perpetually studying

Try and mask it all you want, but one of Caleb’s greatest talents is his perceptiveness, especially when it comes to you. He can read you as easily as the morning paper, and as easily as the instruction manuals that come with his model planes. It’s not hard for him to tell how you’re feeling. You blatantly wear your heart on your sleeve, even if you try to cover the way it erratically beats at times. The way you attempt to hide the small bout of hatred that glints beneath your irises when you see the crystallized red necklace on his neck. When you see MC. The way your carefully crafted mask can slip within a split second, only for it to come back the moment after, and you greet her with that sickeningly sweet smile, dripping with superficiality.

He knows himself far too well. Long before you, long before any promises you’ve ever made with him, and long before you even entered his life, he made a promise to Josephine. He swore that he’d spend the rest of his life protecting MC, or die trying to, as long as EVER got him before they’d even get to graze her skin. Josephine’s hands had been frail, yet he still remembers the way her fingers firmly dug into his sleeve when she made him swear. Promise to be a safeguard for MC. And Caleb has never broken any promises. Especially not for Josephine, who died not so long after that.

He didn’t love you any less, but at the end of it all, Caleb was built to protect MC. The agenda was wired within his veins and written in the stars; the calligraphy was crystal clear. You deserve someone who does not hesitate. Someone willing to put you first. And that man – no matter how much he wanted it to be – was not Caleb.

You were never the sun. The sun burns too loudly, too recklessly for its own good, dooming those like Icarus who fall too close within the vicinity of its blazing flames. No, you were the moon – distant, luminous, and quietly tugging at his heartstrings in a way that he pretended not to feel. The lunar celestial body is beautiful and full of grace; it’s precisely why Caleb has always been afraid of touching things that enchant him. You’re too far from his reach, but maybe that’s a good thing. A great thing, even. Because Caleb ruins all things that are good in his life. 

And the last thing he would want to do is hurt you. 

That summer afternoon haunts him. The apparitions of you, the painted shades of azure blue and dazzling red, all plague him in sleep because they gave him a glimpse of how things could have been if Caleb could have everything that he wanted. If the universe showed him a little bit of mercy, and if he weren’t such a coward. You were laughing beneath a sky so bright that it almost hurt to look at, because everything felt so right, and you looked so beautiful. The sun caught in your hair so deliberately that it’d put any muse to shame. He wanted to tuck a stray strand behind your ear. To paint you, even though he had no idea how to. He’d learn, just for you. There was nobody else to paint, because there was you and only you that afternoon, and you were all he ever wanted. 

He remembered thinking, absurdly and helplessly, that the world had crafted you too carefully. You were never meant to be touched. You were the kind of thing people look at the way they look at the night sky – knowing it is vast, knowing it is burning, knowing that they can be rekindled from hopeless ash into fire, but the stars above will never belong to them.

You will never belong to him. And maybe that was for the best.

You had wrapped that crimson bracelet around his wrist earlier that afternoon. His matching half. Your fingers were brushing against his pulse, and he swore the contact lingered longer than it should have. He had tied yours, just so it would be fair, intertwining your fingers against his own as he finally called the ordeal even. 

After it all, you leaned back on your palms and tilted your face towards the sun. And for the first time in a while, Caleb could not tell what you were thinking as you gazed at the clouds. He wanted to ask – ask what you were thinking, get a glimpse inside your brain, a penny (or a couple thousand of them) just to be able to quickly glance at your thoughts. How did you get this bracelet to fit so perfectly around his wrist? Were you aware that he’ll never take his matching half off, for as long as he lives? Why did you make them? 

And why were you so pretty right now?

“Stay,” you finally whispered, soft and speaking your mind at last. It sounded like a perfect harmony, too perfect for a man like him, and he knew he was slipping. He was getting greedy. Dangerously greedy for something that he could not have. The siren’s hymn is far too irresistible now, and he’s getting pulled into the point of no return. “Just like this.”

Caleb finally glanced at you then. He didn’t care about the sky or the apples that were fully in season because of the time of year. No, he was looking directly at you. He had wanted – with a sharp and terrifying clarity – to close the distance. To press his mouth to yours. To see if you would breathe his name the way he imagined you might, your breath hot against his lips.

He wanted to kiss you.

Instead, he did what the poets had always trained him to do. He held your hand, pressing his palm against yours because it was the only thing he was brave enough for. The only thing he was allowed to take from you without taking too much. To clasp your hand against his for a little while, because the poets are cruel to boys like Caleb, and the greatest mark you could leave on him was the bracelet resting on his wrist. Nothing more. He cannot be yours, no matter how much he wants to rewrite his narrative and grab the pen himself. He can only pretend to be for a little while.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.” Just for today, he thought. Let me have this one moment.

