Xander offered Kiur a hand. “Are you hurt?” he asked sincerely; he didn’t expect Kiur to suddenly pop out of the ice sculpture.
“I’ll manage.”
Taking the offered hand, Kiur and Xander faced a tough challenge—awkward silence.
“Ergh, this is awkward,” Xander spoke out the obvious after that brief incident. Both have seen glimpses of the other’s past, although it was too little to conclude anything other than they both were alike—reborn into the world.
“So that we are on the same page. We were both reborn or reincarnated—or whatever—into this world. Is that correct?” asked Xander. Kiur concurred. “What about Cylia? Did you see her anywhere?”
“According to Noah, she’s not like us,” Kiur explained. He still felt agitated by how casually Noah dismissed her like another pebble on the road to be ignored. It didn't settle right with him.
“Never mind her then,” said Xander, earning a side scowl from Kiur. “I’m glad to know I finally met someone in the same boat as me.”
“The same boat?” The whole topic of being reborn and living as someone else upset Kiur. Knowing that Xander was sharing the same burden as him was inconceivable; Kiur didn’t like that. He clenched his hands over his knees. “So you too have taken over someone’s body?”
Xander let his head sink; sweat dripped from his face. “...I guess that much was a given?”
That’s right. For them to be reborn into this world, Kiur and Xander took over the body, memories, and personality of the original owners. It wasn’t a gradual process, more like being forcefully thrown into cold water.
For Lotte, however, it was more like abruptly waking up inside an active furnace and being buried alive simultaneously.
Her body burned, the headaches blasted her head, and her chest scorched her from the inside out. She became Kiur with all of his memories and experiences, but Lotte’s persona was too prevalent to fuse entirely with him—she inadvertently dominated his.
Whenever she thought back to this day, she couldn’t stop tormenting herself over how she must have robbed the boy’s life, but couldn’t remember anything that led to this.
How did either of them die, and why? She knew nothing and feared everything. She became Kiur but was also not him. Nothing made sense and still didn’t.
“When were you reborn?” asked Kiur with a shaking voice, desperate to push back the circumstances of his rebirth. He needed certainty. His body was trembling with fear of thinking about it all over again.
It was inevitable, however. Kiur tried to repress it for the past three years so he could retain a fraction of control over his life. It was all falling apart.
“When I was 10, maybe 11,” answered Xander, less skittish than Kiur was about this topic. “I fell off a ship during a storm, or rather, this body did. When I came to my senses, panic overwhelmed me. I was suddenly a child with memories bombarding my mind and a heavy force ripping my body apart, like cold needles entering each pore and frostbite spreading over my skin.”
Proving his point, a sheet of ice formed over his sleeve and reached his ear before dispersing in the wind.
“I recall I was screaming and thrashing against the waves. Being bumped left and right, up and down, with no sense of direction, left me in a panic frenzy.
“Hours later, when my—very thickheaded—adoptive father found me, did I realise it was magic. Magic!” Xander exclaimed ecstatically. “The first time I used magic, my body was suffering from hypothermia, and I was lying on the frozen floor of seawater. I had mixed feelings about it, but you can’t imagine how happy I was.”
Forming an orb of frozen water in his hand, Xander played around with it by letting it fly around him and Kiur—rediscovering his love for magic like a child.
“After so many years, it still fascinates me. I was scared—terrified even—but when my father taught me about magic, a whole new world opened up to me. A world of magic. It was the most exciting thing that-”
“Don’t you regret it?”
Kiur’s voice pierced through him like a knife. Xander’s magic retracted; the icy orb shattered. The pieces fell and evaporated when they came into contact with the sand that charred to ash near Kiur’s feet. Xander was silent.
“You robbed someone’s identity, someone who had their whole life ahead of them,” Kiur’s voice quivered, his fingers cracked from clenching them so much. “No matter the circumstance, no matter what kind of opportunity we received with this new life, it doesn’t change the fact we murdered the very person we are now.”
Xander closed his eyes and swallowed.
During the first moments of his rebirth, Xander didn’t think much about this question. Not until much later did he start to explore his mind, straining it to stitch together what kind of life the child had led before Xander was reborn into him.
But with the passing months and years, Xander thought less and less about it.
It was an ordinary child with an ordinary family. A caring mother, a hardworking father and playful siblings. Individuals whom Xander could never meet again. There was no reason for him to dwell on it. He now was who he was.
