In the dead of night, Neo wandered through the manor halls in thin silk pajamas.
A wool blanket draped over his shoulders, nearly covering his entire body and dragging on the floor.
He yawned, dark circles trimming under his eyes as he walked barefoot past another door.
A night pearl lit the way, glowing dimly in his palm.
He has been getting nightmares recently.
Of the past and the present.
He thought he was done with those, having settled his heart demons long ago via modern world therapy and friends. But awakening in this world had dug out his neatly placed memories and flung them out, uncaring for all that organization he had made in his head.
He was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep.
His memories were colliding.
He had dreamt of the Modern World. Of his parents there. Of his body, which is likely being used for science at the moment.
But then, the people of this world had appeared all of sudden, taking the places of his family back in that world.
His adoptive parents' wrinkly faces changing into the ever-youthful Gareth and Vespera. Aurelion and Guinivere's existence popping up out of nowhere. All his friends there were replaced by the friends here.
And then he was back on that cliff, blood dripping all over. Clark was rolling him towards the edge while his adoptive parents watched. They were holding swords in their hands--
And then he had woken up and decided that he's had enough sleep for the night, disregarding the fact that it is likely one in the morning. There is no way he was going back to sleep.
Thank the gods for the weekend break, or he would die a second time from pure exhaustion.
So here he is, walking around the entire manor like an idiot.
He ran his hand through his hair for the fifth time, keeping the strands out of his face when he almost tripped over his feet. He wore his hair down, the black locks nearly touching his shoulders as it created a vulnerable picture of carelessness.
He tugs on a loose strand, wondering if he should cut it again.
It's been so long since he had thoughts about his hair. When he had shorn it off, it brought him immense relief--not having to go back to his old ways.
He didn't have to stare at the mirror and see Nazareth.
That crazy boy who lived miserably and ultimately died for no reason but by his own undoing.
Nazareth had not asked for a chance to live a second life.
It was never his intention to reincarnate into that Modern World with the memories of his first life.
To wake up in the body of an infant--abandoned, alone, unwanted--in an orphanage, was hell.
He had held on to his past resentments for a very long time.
There were, however, regrets that grew as he was adopted by the kind elderly couple.
And in that Modern World, he was shown love in ways that he couldn't see in his first life.
Where noble posturing and etiquette and face weren't as important in a society that had machines. Electronics and interactions and otherworldly things that didn't exist in the Rhine Empire.
The people of that world was strange. So very strange, yet, good in a way that his own world might never achieve.
Living there for decades, receiving a second childhood where he didn't have any other siblings in his life--although there were a few much older adoptive cousins that showed up for reunions--Nazareth gradually faded from the prickly thing that he was.
Those soft and tender parts that felt too vulnerable to be displayed so openly, the parts that made him... a non-Odum--that used to be the poor boy in rags who lived happily in a brothel house with his Mummy--finally revealed itself.
Tentatively, at first.
There was a lot of therapy he went to in his teen years. His adoptive parents had assumed he may have had some trauma before being left in the orphanage, and that might have affected him late on in life.
Therapy--not being a 'thing' in the Rhine Empire--took time and effort and honesty. The mind healer--the therapist--was patient.
He spoke of his past life as if they were dreams. It was difficult, explaining the emotions he had felt as he went through that life without a care for the damage he had caused to himself and those around him.
He was a mess and needed help.
And eventually, he finally learned to heal.
Studying hard in school--for the first time, seeing as he had let his education slip away from him in favor of scheming and attempting to kill Aurelion--, caring for his adoptive parents as they reached their late-sixties, and finding friends and discovering interests allowed him to be his own person.
He found his goals through those that he came to care for.
And that led him on the path of medicine.
Redemption.
For that very notion, he set his eyes on helping people.
For every person he had hurt, for every person he had indirectly caused the death of, or paid the price, or suffered--he worked.
He studied and fought for the aid of the people in that world, pursuing his research and figuring out more ways to heal the mind and body.
That was decades of work. Decades of a life where he thought he could live to make up for his mistakes.
And now, it's all gone.
His hand clenched around the night pearl at the thought.
He hadn't dwelled on this fact since coming back. The emotions had been too raw. He would be lying if he said he wasn't hurt.
Compared to his life here and the life there, he held a lot more affection for the second.
A good family, good friends, good job. He spent two decades more in that world.
And by dying, he was likely never going to see them again.
Neo stood in front of a window overlooking the Eastern Garden. He saw his reflection on the glass.
The boy in the glass stared back, eyes a few shades lighter than the one he had in the Modern World. More Vermillion.
He doesn't recognize this face. It was a face that he had primarily for eighteen years before his death.
It was not the face that he wore for a near forty years in that second chance at life.
It was strange, to see the unusually pale skin and deep black hair. The Odum's nose-shaped regally on his head. That mole on his chin. Those Vermillion eyes from Mummy.
