Final Fantasy I-VI 1. Preface

Thank you for all those who reviewed and faved my Kaicil works even if I was being inactive. I can never express my gratitude enough for that - please don't underestimate your support, I wouldn't have been able to be where I am now, and wouldn't have been able to write out what I'm offering in this fic.

Thank you for all those who waited and encouraged me even if I seemed like I wouldn't write again. Again, no words are enough for my gratitude. During my seemedly-hopeless two-year yaoi writer's block, I kept writing short stuff and starting on stuff but ended up throwing them away and forgetting they even existed. Even while I was writing this fic I was expecting to stop in the middle of it - the instances too many to be even counted. But I actually finished it.

This was actually supposed to be just a short Christmas drabble, but it ended up becoming something more complicated. The lack of chapter divisions may annoy a lot of you - yes, I didn't want to write then publish short bits. I made sure I finished this entire fic before I posted even a word of it. I hope all of you enjoy it! Please R&amp;R. Please enjoy and tell me what you think! Arigato.

Sincerely,

~gdeiph


	2. Part 1

"I'm not quite here yet," not quite the license for the impending caress. A quick gasp of shock - yet instant understanding from the younger, sweeter man -

"What haven't you told me, Kain?" it's both a demand and a plea so sweet.

The main called Kain halts for awhile.

"Kain, that smile raises even more questions," so Kain rewinds the subtle finger waltz to appease the man. For a very rapid, unbelievable flurry, raised fang scars caressed the expanse of Kain's right cheek and jaw instead. Cecil does not withdraw, but doesn't let it slip from his thoughts either...

"Will you be frightened, Cecil?" bowed head and weary voice. Cecil picks up the million regrets and promises trapped there. so desperate to break out. to be heard. to be mended.

A locket.  
A locket.  
The older man opened it...and he was silently praying Cecil wouldn't close his eyes.

_Cecil wouldn't, even if he doesn't fully understand everything.  
The fireflies love Cecil. _

-_A few months ago_-

_Look how the heads are borne_  
_Dark and painful on the sky, like a number of knights_  
_Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn_

"How come you think like that?" looks like he's not alone in this psychedelic yellow and dark. Yellow's a nasty color; yellow's hardly "illuminating" as they call it. nauseating, maybe.  
Kain pretends to be startled, but he doesn't have to make any extra effort - "could you hear my thoughts?" how did he know?

The ensuing laughter from the man isn't judgmental or dismissive. "You say interesting things," a twig snaps from behind and Kain turns to the same direction.  
The oppressive shade lifts.  
Those aren't the eyes of a loony or a boring, lame bastard.  
_I know him. I know these eyes._ he pushes the thought away for now.  
The gear shifts.  
The compass inside Kain whirls out of control, mirroring the denied excitement his heart was suppressing. oh-so-stubbornly.  
There's no credible direction or destination anymore; yet Kain...settled.

"Cecil," a hand offered; the most genuine smile on the planet.

An almost hilarious bloom in Kain's catatonic heart.

A firefly hovers around Kain. He didn't have to restrain himself from swatting it away - how could he do it in front of this - in the presence of this - man?

Kissing Cecil's finger, it flickers and flickers as if excited. The small golden light renders an almost divine iridescence on Cecil's face. Everything's there and not. Those powder-blue eyes he's never seen before. The full purple lips, knowing the right time to smile and stop, as if by instinct. That doll-like skin that couldn't possibly belong to a man. not to an ordinary man.

_I swear I know him._ Kain pushes the thought away again and again and again.

"Don't you think fireflies are...symbolic?" Cecil doesn't hide the grin - the sad man had been staring at him. but what a familiar sadness it is.

_You're sad and lonely and I know you don't like people obviously...but look...your glowing's ruddier than this firefly..._

Those powder-blue eyes cuts straight through his core. even deeper. Weaving in the most mysterious feeling, Kain knows and knew the power those pure eyes fuel. _I swear, I swear, I know this man. _Even down to the smallest, most reflexive internal shakes and shivers, Kain couldn't hide any of himself. not from this man named Cecil.

"I must get going," but it just can't slip out of his lips. as if he knows Cecil's presence would -

The world feels funny; Kain feels funny and wrong in himself. but as disoriented, as muddled as this man renders him...

_he likes me. _Cecil smiles again. and again, much wider when Kain just couldn't take his eyes off him.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Desending  
Descending  
Descending  
down to the same old place.  
down to where Kain brews the impossible potion of utter fear and boldest confidence.

Instead of the mandatory pain, everything bursts into a strange...almost happy? light that voices their satisfaction. Their grip's still strong and unbearable. but this time, Kain knows...Kain feels to every living cells he was made of that there's a way out. a way up.

A true light...for me.  
A salvation.

"_Yes...that heart of that one..._"

"_Indeed..._"

"_His heart...then we'll set you free_"

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

The foggy windowpanes mysteriously clear. yet they're still smeared with afterbreaths and hazy thoughts that would take ages to lift. For a moment, a certain powder-blue glows through the menial house glass. Kain rubs his eyes as hilarity strikes him again. _I won't. No matter how much they force me. _

It's a funny morning.  
_A funny life, Kain Highwind.  
_That man named Cecil...  
_I know he's...different. good.  
_So what?

The blonde indulges himself in the thought for a while: "_You see, I have memories of you. I don't know where the hell they came from and why I see them. They look and feel like memories from a past life. I have insanely longer hair and kill monsters and enemies with a lance. spiky and scaly armor that makes me look like a live dragon. And like how I love feeling strong winds and currents at the present...back then, I actually jumped...very high jumps. using the wind as well._"

Kain laughs to himself. damned if he wasn't alone in his house. "_You have the same hair, Cecil. But...you're worlds different from me. I still look like a depressed, deranged moron in that draconian armor. But you...you're different. Bright. These memories keep haunting me - I can't forget them. But when I saw you again - I mean, yesterday...you were still so stunning. I don't know what to do with these memories._"

How the hell does a 19-year-old artist explain that?

_I'm already deranged enough. Like how everyone would think, you'd wave this off as an effect of isolation or demented artistic rubbish..._

_Cecil wouldn't.  
Cecil is too pure for judgment.  
_That voice again. An older, older...Kain Highwind.

Yellow.  
Digusting yellow.  
Gold.  
Beautiful gold.  
The light, the reality.  
Jagged jet-black.  
The darkness, the voices in my head that are consuming me.  
Powder-blue rays.  
Your soul.  
Illuminating powder-blue rays.  
The mystery face that's getting clearer and clearer the more I think about Cecil.

Kain's sweat and tears are invisible on the glorious product. Unsettled and satisfied at the same time, his eyes dote on the blessed powder-blue rays that contrast the black so well, so perfectly.

_I'm sure...you are the only one who can make these voices stop. the only one who can take me away from their unbearably-light claws, their suffocating grips, the hopeless, quicksand lunacy. I'll make it in time. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

London? Bleak. . freezing. especially during a winter like this. Even passersby always seem to have planned, appointed business. Even the stale, suspended air personifies seriousness. Could he write about anything here? Grey fueling neon. seems half-likely.

_Could I write about my new friend? _Hooded and dark-clothed, but the mere thought of the man sends very familiar clamps on his spine. _My, it feels like I've known him...forever. _

Suspension swings to a rich summer breeze. The grass becomes a natural carpet just right for his aching limbs and -

_Limbs? That sounds very...medieval. As if the person fought battles every day, instead of just strolling casually here and there. _

Was his imagination deluding him again? The spell shatters - it's cold white sheets and bleak gray enveloping him again. _What on earth was that?_

_Was I imagining you, too? _

_But you're too real...to add...familiar. _

Was he so deep in thought that he didn't notice the out-of-place cathedral in this run-down, isolated part of London? _What an elephant in the room. A beautiful, admirable elephant, though. _

_What could happen in here? _

The red carpet was an old, shineless velvet. Tapestries more dust than intricacies hung limply down the broad walls. Cecil swears to himself, silently - _there are spirits on that ceiling. spirits. And I...they feel familiar. _  
How many times had he been saying that sentence today? "Familiar."

Cryptically, the cross at the end of the cathedral blurs and blurs and blurs. Cecil rubs his eyes while walking faster. The nearer he gets, the more the trapped ancient air keeps clearing and clearing and clearing. lifting. like curtains opening to an expensive show.

_The air._

_I'm no longer in 2014 London. _

_This isn't the air of 2014 London. _

_It's way too clean. _

_Not much people. _

_A King. _

_A knight..._

A sword.

It careens from Cecil's right hand. _But I know it's mine. My hand holds it as if I've slayed with it forever.  
_He's too stunned to say anything in his confusion. but he knows he's glowing. glowing just like when he saw Kain yesterday in the firefly forest.

The revelation madness lifts for a while, at least in the air. A strange, yet warm? name - like home - comes to his head.

_Baron. _

No, he didn't name it or conjure it...it was as if it came from a long-buried memory.

_Kain...Kain belongs here, too. Like I do. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

His voice rivals ornate. The song is smooth, smoother than the sunset-kissed ripples of the gurgling water he's hearing from nowhere. _Yea, more weird things coming my way. _ Melded with the cryptic ceiling's ancient serenade, it's purest..._home _to Kain's ears. _Home. The home I..._

It's poetry. It's a ballad, it's magic - it's healing. It becomes everything. It's the powder-blue rays illuminating his canvas this morning. It's the hope that can still the quicksand.

Kain, spell-bound by the mysterious yet familiar voice, walks closer and closer. Nevermind the dust and the dinginess, that blessed voice has cleansed them with effulgence. with...yet more mysterious familiarity. _This cathedral...it doesn't belong here, does it? _

The last tinges of orange touch silver hair, and at the point where the falling ripples of magic glint a rainbow that seems to come from the insides of Cecil's eyes...the sheer beauty overthrows Kain's compass. _Here, here, here. Cecil is here. _

Hours pass. yet it's still midday. In Cecil's eyes, it's always morning. not the groggy, despicable ones - the heaven-sent morninglight that chases away the voices...

In Kain's eyes, it's always a lonely night. _I know his lonely nights...haunted and dark. _

"So we meet again," a dove flies in through the shattered section of the stained glass. landed silently on Cecil's shoulder. almost benignly. First, fireflies. now a _dove_. Cecil looks impossibly...impossible. The firelight tinting Cecil to a glorious rainbow last night? Well today, against the stained glass and a dove carrying sunlight from a faraway, not-godforsaken place, Cecil transforms to an angel. _I know he was an angel from the beginning. _

"In very interesting places," a slow but definite smile blooms on Cecil's lips. Ever-so-gently, he turns to the side and kisses the dove's wing. _I have to draw this. I...have to draw him, _the thought bothers Kain so persistently. He's always at a loss for coherent words when Cecil...

"I - I heard you singing," Kain tries to blurt out.  
Cecil gently turns his head so he's facing the other man. leans a bit closer. Kain's breathing plummets, putting butterflies to shame.

"Magnificent." _I have to draw today. I have to draw you...I desperately need to draw you.  
_

"Thank you, Kain."

"How did you know my name?"

"How did you get to this cathedral?" they're dancing the same dance.

Both of their lips are forming the same word. in as many forms as possible: _it was familiar. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Confidence swathes Kain's body tonight. and a foreign light as primal as his darkness.

He doesn't descend. Unexpectedly and not, he's on a limbo somewhere. a limbo...with someone.

"_Kain...what do you mean? An older us?"_

Cecil?!

"_Kain," _the younger man carefully says it like the wire of fate connecting them. for this channel. "_I refuse to believe we don't know each other!_"

The thickest sweat, the strangest dread.  
Kain was dreaming with his eyes open. _All this time? _

_But...what a strange comment, Cecil. It's strange to me. _

_..._

"You fancy knights and swords and lances," Cecil's pale pianist fingers handle the canvases and sketches benevolently. as benevolent as Kain's eyes were when Cecil's voice graced his ears earlier, back in the mysterious cathedral. _Is this tribute? respect? No one really looked at them like this... _his paintings under Cecil's eyes, Kain feels simply beautiful.

Even while embedded with anxiety and confusion... Kain definitely notices - electricity still sizzles down his spine whenever Cecil's around. A strange, unique man indeed. He wonders if Cecil is scared of him, whether his deranged eyes and his ghastly home and his grim speech unsettles the man. at all. if ever. Did he hold a wire of electricity on Cecil's brain and heart as well? The older man's always incapable of looking over the bedazzlement.

"Both of us obviously have memories from the past life and we don't know why," Kain hurls at those overwhelming powder-blue eyes, that gets more and more overwhelming the more Kain talks. Not giving a damn anymore, he wouldn't be stunned if they _examined _him and branded him _loony_. hurt, maybe. but only a bit.

What impresses Kain for a second is that, Cecil doesn't struggle to offer an answer. "You're unsettled...that if you see a very bad part of it...say a serious fight or a noble pact broken...you won't know how to deal with it."

_You never cease to confound me with your words. _"Cecil, I..." the blond turns away, as if that could erect the perfect wall that could permit them to believe forever, that they've _never _known each other. _I'm not going to use you, Cecil. _

"Kain?" half-betrayal is rewarded with a worried glance. Kain wants to try and cup Cecil's face, assure him as gently as possible that everything is okay. everything is...bearable. The only thing he manages is closing his eyes and temporarily escaping from Cecil's...Cecil's...

"Well Kain, whatever it is, whatever we will see...it won't make you any less of the brilliant man I like."

_Me? Brilliant? _"You don't know me," Kain interrupts the rising circuit, "not yet."

The younger man isn't hurt at all. He contemplates, though. looks for the right answer that will convince Kain to let the circuit rise again.

Kain doesn't let him. he attempts to pick up all his worries and regrets and anxiety, and smooth it out with what? a heavy, heavy sigh. "Apparently, I was cursed in this past life we have memories of," the shaking man cursed himself more for his bodily tremors at the moment, "and..from what I've seen and felt of them all this time...you always made it...easy."

The ex-dragoon could not. he could not acknowledge his own _need_. "I still...don't have the complete picture, Cecil. But I know it was really hard for me. Both back then, and in my life now." even if Kain manages to put it together and understand, he wouldn't even want to unriddle anything. _Heart puzzles are not for me. That's why I draw swords and blood and agony and homesickness. never lovers kissing. _

"Friends are always there for each other. Shouldn't that be true?" Cecil forces Kain to look at his overwhelming powder-blue with just a simple tug. "But I do not intend to be a slave of a past I don't even understand quite yet. I feel the same way you do."

"Cecil," it comes out more urgently than an avalanche, "I still can't free myself of the past's curses." Kain actually grunts in frustration. breaks the sizzling eye contact and paces angrily instead. "Please tell me what you know as well." _When was I ever this polite? _

Turning a bit to the side, Cecil's fingertips trace and trace and trace. A dragon warrior, as they call it - wielding a lance and sporting an iconic helmet. head of a dragon. Kain's eyes carefully follow suit.

_You see Kain, my friend...don't be agitated_. Cecil emphasizes on the chains. the weight. the external darkness. It's Kain's most substantial work and Cecil wants to admire it more. _Whatever mistake or broken pact or betrayal it was...it never purely came from the dragoon's own heart. _

"You can't say that, Cecil," Kain has picked up the silent message. guilt softens his knotted features even more.

"I won't hold onto you just so these goddamned voices will stop!"

_And I won't love you just because the past dictated so. _

_Cecil, how can you imprint your true feelings on my hands so accurately? _

_Before I take you!_ Kain runs for the door. endeavored an escape from his own house, from his own feelings. One look back and Cecil will hold his eyes again. hold his heart again. his _sanity_. _  
_

"You might think it hypocrisy, for me to justify our current friendship and my desire to help you, using the past," Cecil's lips sound a bit troubled with the amount of carefulness needed to form the sentence, "but hear me..."

_He sounds like the holy knight from the past. _

"The past life...it's not our only excuse to befriend each other again," Cecil continues with a little more confidence, "and...we should use these memories to help each other. I'm not going to just watch and let it eat you, Kain."

Cecil hopes a hard thousand times that he's rightfully rearranged the stubborn jumble of anxiety in Kain's head. _But I cannot blame him. I do not blame him. _To his relief, Kain has given up the exit. To more relief, Kain hooks his haunted steel-grey with his pure powder-blue ones. _Trust._

_I know how this feels, _Cecil and Kain face each other like the knights they were. raise their shoulders gently but firmly, the locking of fists the lock of their...what..._how does Kain see this? _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

The frozen morning? It's dangling and...not really what it should be. _Like my confused heart. _The number of solutions Cecil could think of is as blank as the ice sheets around him. Why is the sun even there? _Too pale to give any warmth. _

_How do I make it easier for Kain? How do I help him? _

Cecil lifts his skates, steps angrier and crisper than he'd intended. The uncertainty is knotting his stomach and his mind; he's ever-so-glad he's alone this morning. Then haunted steel-grey slides in his thoughts. His feet find the grace and freedom to glide. _I've never seen eyes so...sure. so strong. The intensity...it feels like...home.  
_

There's too much, so much that Kain buries. _But I understand. _Now, his thoughts are wandering as smoothly as his gliding feet. _He's as frozen as this ice. __But still...alive. _

Materializing his slight frustration, the glides faster. harder, borderline breaking the ice beneath. It flashes to Cecil's mind again, those haunted steel-grey retreating further and further. unable to express his needs, wanting to actually tell Cecil, but can't. _And I know it's eating him. _

Out of nowhere, a black shadow slams onto him. onto his eyes, onto his face, onto his heart and body. dragon-shaped, the fangs as sharp as Cecil's fear and the obsidian smoke as intense as Kain's burdens. _It doesn't feel real. These are just memories. Maybe this is the answer Kain is waiting for me to...grasp..._

_ZEMUS! _Cecil rips the unknown yet familiar name from his throat. the name feels like selfish, brooding darkness unfurling from a long-lost book. like smoke from the abyss.

_The abyss. _

_Kain... _

_Kain...I understand now. _

_Kain. _

"Hold onto me, you bastard!" Kain's voice cuts through the obsidian smoke. _You're not like that, Kain...you're not the darkness. It just...used you. Please don't feel guilty...I still love you all the same.  
_

His whole body...is running with ice.

Kain's hand is determined to pull him out of the ice.

As numb and cold and loveless as the ice is.

_Kain, your soul isn't frozen. _

"Cecil...goddamit! Don't let go!"

"The dragon...that's what curses you, Kain," Cecil battles against the ice sheets, the winning ice, the loveless ice that's hauling him down.

"Shut up for now...just...don't let go!"

"Kain..."

_Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice.  
From what I've tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire._

"Kain..." dry land. a hint of warmth. security. _I knew..I always saw security in those eyes, Kain...  
_

"What were you doing"s, "What were you thinking"s, "What in the moon's name where you doing alone"s. It's a soothing web of music and assurance to Cecil.

The younger man decides not to spur on Kain's frustration, but doesn't push it away ingrate, either. "_Did you know..."_ Cecil's purple-lips have trembled to a heartbreaking pale blue, "_Kain...I didn't know what I was doing in this world..."  
_

Kain's steel-grey eyes held only strength, a strength and bravery borne from such a haunted past and past life. For the younger man, this moment feels like 200% attention and 200% care. Kain even sports a slow smile and continues Cecil's sentence, "and where you should've been all these years, and who you should've been with all these years."

Urgency lights up and freezes Cecil's eyes into a more cruel focus. "I still love you, Kain. I'll bring you out of the shadows that haunt you. The darkness that bothers you deeply...it's not your fault."

_Oh..maybe you weren't ready to hear that yet..._because the blond's sure hand weakens for a bit and his eyes suddenly rocket elsewhere, a bit further from Cecil.

"Cecil..."

"I still love you all the same, Kain," Cecil raises his voice determinedly and leans up. There's no resistance. Despite the leftover cold and hesitation, Kain's lips hold just the right blend of warmth and toughness. _Nothing that can't be melted. _

"Why were you skating alone, anyway?" Kain manages after they reluctantly pull apart. _You and I are the perfect puzzle pieces, the cords that never fail to entwine and tangle so deeply. so intricately. _

"Kain...I had to see it...the dragon. And I had to fall..."

"If I wasn't there to catch you.." the anger, the fear, the uncertainty had been thawed. A more tender Kain.

"The ice wasn't loveless. Not when you refused to let go."

"Such a remarkable poet, Cecil." it wasn't mock-sympathy, it wasn't mock-attention. A genuine glow slides to Cecil's white cheeks.

"Thank you, Kain...it would've been..all for nothing if you weren't..there."

"I know that dragon, it always speaks to me." Kain sounds less reserved. Cecil happier. more content.

"It's not your fault, Kain. I promise."

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

"White sheets...aren't they going to get dirty, Kain?" uncertainty and excitement is making Cecil's entire soul and body glow. He could feel it. feel the warmth radiating from his body, feel the security that Kain's steel-grey eyes hold.

"It's fine," the slow smile renders Kain's cruel lips ebullient.

_I must write you. I must write how those eyes flicker between trouble and promise. How those lips spout traps or murmur sweetness. I must, Kain...I must... _

"And you must let me paint you, Cecil," the older man almost pleads, as if invisibly taking Cecil's hand.

The slight tremors run on uncertainty and...strangeness? _I must be still. I must be still for Kain. _

Ultramarine blue. Graceful.  
Cecil sighs out the slight coldness applied by Kain's brush. It comes out as a thick yet graceful curve. "The coldness of the ice earlier?"  
Kain nods, and he looks happy. understood. He tries to bury his beam, then pulls the brush away from the perfect canvas of skin before his...simple yet complicated joy ruins his work.

"If you make me smile...or if this brush shakes, Cecil," was that a slinky threat? "I won't go easy on you tonight...after we're done with this body paint."

The artist clicked his tongue and immediately dipped scarlet on Cecil's collarbones, teasingly testing on an emotional reflex. Cecil's shock materializes to a deep shiver. _Kain.. _the strength yet vulnerability of those fingers. the beauty, the calluses. Accented again, the shiver deepens. The scarlet dots slightly drip down. Too much like a circuit, Kain's disapproval, Kain's excitement, Kain's excuse to torment him, Kain's amusement - it makes Cecil's heart jump and jump and jump on connection.

"Scarlet, Cecil," Kain starts mock-dangerously.

