Chapter Text
It rained the day that you met him. You remember it clearer than any other memory.
You were walking towards the Akademiya’s library to study designs created by Kshahrewar scholars who were much more talented than you when suddenly, you saw a figure slouched by a pillar.
Curious, you walked up to them and held up your umbrella over their head. Despite how dark and gloomy it was, you could clearly make out the gruesome gashes and bruises on his face. He had been beaten so horribly that his eye was completely swollen shut.
You tried your best not to grimace.
The first thing you had asked him was a stupid question. He always used to tease you about that.
“Are you okay?” You asked, leaning closer and reaching out a hand to further examine the damage done to his face. And it was a stupid question to ask somebody when they were beaten and bloodied on the ground. The boy looked up at you with a glare, and he told you to go away.
Offended, you frowned at the boy. You didn’t say anything in reply, only made your way into the library. Spending several nights and days there had taught you exactly where everything was, and even more books and subsequent papercuts had taught you where the rubbing alcohol and bandages were. You grabbed them from the quiet corner where they were stored and ran back out to find him.
He was exactly where you left him.
After a small argument, you learned his name, his year, his Darshan, but not how he had ended up like this. You were fine with that. All you cared about was cleaning his wounds and bandaging him up. He was mostly quiet for the entire duration, only making small whimpers and small hisses when you cleaned a particularly deep gash. You bit your cheek to not smile when you saw him trying to hold back groans. For the sake of his pride, you stayed silent. When he was all cleaned up, he muttered a thank you and waited stubbornly for you to go.
Little did he know, you were stubborn too.
So that night, you quietly sat next to him, perching your umbrella between the two of you while you studied your scrolls. At some point, he took the umbrella from your hands and held it for you.
At that moment, you knew you had a new friend.
—
It rained the day of his funeral, too.
You remember that day less.
It was colder than a usual spring day in Sumeru. It rained harder, too.
You remember not being able to look at his body in the casket. The others told you that there was no way to salvage his body, that it was too unpresentable and gruesome. You knew you couldn’t handle seeing him that way, no matter how angry you were with him.
You remember not shedding a single tear, and holding a bouquet of Sumeru roses in your hands. They were his favourite, after all. You still remembered the smile on his face when you had first brought a handpicked bouquet to his dorm. The way his dimple formed on his left cheek, how his eyes crinkled.
But now, his casket was being buried into the ground, and the gravediggers began shoveling the wet soil over it.
And you remember wanting to scream that this was wrong, that he would never have wanted to be buried so close to the buildings filled with people who never believed in him, that he deserved to rest deep within a forest filled with fauna and flora.
You remember being the only attendee, apart from the Sages who attended just to make sure that his body was really in the ground for good.
That day, you realized that there was a quiet ache in your chest.
And you realized that he was gone for good.
But… again, with the rain pouring hard against your bare skin as you foraged for machinery in the mountains of your hometown, you saw that same smile looming over you.
You barely had time to register the sight in front of you, immediately dropping the bag filled with various metals onto your feet. You didn’t even yelp in pain, too astonished by the ghost in front of you.
You only managed to say one word before the figure stabbed a needle into the side of your neck.
“Zandik?”