long days immersed in the scattered teachings of cloud cry, subject to the memories of a thousand imbibitor lunae before him. it was bad for the psyche, so to speak, moreso knowing that shadows of his past would always comes to chase him down, and that part of him welcomed it.
shallow tea cups, late night studies. a dan heng who had thrown himself into research so as to not think of the gnawing heartache he had been afflicted with since his awakening. sleep chased him down, but dan heng had always been excellent at running. al-haytham’s demeanours had always suggested an aura omit from feeling-driven logic, but overtime, dan heng had come to realise how wrong that was.
‘ i have not lived long enough as myself, and already dan feng’s emotions seem to eclipse my own. ’ amidst ancient notes, a faded watercolour of a white-haired craftsman with a streak of red dashed amidst snowy tresses. ‘ do you know what it is, to long for something that cannot exist anymore ? ’
( two reincarnations pining over their past live's exes, what will they do ? )
"Look at the bright side: at least those memories belong to your life cycle. I'm just an idiot latching on to the connection between two dead men simply because one of them is connected to me. It's hard to be more pathetic than that."
At least he could be blunt about the reality of things. Su had been a blessing, well and truly. Though it could be considered a little odd that he'd become a living nesting doll the second the former MOTH had come into contact with him, that included a million year old eldritch abomination and occasionally her clone, he would've been blind in this universe. With no identity of his own, no memories to recall, Su's solution of letting Al-Haytham in on them had been a boon at first. With fifty-thousand years of them, filling in the void where his memories no longer were at been a boon. But, the problems started when the man with a face and features so similar to his own had become indistinguishable to his unconscious mind, and said mind had latched on to them. What difference could it make?
Al-Haytham hadn't entirely objected to it. As it had prevented him from spiraling into insanity, and having a friendly voice and mirroring face kept him company. Like Su was the inner voice that roped him to stability and kept him there.
Oh, but then the memories with Kevin had turned his lonely heart into a leech. And soon, all the love and unrequited tragedy became his own, drinking it like blood and water all at once; stupid and insatiable thing. He'd like nothing less than to beat the damn thing with a lead pipe, as what had it done but make him fall in love with a dead man.
"Another positive is that he's much easier to find. I thought I had it with Izumo and finding another version of Kevin, but that wasn't meant to be." Al-Haytham chuffed bitterly. "Which do you think is worse: the fact that I'm chasing after other versions of this dead man and foolishly hoping that he's alive, wanting to become his Su, or when he is dead, I act like I have a right to that grief? It's... odd, to put it nicely."
