“Asorotany,” Fische races up the steps and Asorotany falls into his brother’s embrace. He grips his brother’s ribs, digging his fingers into Fische’s solid, chill flesh. Fische’s arms tighten around him, and Asorotany tries to jerk back his tears. A sob latches between his teeth, clogging his nostrils. Fische presses his lips to Asorotany’s temple, the unfamiliar papery voice is startling. “We’ve limited time.” Fische says, already tugging him down the stone stairs. The crowd of ghosts are murmuring amongst themselves in an upset tone, one hails out something and backhands Fische’s back, but he plows forward without breaking his stride. Asorotany struggles to keep up, the sensible world around him twists and tumbles, and the only thing that anchors him is Fische’s hurried footsteps. Asorotany strains to not recoil from horror when his eyes adjust to the vile moonlight, revealing patches of tones and bones coming off Fische’s body.
Fische eventually slows down and stops. It takes Asorotany a long moment before he realizes they’re standing in front of a grave. Fische’s grave.
Asorotany angles his face away, sucking inward through his teeth. He looks at the translucent scattering mass from afar, then finally glancing back at Fische.
“You didn’t attend my burial.” Fische says with a wry grin, releasing Asorotany’s hand, and leans on his tombstone.
Asorotany doesn’t answer. He steps away, rubbing his wrist. The warmth rapidly leaving his skin, carrying away the solidness of Fische’s dead fingers. It’s surreal to feel his brother breathing the same air as him, holding his hand, as though either of them are alive.
“Who should I find?” Asorotany says. “Who killed you?”
Fische’s crossed arms taunt. He straightens. “Asoro, this is why I to talk to you: Nobody killed me.”
Asorotany shakes his head slowly. “Don’t lie to me. You’re covering up for somebody. You didn’t commit suicide. My gut instinct has never been wrong.”
Fische chuckles darkly. “Remember the time your gut instinct nearly land you to be an organ smuggler agency, babe? What did you say that time again? The woman’s wail sounded too real to be fake?”
“This is not the time to be funny.” Asorotany snaps.
“I’m not being funny.” Fisches replies in the same curt tone. He straightens up and points at himself, his strange papery voice producing a light hissing at the end of each of syllable. “Nobody killed me, Asoro. I killed myself. I committed suicide.”
Asorotany suppresses the odd, burning mixture anger and betrayal down his stomach.
“Did Uncle Tarrow kill you?”
“What? No. He—” Fische glances away, a vein on his forehead pops up, before he continues cautiously. “No. He didn’t exactly kill me.”
“Didn’t exactly?”
“He just helped me killed myself.” Fische says calmly.
“Uncle Tarrow knew you would commit suicide?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.” Fische says. “He’s with Are the night I was at the bar, before you came. She comes to offer me a chance to make use of my death. Uncle Tarrow is the one who helped me prepare for the suicide.”
Asorotany raises his hand, as if that would somehow stop Fische’s words.
“He’s a Priest. Like, the one who dedicate souls to the God. Uncle Tarrow hallowed Are. He came, chanted something, then I—” Fische pauses, inhales. “—then I push off the stool.”
“You become a sacrifice.” Asorotany says numbly.
Fische nods.
Asorotany stuffs a fist into his mouth, gouging down the nauseous sensation clawing up his throat. Fische bites at his lower lips, hesitate reaching out. And Asorotany forcefully throws his brother’s hand away, a dark sensation blooms inside his chest as he watches Fische stumbles back, bewildered.
“It’s not fair.” He says, his tongue is dry and salty. His eyeballs feel prickly, and he realizes he is going to cry. He pushes a palm across his nose, up his forehead, turning away from Fische to hide away the tremble in his voice. “It’s not fair,” He sobs. “That you get away from all of these.”
“Asorotany, Uncle Tarrow is innocent.”
“Why did you have to die?” He cuts in. Fische opens his arms, but Asorotany lashes out. Tears bursts from his eyes, searing and aggrieved like the tears he cried at Fische’s funeral. “What did I do, Fische?”
Fische closes his eyes and bows his head. So peaceful, so resign, like he accepts it all. The way Asorotany found him dangling inside his closet.
“You’re a selfish bastard, you know that?” He repeats. “You’re just one big fucking selfish bastard.”
Fische doesn’t say anything.
“Stop being a coward and look at me.” Asorotany says, his blurry vision blushes red.
“I’m sorry.”
“Look up, goddamnit.”
Fische raises his chin.