Just for today.

When the explosion happened, and the trajectory of his life changed in an instant alongside Josephine’s death, Caleb’s first thought was not about all the pain he felt. He was used to that, especially after all the experiments EVER had subjected on him. He could handle all the torment, but this fear that he felt – this was new. The moment that the toring chip was implanted by the Fleet, his right arm had been reinforced with metal, and your bracelet was lost to the ruin, he knew. 

Alongside that fear came his terrifying realization that things were no longer the same. He was no longer sixteen, and he was never yours, no matter how much he wanted to be. He was bound to her in this lifetime. It was his duty to protect her.

It was always her.

Still, if the thread that had been severed during the tragedy were a curse, Caleb would have worn it all over again. A thousand times over, even if he knew it would kill him one day. He would have offered the other arm, too, if it meant keeping the faint indentation your bracelet left against his skin. If it meant preserving the memory of your fingers brushing against his pulse, as if you could steady it just by your touch alone. Like you could make everything right again with a snap of your fingers. And maybe, in another life, everything would be alright. He would just pray that you’d wait long enough for that life – a life full of silver springs and a perpetual summer oasis – to be granted to both of you.

He never once thought you doomed him. If anything, he now thinks that loving you was the only thing that ever felt deliberate in a life that could barely even call his.

There’s a joint mission with the Association and the Fleet today, which is rare. Typically, Caleb would want you and MC to be as far away from Skyhaven as possible, but some things cannot be helped, especially when it comes to higher orders. At the end of the day, people in the Fleet and the Association are just puppets, players of the game for those above. Unfortunately, none of you were an exception to that.

MC finds him in his office, and when she knocks on the door, she smirks at the way his face deflates – just enough for her to notice. He was probably hoping that it was you. Right now, you were probably with... “You look happy to see me.”

Caleb rolls his eyes at her blatant sarcasm, and she laughs. It brings about a sense of shame that he refuses to acknowledge, because he knows that she can see right through him. “She’s getting ready for the mission debrief. I think she’s having lunch with Xavier right now.”

“Why the long face?” Of course, she doesn’t miss the way his shoulders tighten at the mention of him. That guy from UNICORNS, the same department you’re in, who’s been awfully close to you lately. Xavier. He’s lucky he’s not your actual partner, and Jenna had paired you with MC. If anything, it makes it easier for Caleb to look after both of you, and he has to worry less about him. “If it makes you feel better, I heard them talking about a certaaain someone named ‘Caleb’. She has a surprise for you, you know.”

“I don’t need surprises. We have a mission soon, don’t we?”

He says, his voice flat. MC just hums, clearly unconvinced by his faux stoicism, strolling further into his office without an invitation. She perches on the edge of his desk and gives him an all-knowing smile.

“You’re jealous.” The declaration is blunt, and it hits him like a freight train. He would have laughed, if only he didn’t feel so called out.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, sure. And the sky is green.” He runs a hand through his hair at that. The motion is sharp, filled with a lot more agitation than he initially intended, and her smile softens by just a fraction. He’s too easy to tease. “You’re impossible, Caleb.”

MC studies him for a long moment. Growing up together had made it second nature for them to read each other’s tells like an open book. He taught her several things: how to secretly cheat at Kitty Cards (or not, because he simply turns a blind eye at her antics), how to cook simple dishes, and how to use his EVOL to get any plushie she wanted from the claw machines; but most importantly, Caleb taught her how to hold his secrets. That’s why she can simply lay a statement out that’s so real, he’s unable to counteract it. Something like, “You love her.”

Which is exactly what she says. The words land heavier than a simple accusation, because accusations can be disproven. However, this time, her words were wholly true, and he could only exhale through his nose in response. “That’s not relevant.”

“It’s not relevant?” MC wanted to laugh, but it just comes out as a scoff. “Every day, you look at her as if she hung the moon. Or more like she’s the moon herself. It’s surprising how she hasn’t noticed yet.”

“She deserves someone who’s able to put her first.” If you were the moon, then you were simply an unreachable deity, a figure only meant to be admired from afar. Your beauty was the kind that needed restraint, and restraint was something that he had years of expertise in his belt. He’d give you all the distance if it were for the best, and he’d spent a long time convincing himself that space was truly the best course of action. “Someone who can…”Treat her better.

Caleb’s thoughts flicker to you and Xavier, but he’s quickly interrupted by MC. Her tone is firm, the one she uses when she calls him out. “Well, she doesn’t just want ‘someone’. She wants you.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for her without even giving her a choice in the first place,” she adds, pointing a deliberate finger at his chest. “You’re not protecting her by doing that. That’s called being a coward.”

