Chapter Text
Wemmbu can't remember Eggchan's voice anymore.
"Huh…"
The thought made its way into Wemmbu's head like a butterfly to a flower; silently and benevolent. It was supposed to carry no weight, something that's supposed to be mundane that adds onto the normalcy he's currently doing. Nothing more but a mere passing reflection of an event that had long since passed.
Wemmbu was just grocery shopping. The air vents hummed idly behind him, he could hear a child whine about getting a toy somewhere in the alley he was in. He could feel someone bump their trolley cart to his side accidentally when his eyes had caught upon the bright, red, familiar fruit. The cheap, led light buzzed and flickered above him like a distraction Wemmbu can't focus on anymore.
The crate of apples sat prettily in front of him. It shines with the stupid light, and the water droplets look sprayed on by the workers. Nevertheless, they stared at him with pity, because Wemmbu can't remember Egg's voice anymore.
He scoffed at himself. That's stupid, Wemmbu remembers a lot of things. About Prince Zam and her stupid playground, his time with Loppezz and Rejoice in that club, his first beef with Flame. He never forgets what Mane taught him despite him disappearing, and he always remembers which day Minute pays him a visit every month, or the schedule he and Jumper had agreed upon. Wemmbu has a great memory, an even greater sense of justice and his motto of paying people back.
It means he would also remember the first time he saw Eggchan– reminisce his small, pale hands reaching out to him, his snow white hair and headwings that always shed feathers annoyingly. Wemmbu always kept note of what Egg's favorite color was, or how he liked his sandwich, his flowers of choice and how he giggled when Wemmbu told him a joke.
Or was it a laugh? Was Egg's voice always sounded so stoic? Wemmbu remembered him laughing a lot but it always sounded different each time. What about his eyes, what color was it? Egg wasn't quite awake during those last few days, he wondered if his friend was ever conscious on that day. God, what else has he forgotten—
"Yo," somebody called him, and Wemmbu tried to stop himself from jumping in surprise.
Wemmbu looked at the worker, safety vest hung bored over his shoulder and his hands holding a mop he was sure was holding itself together by a single thread. The employee's tired eyes and monotone voice had told him all he needed to know; he had fucked something up.
"You gotta pay for that," the worker pointed at his hand, and Wemmbu finally snapped out of his head.
When he glanced back at his hands, it felt wet. The apple crumbled disgustingly in Wemmbu's palm. It's sticky, and feels weird mushed around his palm. The juice dripped onto his converse and the floor, he cringes at the squeak it made when he moved his feet. The sticker watched him from the torn apart skin of the apple, and Wemmbu felt like he wanted to burn the world again.
Which would be impossible. He's not a famous villain, nor a hero of sorts. He just works as a PvP trainer in a school Parrot recommended and college just doesn't feel like something he should do. If he couldn't even handle a bunch of middle schoolers and teach them how to fight, then not being able to burn the world is the least of his worries.
Plus, he's pretty certain the Law is already doing it anyway.
Wemmbu sighed instead, "yeah, my bad bro. Sorry– uhm, Planet…?" He read the employee's nametag.
Planet– what an odd name, but he's seen more outrageous ones anyway– nodded impassively. "Just like, get out of the way so I can clean this up."
"Right, sorry man," Wemmbu shuffled out awkwardly, groceries in his basket and feet already making their way to the self checkout.
The supermarket was pretty empty for the weekday– Wemmbu didn't have any shift today, but he assumed the others weren't so lucky. The employees were gossipping in the corner of his eyes, and he was pretty sure there's only a handful of people in this whole building. Even the vegetables look pretty lonely.
Beep. The scanner echoes in Wemmbu's mind.
Ground meat, tomatoes, potatoes, snacks, coffee, cereal, toothpaste, hand soap, whatever was left off that apple and its tag, and so on; the demon listed his items, trying so hard to ignore the ringing in his ears that isn't coming from the machine.
Beep. Beep. Wemmbu wondered if he had any video of Egg in his old phone at home.
Beep.
He remembered where he put his old devices; a sticker-filled laptop that doesn't work without a charger, a dumb flip phone he got from the orphanage for his 15th birthday, and a broken up polaroid camera. They sat rotting in a sealed box under his bed, where Minute helped him pack when he moved in.
