"Here I am."
Spending the night alone in the house without Even by his side had been strange to Lumaira; he had tossed and turned restlessly under the heavy covers and shivered at the bright moonlight shining in through the cracks in his curtains. So it had been that around eleven he had pulled on a tatty pair of jeans and his favourite trainers, found his bag and filled it with a hastily-brewed flask of hot chocolate and biscuits from the cupboard, and stepped outside with a torch in his pocket for when the lampposts flickered. He passed others, occasionally, still on the streets, some with drinks and cigarettes in their hands - but he smiled wanly at them as they, slouched against fences or perched on walls, watched him pass. Eventually, even the people disappeared as Lumaira reached the country track that would take him up to the reserve. Once, the night bus passed, its lethargic driver yawning and its seats empty bar a few sleeping passengers. Lumaira trudged on. The air wasn't cold; in fact, it still hummed gently with insects and even in just a flimsy jacket Lumaira couldn't feel the chill. He hardly even needed his torch: the full moon was bright, casting unearthly shadows across the open fields of the reserve. But he flicked it on anyway, because the warm light was comforting, and watching his own feet pace through the grass was somehow grounding, in a world that was changing too fast and too dramatically for Lumaira to find reassuring hold.
He took the quick route down to the fjord, where Even had mentioned hearing voices. It was a long shot, maybe, in the middle of the night as Even slept in his own bed and Naminé worked tirelessly with late-night patients' ailments. But sometimes Lumaira felt like all he had left was long shots, hoping against hope that Even would find peace with his second chance, and L'Erena and her family would rebuild their lives, and Lumaira himself would, one day, come to understand the mystery that was his absent father and his own incredible powers.
He stopped just short of the water, inspecting the way his torchlight flickered over its surface before switching it unceremoniously off and lying back in the darkness. There'd always been something special about this place, even before he had found himself spending half his summer playing in the shallow water and inspecting the little fish on Even's insistence. There wasn't a soul around; Lumaira was truthfully, honestly alone - and yet with nature surrounding him, he felt more at home than he had back at the house, shifting sleeplessly in his own bed.
"Here I am."
He seemed to speak autonomously, and in the silence his voice felt unnaturally loud. But, he reasoned, maybe somebody was listening. Maybe.
"I'm waiting for you."
Briefly, Lumaira wished that Even were with him, his long fingers with cracked nails tight against Lumaira's hand. But Even was at home now. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had stayed up late with his parents, speaking in hushed tones of all that had come Before and all that could be in the After. Perhaps he was lying awake, inspecting the patterns in the ceiling, mind toying with the image of a stocky, bubblegum-pink haired boy. This moment was for Lumaira to reflect alone, as faintly as the moonlight bounced off the trickling stream.
"I know you're out there somewhere," He continued, bushing his hands over the grass, feeling daisies and dandelions bob beneath his skin. "You've been watching me. I know you have."
But if Marluxia was listening, he was listening covertly; there was barely even the faintest tremor in the grass to signify that Lumaira wasn't just part of a pretty postcard, locked forgotten in somebody's drawer.
"I just want a few minutes with you. That's all. I just want to talk to you for five minutes."
Lumaira twisted, briefly, hoping that the flashes of movement he caught in his peripheral vision weren't just figments of his imagination.
"Why did you leave?" He asked. "Where are you?"
But the air remained still and silent, bar the scurryings of nocturnal creatures as they went about their business. Lumaira fell backwards and stared up at the starry sky, picking out constellations; a few he had known since he was a child, but more that Even had pointed out to him on the hot summer nights where thoughts of sleep were a hundred miles away. The earth was cool against his back, the texture of the grass at once familiar and strange. And Lumaira pictured his childhood, as the boy without a father. He remembered playing card games in the evenings with Naminé when they couldn't afford a television, meeting L'Erena's Dad and being amazed at this mythical, bearded creature with a grin on his face and deep sparkling eyes. Spending evenings down at the park with all the other kids before friends were for life and boys looked at girls with more than a passing eye. He thought about his first pet, a hamster, crying over its furry little body when inevitably it passed away. And he thought about his Grandparents, supporting their beloved daughter even through mistakes and heartbreak, offering money when she couldn't make ends meet and comfort when Lumaira was poorly and couldn't go to school. They lived a way away now, so Lumaira didn't see them very often, but they called every week still to make sure that everything was okay, and share anecdotes from their own lives of tending to increasingly achy knees and playing bingo with the other ladies on Tuesday afternoons.
