namelessprayers

[namelessprayers]

"i'm not in love with you." till says unprompted, a clarification out of the blue on the steps outside their school's decrepit gym. it's warm.

ivan's heart clenches, but not unexpectedly, maybe just in some customary relinquishment of hope; resigned, like the sentence has been a long time coming either way the cards decided to fall.

he knew they were never really in his hands anyways. till holds every winning play and will receive the pay off of any gamble in relation to ivan, as is the nature of their friendship, of their subtly predestined magnitude marked in the stars.

"alright. why should i care about that?" responds ivan, in a way that sounds practiced in its indifference, not a hint of sullen defeat to it. the shaky sincerity of till's statement (confession?) dissipates in an instant, a wisp in the wind of their many bittersweet memories.

for a second, ivan thinks that this'll be one of those stained days, wherein his emotions become a little too intense to keep the events unclouded in his mind. then, he looks at till's indignant face as his cheeks flush an embarrassed red, and the possibility of such a fog is vanquished by his overwhelmingly pitiful fondness.

"what's wrong? did you think i didn't know that?" ivan inquires teasingly, though almost genuinely wondering over till's answer.

"no, asshole, you just don't get it." when till barely splutters out his bold summation, ivan feels a bit like he's missing something, but nothing clicks into place immediately.

in lieu of what to do, ivan idly hooks his ankle around till's leg. their sides press together and the concentrated scowl in till's eyes lightens. the magnetic frequency that always draws ivan to till seems to preen at this course of action, heightening at some invisible wavelength correspondence this proves.

"yeah," says ivan, suddenly slipping into a state of enough confidence to lean his head on till's shoulder, "i don't get it at all." it's warm.

======

there's no obsessive nature in ivan besides the one exception of till. if it weren't for ivan anchoring himself at the other's side, drifting through life and school and work and into death would be as simple as just that, drifting.

yet, ivan does get a bit caught up in the semantics and debatable dichotomy of the admission found in 'i'm not in love with you'.

when someone says that, especially pertaining to till, it seems direct and clear cut and like setting a boundary. or it should (but ivan might be severely overthinking it). still, the way till voiced it so abruptly, offered like a branch extending to the root of something deeper; ivan is nearly delusional enough to trick himself into thinking that till might've been coaxing him into confessing a feeling of his own.

too bad that it would only be plausible if it were any pair besides them.

so, decidedly, ivan reaches the end of the week by walking till to the bus stop and telling himself that he is not obsessed because he never has been and never will be.

======

"he said that? really!?" squeaks mizi, her eyes welling up with tears under her lashes, looking more disconcerted than ivan felt when he first heard it himself. "i don't understand... it's just wrong! how is it even fair? why would he say it randomly like that? how could he!?"

sensing the imminent breakdown of distress, sua glares from behind mizi, pointedly indicating that ivan fix this at the threat of a beating if otherwise. sua doesn't pull her punches, so ivan tries his best, beginning with placing a placating hand on top of mizi's head which is an attempt that fails spectacularly as soon as it starts.

when mizi full on wails, ivan realizes his mistake and quickly mutters about having to pick up till from band practice (an excuse that sua glares at because she's the only one that recalls them all being in the same band).

however, regardless of sua's skepticism, ivan truly does have a scheduled meeting time with till. it makes him feel a little better to have told that much of the truth after inadvertently making mizi cry.

======

it's been two weeks since the 'i'm not in love with you' incident, as hyuna has taken to referring to it. somehow, the whole band has caught wind of it despite till being none the wiser, if not a bit confused by mizi's sorrowful looks between him and ivan whenever they're standing next to each other (which is more often than not).

at first, ivan took to the technique of waking up every morning and going to see till with the mentality of 'i'm over it already' as a halfhearted mantra for manifestation. unfortunately, it fell through pretty quickly after a couple of days where ivan came to remember that 'i'm never getting over you' is a phrase that exists primarily in his vocabulary and readily within his skillset.

luka, the smug bastard, uses the opportunity of ivan's momentary lapse in normalcy to get under till's skin constantly. in turn, this gets on mizi's nerves, who tells luka not to let the not-so-secret secret be revealed to till who already knows but doesn't know that everyone else also knows. it's quite confusing, but not really that confusing when sua hops in to defend mizi (as typical). then, followed by hyuna using herself as a human scale to balance the forces of the band's intermittent chaos (as is also typical).

all the while, ivan moves on to stage two of what might be grief or consolation. he adjusts, because technically, he's been doing this since forever. meaning, he repeats 'i'm used to this' whenever he gets the urge to say he actually loves till or express it in various other horrifyingly excruciating displays.

ivan only falters once in this process of acclimation, when till deftly wipes a smear of dirt off his face in a second that has the world stopping and gawking and ivan's poor body weak to a violent bout of close to collapsing syndrome. the casual manner of till's frown and adorably wrinkled nose in confusion at ivan's dramatics just serving to make his pulse thrum that much more irregular through his veins.

somewhere, seated behind the drumkit (at hyuna's benevolence), luka stifles an obnoxious laugh at ivan's simultaneously paling and colouring skin as he feels an inch away from an early demise of affection overload induced heart attack.

======

"sounds like you got a predicament, loverboy." announces hyuna from the rim of her drink at the bar, her snarkiness showing how much luka has unwarrantedly made an influence. "i mean, it's weird, because he still doesn't look at you far off from how sua looks at mizi."

"what's that supposed to mean?" ivan asks, ineloquently, since he's slightly drunk and will probably puke if he thinks too long about the way sua stares at mizi. "it's not the same."

"yeah, it totally is." hyuna nods after taking a generous swig from her overflowing cup. it won't be long before she has to go find luka in the bar's crowd to cut him off. they drink at the same rate, but luka gets smashed significantly faster than anyone else.

"is it?" parrots ivan, totally unconvinced by her drunken state of conviction. his inkling of hope flickers.