Beep.
Beep. He should have a few recordings in there, maybe some gaming clips from when he used to bring controllers to the hospital, or something stupid like an impromptu game of trivia that he managed to film through the few pixels of his flip phone.
He recorded them, surely.
Beep.
Wemmbu's supposed to have them.
Beep. Beep.
…right?
Beep.
***
Wemmbu didn't register himself going back home.
He might have gone by train, maybe he walked for the whole hour from the supermarket to his apartment; only the sky knows the answer. The sound of the dangling key was shoved to the very back of his head– pushed like how he opened his door while his guts were twisting itself. The grocery bag was thrown carelessly over the couch; tomatoes and toothpaste rolled down to the floor.
He didn't care for that, his eyes were locked to his bedroom door; opened, inviting, dreading.
He had to catch his breath before kneeling down, ripped jeans hit the apartment's hardwood flooring and something creaked in a certain corner of the room.
There– under his unmade bed with plushies long won over in arcade machines and unfolded blankets– lay boxes of memories he never knew he'd need. The boxes were taped up perfectly, courtesy of Minute, but Wemmbu could already see the wear and tear of the poor cardboard. When he dragged them out, dust flew over his face, tickling his senses to sneeze out the soot that entered his nostrils.
Wemmbu could almost hear Egg laughing at him. He didn't, of course- that's just impossible. Maybe he's gone mad.
He pushed through– using his nails to rip open the tape and reveal what each box contained. Minute would have said "told you so" if he were here. Going through multiple unnamed boxes for a very specific item is no easy task, but Wemmbu persist anyway. The procedure went like this; nails to rip off the tape, fingers to open the top, palm to go through numerous items from his past childhood he had yet to give out for donation.
The process wasn't done as gently as he's supposed to. These items were old, basically dry rotting by every touch he put on any item. It was harsh, and desperate, and god Wemmbu understands that well. He didn't want to care about that; not the setting sun outside his window and the birds flying home, not his apartment going darker because he forgot to turn on the light, not the grocery he forgot to put away, still strewn messily on that couch. He ignored the blood beading on his fingertips, nothing else should matter.
They shouldn't. Not when Wemmbu had forgotten something so, so important.
"Oh my god, finally," Wemmbu huffed. "There you are…"
It was in the last box where he felt like he could finally breathe. His numbed fingers touched something paper-like, uneven and in a variety of shapes across the cold, rectangular laptop. The back of his hand touched something smaller, and Wemmbu smiled. This time, he picked each item carefully like glass, preserving them in the most gentle way he could ever be.
He charged the laptop as soon as he found it, letting it fill up while he went to check on his flip phone. It's dusty, the screen was cracked, and Wemmbu was sure one of the buttons doesn't work unless you truly push it really hard. It's such a pitiful sight, no wonder he was pretty oblivious to the internet when this was all he had in his teenage years. He fondly recalled when Eggchan had offered to get him one of those smarter phones, with touch screens and better games. He declined then, saying something like he wouldn't need it other than for a call.
Wemmbu contemplated if he had said yes back then, would he have had more recordings to reminisce upon; something better than the few pixels that might have survived the rotting memory of an almost decade-old phone?
Click.
God, what if there's nothing in there? Memory cards gets easily corrupted from age, don't they?
Click, click.
The black screen of the phone replicated his miserable reflection, something in Wemmbu twisted even more at the sight of his undone hair and sweating forehead.
Click, click, click.
The phone wouldn't turn on, and Wemmbu's hands were shaking so bad it's infuriating. That's funny, Wemmbu could crush an apple because he spaced out a little too long but he can't turn on a god damn flip phone.
Click, click, click, click, clic—
He was about to smash it onto the floor when his eyes caught the phone charger stored in the deep corner of the box.
It twinkled with the moonlight like it's laughing at him.
"Oh, haha… right," Wemmbu trembled.
Wow, okay– maybe Wemmbu is stressing out on this way too much.
He should sit down a bit– that sounds better. He could sit while he waits for both devices to charge, calm down, maybe even put down his groceries and then approach this problem like the calm adult he is now. Like Minute and his neverending nonchalant aura, that's a respectable role model of a proper adult to follow, right?
