#AND IT WILL CONTAIN A LOT OF ELIOTT‘S POV

[sunsetscurving]

CHASING STARS

Ch. 1

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In a world where reincarnation is common and excepted, people stopped to care for a reason or how many times they already lived – they have no memory of their past life anymore.

But Lucas Lallemant can feel that this isn’t his first life, some shreds of his former life still present in his new one. He has this feeling that something from his past life tied him so much to it that he has to find it again in his new life.

Something. Or someone.

It’s been 6960 days since he last saw Lucas.

19 years and 35 days.

An eternity for some people. Nearly two decades.

But not for Eliott. For Eliott, it could have been two eternities or only some minutes. Time started to work differently for him.

All he wanted was to die when he lost him all those years ago. All he wanted was to bury himself alive or disappear into the deepest deep of hell where he belonged after all of that happened. There hasn’t been a day where stopped reproaching him for what happened and how he simple could have let it happen.

I could have saved him.

Eliott was doing his daily walk through the city when the thoughts of it all occupied him again, looking around with curiosity and trying to distract himself through that. Things changed when you were immortal, things changed a lot. And Eliott learned to see every little change, no matter if it was a new bench on the side of the street or a new person working in his favorite coffee shop. When you already lived for countless years, some tiny and minor changes could lift up your whole year.

He was tucking his hands in the pockets of his a caramel brown jacket, the hood of his hoodie hiding his messy hair and his flushed cheeks. The cold morning air felt good on his face and when he walked past the bus station, something inside him twisted, memories of forgotten times surfacing again.

There was never a minute where he didn’t think about him. Everything reminded Eliott of him, a stupid bus station making him shiver with longing.

But he’s gone and that’s your fault.

Eliott was rounding a corner now, slowly coming to a stop when he reached the college he was currently attending. Leaning against a brick wall, he was watching the students coming out of the college, chatting about their last lecture or the homework they had. He already studied a lot in his life and he didn’t need it to survive. But it would be too obvious for a boy who looked 20 years old to not do… anything. And in this way, he had a task. Something to do. A reason to stand up in the morning and not to stay in bed all day, thinking and thinking and thinking.

And suddenly, while standing at the corner and watching the students spill out of the college, Eliott’s world stopped spinning.

Oh my…

Time lost its meaning as he watched someone coming out of that building and his heart was surely not beating at all or currently jumping out of his chest, Eliott didn’t know and he didn’t care. Eliott blinked rapidly, trying to calm down. But there was no calming down – not now and not ever if this what he just saw was true.

This is not real. This is a dream. This is not real.

“Hey, Lucas. There you are”, said a boy with blonde hair and glasses, greeting the other boy with a handshake.

Eliott had heard this name so often when he was in public, swirling around at the sound of it, his heart beating too fast. The disappointment then was even worse than the possibility to see him again.

But this time, no disappointment crushed Eliott like a giant wave.

This time, his heart kept beating faster and faster and Eliott had the feeling to faint.

His whole world suddenly was colorful again and it seemed like everything had a meaning again. Since he was gone, everything seemed dull to Eliott, he seemed numb to so many things he usually enjoyed or loved, forgetting how to be truly happy. It seemed like he took all the light and hope from Eliott with him.

And now he was standing there, only a few meters away from him.

Eliott needed to steady himself with one arm on the wall next to him.

This was Lucas.

His Lucas.

I missed you so much.

And he looked as beautiful and cute and hot as ever. He didn’t look like he died in Eliott’s arms.

Eliott felt his feet moving towards Lucas on their own accord, his arms wanting to close around the other smaller boy and to hold him as tightly as he could, never ever letting go of him. But he couldn’t do that. Because Lucas didn’t know who Eliott was. Because Lucas died and was reincarnated, like so many other people on this planet were too. Eliott often saw the same faces again after several years passed, the others not knowing Eliott or anything else about their former life.

There was no system who was reincarnated and who was not. It seemed kind of random but Eliott knew that everyone who was reincarnated had a reason why fate choose to give them another life.

When someone was reincarnated, their other life was erased – every memory connected to them disappeared from the minds of the people they knew, who were their family or their friends. People usually were reincarnated with their same body and their same name because of this. Their former life, their former self just didn’t… exist anymore. Like it never was there in the first place.

But there were expectations. There were people who don’t apply to that rule. People who didn’t forget about the reincarnated people.

And Eliott, being immortal, was one of those people.

Eliott was pinching himself in his arm now, afraid that Lucas was some kind of hallucination. That the long time Eliott looked for his boy in the crowds of people, trying to find a short boy with brownish, messy hair, were starting to get on his nerves and his mind. That fate started to play a game with him, punishing him for all the mistakes he already did in his immortal life. But when Eliott opened his eyes again, Lucas was still standing there, now laughing at a joke one of the boys in their group made and Eliott’s whole world seemed to light up as he saw the other boy laughing.