"mhm. possessive, i'd say. sure, sua loves mizi, but she's also a possessive girlfriend if i ever saw one!" the aforementioned 'possessive girlfriend' whips her attention around to hyuna who suddenly seems very sober. ivan sighs as hyuna dashes to fetch luka, slumping forward over the wooden counter, resolving that the issue needs to be confronted as soon as possible given a few more lenient business days to breathe.

======

"are you not even a little bit in love with me?" ivan dares to bring up out of the blue when they're sitting on the same steps in front of their school's old gym. it's cold today.

it goes so silent that ivan almost thinks till didn't hear him, but that would be too nice a fate for the universe to afford him, so they're forced to seep in a terse quiet for an uneasy moment too long.

though eventually, ivan relents, turning his head to till who's surprisingly already glaring at him with a cutting focus. he resembles somewhere between a disgruntled stray cat and a snake about to kill ivan in one bite. part of ivan wishes it's the latter.

"well," till says, parsed out through gritted teeth, "are you in love with me?" he finishes the question sounding more like a demand, intently staring at the ground where their shoes are mismatched but aligned.

ivan blinks. he thinks about the current chill in the air and the ghost of sunlight on their skin about a month ago. he thinks about till pursing his lips as he spoke the dreaded sentence, dropping the statement like a prompt. he thinks of his own gaze, wilting a tad, reflected by till's own. apparently, ivan has one card.

"is that what you wanted to hear?" the politeness might as well strangle the both of them, but ivan is being honest about this, achingly direct. he wants to hear the truth and only the truth in return.

"that's what i thought you would say." responds till, like clockwork, before his expression screws up as if it was just a slip of the tongue to comment such a sentiment. "if you meant it, anyways." he amends, trying to brush it off. "i guess it doesn't matter now."

the accusation is pretty clear, 'you didn't say it then, so you won't mean it if you say it now; you're too late'. ivan thinks of gambling and the stars shining bright across world, listening in, as if he ever had something worth betting. it feels divined, anticipated, when it finally falls. his heart clenches and it hurts in the right way.

"i am in love with you." ivan whispers, softly, like it's a phrase the world will remember for him and reinvigorate if given enough time to flourish. "you don't have to say it back."

"okay. okay." murmurs till with equal softness in his tone. his head leans against ivan's shoulder, conceding or admitting to a gap in the lines. "i'm sorry." uncharacteristically, till sounds sincerely remorseful. for once, ivan doesn't need to steel himself against looking and allows himself to linger on a single glance. "you get it, don't you?"

ivan nearly asks 'how did you know', but they had both always known. maybe that was always the point. if it was anyone else, ivan isn't sure they would've stayed all this time. and till is right here, close enough to touch, perhaps even to keep.

"i get it." says ivan, because he does. "i know." he smiles into till's hair. it's not that cold anymore.

[namelessprayers]

the boy savior is a title that sticks, a moniker that echoes, a declaration that cannot be silenced nor overlooked.

no one needs to know its origins once they see him in the flesh, backed by a crew of those he rescued and a flourishing haven that he carved out of scarce advantages. though, this doesn't particularly matter when jinx knows, had known, and likely always will know.

because in some muffled up and oppressed corner of her psyche, she still dreads the laughter and joy of two children roaming the undercity in youthful vigor. she cannot remember the turning point, but she knows the destination at the start and in the after; from powder and ekko to jinx and the boy savior.

"something bad happened. something really bad happened. i didn't mean it. i didn't want to hurt you. would you hear me out? you know you're all i've got left." in childish naivety and ignorance, jinx sometimes hears the wandering thoughts of a child reverberating through her mind. she can't place whether they sting worse than the hallucinations or haunt in an entirely different way. "please don't leave me."

of course, it's not the voice, but the words being tampered and relayed and echoed without real reason. without merit, even, as jinx never got the chance to plead half of it aloud. she had never told the boy savior her story and her broken wishes and the things he learnt second hand through ash of soiled mouths.

instead, when jinx was just a forlorn image wavering within powder's chest, there was ekko slinking away at the announcement of silco's new leadership. after that, the last drop lacked a certain presence and the undercity's streets grew lonely as powder morphed into jinx.

"the boy savior." mocks jinx, tramping down the small part of her that asks if he would've stayed, that asks if it will really end this way; what states that everything in her life will only ever amount to uselessness.

======

"this won't fix me." she says, as ekko busies his hands with the scarce resources they have left at their disposal. he doesn't bristle, hardly shifts to look up, only letting his lips crease downwards minutely. jinx doesn't continue for a long while, idly twirling a wrench in her hand, content to stare at ekko from her seat on a cluttered workbench. "this won't fix us."

she blows out a long puff that almost bleeds into a shrill warbling whistle. jinx uses the larger end of the wrench to motion between them before jabbing the other side right above ekko's ear. he scoffs lightly, reaching his free arm up to bar her from poking him.

"i didn't claim it would." he responds curtly, since they've already made it far enough as is, far enough to plague the rest of his waking dreams and numerous nightmares. a shared workbench, a slew of resources and tasks divided between them. ekko came this close to it in another reality once, and now again, and then probably never.

"what are you planning with all of this? make like a boy savior? fight a war and win, check. save everyone, check. reform the world's most successful walking curse into an innocent childhood friend," jinx clicks her tongue in a condescending flippancy, "currently in progress. am i right? i'm pretty sure i'm right."

"yeah. you've got it. i'm the boy savior, and i'll save you, even if you don't want me to." dryly mutters ekko, inspecting a rusted nail to evaluate if he can repurpose it for something else.

jinx plucks it right out of his hands and gives it a critical once over before flinging it into an empty oil cannister nearby. it clangs on the metal, rust on rust, abandoned object against abandoned object. ekko is sure that the sound of this memory will haunt him forever.

"you shouldn't try to restore things when they can't be fixed."

leaning back on the heel of her palms, gaze unfocused up at the dimly lit sky visible through a hole in the ceiling, ekko considers jinx with the same eyes that he saw the nail. the saddest truth is that she has no rust, that she does not need restoring or fixing, that powder only became devoid of creative use when she tried to be useful at all. in relation to that, ekko wishes they could be nothing, together perhaps, but nothing in the grand scheme of all destruction and formation.