His hand curls to his side, and for once, she’s reduced him to silence. A heavy tension fills the air. She was right. He was a coward. He’s never been able to think right, to circumnavigate all his feelings when it comes to you, anyway. He brushes his mechanical arm, the metal mostly hidden under his uniform. Once, you’d slipped a handwoven bracelet around that wrist, smiling all prettily at him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like that day was a mere snapshot of a life both of you could have. Once, that day, he almost kissed you, but he had chosen restraint that moment, too. “She’ll be safer if I just keep my distance.”

“Actually, that ‘distance’ is just making you even more miserable,” she counters. “And it’s just leaving her really, really confused. Congrats, Caleb. What a stellar strategy from the great Colonel of the Farspace Fleet! Is this exactly what you wanted? The kind of intellect that lets you survive in the Deepspace Tunnels?”

She nudges his shoulder. “You don’t have to keep protecting me to love her. I’m not twelve anymore, even though you treat me like I still am sometimes.”

“You’re still being hunted by EVER–”

“So are you. And the danger plagues her life, too.” Her eyes soften. “We don’t get to live safe lives, dummy. Some of us chose to be Hunters, and we just keep on fighting anyway, despite knowing the risk.”

“You should tell her,” MC repeats, a little quieter this time. “And that you’re scared. She’ll understand. Just start with the truth – and take advantage of what she’s about to give you later.”

She doesn’t elaborate on what the surprise is, but her gaze flickers to his wrist. He stares at the door, head fleeting, as if you’ll walk into his office at any second. If he tells you, then he risks losing everything, the balance he’s maintained and the distance that he’s spent years convincing himself was the noble thing to do. If he doesn’t tell you, then he just might risk losing you to someone else, someone better, someone like Xavier. And for once, that notion feels more terrifying than anything, because then, he’ll lose everything, and then some. At that point, he’d have to learn to let you go, and someone else would get to be yours.

“...Fine,” he finally mutters.

MC’s eyes light up. “Fine?”

“I’ll tell her.” Even though it’s not a promise.

Still, when he finally says those words, the world feels a little lighter, and something within the universe shifts. For the first time in a long while, Caleb could imagine that bright, summer afternoon once more. The day he had thought about making you his, the day he almost reached for more than your hand, and the day he thought about kissing you. He thought about your saccharine sweet lips and remembered the way you wore your shiny lip gloss. You still wear it, even to this day. He always wanted to know what flavor it was. And what did it taste like, exactly? Cherry, maybe. Or apple, to match the delicious pie you had baked together that summer.

It’s you who has constantly plagued his thoughts. Despite everything, it has always only ever been you. And maybe, at last, Caleb didn’t have to spend another second wondering anymore, because he might just find out the answer to all these questions.

“I thought–” you say quietly, your eyes strictly fixated on the box instead of him, “that maybe we don’t get to keep things forever, but we can try to, anyway.”

His breath catches at the realization that this was the surprise that MC was talking about. You had handed him a remade pair of matching bracelets after the mission debrief. The pattern was the same, and they were still beautifully handwoven by you, but the ends are no longer unraveling, and your handiwork had clearly gotten more skillful with time. For a second, just one split second, all the years between his sixteenth and now had blurred into something raucous yet familiar. A feeling that he knew all too well – the same feeling he had been pushing back all this time, for fear that it would one day eat him alive.

“You made another set,” he says slowly, voice far raspier than he intended. “After I lost mine when…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Caleb never does, a taciturn defense mechanism that came especially handy during conversations that are more difficult to have between the two of you. The explosion was one of them. He briefly wondered once, when his arm had been reinforced, if you would make another pair of those bracelets. Then, he quickly tossed that thought away as fast as it had come, but now it's all painfully crashing back on him. All at once, and he was far from ready.

But you nod anyway, like you understood every single complicated fragment that he couldn’t say out loud, and are able to piece everything together regardless. Damn it, that has always been your worst habit. You knew him too well. You saw through all the fractures that Caleb had tried so desperately to hide, and loved him for all he was anyway, without encouraging him to fill in the margins. 

His jaw hardens at that. Your worst habits are the same ones that can unravel him just as quickly. Your perception was beautiful, yet your biggest danger.

“Put it on me, again. Just like old times.”

He holds out his left wrist, the only one remaining that is still tender, and still human. Caleb hardly misses the way your eyes flicker to his mechanical arm before you quickly look away, like you’re trying not to let your guilt bleed all over the floor. The thought alone makes his chest ache, because none of that had been your fault. You never cursed him. It’d be impossible to do so, even if you tried. He wanted to say those words out loud, but they stayed lodged between his teeth and forever stuck at the tip of his tongue. He might just make things worse if he acknowledges them.

