When Cermin was enveloped inside the amber, he found himself waking up in the expanse of a dark cave.
He only knows he was in a cave because of the damp floor, the sound of water dripping from stalactites and echoing around him, and most importantly…
The complete lack of light and warmth.
He was shivering inside this cave, too weak to even move. All his energy was drained from struggling earlier.
His body felt like a heavy rock, and his heart was beating slowly like a turtle not interested to win the race. He was laying there flat on his stomach, and he had no sense of where his body parts were, even.
He just wanted to lay here forever and ever and ever.
And it did feel like he would be there forever. Every breath he took felt long and tedious, a hassle. Every passing second elongated into centuries.
As he laid there, he only thought of one person.
“Was this also what you felt when you were kept in maximum security prison, all by yourself?”
As he said that, the echoes in the cave responded:
“Was this what you felt when you were kept under the Abyss and unable to see the light of the sun for so long?”
Cermin wondered who it was. He had the same voice as him, the same sadness, the same guilt.
The voice of the other man continued to ponder.
“When they decided that Celestus must cover you and cage you by doing so, and you can only call out to me in my dreams…… Is this how your loneliness felt?”
Cermin lowered his eyes, thinking that his gege must be lonely behind bars too. The thought haunted him every day before, ever since he made a testimony against him.
“They painted you as the embodiment of evil. Everything that is sickening, monstrous, depraved. Even when you are far from that.”
Cermin choked, thinking of all the times his gege was hurt just because he was who he was. How people looked down on him, mocked him, called him a waste of space.
“And worse of all, I never said a word about it. I know you understand why I have to keep quiet, but it was still all my fault for hiding in silence.”
“I treated you like my greatest friend, but also my greatest shame.”
This pained Cermin more than anything else. He was a hypocrite, getting angered by the people who abused and mistreated his gege…..
But also did nothing about it even as the person he was close to. The one he trusted, the one he helped the most.
“And worse of all, I started to believe their lies about you too. I did not trust you. I do not hink I ever fully did, and that shall be my greatest error.”
“You would have never suffered the fate you did had I fully trusted in you, in your innate goodness.”
Cermin was choking in sobs now, his heavy heart feeling even heavier and making his chest feel like it will get crushed from the inside.
“You died because of me. And ever since then, I wished every single day that I would die too. That I would die with you.”
He heard the other man in the cave bemoaning his suffering and sobbing in the most painful way. His voice straining, shouting, and pounding his fist to the ground.
Cermin could feel that for years and years and years… That’s all he ever did.
Nothing but to cage himself in guilt and suffering, his inability to accept that his greatest friend whom he had loved and distrusted was gone.
Cermin gulped, remebering the day he first met his gege.
“Good morning, class!” The cheery pre-school teacher said and held a young boy’s small hand, leading him from the door to in front of the class.
The boy was nervous, clutching something. It was a white rosary tied around his neck, shining like pearls.
The design of the beads was Rosa alba. White roses. Associated with death.
“G-Good day, everyone. My name is—
The students immediately started whispering, drowning out his already weak and shaky voice.
He seemed to be a year older than them, but he had a meek demeanor, and closed his mouth shut once he caused a commotion.
“Why is his skin so dirty?”
“His eyes and lips are so big! It’s scary!”
“He looks like a shadow ghost that my grandma said would eat us all.”
“No, he looks like a demon.”
“Children!” The teacher reprimanded them. “Be nice to your new gege! He’s older than all of you and is very smart, so you shouldn’t be mean to him that way. Alright?”
The children went quiet and answered. “Yes, teacher.”
She turned to him. “Are you ok? They’re nicer and will like you eventually, I promise.”
“I’m alright.” The young boy forced a smile.
He was always like that, his gege. Never saying what he truly feels. Even when Cermin saw that he wanted to cry, he never did.
Never in their Christian pre-school, never in middle school, or high school, all the way to college.
He turned to all of them. “I-I know I may look different than all of you. M-My mother is from America, she teaches English literature. My father is from here, he helps people at bars and tea shops.”
“So I know both English and Chinese, and if you need help with that…. Y-You can always rely on your gege. I would want to be friends with you all. T-That’s all, thank you.”
He bowed politely to them, and the teacher patted his head.
“Why don’t you go sit beside Min Cheng? He has difficulty learning English, and his family would appreciate it if someone helped him out.”
Min Cheng was a child that’s slow to learn at that time, and easily gets distracted. Just now, he was not paying attention to this new student at all after noticing his white rosary.
He was looking out the window, and watching the flowers in the garden beside him. The daffodils had grown in full bloom, white petals surrounding a yellow center.
Like tiny suns. And the sun was a star, like the name of their preschool.
When the teacher had brought the boy by his side, and called out his name, only then diid he pay attention.
“Oh, sorry.” He smiled, one of his two front teeth missing. “What is it, Teacher?”
“Say hi to your new seatmate.” She said.
Min Cheng nodded. “Hi! I’m Min Cheng, but my family mostly calls me Ah-Cheng. Nice to meet you!”
He was the only person who took no issue with his skin color at all. Possibly because his young mind was focused on the Narcissus pseudonarcissus outside.
“Ah-Cheng.” The boy repeated.
“He’s 6 and you’re still 5, so you should call him gege.” The teacher told him, and went back to the blackboard to teach them some more Chinese characters.
Min Cheng nodded. “I never had an older brother before. Did you have any siblings, gege?”
“No, I’m the only child too.” He told him.
“Then we could be brothers! Please take care of Ah-Cheng from now on!”
The boy’s eyes beamed, and he promised. “I will!”
And he really did for many years, but Min Cheng just took that for granted.
“Gege…… I want to see you again….. Gege… Please…..”
He cried and cried, wishing that he had never grown up and never grown apart from his gege. That they were just happy kids forever and ever and ever.
But life never worked out that way. There was an end to everything, especially happiness. And he had a hand into bringing that end.
As he kept shouting, his voice mixing with the other man, the cave shook.
He could not pay attention to it as he was so engrossed in his grief, and eventually….
When he went back to the real world, he was laying on the ground, crying and crying.
Ronin did not expect him to be a sobbing mess after he was released. He furrowed his eyebrows, one of them was bleeding as it was cut by Lovushka’s sharp nails.
‘Why is he crying? Was he really that scared of being locked away in that amber necklace?’
Cermin kept on doing this, until Ronin kneeled beside him, and shook his shoulders to snap out of it.
The golden boy crying streaks of diamonds raised his head. “Gege?”
Ronin frowned. So it was related to this ‘gege’ character after all.
“Your Highness. You’ll be alright. It was all just a dream, whatever you have seen.” Ronin patted his head, pretending to show affection. “You have returned to reality.”
He blinked, and soon realized that this was Ronin after all, and he was in another world. And maybe he was right.
His past life may have been all just a dream.
It never happened, never existed. And so did the pains that come with it.
That’s the only thing he could do to keep moving forward. Regard it as a dream.
“……..What happened?” He said weakly.
He saw all the blood and destruction and fire, but like in his class, he can barely pay attention because his mind was preoccupied by something else.
He tried to lift himself up, but collapsed again. “I can’t…..”
“I thought so.” Ronin sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of you, Your Highness.”
He went to lift Cermin, and just stepped on the still barely living Lovushka’s chest as he walked away from the chaos.
As Ronin carried him like a baby, he remembered his gege again from those words.
He was a weakling that’s always taken care of by someone.
But at this moment, he did not care. He wanted to be taken care of by his greatest friend.
He fell asleep easily as Ronin carried him far away from there.
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