✎ to you, who swallowed a star 「 ed•v 」

Prelude |

𝖎𝖓 𝖌𝖎𝖗𝖚𝖒 𝖎𝖒𝖚𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖈𝖙𝖊 𝖊𝖙 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖎𝖒𝖚𝖗 𝖎𝖌𝖓𝖎.

•••

It was a night like any other.

A time meaninglessly spent by someone as ridden by sorrows of an irrevocable past as Khun Eduan. It was an inevitable fate. After all, he was a family head- one of the Twelve Great Warriors who had their desires fulfilled by meeting the guardian residing at the top of the tower. Someone who had tasted the sweetest of victories and achieved enough wealth and status to be able to access the best things this wretched place could provide in his presence. Someone who had the naive thought that only through eternal life could he achieve everlasting happiness and contentment with the fewest people he had innately called his own. Yet, delusions fuelled by youthful impulse were fever dreams, and the one genuine wish he had once upon a time crumbled down like a castle made of sand.

The warmth he yearned to bask himself in at his every waking moment was long gone before he could grasp it with his hands, and the passage of time was meaningless for someone who was cursed to live forever. And so, it was a night like any other, and the burning sensation of alcohol no longer lingered inside his throat like it used to, yet Eduan liked to believe otherwise. It had to work.

Because, if it didn't, how else could he convince himself that the figure in front of him was not just a figment of his imagination?

"Please donʼt look at me like that, Eduan."

The aforesaid clenched his free fist so tightly that his palm bled, yet he couldn't look away from the incandescent purple engulfing his thoughts within a wild flame.

"Like what?"

Had his mind always produced such vivid dreams or was it a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing? Either way, if this was how karma was destined to burn him at his stake, then he shall gladly fan it until it ignites his whole being. Perhaps then, he could finally find it in himself to accept that things would not always go according to his endless wants, and that maybe, cement the notion that the only way to achieve true peace is to ruin everything into spoils of war.

"Like you are more than willing to trade and give everything that comprised your whole world up and place them under my feet."

The conversation flowed exactly as how he recalled it playing out that one autumn evening, standstill and young. The remainder of leaves and greenery rustling until it flies to nevermore. Two renowned warriors reduced into a normal being under the deepening dusk, leaving behind the heavy attachment that was their identities for a single moment, settling on the lakeside- ankles linked and figures too close for comfort. Just Eduan and V, and no one else in between.

"What if I can?"

The bluenet's lips moved before he could even think of an alternative response, and the scene panned out like a rolling film. Ah, as expected. Eduan still remembered how it all went down the drain like the back of his hand.

"Donʼt." V's whisper was as fleeting as he was as he trembled, and something in the universe was about to burst.

Eyes once of luminescent amethyst losing its glow like a dying star, chestnut brown hair overlapped by black disheveled and slowly fading out, and his skin so pale it looked translucent under the moonlight. The spearbearer thought that if something out of place should so much as tap him with a finger, he might just disappear completely out of thin air, and if Eduan actually had some sense back then, he wouldn't have touched the subject so casually when the man looked like he was going to run far, far away, at the first sign of danger.

"What if I wanted to?" a simper formed on the Khun's lips as he taunted, leaning closer onto the brunet.

"You should not want."

And then there was silence.

"You cannot want, Eduan." 'Did he loath the thought so much that he shed helpless tears?'

"It is not proper," V inhaled painstakingly, looking away as he bit his lip, and little did the former know, this expression would bind the memory of his first heartbreak.

The Khun Eduan then did not understand how much burden the former was willing to carry on his dainty shoulders just for the sake of his own principles. The indirect confession was not the least bit sincere, yet the rejection landed a blow on his pride. So, he pushed further, wanting to see how far will it take until V- the always composed and level-headed irregular, compassionate, outrageously kind, and ever-forgiving, yet completely detached, V- finally snaps the reigns of the patience he had stored in the depths of his being.

"Tell me, V. Make me understand. These feelings are mine, so why can't I want you?"

Eduan crossed that thin line, the bowl now half-empty and left forgotten amongst the grass as he pulled the smaller's waist closer, caressing his face smoothly, eyeing V's lips that had the alluring color of the finest of wine.

"Because, I cannot take responsibility for such burdensome emotions." The bluenet froze. Everything seemed to dim at that moment, and the words coming out of V's mouth suddenly sounded like a lie.

But, it wasn't the lies that hurt, was it?

The gust of autumn wind whistled past him like a slap on the cheek, making Eduan blink and the mirage break, yet he could still feel the touch of V's skin burn through the cold of his fingertips. The goblet that he was holding disintegrated into ashes carrying his drunken stupor, and the moon still glowed brightly along with his misplaced rage. It was a night like any other, and the gale bellowed at him akin to every other nights, yet the warm breath of mixed berries remained as intoxicating as its owner, who had haunted him in his sleep to the extent that he would not mind himself asphyxiated if it meant his would be the face he would be last seeing.

"Khun Eduan-ssi, I cannot fight for you."

It was a midnight like any other. Eduan and V, and no one else in between. Another memoir left forgotten- perhaps, it would be for the better. Because V became one with the oblivion,

and Khun Eduan is still yet to spend forever.