[namelessprayers]

hornet holds no belief in ardent and insistent apologies. she holds no value in reverence and restoration. she was raised in the belly of a beast and now they all live in the corpse of a perpetually dying god.

they have survived together, revived together, and it seems they are sinking one final time into an uncompromisingly long lasting demise.

what price must be paid for the dues that history demands? what sordid thing did they do to trample and be trampled on in response? what were the gods and their most trusted of bugs thinking?

a fool on the throne. a heart that pumping nothing to the bones. a plethora of actions that led to defeat where there was no battle to begin with.

hornet sees no light when the door closes. the entrance shutting must be the nail in the coffin or the bell of a new day tolling. she will not be alive to know whichever result comes to fruition.

there is no merit to acts. there is no merit to thought. there is nothing to believe in. but perhaps, success in death can be realized after all.

[namelessprayers]

it starts with a donut. everything, everywhere, and then the donut.

so, it happens to be that vash is pretty sure he could just about swallow the donut whole if it weren't for the horrific consequences that might come about as a speculative result.

speculative, intact and delicious looking donut. translated, vash's self control vs the unparalleled laws of physics. further diluted, the barrel of the gun that clicks against his forehead and the very enticing donut that waits for vash on the countertop.

if he reaches for it, there's an approximately fifty percent chance that the man will not shoot, leading to the donut in vash's digestive tract for a total of five blissfully unvaried seconds.

then again, a man of wit would consider the opportune likeliness of grievances along the way. see, vash notes the angle of the table being at a bad spot. he'd have to move in a direction that almost guarantees he'll get shot if the guy with the gun decides to fire. which he might and might not.

vash pats himself on the back for impulse control and an echoed kind of accomplishment as he eyes the donut remaining inactive.

wolfwood would say he's a sure idiot. wolfwood would label the circumstance a matter of human nature vs vash's stubbornly masochistic resolve. wolfwood would call him a needle-noggin and either clear out the men through some persuasively violent methods or smash the donut to bits beforehand.

either option not currently being in the cards makes vash feel relieved on behalf of the man pointing a gun to his head. vash is also pretty glad that he'll probably at least manage a bite of the donut.

let wolfwood call him a moron for waiting this sort of situation out. especially, definitely, because of the donut.

in vash's gaze, it's just another coin toss in a world of coin tosses.

wolfwood would probably snatch the coin midair and call vash a dumbass for wasting a perfectly good resource in a world where there is too little of everything, everywhere.

and so, vash would pointedly respond, shouldn't you get me that donut? to which wolfwood, vash's very accurate and highly realistic mind palace version wolfwood, would do exactly that at the expense of everyone or no one depending on his mood.

it ends with a donut. maybe on the floor, maybe in vash's hands.

======

"i got ya your damn donut, didn't i, blondie? ain't that all that matters?" he says, to the trembling grasp of otherworldly fingers which can't decide on cradling or clenching the donut, unable to discern whether it's a nightmare or a dream. "it was your choice, wasn't it? you can't change it now, so stop losing your pretty little head over it." he continues, smoke blowing in the face of something, something not entirely human but still not inhuman enough. "forget it, vash. the donut never mattered this much." he laughs, to a humorless face in a humorless voice. "forget it, would you? forget me."

[namelessprayers]

"your body must betray you, for you are human after all.

it is in the nature of all things living to decay by the elements that make them matter so. but the skin on your flesh and the flesh on your bones do not make you significant, they merely make you a whole.

a doll, a puppet, a human.

they are each the same with a consciousness; the same way that even gods can walk among humans and be united if they so desire."

"and you desire?"

"i do desire, for how else could i talk to you and glean what precious knowledge of you there is to gain?"

"a look into my dreams, maybe, a mind reading. like gods are supposed to, like gods are able to. it is in your right, isn't it? i know for a fact that you can. why have such power and waste it?"

"do you not enjoy the idle semantics of mundane discussion?

human connection, in banter and such; though i have witnessed this ritualistic behavior relayed through thousands of memories and dreams, i have never gotten bored of its plaintive mirth.

there may be no way to sway your opinion on the matter, but knowledge changes and grows just as living things rise and fall.

rot conceals worth whilst wealth often conceals filth. the world is made up of dichotomy after dichotomy, each one spliced into numerous dichotomies spun from even smaller dichotomies.

i am a god. i am living. i am also nahida.

so what are you?"

"don't ask questions you already know the answer to. you acquire no further knowledge doing that, and isn't that the point?"

"perhaps. but perhaps the bare act of engagement is enough to suffice. a god has no right to be hungry, just as a human has no true right to be bored; an endless life needs no sustenance, just as a fleeting life shall be full of meaning in its shortness.

you were once a doll, a puppet, then another being. i'd say, a scorched god- ("a pitiful creature.")

-but in my perspective, you were more of a falling star.

shooting stars, you know, people wish on them. dead stars, people offer to the gods, either in retribution or hope. to have been them all, to be the star itself, prayed to and never the prayer. well, that's rather wonderful, isn't it?"

"lesser lord kusanali certainly loves her knowledge."

"yet, here, i am nahida and the knowledge that i treasure most pertains in specialty to you. what do you think that means?"

"that i truly have stooped to that level of a lowly human, resigned to the gaze of a god that never learned to make good use of her godhood. i guess i really have fallen."

"and is it so bad?"

"i think not. but i am human after all, it is just my mind betraying me."

