“Aesop!” His mother gives him an affronted glare, although it’s amused.

He looks at her pleadingly, gasping and spluttering. Too bitter!

His mother’s gaze softens. “Oh, my poor baby…” She laughs, dabbing the sides of his mouth.

Aesop notices Joseph through peeks and glimpses of the day: the footsteps of someone else when it’s supposed to be him and his mother walking alone, the white peek of fabric that whirls away just as Aesop sees it. He has a feeling that Joseph is listening in on their conversation, but Aesop’s grateful for the sense of privacy anyway.

“Do you like the cheesecake?”

Aesop nods, and his mother smiles.

“Once, your dad took me to a pastry shop in a city called Paris. It was the best cheesecake I’ve ever had. I told him that, and your father joked that it was his presence that made it taste so good. Oh, he really was such a wonderful gentleman…” Her voice turns dreamy. “I would go back if I could. It's a pity I won’t be able to take you.”

Aesop studies the back of his fork. It’s not the first time they’ve spoken about her death so casually, but it’s rare that they have a conversation about it without his mother grieving over a life she never could have.

“Have I ever taken you to the sea, Aesop?”

Aesop shakes his head.

“When you’re grown, you can take yourself there. It’s just a bus ride away.” Aesop’s mother takes a sip from her cup. “You should go to all those places for me, Aesop.”

“But… what should I do after you’re gone?” Aesop’s voice is small. 

A sigh, and his mother puts her coffee down. “You’ll be adopted. An orphanage, most likely. I have an old friend who might be willing to adopt you. I could contact them if you’d prefer.”

But she wasn’t done speaking yet. Aesop waits. “... But?” He prompts her, when she still doesn’t say anything.

His mother looks out of the window. It’s a bright day, and the sun’s rays are shining down on them.

“Be happy without me, Aesop.” she says simply.

She doesn’t say it like a sigh, or show any remorse or misery. She says it like a wish, her final request of him.

And Aesop has always been a dutiful son.

So Aesop blinks, and bows his head. “I will, Mother.”
































His mother passes away in her sleep.

A peaceful death. The pastor bows his head. She will be missed.

Certainly, certainly. The other townsfolk whisper. We will miss her. A peaceful death, a lucky death, for is there any other way to depart more mercifully?

Aesop knows better than to believe anything they say.

But when he sees her lying on her deathbed, emeralds clutched in her hand, a faint smile curling over her lips, Aesop knows that they tell him the truth.



































“You don’t need to make this decision, you know.” Joseph says.

Aesop is in front of his mother’s grave.

The funeral had seemed so far ago, with it being a rushed occasion-- the carrying of her body, the burial, the hasty condolences, and then the awkward pats on the back.

But it doesn’t bother Aesop. He’s already come to terms with it in his own way, a long time ago.

“I know,” he tells Joseph.

“You don’t want to stay?”

Aesop considers it. Growing older. Taller, more solemn. Spending the rest of his life here. Staying in the town with all its townsfolk, to live the same every day, going to school, to work, monotonous days that bend into each other. To follow unspoken rules, living within invisible lines, and maybe he’ll even have a wife and then children of his own and live in a house like his mother’s.

Aesop knows he cannot stay.

“No,” he says firmly. Aesop raises his eyes to the gravestone. Joseph’s blue eyes met his in the reflection of the smooth marble stone. 

IN LOVING MEMORY: Y.R.
XXXX - XXXX
LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER.

Aesop touches the gravestone. For the briefest of moments, he feels sorrow, sharp and fresh, piercing through his heart. And Aesop lets himself grieve, one last time. He presses his lips to the stone.

Goodbye, Mamma.

Aesop steps back, and takes a shuddering breath. “Take me with you, Joseph.”

“If you wish.” Joseph bows, and offers a hand to Aesop. “You already know what to do.”

So Aesop takes it.

He reaches out, but this time his hand passes through smooth marble, into the reflection. Joseph gently lifts his hands, supporting rather than grasping.

Joseph’s skin is still freezing cold. Aesop can feel the ice through Joseph’s gloved hands, chills running through his body. But Aesop welcomes it this time. Learns to relax into it, learns to trust Joseph.

Aesop puts a foot into the reflection, and would have lost his balance immediately, if not for Joseph holding him up. It feels different than just having a hand in the reflection. Like he’s suspended up in empty space, weightless but at the same time being pressed against in all directions. Moving feels significantly difficult.

Aesop wavers.

He’s dangled over the edge of the unknown, without any footing or certainty of anything else. Another step in, and Aesop would be forever removed from his old life. There would be no going back.

“I won’t let you fall,” Joseph promises.

“I know.”

And Aesop realizes that he believes it. That he trusts Joseph. That Joseph has been at his side faithfully, accompanying him, and Aesop has no reason to think otherwise.

But despite that, he pauses. “Wait,” Aesop manages.

Joseph tilts his head.

“What about… the splintering? To be everything reflected?”

“Sometimes I’m a butterfly.” Joseph laughs. “But sometimes I’m a fish too. But at the same time I’m a tiger. And I’m many, many people. All at once and none at all.”

Aesop trembles. His grip on Joseph slackens. “Then if I go with you, will I be all these things?”

“All these things,” Joseph reassures him, “but with me.”

That’s all Aesop really needs to know.

“I want to go to…” Aesop remembered bright mornings and bitter coffee. “Paris. I want to see the stars. The ends of the universe. I want to see the ocean, too. And… And everywhere else.” 

Joseph smiled softly. “We can do that.”

“Really? Everything?” Aesop looks up at him, hopeful.

“Why worry?” Joseph links their fingers together. He grins, and Joseph is properly smiling at him, unrestrained and joyful. “We have all of eternity.”

Eternity.

Aesop smiles back at Joseph shyly.

So, letting himself fall, Aesop went with the boy in the mirror, into his reflection on his mother’s tombstone. Joseph takes him, and Aesop easily slips past the veil of the living, of the physical, into the inky darkness that stretches before him like a shroud. Aesop slips just as easily as slipping into sleep, drifting off thinking of faraway colorful lands and different skies, carried away by the sound of his mother’s gentle humming and the smell of milky warmth.

Then, for a long time-- and will be for a long, long time-- there is Joseph and Aesop.





































The next morning, the townsfolk find the boy’s body, curled up against his mother’s tomb. Frost, like a gentle embrace, has blanketed softly over his skin. The boy is cold and unmoving, fingers frost-bitten and blue.

A singular yellow rose is blooming from a nearby bush.

The townsfolk have never seen such a sight. Red roses, yes, but never yellow. It’s an oddity.

Someone reaches out to pluck it out, but is stopped by another man.

Let’s leave it, he says. It’ll probably die on its own anyway.

So they do. They huddle around the body of the boy instead, they leave him lying next to his mother. Another grave is made, too quickly, too soon, someone mourns, and the whole thing is finished in half a day. They clean their shovels and head home.

That will be the last time any thought of the boy crosses their minds. 

But when the morning mist comes again, the yellow rose is still there.

It has braved the dead of night, the coldest of winter. Its petals are the loveliest shade of yellow, a beautiful hue of amber-gold. Its edges are slightly wilted, and some of its leaves have fallen atop the graves it resides upon, but still, still--

It lives on.