Chapter Text
After leaving home to run away to Japan -and that's what it was, running away- Alexis felt… alone. Or maybe empty was the right word. Did the dull ache in his heart stem from a sense of solitude or a sense of simple nothingness? Was there even a difference? If not having any love and never feeling anything were what embodied true ‘loneliness’ and ‘emptiness’ then weren’t they just synonyms? No, maybe that yearning for love was what filled the hole that emptiness couldn’t. So, did being empty mean giving up on ever wanting love?
Clinging onto the notion of ‘love’ his whole life, Alexis couldn’t say he necessarily felt ‘hollow’. Of course, some days, he felt more like a wooden puppet than others, his heart rattling, pounding all through his chest, nothing seemingly there to stop it, but never did he feel completely, truly hollow.
Alexis wanted to be lonely. Not wanted in the sense that he would rather be in solitude than with others, but wanted as in it was a much better alternative than being empty. He would never be empty. He would never, ever give up in his search for love. If that was what differentiated loneliness and emptiness, then they were about as far apart as love and hate for all Alexis cared about. So, he was lonely. Okay, he could accept that.
Loneliness. It wasn’t an emotion he was unfamiliar with, he and loneliness had been well acquainted ever since his childhood. In truth, there really wasn’t a time Alexis could remember when he didn’t feel alone. Sometimes he wondered if he even knew an emotion other than loneliness. Yearning, he thought. Was that the same thing? He didn’t know.
There were a lot of things Alexis didn’t know. This, miraculously, was one of the few things he was aware of. He didn’t know much about how to socialize with others, or anything science or math related. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing his whole childhood, if he learned nothing about science nor social skills during his short 18 year life.
He had learned how to dream. How to hope. Was that a skill? Maybe not, but it was one of the only things keeping him somewhat anchored as a kid, so maybe it was more important than anything else. Some days he believed that more than others.
He had also learned music. One of the many things his family criticized about him. But if he could go back in time and do it all over again; he wouldn’t change his decision. He would always pick music, the one thing besides his imagination that made each day bearable. Maybe ‘each day’ was an overstatement, but it was true that it made most days tolerable.
Music was… real . Not to say that his dreams and hopes weren’t , just that they were things that weren’t really in his control; he could never force his family to reciprocate his need for familial bonds, but he could take a guitar and a piano and make something out of it. Pour his heart and soul into the instruments, infusing them into the sound to actually get a song out of it.
That was why he ran away. Something he hated himself everyday for, but didn’t regret. What he hated himself even more for was the fact that he simply didn’t have enough intelligence or charisma to actually be enough for them.
He left because he had no choice. He didn’t have enough courage to stand up to his family and if he stayed in that oppressive house, he was afraid that his burning passion for music would be snuffed out by the weight of his family's disapproval. He couldn’t bear that. To have the one thing he actually found joy in taken from him. That was a fate worse than death for Alexis.
Or, at least, that was one of the reasons he left. He had two.
The second one was built over years of insecurity and inferiority, and of unknown dreams shattered in an instant. Dreams Alexis was afraid would rebuild themselves.
He had always known that he was not an important part of his family dynamic, and he thought, he was sure that he had given up on anyone ever treating him as something other than just dirt beneath their shoe, but when that hope had gotten crushed, a hope he didn’t even knew he was clinging onto, he just felt… so lost, and he had decided then that staying there, in that house, would make him keeping hoping. Something he couldn’t tell was a curse or a lifeline, but something he needed to escape nonetheless.
He couldn’t understand, and honestly he thought he would never understand why his family was so cold towards him. He had thought a hope with nothing to lean onto was better than no hope at all, but when those same hopes kept getting broken day in and day out, some days he wished he was incapable of hoping. That maybe that was his problem. He was the problem.
And, okay, maybe it could also be accredited to the stares he got. The way his family looked at him, that disdain hiding just beneath the surface, as if they weren’t even trying to hide it, as if Alexis wasn’t even worth the effort. And he was sure he wasn’t.