And Lumaira wondered what it would be like to be old. To be grown, to understand the world in all its imperfections; to work hard for a keep and to live in his own house, to raise a family, perhaps, to become wise and at peace, to watch the Earth spin with all its unimaginable momentum and complexity as he himself gradually ticked down to a stop.
Slowly, Lumaira sat up and poured out a cup of hot chocolate, which he sipped pensively.
"I suppose," He said slowly as he drank, rummaging around for biscuits, "I'll just have to say thank you and be on my way."
Did it really matter so much who his father was? Would Even's body fall apart if Lumaira didn't know how he had brought him back in the first place?
"But if you ever change your mind," Lumaira mused, pouring out the rest of the chocolate, "It'd be nice to know."
He drank until there was nothing but damp crumbs in the bottom of his cup, then swirled it out in the stream and screwed it back onto the flask. Then he picked up his torch, pulled himself to his feet and, inspecting the valley one last time for a familiar figure, trudged home to creep back into his bed before Naminé returned from work.

"Hey, Lumaira, I'm sorry, I can't come round today. Mum wants me to stay at home with her, and, um, well, I think she wants to spend some time with me. Just us. Dad's going to work, but she took the day off, so."
At seven thirty in the morning, Lumaira found himself sitting cross-legged on his kitchen floor eating toast, and listening to Even's crackling voice through the phone.
"Mkay."
"I told her I wanted to go out with you guys tomorrow, though. I think she figures that if I've been living with you for months without her supervision, it's safe to let me out of her sight for a day."
"Aha, yeah."
"Are you okay?"
Although there was a perfectly good table which Lumaira used most of the time, sometimes he liked to sit on the floor like a small trampish creature and eat without pomp or ceremony. He wasn't sure why.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about how ages ago, I figured that it was okay to go make you breakfast for the same reason. You know, you woke up before me and were reading."
Even didn't speak for a moment.
"Yeah," He said finally. "Yeah, I... I remember that."
Lumaira, mouthful of toast, considered this.
"I'm glad that part's over," He said. At the other end of the phone, Even hummed in agreement.
"Yeah. Things are better now."
"A lot better?"
"Oh, please. I'm getting enough of this from my parents. I mean, it's nice to know they care about me, but I don't need asking if I'm okay every five minutes."
Lumaira wasn't sure if he was allowed to laugh, but when Even did - a small, awkward and adorable noise - he was happy to join in.
"We can go up to the reserve tomorrow though, maybe."
"You and your reserve," Lumaira chided playfully, not caring to mention the hours he'd spent by the fjord, waiting for his absent father. There was a hesitation on Even's part, brief but telling.
"I keep hoping-" He said, but stopped himself abruptly.
"Hoping what?"
"That maybe if we spend enough time there, we might... might catch him."
Him. Lumaira immediately felt grateful that at least when it came to Marluxia, he had a kindred spirit. His Mother seemed content with what little she knew, and L'Erena, now live and well, seemed to have barely a care for the supernatural forces behind her resurrection.
"I mean," Even continued in a faraway voice, "All three of us owe our existence to him in one way or another. I don't know about you, but I want to know more."
"I haven't given up on him," Lumaira reminded Even softly, pushing cold toast around his plate. "Mum's being totally useless about it all, but I still want to meet him."
"Yeah," Even said, and then- "I haven't told Mother about you. She thinks that God brought me back and. Well, I think that's explanation enough for her. No need to overcomplicate things, I guess."
Lumaira giggled a little in spite of himself.
"So I'm God now?"
"Ahaha, yeah, I guess."
"I wish he'd left something," Lumaira said eventually after more crackly static. "A letter, or an heirloom, or something. He must have known that this was going to happen. Or prepared for it, at least."
"Did you ask Naminé about it?"
"No, but she would have said."
"Then we're running around in circles." Even said dully.
"Yeah, we are." Lumaira miserably agreed. They each considered this privately, the silence between them easy and familiar. Lumaira listened out for the sounds of Even's house: his Mother's voice asking faraway things like if Even wanted tea, the click and hiss of the boiling kettle, the dim tune of classical radio. Even's steady breaths falling heavy into the mouthpiece. Lumaira suddenly wanted the boy reassuringly close in his arms, to feel the proof of his existence tangible by his skin.
"Do you want to come around tonight?" Even, who might have been thinking the same things, asked. Lumaira hadn't quite realised how much he had longed to share his bed with Even, until he found himself laughing with relief.
"Yes. Of course."
"It feels strange sleeping in this bed again," Even added in a voice that was small, and a little lonely. "I... I think I'd feel better if you were here."
