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Kouen
Muu, who was still ever so sweet, tethering at the edge of Kouen’s existence like a lovely dream that he couldn’t help lingering ontob a little longer.
Muu, who was still ever so lovely, waking him up from sleep slumber with a gentle smile and honey-smooth voice, with little story on weather and the mundane state of the household.
Muu, who was still looking at his siblings with love and adoration in his eyes, despite their harsh words and begging for Kouen to leave his love for the better. But Kouen, confused, because Muu was already giving him the best .
Muu, whose footsteps no longer creaked on the hardwood floor worn down by time. Kouen found himself spending most of his time these days lying on the side of his bed, watching the Reiman closely, how his footsteps were quick and steady, how the pad of his feet struck the earth with might and force yet left no trace of sound. And in the morning, Kouen would trace those exact steps that Muu had led with his own only for the thumping he made to haunt him and disrupt his living slumber.
Muu, who lay next to Kouen every night yet refused to embrace him, always left his side of the bed cold and pristine ever since the war. Muu would wake Kouen up in the morning and when he was alone in the room, Kouen would run his hand over the cold duvet and sigh into his pillow and felt his dream collapsing onto itself around him.
——
“I know he’s dead, you know.”
His brother’s reaction was exactly as he had predicted: startled, then quickly settled into an unnerving acceptance, though his non-stop knees bouncing ( which had always been his tell ever since he was a kid no matter how hard their tutors tried to beat that out of him ) betrayed the younger himself.
“Yeah?” Koumei asked without looking up from the heaps of medicinal herbs laid out on the clinic table, his eyes still refusing to meet Kouen’s. “About time you do.”
Silence.
Both brothers said nothing after that, with Koumei resuming packing different prescriptions and Kouen tending the patient records. The clinic was small, as small as the hut the two shared during their exile, yet the clients many: some out of curiosity at the sight of former royalties treating their ailments, others in genuine need of healthcare. The siblings all took turns at the clinic, though this was mostly Koumei’s joint.
“So why are you telling me now?”
“I need your help, Koumei.” And damned Kouen if he hadn’t used his extremely charismatic voice reserved only for asking favour from his siblings.
“With…?”
“Bring him back.” Such a request, yet his tone was the equivalent of asking his brother to do the dishes or mop the floor.
“ Hah, ” Koumei scoffed, “why do you think I can do that? What put that unfathomable idea in you mind, brother?”
“I know about the basement, Koumei.” And he added a suggestive glance to the floor, or whatever underneath.
The younger gave him an angry stare challengingly, and Kouen just gave back a half-lidded look. There was no need to harshen the threat when triumph was already his from the start.
“Fine!” Koumei threw his hands up in defeat after what seemed like forever. “I’ll help you resurrect your loverboy .”
++++
Muu
Dying wasn’t that painful, nor was it the most miserable thing that ever happened to Muu Alexius.
The worst thing that happened to Muu Alexius was when the manifestation of power of Sinbad, or whatever was left of him, blighted the world and smashed through the last defense of humanity. It was when the ray of piercing light, violently radiant, whooshing through the air, through brave men and fallen soldiers, headed straight for the vulnerable spot on the great Prince of Kou’s armor.
That was yet not the worst thing , Muu remarked as the life he lived flashed before him, for with a zap of speed he was right next to the Prince.
He had always been next to the Prince, through stolen kisses in the dark garden and windy hallways, through quick brushes between meetings and witty coded remarks exchanges hidden in boring political correspondences. He had crossed oceans and continents just for a glimpse of that man (even if he technically did that under the guise of work trips) and had never once bought into the execution of the Prince. For so long had Muu Alexius been enraptured by the magnetic force that was Ren Kouen, so much so that he could feel the aching in his soul begging to be bound by the Kou man just for them to never part again.