So, when you finish tying his matching half, he declares that he’ll just show the physical manifestation of his love for you, just as you did for him. Caleb reaches for you without hesitation, and your wrist fits into his hand like it always has, and he ties the bracelet with a focus that borders on reverent. His tongue presses lightly to his teeth, brows faintly furrowed as he adjusts the knot. “Do you remember what you said that day? How you predicted that I’d forget you in five years when I’m ‘super popular and cool’ once I was at the DAA?”

You nod, small and sheepish, and it makes him huff softly. His fingers linger across your skin for just a second too long, and it makes him realize just how close you are to him. Like he had been unconsciously pulling you in with his EVOL. The proximity makes his voice dip a little lower. “Well, I think my words still stand. I most certainly never forgot you, you’re still way cooler than me, and definitely way cooler than anyone there.”

Gravity is an amusing thing. It’s the reason everyone stays upright, why the world revolves the way it does, and it's partially why Caleb was able to climb the ranks so quickly at the Fleet, but it also pulls him down. Nobody had warned him about the way gravity could settle somewhere deeper within his bones and nearly crush him. How it could root itself within his chest and make every breath feel heavier, far heavier than it should really be.

Still, his EVOL also makes it seem like you were the epicenter of everything, because that’s how it always seems to Caleb. Sometimes, gravity also makes it so that the entire axis of his world could deliberately tilt towards you, and only you.

And finally, he takes in everything about you, all at once. Your eyes. Your mouth. The way the light reflects off your lip gloss, the same one he had spent so long wondering about. It was intoxicating. Dangerous. You were far too dangerous for someone like him. It was dangerous the way your hand lifts his mechanical one, cradling the metal like he was still able to feel. The phantom touch almost makes him feel something. 

Only you could do this to him.

“You come back to me,” He whispers, breath warm against your lips. It makes his pulse stutter, and the poets begin to sing once more, and Caleb knows that he’s in trouble. Because the hymns are getting too angelic now, too tempting. “You promise.”

He thinks back to MC’s declarative words. “You love her.” 

No matter how much he refused to admit it, everything she had said earlier was right. He loves you. Even after all this time, he loves you. So much that it hurts. Sometimes, between the margins of all his internalized turmoil, Caleb dreams that he could just be with you. To live a life with you without having to worry about the Fleet, or the Hunter’s Association, or the toring chip that silently puppeteers his every move and thought. That he could perpetually relive that summer day, over and over again, to be sixteen and utterly clueless about the future with you, forever.

Caleb loves you. And when his gaze finally drops to your lips, he decides that he’s going to prove that he does, once and for all. To stop wondering about everything, and to start knowing. “I–”

“Caleb!”

The moment ends as quickly as it came, and you break away from him before he even realizes what happened. He sees MC standing in the doorway, mid-breath and fully geared up. You’re looking at her, and you refuse to look at him now, standing a considerable distance away. It makes his chest ache all over again. She cluelessly asks, “They’re calling us in. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” you say after a moment. And if Caleb could hear the poets, they were probably laughing up a storm. Maybe this was just a part of their cruel nature. Their grand plan of mercilessly dangling everything that he wants in front of his face, of toying with his cake and eating it. It makes him realize that even though MC had been right, and he did love you, Caleb had also been right in his own way. She was right, but so awfully naive. You’ll be safer if you just keep your distance from him. “I’m coming.”

Because, after all this time, maybe Caleb had been the cursed one all along.

MC’s expression quickly shifts when she senses your meek tone and the dirty look that he had given her the second she walked in. She had been so caught up with preparing for the mission that she completely forgot to read the room. She just had a conversation with Caleb about this! Her eyes flicker to your wrist, and then to his, and the realization of what she just interrupted finally dawns on her. “Shit, I’m so sorry–”

“I really shouldn’t be here right now, should I?” she stammers, already quickly backing out the door. “I’ll–I’ll leave you two to it.”

When she leaves, you still refuse to meet his gaze. He tries to call out your name, to maybe make you understand, but to no avail. “Please, just look at me–”

“Don’t.” 

Your tone was so cold, it completely reduced him to silence. Watching you leave felt like a slap to the face, because at that moment, you had finally slipped through his fingers. And it hurt a little more knowing that he didn’t let you go in the end, but you had left on your own accord.

Caleb’s life is full of almosts. For a brief instance, he almost got to call himself yours. He almost sealed that promise with you. He almost chose you over her. He almost called you beautiful that bright blue summer afternoon (it was at the tip of his tongue. What if he had just said it then? Would everything have changed? Would gravity have reoriented itself to be less suffocating? Would the dull, monotone colors of his life finally have mixed to form something worth gazing at?)

