By day, Alexis was unshakable.
The great general of Ro.
His voice carried firm and steady across the marching columns, his orders swift and precise, his presence an anchor that kept the weary men moving with efficiency.
He rode at the front, checking supply wagons, scanning formation lines, even walking on foot among the injured to remind them they had not been forgotten.
Every league closer to the capital drew more eyes.
Farmers paused in their fields, laborers stopped their carts, children clambered on walls just to catch a glimpse.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd as they recognized him—the general whose victories had safeguarded their lands, the man whispered to be their kingdom's rebirth.
Some knelt. Others shouted his name.
Awe clung to the air like incense. Reverence bled into expectation.
Alexis felt it.
A weight tightening around his chest.
But he did not let it show.
His jaw remained set, his expression calm, his posture proud.
By day, he was their shield. Their certainty.
And yet when night fell, the mask slipped.
Twice—thrice—he caught himself standing at the threshold of the medic tent, his hand on the flap before he even realized he'd walked there.
His heart would lurch, his breath caught between dread and yearning.
Inside, Hiral lay unmoving.
Two weeks had passed.
His chest rose and fell, steady but faint, but even such sign didn't eased Alexis at all.
What's keeping you in dreamland, Hiral? Are you using your time there to scheme against me again?
Alexis gritted his teeth as the thought popped in his mind.
The medics whispered of resilience, of wounds healing better than expected.
Yet Alexis found no peace in their words.
He would sit in the shadows, unseen by those who kept watch, his gaze fixed on the pale figure swathed in bandages.
Sometimes his hand drifted to the hilt of his sword—an anchor.
Sometimes to the small koi pendant tucked beneath his collar—a wound.
But soon enough, anxiousness gnawed at him more than anger.
But anger would have been easier.
Anger would have burned, given him something to strike against. But this… this was like quagmire of dread.
Stuck anxiously, unable to make a move and slowly sinking...
Why did you do it, Hiral? Why take my blade and leave me with this weight?
Every night the question scraped against his ribs. Every night, no answer came.
And every night he fought himself, torn between stepping inside to keep vigil at Hiral's side… or walking away before the sight of him broke what little strength he had left.
Most nights, he lost the fight.
And so Alexis sat in silence, the great general of Ro—who by day commanded armies, but by night could only watch the man who haunted him breathe, and wonder if he'd ever open his eyes again.
****
Midnight wrapped the frontier city in stillness, its walls looming like a promise and a threat all at once.
The camp slept—or tried to—but within the farthest tent, a single lantern burned low.
Alexis sat alone beside Hiral's cot.
A month.
An entire month had passed since the battlefield, since blood soaked into earth and destiny twisted tighter around his throat.
They had reached the boundary of Ro's most iconic frontier city—the kind that was sung about in epics, the kind that marked the final stretch of an adventure.
Too bad, this homecoming isn't as epic as the stories of old…
And by morning, the people would come in droves wanting to sneak a glimpse their king-to-be.
Alexis the king-to-be, they would look at him like salvation.
Alexis let out a bitter breath and broke the silence himself.
"Do you know what they're saying about me now?" he asked the still figure before him, voice edged with brittle humor. "That I'm the answer. That if I just take the crown, Ro will be reborn."
A soft, humorless laugh slipped from his lips.
"Imagine that. Me."
He leaned back in the chair, staring at the tent ceiling as if it might crack open and offer him mercy.
"I can already imagine how they will cheer so loudly, Hiral. So confident. As if wanting it badly enough makes it true."
His gaze dropped back to Hiral's face, pale and unchanged.
"They don't see what I am at night. They have no idea how something inside me breaks… again and again."
No response. Not even the faintest stir.
Something in Alexis snapped.
His chair scraped sharply against the ground as he stood.
"You're unbelievable," he spat, the words spilling out at last. "Truly insidious. Cruel beyond measure."
His hands roughly combed his hair again and again. "Using feelings like tools. Turning hearts into leverage. Did you ever stop to think what it would cost me?"
He paced the narrow space, voice rising, raw and unguarded. "You scheme and scheme and plant traps—nations, thrones, futures—while I'm left trying to piece it all together. To make sense of it all. And now here I am, needing to stand in front of people who believe in me and lie to them with my spine straight and my face calm. That everything will be fine. But will it?"
Alexis stared at Hiral's peaceful sleeping face.
Such a contrast to his own, full of tension.
Alexis looked for any signs of unease just to reason that Hiral too was having a hard time but nothing…
Alexis clenched jaw finally loosen only to yell,
"ANSWER ME HIRAL!"
With no reaction, Alexis laughed sharply, the sound cracking at the edges.
"Oh how fate loves to make tragedy out of us…Opposite sides. Of course we were. As if the world couldn't bear us standing together. So it gave us duty instead. Responsibility. Strength." His voice broke. "And then it used them against us until we couldn't carry the weight anymore."
Alexis stopped pacing.
Silence reclaimed the tent, thick and suffocating.
Slowly, he approached Hiral again, kneeling beside the cot.
His anger drained as quickly as it had come, leaving only exhaustion behind.
He searched Hiral's face desperately—as if sheer will might coax him back.
Nothing had changed.
A hollow laugh escaped him. Then another.
And then the laughter folded in on itself, collapsing into broken sobs he could no longer restrain.
His shoulders shook as he bowed his head, one hand braced against the edge of the cot, the other covering his mouth in a futile attempt to stay quiet.
Tears slipped through his fingers anyway.
They fell soundlessly onto the floor, onto the space between them—tears heavy with rage, grief, love, and helplessness all tangled together.
When the sobs finally eased, only silent tears remained, tracing their way down his face as he knelt there, emptied.
Alexis stayed like that for a long time.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Breaking—quietly—beside the man who still would not wake.