Minute, right, should he call Minutetech? He would know how to stop breathing too fast, he'd know a lot of things Wemmbu would want to understand. But his hands were still shaking, and it didn't move to grab his phone in his pocket. The more he thought about it, calling Minute sounds a little counter productive– especially so when the demon wanted to prove to him he's ready to be an adult. Calling him for a little reassurance over something as silly as this would be the exact opposite of what he wants to do.
Which leads Wemmbu to the second best thing he could do while waiting for two devices to charge in a very dark apartment; just sit there and wait.
Because what if once he gets up to turn on the lights, the laptop's battery suddenly explodes from being unused and everything gets wiped clean? Or while he's putting the groceries out, somehow the phone gets hacked and it deletes all the recording? Spoke had done it before on an arcade game, so why can't someone else?
"Fuck…" he whispered hoarsely.
His chest hurts, his feet are sore, his hands haven't stopped shaking and Wemmbu despised this. He could go on and on for other synonyms of hate to describe his situation, jog his memory of Egg's trivia and his knowledge in language and idioms and use them just like how he did with his high school essays– but breathing is getting harder by each second, and Wemmbu is getting tired.
Wemmbu curled up even more; knees under his chin, tails wrapped around his legs and arms hugging itself, as if it could ward off the cold his apartment's slowly getting. It used to comfort him, when the orphanage was too loud and everything was too much. This is too much. He hasn't felt this overwhelmed for years, it feels wrong for him to feel like this.
It's been years. The funeral happened almost six years ago, and he hadn't skipped a day visiting Egg. He started working a year ago, graduated months before that– he's been doing so well.
He was doing so well.
All of this because Wemmbu can't remember how Egg laughed anymore, or how he sounds when he starts to yap about being smart, and how funny his jokes were. Will he start forgetting his hair color then? What about his old house, will the memory of their made up kingdom and backyard adventure start to fade away too?
Why can't he just remember?
"You're going crazy, bro," Eggchan said casually. It didn't sound right– more of an unintelligible cacophony rather than a voice he yearned to hear.
"Shut up," Wemmbu growled to the darkness.
Eggchan hummed. "Didn't even close the door properly."
Wemmbu doesn't care about that. He lives in a pretty empty apartment building, everybody knows how broke he is. The thief would probably pity him instead and give him extra cash if they see his apartment.
Wemmbu would laugh if he could just breathe properly.
"How long are you going to be like this for?" Eggchan asked, annoying like always.
He did have a point; Wemmbu's legs started to feel numb from sitting in such an inconvenient position for so long. He's getting sweaty because he forgot to open the window for air to flow in but it's freezing his core at the same time. Wemmbu shakily shook his head instead, a poor attempt to push his friend off his mind.
Eggchan didn't budge.
"The laptop is on, by the way," Eggchan informed him, calm and stoic.
Wemmbu had never snapped his eyes open so fast before, adrenaline rushed into his bloodstream. The demon crawled to the power socket and opened the laptop with the muscle memory that somehow had survived in him, ignoring the scratched up surface he accidentally caused. He's not going to use this thing anymore, it doesn't matter. Bright, annoyingly blinding light from the laptop flashed him. He had to adjust his vision, shaking off the weird rectangular shape in his eye whenever he blinked before attempting to use the mouse with a shaking hand.
File explorer, recordings, search. His eyes scanned everything he could see on the monitor that stared back with harsh light. Each file showed a gameplay of whatever free game he managed to scour on the internet; a platforming game he used to grind and rage on while Egg had already given up, one with a goat where they laughed so hard a nurse had to silence them, those cheap website games where Wemmbu lets Egg have his laptop to play while he's off doing something else. They're all here, safe and sound. Nothing was corrupted, as far as he could tell.
Yet when Wemmbu played one of them, not a sound came out of it.
Silence tightened his lungs.
"No…" Wemmbu gasped, "no, no, no wait–"
He tried another one, a shaky cursor hovering on another video, a different one on a different game; but the result was still the same. Next one, same ending. The recording still plays silently of a game they used to enjoy. He had expected nostalgia to warm him in this freezing apartment, reminiscing back old times with a laugh and something stupid that he suddenly recalled. And maybe then Egg would laugh too, and Wemmbu could finally remember how he giggled.
