Ike had left for lands unknown, 'to find himself', he had said. Soren was the first one he told, but that didn't make the heartbreak any more bearable.
The sky had lost its color, the flowers were only monotone now. Reading, something he used to love beyond all reasoning, no longer mattered in the slightest. He refused to go help with jobs, and rarely went to eat or drink anything but the occasional glass of water. Shinon joked that Soren was trying to become a monk and that he was meditating in his room all day, and that wouldn't have been too far from the truth. Oscar said that he must have been going completely insane over Ike to be this depressed after he left. They call it madness, Soren thought, but I call it love. If he could have reached up and snatched a piece of the sky for every time Ike made him smile, he'd have the whole universe in his hands. Ike was gone, and with it, his universe.
Soren spent his days crying silently, being far too proud to sob and knowing that he would mock himself for it later anyway. He just let the tears roll down his cheeks, watching them, in all their tragic magnificence, and thinking to himself. The last remnants of his soul, of his happiness, of his hope... their final resting place was this old pillow, and they lay there in clear, hollow droplets, waiting to disintegrate and never be seen or heard from again... just like Ike.
After a few days, Soren began slowly sneaking into the mess hall every day, right around the end of breakfast time, and snatched a piece of bread or cheese from the pantry. He would then steal away to his room for another twenty four hours, until the ritual began again. This wasn't because he was getting over Ike, oh no. That would never happen. It was because he felt that he at least needed to eat sometimes, to keep himself alive. But when he thought about it after he had said it to himself, he pondered. Did he really want to live at all? His heart had left with Ike, there really wasn't much of a point in forcing his body to go on as a simple hollow shell, was there? He didn't want to deal with any more people, not one more.
One day, a cloudy, gloomy day, about a month after he had left, Soren got up, put on his robes, went to the mess hall... and Ike was there. Just sitting there, eating his eggs like nothing had ever happened. The mage had stuttered but not really said anything, he remembered. His heart was feverish and pounding and filled with caution and fear. Ike took him back to his room, sat him down, and told him what had happened.
"All my life," He began, "I never really knew who I was. I went around, being myself, but I never knew me. I hated, absolutely hated leaving everyone, especially you, but I knew that I needed to be a little selfish and discover myself. I hope you aren't angry with me." Soren simply shook his head. "I left, thinking that I would be able to look into a Hatari mountainside or sky, and just suddenly see my true self, as clear as day, staring back at me. I finally saw it. I was washing my face in a stream. And I closed my eyes and I thought 'I need to find who I am, I need to, so I can go home and see Soren again,', and I looked into the water. I saw you."
Soren's heart stopped. He didn't even think, he didn't breathe. He just stared. Ike grinned sheepishly, putting his hand on Soren's temple and running his thumb over it gently, like he always did to soothe him. He thought it calmed the mage down, but the fact was, he could touch him anywhere and it would calm him down just the same.
"And I thought for a while, and I realized. I had been so, so stupid. I had left Tellius to find who I was inside, and what and where my heart was. But, in the end, I finally saw that what I was looking for, what I needed so desperately... I had left behind. My heart is here." Ike gently poked Soren's chest.
A long, long pause fell upon them, with Soren holding back tears and Ike simply smiling. "... Well? Are you going to say something or just -"
Soren flung his arms around Ike and kissed him. His universe was back.