![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Other
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A mortal injury, an accidental teleportation, and an encounter with his own self. He doesn’t know. He’s from the younger days, the happy days that are now no more than a murmur from a blessed memory that I sometimes question the veracity of.
AN 1: This is the second part of a story showing the same scene from two points of view. This is Adam's. The first part is here
AN 2: Title shamelessly stolen from Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Other", which deals with the same theme. The quote within comes from Luis de Góngora's sonnet CLXVI.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
The high wind cuts through me, howling with the chill of the coming winter. The sun shines from above, a cascade of light. It does nothing to dispel the cold in my bones. I peer down 34 stories and see a world that’s been festering nearly since its conception. Traffic is jammed at the intersection. The height of rush hour. I can’t see the cars from this distance, neither can I heard the screeching of horns and insults, but my sense memory reawakens the tiresome drone in my ears. Loud and empty. Sound waves passing through a void that has always existed and always will. Everyone feels it at some point; a remote, primitive part of their unconscious perceives the hollow, agonizing sore that plunges below their feet. They stand on quicksand, bodies already immersed to the waist and yet they still try to wallow through it, glazed eyes unable to see what lies right in front of them. There’s no sense to it, no reason, no hope. Idealistic notions of peace and betterment are meaningless, remnants of a life I abandoned long ago. The folly of youth. I’d have been better off remaining a lazy drunkard, yet even of that I would have repented. Soon, the virus’s location will be revealed to me and I shall make this world burn and stir the ashes with my hand.
Voices rise behind me. Strange. I didn’t hear the creak of the rooftop door opening. I turn and see two figures crouched on the opposite side of the roof, too far for me to distinguish them. Yet there’s something oddly familiar about them, producing a dizzy pressure in my gut. I approach, slowly, watchful for any sudden movements on their part, but they haven’t spotted me. Vague figures start coming into focus. Is that... samurai armor?
“Hiro! Please, stay with me!”
My limbs freeze. I couldn’t have heard that. It’s impossible. But that voice. That’s my voice. And that’s the armor I wore for so many months over 300 years ago. That man... He can’t be... But he is... I see his face and it’s my face, a mirror straight to my past. Then the man squeezed against his chest... He’s Hiro. Face slack, limbs sprawled out limp like a discarded doll, and blood, so much blood. It soaks his entire side, dripping down his legs to paint his socks crimson. He’s injured, badly, probably dying. Hiro. This can’t be happening. Why here? Why now?
I must have moved too abruptly, for my past self’s head shoots up and he reaches for something behind his back, but his hand grasps nothing but air. His sword, most likely. I have it downstairs. He’s as shocked to see me as I am to see him. He backs away, holding Hiro tightly against him even as he tries to cover him with his body as if I were a threat. Which, of course, is what I must seem to him. He can’t possibly understand.
“Are you a demon?” His voice is sharp with fear. “A ghost? Am I going mad?”
“Not yet.”
I’m not sure what inspires me to say those words, but there’s truth in them. My eyes keep drifting toward Hiro, lying there so still, a crushed leaf. His heart is still beating, else the blood wouldn’t continue to flow. But by the look of things, he doesn’t have long.
“Stay back!”
I hadn’t even noticed my own feet moving until he leaps up, standing between me and Hiro, fists at the ready, a wildness in his eyes. Does he think that I’ll hurt him?
“Relax.” I raise my hands in a gesture of good faith. “I’m you. Your future self. It seems he brought you here by accident.”
He narrows his eyes, surprised by my response. He’s confused, disoriented. Who wouldn’t he be? Arriving in a world so different from the one he knows would be enough to turn anyone’s head, much more with the sudden appearance of another him. I feel for him. He’s me, after all.
“What year is this?” he asks, still on guard.
“1977.”
His eyes widen, lips stumbling over syllables he can’t seem to pronounce.
“That’s... That’s 300 years.”
“Yes. Quite a long time. And yet the clock still has to run a little further before we reach his time. He hasn’t been born yet.”
I focus on Hiro, regarding the full length of his body. My once precious Hiro. The last image I conserve of him is he standing over me holding out his hand, offering to take me away from the explosion that seconds later ripped my body apart. That same hand now lies forsaken by his side, a crimson stained tatter unable to save anyone, much less himself. His curled up fingers reach out to me, like a beggar’s beseeching my charity. Pity that I don’t have any to give. Suddenly, the other me turns, his face anguished, and he kneels by his side. He holds a hand over Hiro’s mouth, seeking his vanishing breath.
“Help me,” he calls to me, but I don’t move.
“He’s bleeding to death!”
He already has. No one can bear that much blood loss and live.
“If you’re me, why aren’t you helping me save him?”
He doesn’t know. Of course not. He’s from the younger days, the happy days that are now no more than a murmur from a blessed memory that I sometimes question the veracity of. He doesn’t know what is to come, or rather, what was to come. Certain betrayals can’t happen now if Hiro dies. But he wouldn’t understand any of that.
“Because I’m not you anymore.”
I crouch down next to them and brush Hiro’s forehead with the backs of my fingers. He’s warm, but only barely. His heart flutters, helpless little butterfly withering almost as soon as it slips from its cocoon.
“He made you who you are,” I say. “Then he made me.”
I never thought I’d get the privilege to see Hiro again, much less to touch him. I wasn’t planning on allowing the world to remain intact long enough for that. Yet he came to me, now, in his last moments. Why?
“He’s stopped breathing:”
“What?”
He grasps Hiro’s neck, fingers moving desperately as he seeks a pulse that isn’t there.
“His heart isn’t beating, either.” My voice is far too serene.
He grabs Hiro, lowering his head to his chest. His breath is heavy, drowning in a sob about to erupt at any moment.
“Soon, if it hasn’t done so already, his brain will shut down and end all activity.”
He glares at me, revulsion darkening his eyes. I know what he must think of me, sitting here so calmly as his love dies, he who’s supposed to be my love as well.
“He’s... He’s...”
His voice trembles and the first tear tumbles down his face. He squeezes Hiro to him, burying his face in his neck as his shoulders shake.
“Carp, please open your eyes. Please, you can’t leave me. You can’t, please!”