This was a boy who died slowly on the edge of a cliff, left to bleed out from a sword wound.
This was the boy who forced his own younger brother to kill him.
The murderer, the traitor, the scummy-troublemaking bastard.
Nazareth was not the idiot that forgot to sleep and ultimately died of exhaustion.
Not the one with a loving family and good friends and a good mental state.
That boy was cruel and mad. He had his reasons to do what he did, they all had reasons, but those reasons never justified his cruelty.
Alas, that was who he was.
He was that boy, once upon a time.
Neo hadn't been that boy for a very long time.
But it doesn't mean Nazareth and Neo are not one and the same.
He cannot deny that the boy had been him.
He had lived that life. Experienced every single tragedy and happiness.
It was a life full of riches, and not in a classic sort of way. He built on his narrative, trying to bring brighter days. Every moment, with the intent to live and die.
It came with many regrets, but also, it came with many lessons; sprinkled with bits of warmth and love, however small those moments were.
Vermillion eyes soften ever so slightly at the thought. Neo turns away from the window.
First life, second life.
And now, what does he call this life?
Third life?
Second-first life?
Third-life-but-also-first-life?
He passed another hallway, his bare feet chilled by the stone floor. Perhaps he should have worn his slippers, but who was going to seeing him looking like this? His Father?
The hallway was dark. Besides the windows on the side allowing the moonlight to enter, it would have sunk into complete darkness.
Even with the aid of the moon, Neo still requires the night pearl to lead the way. In no way was he risking himself getting lost. He might live here, but the manor is old.
There are stories of ghosts--
The sound of crying echoed faintly, bouncing off the walls as it reverberated.
It was a demented sound.
Neo pauses in his steps.
What?
Hyuk...Hyuk... Ah...Ngh...
Yes, that was certainly crying.
But who would be out here crying this late at night?
Unless... what are the chances that a ghost would come out on this particular night?
There's no way that the Odum Manor is actually haunted by ghosts, right?
Neo blatantly ignored the fact that if it is possible to do magic in this world, ghosts haunting the manor is definitely possible.
In total denial, the boy turned and a corner--
Well. Shit.
From what the night pearl is able to make out, that is definitely a child sitting there.
He noticed that their back was against the wall, their face buried against their knee.
The--ghost?--the child was sobbing quietly.
Neo approached closer, noticing the shock of black hair.
---
Aurelion knows he should go to bed.
He had been sitting here crying his eyes out for half an hour after Rainier left.
But he is currently feeling more emotions than he can actually handle and they are not good emotions. It was a bad mixture of sadness, depression, despair, dejection, and sorrow.
He was a ball of sadness and tears and he felt like an ice cube melting in hot garbage.
Rubbing his sore eyes against his knee, he felt sick.
His head hurt, his nose was clogged from all that snot and tears, and he was sure that his face has reddened dramatically.
He did not feel like an Odum at the moment.
He felt like a total loser.
The day Nazareth came into the manor, he and Guinivere were dressed to impress.
After all, they were going to get a new sibling. An older sibling, at that. It was strange, yet, Aurelion remembered that he wanted to make sure that their new older brother would like them.
He had been six, Guinivere five. Their brother, Nazareth--they had been told--, was seven. A very mature and dignified age.
No doubt that he was going to be the best older brother. Aurelion just knew it, and he hadn't even met him.
The gates of the manor opened, and he and Guinivere could hardly contain their excitement.
The front door had opened and they waited with their mother.
Father stepped inside, guiding a boy that was almost as short as Aurelion inside.
Dressed in commoner clothes, the boy's hair was to his shoulders and slightly messy. It was all black, the symbol of an Odum. However, his eyes were what fascinated him the most.
A shade of red that he had never seen before.
Mother will later say that they are the shade of Vermillion, commenting how it was similar to another family's, though Aurelion ignored that part because Nazareth was going to be a part of their family now, not some other noble house.
Father led his new brother to his wing of the manor. The Western Wing, unoccupied and usually given to guests.
No one else uses it.
Guinevere sleep in the Southern Wing and his bedroom is in the Eastern Wing. Mother and Father take the Northern Wing as that is where the Master Bedroom is.
With his new older brother inhabiting the last wing side of the manor, the house will feel less empty.
Or so he had thought.
Having a big brother was unlike anything Aurelion had ever experienced, but he's pretty sure big brothers are supposed to be glaring holes into their little brother's heads, especially when they have never spoken a word to each other.
Dinner with Nazareth's presence was awkward. There was this... strangeness about him. Dark. Menacing. Aurelion felt unfordable by those eyes looking at him in that strange manner.
Like he was a body under his brother's feet, long dead and rotting.
Nazareth didn't say a word throughout the meal, a bit like Mother.