The involuntary moan that Cecil hears from his lips is humiliating. But in front of Kain, it wasn't. As if picking up his thoughts, Kain's eyes sparkle and his lips even draw to a perfect killer smirk. _You're..so different from the Kain who hated fireflies. The Kain who keeps everything buried. The Kain who never let go while I was drowning in the ice earlier. But I know you, Kain...this is the real you... _

"Crimson," Cecil blurts out with deeper shivers. without really thinking. with no coherent thought process at all. he didn't care; he needed to voice his feelings. "Cheeks. I want them to be crimson."

At that, both of them snap together. Their lips crash and they realize together as well that they'll never feel gentleness again. _Not as long as we're together. _Kain is the stronger body but they're both fierce souls. The room lights are a harsh, clear white and Cecil's eyes seem to be an astounding 300% brighter.

_Kissing you is simply overwhelming and satisfying, Cecil._ but he pulls away, putting up with the cold for awhile to wipe the paint off Cecil's cheeks and collarbones -

Cecil whines loudly. Kain feels himself harden. "Cecil, just stay put, okay? If this paint gets to our tongues, well you know it's toxic," extra effort to clear off the slight remnants with wetwipes.

_Kain, I can't wait! _

_Be patient. No toxicity needed here. _

Kain takes purple lips again, grounding Cecil harder and deeper on the bed. _It's spacious enough. Harder. Deeper. _

Human contact suddenly becomes delicious, like a spark, something as simple as an intricate spark. _Yes, Kain. I can feel it, Kain. This is where we belong. _bubbling heat and surprising confessions from Kain's lips. The older man's obviously prodding the answer from him. "Yes, Kain. Hurry," his own voice flames with need. with the fiery happiness of belonging.

_That this darkness, these memories that drive me insane..actually makes me belong with a person. gives me a right to paint a full, complete picture. _

"I noticed, Kain," out of the blue, it comes out. but Kain's responding lick on his flushed neck was also out of the blue. _I like your rhythm, _Cecil silently confesses to himself. "Your paintings...there's always something missing..."

The falter in the rhythm's expected. Cecil silently wraps himself with guilt when complicity deepens Kain's features. the bad, frustrating kind of complicity. Maybe they both notice that the air's thickening with anxiety again.

"What would you suggest I should add?" is all the artist replies. He squeezes Cecil's hand but the warmth isn't flaming as it should be. _At least he's not mad at you, Cecil. _

"I'm not mad at you," Kain breathes out, locking their eyes again and again and again. neither of them struggled to escape from each other. "I'm mad at...the things that make us different. the things that..won't let people accept us for who we are."

_Beautifully said with plain words. _Cecil's heart warms again, cheery. "The blue river...and the two knights...with doves overhead..the clouds could use a bit more of scarlet," Cecil hears his own voice weakening as Kain's fingers start messing with his shirt. he stubbornly continues talking without pushing away Kain's precious attention. "The dragon knight...you...leaning against the wall...there's too much sorrow - "

Kain stops. the sparks don't go off; the fuse is only going wilder and wilder.

"Do you pity me, Cecil?" Kain's voice is blank. his fingers still and silent with a threat.

"Kain..is this how you think about me?"

"Don't force yourself."

"Don't break my heart, Kain. I don't want to be alone in this either."

_Neither of us are hungry men. _

"I'm not making excuses. Kain...I -" the artist gently leans down again but he muffles Cecil's next statement. Time is slowing down. Kain pinches Cecil's aching nipples until, "I swear, Kain. I promise!" it's melded with a gasp. Time is slowing down, slowing down, slowing down.

_Your trust tests are thorough..  
_

_Your heart is soft and pure, it's the darkness that barricades it that froze you. _

The rest of the night unfurls even slower and slower. Kain inside him is sharp and painful and unfamiliar and confusing at first. Mere seconds and heated reassurances and more genuine promises render the rhythm as plain as breathing. as necessary as breathing. Cecil is meeting thrust after thrust so perfectly, _because it feels like home, Kain._ The remnants of ice on his damp skin are gone like magic; the walls of ice suffocating Kain's heart is thawing.

_You've put the crimson paint to shame, Cecil. Your cheeks... _

_This is a night I'll never learn how to...write. _

_That means it's worth remembering. _

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It's raining. but he has a shield in him. The cold, unfriendly grasp of metal hinges and the desperation attached to the weight comes to his callused hands _again_. This time, he doesn't flinch at the feeling anymore.

_Cecil, the butterfly. _

It flutters on Kain's thoughts, again and again like a loved visitor. Its wings, its grace, the enormity of its existence. The day's stress scatters and the blond finds himself starting out the freezing glass window longing for that feeling - his heart filled, Cecil satisfied and glowing. _Maybe he's at the church again. picking up more of our memories. _

Kain still wonders how they could part after..last night.  
He almost hums again in satisfaction.

"_Let's not let it rule us,_" he remembers Cecil's conclusion last night. "_It will be a vivid story for me to write about and your paintings will be complete." _

"_How can I not let it eat us? The shadow dragon-"  
_Cecil hushed him happy again without even trying. "_Don't let the curse tail after you, Kain. This life...any life you're given...is yours._" It's the most effective lullaby he'd heard, the most effective lullaby he'd used and still uses, and Kain loves it.

The door silently opens. "There's no mirage to shatter, there is a dream we can share and I assure you it won't be a stupid fantasy," Cecil voices the older man's shaky thoughts.

"It won't take overnight, Cecil...I know you'll understand," is all Kain says.

Cecil walks around his apartment, lighting everything up, killing the dimness _like a living angel. _

"I thought angels.." Kain starts as Cecil looks at the drying stacks of canvases littering the whole place, "were supposed to be expressionless. Pure white. Terrifying, almost."

The younger man stares at him without expression. with grace. Deciphering the long look, Kain tries again in his head. _Cecil is pure-white. with shades of powder-blue and...a glittering silver. _The perfect portrait, the flawless depiction, the original model stands before him. Before the artist can itch for his brushes, Cecil demands something between a request and necessity.

"How am I, Kain? How would people describe me? If you had to introduce me in a book...what would you say?"

Slightly challenged, the artist tries to glare at him. The failure is marked by a slow, surrendering smile. "Cecil...you have white hair...and very pale skin," Kain struggles hard to keep his smile from spreading. It practically starts to tremble when the younger man comes closer. puts the canvases in his hand down, settling them to dry on the messy table again. _Damned if this creature doesn't stop looking at me, _Kain explodes into a bubble of ecstasy and surprise when Cecil kisses him.

It's insanely-difficult to pull out. And even then, both are still drowning in each other's eyes. the overwhelming ferocity bouncing off the cores of each other's hearts. Kain's mind and body and soul and heart are still in messy pieces from last night's-

"Tell me, Kain."  
_He's so goddamn manipulative. _More dangerous than a slinking cat, Cecil is all over Kain again. The current of heat and attraction is impossible to dispel. As Cecil starts nipping on Kain's earlobe, the world is becoming more and more slippery. fuzzy.

"Cecil," Kain tries to water down his rising voice, the rising excitement, the rising comfort, "you're white as snow." _and damn unstoppable. _His hands don't show any mercy, Cecil's body is too warm and inviting for space. "Your eyes..are so-" He almost chokes.

Cecil hums, but he's not smug. _wants to see things through. needs to paint pictures with words. _"Yes?" standing on tip-toes, he kisses Kain's eyelids that fluttered shut an expectant split-second ago.  
_You're too close_, Kain attempts to verbalize but can't. _If you...give me some space, I can..describe...better..._

"I need to know, Kain," now Cecil is running his fingers through ash-golden locks, and Kain is helpless against the escalating mental discord. the good kind. "Kain, please," _why are you the one begging when I'm the one so...helpless, Cecil? _

"It's a calming sea...of intensity," the blond doesn't know how that came out, "overwhelming, but soothing." _Rush it all out before Cecil-_

"Before I what, Kain?" the sweetness, the goddamn purity is vanity-laced. As if Kain wasn't _dying _enough, he pulls back.

A smile cracks but it's explosions that Kain feels everywhere. and all his brain wires is _oh, shit_. proof that this angelic creature could be put in the same sentence with profanity _and still be coherent. _Cecil is chopping up his thoughts. _messing with my brain. _

Fear sneakily slides into his open heart. The scabs were fading, the fresh wounds were fresh an eon ago and only crusts remain. _Before Cecil came, I-_

"Kain, don't look to the past now," Cecil flattens his impending mental breakdown. eyes so pure yet overwhelming, heart so flawless yet...unafraid of the disgusting dark -

"No, Kain," he covers Kain's heart with his smooth hand, "don't think like that. Okay?"  
Before his brain could process anything, the artist's lips mouth a grateful _yes_.

"You will be the end of me, Cecil.."

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

"And Kain, your hair is the perfect blend of delicacy and...toughness," Cecil's voice is coming out low. The mercilessly-wrinkled sheets shield them from the shadow dragon, and without darkness looming over him, Kain is too stunning for words.

"You make me feel...understood," he keeps ranting, even if every single word took effort like no other crazy writing prompt, "Like..how you told me how intense eyes calmed you." Going with a spark of lazy excitement, Cecil puts two fingers against Kain's pulse. _stable. strong, so powerful. so soothing.  
_

"Cecil," Kain blurts out heatedly, "that's..." _slightly too sexual. _

"I guess," he picks up the message from Kain's eyes _again_.

_Much for baring of soul. _

_Are you...enjoying this, Kain? _

The older man chuckles.

_If we can bare our memories..the memories we're afraid of..then this is nothing. _

_I love you again, Kain. _

A pleased hum.

...

_A third betrayal? What does it matter now? What did it even matter back then? _

_Kain's fallen face hung even lower by the stones-heavy helmet. hell-low. Kain's wasted heart, taken advantage of by the dark and twisted to voice its cruel greed. Gloves were clean, but the filth of blood couldn't be cleansed by any mercy. Haunted mind, spiraling endlessly to self-pity and blame and regret and self-hatred. There was nothing Cecil could do. _

_But grant him forgiveness.  
The light jumped in.  
Cecil's forgiveness saved their brotherhood.  
but not Kain's heart. _

An insane rollercoaster it had been, Cecil mentally kicks himself again and again and again when he wakes up. His sweat-soaked shirt despite the equally insane hailstorm marks his anxiety. his fear. his fear of..._losing Kain. I couldn't be there for him at all. _Feelings and reactions and breathings are crazily spiraling out of comprehension's reach. There are no solid words that can express the crisis inside, a whirlpool of doubt and...instability...and disorientation are the only fluid things running on his head. the engine running on poisonous gas.

"Kain," Cecil knows the older man couldn't recognize his voice on the phone. despite the skyrocketing phone bills because instant messenger on Facebook just can't feed their cravings. because frequencies and pitches and quivers and love through innocent mobiles were the exquisite extravagance neither wanted to breathe without.  
"What if this is just...maybe an apparition...or...a ploy someone is using to play us...a fucking stupid joke that's making us goddamn idiots like puppets?!"

The static screeches back at Cecil's scream, reflecting the man's agony in inaccurate fuzzes. "_Let's not let it rule us"_. "_This life is ours, Kain"_. "_Don't think like that._" his own words cut through his own hypocrisy.

Stunned, Cecil didn't register whether Kain replies. _You've stunned the man as well, Cecil. It's midnight. _But to a complicated depth inside him, Cecil waits and waits and waits for _Kain. Security. Stability. Iron grip, but safe. Safety. Intensity. Happiness. _

"I'm painting you right now,"  
_The Kain I know would never struggle to find the right answer. _The warmth of connection wraps around Cecil like the perfect blanket.

"Do you want to know how you look like? What colors I used? What it makes me feel?"

"Yes, Kain," he breathes out deeply. deeper than usual, as if the hums put together through the phone is blessed oxygen. "Please," the whisper sounds vulnerable but Cecil isn't afraid to be vulnerable as long as this man exists. _And doesn't leave me here alone. _

The anxiety and poisonous fear recedes like magic, Kain's voice the transcendent spell that scatters the darkness. Before he knows it, Cecil drifts to peaceful sleep, back to a happy place.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_Why does the canvas feel...weird? No trouble, though it's thicker than usual.  
_Kain sighs, relieved that Cecil fell asleep. The gentle thud and the creasing of the sheets and Cecil and exhaling made him laugh ten minutes ago. a laugh that felt really...pure. _You'll scream at your phone bill tomorrow though, Cecil. _

His grip on the brush wound tighter - etched deeper strokes, etched deeper memories. etched deepest feelings.

_Powder-blue.  
Ultramarine blue.  
A kiss of faintest purple there. _

Cecil's magic.

How many times had he felt lost and deranged before Cecil came into his life?  
_Why did Cecil have a mental breakdown tonight? What did he see? _

_No black but only dark silver to outline. No black. Cecil and black don't blend together.  
Orange-pale yellow light there. But the truest light is the powder-blue from his eyes.  
The dove is happy and right with Cecil. They look perfect.  
_

Kain sighs again - a sigh of merry satisfaction. A whole canvas done in 12 hours straight. and it didn't look like crap, for bonus. _Cecil...looks like I work hard and fast when it's about you. _  
No guilt taunts him. only warmth. But when sleep looms over his soul, it's shattered into a million insecure pieces by a certain face as flawless as moonlight and hair of the gentlest gold and the softest, most tender...light.  
The only thought Kain can put forth - _Please don't take Cecil from me. Please. He's all I have. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Doves kissed the water's trembling surface. Cecil's mood has dropped significantly but every single time those god-sent steel-blue eyes wash over his mind...  
_Surely there's something hidden on the bottom of the fountain. If the doves are so enthusiastic. _Again and again, the carefully-harassed surface keeps trembling in its reform. _Like the truth that changes shape everyday. _

_Kain... _

That night couldn't stop rewinding in his head. _"How about me, Cecil?"_ _Kain stroked and stroked his shameless shaft, the terrifying power in those fingers just as eager for the answer. And Cecil craved the security, the iron security.  
Completely wrapped around Kain's finger, Cecil could only thrash and thrash and thrash. his milky-white skin glistening with a proud layer of sweat, the fine glaze of Kain's ministrations. the blissful reminder of heat mixed with love and attraction. _

_"I'm waiting, Cecil," the blond was smirking, eyes lust-filled though not drunk with control. Cecil fell in love with him all over again. and again as his screams sang all over the apartment, sparking every dead cell in both of them alive. Cecil fell in love with him that night a million times over. _

_"Kain...no one...but...you..." the younger man knew it took him at least ten full minutes to get that whole sentence out. because for each word said, Kain made him come. _

The writer knows how he looks like now in broad daylight...the sunlight would've pried his feelings open, the heat of day highlighting his blushes. Someone might read him like an open book. someone that's not Kain, if he's going to continue being this obvious. Unsettled, Cecil forces his attention on the birds around him.  
Pure-white against the murky sewage water, the doves kept pestering the fountain. Wings flapping energetically, their products of soft quick winds raise ripples on the surface. _Someone is coming_, Cecil's gut pulls at him. His hand touches the fountain's cool, marble edge. He forces whistles and whistles out of his dry lips so the notes would push him to the present.

_Kain...being hurt so badly.  
And me not being there for him. _

A ball lightly hits his foot. It's soon explained by children running forth, yelling at each other in the simple process. Cecil finds it in himself to warm his heart for now; he loved kids. Their voices are kissed by sunlight, their blithe footsteps a rhythm that's breaking Cecil out of his trance even today. _What a pure, perfect recipe._ A well-timed annunciation, the mighty church bell rings deep but it actually invites more of the doves in.

"Thank you mister!" the kids chime together in an inharmonious but adorable cacophony, looking up to Cecil with grins that match. There are three of them; a spiky snow-haired lad with a perfect grin pestering the green-haired girl beside him. In curiosity, Cecil raised his eyebrow and ask, "What's going on, little one?"

The poor green-haired girl, obviously younger, breaks into a mighty bawl. Cecil's heart melts; _so tender_. "Edge told me they're just normal birdseed!" Aquamarine eyes _bubbled _with tears, as if the girl was magical.  
A lightning-fast zing of familiarity _again_, the tiniest droplets of those tears takes Cecil to the past lane again. Such _bright_, _powerful eyes..._then ghosts of cinders kissing his nose. loss of...a mother? angry tears. tears of an orphan.

"Whatever you're thinking about...push it aside for now," a not-so-new voice _chides _him.  
_Why is everything...sinking into familiarity? Cecil, you're in the town square fountain.  
Go back to the present. Come on. _

"I truly beg your pardon," Cecil says as soon as possible some time in the present. _That voice...will there be another...person? I know that voice...and she can sense things! _

"You're making the kids worry," her tone turns as gentle as distressed to validate her point. The warmth...and tenderness courses deeper through Cecil, and he knows now that _I...love? this woman? _Anxiety and bewilderment and commotion clutches at him. _Is Kain...? _

"Rosa Farrell," the woman offers a friendly handshake when she picks up Cecil's current disorientation, "I study Child Psychology just a few blocks away."

A blinding light seems to kiss Cecil's eyes, but he can't pinpoint why. This woman named Rosa is making the children happy by settling their interesting argument. Her eyes shimmer with the most beautiful portion of maybe the Northern Lights and the Glitter Belt.

"These seeds...are believed to be magical," she's trying to explain to Cecil, but her recipient is too absorbed in an overwhelming current of familiarity, "...see...they have an unusual thicker shell that's iridescent."

"What does iridescent mean?" the green-haired girl impresses them, pronouncing the word perfectly in one go.

Rosa crouches down. This time, Cecil notices that her golden locks are gently outshining the sun's undefiable brilliance. like the smallest, most innocent smile. "It means...that if light hits them...they'll make many colors...see?" She chuckles, reserved yet shining.

"Legend says that if you feed doves these seeds...they will attack your worries...pain...miseries. And chased away by blessed spirits, they'll fly away."  
The children are awed by the fascinating birdseeds, but it's the woman before them that's engulfing Cecil in a current he knows Kain wouldn't like.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

"Hair of gentlest gold," Cecil's in a daze that makes the core of Kain's heart shake and shake and shake. because the doubts, the fears of that night will be repeated whether he does something about it or not. _But I didn't take you for granted, Cecil. Why must she-  
_Kain mentally pinches himself and nods to Cecil, urging him to continue.

"A face that is fair and flawless whether at night or day," that clears his doubts.

_I'll tell you, Cecil..since this is plaguing you,_ but Kain can already feel his heart sinking to a sour point. "Your past lover, Cecil."

"My what?!"

"In the past. Your queen. The queen of Baron. Rosa Farrell. Your love was as inseparable as the forests to the sun." He hopes his chopped sentences minced the increasing pain he felt to slices Cecil wouldn't notice. The artist's face grims, strains, grims and strains. struggles to undo the projection of feelings he's forcing to his face.  
_This is a picture of me I musn't show. Not again. Because we will be torn apart again if...if I go down the same path. _

Cecil looks at him, the long look that lets him know _That's the Cecil I know, the Cecil who loves me. _But before Cecil's lips let go of the words that could either mend them both forever or scald them both for eternity...Kain decides to just put two fingers to stop the trembling. hush Cecil and say instead, "I like Rosa, too. I see her quite often while I walk here and there..."

"Kain-" Kain hushes him again in heated response.

"..she doesn't seem to have any memory of anything."

"But the feelings of the memories remain, Kain. She speaks of things people don't usually know and speaks of magic like-"

"Yes, Cecil-"

"but obviously she doesn't recognize us," Cecil concludes and sighs in relief, to Kain's surprise, "And so maybe, Kain...we don't have to..."

"To what?" He intentionally loads more venom and sharpness and bite to draw the emotional truth out of the younger man.

"To...go down the same path we did in the past..." the ex-paladin's words bordered on pleas and bloomed with negotiation. with understanding.  
_At least you know you're walking on eggshells, Cecil. _

"I don't mind...you and Rosa," it's extremely difficult to say, even between jagged breaths. "I like her too, I guess."

"But not in the same way as...me?"

"Why do you sound hesitant in saying that, Cecil?" With that, the younger man flinches, spotlighted on a crime he's trying so hard not to commit.

Purple lips tremble, unsure of where to go. unsure of what to say. "I don't know, Kain...maybe you're..." His breath hitches as Kain slides dangerously closer, sealing the gap between them that marks this interrogation. this soul-baring. this soon-to-be-confession. this analysis of the truth that Cecil is spouting, and the judgment of its validity.

"I thought you would be mad-" Cecil forces out, eyes crazy with uncertainty and primal _fear _of Kain Highwind.

"Mad..." Kain breaks their smoldering gazes for a second, only to slowly pace around Cecil. circling. mercilessly encasing the younger man in fear to squeeze the truth out. "...or jealous?"

"Jealous," Cecil squeezes his eyes shut, hitched breathing evidence of his discomfort. of his guaranteed honesty.

"Of who?" ex-Dragoon Kain Highwind stops and puts his hand around Cecil's nape, flanking the younger man and leaning close enough to see the fear making his eyes tremble. eager to shed tears just to beg Kain to stop this emotional torture-

"Of Rosa...maybe you thought...I'd...spend more time with Rosa than you...maybe you thought...I would run to Rosa and not to you anymore...," the younger man doesn't know where to go - to make a run for it or cling to Kain.

Satiated, Kain smiles. "I love you too, Cecil."  
Cecil kisses him back in unexplainable relief and apology and love and everything else. The intensity of today pushing him to trembles and quakes, he silently sobs out, "_You can't believe how happy I am that things worked out." _

_Shouldn't I be the one sobbing in relief, Cecil? _So Kain smirks. slightly darkly. "So am I."

The storm clears. But Kain knows there's still something off with his own smile.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Back at home after a trial of a day, Cecil's shoulders felt unusually heavier. The dark of the midnight is heavier than the usual dose he's used to. _But I'm so relieved Kain isn't...mad..._

Even with Kain still filling his brain, the dose is still too heavy. as if steel-grey didn't allow the midnight load to be lifted. _Unbearable__. _Disconcerting, he'd admit. His thoughts are muddled up and in the horribly criss-cross mess of his feelings, Cecil cannot understand that the rain he hears are coming from his eyelids. Cecil cannot understand that the rip of thunder is his own angry, lost heartbeat, and not the greeting of an appropriately-expressive storm.

