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You are not truly alive.
You do not know what you are. You know that you belong, in whatever way, to the person on the other side of the mirror. You know his name—Riz Gukgak—and you know his purpose—to live, to breathe, to fight, to be alive—and you know that his purposes you do not share.
Riz Gukgak lives. You are there as a reminder that he does. Or something.
You watch him when he is not looking at you. He is often tense; you can tell this by the furrow of his brows, the twitch of his tail, the twist and grimace of his lips. You cannot hear the words he speaks, but you mirror the movements he makes with his mouth and can taste anger and frustration deeply in them. You wonder if they taste as sharp to him as they do to you; you wonder if they are only that way because of his pinprick teeth.
You do not think it would matter.
He does not see you, if you can help it. You have watched him for several years now, hiding in the shadows of the reflection in the mirror in his office. You know you could follow him, if you truly wished, across other surfaces. You do not. You tried, once, after he visited you in your twisted version of his friend’s home, and he had gone so deathly pale he almost looked like you. Since then, you stay in one place, waiting, and you do not press your luck any longer.
You have watched him grow and change. This, in your mind, is acceptable. He is proving to both you and himself that he no longer needs to fear you. You listen, through murky tones, the conversations he has with friends and clients. You watch him stand taller, smile wider, wear his smile with more confidence.
You watch him, on more than one occasion, invite his dreadful friends back to the office after some kind of fight. You watch your stark father’s prophet alight the half-orc’s skin with her magic, and the way the one-eyed puppet boy clings to Riz’s side as if he belongs there. You do not realize why until he steps away from Riz and reveals the wound in his side slowly stitching itself together with the boy’s magic. This happens more than once, though the location likes to change—once, the side, then the arm, another time his leg; once, they all laugh at the new hole in Riz’s ear from a stray bullet, and they do not let it close because the next time you see Riz he is sporting a piercing in the hole instead.
You learn their names again. You had forgotten them, sure that by now they would have left, but no one leaves Riz behind.
(You were wrong. You have always been wrong. This no longer infuriates you the way it did.)
You expect this to continue for the rest of his life. You stop watching as closely. You let more time pass between observations. You feel your stark father grow in power and love, two things unfamiliar to you. You are a shell. Hollow. A reflection, two dimensional, no life or existence beyond it.
That is, until one day.
“Baron?”
That is your name. You have not heard it for a very long time—not since just after Riz’s graduation, when he and his friends had all laughed about the things of which they used to be scared. Someone had said your name. Riz had replied that he would never be scared of you again.
He calls your name now. You do not understand why, so you do not reveal yourself, though you keep your attention firmly on him.
(You have nowhere else you could put it anyway.)
“I know you’re in there,” Riz says. “Please, Baron, can we…can we talk?”
An interesting request. You reveal yourself slowly, waiting to see the danger. Riz is fond of his gun. You used to watch him put it together and take it apart as often as you watched him drink coffee. He does not brandish it now. He looks older now, of course; he looks much more like his father, skinny frame and the beginnings of a mustache and an earned confidence you ought to be happy to see him wear.
But despite the confidence, he looks troubled, and you straighten yourself.
“Riz Gukgak.” You no longer wish to unsettle him. It seems you do anyway. “You have summoned me.”
“It’s been a while,” Riz says, shoving his hands in his pocket. “Wasn’t sure if you were still listening.”
It is a strange thing to say. You do not dignify it with a response. He gives you a wry smile, then nods, as if he was expecting the silence.
“Do you have time?”
“I have no obligations awaiting me,” you reply. “What troubles you?”
Riz looks around, grabs his desk chair, and brings it over to sit in front of you. He has had this chair since he moved into this office. You have heard him tell the story a hundred times; his mother got it on clearance as a congratulations on surviving a dragon gift. Riz loves this chair. It is molded to him.
(It would never hold you the same way.)
He leans back in it, crossing his ankle over his knee, and sighs. “How have you been?”
You stare at him blankly. “I do not understand.”
“Have you been…I dunno, like, haunting other people? Or something?”
He is approaching you informally. You decide to test your luck and respond in kind.
“You are my favorite to bother,” you reply easily. “I have never haunted another.”
Riz smiles at you crookedly. You understand why people fall for him and have their heart crushed. As if he can hear your thoughts, the smile drops and he sighs.
“You don’t just, like…scare other ace people?”
“Ace,” you repeat, confused. “You are no pilot, Riz Gukgak.”
“No, no, I know,” he promises, holding his hands up. “I meant—asexual.”
This draws you up short. If you could blink in confusion, you would; as it stands, you simply stare at him blankly until he heaves a sigh, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling above him.