It’s very strange seeing myself like this. Almost like a mirror, yet not. I too would have been heartbroken if Hiro had died in front of me at the point of my life he’s in. But would it be worse than what eventually occurred? I’ve pondered that question many times, never arriving at a satisfactory answer. What if Hiro had died before he had a chance to betray me? How would my life be different if my memory of him had been one of respect and love for the noble being that molded a hero out of a useless drunk? He would have remained high on a pedestal, my own personal saint, my savior, my god. Instead, he became my Lucifer, my demon, my hell. But he looks so innocent lying there, so beautiful in that uniquely adorable way only Hiro can manage. His rounded face soft and kind, eyes always sparkling like twin stars fallen from the firmament, eager smile showing his boundless passion for saving the world. Pity he didn’t live up to the selfless principles he tried to impose on me. And yet, I miss that Hiro. I miss him. It will all rot away if I let it, turning “into earth, into smoke, into dust, into shadow, into nothing.” Should I save him? I look at the man that I used to be and I doubt my earlier convictions. In my contemplations, I was always detached, removed from the event that brought me here by both time and space. I resembled more the philosophers from ancient Greece sitting at a placid grove gazing at the vastness of the sky, heeding only the reasoning of thought rather than that of action, except that instead of light, all I can see is dark. The fullest, blackest night the deepest reaches of a human soul can ever know. At least, that’s how I fancied it, how I wished it, in a sense, indulging in thoughts of vengeance, of death still so far removed in the future that a certain sense of unreality clung to them. Hiro caused me some of the greatest pain that I’ve ever felt. And yet, it wasn’t this.
He’s crying, but it’s not so simple as tears running down his cheeks and an ache clutching his throat. His sorrow is a wildfire sweeping through tall grass, flames rising into the dry wind, screaming like nails rending flesh. There are no words. There can never be words. A heart cannot speak when it’s been torn in two.
He’s not me. I buried that part of myself long ago, and yet, some part of my soul still recognizes him. I see his pain and I know it for my own. Here is Hiro, one of the few people I’ve ever truly loved and the one I held above all others, until he tore a hole in my chest and left me to bleed. This crimson pool seeping through my trousers is my blood, yet it isn’t my body it came from this time. It’s his. He’s dead and he could stay that way so easily, though the inconsistence of having a past me stuck here would probably create a rift in time, causing the world to collapse into itself. I can’t really say that I would mind it so much. But this never happened before. Hiro never brought me to the 21st century. He was never injured in a battle. There must be a reason for this to be happening now. Tomorrow, Maury will tell me where exactly in the bowels of the Company I built is the virus that will help me wipe the slate clean, extinguishing the only world I’ve ever known. I’m not superstitious. I abandoned all such trappings when I learned my proper place in this world. Yet I can’t help wondering if that same universe is telling me something now. But I don’t have to wonder about this being weeping before me, this man who bears my face and what used to be my heart. The rational part of me tells me not to. The wheels are in motion, my goal already slithering between my palms. This is nothing. An accident of the timeline. Except that it isn’t nothing. I’m tired. I gaze at my and Hiro’s faces pressed so closely together and I can’t stir even a flicker of my old anger. This isn’t how I want things to be. Hiro shouldn’t be dead. I shouldn’t be broken.
I place my hand on his shoulder, but he pushes it off.
“Get away!”
Understandable reaction. I could just slash my wrist and pour my blood on Hiro’s wound, but I need to speak with him first. I need him to understand. I grab his arm, but he twists away, swinging back with a punch aimed straight at my face. I duck and grab his wrist, locking his struggling arm in place, but his left fist swings up too quickly and blood knocks against my teeth. A sharper pain screams across my face a second later and before my nose has a chance to heal he hits me again and I let him. I give myself up as a sacrifice for his grief, splintering bones and cracking cartilage whole within seconds. But it won’t do. It doesn’t solve anything. I yank his right arm, pulling him to the side and punch him in the stomach. As he doubles over, I throw him down and straddle his hips, my hands tight on his wrists. He jerks under me, struggling with every muscle in his body, but it will do him no good. His movements are erratic, his concentration scattered.
“Listen to me,” I say, trying to calm him down.
“Get off me!”
His glare could sear through flesh if he had that kind of power.
“Listen!”
He grows still, his limbs freezing under me though his chest still rises and falls with the speed of a locomotive. I didn’t mean to shout so loudly. It did the trick, in any case. I suppose this is what some people would call an existential crisis. No better way to examine your past than to have it trapped under you, skin to skin, hearts beating at the same pounding pace. He’s innocent, the veil of idealism Hiro threw over him still clinging to his eyes. Man before the fall. The irony of my name.
“300 years ago,” I begin, “Hiro Nakamura betrayed me.”
“Hiro wouldn’t. He’d never--”
So quick to defend his honor. What a fool I was.
“Shut up and listen. He betrayed me as he would have betrayed you if he lived. I am what you would become if the original story where to come to pass. One of the principal reasons why I’m no longer like you is because of him. He’s not the good friend you imagine. If he were, he’d never have done what he did. If he were to live, he’d probably do it again.”
The fury in his eyes doesn’t abated one bit. He doesn’t believe me.
“But something makes me wonder,” I continue. “You see, this...” I glance at Hiro’s body. “This never happened before. “ He follows my gaze and all his anger evaporates. His breath grows raspy, his eyes swelling, and he turns away, shutting his eyes tight. It really is bizarre to see so myself so miserable. “Hiro was never mortally injured. He never accidentally teleported us to the future. Which means that something has changed.”
“What’s your point?”His voice is a shadow trying to cling to outrage he no longer feels. It’s disturbingly close to despair.
“You have a choice. It’s been a long time since I dared hope for anything. You’ve only lived a few years; you don’t see the world the way I do. I see darkness that never lifts, anger and fear and pain never ending. Light doesn’t last for more than a second before it’s snatched away. Perhaps what I’m going to tell you now won’t change a thing in the long run, but there’s a possibility, slim as it seems to me now, and so I will. You can save him.”
His eyes open and he lifts his head, confusion frozen in his face. Rage creeps back in his eyes.
“You bastard! He’s already dead!”
“He doesn’t have to stay dead.”
“What devilry is it you speak? No one has power over death. No one save—“
“God. And you.”
He gapes at me, stunned, for a few seconds, then I see the wheels begin to turn in his mind. He’s realizing what I did all those years ago when day after day went by and no wrinkle appeared on my face. Death, the great unite, can’t humble me. In fact, I do quite the opposite.
