“What is all of this about?” Retvik grunted as Litvir hurriedly dragged him into the office and shut the door, before pulling him over to Litvir’s desk, where his laptop was sitting, open. Litvir then forced Retvik to sit down and look at the laptop screen. Immediately, Retvik worked out what was going on.
“I know you wanted to give up on him, but I could not. So I had Akah play that stupid ninja game and keep an eye out and, well…”
“Is this for real?” Retvik asked, just as a message popped up on the screen. A new message. Asking if they were there. Retvik didn’t hesitate. He immediately grabbed the mouse and hit the call button. Litvir wanted to be annoyed at Retvik, but he understood, he probably would have done the same.
It took a moment for someone to pick up. Again, Retvik didn’t hesitate, he spoke as soon as the call connected.
“Arkay?”
“You, uh, um… uh… oh… Hello, Retvik. I’m sorry. I… I had a whole… speech thing… because I… I get little flashes of memories and I know what I did… can’t find it though and didn’t expect to hear your voice so soon.”
“It is fine, Arkay! I am just happy to hear your voice again! We… we thought you were gone forever.”
“Yeah, well… I kinda am, aren’t I?”
“Are you alright, Arkay?” Litvir butted in. “You seem like you have an awful lot on your mind.”
There was a long, drawn out sigh on the other end. “Yeah, I do. Because Retvik kinda immediately said what I’ve been thinking. I’m gone, forever. Or, at least, a stupidly, stupidly long time…”
“Can I ask, dear, what are you doing right now?” Litvir queried.
“Why are you asking?” Arkay asked back.
“You… uh… have something you want to say…” Litvir’s words were somewhat awkward. Doubly so as Litvir pulled up a chair and sat down next to Retvik. “We all ought to be comfortable before what… well… I assume it is not good news.”
“Well, you’re right there. I’m currently sitting on the large metal panel we have at the top of the universe. Gives me way better signal and Deathnet download speeds. I, uh, found an old laptop of mine in one of Sini’s labs when I was helping her with something. Clearly, before I was reset, I was aware that I’d be… losing out on all these memories, and I must have written a bunch of stuff down. I don’t even think I’m officially a Decay Lord any more, since I noticed my, uh, 4-ev… that’s about a month… those payments have stopped and I’m only getting a 0.5% interest rate…”
Arkay sighed some more.
“I love you both. I know I haven’t shown it, I know I’ve fucked everything up, but I do love you.”
“And we love you too, Arkay!” Litvir interrupted again. “We… what, Retvik?”
Retvik put a hand on Litvir’s shoulder. Litvir was defensive and panicky and it was beginning to show. “Dear, please, let Arkay speak.”
Litvir frowned, then relented.
“Ugh, I feel awful saying this… but, well, yeah, I’m stuck here, forever. As far as I’m concerned, the siblings want this universe to last 20 billion years at minimum. Two billion years have passed, sure, but the Forward Flow of this universe seems to have normalized, and time in here seems to more closely match time out there now. And…”
Arkay stuttered.
“I can’t make you both wait 18 billion years for me to get out of here. Or, well, any time at all. Even a hundred years is too much. I can’t expect you guys to wait for me for so long. I…”
More stutters. Arkay was struggling again.
“I’m not saying I want to stop talking to you or whatever. I want us to still be friends, I still want to keep in touch. But I also don’t want to get between you both. I don’t remember… much at all from when I was free, but I’m certain I totally got between you back when we were together…”
“You are… breaking up with me… us…?” Litvir eventually muttered.
“No… uh… um… No. I’m freeing you both. It’s wrong for me to expect you to wait for me to get out of this stupid universe. Us getting back together in a reasonable time frame is just… impossible. So I’m telling you, stop waiting for me and move on.”
“But… you promised…”
Arkay sighed. “I know. I made a promise I can’t keep. It’s going to fuck me over. Probably already had started fucking me over. But I’d rather only hurt myself than hurt you both as well. And, like, on top of that? We haven’t seen each other in, what, three of your year thingies now? It’s been over for a long time. You guys have built your own lives. I’m working on rebuilding my existence yet again. We’ll still be friends, we can still chat and all that, but you deserve to not be tied to me.”
Retvik glanced at Litvir, who was clearly taking this far worse than Retvik was.
“I understand, Arkay…” Litvir eventually responded. “I am… sorry… I just wanted to hold you once more.”
“It’s not your fault, Litvir. I… I don’t remember much, but you did your best with a broken spirit, and I kinda realize now, I didn’t really appreciate you as much as I should. If anything, I’ve made things worse by coming back online and giving you false hope. I didn’t mean to do that, but I hope that, now it’s obvious that I’m not really coming back any time soon, you can move on and live your lives properly.”
“Still… we… what about… Can we at least work something out, about your promise?” Litvir was clearly struggling. “Maybe… I do not know… perhaps we could visit… you could speak to Sini or something, let us stop by for an hour so you can hug us, fulfil your promise and be free yourself?”
“Hm… I suppose… It’d be… tricky though… I’d have to work out how to bring that up with my owners…” Arkay trailed off briefly. “I know this is an awful thing to have to hear, but, I think, at the end of the day, it’s better for you two. We all knew I was never going to get out of here. Even if time was still weird, you’d still be waiting, what, twenty years? I’m just holding you two back, and, like, I was always the third wheel anyway.”
“You will be lonely though…” Retvik frowned.
“Nah. I won’t be. I have friends here who care about me. And I’ll still message you and occasionally call you. It’ll just be as friends instead of partners…” Arkay paused, then tutted. “Fuck. There’s another one of these stupid swirly platinum Voidborns that I need to deal with. Look after yourselves, alright?”
“We will. Stay safe, Arkay.”
“Love you, Arkay.”
“Goodbye.”
Arkay closed the call on his end, then disappeared into offline mode. After a very long, awkward silence, Retvik took a deep breath. He admittedly felt somewhat… relieved, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But as he turned to Litvir, who was staring blankly at the screen, almost holding his breath and clearly holding in his sorrow, Retvik realized that he was alone in that feeling.
“Dear?” Retvik nudged Litvir. Litvir blinked, then rubbed his eyes. “Litvir, are you alright?”
“What do you think?” Litvir snapped as he staggered to his feet.
“Uh, no, you are not alright.”
“No, I am not!”
“Do you need-”
Litvir snarled, not giving Retvik a chance to finish, but found himself unable to put a proper sentence together. Instead, he made his way to a shadow in the corner of the room and stormed through it, disappearing off to somewhere else.
“Hmph. I guess you need some time to calm down…” Retvik grunted as he closed Litvir’s laptop, then got up to go and do something else for a bit.