Another One Bites The Dust | KyouHaba

A Close Brush

It was dark. Blues, greys, blacks and odd flashes of dark yellows made up the gloom of the living room. It was dim and shady. Still and lifeless. It was all so dark...

Of course, it was dark, though. It was late, very late. Sendai was usually so bustling and busy, with so many abile and potente running anywhere and everywhere in their busy magical lives that the stillness of night's void was... unsettling. Kyoutani hadn't heard a car drive by for at least an hour – most likely longer – and the silence was suffocating him gradually.

Not one single noise could be heard in Yahaba's apartment, and Kyoutani was staring at the ceiling. He had grown bored of YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and not even Twitch had any interesting streamers for him to stare at with vague understanding until another hour or two passed. It was usually around one when he grew bored, and it looked like tonight was no different. Yahaba had fallen asleep almost the moment they had returned home, leaving the abile to lie and wait for him to wake up.

How strange, he allowed himself to think, how his life now seemed to revolve around the potente. For three years, he had been doing everything he wanted to when he wanted to. He had been able to fall asleep, he'd been able to eat; he had lived a life. And, now he was dead, there only seemed to be Yahaba.

Almost every second of every day had Yahaba in it ever since he died: it was like the universe was forcing him to make Yahaba his whole world. It was forcing him to turn that silver-haired, sharp-tongued carnamancer into the only thing he had left. When he slept, Kyoutani could do nothing but wait for him. When he spoke to someone else, Kyoutani would have to wait. Even before he left, it hadn't been like this. He had dealt with other people; he had been able to sleep; he could leave Yahaba's side for however long he wanted. Since his resurrection, he seemed stuck to him.

Had he ever even been resurrected in the first place?

Everything was the same as usual. It was all normal, all jokey and all so light-hearted. No one had even been injured from the attack on the Sanctuary. No Guardian lost their life to a maniac mondano wielding a gun, no abile had been caught in the crossfire and no potente got caught in the explosions. How perfect. How nice. How unnatural.

Life wasn't like this and surely it wouldn't change for a zombie.

Surely, surely this was far too good to be true. Kyoutani rolled over, glaring at the wall. Everything seemed too good to be true. Everything seemed to be the way he had left it, like he hadn't even gone, like Japan had been perfectly and impeccably preserved for him. Like Yahaba had been preserved, just for him alone. So how did he know he was undead and not just deceased? Not just dead? Had his soul never moved on? Was he actually there, or was his body lying in a six-foot grave in Sendai, with no beautiful carnamancer waiting for him to sit up?

He rolled over again, gripping the side of his head to try to feel pain but all he could feel was pressure. He had to be here. He had felt pain and warmth just that day, and everyone told him he had died and Yahaba had told everyone he was back. There was no way he could be hallucinating that unless he wanted it to be real.

All of the undead before him had never mentioned a heaven or a hell. They'd say they had no memories of transcending or no memories of their death at all. Some mentioned a light, some mentioned a white sheet, or a black sheet, or nothing, and some others could only remember dying and then waking. He had seen a light when he died, even if it was more gold than white. He had been thinking about Yahaba beforehand, thinking about the version he had left behind and what it might've grown into. Maybe that was why he was here. Maybe he had been tied to him in whatever afterlife was beyond death.