He almost chose differently, and now… these ‘almosts’ will continue to be almosts. Now, he’ll just never know, because MC was right. In the end, Caleb was just a coward. A coward who curses everyone around him, including her.

And including you.

“Caleb, I need evac. Now.”

Your voice cuts through the comms, from MC’s watch – and he feels his heart drop. He should have known something was wrong the moment your own Hunter’s watch had lost signal. Everything must have gone awry, and he curses, checking your location amidst all the static. Damn it. Why did you two have to be so far away? “Status.”

Of course, he had his own respective mission to attend to while you were with MC. His mission site wasn’t too far, but far enough that it’d take him some time to get to your location, a real disadvantage when things become a shitshow. Such as right now. Caleb never really cared about abandoning his post if it meant saving you two. Today was one of the times that his title could be used as leverage. 

But then you say it. Something that he wasn’t ready for. “MC’s down, and–”

For half a second, the world goes horribly quiet. Everything else tunes out into a plethora of fuzzy static, and then he feels it – the pain practically detonating at the back of his neck. The chip. Fuck. He was losing control. Caleb chokes on a breath as the toring chip flares white-hot beneath his skin, a violent, searing pulse that shoots straight down his spine. His hand slams against the console to steady himself, knuckles blanching. No. No, no, no–

“She took a hit from a wanderer– I’m trying to take us… safe zone… I’m five minutes out–”

Get a grip, you motherfucker. He manages to force a few words out, his voice tight and strained against the edges as he fights against the godforsaken implant. Your voice is cutting in and out of the comms. Or maybe that was all in his own head? He must be going mad. “What the hell happened?”

You’re breathing hard on the other end. He can hear it, clear as day. You were huffing, breath uneven and ragged, like you’ve been running this entire time. “It’s a shitshow out here, Caleb. I don’t have my sword, and she took a hit when I wasn’t looking–”

“When you weren’t looking?” Another spike of heat lances through his neck, and he’s nearly keeling, vision blurring at the edges. “You’re supposed to cover for her.”

“I was,” you snap, and if he were just a little more attentive, maybe he could’ve heard the way your voice wavered for a fraction of a second. “I was there, Caleb, I tried–”

“Then why the hell is she bleeding out?”

Static overcomes the comms again, and he’s certain that the chip might just detonate on its own at any moment. The only thing ringing in his head, over and over, are your words. She’s hurt. MC is hurt, and he might be too far to do anything about it. She’s hurt, and it’s his fault. The words failure and coward slam into him so hard that they nearly knock all of the remaining air out of his lungs. The red apples, the ones that used to be so sweet, are now rotting, and the worms have found refuge in them. The sky is too blue, and the smoke is too thick. That old, familiar guilt claws up his throat before he can do anything to stop it.

He’d promised Josephine that he’d protect her–

Another pulse from the chip makes Caleb’s hands shake over the controls. The pulse was sharper and meaner, a haunting reminder that he’d doom all three of you if he didn’t move. Right now, he needed to get his plane to your location, even if the back of his neck might kill him before he does.

It hurts. Fuck, it hurts.

Some distant part of him knows that he should ask – Are you hurt? Were you safe? What was your status? Because you never told him. The questions weakly claw at the ivory crevices between his ribs, but they never make it out of his lips. The only thing he could do was stabilize himself and make his way to where you both were, and silently pray to whatever deity was out there that you were okay. “Damn it. I’ll be waiting at the safe zone near you – I’m about ten minutes away. Can you make it there?”

On the other end, you manage to say, “Yeah. I think.”

You were okay, right?

Caleb doesn’t let himself think about why your voice sounded so thin. Or why it sounded like you were barely stifling a sob through your gritted teeth. Or why you eventually end the call, and the line suddenly goes so eerily– 

Quiet.

It was too quiet.

You were dead.

There should’ve been some type of catastrophe, some cataclysm that shook the earth and rendered it a lifeless husk by the end of it all. Some divine, merciless confirmation that the universe understood what it had just done. And yet, the sky was still present up above, and the bracelet on his wrist stood as a hot, stinging reminder of everything. In reality, the sky should be closing in on itself, swallowing the world into a vortex – not the dull, monotonous shade of gray that it was right now. No, there was something wrong. Where was the prophesied Armageddon? The sky is still here. The world has not ended. Skyhaven hasn’t turned into a pit of ash, Linkon hasn’t erupted into flames.

And yet, you were no longer here. You were dead. You had died saving MC, and yet nobody could even save you. Caleb couldn’t save you.