“Is that a no, or…?”
“You used to fear such suggestions,” you observe. “You cowered from me when I told you.”
“Well…yeah.” Riz shrugs with one shoulder, looking back at you again. “But I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not afraid. Especially not of you. You’re kind of harmless. Horrifying, but harmless.”
Horrifying, but harmless. You do not know what to make of the declaration, so you straighten up more and decide to shift the subject.
“What do you wish of me?” you ask, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible. He cannot see your hands behind your back; this is a good thing, because you stretch your fingers and crack the joints several times to steady yourself. “You have summoned me for a reason. What is it?”
“Well,” Riz says, baring his fangs. No, not exactly—you realize he is simply stretching his face as he opens and shuts his mouth a few times, and the fangs are a side effect. He is not trying to frighten you, nor displease you.
You do not know what to make of this camaraderie he is extending to you. The reversal of roles is something you do not think you are thrilled about.
“Well,” Riz begins again, shifting up in the chair now. “I guess I just needed to…talk some things out. Some things are changing. I don’t, uh…know quite how to feel about them. But if I could figure it out with anyone, why not the person who knows me best?”
“So where are they?”
“No, Baron, I mean—I mean you. If you’re willing to listen.”
You almost laugh. “I do not know you at all anymore, Riz Gukgak. I am a stasis of your deepest fear that you no longer cower from. What could I offer to you that would be of any use?”
Riz waves his hand at you dismissively. It would infuriate you, if you were able to feel anything like it.
“I don’t know how often you’ve been around,” Riz says, somewhat apologetic this time. “But I’ve discovered this new trick for cases. I, uh, like to take the facts, refute them in any way I can to discover the loopholes, and, uh…well, it helps me put some pieces together. Bigger picture that way. Nice way to get to the core of things, um, really quickly. So. I was hoping I could use you for that.” He has the decency to look sheepish at the request. “If you’re interested. And willing. I figured this particular subject you might have expertise in.”
You know the method of which he speaks. You watched him develop it, late nights avoiding phone calls, middle of the days when friends would burst in with sustenance and company more often than not, helping him ping pong his thoughts around the room like a strange mix of golf and find the hole. The scores were big, and well celebrated, as they should be. It would usually mean that Riz would be out for several days, and you would sit alone in the reflection, knowing that there is a life being lived that you no longer haunt the way you used to.
“Tell me the subject,” you reply, feeling strange.
Riz looks sort of delighted, actually, and he scrambles until he’s perched in the chair like a bird. His tail begins to flick, back and forth and back and forth, like a creature waiting to pounce on prey.
(Are you the prey now? How the tables have turned—and you do not know how to feel anymore. What happens when the feared monster becomes an every day companion, as Riz Gukgak treats you now?
You feel strange. Your joints feel looser, and your chest more hollow.)
“So,” Riz begins, his face alight with life and excitement. You do not know these feelings. You never have. “So, here’s the thing, right? I, uh—you remember my friends.”
He waits for your reply. You nod once.
“Okay! They, uh—well, okay, first of all, things have gone a bit sideways, right? So, um, it started with Fabian and Gorgug. They started dating and then they kept having sex with Ragh on the side, right? You remember Ragh? Tall, big guy, good heart, really gay?”
You do not respond. You do not understand why this matters. Riz rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling.
“Well, anyway, the three of them were kind of dating, and then Fig and Gorgug decided that since he was sort of doing an open thing already, they were gonna start hooking up. And when he was busy, Fig started spending time with Kristen, and Kristen and Fig started getting their kisses in.”
You would blink if you could. “I was under the impression that you did not care for getting your kisses in, Riz Gukgak. Is that not why I was invented? I was—”
“—born of my lies, yeah, I know,” Riz says, still smiling, and it’s as though he’s talking to an old friend. Is that what you are now? “I know, I know. And you’re not wrong. I don’t really care about that stuff. But, uh, I was…I was talking to Adaine, a while back?” HIs confidence suddenly seems lost and strangely, you panic. “Cause she’s…you know. Also like me. Completely like…you know, not at all—she doesn’t want any of it. Sex or dating or kisses or whatever.”
Riz is no longer looking at you. You consider stepping forward, but it as though the universe knows this is a bad idea that will only put both of your progresses back.
“I see,” you say. “You are not alone.”
“And…and she didn’t lie,” Riz says slowly. “So that’s why you haven’t bothered her. Right?”
The question puzzles you into silence long enough that he finally looks back up. When he does, you see a wash of concern. That, in turn, troubles you more; still, you think hard about the answer. Your nature is nothing like he has ever experienced, clearly. However, this is also your first go round of existing like so, and if there are any previous memories of others you could rely on, they escape you.