He lingers on the bed for quite awhile, even though Kain's presence isn't expected tonight. Yes, they kissed...but there was a debt, a debt...  
But Cecil still believes, anyway. Tonight, everything is staler than the usual fireworks or the usual harmony or the usual steel-grey fantasies. There are no sparks to even start anything even if Kain _is not mad or jealous _and even if Kain _still loves him. _Surrendering his fatigue to the night, Cecil decides the dampness in contact with his hard cheek is pleasant...for now.

_Will these tears wash my guilt away?  
But Kain's not angry... _

"Kain," he just couldn't resist, even if a phone call's the nearest he can be to the man.

How many times have they painted on this canvas of silence?

"Feeling too much?" Kain's voice encompasses, expresses everything from their mutual pain to their mutual confusion and mutual disorientation. the mutual intention to hold on.

"You, not Rosa," Cecil couldn't even absorb the weakness of his own voice. There's only the default hiss for a few seconds until the younger man hears Kain shift from the other side.

"I'm outside your house, actually, Cecil," Kain says like defense on a difficult trial.

...

_Should I even be here? I'm adding more fuel to the fire. For both of us. _

The artist doesn't have to clench his fists anymore, doesn't have to mutter curses under his breath, doesn't have to struggle disassembling a sour face. Maybe the fireplace's warmth is seeping into his shaken heart. maybe Cecil is still ruling his compass and if Cecil should be lost to him then he be damned...

"I also wanted to...say," Cecil is actually unsure of what to say, "that Kain..I know that this is harder on you than it is on me.."

"Of course, Cecil. At least you know now," the grit and the fire and the sting in Kain's voice isn't really directed to Cecil, but to himself.

"Not unlike before, hmm?" he picks up the poker and plays with the firewood. the flames. the cinders. It went without saying to both of them that Cecil's being honest. tearing down his built-up walls for Kain as gently as humanely possible. His face takes on new angles, corners and the orange shadowing revealing a heart scarred by slight guilt. _There's a more human face,_ Kain thinks to himself.

"Have you..forgiven me yet...in the past, Kain-"

"Shut up, Cecil." that's the only appropriate response he could think of.

"I loved Rosa..." Cecil tries, "in the past. It doesn't go farther than that. Yes, she's a beautiful and charming woman. But you, Kain...please remember what -"

"What, Cecil?" it's almost a hiss. Kain isn't sorry.

"Remember what you drew out from me earlier today, _please_," There's such emphasis on the last word that Kain almost softens. _No. Not yet. _Heart in worn shreds, _but not in fresh pain_, Kain is withdrawing and coming out and withdrawing and coming out. The near physicality of it is making his brain go nuts.

"Enough," Kain makes sure his voice directs a new current powerful enough to bury their conversation, "I can't ask you not to leave -"

The empathy, the genuine concern in Cecil's reply gets to him. He knew Cecil wouldn't be like this to..Rosa. "Who made you feel like that, Kain?!" harsh, yet concerned. "Who told you that it's not alright to need _someone_?"  
Concern transformed to tears and tears pierced through Kain's heart in the classic Cecil guilt-trip style. It's the move Kain is always powerless against. He doesn't sigh.

"Don't blame the past me, please!"  
"Cecil-"  
"I'm different! I'm not the Cecil Harvey who wears that shining armor, Kain. Not that Cecil Harvey. Have you ever even tried to look at us for who we are right now?!" Kain almost draws back in shock; there's a bloody, weeping red in Cecil's pupils that's too distinct to ignore.

"By loving Rosa, I lost both of you! Understand that, Cecil!" Kain roars in regret, shame, bitterness, such an overwhelming agony. agony. But it's not quite enough to throw Cecil off-course.

"Listen to me, Kain Highwind!" the orange landscape of the room freezes over, making way for Cecil's shining tears to escape, to break free. freeze over the room to an unbearable degree. Red dominates Cecil's pupils in frustration and agony. _I will keep us together,_ they're chanting so passionately, _I will fight for you, Kain. I will fight for us! _

Kain is at a loss for words but the feeling is inadequate, incompetent in this vital conversation.

"Give me some time, Cecil," even if those words aren't enough to calm any of their storms, "..you...can't expect me not to go nuts over this."

Cecil's words are hasty but sure. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad because..I can't get over the fact that I wronged you in the past. And that I can't make you understand that I'm not the same person that I was."

"You're wrong, Cecil. I'm the one who can't get over _anything._ I'm so...stupid," before he storms out the house door, he did feel Cecil's red weaken.

...

"_By loving Rosa in the past, I lost both of you! Understand that, Cecil!"_

_"I'm sorry, Rosa. I just...I just wanted to keep you by my side.." _

_"Kain! Why would you betray us?" _

_"Leave him be, Kain!" _

_"Kain, listen to me! It's not you! It's Zemus! You can fight him!" _

_"Rosa is mine!" _

_"Hands off, Kain!" _

_"Know your place. You wouldn't steal from Cecil." _

_"Kain...even you now?!" _

_"Cecil...Rosa...how do I ask for your forgiveness?" _

_"Let me prove my worth. Let me fight alongside all of you." _

_"Please...let me make things right...Cecil, Rosa." _

_"After this...I'll be gone." _

Nothing could separate the volcano of tears from Cecil's wake. absolutely nothing. _I understand now, Kain...b__ut I'm very glad that I was...nicer to you this time..._His teeth are chattering in rhythm with the erratic snow outside. _I still don't know what to do. _The silence is doing nothing except killing him.

_I can't call him again. I need to...give him some space, as hard as that is now... _

Onslaughts of the (recent) (newly-discovered) past keep ricocheting. Kain's dark purplish-blue steel armor clinging to him almost like a vice second skin. redolent of a love of justice. of strength. yet the metal sang a truly heart-wrenching song of agony.

Kain's lance almost piercing through his heart - Rosa's blessed voice the only spell that could stop his death. twisted eyes. manipulated soul.

The man in black, donned in heart-chilling armor of the most obsidian black, as saturated with dark as Kain's was with agony.

Rosa kissing him, kissing Cecil Harvey. Cecil Harvey kissing her back. Kain's dejected face and trembling form was somehow invisible. Kain made himself invisible all the time... they were pushing the dragoon further and further to the wind and further from their hearts. When they were the one who should've loved him most. who understood him most.

Cecil is immensely grateful, beyond words that he didn't bitch on Kain today. _Pry the dark from the light, eh. _

His tears continue gilding the cursed midnight. Resigning to his heart, Cecil hopes the abandon would at least cleanse his shame. his guilt. his sin.

_Such a sissy, Harvey! _

_Are you a girl? _

_Seems like you have it down there. We all thought you were another chick to bang! _

_Man up. Don't be a girl, you're too much of one already! _

_The girls have more guts than you'll ever have in a million years. _

Covering his ears is a futile act. _The voices are ingrained in my memory. A lifelong...shame. _Teetering on the edge of the dark, dark, dark precipice, _and Kain won't be here tonight..._the poet's fingers caress the windowpane. He sees Kain's silhouette in the snowy midnight but he knows and knows and knows _you are just imagining things, Cecil. Why can't you be normal? _

_Writing? That's so girly! You bring shame wherever you go.  
_

_Emotional breakdown? Hmph. Aren't you a man? Oh, of course not! _

_Do you really think words can pay the bills?! _

Onslaughts of his tormented, hated..._my disgusting past _and Cecil's inner power is waning. He tries to recall the girth of his holy sword. the stuffy, restricted feeling of wearing armor as it reduced the risk of merciless blows that could come from anywhere. _And I was wearing this protective headband on my forehead. _Hot-star-white armor as blinding as his inhumanely-pale skin. The sheen in his own eyes that terrifies him. that terrifying sheen when Rosa or Kain were in danger. A crown on his head, richest velvet on his shoulders. loving subjects. Rosa smiling at him.

Kain...

The mirage shatters faster than erratic snow tumbling down. Steel-grey eyes, like metal and metal and metal and strength and sheer protective intensity dominate the picture and Cecil's tears break loose _yet again.  
Stop crying, Cecil. Just...stop. Kain...Kain...Kain will come back.  
_As the sun rose, Cecil forced his eyes to brand the early light familiar within the empty space. or maybe within his drained, tried heart. _Kain is not someone I will give up. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_Crappy night. Crappy morning. _The moody artist is cursing everything from the doves to the fountain to the snow to -

"I sang better after I fed those birdies!"

"That's lovely, Rydia," how could Kain not recognize that voice? It haunted, cursed, chased, tormented, messed up..still made his heart pathetically flutter and skip multiple beats in a row.  
_Cecil's still right, _he contemplates to himself as he walks closer, _we shouldn't repeat our past mistakes. our past selfishness. I won't be the same asshole I was. _

His mere presence must be so damn grim, because in a flash, the green-haired girl scurried away with the excuse of "well Rosa..I'd better get going now! Mother will be looking for me!"

_I'm glad your mother is with you,_ Kain catches himself thinking but smacks it away the next second. _Priorities, Highwind. Priorities. _

Things didn't change. No matter which legendary lance he imagines himself wielding, no matter how many hours he spends polishing his armor -  
_Be quiet, Dragoon Kain. _

Rosa still held a power over him. _But not as illuminating as Cecil's. _

Plastered on her fairest face is _that smile_. "Chrysanthemum," she acknowledges Kain with a gentle nod only she could make sweet, "Many beautiful and mysterious layers of every kind."

"The flower zodiac, eh?" Kain's impatient response held none of the bite he channeled. _Of course,_ he scoffs at himself. _How could I - to you, Rosa? Still a half-pity you don't recognize me. _

"You know," Rosa hums and takes a seat on the fountain edge, "there's at least one person in our lives that we...we feel like we know them."

Kain has crossed his arms in interest. He remembers this as his favorite pose even back to the armor days. Leaning against the wall...watching a certain fair maiden...

"...like our hearts have recorded our emotions...but the key to our memories.." she couldn't quite finish the line so Kain offers, "are locked away from our grasp."  
Rosa hums in grateful satisfaction, pulling another of her unearthly-beatific smiles. The sheer feminine perfection of her face is making it impossible for Kain to tear his gaze away from her - so he forces out but not really - "..that's why you know I was under Chrysanthemum."

"Still many blossoms of surprises," and like this Rosa seems to pop out of a special bubble - "...ah," her face reddens with embarrassment, "I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable."

"I don't mind, Rosa. We know each other in this area," _how many times have I wondered and imagined and fantasized in this life and in the past..if I would ever get another first chance to meet you again. again. a different me. a different you. _

"Hmm," he leans closer as if to catch her scent. Rosa's blush blooms further and this elicits a slight smirk from the artist. "They say...that smell...is a very useful sense that artists neglect to use."

"Redolent of memories," she tries to keep the conversation going but Kain does not move an inch.

"The nonphysicality of smell...can actually take us back to our strongest childhood memories."

_Of course you won't be able to remember me, Rosa, _he hears his own sigh in that thought. _Why do I...keep holding on to the hope that I could've...could've been... _

The church bell rings and sends the doves flying away or about or simply staying where they were. maybe to chase away Kain's wavering will, Kain's doubts. "Saved by the bell," Kain mutters under his breath, drawing back to make Rosa more comfortable.

"The snow carries a harsh wind," she straightens her coat but it's with the environment that she's truly in touch with. totally in sync, and this is still a wonder for Kain.

_I do not want you, Rosa. Not anymore. Cecil has changed me. _

"What does it tell you?" at Kain's question, Rosa withdraws into her special bubble again. By now, Kain knows that the estimated return-to-reality time is two to three minutes. at the least.

"...confessions..." such a wondrous gleam sparks Rosa's blue-green eyes, "...though it's nothing forced."

"Seems like you've met the writer called Cecil Harvey," to the artist, this qualifies as a relevant reply. _Relevant to me. to both of us, Rosa. _

"Yes, he's quite a beauty," Rosa admits as the conversation is drawing their honesties closer and closer to the light. The artist knows that Rosa knows he's watching her every reaction. "But...he told me..."

_Grab the chance, Kain. _

A deep breath before she lets out, "Cecil confessed to me that he's gay."

_What? _

_Improvise, Highwind, improvise! She's actually making the conversation easier for you. Grab the chance! _

"With me, yes," Kain makes the bold attempt, making sure his voice was loud and clear and strong enough to say _you have zero chance with either of us. _

"It's..such a pity that people, despite this day and age still aren't really...free to love whoever they want," there's that unmistakable mixture of compassion-pity in her eyes.

"Society can be ignored if one is in the heat of the relationship." Kain is feeling lighter and lighter as he lets go of his feelings. his words.

"Of course, but ostracizing people will only cause hurt and hatred. It's never going to change the hurt people into what society dictates they should be."

Kain swallows easily. _Her words speak truth. She understands. Trust her, Highwind. Both of you didn't fall for a dull, stupid, brainless woman. _

_It's true. I do feel good things I haven't felt in a long time. _

"Both of you must be having a hard time," then she bravely, so powerfully declares something that astonishes Kain to many levels.

"I support both of you!" and with an extra-special, extra-stunning, extra-uplifting smile.

_Positive vibes, eh. _

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

"You look better, Kain," but Cecil's voice is still weary. Kain Highwind was a man who could strangle people with marshmallows with still perfectly-disinterested eyes -

"Whatever you're thinking, stop," the older man is subtly sporting his new haircut. more defined, sharper layers. Cecil notices that it's fashionably blanched a bit, as if to match the snow. _You didn't tell me though, Kain, _Cecil notes in his head.

"I detect mischief in you imagination, Cecil," there's a hint of a smirk.

"Ah...sorry," the cafe isn't packed with that much people and only the faintest music plays. _This doesn't help, Kain. There's no place to hide my feelings.  
Feelings, huh._

"I'm most grateful and most relieved that you told Rosa."

"Why?" Kain is still in his defensive shell, the cold mask that barricades his heart like a bulletproof vest is making Cecil slightly...sad. _I can't read you today. You're like that person from day one -closed off, reluctant, guarded. But more conflicted, of course. _

"I wouldn't have known how to tell her. And I...didn't want to lead her on just because I...delayed explanations."

A new lesson today: Kain Highwind is a man whose eyes honestly fill the words "I love you" while still wanting to strangle the very same recipient of that genuine affection. Accepting the clearing tension between them, Cecil allows a soft laugh at Kain's expression.

"What's it to you?" Kain rests his chin on his two gloved hands, the pose serious and casual at the same time. _A man full of contradictions, down to body language. _Even his replies are cut duller than the last few days' nightmare, Cecil would admit.

"I'm glad you feel better too, Kain."

"I'd admit I was being a cowardly, insecure bitch about things."

"You were mad at yourself," Cecil reminds him bluntly, without prejudice or blame.

"I'm sorry for hurting you. For hurting both of us."

"Life is actually broader than yes or no, Kain," he swings on philosophical mode again, high on the fact that _Kain feels much much better now. _"It doesn't always have to be a _no_. There's the option of _and _and _too_ and _some of this_ and _more of that. _And _some_ and _a bit_."

Silence knots their stomachs nervous and tight and even tighter but Cecil knows...the knots between them are retying and retying and retying, the bond strength realer this time. with stories to tell, with records of perseverance. _Neither of us gave up on each other. And I'm so happy for that, Kain. _

"I'm too extreme, Cecil," Kain relinquishes his heart again to Cecil with quite a meaningful sigh, "...you know that more than anyone. But thank you for not bitching at me like I did on you." the writer could actually feel Kain's invisible heartbeat on his hand. c_onsensual._

"We can always start over, Kain," their relationship feels like the most expressive, heart-touching poem. the realest and most powerful dream. _Godsent_, both of their lips almost form the words, a prayer proclaiming their ecstasy.

"Memories came to me, Kain," _I hope this clears off the final layers of your suspicion. _

"So now you know," Cecil couldn't decide whether the man was content, angry, or depressed at this.

"It only helped me get to where I am now.."

"I like how we both never stop to make things as clear and honest as possible," the ensuing kiss from Kain is dreamlike. the dreamlike cross between demanding and considerate. Spiced cocoa flavoring Kain's lips and the buttermilk bars liquescent on Cecil's tongue is the _sweetest_ invitation for more. more time, more kisses, more depth.

They're grateful the barista and cashier are chatting somewhere in the shop corners. But no matter who sees them and when and even if the whole world pointed fingers at them, they _wouldn't give a stinking shit_. "Mark of a true Highwind," Kain justifies charmingly with swollen, satisfied lips and the returning steel-intensity in his eyes, the one that Cecil falls for so helplessly over and over again.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_To see a World in a Grain of Sand__  
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower  
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  
And Eternity in an hour  
A Robin Red breast in a Cage  
Puts all Heaven in a Rage _

"Mumbling yet stunningly beautiful to the ears, Cecil," Kain whispers with a hyper-ecstatic glow on his lips that couldn't be quite concealed. or overlooked.

"Kaleidoscopic," the younger man beneath him spills out. Confessions, small or big, ripple gracefully through the whole room - the emotional parallelism of Kain exploring the writer's body further and further and deeper and deeper and digging more new responses, probing the newly-discovered angles - "Kain, you're like..." "Kain, you make me..." "Kain, it's like this..."

It's a heart-melting occasion, Cecil being able to bare his feelings. the voices receding and burning away like they never even existed. Whether he lets go of his feelings slowly or lightning-fast, he knows it pleases Kain much. and that gives him an immense satisfaction. an immense, immense satisfaction he deeply wishes he could _please voice and express and free the intensity of_. If only Kain would stop being so good at _this - _

_Kain's idle yet skillful fingers are waiting for an answer_, Cecil reminds himself amidst the volcanic heat bubbling between both of their bodies.

"Your eyes, Kain," he struggles saying as the artist leaves a small heart-shaped trail on his chest - _quite romantic, Kain, I absolutely love it._ "So many things to be seen all at once."

"Makes good confessions for afterglow, eh?" one eyebrow cocks. Cecil gulps, not knowing where to put his hands or what to do with them. _I do not know what to make of this body. _

"Afterglow, my ass," Kain growls out, "if there's time for afterglow...then there's surely time for another round," a teasing finger on the surface of Cecil's aching nipple, "...right, Cecil?"

"My body, Kain," he pouts in response even if it has an effectiveness of zero percent, "no more."

_And a Heaven in a Wild Flower _

Kain's fingers feel better than chrysanthemum petals and velvet on his chest. The mental protests die down. "It's...Augeries...of Innocence," Cecil manages to say before his thoughts are drowned by whimpers and hisses and moans and more begs, "by William Blake."

Rewarded with a kiss and a rare smile. "I like the poem, Cecil."

Kain inside him is always primal and sheer amazing and _so goddamn right_. The physicality of Kain's feelings simply brings tears to highlight Cecil's eyelashes, already watery with joy and a primal want.

_Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand_

Each thrust is simply too overwhelming and too draining but their mutual intensity from eyes to heart to feet reminds them of their immense fortune. Each thrust feels like too much of sin, too much of paradise. Each thrust is a bigger, deeper bite of the forbidden fruit - _their _forbidden fruit. watered sweet by their tears and glazed ruddy by their love.

_Puts All Heaven in a Rage_

It's an earthquake and a whirlpool and a flare and the most glorious icestorm; yes, heaven would protest in jealousy...at the galaxies of pleasure ricochets and boomerangs in unbreakable formulas. A climax that slops higher and higher and higher. eyes brimming with indescribable revelry.

When their lungs weren't fuming furnaces anymore, Cecil summons enough strength to tap on Kain's heart. "It's melting," he mumbles dreamily, but with the coupling firmness that defines him.

"Hmm?"

"Your heart. The ice shards, the frozen spikes...melting."

_And the fallen sun in your soul has decided to rise again.. _

"Cecil," Kain calls with some seriousness, "what was your first impression of me? When you saw me with the fireflies like some moody bitch?"

"You are still a moody bitch, Kain," Cecil half-heartedly smothers a laugh.

"Shut up, Cecil."

"Well...since you asked...I have a few lines from William Blake again..." both shyness and confidence laced Cecil's voice, but he would not let the post-orgasm lethargy impede him.

"You sure love him, Cecil," a slow but valuable smile, "and yes, I love him too. Fire away."

"_What immoral hand or eye,  
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_"

Kain turns out the soft lamp light.

"_And what shoulder, and what art,  
could twist the sinews of thy heart?_"

_I'm not an object of pity, _Cecil could hear Kain faintly thinking, _I'm an actual object of..love? _

They both surrender to sleep. a holy sword and a lance banded together defiantly points toward their darkness, shaming the nightmares and the _Distant deeps or skies that burnt the fire of their eyes..._

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_Ugly sound...  
_Kain grunts, kicking his foot towards the source of sound.  
It's persistent.  
_Ugly sound...stop.  
_Kain shifts away, caving himself in the comfort of the sweet, sweet, covers...  
It's still persistent.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU FUCKING WANT?!"

"...okay, I'll call back."

"Asshole."

Rustling, rustling. It's that distinctive crispy texture (Cecil would come up with a million unrelated adjectives) - the white sheets they've taken as a canvas to paint on. with words, with feelings in the guise of screams, with grinding, with thrusting, with _feelings _and the _truth._  
The poet always insists on confessions from heated, honest lips; Kain sees fireworks on the plain white blankets even long after their hearts' calm..

"I'm not a morning person either," Cecil is rubbing his still-watery eyes, "but I would hate to be on the receiving end of your phone."

"I'm sorry...not really good at this," chide accepted. "But..did that voice sound familiar...to..you?" The dread, shock, and mental self-kicks for being an asshole (even if it's morning and that's a perfect excuse) finally kicks in.

"Delayed reaction, Kain?" gently wrestling out of the covers to share in Kain's mistake, Cecil gives him The Look. no sympathy.

"...Shit," is all that Kain could mutter.


	3. Part 2

"You can't blame anyone else for this, Kain."

"Can't you..be a little bit more sympathetic? Don't shrug your shoulders at me, Cecil," the irritated elder man spurts out. Neither of them could decide whether embarrassment or anxiousness is the culprit of..Kain's specter-pale face.

_I think it's both. And even more, _suppressing the laughter (_not sadistic_, Cecil promises both to himself and half-heartedly to Kain) isn't a feat he'd decide to be easy.

"Deep breaths," Cecil musters, _I promise it will help and not squash your ego! _but Kain yells out something that could've been either offensive or sexual, _it's the first case at this situation though._

Kain actually does it anyway - a rather over-exaggerated version of it. "No, I am NOT getting flustered about something like...ugh..."