Nothing is making sense. Around him, the medics are moving, helping the other Hunters who are also injured. Someone is crying, he distantly registers that, but it all sounds warped – like Caleb was hearing the entire world from underwater. His gaze stays locked forward, unmoving and unblinking, because someone had just told him that you were dead on arrival, and that there was nothing they could have done. Nothing he could have done.

Because you were dead.

Every day, people make plans for tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. The vacation they swear they’ll finally take in a few weeks. You had plans. There’s probably still an unwashed basket of laundry sitting somewhere in your quarters, half-forgotten, but it was something that you promised to deal with over the weekend – when you finally had the time to. There’s still a grocery store checklist in your notes, full of all the things you meant to buy. There were books you wanted to read. You had a whole wishlist of them, and he was planning to buy them all for you for your next birthday.

There were things that you meant to finish. But in just a snap of a finger, the elegist cruelly declares that your poem will end in the middle of an ordinary verse. The laundry does not need to be washed anymore. The checklist will never be completed. Your books will begin to collect dust, and Caleb’s world has completely stopped alongside your death. Perhaps it's ironic, the way he thought that some world-ending catastrophe would occur the second they laid down the news, that the back of his neck would finally implode, but everything was just stagnant. Terrifyingly still as he’s forced to stand in the midst of a world that had the audacity to keep moving after your death.

How was this fair? How was any of it fair?

Still, even in the midst of all the clamor, nobody dares to answer him.

Caleb comes to MC the moment they notify him that she’s awake.

It took her a few hours to come to her senses, especially since she sustained injuries that any regular person couldn’t walk off. His vision is swirling. He needed to see her – the past few hours felt like a blur. The quiet, gnawing need to see with his own eyes that at least MC was okay was all encompassing, because the thought that he couldn’t save you plagues his every waking moment.

He couldn’t save you.

The walk to the med bay feels longer than it should. He tries to pinch his skin because part of him is still convinced that this was all a nightmare, a final test that the poets have subjected him to before they end all his misery at last. Maybe it’d just be better for all this to end, anyway. Caleb’s boots sound too loud against the flooring; every step felt like his EVOL was deliberately dragging him down. It was less to do with gravity itself, but more of the way his chest feels like it's been carved hollow. The bracelet on his wrist burns. It felt like another toring chip, in a sense, except it had willfully been implanted by you. But he’d be a fool to take it off. He never will. 

When he steps into the room, MC is already sitting up, and her eyes snap to him immediately. The first thing he senses is relief. Relief flashes all across her face, and she nearly smiles. “Caleb–”

But it falters as quickly as it came when she realizes the expression on his face. He’s never been good at hiding anything from her. Not when they grew up together, side by side. She could tell whenever he was upset, even though he tried to hide it from her every time. “Where is she?”

“Please, Caleb. I want to see her.” Her voice wobbles, and she’s practically pleading at this point. No. “She’s okay, right? Let me see her. Because she said–”

She said she’d be right behind me. That she’d think about herself, too. “I’m sorry.”

“Caleb.” Her eyes widen in horror, tears flooding her waterline at the realization that you died saving her. Even though she had begged you to worry about yourself, too – especially because there were far too many things that you needed to sort out. She was going to convince you to confess to Caleb if the bastard didn’t want to do it himself. To convince you that it was worth it to love him, even after everything. Even after…

Smack!

Even after it all, was he really worth loving?

The slap reverberates across the room, an instinctual move from MC before she even had a second chance to really think about it. Caleb’s head snaps to the side with the force of it, but he doesn’t move to retaliate. He doesn’t move at all, actually. Truthfully, he just stands there, cheek stinging, taking it all in while her hands are trembling. She was shaking in a way that he had never seen before. He was used to seeing her irritated, especially during their petty fights.

But this anger, this was new.

“You–” her voice breaks, nearly turning into a sob as she jabs a finger to his chest, “You idiot! You were supposed to–”

He was supposed to do a lot of things. He was supposed to protect MC. He was supposed to tell you that he loved you, a chance to finally chase after a fragment of that summer afternoon that he constantly longed for. He was supposed to not let you down, to not let MC down, to quit shattering all these baseless promises that he makes.

But that’s all he ever does. He lets people down. Over and over. MC never finishes her words, but he understands. He was a coward. Through and through. 

“I hate you.”

She’s said those words to him a thousand times. She’s said it to him over stupid arguments, over arguing about who has to eat the cilantro, over who gets the last word in. It’s always been over mindless things. Caleb, you’re a dummy. Caleb, I hate you. Caleb, say you’re sorry. It was easy to make up with her. She’d shove him, but come back hours later apologizing, because at the end of the day, MC never really means it. 

