Chapter Text
Zelos doesn’t walk so much as he does slide through the streets of Meltokio in the rain, water melting from his oiled cloak only to soak through his shoes. This pair is ruined, but it’s good riddance anyway since they provide no purchase on the slick stones and threaten to topple him with each precarious step. Despite, or perhaps because of, the forbidding nature of the afternoon sky, the citizens scurry home and he keeps on his toes to avoid embarrassing collisions. Everywhere he’s assaulted by the stench of soaked wool, and the humid air threatens to choke him. Even so only one thought echoes in his head:
Colette.
The heavy amulet thudding against his thigh with every step is supposed to go to her, and he’s running out of time. He focuses on shoving past citizens and lets his subconscious work on the plan. Zelos has always been best at act now, think later, and surely he’ll have figured out a solution by the time he reaches her hiding place.
The streetlight’s pole is hidden but its orb hovers above the crowd like the sun, marking the corner that is Zelos’s next turn. He rounds the corner without really thinking about it, people and animals and carts and rain, rain, rain all pouring by in a mess of smelly gray. He shoves a wet strand of hair behind his ear, grimacing when it’s warm instead of cool.
Briefly the crowd parts and Zelos finds himself on a collision course with a young man wrapped in a red coat, bright material lined in silver buttons that catch the streetlight. He walks with a focus that rivals Zelos’s own, hands curled into loose fists and gaze set straight ahead. A white scarf obscures the lower half of his face, revealing only a set of intense brown eyes that shine with laughter and sunlight as golden as his complexion. In Zelos’s mind’s eye they match a smile that is wide and slightly crooked, skin tinted the brown of earth, the scent of pine needles, the twang of spiced curry on the edge of his tongue and warm nights with an ocean breeze—
Zelos blinks and it’s gone.
He’s gone.
The crowd is as endless as before and rain roars in his ears. Zelos skips a step just as his heart skips a beat; an ache lingers, brushing against his heartstrings in a way that makes him choke. What the hell was that?
Zelos swallows and tries to calm his heart. “Shut up,” he mutters to himself. “You’re imagining shit. It’s what you get for going this long without a good roll in the sheets.”
But he cannot shake the feeling that he and that young man had met somewhere before, long ago.
An ex. Maybe a one-night stand. Gods all know he’s had enough of those—
—but he’s never remembered their scent before.
You’re imagining this. It didn’t happen.
Zelos knows better than to believe his own inner monologue. He’s not entirely sure why he does, but he turns on his heel and sure enough, the same young man in the red coat and white scarf is still there.
Zelos catches him in only a few strides, steadily reaching out without recognizing he’s done so until his gloved hand catches the other’s arm. “Hey!” he says, loudly, so as to be heared over the rain. “Hey, listen—!”
The young man turns abruptly and their eyes meet again. Zelos’s heart lurches as the young man takes him in, brow furrowing ever so slightly, but otherwise without a hint of recognition. He isn’t certain why that hurts as much as it does.
“Can I help you?” Zelos’s captive demands, slightly muffled through the cloth, and shakes off his arm. “I’m kinda in a hurry, you know.”
The tone is harsh; for some reason, Zelos is surprised. There’s something in the back of his head screaming that this is entirely, completely wrong. He’s not supposed to sound that way, act that way. Zelos has the sudden inclination to cower, but swallows it.
“Nah, no, I just—”
Zelos tries to think of a way to explain I saw you and had a million flashbacks that I don’t fully understand and I think I know what your tongue tastes like and how you like your coffee and how much stupider your hair looks in the morning without sounding completely insane.
There is, sadly, no way.
“—Have we met?” he settles.
The young man’s brow furrows deeper. Zelos imagines that his lower lip is trembling with concentration, though of course he can’t see if that’s the case.
Around them the crowd continues move in a steady stream of people, but to Zelos, no one exists but the man in the red coat and the heavy beating of his own heart.
“No,” says the young man, and Zelos feels as if his stomach has been ripped out. “Of course not. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that Zelos can’t think of a worse thing to say, any more that it makes sense that they would have met. There’s no reason for them to know each other. Zelos can’t even bring a semblance of the man’s name to his lips: does it start with an S, or a G, or something in between? Why should he have expected any other answer?
You’re projecting, Zelos tells himself harshly. You’re tired and messed up and projecting, and you just humiliated yourself. Congratulations.
Zelos snaps himself out of it and tries to salvage the situation with a toss of his head and a grin. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says. “What was I thinking? Must’ve confused ya for someone else.”
His façade is perfect. The smile is at exactly the right angle; his limbs perfectly assume a carefree posture; the cadence of his voice is playful and light.
But the young man doesn’t look any less solemn. There is a long, awkward silence where neither of them speaks, and Zelos feels as if the young man’s eyes are digging straight into his soul.
“I’m sorry,” the young man finally mumbles, before turning and continuing on his way, head ducked low.
Zelos feels as if he has taken a piece of his heart with him.