_Kain Highwind, leader of Dragoons, King of Sarcasm. _

Something is burning his entire body, head to toe with lazor beams. The merciless, don't-screw-with-me glare is definitely expected, "but Kain..." Cecil is already pounding his fists on his thighs in an attempt to control his mirth, "that makes you look more adorable! You know, like a hungry cat!"

Slowest and most painful doom impending, the younger man deliberately slinks away...slowly...slowly...

_Just to give Rosa some painted paper roses? Teehee. Kain, you're a true romantic.  
_

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Redolent with everything and nothing at the same time, Rosa's small apartment tells of two comforting stories: _home_ \- an actual home that dried a drenched, tired heart. homely air profusely singing with the scent of lemon pies, spirited flowers on the velvet curtains that ward off the distressing hailstorm outside.

_Walls of his bedroom, temporarily protecting him from spears and arrows and orders to bloody battles. Rosa and Cecil's late-night visits, tickling him off the fake warmth of his empty bed. Cecil's smile chasing away the battle-lags cursing his brain while the incense Rosa brought is diffusing slowly and gently through his stale room, washing off the stench of blood branded on his armor. his heart. his hands. everywhere. _

_Rosa always treated the both of us equally. She never failed to prove that... _

Kain closes the book running through his head, his chagrin and impoliteness this morning pushed away for now. Two comforting stories - _home_, and _family_...

The sole tear that escapes from his eyes is as white as his current face. more like transparent. _Thank god they can't see it_, Kain heaves out a sigh to himself.

"What's wrong, Kain?"

"Kain?" Cecil's concerned voice almost pushes out another tear, becoming double on the precipice. All three of them understand the saturated silence. overloaded with words, with feelings.

_When the terrifying aftershocks couldn't wear off.  
When the numbness could not uncloud his screaming mind. _

_"Your helmets," Rosa would soothe both of them with that voice that cut through the bloody, incomprehensible insanity of war and battle and crimson, "still can't...cover your eyes...can't cover your ears, both of you can still hear them...can't make you...unemotional," her words were a bit shaky because she couldn't bear seeing her only two boys suffer like this..._

"Kain," the firmer voice is Rosa's, not Cecil's, "whatever you're thinking...please stop it." Cecil had fallen silent (but agreeing) at Rosa's side, his powder-blue eyes starkly pointing down the plush carpet.

"You too, Cecil," she gives them both a gentle pat on the shoulder, packaged along with that smile of the brilliant sun. _This is Rosa Farrell. _

Kain hears himself miraculously changing the subject. "I apologize for my...rudeness this morning," he's counting his toes, even if they're covered with socks. But what he really wanted to apologize for was his..._I don't know_. _too many things._

The sun splayed on Rosa's lips magnify even more in its endless glory. But to her, it's just another plain everyday smile. "You and Cecil warm up near the fireplace while I get some cocoa. Okay?"

_She has no idea what kind of woman she is_, Cecil's eyes validate both of their thoughts. Looking at each other back and forth, no idea what to do...  
Amidst the cacophony of clanging spoons and kissing mug cheeks and jars popping open (yes, the woman could make them that melodious), Rosa yells out from the counter, "You could sit on the couch and warm up, to start with!"

_She really has no idea_, Cecil shoots him a close second nod. They take Rosa's common-sense suggestion and settle on the long white couch, stuffed with lilac pillows like the flowers on Rosa's hair..

"A hailstorm outside and neither of you wearing a coat," that admonishing tone. The blonde woman lay the mugs down. And neither of them noticed just how large the gap between them is, until Rosa takes her place between them.

"It feels natural," Rosa follows-up the explanation, "but I don't know where the feeling comes from."

"No problem at all, Rosa," Cecil smiles at her casually, but couldn't exert the same feeling for the cocoa. _House invitation when we barely know each other. I mean, for Rosa at least? Need. to drink. the. cocoa. Don't. look. impolite.  
_

_She is the person to chat with the assassin paid to take her life in a few seconds. _

"Well...it seems like you needed me for something..." Kain could _feel_ Cecil's heartbeat relax at his effort to get an actual conversation going.

"Oh yes," she sparkles even more, "well, those paper roses you did for me, Kain - you really didn't have to go through all that effort...I love them, though."

_Is that rejection or what? _

"No hassle. I'm still rather sorry - "

She pokes a finger to his gradually-warming cheek, and Cecil could swear Kain jumps to the ceiling, but Rosa is looking ever-so-comfortable, "None of that, sweetheart. I was the one out of my mind, calling someone when the day hasn't even broken yet."

"Then," Cecil covers for his friend whose brains are going to be stuck in Mars for at least fourteen more centuries, "it must've been something really urgent, Rosa."

"Actually...remember Rydia? That young girl back in the square?"

"Yes," Kain's brain has an unexpected early arrival from Mars, "what's going on with her?"

"Her mother...asked me to take care of her," the worry in Rosa's voice swells and swells, "off to find - oh, it's absurd, even for me!"

Cecil rubs her back and hushes her as Kain hands her the mug, "Nothing is absurd, Rosa."

"Oh, Cecil," Rosa takes a hurried sip and then some more, "and Kain..you were the only ones I could tell."

"But you haven't told us anything yet," Kain points out. Cecil glares at him. _Give her time._

"Okay," she manages, taking deep breaths, "you know the statue of this strange dragon that nobody really knows where its design was based on?"

"It looks like a bald, uncomplicated Asian dragon to me," Kain says.

"Hmm," a finger to her chin, no idea how...delectable she looked, Rosa is in her imaginary bubble again. "Yea. Without the long stuff. The whiskers."

"But what happened exactly?" Cecil is growing more and more comfortable, unspokenly urging Kain to do so as well. "I did hear this morning that mist is gathering around it..."

"Like it's possessed or something," Kain adds.

"You don't have to put it that negatively, sweetie," Rosa croons, leaning down the table to reveal a hidden stash of...Turkish delights. Three hands fight for space in the box..

"Also," Cecil's voice sounds a bit funny while chewing, "that snow isn't covering it...it's the strangest thing I've ever heard in a while. Snow unable to cover it when everything else is blanketed and drowning."

"And mist surrounding it so suspiciously. It's growing thicker day by day," Rosa's voice held worry and concern for Rydia and her mother; Kain's, suspicion and speculation; Cecil, curiosity and more.

"So...I'm guessing the statue must have a special meaning for Rydia and her mother," Cecil's palm is on his chin, wearing that calculating, scouring expression..

_Attention! Sir Cecil Harvey, Commander of the Red Wings! _

_Anything in sight?  
No, my lord! _

_Toast...to my brother's fortunate return! _

_Cecil! Don't overthink, okay? _

_The son of the king is truly brilliant. A genius. Brilliant! _

_The Red Wings follow only you, Sir! _

It's almost funny but common-sense, how Rosa's house is blurring and how...images of wood and brick and blazing torches lighting the dark, metal clanging at every step...helmets thrown frustratedly at the bed rather than hung on their respective stands when the mission turned out to be way too bloody..

Cecil's obsidian sword kissing Kain's dead-sharp lance in intimate, heated dances, much like how their bodies respond to each other in this life, and how their honest whispers and caresses spark flames...reminding Kain of those times when competitive spars fast-forwarded to draws - Cecil and Kain both on the ground, beat...

"We will help them," Kain concludes. The other two give him their own versions of strange looks, like he'd emerged from a portal back to planet Earth.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_I wonder if kids can absorb the feelings from art, even if it's not meant to be for them. _It was extremely difficult, uncomfortable beyond words, unnatural as holding a foreign axe instead of a brush, to step out of Rosa's house. Neither wanted to keep each other for long - Rosa had class in fifteen minutes anyway. "You're always welcome here, though - even when I'm not here," the woman told both of them, inviting them in again and again with that signature refined radiance. as if they barely knew each other..

_But the three of us... _

"Yes, Kain," Cecil greets him for the fourth time this hour, "just like how some self-centered people make everything in town about them."

"I've been thinking deeply," he admits, pressing a quick kiss to Cecil's tranquil smiling lips. then pulling away like a cold ghost. quickly, quickly, quickly, before the kiss augments and augments and they're both helpless to peel themselves out of their own messy heat..

"It's just...I made them with Rosa in mind...what if the child picks up on the cheesiness of the whole goddamn crap?"

"It's not crap, these roses are symbols of your sincerity," Cecil sneaks yet another kiss, this one directly to the center of Kain's closed lips. anxiety still blocking passage. T_he small things, the seemingly-small body parts expand to a galaxy when one loves, I guess.._

"Not now, you hungry imp," even though imp's a word that would never, ever suit Cecil. not in any life.

"Can't you think of better words?" the innocent chuckle is no match for Cecil's roaming hands.. Kain drags himself away, away away. The task defines the word unnatural.

"It took all my effort to tear myself from you," the artist sighs, recapping his one million previous thoughts in the last minute, transferring them on his face. then maybe Cecil would understand better. But knowing him, he still wouldn't stop..

"Then come back, Kain," Cecil whispers, but respects Kain's choice for now. His hands stay still. but equally eager to start whenever Kain said yes again.

"Let's go see the statue first," Kain forces it out, out out out - before he succumbs to the sweet temptation of Cecil's hands all over him and Cecil's lips breathing a searing fire into his lungs. "Rosa's counting on us. The storm has already let off. It should be fine now," but he's feeling so unsettled. like something unexpected is going to happen.

"Things will work out, Kain," Cecil switches to counselor mode again, "As much as we know about ourselves already...there will still be things we won't be able to control."

"You sound like Rosa," Kain says simply. There's a blank frown on Cecil's lips that says he doesn't know exactly what to make of the comment.

"I agree with you, Kain. Let's go." So Cecil recounts and actually remembers to make himself and Kain wear a coat. Just so if anyone, anyone happens to be mad enough to be in the now-perilous statue's square...they wouldn't gape at two young men wearing nothing but thick shirts and pants and boots. no coat. no bonnet. no scarves. in this cold.

"What Rosa said earlier has been getting to me," Kain confesses when they got out and the cozy wooden walls are replaced with unwelcoming, blank white snow, "...telling her that we don't really feel cold despite all of this. Ever since we were born."

There's a long expression on Cecil's face, "She said it out of concern. But I admit, Kain...I do feel the same way you do."

Kain starts walking faster, his feet desperate to match his heartbeat's skyrocketing march. _Been a habit._ The shorter-legged of the two, Cecil has to jog a bit to keep up. "What if we're just ghosts? Unsettled spirits of the past? Sent to this life for the sole purpose of making amends?"

"And so what if we are, Kain?" Cecil huffs out, raising his voice so that his pants wouldn't obscure his question. The scenery itself as a whole intensifies even more...the snow mercilessly sweeps to a horrifying white. the winter cold finally seeps to their bones and the absence of human life in the perimeter actually sinks in.

"You know how this feels, Cecil," kicking the snow isn't enough to silence the frustration. the venom in his voice. "All my life, I've been sure I was the one who led my own story. Now, I'm proven wrong."

"By thinking like this, you're giving yourself less power," Cecil swallows hard, coming closer to Kain's side. "You're right. Let's get to the statue and clear things up."

"I know this feeling, Cecil," Kain's words glue their feet to the snow, "we're going to learn a truth we don't even want to hear about."

"If it's the truth," it's after a while before Cecil could manage to speak, "then it's worth hearing about. I didn't want to recall your betrayals in the past. How it crushed you. But I still saw them all. It didn't make you any less of the Kain Highwind that I love."

Kain turns away. "Your words are supposed to be touching...but it's the wrong timing now, Cecil. I'm sorry." He walks faster, determination pushing his heels to move, to move, to move. Time seems to halt; Kain's too absorbed in his thoughts. His feet leave no tracks in the snow. the scenery doesn't register in his eyes, the wind is howling a familiar feral song from long, long ago...something is wrong. many things are wrong.

"KAIN!"

"CECIL!"

The snow itself howls and howls a million things all at once. scattered and coalesced at the same time, curses and curses and curses and threats of doom blanking out the whiteness even more. Nature is against them.

"Don't listen to it!" Cecil sounded like his windpipe was being crushed. "Don't listen, Kain! It's testing us!"

_The ground beneath him splitting, the sky impressing itself upon the collapsing earth. There was nowhere to jump. not when rocks crashed like meteors from everywhere. They were trapped between the ground and the sky; they were trapped inside their own useless bodies._

_Would there be a place to go?_

_I can't find Cecil anywhere._

_It wasn't our fault, was it? We were told to bring a ring...but we should've checked what was in the sack before we set out!_

_I HATE YOU! the young girl's voice thundered over the mayhem._

_We didn't mean to kill your mother._

_We were so blind to obey our King, even if we knew he wasn't himself recently._

_Cecil's hesitations were right._

_"Little girl...we are sorry...just please let us bring you somewhere safe," Kain remembered Cecil reaching out to the girl, but goodwill wasn't a language you could communicate with to a newly-orphaned._

A surge of snow rips through the insane whiteness like a cannonball.

Kain breathes deeply, and even deeper as he starts to feel the eons-old strength gather around his legs, blessing his thighs with that power he loved so much...

The vice snow lungs for his stomach like a deadly blade. Kain's brain carries out a command. He plummets up out of the way, high high high, even though the blankness and redundance of the snow rendered height immeasurable.

From his vantage point, he spots a greyish-purplish-black...aura? clearly defying the snow. Veering a bit to the side, Kain catches himself thinking, "Yes, Cecil. You can't fight light with light. Good choice."

_Hold on...Cecil can switch?_

A defined hiss amidst the snowstorm warns Kain of another attack. As fast as an exhale, Kain lands on the purplish-black sanctuary. _It won't be able to come close._

Dark azure blends in with purplish-black. Kain is dematerializing to blend in with Cecil's nonphysical form, but he doesn't really care as long as they're safe.

"We're not going to strike it down this time, Kain," he hears Cecil speak. He knows the snow can't hear them.

"Definitely not. Not like last time."

"Rydia," the name turns the locked door open; it's the right key. "...I'm sure she's here somewhere."

Kain doesn't know how in any law of magick or physics can he jump in this flame-aura-whatever form, but he's grateful for it. Cecil's Darkness still lingered all over him...like a blessed full-body kiss, so the pure-white snow is repelled like a bad spell.

The snow still renders him blind, with the all-encompassing blankness. But the statue's shaking, glowing in desperation. A very small pale-bluegreen aura flickered on and off near its base, obviously unable to hold its own against this terrifying snow...

_Or is she the one causing all this?_

Purplish-black flies down to meld with him in a split-second, "No, Kain. We are not going to repeat the same mistake!"

Kain halts, grateful for the refill of protection. Quite funny how one had to be protected against Holy. Holy, of all things. "What would you have us do, Cecil?"

"The roses!" Cecil's voice is starting to distort, as if the holy snow's biting it off to pieces. Persistence and determination kept Cecil running, even as his Darkness aura followed his voice to worrying flickers. "Rosa asked us to bring it!"

They're strange colors...even if Kain painted them for Rosa's forgiveness, it just didn't do. His brush was possessed - his mind was encaged in who-knew-what and light fuchsias and light purples became clear water-blue and mythical blue-greens.

And now they're crusting with ice even if the snow couldn't bite them off.

Both of them fight against the overpowering current - Cecil's strong, solid chest and Kain's powerful and flexible legs. The aura form is strange enough but it allowed them to meld bodies and complete..incompleteness. fill each other's gaps. Neither knew that they weren't able to do this, not even in their past lives...

"Rydia!" Cecil's yell is like a siren. No response; pale blue-green just kept flickering in and out in its own space.

"Cecil! What are you doing?" purplish-black is painfully yet gracefully paling to grey, then to a warning white. "Don't switch! The snow will devour you!"

"Rydia! It's not safe here!" Cecil's white is shimmering with a special light cornflower blue, setting it apart from the snow. Kain sighs in relief, until the cornflower blue cracks and Cecil returns to his physical body.

Pale blue-green wanes, then stabilizes. "Cecil.."

"CECIL!" Kain screams at the top of his lungs as he himself felt his flames switching to bones and skin, "THE SNOW WILL DEVOUR YOU! SWITCH BACK!"

Cecil's face, his entire body from head to toe is being drowned in the whiteness. He's shaking on and off like static on a sad telephone call, like a disturbed water surface, like tears voicing certainty.

"She didn't listen to me back then because she was...afraid of my armor," Cecil smiles down at her, and hands her the roses. Even if her face didn't look like she's decided yet.

"I..." Rydia's sobs thundered like her screams of fury long ago, "I didn't...realize back then that...it wasn't your fault!" the snow ripples down, calming and calming as if Rydia's sobs soothed their vice. But even so, the snow kept piercing Cecil's body in unforgiveness. Bruises started kissing and pounding into his muscles, and Kain is beginning to remember Dark Knight Cecil's contoured body again. He's upset that it's not his lips that are pounding into Cecil's skin, but Kain knows that they have to resolve things now.

_I will heal those blasted bruises later._

Cecil's smile only widens, that Paladin light blessing his lips despite the furious snow. "We are sorry, Rydia. Me and Kain. Let's forgive each other."

"I, too, am sorry, little girl," Kain manages with sheer will, "Please stop the snow. Me and Cecil and Rosa will look after the statue. We promise," his voice is foreign, but he knows he's been dying to let go of the words ever since his past life. quite literally.

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It had been a tough, tough, tough day. Been too long, actually. Way too much revealed and imposed on all four of them in such a small timeframe. Tough and long and cold. Cecil notices that his thoughts are chopping up in bits and accepted that. _Yes...looks like I really am tired._ Rosa's ephemeral thank-yous and radiant smiles cut through the after-daze, though.

_I'm worried about Kain…it's been really hard on him._

"I put Rydia to bed now," Rosa's voice drags him out of his introspection, "and Kain's soaking in the tub. Maybe he'll be out in about an hour...but he looks like a water-lover."

"That is true," it's a bit easier to force a smile.

"Thank you once again, Cecil. To both of you. Kain's sick of hearing me say it now…but I can never really thank you guys enough for this."

Cecil tries to flatten a chuckle at the thought of Kain scowling. "Always here to help, Rosa. No matter how odd or dangerous it turns out." He's rewarded with a soft kiss on the forehead. The woman's vanilla-rose perfume clears the stench of the snow that they'll hate so much now.

"I'm really glad to have you, my boys," Rosa says silently. as if she remembers the terror-filled nights, the torches casting long and dark shadows on the castle walls, the fact that the three of them were still together being the most soothing and most assuring knowledge in all of the universe. as if she remembers the three of them looking up to the Twin Moons, each wishing for different things. small things. big things.

"So are we, Rosa," Cecil returns, smiling vaguely. That smile wouldn't change whether Rosa remembers the three of them in the past life or not.

"Don't let today…linger on your mind," Rosa tells him, the nearby fireplace casting shadows on her face that Cecil finds very disconcertingly familiar.

_You love Kain. You promised Kain. And Kain loves you. Kain promised you._

In a flash, both of their arms wrap around each other like perfect ribbons on the right box. For a moment, Rosa remembers everything and the homecoming of all that filled the blanks…for a moment, Cecil does not hesitate, Cecil does not plague himself with any guilt or any regret or any thought of Kain seeing them. not even a single thought of Kain finding out later.

In this moment, Kain did not exist.

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"Y_ou were cursed in this life as well, reborn only to amend the mistakes and bloodshed and darkness of the past_,"

the snow…the mist's words…did Cecil hear them too? Kain has scrubbed his freezing skin raw in hopes of cleansing off the snow's stench. the snow's traumatizing weight; it's vengeful current that still sticks to his body complicatedly.

He saunters down the hallway, hoping to meet Cecil and Rosa in the living room. Then warm up a bit by the fireside, perhaps. _Nothing is certain anymore. Even after amends and reconciliations._

Still, Kain pulls up a smile. He'll ask Rosa to let him and Cecil sleep on the same room – she'll agree, since she explicitly told Kain that she supported them. The guilt of rejecting Cecil earlier still tugs at him…he needed to make up. He promised Cecil that they would make love after the task was done with. And now it was. And they both needed the warmth and the primal contact…

When he opens his eyes, the walls crush in on him, the ceiling storms down savagely, and the fireplace explodes to a flare. Kain's eyes cry invisible tears of blood and every bone and sinew in his body rips to pieces a million times over. No matter how much red washes over his eyelids, Cecil and Rosa are sharing a blinding kiss. Both of them wanted it.

_So they both remembered, huh._

Kain is grateful he wasn't that close to the living room. If he was, it would be harder to stumble away without causing a disturbance…

The door is closed as gently as how savage and unstoppable the hurricane inside Kain is. This time, he hears himself sobbing and he hates himself even more for it. Cecil's light, every single pair of butterfly wings and firefly gaiety is finally being consumed into the void. Red, crimson, most terrifying black floods Kain's senses.

_I was foolish to think my time with him would last. Goddamn foolish._

The door slams open. Hurried, anxious – guilty footsteps rip his bludgeoning brain back to the present. to Rosa's guest room. to freezing London. "Kain!" It's Cecil's voice, thinking it wants and needs to heard. Rosa's by his side, thinking her face wants and needs to be seen right now.

All three are afraid to say anything. Cecil and Rosa are afraid to breathe, but they've both sucked each other's souls out already and are using that as an excuse to.

"Both of you can tell me it was a mistake."

"Kain-" Cecil's voice sounds slightly repentant, even though it just disgusts Kain even more.

"Both of you can tell me it was a kiss of friendship."

"It's not like that, Kain –" Rosa's voice makes him want to vomit right now. vomit his own guts out. They'll find Cecil's name in them. in every single fiber of his being. in every single corner of his cells, filthy or clean.

"I lost both of you in the past life," Kain's voice is breaking fast and he knows he has to finish the sentence even faster, "and now, they won't even let me have one of you? I didn't love Rosa this time. I didn't make that mistake again. But Cecil…" his tears dramatically freeze on the spot, mirroring his fluctuating heartbeat. It still screamed Cecil. Cecil. Cecil. Cecil.

Always the mediator, Rosa speaks first. Her moon-shaped face is pale; her lips are swollen, because Cecil gave them a slight modification earlier…"For a minute…I swear I remembered feelings. That's my…excuse, Kain."