“I was created for you,” you decide eventually. “I do not believe I have the ability to switch my loyalty at will. I was created during my stark father’s corruption, at your behest.”
Riz nods a few times, pensive. “That’s…good to know. Alright. So in whatever way you can, you’re still…what, protecting that part of me that was scared?”
Another puzzling question. You wonder if he is going to get anything of worth out of this conversation. “You are…no longer scared?”
Riz laughs lightly. “Not really. Hey, my friends get it. All of them. They love me, and…I guess that’s a little bit my question.”
He resettles in the chair, small now, though not true Ball status anymore. You truly have no clear direction for where this conversation could be going, so you shift yourself—not that you were uncomfortable, per se, but it seems to be a way to echo your interest. He has seen the friends Riz invites to the office do something similar. He sighs, then smiles at you wryly.
“They’ve asked if Adaine and I want to be…involved. And Fig keeps saying something about how we can be committed but without the romance, and…it sounds, uh, appealing. I just don’t know if…if I’m going to be able to do that without, uh, giving up some of this? If there’s parts of it that will…negate, I guess, where I’m at. Does that make sense?”
All at once, it hits you, and you almost feel as though you can breathe.
“You do not wish to lose me,” you say suddenly, then correct yourself at the way his face is beginning to contort. “What I represent. You do not wish to suddenly care about kisses. You are looking for…a balance between the absence of kisses and caring about your friends. Is this correct?”
Very slowly, Riz nods.
You nod back, more vigorously. “All I have ever wanted, Riz Gukgak, is for you to know that this part of you will not leave. You will never quite understand the things your friends crave. You will always be on the outside of their traditional experience. You will never be free of the burden that is…me.”
“Right,” Riz tells you, much more subdued.
“You will never be as important as a romantic partner,” you say—
But the words burn your throat, and for a moment, perhaps you are alive, because there is something so desperate it aches in your porcelain bones.
“But you can come close,” you say, as though the words are unfamiliar and not your own. You watch Riz Gukgak relax, nodding.
“Platonic doesn’t mean I love them any less than anyone else,” he guesses quietly.
You feel compelled. “Yes.”
“Great,” Riz breathes, sinking in place. “Oh, thank gods. I can…I don’t have to give up—”
“You have never been required to give up any part of your identity,” you tell him slowly. “You only have to remember that in many instances, romance will trump anything else, including familial love.” The words feel wrong. You figure out why when you watch Riz tilt his head the same way you do.
You are no longer his fears. You are simply a part of him he ought to converse with more.
“But you are not broken, Riz Gukgak, for wanting companionship only.”
Riz stares at you with something…strange. He gets off the chair and approaches you, and for the first time in years, you allow yourself to truly mirror his movements. Riz smiles, gives you a few things to play with—twisting his hands, tilting his head this way and that, running his tongue over his fangs until he finally sighs.
“So, you’re, um…not quite right,” he admits slowly. “The whole not as important bit. Love doesn’t have rankings.”
You do not know how to respond. You stand, waiting.
“Fabian told me himself,” Riz continues slowly. “It’s kind of a spectrum, and non-exclusive. Love, I mean. I’m not inherently less than people he kisses.”
(You are starting to recognize something strange in your chest—a pressure, one that is only alleviated by expanding it and taking more air inside and then contracting it to push the air out. It is breathing.
You breathe.
Riz Gukgak has given you life. Something deep inside of you starts to swell.)
“I’m still important to them, and it’s still, uh…” Riz snaps once or twice. You mirror the movement at a slight delay. “Well, they call it queerplatonic. Which is a pretty good summary. Definitely queer, definitely platonic. And I’m allowed to be there. For the rest of my life. And theirs, if I live that long.” He sounds amused by the prospect.
(You breathe now without meaning to. Slowly, the reflections around you expand into a real space and not just what is able to be reflected by the angle.)
“And you don’t have to go anywhere if you don’t want to,” he continues, surprising you. He does not comment on if he can see the surprise on your face. “I’d like you to stick around. You’re fun, sometimes, and important.”
(Riz Gukgak stares at his reflection—the way he smiles wider, the way he holds himself with confidence, the way he is no longer afraid of being alone.
He does not see you anymore. He only sees himself, because you are now one and the same.
Your name is Riz Gukgak. For the first time in many, many years, you settle into your own skin, and you are coming out the other side better for it.)
“Good chat,” you say to yourself, brushing your hair back and steeling yourself as best as you can. You have a text you need to reply to—or a call to make—or a conversation to have.
You might be able to have it now.