Lumaira recalled the first days (or maybe the last days) when the image of Even's corpse was still so vivid in his mind, the putrid stench of blood filling his nostrils long after the body had been assigned to the morgue.
"Yeah," He said. "Yeah, me too."
Even laughed a little nervously.
"Sometimes I feel like I still need you so much, Lu."
Lumaira wondered if Even would ever understand just how important it was for him to know that the older boy was alive and healing, every second of every day, and how in the months since his funeral Even had become so irrevocably entangled in Lumaira's life.
Perhaps, given that without him Even's life had been hollow and his body dead.
"I need you too," Lumaira admitted, blushing. And they shared their confessions like children over secret crushes, each imagining perfectly in their minds the other's shy little smile.
"I have to go," Even said reluctantly once they'd said enough soppy sentences to make L'Erena gag. "Mother wants me to keep her company with the housework."
Lumaira glanced up at the clock on the wall - he'd have to go soon too, to meet L'Erena.
"Alright. I'll see you soon. I think we'll stop at five, so I can come round after that?"
"That would be really nice," Even said, and Lumaira could just hear the other boy wanting to say brilliant or wonderful, but not quite managing it in the end. "You know the way, right?"
Lumaira still had every detail of that night painfully etched into his memory - he could remember how to get to Even's house.
"Yeah. I'll be there."
A pause, clatters in the house all that way away. And then, in a voice that was a little muddy like Even was cupping his hand around his mouth:
"I love you,"
Lumaira giggled sheepishly.
"I love you too,"
He listened to Even's house for a few more moments, and then the buzz of a dead line.
Lumaira waited until Naminé came home then gave her a hug and left to meet L'Erena at the wreckage of the petrol station.

Two days later, the three of them packed up their buckets and spades and towels, and took the train east to the nearest sandy beach, for fun and games and sun screen.
"So, Even," L'Erena was saying as they ate their way through several bars of chocolate (on the logic that by the time they reached the beach, it would have all melted anyway - so it was only charitable to have it now). "Are you going back to school with us next week?"
Even, also helping himself to chocolate, shook his head.
"No. Mother doesn't think it'll be a good idea. You know, since everyone knew who I was and all. It'll cause too much of a fuss."
"Imagine that," Lumaira (on Even's lap) giggled, "Imagine everyone's faces when he walked in. I mean, after everything that happened. The assembly and all."
"You had an assembly about me?" Even asked. He sounded surprised, but then again he always sounded surprised when people talked about caring for him in the Before.
"Well, they didn't actually mention your name, but everyone knew," L'Erena said, taking another enormous bite of chocolate. "Lumaira sobbed the whole way through it. Ruined my shirt." She did elaborate further, but her mouth was so stuffed that neither Even nor Lumaira had a clue what she said.
"Well..." Even seemed to be at something of a loss. "Well, we also had an assembly when that really old teacher died, didn't we? A few years ago." And this seemed to satisfy him. "So I think I'm going to go to one of the grammar schools over on the outskirts of town, but not yet. Mother wants me to spend more time with the family first. Recovering."
L'Erena laughed lightly, gazing out at the English countryside speeding past, the marching electricity pylons, the cattle and the wheatfields, speckled with the occasional blood red poppy.
"So you'll have no excuse to go out with us."
"I do," Even retorted petulantly. "It's called Lumaira. What kind of results did you get in your summer exams this year?"
"Well, I had other things to worry about," Lumaira said, trying to sound put out: but he couldn't really feel insulted when Even or L'Erena insinuated that he wasn't as intelligent as they were, because it was true. "Mitigating circumstances."
"You don't even know what that means," L'Erena teased idly - but then, quite suddenly, she stood up, grabbing her seat and staring intently ahead of them. "I can see the sea! We're close, we're close!"
They erupted into a ruckus of excitement and laughter, too long cooped up in the midlands, watching the ocean's horizon bob in and out of vision as bushes, houses and trees sped past. And finally the train ground to a halt for them to climb off, and join other small packs of holiday-goers down to the beach.
"Lumaira, you've got to wear your floppy hat. That's an order."
"You can't order me to wear a hat-"
"-Yes I can. Hop to it."
They banked up near the sea wall, right under the sign that said "do not feed the seagulls", where the sand was the softest and the smell of seaweed wasn't too overpowering.
L'Erena inhaled deeply, and let out a contented sigh.
"So. Who's up for ice cream?"