“But it’s not possible.” He’s shaking his head, an almost unconscious gesture. “It can’t be.”
I release his hands and when he makes no move against me, I lift myself off of him. He sits up, staring at me like a child hoping that his mother will tell him that everything’s going to be all right.
“You’re not a normal man. You know this. So why do you question it? You have been gifted above all others with the dominion over life and death. Not even most gods have that power.”
“Then why did you just stand there when he was dying? Why didn’t you save him then? If you were me,
Surely you know what this is.” He pushes against his chest as if he were trying to stab his heart. “This burn, this ache nailed in my soul. Just breathing hurts.”
Some divinity is screwing with me. This can’t be that moment.
“You didn’t realize that you loved him until now.”
I turn to Hiro, absent witness to our condemnation. Our precious, cursed Hiro.
“I didn’t realize until he kissed her.”
“What?”
I look up at his question. I didn’t mean to say that, it just slipped out.
“That was his betrayal.”
“Her?” His eyes are wide. “You mean Yaeko?”
“He claimed to love her.”
He glances at Hiro, then at me, then back again.
“But he wants me to love her. All he talks... talked about was me becoming a hero and loving my princess. He... why would he...”
Exactly what I thought when I saw it. Except that he doesn’t look as angry as I was.
“I don’t have an answer for that. According to him, it was an accident.”
A meteor crashing to earth couldn’t look more crushed. He pulls his knees against his chest, dropping his head into his hands. His breath whistles between his fingers, quick and unsteady. I’ve never suffered a panic attack, yet he seems dangerously close to one now. I turn away. Seeing him like this... It’s too close. The sky is clear, flawless blue. Were we in the tropics, the sun would be burning our skins, though of course, it wouldn’t last. Physical impressions never last. But his do. Hiro could never be forgotten.
“You wanted revenge. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He figured it out. But I don’t think he shares my sentiments. His posture, his voice, they’re all beaten, sunken in grief, maybe even a little resentment, but not the same kind as mine.
“I did. Right up to the moment when you showed up.”
“But you don’t anymore?”
Hiro’s already cold. His flesh is hardening under my fingertips.
“No.”
I thought this was what I wanted. Or did I? Did I ever really know anything? I’ve made sure to distance myself from pesky emotions as much as possible precisely because of this. It’s messy and agonizing and I have endured far too much of it. I don’t want it anymore, but some part of me still does, the part that is still human, the part that I could never completely extirpate from my soul. That piece that lives in him, in both of them, no lesser ghost of Christmas past than my own love struck self and the man who I could never let go of.
“Tell me.”
He enters my field of vision, but I don’t look up.
“Tell me how to save him. Please. If you weren’t lying to me, and you better not have been, because I don’t care what you are, I’ll—“
“There’s no need for threats.”
Really, now. I can’t blame him for being impatient, but surely he must be aware of how pointless it would be. But there’s only one connection his mind is interested in making, the only thing he wants. The only thing we both want.
“I’ll show you. It’s very simple.” I reach in my right trouser pocket and take out a small knife, unsheathing the blade. He glances at it warily, still distrusting, but he squares his shoulders. “Hold out your hand.”
He offers me a hand as smooth and unmarked as my own. My hand. I grip him by the wrist, holding him still as I slash across his palm, digging hard into his flesh to keep the blood flowing. He grimaces, hissing, but doesn’t complain. I hardly feel cuts like these anymore. It’s strange to remember a time when I could. But he’s still young and fresh, free from my memories. I guide his hand toward the wound in Hiro’s side and press it hard against it, slipping out the blade.
“Keep it there,” I instruct him.
He does so, pressing even harder, as if he wanted to cleave himself to Hiro’s body. There’s fear in his eyes, but also hope too tremulous to fully show its face. He’s breathing hard. I wonder if he even notices. His eyes flicker from me to Hiro in frenzied glances.
“Do I keep my hand here?” he asks. “Should I move away? I don’t know.”
So nervous. Wouldn’t I be?
“Did you feel the wound close?”
The wonder in his face gives me my answer.
“That should be enough, then. You can lift your hand if you want.”
His hand shivers, hesitant and it’s only in a slow, shuddering slide that he moves it away, confirming what I’d just asked. The cut has disappeared, our blood surging through Hiro’s body, reviving blood vessels, nerves, muscles, organs. Life sparking in the dead tissue little by little, my life given to the only person worthy of it. The past me is brushing his hands all over Hiro’s body, starved for the warmth returning to his limbs. Deathly grey flushes the lightest pink and Hiro’s eyelids flicker just for a second. Maybe I imagined it, but as he lays his head over Hiro’s heart and utters an elated gasp, I know it’s only a matter of moments before he achieves full wakefulness. I shouldn’t be here. It’s not my face that should greet him when he finally opens his eyes. My turn is done. I had it and now it’s gone.
I stand and yet I can’t get my feet to step back. I don’t... I can’t be here when he wakes up. I need to move away, get my feet working. That’s it. Just keep walking, let them get further away, receding in the distance, but I don’t get that far before Hiro jumps up, gasping, eyes open, wild. He doesn’t see me. The other takes him in his arms, holding him tight, calling his name over and over again and Hiro clings to his back, his lips moving, both of them talking but I can’t hear, can’t understand. My heart’s too loud, pounding in my ears, close to snapping my eardrums. Pain stings my palms. Shit, my nails cut right through. Then he sees me. His already wide eyes widen even more and breath sticks in my throat.
“Kensei?”
I hear him this time and his voice is the sweetest sound in the world. He looks from me to the other, questioning and I think the other me may be smiling as he turns around, probably is, but I can’t look away from Hiro’s face.
“Hello, Hiro.”
I don’t know how I manage to say it. I need to suck saliva from my throat to alleviate the dryness in my mouth. He glances around for a moment, then turns back to me.
“What year is this?” he asks.
“1977.” We both answer him, our voices melding in a perfect unison.
“You look like twins,” Hiro says, smiling. He doesn’t know. It’d be best if he doesn’t, but that’s what I’ve wanted all these centuries, what I whispered to myself as I fell asleep to another night of wondering when the day would finally come that I would have revenge. Here it is, the day has finally arrived, but this Hiro hasn’t betrayed me. He’s innocent, of action at least, though he probably already harbors love of her in his heart. Even if he does betray the me that sits next to him, it won’t be me. That being can never become me now.
