Flowers apart

11

"Alatus~" He hears Venti call out his name from afar.

"BB?" He hears himself say, and he knew immediately that this was long ago, so much further back than the past few months. When they were still together.

"What are you doing, hm?" Barbatos asked teasingly as he feels the archon creep up behind him, then attacked him with a bear hug and tickles.

"H-hey!" Xiao protested as he laughed uncontrollably while trying to wrench himself out of his grip. "Stop- HAHAH- s-stop it! I surrender- HAHAH-"

"No!" Venti's relentless fingers continued its assault until Xiao was breathless and still wheezing on the ground. "Sorry," he gave the poor adeptus a quick peck as an apology.

"Bad BB," Xiao pouted at him, putting up a pouting act like the other would do usually, until both of them cracked up.

"So, what did you want to tell me?" Xiao asked, squeezing and pinching his cheeks playfully.

"Nothing much," he giggled. "But I have a new song!"

"You do?"

Barbatos said nothing in reply, and instead stood up, extending a hand out to him, eyebrow raised in a challenge, as if to say "come-with-me-and-you'll-find-out". Xiao raised an eyebrow back at him and took it, letting him pull him to the balcony.

"Listen carefully," He enunciated each word slowly as he drew out his precious lyre, then spun around to face away from Xiao. Just as his delicate fingers touched the thin strings, Xiao's surroundings suddenly morphed, fading into another scene. Venti still stood there, but instead of the dark hair he had back then slowly turned into blue-tipped braids, a beret that sat on his hair fading into sight. The balcony of their previous shared home turned into the one that existed in Wangshu Inn, and the sky turned dark. The only thing that didn't change was himself, still standing there and staring at Venti.

This was the first day they had met after Barbatos, his Venti, lost his memories.

He watched as the precious memory that he kept in his heart play out again, right in front of his eyes, the sounds of the lyre and his voice matching one of a flute's, that was playing inn his head, one he heard before...but when was it? When did he hear this song being played on a flute?

Suddenly, the melody was cut off halfway, and Xiao looked up, to see Venti frozen there, hands stilled on the lyre, face still turned away from him and looking up into the sky.

"Venti?" He said, subconsciously. "Are you okay?"

This didn't happen in my memory.

"Venti?" Xiao stood up, reaching out to the boy, but before he could place a hand on his shoulder, Venti dropped his lyre. Xiao watched in shock as the bard's most prized instrument hit the floor, making a horrible screech, as if it was made from pain.

Xiao looked up from the lyre, and to Venti, to ask him why he did that, because he never would. But when he did...all he was face to face with was a Venti with blood, red and thick, oozing from his head, wetting his twin braids with red, dripping down his forehead and onto his shirt. His eyes were white, and staring into Xiao's soul, as if wanting to gorge it out of his body. His clothes, were stained and torn, some of the torn cloth flapped in the wind. Xiao quickly backed away, gaping.

He wasn't scared, no. He just felt...shocked. Hurt, in a way. He can't go through this again.

Venti's body was now slowly reducing into those small little green dots, just like that day in Dihua Marsh, leaving Xiao. Leaving Xiao alone, in the world, to the silence, to the presence of no one else's.