They wandered down to the van in the car park, Even and Lumaira, with L'Erena guarding the stuff and/or filling everyone else's shoes with sand.
"I haven't been to the beach for a long time."
"Me either," Lumaira said, digging his toes into the hot sand as they made their way back, hands full of newly acquired edible treasures. "Rennie and I wanted to go last year but we didn't have enough money, so we just gave up in the end. Hung around town all summer."
"Did you have plans for this summer?" Even asked. He, actually, had donned Lumaira's hat; it cast dappled light on the boy's gaunt face which, when his expression had that openness that only showed when he didn't think anyone was looking, made him look something closely resembling attractive.
"Oh, no," Lumaira said. "Well, not really. We were going to earn some pocket money at the petrol station, but obviously that fell through. Ahaha. Might have hung out with Rudy and Dilan, I guess."
Even froze a little, bare feet just splashing through a rivulet running through the sand dunes into the sea.
"I didn't know you were friends with them."
Rudy and Dilan were two of the cool kids around school: Rudy because he was a smooth talker never anywhere without a trick up his sleeve, and Dilan because he was huge and (Lumaira hypothesised) had a lot of hair. L'Erena was on good terms with them because she had passing interests a little above her age and Dilan always got served; Lumaira hung around partly because she was friends with them, but also because they provided some protection from the sharp and occasionally homophobic tongues of their fellow students.
"Well," Lumaira said reproachfully; "I mean, not really. L'Erena is, I guess. But they're just, you know."
"They bullied me," Even said. He was looking out to sea, where ships bobbed on and off the horizon and nearby, swimmers paddled lazily in the windless waves. Lumaira wondered if it would be possible to hold the boy's hand, but considering that he was holding two very slippery looking ice creams, he doubted it. So instead he just looked meaningfully at him, a gesture that went by unnoticed.
"They were sorry," He said eventually, remembering the two of them the night they found Even, faces pale and eyes hollow. "They…they were really sorry."
Even glanced back.
"Yeah," He said, like his mind was elsewhere. "They were there, weren't they? That night."
"It was their idea."
They walked a little further on, in silence, because if they stayed up to their ankles in the last vestiges of fresh water the ice creams would melt all over their hands and L'Erena would have their heads for a summer snack instead. Finally, it was Even who broke the pause.
"Lumaira?"
"Uh huh."
"I don't want to, uh, ruin the day, but…why did you go along with them?" And Even took a deep breath. "It just doesn't seem like you at all, to have done something like that."
They were close to L'Erena now. Lumaira jogged over to her, handed her the chocolate, mint and strawberry triple scoop ice cream she had requested, and with a few words to her, led Even down to the waterline, where bits of seaweed and shell were being washed up onto the shore in the receding tide.
"The truth is, I did it because they said I was a pussy if I didn't go along with them."
Even glanced at Lumaira, frowning.
"That's it?"
Lumaira hung his head, stared at the sand gently sucking at his feet.
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"I know, I was kind of wondering if I could pull off a "I just felt like I needed to and it must have been fate" lie, too." Lumaira murmured. "But I was just afraid of being teased." And then: "I'm really sorry."
Even was silent for a long time.
"I kind of understand," He said finally. "I think we've all done things we're not proud of."
Lumaira laughed timidly, and looked back at L'Erena - happily licking at her ridiculous ice cream.
"Except maybe Rennie," He added. Even twisted around to glance back up the beach too; L'Erena seemed to notice, because she waved cheerily at them, and shouted something that they couldn't quite make out against the other children and adults playing on the beach.
"I guess it's what makes us human."
Lumaira, without really thinking, found himself curling his hand around Even's palm. The other boy's hand was hot and clammy from the heat, but it was comforting, somehow. Human.
"Yeah," He agreed. And somewhere, deep inside himself, he wondered if Marluxia had once gazed out at the world with his hand holding tight to that special someone, and regretted and hoped, and loved.

The next day was the last day of summer, and Lumaira kept finding bits and pieces of holiday homework he was supposed to have done, so they collected up all of his textbooks and school supplies, and made one last trek down to the reserve before school and hard work began anew and more important things stole away their attentions. They took the long route down to the fjord, just the way they did the first time they brought Even down all that time ago, dragging their feet in the hot summer sun. Lumaira, jogging to keep up with Even's long legs and L'Erena's purposeful stride, couldn't help but notice how much Even had changed in the months between his funeral and this late August afternoon. He still smiled awkwardly like he was having trouble remembering how, but the important thing was that he smiled; he seemed, somehow, to have grown into himself, his slim, tall figure and freckled face and impossibly bright bespectacled eyes. Things were not the way they had been: they were the way they ought to have been, and that was better.