“Not like when I...,” he continues. “Well, never mind.”
“When you what?” the other me says, asking the same question I have.
Apprehension shadows his eyes, raising my curiosity.
“I went to the future once,” Hiro says slowly, his eyes lowered. “My future and met myself. I was very different.”
Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. A time traveler navigates through different versions of the world, altering events, creating new sets of consequences, just like he did with me. Running across another him isn’t unexpected. Yet it seems too much of a coincidence that I am now in that same position. As ever, I’m following in his footsteps. Even when the circumstances change, I can’t help but be dragged in his wake.
“But I really shouldn’t talk about that,” he continues. “Not that it really affects anything now, but... I don’t know.”
His voice is so soft, gentle like his lips, sweet mouth I want to kiss. Desire rushes, unbidden. I never could rid myself of that wish to press him to me and taste everything, his smile, his neck, his hands, his cock, his moans, and if I was very, very lucky, his soul, cradling it to mine, holding them in unison forever. But he never would have granted me that honor, would he?
“It’s all right. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” the other me says, comforting him like the relieved friend he is.
Hiro stands up, automatically brushing off his clothes, but he realizes the futility of it when he notices that one whole side is stained purple with blood. He peers at me, clearly fascinated, yet he remains hesitant. Is it the look on my face? I think I’ve erased most of my apprehension, but seeing that worry linger in his eyes makes me suspect otherwise. My careful self-discipline can’t stand up to his scrutiny, I see. Or perhaps he’s comparing me to his own future self. Perhaps he himself carried a darkness that he now fears might be present in me. He’d be correct. The other me stands up, regarding me with similar suspicion, and keeps close to Hiro as if he sought to protect him from me. Really, even after I told him how to bring Hiro back he still doesn’t trust me.
“I think it’d be better if we went back now,” Hiro says, looking at the other, and a voice screams inside me. No, he can’t leave yet. I don’t want him to, but not just because I’ll vanish when he does. Suddenly grandiose plans of self-serving death and destruction no longer matter. He does, he always has and I have only one chance at fixing this, because I have no faith in that other doing so. I didn’t, so he won’t and even if Hiro doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, which I really think he won’t, I won’t have this regret hanging over my head.
I walk towards him though I want to run, but that wouldn’t do at all. The other me moves forward, but he’s too late, for I’ve already slid my hand behind Hiro’s nape and I’m kissing him. It only lasts a second, maybe two, but it’s wonderful and glorious and 300 years of passionate yearning. I force myself to pull away and say the words that are burned in my heart.
“I love you.”
He has the widest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Huh?”
A smile tugs at my lips. Adorable. Total confusion has always looked best on Hiro. The panic attack I predicted earlier seems to be taking hold of the other me. He’s glaring at me with the oddest mix of anger and terror. He’s twitching, probably undecided between the urge to run away or to tear me to pieces. But I don’t care about him right now. I turn back to Hiro, who, strangely, hasn’t backed away despite my releasing his neck. My arm is loosely draped across his back, but that’s hardly a restraint. He should have shoved it away by now.
“I love you,” I repeat, a simple statement, and though the puzzlement on his face doesn’t change, his continued presence and lack of time freezing gives me hope, a notion I haven’t indulged in far too long. Could it be possible that he might not be adverse to my desires?
“He won’t say it.” I nod at the other me. “He’s too afraid. Just like I was. I didn’t mention anything the first time, three centuries ago, because I never dreamed even of the possibility that I might be so lucky as to have your love, not merely as a friend, but as a lover. Even now I have doubt, but something tells me that I’m not wrong in having told you.”
“I... I don’t know...”he stumbles. That’s not rejection. Oh God. “I mean... Everything’s so...sudden. I died and then there’s two of you,” he glances between us,” and now you tell me you love me. You--” He turns to the other me, approaching him and I see the tension forcing his body to stay still. “If he’s saying it, that means that you also feel that way, right?”
This is it, the chance I craved so eagerly. This is no time to chicken out and I hope he realizes that. I’ve pushed it this far for him, not me. I’m done. I couldn’t keep Hiro without altering things so irrevocably that everything I’ve known for the past three hundred years would collapse, but of course, it’ll do that anyway. He steadies himself, controlling his runaway breaths and says, “Yes,” in a voice that at least doesn’t falter too much.
“You don’t love Yaeko?”
One would think that this point has already been made, but Hiro was always so stubborn about that stupid legend. The answer is obviously no, which the other me gives with a head shake.
“Do you?”
Good question, and one that I hope I don’t have the answer to, because then this whole thing will have been for nothing and I can’t bear to hear those horrid words again.
“What? Where did... How did... No. I may be a little attracted to her, but no more than to...well... you.”
For once, the shock on the other me’s face reflects perfectly what I’m feeling. Me? Hiro’s attracted to me? He still likes her, he just confirmed it, but it’s not love yet, unless he was lying to me the first time and it really was some game of theirs, but the “you” in that sentence is undeniable.
“Do you really mean that?” the other me asks, face brightening and I wait as impatiently as him for an answer.
“Yes.”
Shy, little response nestled in a blushing smile. I want to take him in my arms, but I can’t. This isn’t my moment. It’s theirs. My only purpose was to get it right this time. And I did. I never thought it was possible, but I did it. I got what I wanted. But it’s not mine. I no longer have a part in this story.
I only half listen to the rest, catching some stray words, like “my hero” and “love” and “maybe someday” and then the other me finally steps forward and kisses him, my kiss reenacted, only this version lasts much longer, and I’m cold with jealousy. He looks up at me, a radiant smile on his face. I never thought I’d see myself so happy.
“Thank you,” he says and I feel the full import of every syllable. Thank you. Hiro turns to me as well, grinning, but he doesn’t speak. Instead, he gives me a little bow, his eyes sparkling, lovely eyes that I’ll never see again. They kiss again and then they’re gone, the air where they stood empty. I’m alone. The outline of the building before me ripples. I look down at my shadow. It flickers like an old TV with a bad signal, then it too is gone and I feel a sick pull in my bones, sharp, yet not painful. The building blows away in the wind. My feet stand on nothing. It won’t be long now. Not even a minute. I won’t be at peace. I won’t exist. I close my eyes and wait for my world to vanish.