"And what about you, Cecil?" Kain doesn't even bother to look up and read the man's expression. He doesn't care.

"I….I didn't want to make it awkward for her. She would feel so lost if I didn't…" Kain doesn't bother to read between the lines, to hold onto every rise and fall of Cecil's voice when he knew that it wasn't going to speak for him and him alone anymore.

"I remembered how you felt…burdened by memories you couldn't make sense of," Cecil continues, "I didn't want another person to feel the same way we did!"

"Don't raise your voice at me," the stars have stopped shining and the Cecil's face is a sight that rains daggers down at him. Kain turns to Rosa. "You supported us. You explicitly told me so."

"I still do," Rosa's face is tear-streaked, and it touches Kain a bit. "I just..I'm sorry, Kain!"

"I forgive you," he just lets go. _It will be easier this way. I will stop losing now._ "I'm not going to bitch about the past and wallow about what could've been. Cecil…I won't ask for your loyalty. No pointless stuff like that."

"Kain…"

"I thought you wouldn't leave. We fought about Rosa for weeks and we still ended up together. You kept assuring me that you wouldn't let her come between us. But looks like I underestimated that glow in your eyes when I told you who she was. How your whole body relaxes when she's close to you. I was stupid."

"Kain," Rosa says silently but firmly, "I know I'm not in the place to say this, but-"

"What?!"

"I'm sorry…but please don't let me get in the way. I….I just made a mistake….a reckless one. Even if I remembered everything else….Cecil's not my right. Not in this life."

"Are you backing out now? Can't you take responsibility for what you just done? You're escaping, Rosa!"

"I'm not escaping!" her tears run down, down to her neck, "You found him first in this life! I was his wife in the last. But that doesn't mean that I have a right to steal him away from you just like that! The past is the past. This life is a new, different story."

Kain doesn't want to look at any of their faces. He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want to breathe the same air that they did. "You sound unbelievable," he tries to counter even as Rosa's logic is undoing the newly-tied knots everywhere.

"Rosa..she's right," Cecil dares to say. "I just…led her on."

"You mean both of you just indulged for the sake of the memory?" Kain laughs darkly. "You're insulting me. Both of you."

As quick as the heavy tide turned, he stormed out of the room. out of the house. away from them. he didn't want to see them. not for at least ten years. _Because I know I'm the one who's wrong here. I know I'm the one who steals away. who covets. who envies. It's been like that ever since the past life. Why am I even surprised?_

Even the stench of the traumatic snow doesn't get to him. He doesn't know how he reached his house, but the next time he opens his eyes…he's sitting on his dark studio. The brushes are sharp, menacing daggers, the acrylic and watercolors are nauseating blotches, and the walls are made up of shadow and darkness….not of cement.

Cecil killed the shadow dragon in him. It's no longer a refuge. Cecil took everything with him, leaving Kain with nothing…not even a dark place where he could lick his expected wounds.

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"We should…check on Kain," Rosa's voice is trembling. in fear, in anxiety, in regret, in guilt, and a million more emotions she can't really hold up all at once.

"Rosa," Cecil softens his voice, "I'm not mad. I'm to blame as well. So…please don't cry anymore," he rubs the teartracks, making Rosa nod and strain to smile.

"Where do you think he went?" Rosa didn't try to move away.

"His apartment, most probably."

"I hope he's safe…he's got quite a fright after all the snow. Let's go, Cecil…please," Cecil couldn't decide whether that "please" was "I hope Kain forgives me" or "I hope Kain is okay".

"What about Rydia? We can't leave her here alone," Cecil reminds her. Both of them are still shaken and torn – he didn't even want to imagine how damaged and bruised Kain already is..

Her innocent presence loomed like a lightbulb of solutions, her voice child-like but held together. She knows what to do and what to say. "I will tell Kain…I have to tell Kain why mother was sad…and why both of you had to fight through the snowstorm."

"Rydia!" Rosa exclaims in slight surprise, wiping the last of moisture from her eyes, "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to wake you."

The green-haired girl's smile is both unminding and all-knowing. "It's perfectly fine, Rosa. I really need to tell Sir Kain."

"Okay then," Cecil manages, a bit unsettled because he knew Rydia would be the one who could say something to persuade Kain. But he didn't like it a single bit that he wouldn't be the one to talk to Kain…"let's get our coats, then."

"It's going to be okay, Cecil," Rydia beams. There's no mocking, playful innocence – she's a girl who knew the woes of the world and more strangely, the tears of lovers. "You've fought for him long enough.."

"What do you mean, Rydia?" Rosa asks as she wrapped a scarf around Rydia's shoulders.

"I…I separated them….I really have to tell Sir Kain."

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The snow reeks of gasoline. But it's fine. That's the specific way Kain wants the air to reek of. Gasoline and flames and burnt paint. Cursed was he in the past life, so there was no point in hoping for a turnover, for a plot twist as Cecil would call it – in this one. Cecil would never be his completely. Ever. Even if all three of them came to an understanding and repentance and Kain is blessed with amnesia.

He feels calmer than he expected, despite the million memories degrading to cinders, consumed by the physical fire that embodied his metaphorical pain.

_Pain will follow me in every single life. Pain. And emptiness….because my name is Kain Highwind._

The armored dragoon, arms on his chest, leaning against the castle walls. Cecil told him the torchlights were too pale.

The paladin in his holy armor, the moon above him. Glorious and accomplished and fucking clean, unlike Kain who wallowed in the darkness. Then paid for it.

The dark knight and the dragoon sparring. Cecil reminded him that Rosa the Healer often watched, so Kain added her to the canvas.

The three of them sitting on Cecil's bed, finding relief in each other's words and contact. Cecil told him that Kain smiled at least thrice every night whenever the three of them were together.

Rosa donning her White Mage robes for the first time. Cecil reminded him that they were both clapping for her and were the most proud of her, and yes; Kain went through the trouble of painting that despite the small blank space left.

The day Kain and Cecil left for Mist, thinking it would be just another pardon mission. Cecil said that their obscuring helmets hid their anxiety and worry and fear…so Kain didn't have to polish up anything.

Kain's heart is thrown in the gutters of the flames. The little pieces….these little pieces….the memories…. _Why..am I even doing this? What will I gain?_ He realizes the thought only when it's too late, when every single shade of blue and purple and gold and black and white and grey and purple had now been branded the same charred coal. Monotone, monoshade – unable to tell their own unique stories. a pathetic attempt for a phoenix, no matter how dynamic the colors originally were. _It's not really that sad, Kain…_

He loved Cecil too much. He still loves Cecil too much. And he loves Cecil even more after what happened tonight.

_Cecil is a man and Rosa is a woman. What were you expecting, Highwind?_

_But Cecil promised me…he certainly promised me and assured me many many times!_

_You promised you'd protect Rosa even if you weren't the one she loved, but in the end you helped Golbez put her in a death trap!_

_If you swallowed your own stupid jealousy, then at least Rosa would've been safer!_

Already thickening with smoke, smoke that couldn't drift with the snow's current…cinders couldn't be reversed...his vibrant colors will never sing from the earth ever again.

"Feelings aren't things you can just swallow," a familiar voice warbled against the smoke-saturated atmosphere, "..that's the thing, Sir Kain," the speaker comes forth. Rydia. What the hell is the child doing here in this insane cold?

"What could you possibly understand?" Kain tears his eyes from Rydia's light blue-green ones that spoke very important messages. messages and words meant for him. eyes – he drags them hard and forces himself to look at the ugly, obliterating smoke.

"I…I was the one who separated you and Sir Cecil back then," she tries with that childish confidence and purity, with the knowledge that Kain will listen to her whether it's the full truth or useless nonsense.

"Even you are bringing up the past life," Kain's breathing is as ragged as the agitating smoke in front of him. "I don't need any pity or sympathy. The fact that we saved you from the snowstorm is one less thing that went fu-awfully wrong today," would the fangs in his voice scare away the child? He didn't think so. He didn't really care.

"If I didn't cause that earthquake…you and Cecil wouldn't have been separated."

"You don't have to bring up Mist Town now, little one."

"No!" Rydia stomps closer, her small footsteps actually more determined than the goddamn effortless fire. "I have to tell you, Sir Kain. If there was no earthquake, you and Sir Cecil could've been together…"

"Rydia," Kain releases an exasperated sigh, "many more things could've happened even then," he's tired beyond words. His brain is totally overloading right now; he needed a really long sleep. maybe an eternal sleep.

"No," the little girl shakes her head with so much persistent vigor, "you saved me in that snowstorm, even if both of you got injured. Because you wanted to make things right. Let me repay you too, Sir Kain. Please," her bluegreen eyes were clear, resolute. Understanding and bright, yet uncomplicated…

"What do you want to say? I don't have all day to listen, Rydia," _Just get this over with. Please. I'm already so exhausted…_

"For this life…please think that you and Cecil never got separated….please, Sir Kain." It sounds so goddamn mocking, the living words themselves taking Kain for a fool...Kain dismisses it as a badly-phrased sentence. or a genuine thought the child's too young to express.

Out of reluctant politeness, Kain withdraws a sneer. "That's not something you can just ask people to do, Rydia."

The child is at a loss for words.

"Do you think that's enough to make things right again?"

"No….but please…please, talk to Sir Cecil. I'll feel bad if you two don't like each other anymore….and you guys saved me.."

Two presences make themselves welcome behind him. Kain is way too tired and drained and frustrated and insane and too much of a monster already to face them.

"I am not going to let Rosa come between us," it's a harder slap in the face since Rosa's listening right now.

"Please, Kain," Rosa backs up the plea, pulling Rydia to her side.

"Do you really think you can make things right now, Cecil? There's nothing to say…to be honest."

Rydia tugs at Rosa's arm, pointing to the fire with such a sense of purpose. _You'd think she's a sage trapped in a young girl's body._ The two men ignore them for now. "I know it's been a hell of a day for you Kain," Cecil tries, not quite meeting Kain's eye. Lies. Lies. Lies. "Please…let's….start over," Cecil's eyes swerve even farther. to a place Kain doesn't quite like. to a place Kain knows he won't quite follow.

"Look at me in the eyes, then, Cecil."

"No." There's no spark awaiting the wavelengths of their voices. no prolonged silences when the words weighed too heavy. bated breaths shaken off.. there's absolutely no connection between Cecil's heart to Kain's. If emptiness is an excellent bridge, this is the absolute evidence. _That's what Cecil would say..._

Cecil doesn't bother hoping for a miracle or trying to build that connection. Funny, because Cecil was and is the miracle in his life. Crouching down by the fire, he reclaims a suspicious chunk. It seems like time's actually still flowing, and that the snow has waned the flames. _Why is my heart not beating? _Kain rhetorically asks himself.

"Kain...it's fireproof," Cecil hands the canvas to him.  
Aquamarine blue is aquamarine blue. The special glitter he used for the final touches still glitters like a terrifyingly cursed thing. The dove's wings are intact and it's still flying out of the canvas, exactly like how Cecil commented. Cecil's eyes are perplexingly cornflower blue, cleansing itself of the surrounding cinders...

It didn't make sense.

"It's fireproof, Kain," Rosa repeats like a goddamn stupid machine, "It wasn't meant to be burned."

"Obviously," the artist manages to say in his disappointment. _Cecil...always forgave me...I fucked up more than thrice and betrayed him when he needed me the most..._

_I could never really repay him. _

_Fled to a goddamn mountain instead. _

"Sir Kain...you know what that means," Rydia pleads with them, pulling Kain back to the present. away from the memory of Mount Ordeals..the actual misery, the loneliness, the mentality that his betrayals could never be made up for...  
Cecil falls silent.

"The problem is, Cecil, no matter how awfully you fucked me up, I'll still forgive you. Even if I don't have to."

Profanity's the only thing that could speak his mind right now, and no one seems to mind. Rydia's face scrunches up a bit, though. Rosa did not reprimand him for swearing at a child's presence - no one really has the energy and bravery to stand against Kain. When Kain's the right one here...

_My thoughts and the things I see are turning uglier and uglier. I can't think in vivid pictures anymore. The world is dark; I cannot see anything...Cecil, this is the monster you've made me into... _

The artist ironically holds the survivor canvas to his chest, wishing, hoping to any god out there that it would help still his heartbeat. for better or for worse, it didn't really matter anymore. He walks away, not really caring if anyone follows him or just leaves him to die.

_When your thoughts chop up and your heartbeat skyrockets, that's when you have to control your emotions the most_, Cecil's voice haunts him, a consolation he doesn't really want right now.

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Silent fire. howling night. still wind; confounding, actually.  
Rosa stuck somewhere in between herself and Kain and him, still unable to decide which wave to swim on.  
Dying embers. thoughts short-circuiting, but thrusting pangs after pangs after pangs of sharp pain to his heart.

_I am an agonized, tear-faucet demon screaming at myself. _

_I am lost. _

Kain's water and Kain's ocean cannot coat the fire consuming him. The hurricane of every single emotion associated with regret, guilt, confusion, frustration, and utter pain, refuses to quiet down. The tears don't stop falling that easily.

He forces himself to look at Rosa's...face. Acid drips itself all over him, stinging his insides...no one really cares that it's negative eleven degrees celcius tonight. Even Rydia's heart is colder and more devastated than that.

"We should go back inside," Rosa finally manages to say something. anything. Her voice is cracked, but less haunted and less regretful than the surface of Cecil's ailing heart.

"The...crystal chamber. In Mount Ordeals," Cecil flings, his voice and soul dead and everyone knows it, "I..."

"Kain was the one who kept you going," Rosa's nod is weak, but something positive, something close to strength and enlightenment began circling around the cold, cold, cold, cold, cold house..

"I needed to save both of you. Not because I was commander of the Red Wings and not just because both of you meant the world to me," the words are coming out fast and easy, but Cecil still feels like a ghost. a ghost with nowhere to go, a ghost with no right to even haunt his loved ones...

"Tell this...to Kain," it's a plead, it's a suggestion, it's advice, even if it's just common sense. "I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who should hear this, Cecil."

"Sir Cecil," Rydia's eyes are red and grieving. this adds to Cecil's guilt, his desperation to make things right again.._but I've broken Kain too deeply. _"I was only a kid back then...and still am, in this life...but you and Sir Kain...both of you meant so much to me...I could've died on the rubble...but you saved me. You even protected me from the bad soldiers...do you remember?"

Cecil's tears aren't stunning crystal or tasty diamonds a lover would love to lick. They're something else...something more realistic. His thoughts fumble and fish for a decent description, but he's simply too tired and drained. not really communicating with the world anymore, barely processing any information, too devastated to think about the words being spoken to him..

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_Don't romanticize my sighs, please_, it's a strange thought - even for Cecil. He knows where it comes from and at the same time, he really doesn't. His puffs, long and broad and...farcical... what a condemning plot twist. already expected, yet he couldn't use better words, he _broke _Kain more mercilessly than any sawing machine. Imagining Kain's hand in his, imagining Kain's lips kissing his as he covers and covers and covers and wanders and wanders and wanders the snow-blanketed streets alone for eternities..

_Simply wrong. _

_Odin...please help me make things right..._

A roar drums from the white earth, detonating innocent snow and no one's in the streets to really pay attention. Cecil's eyes don't open as he tries to focus on that drumming. Not really. He's actually more interested in the snow. the sound of upset snow (still silent, no matter what). the sound of swooping snow; snow voral and shaken off and shaken shaken shaken shaken off elsewhere, perfectly stitching themselves in their relative blankets (still silent, no matter what).

_Kain...I don't want you to be under a different blanket... _

A screeching halt. Is that a sign or the angry bellows of Kain's heart? It sounds like both. a very small one-thousandth piece of Kain's heart.

The motorcycle's headlights flash, half-blustering half-irate. The engines' seemingly-sympathetic bellow (sympathetic to what, though?) is supposed to be deafening, but Cecil's thoughts are chopping up. his consciousness is dampening and already sunk anyway.

He speaks with an accent that's strange even to Cecil's well-versed ears, leaning against a foot on the snow. He's wearing goggles as if it's raining and not snowing - even though Cecil's sure he knows that snow is nestling on his ginormous beard...

"I was lost," that's the excuse Cecil makes when the motorcyclist asks him with a gruff concern, what in heavens' name is he doing out in the snow.

"Freezin' to death in the jolly process, eh?" it's a jolly voice Cecil is familiar with. _Another someone from the past life? I'm...really tired today... _

"I am lost," Cecil drones, not really in any mood for a conversation with a stranger.

"Lost in where, exactly? I'm pretty sure yo in a tight, stuffy place, eh? Hard to find yo way in and escape!"

_Yes...I am lost. My selfishness, my guilt, my inadequacy...it's eating me.  
And Kain's not the - _Cecil physically shuts his mouth as if that would cut off the thought. _Wait. What is this man saying? It's not making sense. _

The motorcyclist looks too emotional for someone this gruff.

"Now, don't go all down on me, boy!" his deep yell cuts through the whiteness so plaintive - simple and clear and blaring as heartily as the engines that power his motor. function. efficiency. "Ya lost sumthin' that makes ye glum as a ghost, then take it back, lad!"

_Heaven sends a messenger? Or is it just a test? _

Cecil forces his head up with a duress that came from nowhere. Not really caring what it is, he looks for something in the motorcyclist's uplifting fist-up and his gruff, gruff, gruff, gruff face...and finds it.

_Is it a feeling? An assurance? A will? Are these questions going to have a use? _

"It's yer own shoes that's gonna bring ya where ya wann' be, son. Ye can't claim somethin', bringing fate in as a handy, silly excuse there - " his voice drops a significant bit, " - unless ye fight tooth 'n nail for it."

_Where should I be right now?_

Something in parity with the snow's howl is tearing itself out of Cecil's heart. frustrated, but getting there. His heartbeat is one with the endless, endless, endless, endless, endless, endless snow.

"What grieves you...eh, boy?" he doesn't seem to mind that Cecil's withdrawing in his thick shell cruelly. in, out, in, out... like a rock...

_My brain is short-circuiting. not. good. not. good. _

"What I want..." Cecil mumbles more to himself than to the deaf winter.

"Get it, boy," the motorcyclist's voice is persistent, persistent, persistent. like a rock. Cecil is already running out of words to describe his world in and he feels the droning words overwhelm his brain.

"Get..."

"Stop mumbling like a fried robot and go fight for it, boy!"

The motorcyclist's collective words ingrain a persistent thought in Cecil's mind. _sabotage the numbness. sabotage the numbness. sabotage the numbness. _

"Your sword in your heart," such a wild voice against the snow... Cecil could only smile in the stillest confusion and the clearest haze and the most empowering spell.

"Cid Highwind," his savior yells out cheerily - even waves as the poet walks away. with something new in his hands that were shaking mere minutes ago.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Kain's derailed eyes glaring at him, crushing his scabbing heart to a pulp. The sides and the rims and every single nook is burning terrifyingly-red. _the ribbon of unforgiveness. _

"It's not unforgiveness, Cecil," the elder man's lips are twisted, twisted, twisted beyond recognition. It's no use interpreting it - the entire room's already conflagrated with Kain's darkness. point of no return.  
Both of them know his shadows have already materialized. not to knock the air out of Cecil and purge his heart out so Kain can chain it to his own -

"That's right. They're killing me. Not you,"

Cecil is bombarded with seven subsequent headrushes. A strike of lance following-up a jump from high-heaven - Kain is grounding the younger, weaker (_who is the weaker one of us here?_) man against the wall as if it would drudge Rosa's name, Rosa's scent, Rosa's memories, Rosa's eyes, everything in Cecil that still clung to that woman.

_I lost my sanity. I lost the freedom of thinking..my own thoughts...I lost them all loving the both of you in our past life_, the mephitis of bitterness. the dirge of anguish.

_Kain_, Cecil's lips dare to start half-assedly. Fading cornflower-blue desperately look for Kain's in the suffocating conflagration. _It's still Kain...I made him that way..._  
The absence of light, the shadows of the night layering on top of each other are cheery compared to the unexplainable cyclones Kain's body is discharging like a monster.

_Cecil, this is the monster you've made me into_, the artists' words, every single truthful syllable of it...

"We don't need reconciliations or compromises," the smoke of brokenness flows out of Kain's lips like he's a skeleton. "Just - just..."

Red and angry and battered and bleeding impaled. Teeth, no - weeping fangs biting deep into his neck like a vampire collecting his rightful share of human blood. his body's practically being crushed even deeper against the wall. yes, it was still possible. Kain's conflagrations - he's willing to take the punishment.

"Don't move, Cecil," Kain sings the broken melody, lead by something in between a ripped whisper and a primordial scream. "Then I'll forgive you. Let me take you tonight. Let this be the truth and let's fuck the complications."

_If you allow me to tell you... _

_Yes, this is the real Kain Highwind I fell in love with. The real Kain Highwind I - _

Battered between the first night's kiss and the crumpled wall, Cecil collapses. Kain does not fall for this. Kain does not go easy so he raises him back up, only to hammer his whole body against the cement again. Words and thoughts and trivial things such as heat and crazy contact warp out of comprehension,

_they're useless now. _

_Black and thorough_: the unique conflagration of Kain's priceless heart. dangerously fused with an acid-covered wound that Cecil cannot nurse and won't even dare to nurse.

_Blinding white of the moonlight, flaw to Kain's shadows that deaden the studio_: it's not a romantic kind of light and they both know it. It's the light that harshly reveals pain lines marring their faces. white light highlighting red-rimmed eyes - even if Kain and Cecil love the truth of things, the contrast is still shocking. Oh, and anxious lips bruised with calm-thirsty kisses set forth as peace offerings.

Cecil Harvey and Kain Highwind, _white and black. _They're painting reconciliation and attempt frustrated doses of forgiveness with their own bodies. The splotches of intense magic, the conflagrations are neither loved nor hated, but definitely _needed _and craved. They keep painting the truth, the room a conquered canvas and silence long murdered on the not-so-fluffy trail.

Tasting of tears as white and pure as the moonlight beating Kain's Yin, Cecil is simply there. as simple yet crisscross as the mysterious moon. They're the saltiest ever to flood down Cecil's cheeks, but Kain hasn't quite relented yet.

"Your tears will not easily cleanse you, Cecil."