That was why Muu moved at the speed rivalry to the aurorus arrows and by the time he got by Kouen. Gracefully, Muu felt himself transformed into a whirling tornado of blade and blood, with Kouen being the eye of the storm, dazed and stunned beyond moving, while he fought off anything that dare threaten the other man. Muu, up until his death, couldn’t really sense how the arrows pierced deeper and deeper through the armor, into his flesh, one after the other before vanishing into specks of light, leaving him with open puncture wounds littered across his body, blood gushing out in rivulets.
No, none of that was Muu’s greatest misery in his unfortunate short life.
The worst thing was seeing how life was fleeting from his exhausted mortal body while residing in the arms of his love through those amber eyes, the sound of the Prince wailing and blood-curdled screaming rang in his ears like prayer bells sending him off into the unknowing journey of death.
It was knowing he had left his lover more broken by saving him and ended up meeting his own demise, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it anymore. Not while his flesh grew rigid by the second and spots of black evaded his vision and his subconscious melted into a vast darkness of nothing .
+++++
Kouen
Kouen knew about his brother’s basement through a network of information from everyday people. This was a habit of him ever since he was a General sent away on missions. You can’t control your enemies in a strange land if you don’t know the land and the people itself first , his teacher had said.
Kouen first knew about his brother’s attempts at bringing back the dark art of Kou when a random patient approached him during his shift at the clinic and asked about donating his body medically to Dr. Koumei . And being too unfamiliar with the history of using human flesh in combination with Magi to forge their empire, Kouen instantly recognized his brother’s attempt in trying to bring that back without the aid of Magi.
Curiosity did not kill the cat this time , Kouen had thought as he opened the basement door to see an array of dead bodies in different stages, hooked to strange vials and drips as well as familiar talismans. Some were ripped open with organs hanging out while others were stitched up and preserved in pristine condition. The chamber reeked and would’ve frightened anyone else.
Not Kouen. Kouen was over the moon at this revelation. And after a careful evaluation of the bodies, stitches and incisions and spread-out ribcages and dismembered limbs, the older Prince had concluded that his brother was definitely trying to bring back the old methods of their family using whatever the New Age had to offer.
Kouen exited the chamber, locked the door carefully and didn’t enter it again. Not until his brother finally begrudgingly took him inside to explain how the Art of Resurrection was modified now: magic circles and mysterious ancient artifacts now replaced with surgery slabs and medical equipment, Magi was switched to the usage of lightning through this device called ‘ lightning rod ’.
“This is not absolute. This. The Process. I have never been able to bring back a dead… anything after the end of the Age of Magi.” Fiddling the hole on one of the bodies’ chest, Koumei exclaimed.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Yes, it doesn’t matter, truth be told. Kouen had thought. It doesn’t matter because he will come back to me. He has to.
——
“Beloved?”
They were lounging on their bed, with the window opened and the chilly air breezed in ever so slightly. Creamy ivory limbs were intertwined with slight tan ones, yet Kouen would asked himself months from now was that ever an actual embrace.
Muu had his arms around Kouen and he just bummed in acknowledgment, urging him to ask on.
“I need to bring you back.”
Muu definitely wasn’t expecting that. He shifted, switching to cage Kouen beneath him, fingers lacing the Kou man’s.
“Why?” Muu asked, crimson eyes shone like fire in the night with intensity. “You knew?”
“Took me a while to figure it out, I have to be honest, but I did know. I know you too much for my own good to look away from what had happened, to know that it was for me you lost you life. In life and in death, I know you.
And as for why, well, I am…” he leaned in, ever so softly to kiss Muu’s hand, the one imprisoning his, “a very selfish man. I’d rather go to the grave knowing I’ve tried every way to bring you back than to not do it at all.”
Muu pressed his lips thin, and kept on watching Kouen under him, like a predator waiting for the prey to fight back.
“All I’m asking you, Muu Alexius, is: you were willing to give up your life for me, are you willing to take it back for the same reason?”
Muu barked out a laugh, like Kouen just asked him something so idiotic, so lunatic. And then Muu kissed him.
“You may no longer be a Prince but know this: Ren Kouen, you wear my mortality like a crown on your head and my love like the chain around your neck. I was a man from across the sea and bent my knee for another nation with condescending ideologies than yours; and now the world has been broken and born anew, our nations lost to time yet I here kneel in front of you, asking to be your first and most loyal subject in this new age.