With this misconception that the boy’s memories were fading, Xander woke up one day with a dreadful feeling of longing. It shook him through his very core, throwing him into a fit.
“Where are my papa? Where’s my mom? Brother, sisters, where are you? I don’t know this place. It’s cold!”
It became so bad that Xander wished he could return to where they all lived together, but he knew it wasn’t possible. It was a messy cut from his past life to his new one, and he knew that with time, his old feelings would fade until they were nothing but distant figments. The boy Xander possessed was young and turned into a fragment of Xander’s new life.
With Kiur’s question in mind, Xander knew how fortunate he was for getting such a young vassal—someone inexperienced in understanding life. “How old… how old was he when you were reborn?” Xander was afraid to know, seeing how emotionally unstable Kiur was.
He saw how Kiur tightened his lips and furrowed his brows as he tried to utter the words. “Three years ago, he was barely 16.”
As much as Lotte repressed the circumstances of how she died, why she was reborn, and how she took over Kiur’s body, there was one thing she tried to forget the most.
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The consequences that came with.
“When I was reborn, I questioned my sanity,” began Kiur, his heartbeat drumming louder and louder in his ribcage and threatening to burst open. “The circumstances of my death were gone and fused with the life and personality of another. I didn’t know who I was, and sometimes I still don’t.”
The images came back to Kiur.
His friends witnessed how Kiur—their usually levelheaded, mellow, and overly amiable friend—was having a mental breakdown, pushing away and hurting anyone who came even remotely close to him.
Flames left his body, but unlike now, they were wild and uncontrollable—they almost killed Kiur and his friends. Screams pound through his head alongside his memories; he had to push them back to regain control of himself.
Even now, he couldn’t deal with them. He repressed everything that came with it because he knew he was unfit to face them. The memories of his brother returned.
“Were it not for Archil to come and help me, I wouldn’t know what would have happened otherwise.”
His brother protected Kiur as an older brother would, and Lotte began to consider Archil to be her brother as well. Perhaps it was because of Kiur’s memories and feelings that intertwined with her, but they became genuine.
When Lotte—now as Kiur—returned to Idaris, she tried to settle into her new life, but it didn’t work out.
“I’m not him,” said Lotte and Kiur secluded himself—away from everyone. The only ones who stayed by his side were Archil and their mother, Esha. They were the only ones he couldn’t alienate—no matter how often he tried, and he genuinely tried to.
They remained patient and respectful of whatever he was going through—even if they didn’t understand.
“I miss my mother,” mumbled Kiur in a low, broken voice. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He was worried about her and needed to see her to make sure she was alright. Kiur couldn’t bear to give her more worries than he already did. “I’m a horrible son.”
—❂—
“So this is what it was like for you.” Xander scratched his head and tried to process what he had just listened to. He flinched, remembering how the Kiur in the images he saw was shouting at a shadow.
He was hurting, not just physically from what Xander saw, but also mentally. Kiur had been scarred for a long time—and the wound only festered.
Wordlessly, they sat next to each other, unable to think of anything else to say. All his life, Xander never had anyone to talk to about his situation, and now he was on the receiving end of someone who was truly having a rough time handling it.
Call him cold-blooded, but Xander had encased his feelings about his reincarnation in a solid block of ice. Yet he had forgotten how he was constantly walking on thin ice himself—with the dark waters of the old Xander underneath banging against it.
The more the boy begged to be acknowledged, the more Xander tried to freeze the floor over and over, layer after layer. As a result, Xander had pushed away any friends he had made by being a cocky, know-it-all and rude man.
He didn’t want to be like that, not anymore.
With Kiur sharing his feelings here, Xander felt less and less confident about himself. He clenched his shaking hands and closed his eyes. Xander focused on strengthening his consciousness. He knew it wouldn’t hold. Someday, it would break free.
“I don’t want to imagine how awful it must have been.” Xander was sweating bullets, failing to maintain his cool as the boy’s banging grew louder and louder. “Shut up,” Xander yelled inside his head. “It’s best to acknowledge the change and opportunity we were given. Accept this new life and carry on with it.”
The banging intensified., Xander had a headache.
“Easy for you to say,” Kiur cracked up. “Don’t you think I didn’t try? I’m not him, yet I am him. This isn’t- that’s not- I don’t know what this is!”