But this time, she does mean it. He can hear it in her voice. He could feel it in the way she refused to look at him anymore, the sting on his cheek now serving as a painful reminder of how she felt. And for once in his life, Caleb, the jack of all trades, a star athlete, and the great valedictorian of the Aerospace Academy, had nothing to say. 

The only thing he could find it in himself to do was nod, because he completely understood. And at that moment, something fragile finally fractures beyond repair. Because the three of you had grown up together, but that day – that day, something had died alongside you. And after that, things have never been the same since. 

After your death, Caleb quickly learns that surviving and living are two very distinct things. He often does the first (albeit barely), but is particularly bad at doing the latter. Something in him had calcified in the depths of his bones, the moment that the realization that you were dead had fully settled within him. No amount of time seemed to ever undo the plethora of guilt, emptiness, or blame that he felt. On the outside, he’s still the superficial Colonel of the Farspace Fleet – the mask that he’s used to wearing, prior to even losing you.

However, it’s easier to see that Caleb had retained less of his humanity after, like his mechanical arm had spread to other parts of his body, and the toring chip no longer affected just his neck. There’s a quiet wrongness to it all that nobody acknowledges. His laughter never seems to reach his eyes anymore (but even then, he seldom laughs now), and his office light stays on far too late into the night. Still, the bracelet never leaves his wrist. It wasn’t out of obligation, or maybe even penance. It just made it a little easier to keep going, with that bracelet on. Because it reminds him of everything that he Caleb could’ve had, and a little more.

His relationship with MC never quite recovers. At the end of the day, he knew he still had an obligation to fulfill, and they still fall into the same old habits sometimes – but it’s never quite the same. A keystone, something fundamental, was missing at the apex, but there’s no way to get it back. There’s no way for you to ever come back. They never talk about the argument they had that fateful day, for better or for worse. Sometimes, he catches her looking at his wrist – at the faded threads of your bracelet – before she quickly looks away. Sometimes, MC opens her mouth as if she wants to say something.

But at the end of it all, she says nothing.

Caleb visits you on a quiet afternoon, a day when the sky is the wrong color. 

(Honestly, there’s never been a “correct” color – there hasn’t been one, ever since your death. The clouds have always been a mix of muddy grays and dull, monotone shades. Nothing was paint-worthy anymore. The only scenery that had ever been worth painting was that bright summer afternoon, where all the colors perfectly aligned, and you were so, so pretty.)

There’s a small basket between his fingers, carried by his left hand, the one with your bracelet wrapped around it. He sets it down beside your grave with a careful steadiness that took him months to relearn. It was a basket of red apples, the same kind that had been in season that day. Josephine’s special. He started growing them himself after you died, even though they don’t taste the same. 

They probably never will. But they’re close – close enough that he hopes you’ll like them. Close enough that when he bites into one, he can almost pretend – just for a second – that he’s blissfully sixteen again and unaware. Almosts. He was used to almosts. These almosts were never quite enough. “The texture is a little weird. I’m sorry. I tried to pick the best ones for you.”

Every time he visits, he hopes that the wind will one day answer for him. It never does. For a long moment, he says nothing. He stays there, over your grave, gaze dropped to the bracelet on his wrist. The crimson dye is slowly fading and blending with the ivory. Then, softly, like he’s afraid that the poets would hear this vow and take it away from him too, Caleb makes a promise that he knows he has no right to make. “If you ever grace me with your presence in my next life… If I’m even a worthy enough man to be granted that–”

“Then, for once, I’ll get it right.” His breath hitches, and he inhales, deep and shaky. “I promise on every fiber of my being, that I will always choose you. Over anything.”

“You can always count on that.” His thumb brushes over the bracelet, sealing the promise. 

“I love you.” Caleb finally whispers, and he fails to notice the way the wind stills. He fails to notice that somewhere, far beyond the fragile limits of mortals and their grief, one of the poets lifts their head, in newfound interest. Because vows like that… vows carved from years of regret, desperation, and longing… have always been the most dangerous kind for inspiration.

— LINKON CITY, SOME TIME IN THE DISTANT FUTURE, WHERE THE POETS HAVE GRANTED YOU BOTH A SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE. WILL HE SAVOR THIS OPPORTUNITY, OR LET IT ALL BURN?

Time moves the way it always does. It only moves forward, in a merciless manner, and it is far from forgiving. Still, maybe – just maybe – the poets had finally listened to him.

Because in this life, Caleb and MC do not know each other. 

Truthfully, he still knows of her, because he just needed to know that she was doing okay. He knows that she goes to Linkon University, getting that degree that she’s always wanted because hunters and wanderers are now just a fragment of history – a distant past. She’s happy, probably way happier than when she was ever with Caleb, and maybe that was for the best. They’ve passed each other, maybe once or twice, in the wide sprawl between Linkon and Skyhaven, but as nothing more than strangers, not as people who once grew up under the same roof.