So give your order, Prince Ren Kouen, and I will go to war with Death themselves if I have to if you wish for it. For I am yours. In life and death you had me, and through life and death you will have me again.”
Kouen kept blinking at each of Muu’s words, yet the man above him seems fuzzier through the streams of tears from his eyes. Yet, with an unwavering voice, he gave his one and only subject his command.
“Well then… I command you to come back by my side, alive and well. That’s an order, from your Prince.”
++++
Muu
Getting spiritually yanked off of his own body was weird with the unsatisfactory in losing the pulling forces of the world. And it’s just fuckin weird. Feeling like yourself being beaten into millions of shatter pieces of ‘selves’ and spent what seemed like millennials putting it back together. From seeing a childhood moment with his parents that he had always regarded as a dream manifested to a simple meal on a random day shared amongst his men.
When he was whole again mentally and spiritually, he could see how the world of the living was right ahead of him. It appeared to have only been a couple of months since his demise, and things were objectively better for most people who didn’t know any better than what they were told. People, being people, took that loss and strived for the betterment of their life right away.
Well , people other than what’s left of the Kou royal family, anyway.
Muu got straight to finding his body first, that was his only clue in figuring out this brave new world. He cut through walls and slid himself straight through crowds of people on the street. He didn’t need air anymore, in fact. He himself became the air.
On the way, Muu envisioned how his grave would look like. He had expected a standard one in any burial site they could muster up, considering the atrocious number of people martyred in that war.
What he hadn’t expected was a mausoleum, with marbled interior and chiseled columns. A slab hung above the entrance with Muu’s names and date carved in, reducing him down to just letters and numbers, Muu thought sourly. The question of how, or rather where, did they unearth enough materials and manpower to do this came second to Muu when he saw what was inside the mausoleum.
His heart, the useless thing that couldn’t pump anything anymore, squeezed itself so hard it almost felt collapsed onto itself at the sight of the person in front of him.
Kouen, looking ragged and haggard, dry blood caked on his months-old armors yet he stood guard. Hunched over the casket, the image of his back against the sun burned into every single one of Muu’s retinal cones into what seemed like a lonely yet deadly monster.
Locs of red hair fell out of Kouen’s convoluted updo as he leaned down to whisper into the casket, yet he didn’t mind. Muu inched closer for a look as well, fully expecting to see his rotted and decomposing corpse laid inside was surprised by his own body in pristine condition. He felt dissociated just by looking at the body, seeing alive it was .
His hair, washed and brushed, haloed around his creamy skin, making him almost seemed flushed with life; the simple toga that adorned his body looked like something he would wear, but the gold belt that cinched his waist was a bit too regal for his taste.
The body looked peaceful. It looked as if he was just in deep sleep.
A gust of wind blew past the wide-open columns, and Muu’s nose wrinkled at the repulsively sour medicinal scent. He vaguely remembered smelling something similar passing the morgue and wondered if they used that to embalm him instead of ice magi like they used to.
His theory proved to be correct with the arrival of Koumei, great Master in the dealings of human remains. Even Muu, a general from across the sea, was warned multiple times of Kou’s army of the undead with enhanced strength as well as extreme durability.
“Brother…” Koumei hesitated.
“I’m not leaving.” Kouen didn’t bother to look up from Muu’s body. “He might come back. I’d like to stay here, until he’s back.”
“At least take a shower…”
Koumei’s protest fizzled out at the attention his brother finally gave him, the message behind those cold eyes clear as day.
Kouen was not leaving his post. Not until the dead return.
The Prince’s eyes - bloodshot and bleary, weighed down with bruiselike bags - brushed past his brother and irises ready to downturn when they stopped suddenly somewhere behind his brother.
They stopped at Muu’s exact location.
Muu could feel those eyes, familiar as days, looking at him like they had done so many times before. Those goldeneyes widened in disbelief and glistened with moisture, glittering. Muu’s treacherous heart gave a weak twang in protest of his motionlessness.