Instead of standing up for himself, or asking the questions that had been on his mind ever since he could understand the coldness that his family harshly threw his way. Questions like; ‘why did you give birth to me just to throw me aside?’, ‘why am I never good enough for you?’, or the one question that had repeated itself in his mind all his life; ‘why don’t you love me?’ Alexis swallowed whatever small remaining pride he had, got down on his knees, and begged his parents to let him move out.
He had prepared a whole spiel, saying that he could transfer to another high school, complete his senior year there, go to college on their dime, all the while majoring in music composition, and he would be out of their hair, never to bother them again. They would do this one thing for him, and they would never have to see him ever again. A win-win situation.
He had expected some resistance, maybe some comment about how he would just embarrass them if he was somewhere else without supervision, a comment that he would choose to imagine was said in worry and protectiveness of him, but deep down in his bruised and bloodied heart, he would truly know that it was just another delusion of his.
The delusion of love, of care, of something he doesn’t ever remember experiencing, or having to himself. The delusion he craved so deeply and etched and engraved and burned into his heart every time he mourned over the loss of something he never had. A feeling that he knew so well, -with his daydreams and night? dreams and every waking moment of his life praying that maybe he could experience the thing he could only see through a one-way mirror- and at the same time, didn’t know at all.
The one thing he had so, so, so much to give but no one to receive it and no one to reciprocate it either. He thought that maybe if someone would accept his love with open arms and smiles, he could live with never receiving it himself. Maybe.
His parents agreed, which he hadn’t expected, something he couldn’t tell if he was happy or hurt about. He decided to ignore the sharp pain it drove into his heart and instead focus on finally getting out . They gave him a condition, or, well, a few, technically. Approving with set terms was something that he had expected, but out of all of the conditions he might’ve expected them to give him, this one was one of the worst: he was forced to major in some science field.
They didn’t care about anything else he did, but they claimed it was an embarrassment that one of their children believed in magic, and, if he had a degree in science, then they could show it to their friends and colleagues and other professionals, and that would be ‘enough to disperse the rumors.’ As if it he was just a bothersome rumor, a small stain on their impeccable reputation in their field of study. He imagined that, to them, maybe that really was all he was.
Now here he was, standing on the front steps of college, hands shaking, palms sweaty, with his book bag slung over one shoulder.
The final months of high school flew by. No one approached Alexis, and, him being afraid of rejection, never reached out to anyone else. It hurt, he thought finally being away from his family would mean he would never feel lonely again, but reality wasn’t that simple. Everyone at that point had pre-established friend groups anyway, so Alexis was more of an afterthought than anything else.
Now it was different. Now, no one had any friend groups, so everyone, including him, was in the same boat. But… all the other students walked right past him, and that feeling hit him again. He felt invisible, like a ghost walking the halls, or maybe haunting would be more accurate.
It wasn’t really anyone else's fault. It was his own feelings of inadequacy and his nerves that were already hanging on by a thread. Truth be told, he didn’t really know what he had expected of today, but it was definitely not this. He tried not to get his hopes up, but for someone like him, who only had hopes, it was a little bit hard for him to do that.
Alexis could feel the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. His eyes stung, and he felt a sudden urge to run back to his dorm room and stay there forever, but his first class of the day was in this building, and he couldn’t skip it. He checked the time on his phone, and part of him regretted coming 15 minutes early. Deciding to kill some time, he walked off, running away again, if only for a moment.
His feet started moving on their own, and Alexis did nothing to stop them. His eyes roamed the pavilion, desperately trying to find a small, secluded little hole-in-a-wall he could hide in. Unable to find a hole, he did find a corner slightly out of the way of everyone else, so Alexis decided to sit there for the next 15 minutes. Or, well, maybe 10… just so he wouldn’t be late to his class.
After sitting down, his eyes became watery and before long he started sobbing in the small little slice of the pavilion he had carved out for himself. He tried his best to bury his face in his sweater sleeve but to anyone passing by, it was clear what he was doing.
That’s when he saw him. Blue eyes scanning every person in the vicinity, analyzing them, viewing their strengths and weaknesses and debating whether they could be of use to him or not. Then, his eyes caught on a small, hunched over figure in a little corner, meek and tiny and trying his best to take up as little space as possible. He immediately knew that this pink-haired boy fit his description.
