Sebi dreamed of the past the night before the semester officially started.
It was a memory from when Sebi was just fourteen. He was at a place he could recall was located at the base high school he went to earlier in his youth, seated on a bench while poring over a book. He was humming nursery rhymes to himself, incredibly immersed in his reading for social studies class.
The book talked about the seven continents and what life was like for the people before the Three Cataclysms that drove humans into these bases. Currently, Sebi was reading up on Europe, specifically the western part. It was one of the richest regions in the world where life was incredibly high quality and sustainable. The region was also where the Northern Earth Base was located, and it was one of the most thriving.
When his eyes landed on the country of Italy, Sebi’s mind strayed to his best friend. Necomir’s family was Italian, but when Sebi flipped to the page with pictures of Italian people on it, he felt a bit confused.
“What are you reading?”
Sebi yelped, surprised when he felt a pair of arms circle around his waist from the back.
“You’re done with classes, Neco?” he asked, reaching out to slide his fingers through Necomir’s ponytail before flipping it.
“Yep. It was boring. I don’t like art class very much. Art is liberating, why critique it?”
Sebi laughed heartily, his voice a little pleasant tinkle that showed his youth. “It’s how I feel towards literature class. I really hate identifying figures of speech! Isn’t it enough that I appreciated it?”
Necomir laughed as he sat next to Sebi, leaning against his body as he peered at what he was reading. Sebi looked to the side and admired Necomir’s very good-looking side profile. He was itching to touch, but that would be weird even among friends.
“I saw your ethnicity,” Sebi said. “But you don’t look like them.”
“Mhm…” Necomir hummed as he nodded. “Humanity has interbred so much since the start of the cataclysms that the line between races and ethnicities have blurred. It doesn’t matter anymore because we are all human.”
Sebi understood this, of course. The teacher told him he looked like an East Asian, but his name had European origins. Then, she proceeded to say it didn’t matter as it did before because humanity needed to set aside their differences in order to survive.
“But if you’re so curious,” Necomir reached out and flipped a few pages before settling to another continent. “I had ancestors from here.”
“Africa?” Sebi read out the name.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“That’s awful,” Sebi said, his eyes drooping sadly. He thought all humans were beautiful and had a purpose in society. It’s hard to imagine such a time when other humans were treated unjustly.
Necomir tilted his head to the side and chuckled as he ruffled Sebi’s hair. “Don’t be sad, we’re okay now. Everyone is more preoccupied about protecting the human race than going against each other.”
“I’m happy you are alive in this time,” Sebi mumbled. “I don’t want you to live in such an oppressive era.”
Necomir stared at Sebi with bright golden eyes, then suddenly enveloped him into a tight hug.
“H-Hey…” Sebi protested, blushing as he tried to push the other boy away. “I c-can’t breathe properly!”
“I don’t want to live in any other time too, because I really like the Sebi in this one,” Necomir solemnly said, pulling away to stare at him with bright eyes and a soft smile.
Sebi felt a bit helpless towards this friend of his, who was very touchy, lively, and handsome. It’s hard to constantly keep himself in check especially with the kind of weird thoughts he had for Necomir, making sure he didn’t do anything drastic that would creep him out.
He really didn’t expect Necomir to have started to become weak with the disease. No one would have noticed, and only when the disease couldn’t be suppressed and was allowed to reach a deadly stage did it finally become noticeable.
And Sebi watched him wither to death.
The dream abruptly ended, and Sebi opened his watery eyes that have become swollen. He just silently sat up in a manner honed by routine. He had woken up at exactly seven in the morning, giving him enough time to prepare for his classes.
Sebi robotically moved, his chest a large hole of pain from that dream. These were past pains he couldn’t easily get rid of even in a new life. They were deep scars that probably will never heal.
Yet, Sebi couldn’t do anything but just keep on moving forward. This was a new life, and it’s a waste of time to mull over old grievances. He only had to live with these scars and become stronger, so he’d one day be able to become confident enough to ignore them.
As Sebi worked through the hour, the dream’s effects slowly subsided and he’s left with anxiety. It was only now that Sebi realized it was the first day of school in a completely new environment with completely new people. No one will talk to him since he’d be a new student, and they will judge him because he was allowed to stay in his year despite being unqualified due to the years he missed out.
This brought Sebi an immensely crippling sense of helplessness and worry that choked his throat and crumpled his chest tightly.
An urgent knock suddenly came on the door. Sebi was having a hard time breathing, his heart was rapidly pounding and he was dizzy, so he couldn’t hear it at first.
I’m dying, I’m dying.
“DECEBAL YAN!” came an angry shout from the other side of the door together with a powerful thump that could only be a kick.
This jolted Sebi, who was able to regain a momentary sense of focus. He reached out and flipped his hand, using his ability to unlock the door.
