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#i want y'all to know that translating the lyrics takes up like 80% of the writing time
katharaya · 5 years
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Uy, opm Okay pero how about something written with a few lines from "Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig" by December Avenue as a prompt naman (sorry po natuwa kasi may nag anon nung isa)
okay but for real tho, this song is like. prime Drunk Karaoke™ music, just sayin
u didn’t specify a pairing, sooo here’s some one-sided asra/muriel, with mentions of asra/rei. pre-game angst, angst, and more angst.
I.
If only you had been able to seethe sadness in your smileThat one morning you did not returnWake up now, so you can finally seeThe sweetness of those times from a yesterday that won’t return
“Muri,” Asra’s voice calls out in the dark of the hut. “You awake?”
Muriel turns on the bed, making it creak beneath his weight instead of answering. From his pile of furs and pillows in the corner, Asra’s eyes shine like little moons in the light leaking from the window above the door.
“So,” Asra says, propping himself up on an elbow, “Rei—” Muriel stiffens at the sound of her name, and almost misses the rest of Asra’s sentence, “—asked me to move into the shop.”
A beat.
“… is she leaving.”
“What?” Asra’s hair bounces when he startles, his curls flopping over his forehead. “No, I'm—I’ll be moving in with her.”
Another purposely-obtuse beat.
“… is she sick.”
“No, she’s not,” Asra says, always good-natured, always patient. “She just—asked.”
“Why.”
“Well, because—” Muriel sees Asra’s fingers moving in the moonlight, picking at a stray thread on the corner of one of his many, many pillows. “—'cause we're—y'know—”
Muriel knows. He does. And he’s happy for Asra, truly.
(But being happy for Asra and being happy about it are two very different things.)
“When are you leaving?” Muriel asks, and he hopes Asra does not know how much those words cost him.
Asra flops back down onto the pillows, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight as he grins at him, though Muriel knows Asra can’t see him across the room, hidden by the shadows as he is. Good. It means Muriel doesn’t have to control his face as he listens to the sound of his impending solitude.
“Well, tomorrow, I thought,” Asra says, rolling onto his back, tucking an arm beneath his head. “I’ll start moving my things over bit by bit, and then I’ll spend the night there, but I’ll be coming back here the next few days to get the rest of my stuff.” Asra tilts his head at Muriel and smiles, but Muriel knows the light in Asra’s eyes belongs to someone else. “So you’ll still be seeing a lot of me.”
Muriel grunts, then shifts, earning him a soft whuff from Inanna as she’s roused from her sleep at the foot of the bed. He stills, letting her settle, and tries to imprint the image of Asra’s moonlit smile in his mind, for safekeeping.
“I’m worried about you, though,” Asra continues, voice going soft. (The sound reminds him, strangely, of the sea.) “Will you be okay?”
(Or not so strange. It reminds him of a smaller Asra, a younger Asra, a not-yet-in-love Asra, who only cared about Faust, and mealtimes, and magic, and Muri, Muri, Muri.)
“… yeah.”
“You sure? Maybe—”
“Are you happy?” Muriel asks, before Asra can second-guess himself, before he can put Muriel’s happiness above his own.
“What?”
“Are you happy.”
“I—yes,” Asra says, voice going softer still. It’s the voice of an older Asra, a more-in-love-than-ever Asra. “I'm—I’m really, really happy.”
“Then,” Muriel says, “I am, too.” (It is only half a lie.) “I’ll be fine.”
Muriel closes his eyes, but he can still hear Asra’s smile when he says, “Thanks, Muriel.”
Muriel grunts again. He hears Asra shift, hears the rustling of fabric as Asra settles onto his side with a pillow under his arm, the way he always sleeps.
“Night, Muri.”
He lets it echo in his mind, the words bouncing around until it gets tucked away into his long-term memory with all the other Good night Muri’s from over the years. Night, Muri; Night, Muri; Night, Muri.
It’s the last one he’ll hear for a long while, he thinks. He wants it to last.
“Night,” Muriel says, and hopes morning never comes.
It does, of course, and not even a full hour after the sun has cleared the horizon, Asra is already packed and dressed, standing in the open doorway.