It's a biting remark. it neither halts nor charge the honest current. Both of them breathe in each other's versions of dangerous agony, but neither can really fight against it at this point. neither have any strength to shoot out arguments of logic or sense...not at this point anymore. Hands might've as well been bone-deep, eyes staring right through the tiniest cell of each other's soul.

glaring at the faults and not the beauties. finding a goddamn sane reason to trust each other again. to allow the other to break him and break him and break him and break him so lovingly.

Cecil surprises the elder man, pushing Kain's angry body down the floor - a miracle soon crowned by the millionth kiss of the night. It reminds Kain of the dove with Cecil at the church a thousand eons ago. except that it's trembling, as if its purity is being watered down..  
Kain doesn't bother to notice Cecil's breath is a wild tremor in its hitching.

So fiercely it's more blood than endorphins and stress-relief, Cecil rides him. in tears. of anger or sorrow, Kain doesn't bother to decide either. There's not a microscopic drop of pleasure that can be squeezed out. no matter which way they thrust. Whether they wear stale eyes of masks on each other or weep together, there's no difference. masks that have no use, when the intimacy is way too stifling. unpermitted. forced. and all the opposites of those, at the same time...

There's no love. only a gang of violent emotions too intense to express, whether in Kain's unusual colors or in Cecil's linked, domino-like thoughts.

Kain permits himself to weep when he realizes this fact.

"Rebirth," Cecil dares to whisper, "...that's what you told me how this felt, Kain...like you were born again."

Silence. then the air thickens with the first breath of darkness and pain.

"Well, fuck it now, Cecil. It's quite obvious that the whole ideology and image of this has already changed."

The poet gasps and closes his eyes, a reverse of his usual mannerism - the memories of making Cecil shudder, jump or squirm - then that rocketing off to a gasp or a scream or a hard confession are already singed into Kain's brain. into his subconscious.

Kain permits himself to weep even more. _Who's reversing mannerisms now, Highwind? _

_Rebirth_, he mouths the words. Why are the moments unlocking so unnaturally like forced scripts, like bribes, like lies and interrogations on gunpoint? Why is everything so goddamn slow and hard?

"I don't know how to fix things," there's something bubbling out of Cecil's eyes, but Kain doesn't find it in himself to call it a volcano-eruption scene yet.

"I don't need you to fix things, Cecil," Kain further lashes out, "You...you know more than anyone that you're the only one who can break me. And very easily, at that."

Censors down, screens obliterated. At that moment, Kain could swear to the moons that Cecil's teary cornflower blues burst. revealing a very angry, guilty, torn red. Almost instantly, the broken poet dives down and they're kissing again. Kain doesn't notice how thirsty he actually was until the salty tears slide down his parched throat.

One of them smiles at the end of the night. With their lips on top of each other's and practically branding everything everywhere, there's no way to know who did.


	4. Part 3

"_Have you been eating well, Cecil? Don't forget to wear your sweaters and coats. I know you've hated them ever since you were young – you need to protect yourself from the cold though. I hope you've been sleeping well enough? Ever glad to find out you've got two new close friends. Love, Brother._"

When a blank screen is filled…  
Lonely nights, lonely nights spent near the radio, but the thought process is actually miles of countryside and kilometers of snowbeds away.

_Two close friends...?  
How did he know?_

The message though, filters his feelings a bit – sorts them out, sorts out enough of his mind's weary confusion. It's a strange feeling – bittersweet in two cases…Kain gives those neuron circuits, but his brother's version of it is warm. affectionate. Core-massaging to Kain's heart-fluttering.  
A long time ago, he has already recorded the voice that matches those loving words, the only voice in memory that's capable of bringing those words to life. to a believable sense. like dew to a wilted, lonely flower – but it was ages ago. Cecil was what – 13? 15? Age was the last thing that mattered in those fuzzy years plagued with never-ending emotional confusion. emotional haze. Collision.

He didn't want to think about it again.

Cecil's tears of frustration. how persistently he held on to that bitter resentment dominoed by pre-abandonment. Then his brother's loving words, his brother's inimitable warm gaze. Cecil's youthful haggard face every morning, evidence of his emotional-mental debate every night that deprived him of sleep. then Theo's concerned movements, purple eyes to Cecil's blue that held only love and concern and protection and unconstrained warmth._ Nothing made sense.  
_

It was nothing but confusion. a thousand contradictions colliding in the most painful, fleshed-out, horribly realistic way - finalized as a quagmire. Even now the "ages-old" frustrations are still mystery memories. buried, yet still unresolved memories.

_Why did you leave me? More importantly, why did you leave me while telling me you love me, why did you leave me when your eyes held nothing but pure love and your hands were snug and tight when you last embraced me, when you still send me messages every month, asking me how I'm doing? Why don't you make sense, Brother?_

Each and every time, no matter how long or short the questions are or how thoroughly-draining the mental breakdown turns out, the silence answers him.  
_Because that unique love you gave me…is engraved richly even on the scapeless silence._

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

Tell me her name, I want to know  
the way she looks and where you go  
I need to see her face, I need to understand…  
why you and I came to an end…

Quite uncharacteristic of him to waste his time in a bar. Thank whatever gods may be there, though, that the singer's voice and face is worlds away from Rosa's. Lyrics hitting too accurately, too close to home (which, at the moment, is a place that looked and felt like a sorry, decrepit excuse for a shelter instead) – it would be impossible to handle if bolstered with all that. all against him.

Kain has been using words like impossible and never in about every sentence recently. In reality, or in lies, maybe he doesn't really care. _Fucking brain, if you have the energy to spot senseless things like this, then why don't you work when I am messed up?_

"Still haven't changed your mind about drinks, sir?" without even thinking, the blond already knows that it's his legendary scowl that scared the bartender away back to diligent silence. Variously-shaped glasses and cups, contrasting lights, sleek bartop, singer's voice exclusive to a few at this late hour – none of it mattered anyway. None of it.

The world is mattering less and less.

_And yes, Highwind. Pathetic Kain, with enough brainpower to think that your stupid feelings matter more than the world?_

The world that Cecil matchlessly irradiated, the world whose gates are the heart; key, is Cecil's existence itself.

Frustratingly-vague snatches of memory exploded to every sense possible. even unwanted fragments he'd rather not run into again violates the gateway of his will. _Where is will now?_ When there's not a mote left of reason to freeze the onslaughts of soul-sucking paralysis, not a mote left of sense for a compass?

Ironic, when Cecil unfettered oceans of rollercoaster-like butterflies - butterflies - that became his compass. but then he forgot that butterflies are tricky. deceitful. unstable - teetering hither and thither. unpredictable. the shapeless, even spineless direction that was Cecil's water heart. _Yet still so right. _

These past weeks have been were beyond long. yet beyond short. Too nonsensical for them to be called liberating, yet too self-cosseting to let them reside in the nest of paradise inside his heart.

_No matter which way I go, nothing makes sense. There is no fate for myself, must I be stuck between the both of them in every plane and remake of my existence?_

_A haunted, grey-purple mountain more obscure-cloud-swathed than built on rock. Kain felt defenseless, exposed, naked – when in Baron he was perfectly invincible in every angle - even in his summerwear. Detachment of heaven and shadiness of hell was beyond a humbling purgatory._

_Mt. Ordeals. _

_Truly an understatement._

_A memory of his weak, vulnerable, torn self – still calling Cecil when the white clouds obfuscating the terrifying horizon even more swathed his lungs as well in their deceptive softness…when the ages-old mountain earth that wasn't even earth anymore tested him and swallowed Kain into the darkness of voids. Then the scenery clears. Then even the scenery is making a mockery of him. In this mountain, he's not real. In this mountain, he's not quite dead.  
_

The singer bows in conclusion to the meaningful song. Kain doesn't pay attention even then, but he breaks through at least fourteen layers of chaotic ocean. making a rather lonely effort to bring himself back to reality alone. He notes that the feeling is significantly heavier and energy-consuming.

_Oversaturated thoughts, eh._

Then Kain spots him again, the confusing familiar-unfamiliar stranger (the artist is more than ready to puke at how much he's grasped at those words to make sense of his strange feelings). Silver-blond like Cecil's unique shade of hair – Kain flinches both at the irony of his chosen description. and the unbearable, unbearable unbearable unbearable milkshake of longing. melancholy. agony. loneliness. regret. catapulted straight to his heart's core.

_No mercy._

Subterfuge – Kain senses it. even more strangely, he approves of it perfectly. The mystery man: untouchable as a ghost yet fires..the compassionate kind – he was brimming with them like a fireplace in the middle of the North Pole. shining rawly. raw and unexpressed?

The silver-blond has been frequenting the bar ever since Kain's second visit, coincidentally (or not) just before Kain called for half-time, or even after that. It was suspicious, but he has taken an unexplainable liking for this man. at least, for what he knew thus far about the man. He has a stride that's too meaningful to shake off. an air that says

"I'm supposed to be here."

Eyes?

The rest of the face?

Kain isn't interested, or at least a fourth of him held onto the hope that it could be Cecil….but then the man was too tall and mature and way older – Cecil and Rosa aren't the only ones who could read auras. Without them for company anymore, that talent morphed into a rather cruel curse.

_Just see. _

_Look at how much power over you, that you blindly handed over to Cecil like a retarded fool._

Kain Highwind exits the bar, the mystery man as real to him as the chilly snowflakes gently kissing the white-blanketed ground.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

"You might as well try and tell him what you need to get off your system. After all, bad communication and high walls ruin any chances when it comes to any relationship," Rosa told him.  
Those words can be found in any self-help book. in every advice column in the weekly magazine. in any life-support forum online. from the lips of any elder - scarred or blissful in love. from the conscience of someone with actual common sense.  
_But there's something about Rosa saying it...that makes it more credible. grounds.  
It doesn't mock me.  
It doesn't pretend to know my pain.  
She doesn't mock my pain.  
His_ common sense seconds to the advice, to top..

Or to the fact, rather.

_I agree. I don't want him to kill me for silence.  
_

_Right and wrong are blurring.  
Right and wrong are crashing. _

Hesitant fingers, shaking hands emulating the perfect earthquake to disroot every single watt and light and volt and whatnot making up the phone - _it's not that kind of picturesque essence_, _a scene like this is tension-building in poetry, in books, in movies...everywhere else.  
Just not here. not in real life. _

_The pace quickens, the heartbeat plummets. _

Words. words. words. A line from that brilliant Arabic poem - _yes, yes, yes_, ad libs of lifelines amidst the mental-emotional quicksand that's more immobilizing tar than struggle - maybe Cecil's lips actually _form _the words. maybe he accidentally types them on the SMS prompt screen _even though I'm not sure Kain still checks, even though there's no assurance he hasn't deleted my number yet. _

_Hang on. He can't. He's yet to claim my penance. _

_The pace quickens, the heartbeat plummets.  
The song spirals to blank point of deliriousness. _

Cecil opens his eyes. closes them. opens them. closes them. It's a heart-wrackingly precious visual choreography - partnered by a certain someone's fingers. or his lips. or even just words.  
expressed the best by that Line From The Brilliant Arabic Poem.

_Time will never end  
for you are a beginning that never ceases _

Since they were both romantics, there was a time when it was worlds easier and worlds less awkward to make each other feel better through bouts of poetry...sharing lines of Blake...there was a time when it fucking worked so goddamn perfectly. Now, it would be a turnover dynamite. mocking. fleeting. meaningless.

_Talk to me in your own language, don't be a coward and hide behind beautiful words_ \- Cecil can already hear the artist's voice hardening with coldness. No mock-shiver required - there's still a plethora of stored chills.  
Cecil could already feel the brutal realism of Kain's turned lip, both nonchalant and intense against his neck. and the threat and disappointment and heat and lack-of-space that it seamlessly floods the whole horizon with...

Still, _he wouldn't be derisive_. only even more eager to undress more of the silk Cecil's feelings are made of, no matter how many hours it would take him. maybe they will un-ink his blackened fingertips.

_Time will never end  
for you are a beginning that never ceases _

Again, the way he woke up after That Night (or That Midnight) - ! It was truly possible for eyes to lose their color, Cecil's dream - his dream - his dream - his dream - that drained all the richness of his cornflower-blues...the tears running down the creases of his wrinkle-valleyed sheets...everything was water; everything was salt. There was no sky. there was no air. there was no wind. _there was no Kain_.

He saw the apprized, tender line of poetry both in its original Arabic calligraphy...and in English. It was now imprinted on his brain - no amount of anything and no amount of everything could purge it out. When he resolved to forget, it was too late - it had already reached the highways of his bloodstream. Heck, even in this very moment, he was already breathing it out instead of carbon dioxide.

_You are the most beautiful fate_

Cecil throws his phone to his bed. Cecil chooses to cry.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

_Kalopsia ( - ) The delusion that things are more beautiful than they actually are_

Words are now his second language. His fingers unknowingly glide on this imaginary surface - Cecil's face and Cecil's eyes - and for the love of god - the matchless, iridescent, hushed-yet-powerful voice Cecil uses to recite verses. that worshipping curve of his lip. Graphics and words and feelings and touch collide in a manner Kain fiercely decides he currently has no use for.

Because  
that's what attachment does to you – calcified certain characteristics and traits and mannerisms and _even the fucking thought processes_ of said "lover". said friend who stayed long enough, who cared about you hard enough. the precious line between privacy and adoration sullied. ruined, like the tragedy of a ruined, wasted cake that was perfect just seconds ago.

_And damned be mine, because for every single new chance, I will still let you in._

Certain physical feelings pinpointing to thoughts that clearly belonged in the brain but successfully springing to life. _as if they should be?_ Cecil already invades his subconscious _and conscious_ way too often.  
already holds everything that makes his heart work and actually pump blood. down to every gear, down to every color of every possible string.

Some words were better off unseen – or in this case, unlearnt.

For how was that possible?

How was that even believable?

Why do people stereotype the heart as the perpetrator of feelings? And why is he one of "those" people?

Kain tears angrily at the tissue-rose he actually put an effort in. He's desperate to counter: The brain is the perpetrator. The heart only lets you carry on the façade, like a fake distraction sword. or like a bike's training wheels – the heart only fools you – the heart only lets you fool yourself.

Cornflower-blue flecked with silver. out-of-this-world. Logic wasn't cool in relationships, eh? When he should listen to his brain, his heart fucks it up. even claiming that it can "feel", that the crappy pumps are a protest and should be followed.

It's the heart that pumps,

_but Cecil, it's my brain that will decide whether to love you or not. Regardless – whether I can leash it or can't, it's still in my brain._

Kalopsia ( - ) The delusion that things are more beautiful than they actually are

_It's my brain that decided you were beautiful in the first place. that –we- were beautiful._

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

_Specifically four fingers of each prim hand pluck - four only -  
each pinky finger callous-free. _

Light-gold hair - the lightest Cecil has ever seen so far,  
and light-green eyes - like quite unusual pebbles on a gentle moving stream - as if telling many stories - grieving many things, grieving many people - a soft heart - soft, caring heart - surrounded by tragedy - tragedy of loved ones - tragedy of families - tragedy of citizens -

_Old gold. Goldenrod. Atomic tangerine. Light green.  
_Kain's thoughts - color descriptions of the mystery subject - guide him through the current, even if the idea itself feels out-of-place.  
_This dream isn't about Kain. _  
_It seems like he's seeing this from another side too, though. _

A mysterious harp, filling the tight air with grief. sadness. emotion. A mysterious harp, expanding the end of the crossroad with the music, the candid waves of hope and almost ironic optimism through the unique melody.

_We lose _ _In the current of life,  
_ _Our hopes  
_ _And the best things in life. _

How could such tragic, sorrowful words...? from such a beautiful man..?

Cecil springs awake - his phone is ringing and his clock shows 3:09 P.M. and it's raining, and satisfyingly enough it's not Kain's name that shows up.

"I hope you're awake enough," Rosa's voice is the rare no-nonsense that tells him it's a good idea to put the phone on speaker - "I need your help, Cecil. In fact, yours and Kain's again." Strings of acid-unpleasant let's-not-ever-bring-this-up-as-long-as-we-live _FLASHBACKS _that blare siren-red in logical warning -

Cecil knows the same oppressive cloud is threatening to strangle Rosa's smile - she stops so unpleasantly that it's obvious to the raw.

_Who's renege was it?  
Who's at fault?  
Can we forgive each other?  
Or will forgiveness bring mockery? _

The poet imagines his arms around the White Mage Rosa Farrell, as if to emulate the extremely rare moments when his armor bequeathed an actual sense of security and not just bouts of streaming bloody battle trauma -  
he pushes Kain further and further away from his mind for now. further. further. further.

"It won't...happen again, Rosa. I know there are a few things that can be said to make you feel better - if none, but let's not be pessimistic - " It's Cecil who stops this time. Was he really fit to offer a strong shoulder and sympathetic words? He didn't feel like that powerful knight these days at all.

_Honestly speaking, wallowing in guilt won't get anyone anywhere - _that's what Kain would say. then Cecil would actually agree.

"There are actually a lot of things," Rosa smooths her voice out somewhat, "...many small things that can make everything better," there's that sweet line between optimism and breaking down - "and that goes for both of you as well."

"Rosa," is all Cecil can think of muttering right now.

The current is insistently optimistic. "This is why I'm asking you - maybe Kain later - to help me with a kid. Well, he's not really a kid anymore, he's 15. If I'm correct."

"I'm noticing that you get entrusted with kids a lot," he's grateful for the eased tension.

"I grew up with one of the child psychologists in the building...even if I didn't really have any business there...so she trusts me a lot. And it's what I love doing as well."

Cecil actually smiles. it's a new kind of smile.

"Because you don't have the entire responsibility but have the chance to be with kids..and help them? That sure sounds like you."

Rosa actually laughs. it's a laugh he's never heard from the woman before.

"I do dream to be like one of those people. You're right. Speaking of which, I need to tell you about the boy. In person. Do you think it's okay to meet you now or in a few, maybe?"

"You don't have to ask so nicely here, Rosa," he chuckles, "I'm actually free now. Down at the bookstore?"

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

Rydia catches their sight like a flare - she's trying out custom-crafted bracelets and she's picking the ones with prominently blue or green beads. _As if nothing happened. _Deciding to make an honest confession (only to himself), Cecil smiles because he's grateful - and his eyes drift down to the pavement wistfully because there's still that indefatigable trace of guilt.

It won't go away. It will never go away.

_Why was she there?  
It's all so blurry now.  
She was trying to hold me and Kain together. A child. _

Introspective mode on, he sees Rydia again amidst the angry cinders, her soul and disposition trapped with the smoke's story. how light-ocean-blue and green struggled to thrive surrounded by emotionally-destructive flames. how she formed a shield of mist and light around herself, because she wanted to console Kain - and she couldn't do that if his pained, agonized fangs struck her...

Piecing _that _Rydia with this one now that's picking out the most beautiful bracelet and which jewels are most captivating - Cecil didn't know what to make of the thought. A piercing juxtaposition - or even beyond that - it almost brings tears to his eyes; tears of shame.

"What's done cannot be undone," Rosa gently taps on his nearby fingers to let him know that _he's thinking too much again_.

A sigh, Cecil lets out.  
A break, Cecil gets.

"She was able to make amends too," she's walking ahead of him, yet her eyes are still carefully on his. steady. "She's resolved whatever she needed to from before...you understand, right, Cecil?"

_What I understand is that this has dulled your smile as well. _

_All we can do is move forward. _

_I know she's just a child - _

_Stop it now. Where will guilt take you? _

"I guess you're right."

"Amendments...atonement...you and Kain's past life were so full of those, that it ate one of you alive. Almost," Rosa fakes a bubbly-teary face most perfectly, the sun's rays crowning it the perfect touch, "I had almost no one left for me, boo-hoo."

Perfect impromptu, Cecil even enjoys his own laugh. _She looks so cute. Wait, there are better words than that, Harvey..._

"You were supposed to...feel sorry for me. You meanie," there's a scowl, then there's a beam. so much like her.

Yet Cecil bars bars bars bars bars the stream of memories gushing forth. He senses a queasy frisson that makes his stomach lurch and his head spin and his bones shriek in repulsion, his body expressing what his heart denies -

he might've seen Rosa stringing the rare Water Lilies from Troia in her hair... the "teardrops of the moon" trapped in the pure-white petals bequeathing a heavenly sheen...

Rosa looking over the from the castle bridge, summoning the messenger birds with her unique whistle. Kain and Cecil tried and failed in the most disgraceful way possible, but it was worth it because Rosa smiled and laughed until they forgot what they were trying to do in the first place.

Her healing hands, patching the deepest wounds together again as if skin never knew the decisive hiss of a blade...Rosa commenting on how healers must be good-looking, because Cecil and Kain will then have a stronger will to triumph over the present injury...Kain opening his nasty shoulder wound again because he laughed too hard at that...

So  
So  
So

So he closes his eyes to that and sighs - closes a layer of his heart as well and smiles, Rosa not knowing that his eyes _are not smiling_ and that he's trying to dig out a certain acceptable penance for _Kain_.

_My thoughts...that he doesn't know of...will it hurt him?  
He'll know soon anyway...he's Kain..._

Cecil knows significantly much about the difference: with Rosa, the spark isn't alive, the feelings aren't carcanets and multi-sensory. the galaxies don't numb his eyes as an ebullient aftermath; there's no assuring pasilaly. his heart stills but doesn't race. his heart is calmed but doesn't explode to a happier place. he doesn't reach wind-knocking new places beyond him, new places he _couldn't have reached without Kain_.

Those were the laws. How could they be translated to an acceptable penance? With Rosa, nothing was complicated - only simple. floating to the minimum level - as opposed to the sky that's the closest as the ground would get...with Kain...everything transformed. transfigured. Yes, Cecil struggles. Cecil gets hurt. but in the end, Kain's always there - waiting for him -

"Sorry, I have to rush to the bathroom," is the best excuse he can manage, "I think I ate something bad."

Rosa's "no problem" is sprinkled with a giggle. She'd be browsing the bracelets with Rydia until he's back, almost oblivious to Cecil's current disposition - he knows that. he's grateful. _She's the wrong person for that right now._

He also knows that Rosa's a fairy. and he didn't want fairies like he wanted and _needed _Kain.  
only a human like Kain.