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A mortal injury, an accidental teleportation, and an encounter with his own self. He doesn’t know. He’s from the younger days, the happy days that are now no more than a murmur from a blessed memory that I sometimes question the veracity of.
AN 1: This is the second part of a story showing the same scene from two points of view. This is Adam's. The first part is here
AN 2: Title shamelessly stolen from Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Other", which deals with the same theme. The quote within comes from Luis de Góngora's sonnet CLXVI.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
The high wind cuts through me, howling with the chill of the coming winter. The sun shines from above, a cascade of light. It does nothing to dispel the cold in my bones. I peer down 34 stories and see a world that’s been festering nearly since its conception. Traffic is jammed at the intersection. The height of rush hour. I can’t see the cars from this distance, neither can I heard the screeching of horns and insults, but my sense memory reawakens the tiresome drone in my ears. Loud and empty. Sound waves passing through a void that has always existed and always will. Everyone feels it at some point; a remote, primitive part of their unconscious perceives the hollow, agonizing sore that plunges below their feet. They stand on quicksand, bodies already immersed to the waist and yet they still try to wallow through it, glazed eyes unable to see what lies right in front of them. There’s no sense to it, no reason, no hope. Idealistic notions of peace and betterment are meaningless, remnants of a life I abandoned long ago. The folly of youth. I’d have been better off remaining a lazy drunkard, yet even of that I would have repented. Soon, the virus’s location will be revealed to me and I shall make this world burn and stir the ashes with my hand.
Voices rise behind me. Strange. I didn’t hear the creak of the rooftop door opening. I turn and see two figures crouched on the opposite side of the roof, too far for me to distinguish them. Yet there’s something oddly familiar about them, producing a dizzy pressure in my gut. I approach, slowly, watchful for any sudden movements on their part, but they haven’t spotted me. Vague figures start coming into focus. Is that... samurai armor?
“Hiro! Please, stay with me!”
My limbs freeze. I couldn’t have heard that. It’s impossible. But that voice. That’s my voice. And that’s the armor I wore for so many months over 300 years ago. That man... He can’t be... But he is... I see his face and it’s my face, a mirror straight to my past. Then the man squeezed against his chest... He’s Hiro. Face slack, limbs sprawled out limp like a discarded doll, and blood, so much blood. It soaks his entire side, dripping down his legs to paint his socks crimson. He’s injured, badly, probably dying. Hiro. This can’t be happening. Why here? Why now?
I must have moved too abruptly, for my past self’s head shoots up and he reaches for something behind his back, but his hand grasps nothing but air. His sword, most likely. I have it downstairs. He’s as shocked to see me as I am to see him. He backs away, holding Hiro tightly against him even as he tries to cover him with his body as if I were a threat. Which, of course, is what I must seem to him. He can’t possibly understand.
“Are you a demon?” His voice is sharp with fear. “A ghost? Am I going mad?”
“Not yet.”
I’m not sure what inspires me to say those words, but there’s truth in them. My eyes keep drifting toward Hiro, lying there so still, a crushed leaf. His heart is still beating, else the blood wouldn’t continue to flow. But by the look of things, he doesn’t have long.
“Stay back!”
I hadn’t even noticed my own feet moving until he leaps up, standing between me and Hiro, fists at the ready, a wildness in his eyes. Does he think that I’ll hurt him?
“Relax.” I raise my hands in a gesture of good faith. “I’m you. Your future self. It seems he brought you here by accident.”
He narrows his eyes, surprised by my response. He’s confused, disoriented. Who wouldn’t he be? Arriving in a world so different from the one he knows would be enough to turn anyone’s head, much more with the sudden appearance of another him. I feel for him. He’s me, after all.
“What year is this?” he asks, still on guard.
“1977.”
His eyes widen, lips stumbling over syllables he can’t seem to pronounce.
“That’s... That’s 300 years.”
“Yes. Quite a long time. And yet the clock still has to run a little further before we reach his time. He hasn’t been born yet.”
I focus on Hiro, regarding the full length of his body. My once precious Hiro. The last image I conserve of him is he standing over me holding out his hand, offering to take me away from the explosion that seconds later ripped my body apart. That same hand now lies forsaken by his side, a crimson stained tatter unable to save anyone, much less himself. His curled up fingers reach out to me, like a beggar’s beseeching my charity. Pity that I don’t have any to give. Suddenly, the other me turns, his face anguished, and he kneels by his side. He holds a hand over Hiro’s mouth, seeking his vanishing breath.
“Help me,” he calls to me, but I don’t move.
“He’s bleeding to death!”
He already has. No one can bear that much blood loss and live.
“If you’re me, why aren’t you helping me save him?”
He doesn’t know. Of course not. He’s from the younger days, the happy days that are now no more than a murmur from a blessed memory that I sometimes question the veracity of. He doesn’t know what is to come, or rather, what was to come. Certain betrayals can’t happen now if Hiro dies. But he wouldn’t understand any of that.
“Because I’m not you anymore.”
I crouch down next to them and brush Hiro’s forehead with the backs of my fingers. He’s warm, but only barely. His heart flutters, helpless little butterfly withering almost as soon as it slips from its cocoon.
“He made you who you are,” I say. “Then he made me.”
I never thought I’d get the privilege to see Hiro again, much less to touch him. I wasn’t planning on allowing the world to remain intact long enough for that. Yet he came to me, now, in his last moments. Why?
“He’s stopped breathing:”
“What?”
He grasps Hiro’s neck, fingers moving desperately as he seeks a pulse that isn’t there.
“His heart isn’t beating, either.” My voice is far too serene.
He grabs Hiro, lowering his head to his chest. His breath is heavy, drowning in a sob about to erupt at any moment.
“Soon, if it hasn’t done so already, his brain will shut down and end all activity.”
He glares at me, revulsion darkening his eyes. I know what he must think of me, sitting here so calmly as his love dies, he who’s supposed to be my love as well.
“He’s... He’s...”
His voice trembles and the first tear tumbles down his face. He squeezes Hiro to him, burying his face in his neck as his shoulders shake.
“Carp, please open your eyes. Please, you can’t leave me. You can’t, please!”