Approaching him, Michael tapped on the boy’s shoulder, and Alexis flinched in response. Slowly bringing his head up, the two boys locked eyes, and, for a moment, Michael's breath was taken away.
His big, pinkish brown eyes reflected the sunlight, almost as if they were pulling all the light in the area in, not in a selfish, greedy way, but rather in the way that the warmth was attracted to them. Maybe a more accurate description would be that it was almost like the Sun itself was made for them.
They were warm, and for no reason at all, Michael felt as if this warmth could only be made if the boy in front of him had been nurtured with love for his whole childhood. It made him vaguely… angry? The feeling dissipated almost as quickly as it came, but he couldn’t stop himself from questioning his poor luck compared to the other boy’s. Why was that fair? Why did he luck out on the familial lottery?
It was clear to Michael that there was some sort of barrier between them. And the warmth in the pink eyes staring up at him was such a sharp contrast to his own. Those cold, pale blue eyes that reflected the ones his mother had, never showing a single positive emotion. The pink ones in front of him seemed like they could only express positive emotions, and he felt a small nonsensical curiosity that wondered what they would look like when they were seized by hatred, or terror, or despair.
He had gotten his answer quickly, what with the puffy red rim around his eyes betraying the fact that he had been crying only moments before. They looked… good. The red complemented the pink hues in his eyes just right, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking how the boy was such a pretty crier.
It was faint, and not very noticeable at all, but Michael could see that one of his eyes was a slightly lighter shade of that brownish pink maroon color that he had sworn he’d never seen before. If he had, he was sure he would’ve remembered it, no matter what it was on. Logically, he knew that you couldn’t make a new color. He wasn’t stupid, but, well, if it was possible -if the human eye suddenly got an additional set of colors to see- he was sure that the color shining in the boy's eyes would be new. He was certain of it.
Then there was his hair. Those pink locks gently cascading over his soft features, messy in a way that made it seem as if on purpose. Them being dyed was only given away by the brown roots growing out from the top of his head, softly fading into the pink in a way that made it look almost natural. He found himself wondering if pink was indeed a hair color one could be born with. Even his natural hair was full of many different shades of brown, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of those cheap kaleidoscopes they give kids at parks or fairs to get them to shut up. Briefly Michael wondered if his roots were dyed too, but he quickly shut out the thought because even dying his hair couldn’t get the colors to blend so seamlessly and perfectly like they were on his head.
Alexis, looking at the blonde, was immediately embarrassed. He had been caught crying on the first day of school, and this guy just kept staring at him. It made him squirm and his skin itch and burn with the same feeling that his family gave him when they looked down on him. The thought of his family just made more tears come forth, even though he was sure he had cried everything he could about his family out.
He regretted not following through and dying his hair back to its natural color. He had first dyed it after he had gotten out of high school, his own little form of ‘rebelling,’ since the high school he attended didn’t allow dyed hair and neither did his parents. He had spent days contemplating what color to dye it and kept second-guessing himself when he came close to deciding on one. Then, one day as he was scrolling on social media, he came across a video of a girl dying her brother's hair pink. They both looked so happy that Alexis decided on that color right then just so that whenever he saw it, he would be reminded of that smile on both of their faces, laughing and giggling and so close .
He had always wanted a relationship like that with his siblings, and some days he couldn't believe that other people were so close with theirs. To him, his brother and sister were strangers. Worse than strangers, actually. They were bullies. He had accepted that truth finally when he was 15, when he had thought he finally gave up on ever having a positive relationship with them. When he had “finally started to stop bothering them,” his brother had said one day, after 16 year old Alexis had come into his room after puking his guts out, crying, and needing a hug. He had thought, clinging onto that one small, tiny, almost extinguished hope that his brother would come to him, hug him tight, and let him cry into his shirt while saying soft praises and assuring him everything would be okay.
And, for a moment, when his brother had looked at him, Alexis thought, just for a second, that maybe his hopes weren’t just hopes, that he would comfort him. That maybe they would get closer because of this, that they would have a brotherly relationship and further down the line they would call each other each week, talking about new relationships and events and things that normal brothers talk about.
