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One day, Kim Roksu showed up in Cale Henituse’s home and have been staying there ever since.
Kim Roksu. The original owner of Cale Henituse’s body.
He is an interesting man, in Alver’s humble opinion, with many similarities as his sworn younger brother, like this habit of showing up unannounced and disrupting his peaceful afternoon.
Not that Alver minded.
There is something about this man... something that Alver could not quite grasp.
They're talking in the gardens, an activity that has been happening more and more frequently these days, and Alver is starting to get annoyed because Roksu is looking at him weirdly again, like he knows more things about Alver than he lets on, almost as if he knows Alver personally.
It's a strange sensation, but Roksu is a pleasant conversation (if a bit infuriating), and Alver can't help but be at ease with him.
He's like Cale, in a way, stomping into his life with no explanation and then planting himself firmly there, but unlike Cale, Alver feels as if Roksu would slip between his fingers and then uproot himself and take a piece of Alver away forever.
"Are we friends, Roksu? In that past life of yours."
Alver asks, curious, not being able to think of any other explanation. It's unlikely that he had friends, he knows himself enough to know that he won’t willingly let himself be vulnerable enough to be close to anyone that way, but if it's possible in this timeline then it could be possible in the other one.
Roksu smiles, and there it is again, the odd melancholic gaze directed at his way.
"Hmm. Friends." Then Roksu chuckles, like he remembered a joke only he found funny, "Yes, you could say we were friends."
Before Alver could say anything to that Roksu reaches a hand out to him and he instinctively evades, getting more puzzled at the passing hurt he saw on the other's face.
Roksu's hand had paused mid-air, and all emotion is back behind a mask of nonchalance.
Alver doesn't know what to make of it.
Still, Alver kept still when the hand slowly reached out to him again, scarred fingers brushing his jaw, traveling down his neck and collecting the thin chain that always rests there.
Alver should be alarmed that Roksu now has the necklace in his grasp, but he's more alarmed that the action felt so devastatingly, oddly familiar that he could feel an ache in his chest.
"You look better without your necklace, your majesty." Roksu casually says, looking up at him.
Alver's heart hammers in his chest. Roksu is doing it again, calling him majesty when he's not yet king, like all he's ever known Alver for is a king, like he's used to looking up at him and serving at his feet.
"Who are you, Kim Roksu?" Alver asks, because he needs to know.
But more than anything he wanted to ask, "Who are you to me?"
Instead of answering directly though Roksu hums instead, like he's thinking of the most appropriate answer, thumbing at the pendant still in his hand, until...
"You know how Cale remembers everything, right?"
Alver nods, unsure on where this is going, the chain of the necklace digging at his skin at the action.
"Well, Cale is someone who cannot forget and I'm... Well, I'm the only one left that remembers."
Roksu then gave him a look, of untold stories and untold grief and untold love.
And Roksu kissed the pendant, surprisingly tender as he graced the object in his lips, the action catching Alver off guard from the sheer affection of it, because that necklace represents the side of Alver that completes him.
It was like Roksu had just kissed all of Alver, the real Alver, the Alver in his very core.
And before Alver can recover Roksu lets go of the necklace, letting it rest gently back to his chest, smiling and turning away like nothing happened.
Roksu still hasn't answered his question, and Alver doesn't know if he wants to find out.