But Aurelion and Guinivere both tried striking up conversations, and while Nazareth curtly spoke to Guinivere, he purposely ignored Aurelion like he didn't exist.
That should have been the first sign of what life will be like for the coming years.
But Aurelion was a naive boy who thought with time, he could win over his brother's love.
Until the first attempt to poison him started.
In the beginning, no one suspected that it was Nazareth. The 'poison' was a mild one. When ingested, it made the victim very sick, though it was not particularly harmful. In fact, the main ingredients of the poison were brewed from a series of herbal plants meant for healing.
Mother interrogated the entire staff.
She managed to weed out ten servants who were disloyal and spying for other families, tossing them into the Royal Prison for further... questioning...
But the perpetrator was never found.
No one came forward with anything, so the entire staff had to be replaced.
The case was eventually dropped and all meals became tightly monitored.
Aurelion noticed a book that his new brother would carry around.
He never commented on it, but...
Sometimes, when he catches his new brother reading it, he notices that there are pictures of common medicinal plants on its pages.
Six months later, Nazareth had invited him for tea.
New tears stung his eyes as Aurelion remembered that day in the Western Garden.
A cup of hot cinnamon tea.
He wasn't aware that he had been allergic to cinnamon. How did his brother know?
There was swelling in his throat. His tongue felt heavy.
He couldn't breathe!
No one was there besides a maidservant (that traitor!) and his new big brother.
But what haunted Aurelion to this day was the cruel look in his brother's eyes as he watched him.
Why? Why did he do that? What did he do? What did he do to warrant such hatred?!
Aurelion had reached out, begging.
But his vision darkened as the breath tore away from him. And for one terrifying moment, he thought he was going to die.
Waking up in bed to his mother's face had him sobbing even harder.
Because... that was his own brother who tried to kill him.
He was told that the maidservant had been removed and Nazareth punished for playing into her schemes.
Father had thought the most suitable punishment was to confine him in his room for a few weeks to think about what he had done.
Aurelion, for the first time since his new big brother came to live with them, wished his Father and Mother had expelled Nazareth from the manor.
Following his near-death experience, Nazareth began showing his true face.
He was angry, he was vile, and the most malicious demon Aurelion has ever encountered.
Father and Mother never knew, or if they did, Aurelion has no clue why they want to keep Nazareth around.
When Aurelion was thirteen, having survived twenty attempts on his life at this point, finally broke and brought this question to his parents.
And he could see it in their eyes.
That look of acknowledgment.
They knew.
They knew the dangers that Nazareth holds over this household.
So why?!
At his demand for answers, Father merely shook his head. He shared a look with Mother, both their faces--as cold as they are--wore a hint of sorrow and guilt.
"He has to stay..."
To this day, Aurelion still doesn't know anything about the mystery of his brother's existence. Why can't he leave this house? Why is no one is doing anything?
So the manor gradually grew colder, Nazareth's existence tainted every part of its stone walls, frightening the servants, frightening him and his friends and his family.
It suffocated him.
That was life in the Odum House. Taut, cold, and glacier-like.
The only thing Aurelion got out of all this was trauma, survival skills, and paranoia.
He thinks he could beat out the Elysium Family at this rate.
Eventually, as he got old enough to join the Academy, Aurelion began to actively fight back.
He wasn't going to take being threatened by his big brother so easily. He was still the heir of the Odum Family, still an Odum child.
And this... this demon wasn't going to terrorize him for the rest of his life.
He made alliances, created ties in the Royal Faction, built his network of spies and loyal subordinates, and fought back.
He and his brother clashed head to head, and it was both exhilarating and miserable.
Until one day, a few weeks into the beginning of the school year, Nazareth woke up, came to breakfast, and all hell broke loose.
That wraith-like hair was cut. Those Vermillion eyes that used to be hidden by a curtain of black locks could now be seen as clear as day, shining red and brilliant. There was a look of... contentment... on his brother's face.
But what frightened Aurelion the most was the ease in which his brother became... his brother.
The ease in which the entire student body, and the entire family and staff, and his friends accepted this version of his brother.
The ease in which he began to grow attached.
As if he had been trapped in a nightmare for the last ten years, Aurelion felt like he had finally broken free.
It was pathetic because it just goes to show how much he wanted that big brother.
The one he had a heart full of expectations for when the gates had opened and that seven-year-old boy stepped inside.
He wanted an older sibling. The Nazareth that he can now finally call his brother is that older sibling.
The one that cared, that talked to him like an equal and teased him.
And in those moments, he forgot that the hand which patted his head or squeezed his cheek are the same hands that were stained in blood and poured poison into his drinks.
Auerelion can go on and on about the swirls of emotions mixing in his mind like an unpleasant cocktail, but before he could even begin musing on all the smiles that Nazareth had shown him so far, a sensed a light coming from his side.