“Me neither!” Xander shouted. He felt the drowning and shadowy figure of the boy pulling him into the dark waters. “Not yet, stay put,” Xander pleaded to the boy in his head and pulled himself back up, watching how the boy inside his consciousness was drowning further and further away from him.
Xander was frustrated; the boy wasn’t giving up. He froze the deep waters over and over, encasing the boy in eternal ice, but knew that deep down, he would face him; he would be back.
“Not today, though.” Xander exhaled and took a deep breath to calm himself. “Do you want to keep yourself confined to the past?” he asked Kiur. “Maybe it matters what happened, but does that mean ruining your entire future life?”
“What do you mean?” asked Kiur.
“You told me you can’t face the one who you were, right? You’re afraid of what you did and how you ended up here. It impedes your progress on who you are right now. So I would say that you shouldn’t focus on this, whatever reservations you have about it-”
Kiur snapped at Xander. “I can’t just forget who he was and what I did! I took his future. It’s a part of me now, and-”
“No one said that. Just… listen,” Xander insisted. He whipped his brow, fearing that the sweat made his face glisten. The boy inside the ice shouted at Xander, begging to be acknowledged, but Xander froze him back into a cube. “Just blur it out and focus on what’s in front of you. Face it when you are ready.”
Kiur shook his head, refusing the idea. “This isn’t an option. I need to face him. I can’t just blur it all out. My magic is linked to my emotions. I swore to myself not to use it ever again, but it now goes haywire, and I can’t control myself-”
“Then just learn control,” suggested Xander, as if he hit Kiur with the obvious. “Magic and emotions are linked, but we, and by we, I mean me, can teach you to control it. Trust me, I’m a trained wizard with lots of expertise. I may not be great at talking about that stupid thing called emotions, but we can try that.”
“You mean, talk?”
Xander grunted at the word. “Don’t say it like that. It sounds gross, but yes. We could deal with it—together. I can help you control your magic as well.”
“This… this does sound good,” admitted Kiur, feeling a bit hopeful. “I am afraid to lose composure whenever I overuse my magic. Relearning some control would be great.”
“Should be easy. Don’t worry about it. I am looking forward to it since you are the first reborn I ever met.” Xander gave Kiur a fake cocky grin, who could only laugh nervously at what kind of teacher Xander would turn out to be.
“You know, despite everything, I'm glad to tell someone about this,” admitted Kiur with a sincere smile he hadn’t had for a long time. It had been years since the last time he could confide himself with someone comfortably. Especially a friend. One that understood the other—somewhat. Both of them missed having a friend. “But there is something I have to confess-”
“Wait, let me go first. Ahem,” Xander cleared his throat. “I know this sounds corny… gosh, this is embarrassing, but I'm glad to have met a friend like you.”
Now Kiur was getting embarrassed by the unusual sentiment of Xander’s words, though he didn’t expect what Xander’s next words would be.
“I can’t tell you how much I needed to share this with someone. It’s great to have a friend who understands you,” Xander reached out with his hand. Kiur was about to shake it, but-. “It’s great to know there’s another man like me who was reborn. I hope we will get along in the future, too.”
Kiur hesitated. “A man? Does he think I am a man?”
For the entire conversation, Kiur had forgotten what he looked like to Xander. He wasn’t the woman known as Lotte in her previous life. She was Kiur, a man.
It was another thing Kiur constantly had to deal with during his rebirth—the fact she was now a man. The experience was entirely alien to Lotte but familiar with Kiur’s memories trying to adjust to any confusion and becoming another repressed fact in his brain.
“Should I tell him?” wondered Kiur. Should he reveal the truth that the man Xander just opened up to was, in reality, a woman? Not just in the past but also in mind while having the wrong body?
“S-same here,” responded Kiur awkwardly, suppressing his emotional turmoil as he shook Xander’s hand and wore a fake smile he learned from his time as Lotte. “Let’s work together more closely, friend.”
Kiur couldn’t do it. He couldn’t reveal the truth, no matter what.
It was a secret he needed to keep to himself, like he had kept his rebirth hidden from everyone. It was an entirely different kind of can of worms to open.
“Now something more casual!” enthusiastically, Xander held forward a fist, expecting a fist bump.
Kiur had to discover that no matter how relieved he felt about sharing his secrets, he felt even worse about hiding his true gender—the fist bump didn’t improve anything either.