It’s very strange seeing myself like this. Almost like a mirror, yet not. I too would have been heartbroken if Hiro had died in front of me at the point of my life he’s in. But would it be worse than what eventually occurred? I’ve pondered that question many times, never arriving at a satisfactory answer. What if Hiro had died before he had a chance to betray me? How would my life be different if my memory of him had been one of respect and love for the noble being that molded a hero out of a useless drunk? He would have remained high on a pedestal, my own personal saint, my savior, my god. Instead, he became my Lucifer, my demon, my hell. But he looks so innocent lying there, so beautiful in that uniquely adorable way only Hiro can manage. His rounded face soft and kind, eyes always sparkling like twin stars fallen from the firmament, eager smile showing his boundless passion for saving the world. Pity he didn’t live up to the selfless principles he tried to impose on me. And yet, I miss that Hiro. I miss him. It will all rot away if I let it, turning “into earth, into smoke, into dust, into shadow, into nothing.” Should I save him? I look at the man that I used to be and I doubt my earlier convictions. In my contemplations, I was always detached, removed from the event that brought me here by both time and space. I resembled more the philosophers from ancient Greece sitting at a placid grove gazing at the vastness of the sky, heeding only the reasoning of thought rather than that of action, except that instead of light, all I can see is dark. The fullest, blackest night the deepest reaches of a human soul can ever know. At least, that’s how I fancied it, how I wished it, in a sense, indulging in thoughts of vengeance, of death still so far removed in the future that a certain sense of unreality clung to them. Hiro caused me some of the greatest pain that I’ve ever felt. And yet, it wasn’t this.
He’s crying, but it’s not so simple as tears running down his cheeks and an ache clutching his throat. His sorrow is a wildfire sweeping through tall grass, flames rising into the dry wind, screaming like nails rending flesh. There are no words. There can never be words. A heart cannot speak when it’s been torn in two.
He’s not me. I buried that part of myself long ago, and yet, some part of my soul still recognizes him. I see his pain and I know it for my own. Here is Hiro, one of the few people I’ve ever truly loved and the one I held above all others, until he tore a hole in my chest and left me to bleed. This crimson pool seeping through my trousers is my blood, yet it isn’t my body it came from this time. It’s his. He’s dead and he could stay that way so easily, though the inconsistence of having a past me stuck here would probably create a rift in time, causing the world to collapse into itself. I can’t really say that I would mind it so much. But this never happened before. Hiro never brought me to the 21st century. He was never injured in a battle. There must be a reason for this to be happening now. Tomorrow, Maury will tell me where exactly in the bowels of the Company I built is the virus that will help me wipe the slate clean, extinguishing the only world I’ve ever known. I’m not superstitious. I abandoned all such trappings when I learned my proper place in this world. Yet I can’t help wondering if that same universe is telling me something now. But I don’t have to wonder about this being weeping before me, this man who bears my face and what used to be my heart. The rational part of me tells me not to. The wheels are in motion, my goal already slithering between my palms. This is nothing. An accident of the timeline. Except that it isn’t nothing. I’m tired. I gaze at my and Hiro’s faces pressed so closely together and I can’t stir even a flicker of my old anger. This isn’t how I want things to be. Hiro shouldn’t be dead. I shouldn’t be broken.
I place my hand on his shoulder, but he pushes it off.
“Get away!”
Understandable reaction. I could just slash my wrist and pour my blood on Hiro’s wound, but I need to speak with him first. I need him to understand. I grab his arm, but he twists away, swinging back with a punch aimed straight at my face. I duck and grab his wrist, locking his struggling arm in place, but his left fist swings up too quickly and blood knocks against my teeth. A sharper pain screams across my face a second later and before my nose has a chance to heal he hits me again and I let him. I give myself up as a sacrifice for his grief, splintering bones and cracking cartilage whole within seconds. But it won’t do. It doesn’t solve anything. I yank his right arm, pulling him to the side and punch him in the stomach. As he doubles over, I throw him down and straddle his hips, my hands tight on his wrists. He jerks under me, struggling with every muscle in his body, but it will do him no good. His movements are erratic, his concentration scattered.
“Listen to me,” I say, trying to calm him down.
“Get off me!”
His glare could sear through flesh if he had that kind of power.
“Listen!”
He grows still, his limbs freezing under me though his chest still rises and falls with the speed of a locomotive. I didn’t mean to shout so loudly. It did the trick, in any case. I suppose this is what some people would call an existential crisis. No better way to examine your past than to have it trapped under you, skin to skin, hearts beating at the same pounding pace. He’s innocent, the veil of idealism Hiro threw over him still clinging to his eyes. Man before the fall. The irony of my name.
“300 years ago,” I begin, “Hiro Nakamura betrayed me.”
“Hiro wouldn’t. He’d never--”
So quick to defend his honor. What a fool I was.
“Shut up and listen. He betrayed me as he would have betrayed you if he lived. I am what you would become if the original story where to come to pass. One of the principal reasons why I’m no longer like you is because of him. He’s not the good friend you imagine. If he were, he’d never have done what he did. If he were to live, he’d probably do it again.”
The fury in his eyes doesn’t abated one bit. He doesn’t believe me.
“But something makes me wonder,” I continue. “You see, this...” I glance at Hiro’s body. “This never happened before. “ He follows my gaze and all his anger evaporates. His breath grows raspy, his eyes swelling, and he turns away, shutting his eyes tight. It really is bizarre to see so myself so miserable. “Hiro was never mortally injured. He never accidentally teleported us to the future. Which means that something has changed.”
“What’s your point?”His voice is a shadow trying to cling to outrage he no longer feels. It’s disturbingly close to despair.
“You have a choice. It’s been a long time since I dared hope for anything. You’ve only lived a few years; you don’t see the world the way I do. I see darkness that never lifts, anger and fear and pain never ending. Light doesn’t last for more than a second before it’s snatched away. Perhaps what I’m going to tell you now won’t change a thing in the long run, but there’s a possibility, slim as it seems to me now, and so I will. You can save him.”
His eyes open and he lifts his head, confusion frozen in his face. Rage creeps back in his eyes.
“You bastard! He’s already dead!”
“He doesn’t have to stay dead.”
“What devilry is it you speak? No one has power over death. No one save—“
“God. And you.”
He gapes at me, stunned, for a few seconds, then I see the wheels begin to turn in his mind. He’s realizing what I did all those years ago when day after day went by and no wrinkle appeared on my face. Death, the great unite, can’t humble me. In fact, I do quite the opposite.