Then he took Alexis's Prince Rupert’s drop of a hope and crushed him in one sentence, “Go away, Alexis, I’m busy.” He didn’t. It was the first time he didn’t follow his orders. He had stayed there, unmoving, his tears still staining the carpet underneath his feet, almost like he was bleeding out.
And he was, in a way. He could feel his heart bleeding, but not breaking. His heart had already been broken and mended and shattered and healed and ruptured and repaired again and again and again.
Or, was it ever really healed in the first place? More like, tactlessly and frantically trying to mend an open wound even when you know the same person will open it again and feel no remorse, and you also know you will forgive him and accept each stab and apologize all the same. This time, the bandage had just come off once more, ripping open the uneven and carelessly made stitches there. It was a dull ache, one he had become accustomed to. So why didn’t it hurt any less?
Then something had shifted in his brother's expression, turning his words louder and angrier and more hurtful. “Just stop annoying me! I thought that maybe, maybe , you had finally started to stop bothering me and Sascha! But now here you are, being a huge nuisance again. God, when will you ever get it, Alexis? We. Don't. Like. You. Get it through your thick skull and leave me the fuck alone, got it?!”
Alexis stood there. For 30 minutes. It had felt like the whole night though, as more insults and scathing words came his way. He had repeated the same two words over and over again: “I’m sorry,” until his throat was sore and tired and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Then he repeated it some more. The first time he said it, the words got clogged in his throat, so it came out like syrup, each letter clinging to the one before. His brother had ignored him, continuing to hurl words dripping with bile at Alexis.
At some point, he had taken up a mocking tone and asked “sorry for what , Alexis?” he didn’t know. He didn’t know the answer to that question. What was he sorry for? Everything. Sorry for bothering him, sorry for being stupid, sorry for not being enough, sorry for being born his brother, he was so, so, so, so sorry. So, why couldn’t he just forgive him?
He was stupid, Alexis knew that. He had always known that, from the moment he was born. And, deep down, Alexis knew it wasn’t that easy, forgiving. Not for others at least. But still, he was a sobbing mess and he felt so raw and vulnerable and so why couldn’t his brother see that?
Then, later, days after, actually, the realization dawned on him; he knew , unlike him, his brother wasn’t stupid, he could see how vulnerable Alexis was feeling. He knew and he didn’t care. He was aware that could have very well been the worst moment of Alexis’s life, or maybe he knew for sure it was.
“What are you thinking about?” The voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and Alexis noticed a German accent to the words, reminding him of home.
“You’re German?” The words left his mouth before he even realized it, and he noticed a hint of surprise on the other man’s face, which separated him from his family in Alexis’s mind. None of them would ever make a face like that. He almost felt like laughing, but stopped himself, afraid that might offend the blonde standing in front of him.
“Yeah. You?” Michael responded, finally recognizing that the features on the others' faces were reminiscent of his homeland, and he wondered if they had ever crossed paths once. It wasn’t like Germany was a small space, but some part of him wanted to believe that they had. That his time in Germany was important because he had run into this little German boy once before and that would make it all better.
He cursed at himself for thinking that, no way in hell would he live for someone else. He wouldn’t justify his childhood with someone else. He would justify it with his own-fucking-life. His time in Germany would be important not because he had seen some random guy with big round eyes partnered with vaguely curly hair and a cute smile but because he would live- no, thrive and make a name for himself. He’d prove that fucking bastard wrong.
“Yeah” And then they stopped, their eyes drowning in each other. A comfortable blanket of silence was placed over them, encompassing them and separating them in their own little world, away from the hustle and bustle of the campus.
“What class do you have here?” Michael decided then that this face didn’t belong here. Those soft brownish eyes, pools of chocolate and topaz, -two things he was never able to have growing up- didn’t look right among the red brick and orderly walls here in this part of the school.
“Oh!” Breaking the eye contact the two had, Alexis started rummaging through his bag, his charms clinking against each other as he went. Michael wanted to laugh, wondering how this guy could forget what class he had on the first day, but he stopped himself, something about Alexis’s expression made him stop.