[namelessprayers]

"i know how your mind works, ei.

you had long deduced that the threat humans posed to eternity was too high a cost for you to pay; for her to have paid, as she did with what should've been an endless reign of shared godhood.

humanity, a spirit unpredictable and untamed, could not possibly be coexistent with the eternity of immortal truths and their beings.

when you razed their ambitions to the ground and struck their skies with eternal thunder, it was still but a laughable warning of the most fleeting lightning to come.

i know that you had an unwavering belief in this course of action, in eternity bred of pure elevation and separation from the unwieldly; they too, believed fully in you to assume the throne of a goddess untouchable with ambitions raised to readily greet the heavens.

disappointed, weren't they? and even, you, of your very own self.

you believed the enemy of eternity to be so definitely human, sourced from their endings and untimely demises, just as you'd seen her fall prey to all those centuries ago.

i know you wouldn't use the word but, wholeheartedly or perhaps naively, you latched onto this truth that was more belief than fact; for when a god truly conceptualizes in an idea, doesn't it naturally become reality as a product of their latent divinity?

but there are even brutalities that us immortal beings may not escape unscathed, for all our might and transcendent power.

she had experienced this first hand without ever getting the chance to tell you, ei; the human nature of death, their single most fatal shortcoming in the face of eternity, an irreversible and final flaw.

that's where you got it wrong though.

like a goddess so high above the soil would believe, wearing the clouds of thunderous lightning as a halo upon her head, you decided that to be human was to die; to contradict and ultimately fail the law of what eternal truth seeked.

i know, dear ei, you wished for that balance; enough to commit yourself completely to mistaken belief and insatiable desire.

here, alone, you wait and wait in an eternity you claim to have created in sanctuary and protection of what is precious; despite the matter that this place is empty and desolate of any sentimental meaning.

you are wrong, but only in the gaze of visions between us. so, here's the secret and the absolute honest epiphany. consider it a gift of old friends reborn under the blessing of a new eternity;

death does not make humans- living does.

i have known you longer than i'll ever be able to pretend otherwise and i am sure that i do not misunderstand when i say; there is time for us yet to fathom those brief eclipses.

one can be human in eternity; and as a goddess, i believe you are entitled to that much of humanity just as they are entitled to you.

let your mind live, ei, let yourself live with me."

[namelessprayers]

do you believe in the great anakt?

mizi: believe? how can anyone have faith when god has already left us? if there is no god, there is no universe. without those, how could the great anakt have any merit?

luka: the great anakt? who would really buy into that? it's what the worst of performers tell themselves as a comfort, but the truth is, everywhere we exist is the stage. the great anakt is just that, a lie to deceive the weak from the harsh reality of things.

till: does it matter? praying and believing... why have faith in something beyond what we actually have control over? ourselves (our most human love and passion).

hyuna: i'll admit, i think i did once. people change, though. we experience so much, and when the great anakt doesn't change with us... well, that proves it, doesn't it? there's nothing to believe in.

ivan: why believe in things that cannot be confirmed? there are much more reliable sources of hope. there are other places where the light shines through. i'd prefer a tangible thing to believe in, over a namesake and an altar. perhaps, something permanent even, like death after living. like finding the end to the meaning.

sua: mizi used to say that believing in god was to reclaim humanity. is the great anakt god? it doesn't feel like it. not in comparison to other things... to other people. who cares of belief in the great anakt when there are far greater promises to believe in?

[namelessprayers]

sometimes wolfwood wonders if vash feels most at home with a gun pressed to his head. it would make a lot of sense, and it would hurt in a detached way, but just as a lot of other things in this world would too.

vash is not a special case. vash is supposed to be no different in wolfwood's mind. so if only wolfwood could convince himself of that, and if only the world would help him achieve that much. but if only if only would often come true.

the fact is, wolfwood has never met someone like vash. no one has ever made such a defined impression on wolfwood, at least, no one besides vash. but that's par for the course at this unfortunate point among many other unfortunate points.

he's also pretty sure that the world itself has never been graced by someone like vash too. but as all excruciating complications go, the notability of vash's obvious otherworldliness ranks low on the list.

anyone, wolfwood likes to say to himself whilst observing vash in between stolen moments, anyone could fall in love with you; it could've been anyone, and it shouldn't have been me, but i guess it is.

it really is. and wolfwood can barely admit that amount, at most, to add to his deepest regret and utter despair.

it really is awful.

but there's simply a manner which vash carries that makes it seem not so horrible a plight to be infatuated with him. wolfwood would wager on the otherworldly thing, an angelic sort of touch to vash's every decision. but there's a distinct, achingly rooted humanity about vash.

the source of that tree, the seed of whatever withering hold this world's people has on vash, it's plentiful and incomprehensible. at least, to someone of wolfwood's grounded and incomplete nature.

a lot of the time, it's impossible for anyone to describe vash, and for good reason. wolfwood would claim to spend an unhealthy stretch of time studying the man, and yet, it's still impossible to decipher whether vash is an angel because he's remarkably human or a human because he's remarkably inhuman.

who could actually glean any information about vash when he poses that much of a walking dilemma already? well, certainly not wolfwood, but not for lack of trying. everything about vash is a bother.

truly.

in the uncrossing and disconnecting lines of their moral abandonment and the ashes of one too many cigarettes, wolfwood finds a contract and then he finds an angel. it should be a done and dusted deal. it should be over. it should.

wolfwood may be unpolished, but the success of his jobs never are. but there stands vash, wrapped in a shiny layer of varnish, so polished that all wolfwood can do is scratch the surface pointlessly.

how is it, wolfwood wonders, that you could have wings and i would still think they were made of wax? the answer, wolfwood has always known since he first saw vash's face, is irony. inescapable, that irony.

it tastes like the blood in his mouth and sunlight in his final breath.