In between seconds and minutes of Kouen raising his hands to his eyes and trying to wipe those tears away, Muu quickly materialized the same exact outfit fashioned on his dead counterpart.
Quickly he strode by Kouen and in hope that he would not question why there were two, time slowed down with his steps until he was where he needed to be. There was no gravity, and Muu floated through the world with such grace only preserved for a dancer trained since birth. And when his Prince looked back at him, he offered him a smile. Small and gentle and enough .
“Muu…” He heard the Prince whisper, voice trembled and uncertain.
“I’m here, my love.” Muu answered. “I’m back.”
From the corner of his eyes, he could see Koumei, gasping and sputtering at the sight in front of him. His lips moved in motions, and Muu could make out words like mad and lost his mind. Muu could understand why he thought so looking at Kouen: he is the perfect illustration of insanity right now.
Doesn’t matter. Muu had thought.
“You look like shit, dear.” Muu sassed. “Let’s get you cleaned up first, shall we?”
“A bath sounds good right now.” Kouen answered, mellowed and nice as a kitten. “As long as you stay by my side, Muu.”
“Always.”
With that, the two ( three ) of them slowly exit the mausoleum. When its heavy doors closed shut, it sound like an exhale of release, like it had waited so long for this.
Are you sure, Muu Alexius?
++++
Kouen
The kettle hissed loudly in the kitchen, and Kouen bit back his instinctive call for Muu and instead walked there to remove it from the heat himself. He knew better now.
Muu doesn’t bother talking to him anymore. Kouen accepted bitterly. He doesn’t bother talking anymore.
These days, Muu could only be found either lazing in front of the broadcasting device ( courtesy of Sinbad’s era of technological advancement ) or lying on the floor of the bedroom, blinds shut and lights off.
These days, Muu rarely eaten, or drunk; just a nibble here and a sip there, enough to not have his systems shutting down all together. So Kouen found himself occupying the kitchen alone most of the time.
In the old days, they never got to experience the domestic lifestyle, so on stolen dates in some dingy diners in-between diplomatic meetings, elbows on worn-out table, second-grade meat and worse wine kept getting filled by unbothered waitresses while they giggled and whispered like a pair of commoner teenagers.
These days, it was up to Kouen entirely to keep some fire going in the kitchen. Sometimes he would catch Muu staring at him during his meals. Kouen would continue like nothing and Muu would stop looking at him after a while. Most nights, they don’t talk. Kouen could not bear facing whatever their relationship had become after… that . They just sat in silence while the broadcaster filled the space with artificial noises. Then, later, Kouen would tell Muu he’s coming to bed, and wouldn't bother asking him to join at this point.
His bed was always cold these days, anyway.
——
Sometimes, if Kouen listen close enough, he could make out what the broadcasters were saying; and on rare occasions, he would hear Muu’s voice instead of the broadcasters’. A desperate mind can be dangerous, sometimes.
Sometimes, Muu bled. In the days immediately following his return, blood would rise unheeded through his pores, dotting whatever clothes they draped on him with red splotches. Kouen had found the whole thing worrying for the first few days, insisting on Koumei staying with them in this house, separating from their other clueless siblings. After a while, Kouen found that the bleeding was the least of his concerns, and decided to let it be.
——
“There is never an empty place.” Muu suddenly said one night when the signal was exceptionally bad and the broadcaster had gone all static. “No matter how deep you go, or how far you go, there is always something.”
Kouen looked at him. Really looked at him. The fuzzy screen lit his face up in an unatural way, but his eyes had shone brighter than they had ever been ever since they opened again. Gone was the glassy haze they were always wrapped in, Muu’s eyes looked like freshly polished rubies, like fresh fire of winter.
Like how Kouen remembered them to be.
Then, the signal was back, the static was gone. And in a flash like they had appeared, Muu’s eyes had gone back to hazy and glassy, like they had been.
“Good to know.” Kouen felt obligated to answer, a little too late.