Maybe it was how his skin was tinged slightly red around the areas near his eyes, or how his cheeks were all puffed up, making him look as if he was pouting, or how his bangs were clinging onto his forehead in small clumps of strands, still wet from tears. Michael's eye trailed down Alexis’s face, examining and taking it in and noting down everything he saw. “Psychology. Right.” And for some reason, unknown to even him, Michael let a small, indiscreet smile spread across his face.
“Hey. What's your name?”
“I’m Alexis. Alexis… ness…” He said that last part, his last name, differently from the rest of his sentence, As if he was uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the word. Michael then assumed, from his body language, the way he was standing, -as if he was trying to hide away from the world- and the way his words tapered off at the end, not to mention the fuck-all obviousness of it all.
So he was wrong. He didn’t live such a pampered life. It was unusual for Michael to be wrong about someone, and he wasn’t quite used to it.
He was so obviously uncomfortable with his family, or at least had family issues. God, even an idiot could figure that out, the boy standing in front of him -Alexis, he remembered- wasn’t even trying to hide it. He looked so put together, and Michael, for a brief moment, felt agitated. He had obviously never had money trouble before, the air he exuded even gave off ‘spoiled rich kid’ and Michael had to fight with himself from cementing this boy as that in his mind.
He wondered why he cared what Alexis was in his mind, why he was fighting himself from tainting his character with the notion of him being spoiled. He didn’t come off as stuck-up, but something in Michael wanted to dislike Alexis. To find some excuse to treat him with indignation and resentment. Did he really need an excuse?
“Michael Kaiser. That’s my name.” And his eyes took on a definitive nature, as if he was asking someone, or… more like challenging someone to call him out. To tell him that his name wasn’t Micheal Kaiser . That his name never was Kaiser, and it never would be.
To challenge him and tell him that so he could make an example out of them and then no one would say that shit ever again. To get it over with now, so every single person on campus would know not to mess with him. But, nobody nearby knew who he was, and he found that he was getting riled up all by himself. It wasn’t like he expected these students to know him, but… still, he couldn’t help the anger and indignation that bubbled up in his gut.
Right then, he decided that he would force them all to know who he was. One way or another, by this time next year, or even before that, the whole campus would look at him and know his name by heart. When they would graduate, his name would be ringing in their heads whenever they thought of their college years. His own revenge for the humiliation he felt at this moment. No, not humiliation. Rage.
“Your name… what’s it mean?” Alexis vaguely remembered learning Latin at his private school, a class he didn’t particularly like, but out of all his classes, it was one of the more bearable ones. They went over a bunch of words, and would often connect them to German words he actually did know, but also a bunch he didn’t. He was sure they had discussed the word ‘Kaiser’ before, but just… couldn’t remember why or what it meant.
“Emperor.” Michael’s mouth turned upwards and his eyes narrowed, as if he was contemplating something.
His eyes stayed fixed on Alexis the entire time, and Alexis, in response, squirmed under his gaze. It was uncomfortable, being watched so intensely, but it also made him feel seen . Maybe being uncomfortable like this was a prerequisite for being acknowledged. It was an odd feeling, making his skin crawl and at the same time, tingle with anticipation. Anticipation of what , Alexis didn’t know, but he could tell the owner of those blue eyes was thinking about something , and he found himself hoping that it had something to do with him.
“Hey, wanna be my first subject?” It was strange, how coolly it was said, though the implication was anything but. How the blonde haired man in front of Alexis could say something like that so easily, Alexis wasn’t sure. So, Alexis, for a second, was about to say “sure,” matching the same cool tone Michael had used, following suit as if this was just a normal conversation.
And, the way Michael had said it, it made it feel like a normal conversation, like asking someone you just met to be your ‘subject’ was completely fine and not at all weird or strange. And, from the social ostracization Alexis had received his entire life, part of him did believe that ‘subject’ was just another word for ‘friend.’ And, unfortunately, that ‘part of him’ was basically a synonym with ‘his entire being’ so he did something strange himself. He agreed.
“Yeah.”