[namelessprayers]

in the space between silence, there is violence and song, fists and melody, blood and tone, laughter and lyrics, pain and words. cries are commonplace just as they are abolished.

anakt garden holds no tears, for it is said to hold all the roads to dreams; but for the dreamless child which sleeps tethered to the ground in every restless night, the stars merely function as a taunting reminder of this boulevard where their most humane sobs are only counterfeit. to that measure and sentimental length, the slums that ivan was once subjected to are peace beyond reason.

although it was dirty and filthy with meaningless souls, there was a flicker of inner truth where anakt garden coats with plastic and artificial purpose. to die, to ascend, to pass, to reach love and life and ultimate catharsis; they have promised to all of it.

then again, ivan does not believe in love. he does not have faith in god or much. he does not hopefully chase after some unseen future that may be bestowed in blessing if he wishes hard enough.

it has always been like this and always happened the same.

life is the perpetual drag of day to day, night to night, stars to newer stars, twinkling with disappointing distance all the same. love remains a foreign expression, an artistic interpretation, not made available to the programming of ivan's built in system. the future and the gods and the aliens he prays to are nothing but to serves a means that will one day give him an end of unknown value.

he drifts for years whilst standing still on the same spot with the same blank face and unseeing eyes. then silence yields, and there are precious things yet, caught within spaces between unexpected quiet.

the chorus sings that ivan exists. the violence stings that there is a body to be lived in. the melody insists on a reason as the fist flies forward to reach a target. the varying tones paint the world in an array of pure light. the blood gives color to paling and dull skin. the lyrics are bridges to a being that exceeds god. the laughter is the sound of faith restored. the words are something to revere. the pain is the truth in all its excruciating glory stripped bare.

ivan finds that till's cries are undeniable proof of a humane love once lost, destructed through the long storm, and reborn like new clouds upon another dreary horizon; because till's smile, in the aftermath of wreckage and rage, must be the reason that ivan ever got this far at all to begin with. finally, there was a star of his own to dream.

[namelessprayers]

"hyuna!"

the red flashes of warning alarms douse them. mizi's pink hair and worried face illuminated in the thrush of flickering red. a cut across mizi's cheek and a bullet in hyuna's side.

"hyuna!"

it wasn't hauling mizi's body back, wracked by mourning and immeasurable grief; it was when hyuna failed to smoothen the sobs and unanswerable queries that mizi cried.

"noona!"

hyunwoo turns around, his hair a mess but his wide grin true. he's so young. hyuna wants to search for why that is, but she can't find it in herself to face the truth. hyunwoo's still so young. in memory, at least.

"noona!"

she ruffles the top of his head. however, the scene doesn't quite meet how it should. the sun shines, a halo above hyunwoo, yet it retreats on the edges and the lively colour is unable to reach the eyes.

"..."

there is love in hatred. hyuna would know, with the dashing madness of a woman running to her death, she has always known. she advances to the end with open arms. she can already feel the glow on her face.

"..."

keep breathing, she urges, keep breathing. it was hyuna's burden to survive, to breath air that hyunwoo could not, and now luka will share the burden too. it was her burden, but it was his fault.

perhaps this was inevitable from the start.

[namelessprayers]

mizi measures the approximate space between grass blades by leaning down amongst the meadows, the greenery grazing her chin and her mouth quirked to the side opposite where her tongue is jutting out. her gaze is intensely focused but still unserious.

sua watches on, as always, ever entranced by the inner and outer workings of the loveliest thing of all. she starts sitting cross legged and eventually ends up sprawled on her back besides mizi, who flattens her limbs out after rolling around for a moment longer.

these are the peaceful days in the time of anakt garden.

it's a slow roll to an indeterminate final note, the percussion as gently cascading as it would be in a funeral procession, or perhaps a wedding march. a walk down the aisle, to a coffin or a familiar smile.

however, those concepts are strangely foreign themselves. ivan just happens to read about it, then duly inform them of it if he sees fit, filling mizi's wonderful eyes with an even more wondrous spark as she smiles wonderstruck by the mere concepts of honoring death and eternal union. they're quite the same, in sua's opinion, but she won't say a thing about that if it indulges mizi's dazzling amazement.

"mizi." softly prods sua, poking her finger into mizi's cheek. "your glasses are slipping." though mizi moves to rub her eyes sleepily, the frame of her glasses continues to steadily fall crookedly, close to being haphazardly broken along the way.

sua sighs, reaching out to grab the glasses so they sit on her chest, far from the danger of being crushed under mizi's vibrant pink hair of head. at this angle, sua's face tilted up at a diagonal to watch the breathe ebb and flow from mizi's mouth; the rays shining over mizi, etching her silhouette to be an incandescent glow, making her seem like she's the very light itself.

but the light tends to evade one's grasp, and mizi is right here for sua to have. there shall be no shadows where they can only know peace.

[namelessprayers]

sometimes, the dead are the pieces of fluttering light that singe the skin but also warms like the soothing comfort of an unmistakably human touch, contradictorily pure and cursed in the remains both physically and invisibly haunting. in poetry and songs spread across the land of tevyat, by word of moving mouth and air from breathing lungs and with the gestures of living bards, the beauty of death is immortalized in a way that very few things can be.

it is rare that anyone escapes death, except perhaps, celestia above herself as she overwatches the trek of gods to the lowest of mortals to the even lower dead and buried bodies laid six feet in the ground.

in even rarer occasions, death is something entirely unique to its own apparition. ghosts, spirits, the otherworldly forms taken after the gradual decay of one's initial roots, or in some cases, the forceful ripping apart of a soul's existence to their natural plane. venti would know, he thinks, what that feels to some extent. though his soul doesn't personally recall it, the bodily sensation still persists.

but it has been a long time since death seemed to walk over the lands of tevyat in turrets of discordant assembly. nowadays, the air ripples in modern tuneage and latent melodies that mingle in the sweetness of freedom. mulling over the death of identity and the death in war does well to the mind, to realize that there is nothing pretty in any of that, nothing that poetry and song could do good to erase.

sometimes, venti can hear the chorusing rise of it on the horizon. is the promised peace false? was it ever even promised? who's to say that promises are any more sincere than the rumors carried on the tongues of eager bards? hunger bleeds into life, fades into death, and tevyat is nearing the end of absolute replenishment; it won't be long until starvation is felt again. will it be different this time? with the gods having walked in their freedom long enough to cherish it, shall the dead be honored and be free to rest in indefinite closure?