He wanted only to be the human he was when Kain was with him. only that perfection. only that god called Cecil Harvey.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

An essential, priceless thing - or _principle _Kain dearly loves in art communities is that _no one _judges you on the pieces you choose to look at. There are no taboos - only exploration. discovery. enlightenment. innovations. You could paint rainbow cats with charcoal (or attempt) and no one would scoff at whatever prematurity or glare at any shortcoming.  
Smiles, narrowed eyes, shifting of foot - head tilts - mutual body language vouched for the convenient unspoken.

Not because they couldn't express themselves, but because it saved time for more and more and more explanations. revelations. ideas.

Even if the whole neighborhood pissed on his cornflakes, nothing could ruin his mood right now. Vigee, the photographer-painter he exchanged samples with just now - broke into his moodiness - the perfectly-wrapped gift with the glittery spread of ribbon that mended his overall crappy week - _oh, see, I'm high on this...totally high on this._

_But who wouldn't be? _

Still. The exchange-canvas steals his eyes again. his rapt attention - down to his mood for the rest of at least three blissful hours of eye-candy to definitely _kill for _-

That is, until _someone _practically hauls his body in the elevator -

Kain's eyes do not crimson in bloodlust. there's no abyssal plummet to raw gravity; his fists shockingly do not clench in suppressed (or overflowing) agony and his heart loudly scoffs at the claim his brain boasted of before as if to say,

_The heart - it's the uncontrollable part of your body that controls you. _

There was never a measurable bottom to the frozen arctic oceans of Kain's heart. Yes, he lived his years consoling his self-hated sensitivity and deep-seatedness. He _breathed _emotions like air even if they tampered with his lungs and consciousness like smoke and rum.  
Ironically, Cecil proved to him countless, countless, countless, countless, countless times and in bouts of lovemaking, uncountable varieties of waistgrabs, teeth sinking in Cecil's pulse as if to steal its oxygen, "I love you" in at least 459 unique syllabications passed on between unusual purple lips...

He's more physical than he'd admit.

His fingers, the skin under them blackened - they tingle. _Revise your claim_, how better could that be said?

_The brain records  
the body remembers _

Cecil's almost-unrecognizable eyes, the goddamn desperation in them unmistakable couture lights that identifies itself as "_emergency compasses to guide you both home_" all throughout the re-healing catwalk – they weep. they beg.

_The fingers will always glide on the absent surface  
The heart may turn away  
but the body will be frozen in time  
in bliss  
bliss will not release you  
_

If there's a moment Kain would award "time-stop" with an almost apologetic smile, he'd crown this one. Vibrations and humming of the elevator. Kain wondering at himself why the hell he knows both of their fingers are dying of eagerness and neglect even if he's not looking at either. the way he literally struggles not to turn away because he'd be then facing the mirror and seeing Cecil anyway.

it doesn't matter. _Cecil...the upsetting fitzcarraldo of everything about you.  
_to the point of unsettling, Cecil - eyes, words, philosophies... not so far from the liquid of Kain's new blood. the new blood he's comfortable racing through his body.

_Time will never end  
for you are a beginning that never ceases _

All of a sudden, he sees those damn lines in ghost-white paper, transparent enough and not even there that anyone would think it was penned on the elevator wall back in reality - in ink as blue as the palest tears - it's not helping that the red carpet they're standing on is fogging away like pointless mist that didn't even exist in the first place - and the whole world looks like as if it's infinitesimally cornflower-blue ever since the conception of time and Cecil's eyes are the kind of marauded that brings tears to Kain's own.

Before Kain can recall That Night - before the now-absent elevator ceiling morphs into the velvet sky of doom and pain that wrapped that night and twisted whatever purity was left in Kain's heart - Cecil is sobbing on him. sobbing, sobbing, sobbing and he's not sure whether light and scintillation and lambent can go well with _TEARS _and _SOBBING _without exploding. for all they know, sodium does have a bright glow; tears do have hydrogen.

-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-

_You are the beginning that shall never cease_

All that matters is Kain's warmth, the solid hollows of his chest. the nouveau-charted courses of rivers coloring Cecil's favorite skin – it's the layer of humanity that can be unmasked with the rawest heartbeats and the softest whispers, the very physicality of Kain that Cecil will always admire like the carcanets they are –

All that matters is that he's back where he knows he's supposed to be. His head spun and spun and his stomach churned and churned in protest to him giving in to Rosa because _that's not really where I should be, it's not the puzzle piece that satisfies all the angles and soothes all the aches and works out all the unforgiveness_ and now all Cecil can do is revel in the ironic feather-like potion of security that's found in the new valleys of Kain's chest and sob it all out, just sob it all out and he doesn't care that Kain still condemns him a traitor and he doesn't care that this may not be entirely fair to either of them and he doesn't care that he's the traitor in this life and not Kain and he doesn't care because he's putting all his heartbeats and every single brainwave into making the elder man feel the very same –

_A star that shines with no light_

All that matters is that Cecil is attempting to recreate a heaven or reconciliation scene in this unbearably-realistic game between the both of them  
and that Kain is letting him sob his heart out even if Cecil's possibly-pathetic tears are already making Kain's pale chest glisten in pale rivers of emotion  
and at least Kain isn't strangling him in rage and the pent-up, chained, unexpressed pain in Cecil's head and lungs and hands are flooding out and it's one of the best feelings he's ever experienced  
and Kain isn't strangling him in rightful rage  
and that is where Kain makes the "_sssssssh_" sound that Cecil can't recall ever hearing from the artist ever before in any lifetime

"_Cecil_," it's nothing really special but it's nothing quite reproachful. nothing soothing yet nothing dooming. the name's just uttered by lips Cecil is literally dying to feel against his own again – but this time reborn as a new person. a new sentence. He doesn't think about the high probability of Kain feeling quite the realistic opposite –

"_Cecil_," Cecil denies whatever words Kain will skillfully use to fuse the logic in his brain now and kisses him so hard that it's the bothering kind of painful when their eyelids bump against each other. making damn sure that his tears imprint on Kain's eyes, that his tears imprint on the other side of their two-galaxy universe constantly colliding in one - _if my words can't reach you then maybe these tears will_ -

_The most comforting chrysalism that only your eyes can give_

The last time something like this happened after That Night – the recollection hits Cecil like a slammed door – pitch-black shadows warring with the purest moonlight and no one was sure who impersonated which and who was the one that left smiling the _unexplainable_ smile when the night was over –

Two things are so unbearably frangible: Cecil's heart and Kain's soul.

"It's quite a different color palette, isn't it, Cecil?" Kain's voice is mellifluous through the transformed scenery. it's nothing like day and it's obviously nothing like that night...it's a completely nouveau swatch. Impulses shimmer across the small expanse of elevator space, capturing the rich lightning.  
the texture of the mirror. the now-undefinable color scheme of the elevator walls and the now non-existent feel of the carpet and the ground. Kain is saving it all in his head, _saving it for yet another masterpiece_ \- because now Cecil knows the artist enough to pick that energy up

and Cecil finally realizes that if his thoughts and brainwaves were lungs, they'd be ecstatic-hyperventilating..

Both actually smile at the notion. Delayed for eons, the fact that the canvas fell on the carpeted floor a long time ago finally registers in Cecil's brain but the air turns to the confident shade: _red, steel blue, black, Kain would suggest_ \- . Kain's body is already being worshipped in no time by tear-saturated lips in the form of kisses and brushes that have somersault-changed a million times over to predicted perfection.

_Will the salt soothe your skin, Kain?_

_Obsessive practice, that's the only sensible way to completely master something_, Cecil had always agreed with Kain on this point. The satisfaction of it blooms right now because Cecil doesn't feel any ice-sheet repulsion guarding Kain's picky skin. No words come to mind this time – the world blissfully narrows down to Cecil's lips and its story with Kain's body.

Bliss melts tears, the carcass glitter's rebuilding Cecil's heart again. Deep inside, he wishes the same for Kain. The last few minutes' tears and frustration and emotional release and soul-baring introduction become a story long gone.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

_All that matters _is that Cecil has already yanked down his zipper - Kain responds hastily by placing the convenient canvas to cover both of them (or at least Kain's waist down, he's just grateful for the canvas' existence for now) - Cecil adds to the security by thrusting the ends of the all-covering black canvas cover to Kain's hand so they can both form this secret curtain - everything is coming in urgency because _they have been deprived of this for way too long and they weren't even criminals _and _urgency _means _you always have to be triple-safe, _

_just hurry the fuck up, Cecil, you know we both need it_

Kain is watching every millisecond tick by on his watch. Damned stark-red numbers are well, _stark _against Cecil's ash-blond hair that he's re-fisting again and again. as if they're expensive bouts of fountain water, impossible to capture eternally. as if they're the priceless black sand filling Panalu'u Beach in Hawaii that literally cascades back to its origin for the sake of romantic scenery...and nothing else.

Maybe there's still something inchoate. Is it just him or is Cecil the one who's taking too long?

_How does Cecil feel? _

All the galaxies he'd...well...owned...coming back to his fingers? All the sins he was forced to defray in possibly every lifetime, receding? Kalopsias defining the recent nights, kissed with fortune's lips themselves? The thought of who's renege was it and who cheated on who and using who, all gone and so blissfully fucking irrelevant?

_Do you feel it, Cecil? How secure, how fucking RIGHT - _

_Yes, Cecil.  
_

_Damn, your lips are_ _indefatigable_. Kain desperately _needs _to sink down. to collapse. to fucking _give in_. but he couldn't.  
_I need. need. need._  
said indefatigable lips are a vice knife splitting his control from his conscience - even if greed isn't thankfully multiplying. even if Kain feels the connection between their hearts and their beings and not between his legs.  
said indefatigable lips are biting and kissing and sucking down to his aching blood vessels - even the rate of Kain's heartpumps are wrapped around Cecil's fingers.  
hilariously ironic, _aren't you the one worshiping me down there? _

_I taught you that word, Kain...indefatigable. _

_Hurry up. _

_You're not the only impatient one, here, Kain. _

_And you're desperate. _

_It's coming hard and fast, Kain.._

_Hurry up...just hurry up, Cecil_

_Kain, I'm motion sick. _

_Almost there, Cecil...HURRY UP _

_Your light colliding with the stars:  
nothing before,  
nothing after _

Stars collide, maybe this time fatally harmonized with the Northern Lights - and it's a first - something new and vague and blissfully nondescript screams inside Kain, so primal in its mourning and lament and its _VICTORY _

that when the elevator _dings _and the doors open way too fast and a man about their age steps in and has no intentions of announcing that his entrance is a silly accident -

Cecil scrambles as inconspicuously and smoothly and quietly and a-million-more-adjectives-ly possible. wraps the black canvas-cover around his head and Kain's waist as a makeshit-curtain for now -

Kain grasps the canvas covering him from the waist below much much much tighter like it's going to stop the man's suspicion - both Cecil and Kain are struggling not to let the heat and the joy and the victory and the reunion of souls and the butterflies spreading their wings inside of them overtake the utter concentration and awareness required for the sake of their public reputations -

"That's quite an interesting canvas, eh? A take on double-exposure-ish using traditional media! Magnificient!"

_Damn...he's interested...he's too focused on the area he's NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING AT_

_Oh no..._embarrassed, frustrated, anxious, over-the-top-nervous, Kain could only pretend to hiss out a casual breath when he wanted to moan and scream and headbang and be _anywhere but HERE. _so he draws his coat-hood closer, in a logic-dare for the "light-absorbent" obsidian black fabric to _HIDE AND MASK_ his chagrin. his awkwardness. his momentary-denial. his confusion.

Praying hard that the floor swallows them, Cecil is quite still save for the determined energy Kain is sensing from him..

"Do you mind if I take a closer look?" but the man's already coming closer. closer. closer.

_He has an observant eye...if he.._

All they can do is hold their breaths.

"Wonderful, fine texture. It must've taken ages to get this finished, eh?"

_Make his eyes stop focusing. Make them STOP focusing. _

"I like how the canvas starts from the top, hmm,"

_NOT THERE. DON'T LOOK BEHIND. _

The elevator ding saves them: "_14th Floor_," it announces. To Cecil and Kain, it's the end of an Era of Doom. To the man, it's the arrival to the legit destination.

"It was a pleasure seeing this fine work of art! Thank you, sir." as if nothing happened. as if Cecil and Kain didn't have simultaneous heart attacks, anxiety seizures, and near-public humiliation on top of each other.

Kain doesn't know why he rushes out as soon as the next floor is announced. as if there's a plague in the elevator where they just made legit _love_ and _reconciliation _so passionately. like it's the end of the world. as if their worlds would never collide ever _again_.

_It doesn't add up_, but Kain's already outside and he has most probably hit Cecil with the canvas along the way. There's quite enough of a quiescence and it feels eerie enough.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

"His sister, Anna, died - causes Edward isn't ready to tell anyone _yet _\- "

"Hmm...how do you know?"

"Is it just me or are...you mad about something, Cecil? I don't want to force anything on you, really -"

"Rosa..." _how hard..how hard how HARD - do you think it's easy? Nothing is EASY. _

There goes the relevant semaphorism though - _yes, that's the characteristic, the identity of Rosa's voice. Rosa's kindness. _empathy. kindness that comes too easy, too...effortless. conversational kindness.

Now Rosa's sigh wasn't something on his expected list, "It's been really awkward for you, hasn't it, Cecil? What have you been...thinking?"

_MONACHOPSIS, _it's a fiery-hot brand that's sent to Cecil's brain right now, the sting too-much like dead, dead, dead blood in veins. _I'm not a simple stereotype. _"Don't...Rosa, look," the poet opens his mouth...closes it again in the habit he knows has been growing recently - but Kain, the Mystery of the World - nothing could top the draining confusion. and frustration. and pain. and AGONY that he carries like a chain..

"I'm just confused. It's hard to deal with mixed signals," he says flatly, feeling his face strain. strain more. then strain even more.

Water harmonized with the Northern Lights, maybe - a secret formula mixed with the tears of the innocent. tears of a woman who's prayed eternally -

"Guilt of a lifetime, Cecil. Put yourself in Kain's shoes again, even though I know you do it often - but...listen, Cecil. Everything in that life...it went wrong for him. His own...feelings...identity - his...humanity," Rosa's voice is straining as well, but there's that expected invisible cord of strength that's keeping her upright. It's splayed with a lot of magic dust and healing spells -

" - was used against him," but Cecil's voice is much more emptier than what should come out of the sympathetic gesture.

"All we can do is...well, give him a chance to make things right...at least in this life - "

"How can you, Rosa?!" _I CANNOT CONTAIN IT_. Struggling not to smash his phone to the nearest wall, he yells instead. "HOW THE HELL CAN YOU PRETEND LIKE THAT NIGHT NEVER HAPPENED?" but it's not directed to Rosa. it was directed _at himself_.

Taking the lonely static's place, thunder tears from heaven itself - Cecil just wanted to _GET OUT_ and melt with the rain. belt his emotions and feelings and weaknesses and regrets and _mistakes _and _SINS _against the unknowing ground until they're disintegrated to nonsensical droplets of water...

Roaring at a woman - even if he wasn't blaming her entirely - he recalls that incident in that nation of mages - _I plundered and took and murdered and - and...all that...everything else - no conscience at all - no brain - too stupid to question orders I should've questioned - orders I shouldn't have even thought of following... _

Guilt revealing itself in bites to your conscience and heart only when it's too late. guilt coalescing with lost lives, wails and bloodspill that couldn't be washed from his hands. couldn't be washed from the stained brick-ground. couldn't be stolen from the memories of the grieving...

Coldness  
Cold  
Co...

"Cecil?" the almost-demanding authority in Rosa's voice is ironic. the concerned tone of question wrapping it like beautiful gift parchment is half-unwanted.

_Kain_

"Cecil," Rosa tries again. as if she knew every doorway that could sensibly open to a reachable zone of Cecil's consciousness. like a heart unknotted and explored and massaged every single rise of the moon. "I know it's Kain that you need right now...and the comfort cannot come from me.."

Should he tell her to shut up? Or should he just cut the line, anyway?

_Decide, Cecil,_ his nerve-endings are about to snap and there are no links to hold them in place. Rosa's miraculous comfort isn't quite reaching him but he still urges himself

_YOU HAVE TO DECIDE_

_Memory  
All alone in the moonlight  
I can smile at the old days  
I was beautiful then_

Smart-phone quality voice-over is truly doing it - Rosa's voice is clear, like she's beside him right now. transcendent. Genuinely, he's too stressed and drained and _lost _to pick out the slightly-duller notes. And honestly, he doesn't care whether their current predicament and the tension breeds instability in Rosa's singing. His thought processes are incomplete without Kain's energy in the atmosphere - dreadfully empty. dreadfully missing a good half, dreadfully _INCHOATE._  
All that matters for now though, is this: it takes him away for a while - to a memory of the "beautiful days"

_but what is truly beautiful about those days? _

_Kain _

_Can I stop uttering your name_

_Please_

_I remember the time I knew what happiness was  
Let the memory live again _

Like cerulean-blue fading to light-ocean-blue, Rosa's voice switches back. at this point Cecil doesn't really care "You're with me, aren't you, Cecil?"

"As far as he told me, his parents come from a rich family…but they've sent him away to live with a maid here in London ever since.. he goes on trips to Pocklington every now and then, but that's it."

"There should be a cause, right?" Cecil feels like he's trying to sound intelligent. The fake sort of intelligent. The only hope that his mind raises at this point is that Rosa would understand, that whatever the mystery was this time….it had to be solved _soon. before more harm ensues._

And that…Cecil's assistance would go the furthest it could. After all, what could he lose? _Or is there actually more?_

Grimacing, freezing, fidgeting. Circuits cut short because there's a certain reminder and there's something that ices over _again_ \- still obscure and unresolved in his mind like the deathly mist that DAY -

When did he start blaming the mist incident (or resolution if need said) for That Night? Wasn't it a blessing…to be honest? Wasn't it supposed to be a blessing in the first place? A claim to the beginning of redemption both men seek, laid before them in a silver platter?_ A deceptive silver platter_, Cecil denotates, _a trial of a silver platter_.

_Crystals – one for almost every color- but it seemed like the colors represented elements – precious elements - his hands never really having a full grasp on them – the memory invades his retrospection again._

_Invisible throngs of evil in multiple forms – because evil always had to be invisible and haunting and even the statistics just had to be prolonged – even seconds and bated breaths of heroes infected with the sheer, unforgivable sadism of THAT MONSTROSITY - and that is why even the direct channel of light nurtured in their hearts seconding to their hands, poised to defend the innocent…or lips, ever-ready to chant the protections and the charms and the healing spells –_

Rosa's voice both chimes in and interrupts, "He's a gifted storyteller – his English teacher is supportive..but she approached me and this office, concerned that there was a deeper meaning to them. Too tragic."

_even splayed with pure magick-dust, even harmonized with music that undoes restraints, even charged with the purest magick that clears off the countless enemies – strengthened with the blessing of Foci – protected in shadow and boosted with blinking speed – the duality of Darkness and Light that mediates between both for the sake of mental survival – the emotional strength spurred from dragoon legs and lashed out with the power of the Wind –_

_could barely save them_

_Or were we really saved?_

_Did we really vanquish that evil?_

_Did the light really remain with us forever?_

Weighed down with the insecurity brought by his thoughts, Cecil resorts to snapping his fingers. Rosa's counting on him, isn't she? _Focus, Harvey. Focus._

"His sister, Anna – she died, right? Well, what I've heard from Edward is that no one really recovered enough to keep running again – I mean, how can anyone, really? I was really kind of upset that his teacher recommended him….his deep stories may be his way of expressing his pain, Cecil.."  
A negative semaphorism – if such a thing existed – hangs about the already-strained conversation. is it really just these words that they're exchanging? is it really about just another troubled boy? _I've known from the beginning it's definitely not. Most certainly not._ Could he complain of the current's inefficiency, this communication so un-Kain-like that makes him feel as if his brain is blind to everything?

"Does he enjoy seeing you?" it's a flat question.

"Surprisingly, yes," it's said in a shape of a relieved sigh, "His stories are a pleasure to read as well. That's why I was hoping for a talented poet like you…to…umm, yea.."

Not really caring for the compliment, but he forces out a "Thank you. Maybe we'll be buddies." Well now, that isn't exactly a polite lie.

Cecil Harvey - his heart might have chosen Rosa, shared a bed with her every day, kissed her every private moment possible – but that was in the past. the past him. So before he could ask "_Who am I_" like a psychotic – a lunatic – a _haunted_ man – it was curious though, how each of his thoughts feel like they have to be cut short to pave way for an equally-intense subsequent – but Kain's are an endless stream, a _perfect, endless stream_ -  
and he realizes that Kain's "endless streams of detailed thought" were made from the very beginning to fill in his hacked-short ones – and if that inevitable, law-of-science logic wasn't practiced from the beginning, then it was ever since the dawn of the sun.

So before he could answer with "_a fool who keeps looking for that someone_" – he breathes a different breath, as if to become a different person. at least in front of Rosa -

"Rosa -" Face tight, pulled by emotions having to walk on eggshells. voice lower than usual. the intonation's the slightly-alarming kind of deep, Cecil feels a sword around his fingers again for some reason. It didn't matter whether it was the Deathbringer or the Ragnarok – _such a duality in my soul and in my heart that I still can't quite….grasp..yet_ -  
"Edward…does he play….a harp?"

"Why…yes, Cecil," he doesn't care for the alarm in Rosa's voice, really - "How did you know? Do you possibly know him?"

"I knew it," that's all Cecil forces out for Rosa's sake, before he hangs up. His brain, his thoughts, his heart is racing at a pace Rosa can't follow –

"Kain?" the poet's raging at himself before the other line picked up –

"I'm…sorry for today, really. It was awkward – I know it was perplexing for you as well." Like a switch, like a revived vein, like a tap, like _MAGIC_, but –

"Kain, let's…push it aside for now, hmm?" he's way too determined to get his way. to get this over with.

"What can I help you with?" _you know me so well, Kain..  
_the artist's voice isn't grim. not worried. Slightly interested, maybe. And yet it's universes more comforting, more goddamn assuring than Rosa's concerned river of notes and the fact that she actually singing a goddamn stunning song with a stunning voice doesn't give him the right dose of tranquility he needs –

"I…don't know how much you remember – "

"Every single bit, Cecil. Every single detail of every place and every single person I've killed and every single house that was burned down," maybe Cecil is missing something, but this long sentence doesn't have a deprecating scream of a million icicles of guilt branded on it –

"First _Rydia_ –" Cecil doesn't bother to follow-up Kain's quite-soul-revealing statement for now, "Then now…_Edward_ – if you really remember –"

"Cecil – " it's a plea that has too much authority and control over him and that's why it worked and Cecil falls silent immediately,

"Can you….you're agitated."