In came Necomir, who kneeled and hastily took Sebi’s face in his hands then forced him to look up. He took his hands and said, “Sebi, you’re stressed. You might be having an anxiety attack, so calm down. Just breathe…”
Sebi stared at Necomir and followed his breathing pattern. He made himself focus on the length of each breath, mind steering away from his worries. He focused on his breathing, Necomir providing him easy guidance that led him down to the proper path to recovery.
“Better?” Necomir asked after a while when he noticed the symptoms disappearing. He reached out to rub Sebi’s arm in comfort. “You need to go to the clinic, just to make sure you’ll be okay for the whole day.”
“Neco,” Sebi mumbled as he sighed. “I-I think I’m fine… I’m just really too worried if I’ll be able to endure all this…”
“Of course you will,” Necomir quickly said, giving him a soft reassuring smile. “Decebal Yan isn’t my rival for no reason.”
“But I suck,” Sebi sighed gloomily.
“Sebi, don’t be like that,” Necomir ruffled his hair. “Listen, everyone is allowed to grow and make mistakes. You’re just twenty, you only lost six years out of the hundreds of years that you can live in this lifetime. Just… just do what you want to do. Don’t be afraid to fail.”
“What will people think?”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re busy making their own mistakes and improving to care what happens to you.”
Necomir wasn’t just intelligent in his field of specialty, he was also very sensible and good with encouraging those who he trusted enough to be warm around. Sebi felt that if Necomir was always here to urge him forward so that they can have a proper fight between them, he feels like this second chance was actually making sense.
In this lifetime, Sebi will try not to limit himself as much as he possibly could!
“Thank you, Neco,” Sebi earnestly said, eyes forming crescents and his lips tugging up into a warm smile.
“There’s still thirty minutes before class, we need to grab our breakfast,” Necomir softly said. “Are you really okay? It will be better if we go to the clinic first.”
“I’ll be fine. Let’s just eat breakfast. I’ll go to the clinic if I don’t feel good.”
Necomir nodded and helped Sebi up. Although he felt like his treatment towards him has deviated even worse and he’s failing miserably at maintaining that distance between them as rivals, Necomir just couldn’t find it in him to treat Sebi coldly.
Not when Sebi was like a cute little hatchling, in need of care and was very well-behaved…
Necomir cleared his thoughts and mentally punched himself in the face to get his shit back together.
They couldn’t afford to continue wasting their time, so they rushed to the cafeteria and quickly ate, bringing along with them some food in case they got hungry.
“Neco, thanks for eating with me,” Sebi said as they made their way out, munching on some bread. He hadn’t been able to eat the diet plan that included a large meal, and with his enormous appetite, his measly breakfast of rice and eggs with some little meat won’t suffice.
“No problem,” Necomir said. “Let’s go, I’ll bring you to your class.”
Sebi pouted and fumbled with the edge of his uniform. “But you’ll be late…”
“I’ll speedwalk,” Necomir dismissively said as he gestured at him to hurry and follow him.
Sebi could only smile in both relief and appreciation, the bubbling anxiety inside his chest quickly suppressed as Necomir led him away.
Author’s Note:
A glimpse of the past Necomir and Sebi’s relationship <3 Aren’t they just cute? So clingy 
See you on Wednesday!
Sebi is such a soft cutie. Great that he have Neco to support him😇
And, Neco, you have to let your mind wandering freely when you think about Sebi. Especially when it came to how cute and adorable Sebi is and what face he will make when you press him in—[this text is cencored]🌚
Necomir needs to take notes from you!!!! 😂
wow thats like the most traumatic first day of school nightmare sebi could possibly have. he basically just lost necomir all over again :”'(,,,,,,’, even after showering im still messy crying abt that
i wonder if neco can see hints at what caused these disasters his ability warns him about… especially since he clearly used it to break down sebi’s door and stop his panic attack. this was a very emotionally-charged chapter, but that’s ok because it means the writing was ver effective!
Ah makes me happy to see you sympathizing with Sebi ❤ Neco will definitely start noticing something fishy going on eventually but as of now, he just gets glimpses of premonitions that are dangerous to Sebi similar to the earthquake and fire, which he thinks are normal
This line: ” And Sebi watched him wither to death.” just hit me hard. It’s too early to have me crying, I haven’t even had breakfast yet!
But I love how cute they were then and how cute they are now and I’m looking forward to even more cuteness!
Thanks for the chapter <3
They never change 🥺🥰
Thanks for reading 😍😍😍
Thanks for the chapter😍
Thanks for reading 💕💕💕💕
the past Neco is so clingy ah but i like it~ so when will the present Neco unleash his clinginess?? :> thank u for the chapter!!
Past Neco and Sebi and current Neco and Sebi are cute 🥰