[namelessprayers]

there was a significant lull in the timeline, a shard of painstakingly frail peace amongst the sway of countless things that threatened to tear them apart. within this period, some distant and far off way into both future and past of timeline after timeline, lu guang woke up and found himself in a most dire circumstance; for once in his many lives, he wasn't going to live long enough to see cheng xiaoshi die first.

this much was evident as he looked himself in the mirror and realized he was steadily decaying, dying, all signs of life draining from his eyes like the hammer of judgement relayed upon him by the weight of his sins and hypocrisy.

a part of lu guang spoke reason. he wasn't allowed to give up now. what was another selfish deed of defying death, yet again, to someone who'd already done it a hundred times over?

another part of lu guang was relieved, whilst also tinged with guilt for that very emotion. this was a sort of freedom, wasn't it?

maybe this was the ultimate solution to all of it as well. if cheng xiaoshi had no arms to die in, perhaps he would never die at all. though it was a flawed and foolish notion, to lu guang, it almost seemed logical; the perfect trade between him and the universe in its forever unflinching tirade of time.

then, somewhere hidden in places even cheng xiaoshi could no longer get to, lu guang was secretly afraid. what would it mean to die in pursuit of a life with cheng xiaoshi? would it be failing? would it be worse than if the cycle just continued indefinitely? would it be so bad to keep hoping, however hopelessly, instead of ending all hope by simply dying? he didn't want to leave cheng xiaoshi behind, despite the fact that lu guang broke promises and lied like it was only natural, he still wanted to keep staying as he'd once sworn to.

and after everything, after death itself, lu guang had stayed. so shouldn't he stay again? shouldn't he stay true to what he said in every timeline from the very beginning? it was only fair to cheng xiaoshi when most of lu guang's existence in this timeline was not.

there was a muffled crash from the kitchen. it was probably cheng xiaoshi on account of lu guang not putting the cups in the right place, never mind that he thought he did because he was thinking of previous timelines. it really wasn't lu guang's place to concern himself with what happened to the attempts prior, but he couldn't help carrying over old sentiments and erased memories.

it was only right, lu guang decided as he stared down his own dying reflection, that he was made of many pieces mistakenly borrowed which were finally flaking off and killing him as it should've done from the very start.

perhaps, he really didn't mind dying, but knowing cheng xiaoshi, it was equal to abandonment, absolute and permanent. now that little inconvenience, lu guang did mind quite a bit.

with exasperation towards his own indecisive plans, lu guang resolved apologetically to the universe and timeline that this would not be the end. it was still too early, for him and cheng xiaoshi both, to quit; and when had lu guang ever made compromises for cheng xiaoshi's sake? for them, it was always everything he could give. a dying man wouldn't stop lu guang, and just because he was the dying man in this case, why would he stop now?

======

"i'm dying." lu guang said, about a week after he realized but a month since the decay really started, because he could be honest when he wanted to be. plus, this was important and cheng xiaoshi deserved to know this much. "it's like... cancer." however, lu guang never told whole truths anymore, as it just wasn't a possibility in his situation.

for his omission of countless things, he'd one day say sorry to cheng xiaoshi, but for the moment, lu guang was too occupied in trying to save them to properly consider voicing the amendments for a clear conscience. besides, morals were just finnicky rules to bend.

"dying?" responded cheng xiaoshi, half late in incredulity and uncertainty, concern seeping through like plaster for lu guang's non existent wounds. "are you sure?" cheng xiaoshi asked politely, before standing face to face with lu guang so that he could immaturely tap on his shoulders and check that his senses were still intact. lu guang withheld a snort, cancelling it out with a wry comment.

"are you saying i don't know what dying feels like?" he scolded, in a tone that suggested the thought to be ironically backhanded, which it was for the most part while knowing the history of the recipient. cheng xiaoshi's petulant frown prompted fairer clarification. "i feel that the line between living and dying shouldn't be that hard to distinguish."

as lu guang stated his objectively correct view on the subject, cheng xiaoshi's hands roamed from top to bottom as though the impromptu full body inspection was of the utmost importance and diligence. he stopped and backed away after poking the bridge of lu guang's nose for an unnecessary amount of time.

"i don't believe you." cheng xiaoshi declared with crossed arms and a lethal eye filled with determination. however, the inflection was severely off from his usual smugness, like he was only waiting for lu guang to refute him. they both picked up on this, so cheng xiaoshi added more for extra emphasis. "you look pretty alive to me."

"sure. it doesn't change the truth of me dying." blandly returned lu guang, undeterred by cheng xiaoshi's unwillingness to believe him. denial was a significant stage of grief; lu guang would know it better than anyone else, thought perhaps not as well as he knew bargaining.

"then?" asked cheng xiaoshi, looking at lu guang like the answer would appear right there in the air between them. lu guang wished he could tell him anything was that straightforward, but time just loved throwing them for a loop. "if it's like cancer, there'll be a cure, right?"

at that, lu guang knitted his brows together with worry.

"since when was there a cure for cancer?" lu guang questioned, with a serious kind of edge to it, because wouldn't it be crazy if he dived back so many times that fundamental planetary facts had been completely altered? no, it really wouldn't. it would only be something to both marvel and fuss over on top of everything else that lu guang was already getting headaches over.

"there isn't..." a confused expression parsed across cheng xiaoshi's face, his stare turning suspicious for a fleeting second before he righted himself and trailed back into surety, "there's no cure yet, but people will find one just like we'll find a cure for you."

clocks were so much louder ever since lu guang first dived back and stuck around instead of returning to his former timeline. they were all hollow without cheng xiaoshi, and cheng xiaoshi always managed to be the loudest presence even when he was silent, even more than the tick of a clock as lu guang was decaying with each passing second.

lu guang had already resolved to staying alive, but it was tiring to be constantly dying and living at the same time. he just wanted a day to spend with cheng xiaoshi, preferably on repeat, where he didn't have to worry about either of them standing up and dying all of a sudden.

"i'm tired, i'm dying." lu guang felt the shift of atmosphere immediately, because for once, he'd pretty much said the whole and absolute truth in its entirety. surely the universe could reward him a break for this one bit of progress? "can we pause for one day before we sort this out?"