"How can I…_NOT_ BE?! First Rydia, and now it's Edward – being shoved into our faces, literally –"

"I should be the one dreading this, Cecil – and I'm with you, aren't I?"

Both new and familiar sensations wash and wave over the beach of corpses. blood. pain. cadavers. Assurance and a firsthand angle of faith is being sewn between Cecil's shaking fingers, taking the place of Cecil's hand-lust for a sword. Ribbons of security envelop him in that cliché way he's written about in millions of his drabbles and poetry and now his lips are drawn in a tight line and now his hands cannot decide whether to punch a wall or to unwind –

"What really happened to us…after we defeated Zemus, Kain?"his plea is nothing like Kain's. it's haunted. scared to death. pushing away resolutions and accepting only _escape_._ A way OUT._

"You're the one who told me that the past is just the past and we should live out whatever we make of this life –" it's not really a rebuttal but Cecil decides it's not adequate for an attempt of comfort -

"Is that really possible now?" there's no light in that demand – Kain wonders if Cecil is possibly mad at him for not offering his usual relevant_ chrysalism_ now when he's breaking down. shattering to a million pieces, sinking to quicksand. "Edward now, then who next? That monk? Am I going to be shipwrecked again and cast away to the nation I've plundered? Forced to bargain Rosa's life _again_?!"

The lonely static creeps up, except that it's more like a cat snuggling against both of them. The raging, lost Cecil doesn't accept the warmth. Kain is still pondering over it. Has it become a signature of their conversations? Or even..their _connection_? Kain falls silent, but he's not the type to pretend Cecil isn't talking at all, so he just listens.

"I haven't…to be honest…I haven't really been able to cast away the memories of the mist storm. But…of course you're excited for these chances of redemption thrown at you, Kain. How could you not be?" the statement is flung at him and it stings, stings, stings,_ stings_, because it's _TRUE_.

"But to what extent? Until not only one planet's – but also two more worlds' fates are placed in our hands again? Just because we succeeded doesn't mean it was easy! Just because we succeeded before doesn't mean…it might be something different this time, Kain. That spirit….it's evil. It may not be tormenting the world in the physical, disastrous sense – but what about the minds….our minds? It's not just me and you – you've seen Rydia and now it's Edward – they're kids, Kain. THEY'RE _KIDS_."

Kain is stunned. speechless. That only memory he has of the Red Moon so far glides in conveniently – there was an old man ..

"Your heart is aching," Kain drains the cliché oil blotting their supposed-to-be-clean canvas, "because the both of us would be able to go through _anything_ \- but it's not just us anymore – is that it?"

The artist's name is called again. The deadly concoction of tension, despair and rage starts to uncoil albeit not fully. _but it's still better than nothing..or intensifying_, Kain declares to himself in a convenient bout of courage. So Kain continues, and a rather _positive_ and _harmless_ memory is drawn forth: Dragoon Kain, shield-in-hand, saving a wounded Cecil from a Floating Eye's claw –

and now he's feeling that shield in his hand again in the present. even though he just noticed now that his fingers have stopped shaking in uncertainty. Perhaps something from the anonymous, hazy precipice of anguish and an excusable hope wraps around them instead.

"The more people you want to protect, the harder it is," the silence could be the needed permission to elaborate, "but I assure you, Cecil –"

but Cecil cuts him off - Kain's heart is shattered as thunder-fast as the disparaging syllable is brought forth into their world – "Don't promise anymore, Kain," his voice can't decide whether to mask itself with deprecation or to shed light on the genuine plea troubling his heart – "because I_ can't_ – "

"I can say at least this, that you will not be struggling to heal the damage I've caused."

"And what happens after that? If we even liberate everyone, as you suggest. Aren't we just falling into a trap, falling back into chains?" nothing contests to that.

"You're the one who told me yourself that the relevant people are being shoved into our acquaintance anyway." _Maybe plain facts are too harsh at this point…_

"What if…after this…we disappear as spirits….spirits, Kain? Forgotten? Abandoned?" The only color Kain gives to the last word is "the crimson red of pain" and as cliché as that sounds he doesn't really complain because _it's the truth_. someone Cecil held precious abandoned him - and broke him significantly, and Kain knows immediately that it's not him because the words aren't quite addressed to him.

Cecil's grieving red is crimson, it's not the dark-deep-red that inchoateness and being torn renders him to.

So Kain goes for the risk and tries, "You're calling for another person and I wish I knew who it was."

There's no answer even if they're still both on the line, but Kain could swear Cecil's way too deep in the hellish heat of anxiety and that he's whisper-uttering a two-syllable name over and over again like it's a calmative. not a lifeline…but earth to walk on so as not to fall. For the first time ever, Kain isn't on Cecil's direct channel and _he just can't reach him_. There's an oxygen mask, worn with time, as if it's a necessity Cecil's been living with ever since he was a young boy. an oxygen mask giving life to Cecil's lips but it's the same barricade that renders the name out of Kain's hearing range.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

Edward Muir turns out to prefer being called "Chri". it sounded like "cry" and Cecil instinctively knew that the teenager was bullied constantly because of that. it appears to be short for "Chris", the name Edward gave himself because he didn't want to live the rest of his life being called by the detestable name his parents gave him. _Identity, sheer identity_, the poet notes to himself.

"The girls are mostly amused," Chri comments on his name with an indifferent passion Cecil's never felt before. but quite identifies with, at the same time. "But the other guys do not grow tired of teasing me about it, even if I didn't lift a finger to hurt them in any way." It's coupled by a speculative shrug. _He has a melodious voice, like a singer. Just as I expected_, Cecil notes to himself, the thought both pleasurable and nostalgic.

_I guess he likes you, Cecil_, Rosa's eyes speak to him from the other side of the cozy room. The atmosphere, he decides, is irrelevant now – he just feels better about himself that Chri is liking him. well, so far. _But no…this boy is gentle. He's just deep, but misunderstood. More emotional than usual people. Well that's a definition of an artist, isn't it?_

_Just like me. Just like Kain._

"I'm sensing that you want to laugh…but it's not funny," Chri's voice is mellow, so frangible. as if the glass is already broken but it's not aiming for vicious sharp assault, and mourning for itself instead. never blaming the world or anyone. Maybe this reminds Cecil of himself. There's a sparkle in Chri's eyes now - a sparkle gifted when the boy is quite happy, Cecil learns quickly.

"I'm writing about two lions. One is wounded. The stronger one doesn't pity the other, and that goodwill and restoration of self-esteem…well you can say that the wounded lion magically heals. That's how I feel right now," Cecil pays closer attention, nodding at him to continue even if Chri's eyes aren't quite looking at anything at the scope of this office and his soul is practically floating off to _somewhere_.

"A person believing in you, that you have the strength," Cecil genuinely smiles and a new feeling dawns on some foggy cliffs of his heart; Chri re-mirrors his understood sentiment with another smile that clears the fog off too – "but why lions?"

There's a chuckle. "Well…I do change characters quite often. It was just an example; I was thinking too fast. Wouldn't it make sense if I make them humans instead, hmm. We really are going to be buddies, right, Cecil?" the unclouded glimmer in Edward's eyes is a million steps away from the dark suicide his teachers reportedly associate him with. it's way too refulgent, like a rare diamond, to be thrown in the depression wagon.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

_Alcohol mixing with veins:_  
_my fragile fingertips are made of glass_  
_yet your embers of red flame do not shatter me_

Cecil sighs and the sigh is perfervid, bunched in with frustrated tousles of his own hair. poetry flowing from heart to brain is chaotically painful – the words given coherence but the raw existence, something about the very identity of it is somehow degraded. censored. chained. sealed.  
and from brain to hand and hand to paper is just plain agony. The wails and emotes of the heart must never be translated to a language it will be inferior in, in a language that will doom the words into a miserable fate of lost in translation.  
This blown-out-of-proportion thought saddens Cecil to be honest, even if he does end up being happy enough with his end results.

_If one gets lost…stuck in this kind of emotional labyrinth…the person would become hard to comprehend..almost impossible to follow…but we must respect a person and whatever's going on in their hearts_, he angrily types on his phone keyboard. Rosa isn't online in Whatsapp yet but she will see the message soon enough and will reply soon enough.

_Uneven edges of paper:_ Cecil continues "scribbling", as he calls this ritual, _We fit and yet we don't, we don't fit and yet we do. Overlapping is an inaccurate art._

There blare again in his disturbed, anxious mind the azure eyes and the perfect lips whispering the perfect assuring assurances. Cecil's favorite muse; Cecil's favorite thought directive.

His phone bleeps, and Cecil decides to check before he ignores it further. _Talking about Edward, right? I agree._

_I won't treat him like a freak because he's not. I won't look at him the same way his teachers did because that's what isolates people like us. That's exactly what pushes us into a corner alone and then that's when emotions get out of control. Incoherent, almost._

_Cecil…_ He almost hears Rosa's soothing voice jumping out from the text as audio,_ I agree a million times with you. He's a friend to me. All my children are friends to me, never cases._

_That's a relief…_

_I'm glad you and him are getting along. I look at your face when you talk to him and share ideas with him…and you look so much better, Cecil._

Cecil smiles, then smiles wider before his phone bleeps again. Edward started a new group with him and Rosa: _Enjoyed today with you guys. So much. No one pays attention to me and takes my ideas seriously like you did. Will we be seeing each other again?_

The app _crashes_ and Cecil's _heart breaks breaks breaks breaks breaks_ in tandem. More than surely, Rosa would be holding back tears right now as well. Cecil restarts Whatsapp again, uneasily. Edward reminds him way too much of himself. And also Kain. Outcasts. The "dropouts", the "unfavorable members of the family".

_Yes, me and Cecil are free tomorrow, whole day_, Rosa has replied, bunched in with a heart emoticon.

_So am I! So can I drop by your house tomorrow, Rosa? The clinic's closed._

_Yes. Drop by after 12, hmm?_

_Cecil, you'll be there, right? You're my buddy_. Cecil smiles at the smiley Edward sent.

_Of course, Chri. I'm guessing you have a story you wanna share with us too._

_Yep…concept of heaven, earth and angels…but it's too cliché, so I changed some things around. Heaven becomes Galaxy and Earth becomes the Deep Ocean. There's a galaxy God…and there's the Ocean god…and there's a spirit in between them, like a mediator. No genders. Genders make everything…complicated. To be honest, it's a love story even if there are no genders. I don't know how it will work out..yet…_

_That's pretty picturesque_, Rosa replies as fast as possible.

_And that's why I also bought face paint…but I don't know how to do it. Rosa, you told me you had an artist friend, right? I was wondering if he's not too busy..and can help me.._

Kain, you mean? Oh, he's not too busy. I'll ask him if he can come along tomorrow.

_Who will be galaxy and who will be ocean and who will be the spirit?_ Cecil asks, stomping on the unignorable urge to ask Rosa how on earth did she know Kain's "not too busy".

Edward types for a long time, extremely deep in thought. _Cecil…you're a poet…I associate words with heaven, because they're….intangible….in a sense…aren't they? Compared to pictures, which are very earthly. We think of them, paint them, create them, view them as humans. Humans' eyes. Humans' mindsets. so I guess you'd be Galaxy and your artist friend will be Ocean..and Rosa will be spirit…._

_I've never had my face painted before. I'm excited_, It's obvious Rosa is covering up Cecil's uneasiness. his sensitivity. The broken pieces still sting. In reality, the poet is immensely grateful._ Anyway, this is something I've never done before..it will be a unique experience…and a one-of-a-kind inspiration._

_Really, Rosa? You'll help me? Thank you so much!_

_I agree with you, about the Heaven and Words thing. I have the same sentiment..and I'm sure my friend will be happy too. Why Rosa the spirit, though?_

Edward types for a long time again, this time uneasy about what might come out. _Hmm..I'm sorry…but it's a stupid reason. I took it quite literally. I got to know you and the artist friend through Rosa…so yea…it's THAT literal._

_Hahahaha, don't worry about it. I quite love your idea. Can't wait for tomorrow._

A sigh, a sigh, a sigh, then a final sigh that's the ultimate mélange of relief and uneasiness. There's definitely no question that Edward's words and ideas hit way too too close to…_home_. It doesn't take even a discernable moment for Cecil's soul to stir and wake and flow towards a certain azure one. for his heart to question the dubious hiatus defining their relationship at the present moment. for his fingers to jitter, as if to ask where are the artist's inky ones, when Kain's anger isn't quite aimed at Cecil and when Cecil's pity and frustration stems from a bigger picture than _Kain Highwind_. Why their eyes aren't imprinting themselves on each other, why messages from their hearts aren't being intercepted by kisses so they flow to veins the next second.

Why Kain is silent towards Cecil when they both know that the unsettledness, unresolved face of the situation is killing him inside out. that the irregularity of his heartbeat isn't something that can be concealed from the poet – that demand for assurance, renewed covenants…the poet recalls Kain's weakened eyes, the soul in them waning in the ocean of chaotic confusion as if signaling for rescue. the demand for even fake, _desultory promises because as long as it comes from Kain's lips, it would be more than enough…_

Heart flows to vein and from vein, the soul flows to fingers. The written words that ink the paper are messy. hurried. obviously urgent:

_Though I refuse to offer you anything that is not real,_  
_one more thing that shares your soul:_  
_Stormclouds darkening sea waves to azure, so that the scenery is a resilient, unmourning breed of loneliness._

Raw emotion rippling all around the heart, heart stuck in his throat, that hopeless sensation when your breath is taken away from you - and so from heart to throat to eyelids, the tears spill over to paper. paper as pristine as dove and as smooth as silk, lonely ink making it even more immortal._ Just like you and me._

Kain's love possessing his soul in the form of cheekbones tattooed with tears, shaking shoulders and hitched breaths: flowers being carved on hardened, desolate walls. an omniscient collection of bass beats lulling you to sleep amidst darkness.

Again, it's Rosa who calls. It's Rosa who gives him pity-company for the extra-heavy night. If she notices how Cecil's voice miserably cracks almost every other word, she tries to seam them with her bright voice. her mere disposition. "I heard you're going to give a poetry collection reading after tomorrow…" it's a welcome ramble, about how she's never heard the actual poet reciting his own work and if she can come and oh, Cecil, I'm looking forward to it – can I please come.

"Of course you can," the declaration is vaguer than dying embers of smoke. It's clouded by thoughts of Should I ask Kain to come, will he like the things that I say, will he secretly come all-knowing even if no one tells him anything, what will he think of me as he sees me with a microphone, will he forgive me as I spill my heart out in public or not really…and the millions of other related muses.

So before Rosa asks the unbelievably-awkward question, the poet hurriedly forces out, "Kain told me he would be busy that day. He was mumbling something about an exhibition when we last saw each other."

"Such a bad guy," Rosa saying unexpected, out-of-character-but-quite-in-character dialogue is always something to think about over and over. "He should support you. Maybe he will have break time somewhere and can drop in – "

"That's…enough, Rosa," the smoke embers in Cecil's voice completely fade out. die down. "I'm not ready..I'm sorry for bursting your bubble even if the idea is quite tempting."

"There you go. Now you're starting to be more like yourself. You love Kain. And we all know Kain loves you. His eyes turn to marshmallows when he sees you. And no, Cecil, it wasn't meant to be funny." She huffs over the phone at Cecil's erupting snickers.

"Well," she continues a bit more relieved and uneasy at the same time, "..at least I was able to make you laugh."

The poet's voice is still cooling off from the comedy makeover, but it sounds a million times more cheerful. "That is true, Rosa. I had the same thought before, the exact same comparison. We were at the café and he had such an adorable expression on his face, mixed in with a scowl. It was beyond….cuddle-able. I thought that he could strangle people with marshmallows and still look cute. How can you understand exactly what's going on in my mind?"

It's Rosa's turn to be buried with giggles. At least two minutes pass before both can breathe normally and speak coherent words. "Ever fun, Cecil. Yes, Kain is pissed…but…don't worry…if that's gonna make him strangle you passionately, he'll use marshmallows. He'll kiss you repeatedly, too."

"Rosa…" Cecil decides it's time to let the lingering question down the uncertain sea, "don't you…like Kain? Like….me? How does it feel, watching the two of us ..in this kind of thing…and you're…left out…and even comforting me? Doesn't this…hurt you at all?"

It's a long, tense minute before Rosa speaks. Splotches of color spin in Cecil's head in anxiety. _Maybe I shouldn't have asked…shouldn't have asked…shouldn't have asked…why am I so stupid?_

"I was waiting for you to ask that question…did you know that, Cecil?" she sighs first, as if gathering strength. _Rosa always has a way of doing things._ "No. I'm not hurt. It's sort of like as Kain said that a lot of things were stolen and used against him back then…when you two were soldiers and I was a woman. I don't feel like that in this life. It's a new, different life with new things to try. New things to live with."

Cecil's breathing both plummets and calms in a questionable rhythm, so questionable that Rosa notices and continues, "I started remembering those things in our past life when Kain and I talked in the town square. St. Dunstan, if you're asking. We've been seeing each other around for quite a few years already but that day when I saw him…he carried so much of you in him…is that how you say it? So that made me remember. And I was happy. I was genuinely happy that you and him held each other in such an unbreakable chord. It was beautiful. It was something I knew I would never witness as Healer Rosa in the past."

The unquestionable rhythm continues, and Rosa continues further, "No, I would never be jealous. I'm happy at the least. It's about time we stop sugar-coating things because no matter how you look at it, I tore you two apart in that life. Don't protest, don't disagree. It's not that I was unhappy about our marriage…about Ceo…we have to accept things as they are. But when my soul was carried over to this present, I strongly wished for you and Kain to have a friendship that wasn't so ill-fated. A friendship that had me as a constant when I was supposed to be the variable, and not the friendship."

The conversation did float to happier things and Cecil doesn't mind the heavy phone bill that will come later on. Frustration eventually leaves snow-white knuckles, his unconscious rocking from side to side dwindles. He feels so much lighter and he's more than sure Rosa got a lot of relevant pressure off her chest and that really matters. Rosa would ask Kain if he can help them with Edward tomorrow, and even if he doesn't, Cecil will come. Rydia will come as well.

That night, he dreams of Kain's eyes locked on his as he gives the poem recitation: his recitation voice strong as ocean waves and soothing whispers blending hazy transitions together, even as he imagines Kain's lips on his to layer over his words. Cecil the sweet strength of word melody and Kain the relevant, empowering bass. Even their voices are matches made_ in heaven_.

_-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-_

They've ended up moving the skit to Kain's studio, as Cecil secretly guesstimated last night. As Edward says, "blotches and splashes of messy paint don't really match with a homely living room, all dressed up". Rydia and Edward have already become best friends despite the significant age gap. Subtle giggles erupting to whole-hearted laughter, Rydia's clapping hands and cheery voice going about "Chri, I've never heard your name before-I like it, Chri let's make a story together, Chri your voice is so musical, Chri I like you so much-you talk like a poetry book, Chri sing us a song-I know you do sing-"

And that's when it goes down to a landslide, or maybe to the glorious mountain peak, the exhilarating view of a summit – Edward's voice the balter of sunlight mixing with water gently moving upstream. Amazed, Rydia's fixed gaze light up ten more glow powers. Something close to a missing heart piece flows from Edward's soundwaves to Rosa's soul. Kain is tapping with the new face-paint brushes and mixing shades no one has seen before, but Cecil knows he's listening intently. feeling something familiar, a section of the pie being uncovered and restored - nevermind that it's just a small portion.

Awe freezes all of them on the spot, yet takes them to places they've never seen before. or maybe they've been there…

_A gente esquece_  
_Na correnteza da vida_

All five of them are strung together with Edward's "magical music chord", as Rydia describes it. Maybe it's a pleasant treat for their ears but an accidental warning to their hearts that the bard didn't really..intend. Something more than worry and agitation draws Cecil to Edward's voice and the tragedy it mourned. because he's sure it's not just the music playing tricks on his thought process – it's a conglomerated sensation that past memories are being strung together into contextual coherence and articulate sense.

Startlingly, it's Rydia who asks "Did someone die, Chri?" and takes his palm.  
It's half-shaking half-frozen.  
The boy's face is both a perfect mask and an open door.  
Both Kain and Rosa start to say something hurriedly to breech the tension, but  
Startingly, it's Edward who denies it and says, "No, no one did. She's still _alive_," and even gives Rydia a heartbreaking _smile_. Of course his eyes are shut extremely tight, because he couldn't afford the dam in them to break off.

Cecil watches quite absent-mindedly as Rosa rushes to tell Edward how much she loves his voice, how Kain is starting to hum back the melody. but the cover-up performance is silently sabotaged by Rydia staring down the resonant wooden floor alone. deep in thought, as if the wood will tell her the secret behind Edward's obvious lie. A million heartbreaks chain Cecil from inside, rendering him quite nonexistent and possessed at the same time. _I cannot save them_, is the last thought that crosses his mind and is almost ripped out from his lips in the form of an angry primal soul-scream, before he opens the studio door as gently as possible and rushes out to the snow. _for sanity's sake_.

* * *

**Finally! It took me months to get this done. **

**Thank you so much for reading! If you have read this whole monster haha. For all who support me and read and fav my works, thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed =D  
**

**A special thank you to dear Lady Raben who encouraged me to continue my two-shot and discover the potential of this mini-series, and for her beyond-generous encouragement, support, and input! I have done tremendous research and planning for this fic and it's going to be a while before this will be concluded =D **

**The Portugese lines are actual lyrics from the vocal version of Melody of Lute. Please don't laugh at Edward's name, I had to do it XD **

**Golbez is coming~ Lots of Rosa-Cecil bonding in this chapter, I know. Kekeke.  
**

**And yes, the elevator-canvas scene is literally the evillest thing I have written thus far in my life.**

**EDIT 7/30/15: Had to take this down and eliminate the annoying duplicates! I'm so sorry for the inconvenience and the confusion. **


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Final Fantasy I-VI, Angst, Drama