"Come on, slowpoke!"
Lumaira skidded down the last patch of grass to reach the little bridge across the stream's boggy tributary, then walked with the other two to the fjord where they flopped down and unpacked the sandwiches Lumaira had made them (and which had inevitably been squashed in transit).
"Can't wait for school, eh?"
Lumaira laughed like he was trying (and failing) to be sarcastic.
"The suspense is killing me."
"Ahaha, tell me about it." L'Erena giggled, pulling off her shirt to reveal her bikini top underneath. Lumaira could still trace the faint shapes of the burns on her skin, but she had healed well, and while she'd always have scars she seemed strangely proud of them, showing them off to everyone she met. Lumaira had checked Even, too, and if he looked closely on the blonde's wrists he could just make out a patchwork of very faint lines. But he tried not to look.
"I don't see what you're complaining about," Even said, sniffing, which earned him a light punch, and a charitable laugh. And school preoccupied their thoughts until the sandwiches were nothing but crumbs for the birds and L'Erena had migrated to the water.
"So do you think it was really Marluxia you heard here?" She asked as she bent over to peer through the rippling water for good stones to skim.
"I don't know," Even admitted. "It might have been, but I'm beginning to think I was just imagining things."
"I wouldn't put it past you," L'Erena said, batting away midges. "Do we have any insect repellent? I'm going to be as mothbitten as an old coat if I'm not careful."
Lumaira rummaged around in his dying backpack for the sticky little bottle, finally pulling it out of the depths of the front pocket and splashing over to L'Erena to give it to her.
"C'mon, Even. Why don't you join us?"
Even, long sufferingly, pulled off his shoes and waded out into the deeper water, where it lapped halfway up to his knee, and the current flowed faster.
"I suppose it doesn't matter any more, does it?"
"What, whether or not I get midge bites? Thanks, Even. I used to have great skin, actually."
"I didn't mean that," Even said. "I meant about Lumaira's father."
L'Erena glanced up at Lumaira, who was delicately balancing a glass jar in the stream in the hopes of catching a tiny fish or two. On hearing his name, he glanced bemusedly up, smiling a little.
"Yes?"
"About Marluxia," L'Erena said. She was watching him carefully, but all Lumaira did was shrug, nothing belying his thoughts but a slight depth of sadness to his eyes.
"It would still be nice to meet him," He said, returning to his jar, "But... I've gone my whole life without him. I guess I can survive if he never bothers to turn up."
"For all we know, he might well have just run off," L'Erena added. Lumaira, finally wedging the thing in between two rocks, splashed over.
"It would be nice for Mum if he came back."
But L'Erena was looking at him again, his mouth, his pink lips and the faintest hints of dimples in the crumples of his rosy cheeks when he smiled.
"I don't know," She said at length. "I don't know. Maybe it's time she moved on, too, you know? He was never the be all and end all of everything. Sure, he was important, but… what's important now is what's here. Us."
L'Erena was right. They were here, they were what was special. All Marluxia, whoever and whatever he was, had ever been to them was a ghost.
And she looked up to the sky, and laughed.
"We're here," She said, loudly. "We're here. And we're alive."
Eyes shining, she turned back to Even and Lumaira, who had secretively been trying to hold each other's hands without the other noticing.
"We're alive!"
Lumaira laughed at her.
"Rennie, have you gone mad?"
L'Erena punched him in the shoulder.
"Look, Lulu. Look at us all. You with your pink glowy magical powers, and me and Even. We ought to be dead, us two. And you should probably be a government secret."
Lumaira stole a glance at Even, who was watching out for fish in the stream. But the other boy was grinning.
"She's right, you know."
Lumaira let himself laugh, with a smile that lingered on his face.
"Yeah."
"Yeah? Just yeah?" L'Erena said incredulously. "Come on, Lulu, we're alive! What more do we need?" And she took a deep breath and hollered up into the sky; "We're alive! We're alive!"
"We're alive!" Lumaira echoed enthusiastically. And she, without restraint, called out again, dragging Even over to forcibly hold the boys' hands together, to sing up into the open air. The land around them was empty, and perfect for it; they yelled with all the joy and youthful passion they had in their hearts, and nothing mattered - nothing at all.
High above them, blackbirds soared into the clouds, scattered, and disappeared.
And Lumaira laughed, for Even, and for L'Erena, and for friendship and love, and for being nothing more perfect than alive.