"you're..." cheng xiaoshi gave lu guang a critical glance and clicked his tongue like when he got stuck on a stupid mobile puzzle game. "well, you think you're dying, and you want to wait to figure out how to stop dying?" he laughed soundlessly, barely mimicking the sincerity of his usual self. "lu guang, i can't tell if you're really bad at being funny or you're actually dying and it's messing with you're ability to think."

with a latent sense of exhaustion, lu guang lamented their idiocy and ignorance. neither of them had written a will, and although there was no point to it, lu guang wondered if everything could've been avoided if they just did a joint will with a clause that said 'don't you dare go back in time and get stuck trying to keep me alive'.

then he looked at cheng xiaoshi and knew, inexplicably knew without a doubt, that it was only lu guang who would be foolish enough to pull such a stunt. he closed his eyes and sighed.

"cheng xiaoshi," lu guang said, because it felt like the only words he was ever good at saying, "let's go on a date."

======

they were going somewhere. to a place. that wasn't what really mattered, it never was, in the end.

(cheng xiaoshi died anywhere as long as lu guang was there to see it)

"i don't get it. did you actually say you were dying as a way to confess... because that's a terrible confession... also how does that even work..."

lu guang took a deep breath.

everything might be bad but at least cheng xiaoshi would never run out of his penchant for indirectly confronting the truth.

"yes. i assumed that if you pitied me enough you would indulge me." it didn't help that all of lu guang's lies were starting to pile up into what looked like precariously stacked shards of glass.

"that's..." cheng xiaoshi narrowed his eyes and glared at the pavement, "weird."

then cheng xiaoshi did his own sort of weird thing despite all of lu guang's recent weirdness. he stopped and laced their fingers together, smiling something so soft that lu guang could feel his heart get a dozen steps closer to stopping in just a fraction of the moment.

cheng xiaoshi tugged him along about three times slower than before. it was nice, and it was always the truth when it came to this.

(cheng xiaoshi was the only truth in lu guang's self destructed reality)

"i would've indulged you anyway."

======

it was a very subtle and beautiful and still moment. early in the bright morning when the light caught in lu guang's eyes and the oxygen could no longer be felt trickling in or out of his lungs. he wasn't dead but he was dying, imminently, and here he was laying in bed with cheng xiaoshi instead of doing anything to actively prevent it.

what was lu guang supposed to do? he had never been honest with anything, even when he loved something. it was funny maybe. it was expected, perhaps.

lu guang didn't know, but the sun was warm where it bathed cheng xiaoshi's hair in a golden colour, and where cheng xiaoshi lay on lu guang managed to be warmer still. lu guang was not at all an ounce of the truth, but he combed through cheng xiaoshi's hair regardless with the care that a romantic might have; a romantic that wasn't dying and was honestly, transparently, achingly in love. only one of those things might've applied to lu guang.

he could tell this was it, sooner rather than later, because these were the thoughts that only a dead man could have. hysterical, incoherent, nonsensical; lu guang just wanted to stay where he could not in timelines that he was never supposed to fit.

incredulously, lu guang picked up the calm humming from cheng xiaoshi, some familiar lullaby from another timeline or the same one or an abandoned and decaying one. they were all the same, as of now, converged under the weight of lu guang's sins and soon to occur death. lu guang reasoned as only an insane person would, that he'd stolen each of his lives from himself, and that this was only the correct cost to pay.

if lu guang was to bear the best of it, here, right now, with cheng xiaoshi in his arms, then he would have to bear the burden of it too. he was scared though. he really didn't want to die.

but that wasn't the truth either;

the truth was that lu guang could picture cheng xiaoshi alone, and that was wrong, and it would all be lu guang's fault. meanwhile, the other option was to keep doing this forever, fighting to keep them both alive, with cheng xiaoshi still dying wherever lu guang tried to take them next. what running could be done from such invisible forces? what other strings could lu guang pull? there was nothing, and it was still his own fault because he got them here-

"lu guang." cheng xiaoshi stared at him wearing an indecipherable look. "you're crying." after stating it, cheng xiaoshi simply used the back of his knuckles to graze beneath lu guang's eyes. "lu guang."

"cheng xiaoshi." lu guang whispered, and he kept crying, because it really felt like he was dying.

(there were no better last words lu guang could give if it was the end)

[namelessprayers]

sua: the most honest deed is to sacrifice yourself (because that is the greatest display of love and how to keep it safe).

ivan: the most honest deed is to die (because no one cares, because living is ingenuous, a lie for the sake of getting by for a reason you don't even know, because living was never truthful).

luka: the most honest deed is to kill what's in the way (because that is the only way to attain love and attention and to keep it, the rawest performance of one's life).

hyuna: the most honest deed is to keep living (because it is what humanity does best, because this is how the future survives).

till: the most honest deed is to love (because love is creation, because love defines living, to touch everything and to mark the world by merely existing for the sake of existing).

mizi: the most honest deed is to know (because being deceived is pain, because the firsthand torture of discovery too late rather than sooner is the force of lies and only lies, what kind of life is lived in the dark when only the light nourishes, even the source of the glow itself must be replenished and fueled by some sort of shadow).