“—come back for more of my stuff tomorrow,” he’s saying. Muriel nods, only half listening. Asra looks so bright in the sunlight, Muriel feels like he should cover his eyes. He doesn’t. He looks at Asra and tries to imprint this memory of him, too.
“—should come visit,” Asra continues, turning to look straight at Muriel. “I’m sure Rei would love to have you over.”
Muriel just shrugs. “Maybe,” is all he allows, but Asra smiles anyway like he’d agreed all the same.
(In truth, it’s only a matter of time, and stubbornness. He doesn’t know how to say no, not when it’s Asra.)
“Well, I’ll be off,” Asra says, fitting his scarf closer around his neck. It’s what he’s said pretty much every morning for the past—four? Five? Gods, he doesn’t even know anymore—years, ever since Asra’d started working for Rei’s aunt, before Rei had ever come to Vesuvia and stolen (no, not stolen—had been gifted) his heart. It shouldn’t sound so melancholy, and in truth maybe it really isn't—it’s just Muriel’s ears and his brain and his heart overlaying a string of please don’t go’s that make it sound that way.
“Yeah,” Muriel replies. It’s what he always says, too, but this one (the last one?) feels heavier on his tongue.
Maybe Asra senses it too (of course, of course he does), because his smile turns a little sadder, a little more wistful, and Muriel wants to kick himself for it. Asra should always smile like the world has given him everything he’s ever wanted.
Asra reaches out, places one of his soft, soft hands on Muriel’s very-much-not-soft arm. “Take care,” Asra says. “See you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah.” Muriel touches just the pads of his fingers to Asra’s knuckles, and smiles a little, only a little, only for him. “I’ll be here.”
And Asra smiles back like that’s everything he’s ever wanted.
II.
Until the very end of our infinityUntil this heart stops feeling anythingEven if this forever ends somedayI will still wait, all in the name of love
Muriel shoulders the door of the hut open and carries Asra inside. Neither of them had spoken a word the whole way back from the Lazaret. In the quiet of their old home, the sound of the sand stuck to Muriel’s boots scraping against the floor with each step is much too loud.
Asra refuses to let Muriel heal his hands. When Muriel reaches for a pot of salve after washing off the blood from the skin of his split knuckles, Asra wrenches his hands away, tucking them close to his chest.
“Leave them.”
“Asra.”
“Leave them,” Asra says, almost a growl, before he slumps over, and says, softer, “please.”
“They’ll scar,” Muriel says. He knows this from experience. Asra shouldn’t have to bear such scars.
“I know,” Asra sighs. “Let them.”
And then Asra gets up, crossing over to the pile of furs and pillows that Muriel never put away, and climbs into it, laying himself down facing the wall, his hands tucked to his chest as if to hide them from a world that would steal what little macabre mementos he has left of her.
Muriel stays awake that night, listening to the dead silence.
(He thinks it would have hurt less to just hear Asra cry outright.)
Asra doesn’t move for a solid twelve hours, save for the shallow rise and fall of his breathing, which is the only thing that reassures Muriel that he’s still alive.
And even that, perhaps, is not a certainty; there are many ways to die, and not all of them means the heart stops beating. Alive is sometimes relative thing.
(Muriel would know.)
Late in the afternoon, Muriel kneels down beside the unmoving lump of furs and nudges a plate of eggs forward.
“Eat,” he says.
The lump stirs, a little.
“’M not really hungry, Muri,” Asra mumbles. “Thanks. Maybe later.”
Muriel sighs, and sits, and waits patiently for later.
When later comes, when the sky has gone purple and the eggs have gone cold and the embers in the hearth have dimmed to a dull glow, Asra finally rolls over, blinking when he sees Muriel. His eyes are puffy and dull, but dry, although the wounds on his knuckles are still weeping, shining faintly in the dark twilight.
“Muriel,” Asra rasps out, voice cracked and dry like a desert gone decades without rain. “You’re still here.”
Muriel shrugs. “Where else would I be,” he says.
Asra doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t cry either. He just sighs, eyes closing, and goes back to sleep under Muriel’s watchful eye. There is still ash smearing Asra’s cheek, and a few grains of sand dotting his skin. Muriel reaches out to brush them away, then stops himself, and decides to just let Asra sleep.
Muriel shifts into a more comfortable position, and settles in to watch, and wait.
Morning couldn’t come fast enough.
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