Kouen wanted Muu back, even contemplating destroying the signal receiver just for a moment to be able to talk to Muu again. He wanted to tell Muu how he used to think, and felt there was such thing as emptiness, how he used to think that was a place he could go to and be alone like his hidden library. And he still thought it true, but the fallacy in his reasoning was to assume that alone was somewhere you could go, rather than somewhere you had to be left.
Kouen looked back on the screen, pretended to ignore Muu’s bleeding forearm peaking from the sleeve. On the screen, people were talking about… whatever .
And he found that if he looked at the broadcaster long enough, and hard enough, it would be easier to distract himself from thinking about how much he missed his Muu.
++++
Muu
Muu had been walking for what seemed like a thousand year in this grey desert. Last thing he remember was Kouen shouting something at Koumei, and Koumei shouted back even louder while pulling the lever for the lightning collecting contraption hooked to the slab his body was on.
Then, it was all blackness of void. And he opened his eyes again, and here he was. So he got up, and walked.
He had walked. And walked. And walked.
““There is never an empty place.” Muu told himself. “No matter how deep you go, or how far you go, there is always something.”
He repeated it with each step, like a mantra.
He was trying to find his way back to his Kouen. His Highness had ordered him to do so, and who was he to disobey his love?
——
How long has he been walking, Muu didn’t even know anymore, was there even time here? And he had been repeating his mantra too much, the words filled up his lungs like air and his stomach like food.
Mirages would show up sometimes, and at first he thought it was his something in the emptiness . And he would collect himself to run over that, only for his hopes to be ripped from his chest when the mirage was nowhere near close, and eventually faded away.
They were such absurd mirages, either. Sometimes it was his family - even his deceased parents whose faces no longer burdened his mind - welcoming him back with open arms; sometimes it was just as simple as his bare bed, yet the thing insignificantly pushed him forward just to be able to touch the drapes.
Most times, it was his Kouen, always smiling, always lovingly welcoming him home. Their home. With hot dinner and warm lights waiting for him.
Muu sighed. He kept walking.
——
The mirage. Again .
That was what Muu had thought when the space ahead of him shattered midair and scopes of multi colors melted together. And emerged a small orb-like object.
Muu had scoffed. Maybe this wasn’t a mirage after all. Maybe this was something.
Or maybe, he had finally succumbed to insanity.
The orb eerily resembled a scrying mirror, or melting mercury, so Muu leaned closer for a good look at the thing, only to be spooked by the sight of Kouen. His Kouen.
Yet it broke Muu’s heart again to see him crying in a bedroom - their bedroom - with the lights off and the twilight casted a depressing blue hue all around. Kouen’s face was stained with tears, lips shining with what seemed like spit ( he kissed it? ) yet he was not taking joy in that. The Prince’s hands reached out to hold the orb (or its face?) while trembling.
Muu immediately knew what the orb was: he was seeing the world of the living through the lenses of his dead counterpart ( well, undead now ) . And he screamed meaningless murder at the sight of Kouen living his dead counterpart to go lie down on his side of the bed and sobbed into the pillow.
And there was nothing you could do about it . Muu continued to scream, hands punched and pushed and scratched the orb hoping to change what was happening.
And as his knees gave out, and he was finally kneeling under the thing, it did the mercy of giving him what he wanted. Melted like liquid silver, then the small pond of reflective substance slithered towards Muu, still crying, and slowly covered him until…
Until there was nothing.
And Muu knew.
The veil between the two world was thinning until it snapped like a rubber band, and he was crushed under the stretched of what was possibly the final drop of Magi in this earthly place, perhaps.
Muu sighed. This time, however, he knew he was coming home.
——
And Muu opened his eyes, and felt the light burst through his irises painful enough to draw tears, and the unfamiliar pull of gravity that seemingly threatened to sink him deep down under, crushing his ribcages with pressure that made him felt death and alive at the same time, and the feel of a warm body next to him, red hair flaring alive in the morning sun. And Muu caressed his face, whispering until amber eyes opened for him.
This time, however, at least both of them were bursting with warmth, and life.