“But it’s not possible.” He’s shaking his head, an almost unconscious gesture. “It can’t be.”
I release his hands and when he makes no move against me, I lift myself off of him. He sits up, staring at me like a child hoping that his mother will tell him that everything’s going to be all right.
“You’re not a normal man. You know this. So why do you question it? You have been gifted above all others with the dominion over life and death. Not even most gods have that power.”
“Then why did you just stand there when he was dying? Why didn’t you save him then? If you were me,
Surely you know what this is.” He pushes against his chest as if he were trying to stab his heart. “This burn, this ache nailed in my soul. Just breathing hurts.”
Some divinity is screwing with me. This can’t be that moment.
“You didn’t realize that you loved him until now.”
I turn to Hiro, absent witness to our condemnation. Our precious, cursed Hiro.
“I didn’t realize until he kissed her.”
“What?”
I look up at his question. I didn’t mean to say that, it just slipped out.
“That was his betrayal.”
“Her?” His eyes are wide. “You mean Yaeko?”
“He claimed to love her.”
He glances at Hiro, then at me, then back again.
“But he wants me to love her. All he talks... talked about was me becoming a hero and loving my princess. He... why would he...”
Exactly what I thought when I saw it. Except that he doesn’t look as angry as I was.
“I don’t have an answer for that. According to him, it was an accident.”
A meteor crashing to earth couldn’t look more crushed. He pulls his knees against his chest, dropping his head into his hands. His breath whistles between his fingers, quick and unsteady. I’ve never suffered a panic attack, yet he seems dangerously close to one now. I turn away. Seeing him like this... It’s too close. The sky is clear, flawless blue. Were we in the tropics, the sun would be burning our skins, though of course, it wouldn’t last. Physical impressions never last. But his do. Hiro could never be forgotten.
“You wanted revenge. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He figured it out. But I don’t think he shares my sentiments. His posture, his voice, they’re all beaten, sunken in grief, maybe even a little resentment, but not the same kind as mine.
“I did. Right up to the moment when you showed up.”
“But you don’t anymore?”
Hiro’s already cold. His flesh is hardening under my fingertips.
“No.”
I thought this was what I wanted. Or did I? Did I ever really know anything? I’ve made sure to distance myself from pesky emotions as much as possible precisely because of this. It’s messy and agonizing and I have endured far too much of it. I don’t want it anymore, but some part of me still does, the part that is still human, the part that I could never completely extirpate from my soul. That piece that lives in him, in both of them, no lesser ghost of Christmas past than my own love struck self and the man who I could never let go of.
“Tell me.”
He enters my field of vision, but I don’t look up.
“Tell me how to save him. Please. If you weren’t lying to me, and you better not have been, because I don’t care what you are, I’ll—“
“There’s no need for threats.”
Really, now. I can’t blame him for being impatient, but surely he must be aware of how pointless it would be. But there’s only one connection his mind is interested in making, the only thing he wants. The only thing we both want.
“I’ll show you. It’s very simple.” I reach in my right trouser pocket and take out a small knife, unsheathing the blade. He glances at it warily, still distrusting, but he squares his shoulders. “Hold out your hand.”
He offers me a hand as smooth and unmarked as my own. My hand. I grip him by the wrist, holding him still as I slash across his palm, digging hard into his flesh to keep the blood flowing. He grimaces, hissing, but doesn’t complain. I hardly feel cuts like these anymore. It’s strange to remember a time when I could. But he’s still young and fresh, free from my memories. I guide his hand toward the wound in Hiro’s side and press it hard against it, slipping out the blade.
“Keep it there,” I instruct him.
He does so, pressing even harder, as if he wanted to cleave himself to Hiro’s body. There’s fear in his eyes, but also hope too tremulous to fully show its face. He’s breathing hard. I wonder if he even notices. His eyes flicker from me to Hiro in frenzied glances.
“Do I keep my hand here?” he asks. “Should I move away? I don’t know.”
So nervous. Wouldn’t I be?
“Did you feel the wound close?”
The wonder in his face gives me my answer.
“That should be enough, then. You can lift your hand if you want.”
His hand shivers, hesitant and it’s only in a slow, shuddering slide that he moves it away, confirming what I’d just asked. The cut has disappeared, our blood surging through Hiro’s body, reviving blood vessels, nerves, muscles, organs. Life sparking in the dead tissue little by little, my life given to the only person worthy of it. The past me is brushing his hands all over Hiro’s body, starved for the warmth returning to his limbs. Deathly grey flushes the lightest pink and Hiro’s eyelids flicker just for a second. Maybe I imagined it, but as he lays his head over Hiro’s heart and utters an elated gasp, I know it’s only a matter of moments before he achieves full wakefulness. I shouldn’t be here. It’s not my face that should greet him when he finally opens his eyes. My turn is done. I had it and now it’s gone.
I stand and yet I can’t get my feet to step back. I don’t... I can’t be here when he wakes up. I need to move away, get my feet working. That’s it. Just keep walking, let them get further away, receding in the distance, but I don’t get that far before Hiro jumps up, gasping, eyes open, wild. He doesn’t see me. The other takes him in his arms, holding him tight, calling his name over and over again and Hiro clings to his back, his lips moving, both of them talking but I can’t hear, can’t understand. My heart’s too loud, pounding in my ears, close to snapping my eardrums. Pain stings my palms. Shit, my nails cut right through. Then he sees me. His already wide eyes widen even more and breath sticks in my throat.
“Kensei?”
I hear him this time and his voice is the sweetest sound in the world. He looks from me to the other, questioning and I think the other me may be smiling as he turns around, probably is, but I can’t look away from Hiro’s face.
“Hello, Hiro.”
I don’t know how I manage to say it. I need to suck saliva from my throat to alleviate the dryness in my mouth. He glances around for a moment, then turns back to me.
“What year is this?” he asks.
“1977.” We both answer him, our voices melding in a perfect unison.
“You look like twins,” Hiro says, smiling. He doesn’t know. It’d be best if he doesn’t, but that’s what I’ve wanted all these centuries, what I whispered to myself as I fell asleep to another night of wondering when the day would finally come that I would have revenge. Here it is, the day has finally arrived, but this Hiro hasn’t betrayed me. He’s innocent, of action at least, though he probably already harbors love of her in his heart. Even if he does betray the me that sits next to him, it won’t be me. That being can never become me now.