He is real. He is back. I have another chance.

Eliott swore Lucas that he would never forget him. And he didn’t. And Eliott had been praying to some kind of higher force that Lucas would be reincarnated. And now his wish came true.

And Lucas knew nothing about Eliott at all.

But Eliott would change that, if Lucas would let him. He had the feeling that their love was one of the reasons why Lucas was being reincarnated. Their love being so strong that it could even beat death and everything else.

And this time, things would end differently. Eliott would make sure of that.

Eliott smiled slightly. This was real. This was not some kind of weird dream.

It’s been one minute since he last saw Lucas. Lucas Lallemant, the love of his life.

.

In Lucas’ world, reincarnation was common and expected. Everyone knew about the possibility of reincarnation. No one asked why, no one cared about how often they were already reincarnated. No one had any memories from their past life.

No one except Lucas.

Lucas just knew that he was reincarnated. He didn’t have any proof, he just felt it. He felt it in the way his dreams were so vivid and lively that they couldn’t be just only dreams. He felt it in the way his mind recognized certain places he never saw before in this life. And he felt it in the way of this strange pull which seemed to say: Come. Find me.

There was a reason he was being reincarnated and he needed to find out what this reason was.

Lucas was absent with his thoughts while Yann and Basile talked, Arthur adding some stuff to their discussion. They always said that Lucas was a dreamer, constantly in thoughts and captured by little things. And maybe this was true. He never talked about his possible former life with his friends and as much as Lucas loved them, he just knew that they wouldn’t understand it. The whole society knew that there was a possibility of reincarnation and often it was guessed what their former life was about, especially in the young generation of Lucas. But no one really knew of their reincarnation. Not like Lucas knew it.

So he kept his feelings to himself, often being occupied by thoughts so that it looked like Lucas was dreaming about some boy he saw in the hallway of their college, his friends tending to mock him about it.

A loud noise came from the door of the college being thrown against the wall behind it and Lucas jumped, panic raising inside of him, his breathing quickening rapidly and the stream of thoughts forgotten.

“Hey bud… Are you okay?”, asked Yann as he saw how panicked his best friend was. Yann always knew when something was wrong. Lucas just nodded and took a deep breath.

“I just…”

He was not sure what this all was about. He was not sure why he always jumped at loud noises, why he seemed to hate everything connected to an explosive sound. His friends looked at him, Arthur biting his lip slightly before speaking.

“Have you ever thought about the possibility that your phonophobia comes from your possible former life?”

Everyone was staring at Arthur now, especially Lucas whose heart was now racing.

He can’t know about it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”, asked Lucas while huffing a laugh. But inside, Lucas was actually dead serious.

“I’ve heard that our phobias come from the way we died in our former life”, answered Arthur and shrugged as if he just hadn’t told them something bigger than they could ever imagine. Basile was staring at him, his mouth slightly open.

“This is absolutely crazy”, he whispered quietly as if they are sharing a big secret, “Crazy in a cool way.”

Lucas was turning his head in Basile’s direction and Yann was dramatically slamming his face in his hand.

“Only you can think of something as ‘cool’ which is connected to dying and phobias”, said Yann muffled through the hand on his face and Lucas couldn’t help but smile.

“This is bullshit, Arthur”, said Lucas quickly before Basile could protest to the things Yann said, “I mean, why should this be connected to my possible former life? How did I die, then? Through a fucking door which was slammed against a wall and I was standing behind that door or what?”

“You would have died as a sandwich between a wall and a door.”

Everyone was staring at Basile again, a look of pure confusion on their faces and Lucas asked himself for the thousandth time if Basile even had a brain or any braincell at all.

“Basile, what the actually fuck”, whispered Yann unbelievable and everyone erupted into laughter. His friends made it again – they freed Lucas from his dark and deep thoughts.

“Okay, now I’m hungry. What about some sandwiches at mine?”, suggested Arthur and this plan was greeted with a please nodding.

“But we won’t eat Lucas, the sandwich between wall and door, right?”

“Shut up, Basile”, said Lucas, Yann and Arthur in a choir before the boys started to walk to Arthur’ house, laughing all the way.

Lucas was on the back of that group, smiling and listening to their conversation, when he suddenly felt a gaze on his back. He stopped in his tracks and turned around. His eyes immediately found the pair of eyes which were staring at him and Lucas went hot and cold in the span of mere seconds.

The boy was beautiful.

Really beautiful.

He couldn’t see his eyes which were hidden under his hood but he knew that they must be breathtaking. Lucas was instantly taking a step in the direction of that stranger staring at him, but with the next blink, he was gone. Lucas stopped and looked around, searching for any sign of that stranger.

Did I only imagine him or…

“Lucas?”

“Coming.”

Lucas looked over his shoulder, seeing his friends waiting for him and he looked back to the place where the stranger disappeared as fast as he appeared.

Maybe Lucas really only imagined him.

But why could he still feel his heart racing?