As Asorotany stares into his brother’s pit black irises, he thinks of how easy it is to run and vanish into the trees, lost in the black and skinny and thin wood. He thinks of how cold it would be, curling under a bare crown of a dead tree on the thawing ground, how cold his blood turn and how bright the hospital light scald his cornea until his heart beat again.
He had done it once and had been saved merely by chance. He could do it again, couldn’t he? Run away. If his soul is lost, his body will never come back to life.
Fische’s eyes tighten, as if he can hear Asorotany’s thought.
“Asorotany, please.” Fische pleads.
Asorotany crumbles to his knees, curling upon himself. Fische gathers him inside his arms, and Asorotany screams into Fische’s shoulder, his vengeful tears staining the ground crimson. Fische slowly rocks him from side-to-side, keeps murmuring useless apologies as he pats Asorotany’s head.
“Asoro, you’ve to let me go.” Fische whispers fiercely, pressing on Asorotany’s scalp. Crisp, intense tentacles of heat languidly spread down his shoulder blades. “Stop torturing yourself over my death, it’s not your fault.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t remember the last night with you well. Only chunks. Black-out pieces. I tried to break through those black walls, but it’s useless, like somebody had handpicked, deliberately erased off my memories. I can’t stop thinking: What if the face of the killer is amongst those memories? What if I could have a chance to stop the killer? And at one point I—” Asorotany pulls away to look into Fische’s eyes. “I think I might be the one who kill you. And my brain is traumatic or something after that.”
“Asoro, I’m right here telling you it’s nobody.”
Asorotany sniffs and laugh, his voice cracks, letting madness streaming through. He wants to muffle it into silence, yet it’s too strong to be contained. People says if you know the cause of death, you would be more peaceful. Yet he doesn’t feel any closer to liberation. Instead, he feels even more burdens crushing his head and chest and limbs, and he realizes he had already buckles a long time ago, already collapses from these knowledges and thoughts he compressed inside his heart.
“Come back to life.” Asorotany says, his snort coming out like a sob. “Claw out of your grave and tell that to the whole world.”
Fische’s eyes soften. “I can’t. I’m dead.”
Asorotany closes his eyes. “They all want you.”
“No.”
He stands up and dusts off his jeans, sighing. “Of fucking course. Don’t pretend otherwise. If it was me who died, nobody would mourn. Nobody would tell you to be more like Asorotany.”
“That’s not true.”
Asorotany cuts in. “Oh, for God’s sake, stop with your Samaritan shit. You know that everybody loves you more than me. Merleg is picking on me, all day, every day. Be like your brother. Be your brother. Don’t let your brother down. Mom and Dad wouldn’t be home anymore because I remind them of how much they miss you. Home is a funeral house. It’s all about you, you, you. Your death changed everything. Even as a kid, you’re always the one who got attention. You don’t get to die.”
Fische kneels on the ground with a thunder-struck expression, his hands out in the air in a defensive poise.
“Why are you even here?” Asorotany says lowly. “Souls supposed to be extricate, and yet you’re here. Did you need to say what you need to say to me?” Pain flits across Fische’s face, shame flares in Fische’s black irises, but Asorotany’s rage overrides his rational mind. His mouth already half-way open. “What are you gonna say, huh? Sorry again?”
Fische snaps his jaws close guiltily.
“You expect to tell me you committed suicide would solve anything?” Asorotany means to yell, yet his voice flows out in an eerie calm stream. “Are you my real brother, or is this a trick? Because my brother Fische wasn’t an egoistic, simple-minded person. I’d rather think my brother would be murdered than being a coward and abandoned his responsibilities to me.”
Fische’s smooth features twist at Asorotany’s words. He hangs his head, his shoulders droop. “I can explain.”
“Forget it.” Asorotany sighs, kicking the dirt under his sole. He tangles his fingers with his hair and sighs again, shaking his head, murmuring as he walks away from Fische’s grave and Fische. “You have no idea what a mess you’ve left for me.”
“No, Asoro, I can explain,” Fische calls, scrambling behind him.
Asorotany stops and turns to Fische’s lithe silhouette, but the snarky remark traps in his throat as a strong gust of wind buffets through the trees, violent and urgent like a war news. His muscles clench up voluntarily, and his gaze meets Fische’s. The tree branches clap and shake, pulling toward the slope.
A tinkle resonates, piercing through all noises, pure and holy.
The Queen is here, the Queen is here. Long live the Queen!
“Are,” Asorotany breathes.
Without a word, both Asorotany and Fische race to the temple.
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