Guys. I was going through the documents on my computer, and I came across all these old fanfics I wrote before I started writing The Reincarnate and Rust and Stardust (I'm working on them now, don't worry).
Have a sad Alibaba-doesn't-return fanfic!
Disclaimer: I do not own Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic.
"Breathe. You're going to be okay. Breathe and remember that you've been in this place before. You've been this uncomfortable and anxious and scared, and you've survived. Breathe and know that you can survive this too. These feelings can't break you.
They're painful and debilitating, but you can sit with them and eventually, they will pass. Maybe not immediately, but sometime soon, they are going to fade and when they do, you'll look back on this moment and laugh for having doubted your resilience. I know it feels unbearable right now, but keep breathing, again and again. This will pass. I promise it will pass."
—Daniell Koepke
Every second is suffocating, for all three of them.
She thinks the overwhelming feeling inside of her is the sympathy that she thought she no longer had; the feeling of being breathless and broken and wanting nothing more than to kick her former friend in the face— but she refrains from doing so simply because Hakuryuu was her former friend.
Morgiana doesn't know why she still feels even relatively sympathetic towards this person; her friend turned enemy. She can't even configure how many times she'd woken up in the middle of the night, with the presence of Alibaba and Hakuryuu haunting the foggy space between awake and asleep. She vaguely wonders if Hakuryuu suffers from the same dreams, the dreams that she and Aladdin had grown accustomed to over the past year without Alibaba.
"Lady Morgiana," He greets solemnly, and her fingers twitch with the effort to contain herself.
Aladdin stands next to her, offering Hakuryuu a softened smile, one that Aladdin shouldn't be able to muster— Morgiana feels another wave of silent rage wash over her as she realizes that Aladdin knows the trick of smiling through the pain— and she feels sick to her stomach as Hakuryuu returns it.
Hakuryuu had been exiled from the Kou Empire.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn't a simple banishment. And she knows she's angry with the sudden turn of events, but she complain when Sinbad announced that Hakuryuu would be living in Sindria for the remainder of his days; unless he tried to rebel, of course.
Alibaba was never going to return. Alibaba had only been absent from their lives for a year and every day felt like an eternity. Alibaba was never going to return.
And it was all because of Hakuryuu Ren.
Morgiana doesn't remember what happens next, but Masrur's suddenly holding an arm around her shoulders, and she thinks she's screaming but she can't hear herself, and Aladdin looks terrified and Hakuryuu looks downright bewildered, and Sinbad and the seven other generals are looking at her in what she recognizes as sympathy— and she suddenly realizes that she's screaming at herself for still holding a shred of sympathy for Hakuryuu.
"She's just sad," Aladdin says, sitting crisscross beside Hakuryuu.
The former prince had been sitting in the space between two of the large marble pillars of the palace, his back pressed against the column and his wooden arm resting on a bent knee. He was in desperate need of a haircut, and Aladdin thinks about commenting on how he doesn't look like himself, but he doesn't because he honestly isn't sure who Hakuryuu is anymore.
"She hates me."
The coldness of his tone makes the Magi flinch, but that doesn't stop him from responding. "Morgiana can't hate you. She's still you're friend. She's just sad," Aladdin lifts his head to the sky, the clouds soft against the pale pink sky. "Really sad. Really, really sad."
They fall into a stifling silence, and the young boy knows that the teen is replaying the events of the previous day in his mind, but he doesn't know what to say anymore. He misses the times when he could talk to Hakuryuu openly, without worrying about his words being misinterpreted. And the Magi finds himself thinking of Alibaba again, the person who always remains in the back of his mind, and he wonders when Hakuryuu finally decided that they weren't a good enough source of support for him.
Everyone seemed to avoid them like the plague these days. Whenever one of them would enter a room, silence would befall upon the space as if the inhabitants immediately recognized the feeling of their sadness. Sinbad rarely talked to them anymore, and Aladdin quit visiting Yamraiha after she finally formed a relationship with Sharrkan, and Morgiana and Masrur didn't really 'talk' when they met, given their personalities.
He assumed the presence of someone who cared was enough. Yet, Aladdin knew Hakuryuu cared, and he didn't feel welcomed in the slightest as they sat between those two pillars.
Aladdin was a young boy looking up at a blossoming morning sky, and Hakuryuu was a broken teen looking away from that same sky as if the soft colors hurt his eyes.
Every day in Sindria is a struggle for the former prince.
Hakuryuu finds himself thinking of where he went wrong and the things tended to make reappearances in his thought process— how was Hakuei doing? Where were Alibaba and Judal? Were they still alive? How is it so easy for the islanders to pretend that he doesn't exist when he walks past them? Why is Aladdin still so nice to him after all of the things he did? How much easier it would be if Morgiana finally said she hated him?
No one tells him to put away his metal vessels, but the days come when he begins leaving Belial's vessel in his quarters and he only brings Zagan out of necessity. Zagan hasn't talked to him in months, and he knows it's because there's nothing to talk about now, and Belial doesn't talk to him for obvious reasons.
He'll spend hours pondering over what could have been and what is; in one future he could have been an emperor and in the current one he was an exile who was going to live out his days in the land of Sindria.
He considers asking if he can leave— not Sindria itself, but only the mainland, where he could live out his days on an uninhabited island surrounding the country.
Where he wouldn't have to wonder if Hakuei was happily chatting with Kouen and their step-siblings. Where he wouldn't be a nuisance to the civilians who recognized him. Where he wouldn't have to deal with the pain of facing Aladdin and Morgiana.
Years pass in a daze.
Morgiana talks to Hakuryuu sometimes, and Hakuryuu listens when she does. They're too broken for any other kind of relationship, but the presence is enough.
No one remembers when Aladdin leaves, but they notice the absence immediately when he does. The last they hear of the Magi is that he's wandering about, like Yunan, and that he's happy.
And they all are.
They aren't sure when the thoughts of their missing friends quit haunting their thoughts day in and day out, but they eventually manage to do so.
Morgiana decides that forgiveness is simply forgetting what a person has done wrong, and Hakuryuu decides that he can't run away from those who only wish to help him, and Aladdin decides that he simply can't be held down to one place.
They go on. Until Morgiana forgets about her sympathy towards Hakuryuu, and Aladdin quits thinking about how things used to be and begins focusing on what will be, and Hakuryuu quits wondering about how everyone else is and starts focusing on what's important to him.
They begin to breathe again.