But in his cold, dark room with the laptop as his only source of light, it felt more like it's mocking him with its silence. An exit in the tunnel he will never reach, the stars he could never dream of.
There's still no sound from every single one of them.
Wemmbu scrambled to the phone this time, tremor spreading across all his limbs as he struggled to get up. Everything felt like he's walking on an unstable boat, one Egg used to fantasize about. It's unsteady, on the verge of breaking– all the synonyms his head could think about to describe it fades away, replaced with pure panic and fear. Like he had been turned into a prey in mere hours, over a predator who wants his mind.
Click, click.
The phone screen reflected himself; somewhere in there, Wemmbu could see white hair and feathers.
Click, click, click, click, click, click.
It didn't turn on.
Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.
The phone lay cold in Wemmbu's palm. Even when Wemmbu left the charger in, more so when he did those things where he pushed a coin in between the button to push it– it didn't turn on.
Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, cli—
Crack!
Wemmbu stared at the floor and the broken up flip phone. The spider-webbed crack spreads through the screen, each sharp edge of the glass shined with anger while it stared back at him. The phone slid away from him, even the thump of it hitting the wall had sounded disgusted. Wemmbu could feel himself agreeing as he unravelled.
Oxygen no longer entered his lungs.
He could feel Eggchan shuffling somewhere behind his curling body despite the ringing coming from everywhere– everything was too cold and Wemmbu felt too numb.
"Are you giving up just like that, Wemmbu?"
Wemmbu couldn't reply. Not when he's trying so hard to breathe and his chest hurts too much. He can't hear anything other than Eggchan's fake, stupid, inaccurate voice and the ringing in his ear that's getting louder and louder.
"Wemmbu," Eggchan called.
Wemmbu ignored it, like always.
Because that's not the real Eggchan, he knows it. He had touched Egg's cold forehead on that stupid morning, the memory of him getting buried was still fresh in his head. Egg was still in that coffin at that stupidly expensive graveyard. In that dumb suit that's too tight and the picture too perfect. Egg's voice wasn't an octave higher and he doesn't look this ambiguous in the darkness.
This Eggchan isn't real.
"Wemmbu."
His best friend is never going to be real ever again.
"Wemmbu," Eggchan shook his shoulders.
The floor felt cold on Wemmbu's cheek– he doesn't know if he's even crying or not. His eyes felt too dry, but his throat still tightened and he still can't remember Eggchan's voice correctly.
"Wemmbu bro, breathe," Eggchan said.
Wemmbu wanted to yell, to scream at this cheap copy of his best friend about the painful fact that he's trying so hard to let his lungs properly expand. Suddenly, his body was rolled to the side, facing the open door and someone was in front of him– shaking him, physically.
"Egg…?" Wemmbu gasped, the word slipped out way too easily out of his empty lungs.
Eggchan looked funny in the darkness, Wemmbu thought. It doesn't look right, Egg was dead. He's been dead for years, he remembered everything– and yet Wemmbu still can't recall what his voice sounded like.
Is it his fault, for always thinking he could have enough time with him? For always letting go moments he knew would never come back– always rushing, always so impatient. Always so selfish for his own gains and he didn't take his time enough with his only best friend. He knew they would never have enough time, frustratingly so. But he's just always so god damn full of himself. He's always—
"Look at me, man. Just like– breathe with me… or something," Egg awkwardly puts his strangely calloused and hard hand on his, holding it steadily. Wemmbu tried yanking it away. He needs to stop himself before he fully realizes he's actually getting crazier.
But Egg's grip was firm, and Wemmbu didn't remember his sickly best friend being stronger than him. He tried to anyway, his nails scratched and caught on a solid object but at least it means he's trying.
He kept his eyes on the ground, refusing to look at Eggchan– doesn't want to know what would meet his eyes if he were to even dare have a glance. Will eyes find its way to Egg's cold, still corpse? Or would it be the version of him that could never grow up again; waving his iv tied hands with the smile that always wrench his heart dry?
He shook the thought off. He shouldn't think about it right now, all he needs is to get away.
"Wemmbu, bro stop– it's me," the voice said, too firm and low.
The hand moved to his cheek, calloused and firm, keeping him in place and forcing the demon to face the ghost of his best friend; and Wemmbu could finally connect the dots in the midst of his loud mind.