Abruptly, he stiffens.
Huh?
He peeks his eyes out slowly.
There was a shadow behind the light. Aurelion had half a mind to think it might be a piece of furniture, but he could see the creature breathing.
Nervous, he didn't dare lift his face from his knees, suddenly afraid.
It was an irrational feeling. He shouldn't be hiding like this. Like some... child!
He should be confronting this light-thing.
But... but...
It's dark, and the manor is chilly.
Please don't be a ghost...
He lifts his head.
Clink!
Crash!
"..."
"Ahhhhh!"
A ghastly scream came from whoever was behind--he squinted--the light? The creature crashed into the wall behind him, as if spooked.
No, the light is now... oh, it's on the ground. Actually, now that he's looking closer... isn't that a night pearl?
Wait, then what about the creature?
Aurelion took a good look at the mysterious being and--
"Ahhhhhh!"
Now he was screaming!
The creature had red, menacing eyes and what looked to be a wraith of black hair and... are its wings molting off?!
What the hell is that?! A demon?!
But then, as he took a breath and made full eye-contact with the monster--well...
"AHHHHHHHH!"
Both Aurelion and the demon were now screaming at the top of their lungs, startled and confused and frighten--
Wait, frighten?
Come to think of it, those eyes look somewhat familiar...
"Aurelion?!"
Oh.
The wings--no, wait. That's blanket--slipped off his brother's shoulders.
Oh.
Clink...
The night pearl rolled into a wall and stayed there, faintly glowing.
Oh shit.
Aurelion turned his gaze towards Nazareth, red-rimmed eyes making him look like a miserable ice cube.
"Brother..."
---
Neo felt like his heart had jumped out of his lungs. Dear lord, Aurelion's resting face reminded him of Vespera for a moment!
He had thought his younger brother was the ghost of a child ax-murderer!
Patting his heart lightly--he had thought he was going to die of a cardiac arrest--and recomposed himself.
Grabbing his blanket from the ground, he held it in his arms and shuffled over to Aurelion with much more confident steps.
"Are you okay?"
The other didn't reply, his Sapphire gaze remaining on the ground.
Neo frowned.
Oh, boy. This is starting to look like a heartbreak. Who does he have to kill--ahem--write a letter to?
Not really knowing what to do, he sat down beside Aurelion and placed his blanket around them, like a nesting barrier.
It was big enough for two if they sat with their knees drawn.
Aurelion's eyes snapped to him in surprise, but Neo just silently smiled, waiting.
"You really shouldn't be sulking in the halls. I almost thought you were a ghost." Neo confessed. He leaned closer to his ice cube of a brother, until their shoulders were touching, and sighed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Neither of the Odum boys looked at each other, seemingly content to stare at the wall in front of them in silence despite the older offering to listen.
It was fine.
For now.
But Aurelion underestimates how patient his older brother can be.
This wasn't the old Nazareth he was facing.
This was his brother.
Neo is currently cuddling next to his younger brother in the middle of the hallway at two in the morning.
This is certainly not something he was expecting when he came out here for a walk, but here he is now.
It was awkward.
Neither of them looked like they wanted to go to sleep.
Now they look like two dumbass kids sitting out here for no reason. You absolute dunderheads, privilege is wasted on you.
Why does that feel like something Professor Rickman would say?
He traced the patterns on the wall with his eyes for the thirtieth time when he hears a little mumble beside him.
"Hm?"
Aurelion caught his full attention.
The look on his face was so open, so... vulnerable.
And then, he knew what this might be about.
There was no way he was going to mess this up. Their relationship is barely stable, despite the little bits of teasing and banter.
He knew one fuck up could result in massive damage.
Aurelion's gaze was profound, weary, and hurt rolled into one. He looked so tired.
That sort of face didn't look like it would belong on a fifteen-year-old boy. It made him look so old, so mature.
But really, it just shows the trauma Neo had given him these last ten years of Aurelion's life.
His little brother never deserved this.
This treatment.
It was all him. The fault lied with him.
Never Aurelion. Never, ever Aurelion.
That child, the little ice cube who hadn't quite mastered the glacial mask of the Odum, the little kid who could have been his little brother...
Neo had ruined him.
He pulled the blanket tighter around them, just by a bit so that it was warmer.
Smiling, as gently as he can--as gently as Aurelion deserves--he asks, "What is it?"
Aurelion broke eye contact, and Neo could see the way he was nervous. The way he was probably playing with his fingers or picking at his thumb beneath the blanket, before steeling himself.
"Why..." He purses his lips, which still doesn't give Neo enough time to prepare himself for the rest of his words.
"Why did you hate me so much?"
It is so hard to answer when he sees tears begin welling up in Aurelion's eyes, already red and raw from presumably crying by himself earlier.
It makes Neo want to cry, too.