[namelessprayers]

the kids in anakt garden are usually unassuming by nature and entitled to nothing by the diminished meaning of a human birthright.

ivan, despite his unique circumstance as one of the prized children, knows himself to be none separated from this definition of a pet human. at his core, he's just as lacking in entitlement and just as unexpectant for any fanfare beyond the occasional reprieve of scorn.

but there is a day that every kid in anakt garden seems to covet as a sign of otherwise, a notion that exceeds their overall pointlessness and trek to a fruitless demise.

a birthday. the day of birth. a celebration of existence as it came to be, however astoundingly universal the concept is in actuality.

applied to everyone, it is another false purpose. applied to oneself, it is egotistical or overcompensation for life's faults. applied to some in particular, ivan can understand. he can grasp the fact that sua prizes her and mizi's shared existence, so by extension, worships the days that their souls were given being and subsequently, chance to meet.

ivan guesses he should feel the same way about till, but then again, it's not quite that simple. an existence without till would be unpleasant, but if ivan himself did not exist, it would be objectively painless and inconsequential to everyone and everything.

how can ivan even be sure of his existence when his birthday is hardly set on a proper date? it's not like anyone knows when or where he was born besides those who have probably been wiped from existence and from his memory.

yet, although ivan fails to fully indulge in the celebration of his own alleged birthday, he still gifts presents to mizi as sua had instructed years ago and he still asks till for a kiss on a few of his pseudo birthdays when he's feeling especially bold.

otherwise, they're just stifling brand days. photoshoots, putting his practiced smile to work on a screen. an adoption day to dote on for another pet human's biggest fans.

these pseudo birthdays spent in no company and without relinquishment from the aliens are truly the most tired of all days. ivan wishes most that there was no existence to celebrate on these occasions, the recent ones as of late, only the roar of onlookers and unsha's critical gaze.

it all wilts in the wake of anakt garden, which may've been a cursed paradise, but did well disguised as a paradise nonetheless.

[namelessprayers]

heimerdinger runs a hand over the contraption, something of reverence in his eyes, and twiddles his moustache idly between his unoccupied fingers.

"this is truly peculiar manufacturing, but the design and the intricacy of the engineering is exceedingly stunning. if i wasn't looking at it right this moment, i wouldn't believe such a high caliber piece could be made out of such meager scraps. i wonder if..." drills on heimerdinger in his reserved sort of excitement that exudes out regardless in the awed glint of his eyes.

hanging besides the shoulder of his short acquaintance, ekko withholds the remark about familiar branding and trademark colors that dot the area and mottle the contraption. it's incredible, he's almost tempted to say half spitefully and half remorsefully, how much one can create and destroy in equal measure.

a paradox, that is, the place and the person. jinx creates and destroys. jinx, the most innocent and the girl with the deadliest shimmering drug flashing purple in her veins. jinx with blood on her hands and blood pouring out.

powder struggling inside of jinx, or perhaps the other way around, the paradox manifested within her own sense of self.

in this workshop, jinx has not left any huge alarm bells. the bombs here are unfinished and not yet primed to go off. the tinkering trinkets are stationary and soundless on the bench. her work here has been abandoned, forever quiet, lacking her loud graffiti and louder machinery. the mechanics are going to waste anyways, so ekko figures that it won't hurt to let heimerdinger fuss over it.

perhaps, in a kinder life, powder would be here to explain each element of her work's prowess and heimerdinger would recognize her as one of the brightest inventors in the universe. maybe they'd be out of piltover, the undercity and it's rotting system of soiled citizens, or maybe there'd be no reason to get out of piltover at all.

"ekko, my boy, do you believe it'd be possible to find the maker of this contraption? they must truly be a one of a kind genius."

sighing, ekko runs his hands reverently, across jinx's many doodles instead of her many contraptions. some of the drawings are softer, still holding the essence of what ekko might recall flipping through in powder's prize sketchbook. it cost them a fortune to get the high quality paper, which is to say that they had to deal in the shadows.

"they are, but i think the genius of reason is long gone." solemnly replies ekko, rotating a wind up monkey toy on his palm, observing the hole where there should be an eye. "we should look to the future and take what we need of the past. i'm afraid the creator can't even be found in the present." he chuckles, the noise dry and bitter.

he pockets the toy out of some uncanny nostalgia or sentiment. ekko thinks he'll repurpose the monkey, not as a bomb, just as a nice little treat for the kids at home.

after everything, powder and jinx still deserved to be given that much. and perhaps, if she didn't have to make it herself the first time, they'd still have time to spend in each other's company.

[namelessprayers]

the desolate decay of ruins that used to be the great kingdom of hallownest is full of bugs, maybe all half dead and dying, but bugs nonetheless.

for numerous reasons, quirrel is curious. perhaps, it's simply in his nature. yet, his origins betray the fact, as the city of tears is led by shy and stubbornly uninquisitive folk. this pattern is upheld from the very start, when he is greeted on entry to hallownest itself, as the bug who welcomes him only has one question and one question alone;

"what wrongs are you here to commit?"

she does not ask of why quirrel has come or who he is at all. that does not matter to her. she cares only for his foreign manner and uninfected state. she blows him off, stating him a fighter, but unlikely to last in the harsh climate of their hellish world regardless.

existence lacks nuance for the bugs of hallownest, for the fallen kingdom itself and every citizen rotting within. the walls rot and hardly anyone stops to ponder why. no bug investigates, they merely await the inevitable receding light until they are all plunged into deep unshakeable darkness.

then there is a moving beam of sun, a glowing ray amidst the dreary caverns of endless shadow. quirrel meets the fellow of the hour, cloaked in drabs with an unpolished nail on their back.

the knight is a curious product; a being somehow avoidant of the root of issues and still unflinchingly confrontational. the most ghostly in the eyes without losing the life that all the infected had gotten drained out of them. a little fragment of the past wrapped in the hopes of a future. dissonant to the surroundings, uncaring of questions, but still answering everything along the way.

once, quirrel loved paradoxes and loved to learn of solutions to puzzles or resolutions to riddles. he once loved hallownest too, he knows, even if he doesn't entirely remember why. now, quirrel can only truly grasp why he stopped loving such things so passionately.

the truth is not kind. ignorance is bliss as it is torment. hallownest is the greatest example of a question that should've gone unanswered, and the cost of curiosity depleted.

in his soul, quirrel can piece this last dilemma together. the cold bug at the entrance, the knight on the road, the stinging silence of the blue lake that cries and cries. quirrel learns, decides, that nothing in hallownest was built to last, and it will not be pretty whatever happens next.

"what went wrong?"

he asks the lake and his reflection on the surface. he gets drops from the fallen city, falling on him, falling apart at the seams. quirrel wonders if the little knight will ever rest, for maybe if that occurs, it means the kingdom will finally be put to rest too.