Perhaps that really was for the better.

And you… Caleb remembers everything about you. He particularly remembers that faraway, summer memory – of every distinct feature on your face, the weight of your hand in his, the red apples, and the way that you died. His memory, turns out, is far crueler than anything that EVER had ever inflicted onto him. The pain of losing you does not flare or fade like the pain of that toring chip. It doesn’t grant him any mercy. It just stays the way that it is.

So, Caleb spends the rest of his newfound life searching for a girl that he’s never even met before. All to fulfill that bygone vow that he promised, all those years ago. Sometimes, he wonders if you were just an awfully vivid figment of his imagination – like he had gone mad in his previous life, and you were the only thing he could conjure to keep himself sane. Sometimes, part of him just wants to move on, because he doesn’t even know if you’re here; perhaps you’ve found refuge somewhere far away from Linkon. Somewhere far away from someone like him. And yet, he’s been trying his entire life to find you, because a distant version of himself promised that he would.

Until, one day, all his prayers are answered, in a place so painfully ordinary. 

It was a craft store within Linkon City, a smaller establishment tucked in between two brighter buildings. There was soft music playing overhead, and he caught a faint scent of paper and thread and everything made carefully by hand, and Caleb does not even remember why he entered this place to begin with.

And then there was you.

You, standing behind the register counter, like you had always belonged in this place, somewhere so gentle and forgiving and so rightfully… you. You look up at your phone when he comes in, and you flash him a smile so bright that it makes his chest ache.

Because you looked so happy, and that’s when he realizes everything. No, you were never a figment of his imagination, and nothing had been a dream. They were all memories. Caleb has lived a completely different life before this one, and this second life was one granted to him from whatever deity or poet had been listening to his pleas. All he ever wanted was to live a life with you in the epicenter of it.

Was this the one? Maybe the poets had finally shown him the slightest bit of mercy. Or was this their cruelest joke yet?

But then his gaze flickers to your wrist, and he stops. Wrapped around it was that crimson and ivory bracelet, in the same exact pattern that he remembers, and his entire world freezes. He remembers the careful way you threaded the colors, and the exact shade of red that you favored, and—

Fuck. 

You were real. You were always real. You had just been here this entire time. He thinks back to that beautiful summer afternoon, and he feels like he’s sixteen all over again, sun-warmed and stupid and hopelessly, helplessly, yours. Before he can help it, your name slips from Caleb’s mouth. The two of you have finally crossed paths once more – but wait, there’s something terribly, terribly wrong.

“That’s my name, yeah!” You say, still smiling so beautifully, and he finally feels something in his chest settle into place. Ah, so this was the penance that he had to pay in this life. It was fitting. Definitely more than fitting, especially for someone like him. Still, Caleb would never ask for a redo, no matter what. He’d look for you in every lifetime, and willingly serve this punishment in every single timeline. He’s willing to love you all over again, even if from afar. Even if in this life, you are already bound to someone else. A penance he had to serve for never putting you first in his last life. 

The poet who was writing his story had always been cruel to the touch. But for a man like Caleb, he thinks he deserves nothing less. He almost didn’t want to hear you say it, but he knows that the words are about to leave your lips, anyway. You offer him a small, apologetic smile. Nevertheless, after everything that has happened, Caleb still thinks that you are the most gorgeous woman to grace this wretched world, and in the depths of all his most beautiful memories, he will find you in every single one of them. No matter what happens.

“I’m sorry,” you say gently. “But do I know you?”

WAS I JUST A FOOL? / I’LL FOLLOW YOU DOWN ‘TIL THE SOUND OF MY VOICE WILL HAUNT YOU / GIVE ME JUST A CHANCE / YOU’LL NEVER GET AWAY FROM THE SOUND OF THE WOMAN THAT LOVES YOU.

previous | next (the finale).

end note: hello :D reader’s life post reincarnation is intentionally left ambiguous for you to decide the rest of her story and is NOT answered in the next part. in her new life, she could be matching bracelets with another person. another LI, maybe. hence why she was still wearing it even though she didn’t know who caleb was in her new life. it’s really up to your interpretation. however, in my perspective, i made her wear that bracelet in her next life to silently perpetuate the notion that caleb and reader are still tied to each other in every lifetime, while simultaneously being doomed in every single lifetime as well (i’m sorry…). the aftermath of the ending is for your imagination. does reader get together with another LI? does caleb spend the rest of his reincarnated life loving her from afar? do caleb and reader finally get together, and he spends his entire lifetime getting to know her all over again? its your decision. but just know, that caleb will always love the reader, no matter what happens <3