“Not like when I...,” he continues. “Well, never mind.”
“When you what?” the other me says, asking the same question I have.
Apprehension shadows his eyes, raising my curiosity.
“I went to the future once,” Hiro says slowly, his eyes lowered. “My future and met myself. I was very different.”
Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. A time traveler navigates through different versions of the world, altering events, creating new sets of consequences, just like he did with me. Running across another him isn’t unexpected. Yet it seems too much of a coincidence that I am now in that same position. As ever, I’m following in his footsteps. Even when the circumstances change, I can’t help but be dragged in his wake.
“But I really shouldn’t talk about that,” he continues. “Not that it really affects anything now, but... I don’t know.”
His voice is so soft, gentle like his lips, sweet mouth I want to kiss. Desire rushes, unbidden. I never could rid myself of that wish to press him to me and taste everything, his smile, his neck, his hands, his cock, his moans, and if I was very, very lucky, his soul, cradling it to mine, holding them in unison forever. But he never would have granted me that honor, would he?
“It’s all right. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” the other me says, comforting him like the relieved friend he is.
Hiro stands up, automatically brushing off his clothes, but he realizes the futility of it when he notices that one whole side is stained purple with blood. He peers at me, clearly fascinated, yet he remains hesitant. Is it the look on my face? I think I’ve erased most of my apprehension, but seeing that worry linger in his eyes makes me suspect otherwise. My careful self-discipline can’t stand up to his scrutiny, I see. Or perhaps he’s comparing me to his own future self. Perhaps he himself carried a darkness that he now fears might be present in me. He’d be correct. The other me stands up, regarding me with similar suspicion, and keeps close to Hiro as if he sought to protect him from me. Really, even after I told him how to bring Hiro back he still doesn’t trust me.
“I think it’d be better if we went back now,” Hiro says, looking at the other, and a voice screams inside me. No, he can’t leave yet. I don’t want him to, but not just because I’ll vanish when he does. Suddenly grandiose plans of self-serving death and destruction no longer matter. He does, he always has and I have only one chance at fixing this, because I have no faith in that other doing so. I didn’t, so he won’t and even if Hiro doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, which I really think he won’t, I won’t have this regret hanging over my head.
I walk towards him though I want to run, but that wouldn’t do at all. The other me moves forward, but he’s too late, for I’ve already slid my hand behind Hiro’s nape and I’m kissing him. It only lasts a second, maybe two, but it’s wonderful and glorious and 300 years of passionate yearning. I force myself to pull away and say the words that are burned in my heart.
“I love you.”
He has the widest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Huh?”
A smile tugs at my lips. Adorable. Total confusion has always looked best on Hiro. The panic attack I predicted earlier seems to be taking hold of the other me. He’s glaring at me with the oddest mix of anger and terror. He’s twitching, probably undecided between the urge to run away or to tear me to pieces. But I don’t care about him right now. I turn back to Hiro, who, strangely, hasn’t backed away despite my releasing his neck. My arm is loosely draped across his back, but that’s hardly a restraint. He should have shoved it away by now.
“I love you,” I repeat, a simple statement, and though the puzzlement on his face doesn’t change, his continued presence and lack of time freezing gives me hope, a notion I haven’t indulged in far too long. Could it be possible that he might not be adverse to my desires?
“He won’t say it.” I nod at the other me. “He’s too afraid. Just like I was. I didn’t mention anything the first time, three centuries ago, because I never dreamed even of the possibility that I might be so lucky as to have your love, not merely as a friend, but as a lover. Even now I have doubt, but something tells me that I’m not wrong in having told you.”
“I... I don’t know...”he stumbles. That’s not rejection. Oh God. “I mean... Everything’s so...sudden. I died and then there’s two of you,” he glances between us,” and now you tell me you love me. You--” He turns to the other me, approaching him and I see the tension forcing his body to stay still. “If he’s saying it, that means that you also feel that way, right?”
This is it, the chance I craved so eagerly. This is no time to chicken out and I hope he realizes that. I’ve pushed it this far for him, not me. I’m done. I couldn’t keep Hiro without altering things so irrevocably that everything I’ve known for the past three hundred years would collapse, but of course, it’ll do that anyway. He steadies himself, controlling his runaway breaths and says, “Yes,” in a voice that at least doesn’t falter too much.
“You don’t love Yaeko?”
One would think that this point has already been made, but Hiro was always so stubborn about that stupid legend. The answer is obviously no, which the other me gives with a head shake.
“Do you?”
Good question, and one that I hope I don’t have the answer to, because then this whole thing will have been for nothing and I can’t bear to hear those horrid words again.
“What? Where did... How did... No. I may be a little attracted to her, but no more than to...well... you.”
For once, the shock on the other me’s face reflects perfectly what I’m feeling. Me? Hiro’s attracted to me? He still likes her, he just confirmed it, but it’s not love yet, unless he was lying to me the first time and it really was some game of theirs, but the “you” in that sentence is undeniable.
“Do you really mean that?” the other me asks, face brightening and I wait as impatiently as him for an answer.
“Yes.”
Shy, little response nestled in a blushing smile. I want to take him in my arms, but I can’t. This isn’t my moment. It’s theirs. My only purpose was to get it right this time. And I did. I never thought it was possible, but I did it. I got what I wanted. But it’s not mine. I no longer have a part in this story.
I only half listen to the rest, catching some stray words, like “my hero” and “love” and “maybe someday” and then the other me finally steps forward and kisses him, my kiss reenacted, only this version lasts much longer, and I’m cold with jealousy. He looks up at me, a radiant smile on his face. I never thought I’d see myself so happy.
“Thank you,” he says and I feel the full import of every syllable. Thank you. Hiro turns to me as well, grinning, but he doesn’t speak. Instead, he gives me a little bow, his eyes sparkling, lovely eyes that I’ll never see again. They kiss again and then they’re gone, the air where they stood empty. I’m alone. The outline of the building before me ripples. I look down at my shadow. It flickers like an old TV with a bad signal, then it too is gone and I feel a sick pull in my bones, sharp, yet not painful. The building blows away in the wind. My feet stand on nothing. It won’t be long now. Not even a minute. I won’t be at peace. I won’t exist. I close my eyes and wait for my world to vanish.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject