133 | sinner; they all wanted to save him

The wind danced down the hallway and clouds covered the skies, allowing a stream of sunlight to escape. It wasn't a particularly sunny day or a gloomy day.

It was simply another day.

In the closed classrooms, professors taught elaborate and detailed lessons while students either slept, listened or whispered to each other. Far below the Academy grounds, graduated students draped in white coats lifted beakers of blood, dense notes beside them.

A beautiful and gentle woman frowned as she examined a set of notes, keenly focusing. The stack of papers by her desk was the thickest.

She sighed, scribbling something down in a notebook. She checked the ticking clock hanging on the wall and a soft smile spread on her face.

Those two would be arriving soon.

Back in the hallway, a slender man with messy pink hair that was hastily tied back, lifted his chin to a framed painting hanging on the wall. His green eyes fixated on them sharply.

In his hand, he held a bouquet of flowers. Each bloomed with eleven black petals, with a center of wisping red, like a rising flame that slowly seeped into the petals.

He would receive a bouquet every second week, appearing silently at his door.

And every time, the man would hold onto them, or place them carefully in a vase to display. The sender remained anonymous, but he knew.

The man studied the painting. It was said all forms of art take another shape the second time a person looks at them.

Compared to all those years ago, what did the painting say?

In the mess of scribbled letters and notes that tangled together across the large canvas like overflowing thoughts, the white silhouette of a man stared out at a light that fled into the distance.

It was close and far. Close if he chose to reach it and far if he chose to admire it.

Along the painting, dark metal chains splintered into pieces. Whatever once bound the man had broken, shattering apart.

The pink-haired man decided. That this was a man who just found freedom was the burden of his scrambling thoughts, had finally been exposed to the light.

Back then, he'd seen several letters. H, E, L, P. S, A, V, E, M, E.

He stared at them deeply.

Then a soft laugh escaped him. What was the painting trying to tell him? What was the way to salvation, to that brilliant light that ushered from far away?

"Have me sleep," he whispered with amusement.

He was missing one 'e' but his thoughts had already wandered into amusement.

Did everything change then? That evening of a known insomnia, frightened away by a pair of warm arms. It was only that dragon who knew how to make a sinner sleep.

A pair of footsteps neared behind him, shoes softly clattering against the hardwood floors. They stopped beside him. The man didn't turn his head yet.

He cracked a lopsided smile, still examining the painting in silence.

They were two, standing in the fogs of past and present.

"Do you plan on taking any unique classes, mister Dragon?"

Besides him, there was a low huff that was both amused and helpless. The dragon lowered his head to gaze at the fool. "I do."

They were brought back to all those years ago, in the Academy halls. Before anything had begun. Or really, hadn't things begun long, long before they'd realized?

Kaden remembered it clearly, playing back the memories in his head as he cheekily glanced sideways. "What classes?"

He didn't think the dragon would reveal it back then. Today, he felt absolutely confident that Noah would.

"The Concept of Magic, Ancient Languages and Culinary."

Kaden laughed directly, recalling the familiar conversation from the past. Noah shook his head helplessly, but a faint smile had curved his lips.

A twisted horn curved on his head and his hands were clouded in dark scales, unlike the human appearance he'd worn when they first spoke.

Noah still feared what he could be.

But he felt like he wouldn't become what he feared, so long as a certain fool remained by his side.

Noah observed the painting with Kaden for a few moments, before lowering his head again and stealing another glance at the sinner. He could never have too many glances.

Eventually, time would fade and it would be too late to steal another glance. At this, the dragon's mood visibly soured.

Ever since he claimed the role of an Elder, Noah's emotions fluctuated a lot more, changing the air around him. Kaden sensed the change keenly and looked over with a light smile.

"What's the matter, Bellamy?"

"Even if Nicola researches and the other two investigate ways, the Crown Prince's method had been the closest to discovering something new."

It was a dark thought, considering all the tragedies and deaths that occurred. All the lives that had been sacrificed for uncertainty.

Noah had thought of it several times. The value of lives mattered less to him, and he hated that aspect, but it was true. Death was a constant all living shared, and he cared more for the death of the one closest to him than another.

Kaden recognized this thinking, even if he disagreed.

He shook his head quietly. "I'm alive right now, aren't I?" He looked back at the painting. "I don't think I knew what that meant until now. That's why..."

The man in the painting was definitely heading towards happiness, Kaden subjectively concluded.

"...I'm not scared of the end, Bellamy."

Noah's expression contorted and for a second the air spiked around them, danger mingling. It quickly receded as Noah steadied his emotions, frowning deeply.

Kaden wasn't scared. He ate proper meals, slept at regular hours, exercised frequently, and obeyed Noah's scolding.

He hardly used his abilities, helplessly watching the overprotective nature of his lover and friends at times who would occasionally look at him as if he were about to disappear into the wind.

Noah was careful. He corrected Kaden's unhealthy ways of life, avoiding prominent danger.

But there were times at night that Kaden would twist in his sleep, gasping in pain as sweat trailed down his pale face, stricken in a deeply buried agony.

There were times he would jerk up and wake in horror, and Noah would hurriedly placate him.

There were times when hovering eyes blinked in the darkness and the space distorted around them. Or days Kaden would be met with a drag of exhaustion, unable to drag himself out of bed and remain silent all day.

Some of them were effects of his waning life, and others of a deep, long mental turmoil that tangled with his thoughts.

Kaden wasn't scared. But Noah was terrified.

"If you stare too long, you might stare my existence away."

Noah blinked and frowned in annoyance. "Don't make such jokes."

Kaden laughed with a shake of his head. Noah's frown only deepened with scolding. To placate the sulking dragon, Kaden curled his fingers between the inky and scaled hand that hung near him.

He intertwined their fingers, feeling skin to skin, warmth to warmth, and he'd never felt more safe.

He squeezed tightly. Noah watched Kaden's little ministrations quietly, his anger slowly calming.

Then, as Kaden opened his hand and started to examine the scales on his palm, he spoke. "I'm writing a book."

The curious green eyes flicked up. "A book? About? We do have an agreement, Bellamy. I expect to receive a draft as soon as you finish it."

Noah huffed and raised an eyebrow as if to say 'Of course?'

My dear first reader.

The dragon's dreams had increased lately. The only constant was a throbbing voice that had been initially annoying, and now, they were the only thing he looked forward to in his dreams.

Mischievous green eyes and a curved and teasing smile.

A little cheekier and at the same time colder than the sinner he knew, but similar all the same.

If there were seventeen things to dislike about Kaden Chauvet, one would be that there was no person who could resist loving such a fool.

"It's about a fool. A fool trying to save another fool. A man who wondered for so many years if that sinner regretted it."

Do you regret it?

Kaden stopped fiddling with Noah's hand, listening quietly. He did not lift his gaze, but the dragon's eyes remained stubbornly fixed on the other.

"If that noisy person could be happy one day,"

Are you happy?

"If in another lifetime," Noah continued to stare quietly as Kaden's eyelashes trembled, clutching the ink-black hand tightly. "He could become a salvation to that sinner."

They were standing before each other, one hero and one villain, defined by nothing but society's judging gaze. One human and one dragon.

The noises in the classroom were distant, and the gentle whispers of the wind were even further away.

In these hallways, once upon a time, perhaps they'd passed each other dozens of times. Rarely speaking, but always knowing. Always aware of the other's presence.

Perhaps those events could've repeated, over and over again, with the two never meeting and their paths remaining parallel.

It could've, but it didn't.

Their time uncertain, future unpredictable and thoughts ever-changing, the only constant was their existences. And the fact that no matter what changed, they would forever remain in each other's memories.

Kaden's voice wavered. "I didn't want to live again. I really didn't. You know this, you haven't asked, but you know it. This is the third time."

Noah's eyes widened slightly, but he did not speak.

"If you told me about my present, I would've scoffed in your face. I would've told you it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth living every day like I was dying."

All his suffering, all his enduring and for what? The Kaden Chauvet of the past would say that no happiness made it worth it.

Only death could've saved him.

Even now, in the fleeting happiness of the present, he felt overwhelmed. He was scared, not of his fading life, but of the amount of happiness he felt.

Was he allowed to feel this much?

And how real could it be—or was it another illusion?

There were times he would wake, caged in Noah's warm and sturdy arms, wrapped in the beautiful and free wings, that he would stare at the ceiling with vacant eyes.

If he could die in that moment, in the image of what could only be his happiest days, wouldn't that be perfect?

He wasn't scared of dying. He was scared of waking up and realizing it was all an illusion. All his current joys were enough and he didn't dare to feel more.

Whenever he thought such things, he would curl closer into Noah's warmth and squeeze his eyes shut.

The dragon pulled the other closer, pressing an urgent and needing kiss upon Kaden's lips, the heat of their breaths intertwining. He was always urgent, possessive, as if he wanted to swallow him whole.

Kaden obediently allowed him, dragging Noah closer and responding eagerly.

Noah was keenly aware that he was no better than any of the others. His obsession, his desires. His needs. He didn't hide them and Kaden didn't reject them either.

Noah was selfishly keeping Kaden alive, and sometimes he wondered if that was the wrong decision.

To force a man so worn out by life to live.

Kaden gasped, biting down hard on Noah's tongue with a frown. His lips were moist as his eyebrows furrowed. "I'm an expert these days at translating your thoughts, Bellamy."

Noah licked his lips, darkly gazing at the other. "And what do the translations tell you?"

"You're over-thinking things, oh grand and incredible dragon. It's... true. My thoughts sometimes sink, but when I listen to the sound of your heart beating at night," Kaden leaned forward and aggressively kissed the dragon. "I'm thankful that I'm alive."

Noah responded greedily, humming in thought. "I'm remembering pieces. Bits of a past that will always remain in the past. But Chauvet,"

His words sounded like a helpless plea, a begging. A hopeless excuse in between their breaths.

"Selfishly, I only wanted to save you."

Did the sinner named Kaden Aluin Chauvet deserve salvation?

And what was salvation?

Nobody knew the answer to such a question—to determine whether a single life was worth saving could not be answered by logical reasoning.

The beautiful researcher could not answer; the powerful dragon could not answer. The spirited and free investigator still did not know (although she made an effort to find out) and the smiling changer of fate who knew everything for so long, did not know.

Did the burning, wild red-haired follower know? And the prideful crown prince who abandoned his future for an unwanted salvation, and the naive prince that longed for an ideal of a family?

They did not.

But what everybody knew, was that regardless of whether he deserved it or not, none of it mattered. Because the truth was simple.

It was that, without reason or rhyme, regardless of selflessness or selfishness...

...everybody only wanted to save him.

———xxx———

Lukiyo says,

Who was the voice that longed to save him, from the very beginning?

Was it Noah, or was it Niklas? Was it Reed, or somebody else? Or was it all of them and more, nameless characters that watched the sinner's execution and regretted, that saw past the cruel facade and wished they'd known him better? All those little and large regrets. Everybody's significant and insignificant.

Thank you for reading this story. There were many times I felt I was lacking, many times I felt loss and confused although the direction–from the beginning–had never changed. This was a story written for one person. This is a grand love story dedicated to one sinner.

Always, whether it had ended as the short novel it was initially meant to be or the mainly fluff and happiness story I'd considered as a break from my other novels, that was the goal.

Without you, the story could not have reached its ending–our ending, not theirs. For that, I give you my deepest gratitude that an infinite amount of 'thank you's' could not possibly capture the extent of my affection. I will return in a week to post the three side stories (they will likely be posted on the same day) as well as a certain dragon's list,

But for those who don't plan to read them,

Thank you, lovely reader. For this long journey that began two decembers ago, to now.

And it's time to say,

Goodnight, dear sinner.