What if, after the events of TBG, Nezha builds some graves/ a shrine or something in Rin and Kitayās memory, and every night he visits them and talks to them as if they could hear him and talk back: he tells them updates about Nikaraās ruling, the Hesperian forces, the progress heās made and has yet to make, and sometimes he almost forgets that theyāre not there and that heās alone, and after he finishes talking, waits for their replies, or for Kitay to tell him how heās doing something stupid, or even Venka to make some offhanded quip to make him laugh, or Rin to say anythingāanything at allābecause anything she said would make him smile.
Nezha feels a fool, when this happens, because of course theyāre not there. Of course thereās only ever silence to meet the end of his words, and only ever will be. Theyāre gone, he has to remind himself, more often than heād like to: it hurts when he has to remind himself. Sometimes it feels nice to delude himself into believing that theyāre still with him, listening and bantering like they did in days gone by, before heās forced to confront the fact, as he always is, that heās driving himself mad by indulging in these lies.
And maybe sometimes, when heās had a bad day or his strategies took a turn for the worse and he feels like heās drowning under the weight of his responsibilities, he goes to the graves and breaks down. Never for longāspend too much time broken in that place and heās not sure heāll have the strength to pick up the piecesābut long enough to let everything he needs to out. Often, he curses them both for leaving him alone in this; more often he apologises for everything that happened, everything he did to them, barely able to form the words āIām sorryā through his tears.
It doesnāt make a differenceāhe knows thatābut he does it anyway. In a strange way, it makes him feel like heās mending at least something in this gods-forsaken country.
Rin would deride him if she saw him like this. Tell him to stop feeling sorry for himself, get up off his ass, and do something about it instead of crying like a child. He chuckles through his tears while he imagines it.
He breaks down less as time goes on, once he gets past the rough first few years and he gets used to bearing the burden of leadership, but he still comes to them every night and tells them updates. Brings offerings sometimes, too; food, incense, sorghum wine. Gets drunk on lonelier nights. Slips into memories about victory and a sampan and a knife in her back.
And each time heās confronted with that deafening silence after he finishes talking, Nezha wonders.
If he could do it all again, if he had a second chanceāa chance to change things, maybe even fix thingsāwould he?
Heās thought that question over for hours, when heās been drunk, when heās been sober, into the latest hours of night and earliest rays of dawn.
Would he do it differently, or would he twist that knife again?
For all his contemplation, Nezha doesnāt know. Honestly, he doesnāt think he ever will. Maybe itās not even worth thinking about in the first place, because he never will get another chance, even if he regretted it; no, even though he does regret it. He knew heād regret it from the beginning, and what did that change? What could it possibly change in hindsight?
And so the best Nezha can do is sit by the graves of his best friends in the world when the rest of the world isnāt looking, and wonder what things could have been like.
