bluekinu said I should try to write something not YuuRam for once. She never said I had to leave MaruMa. -grins- This is for you, Angela.

GONE AWAY

For a brief moment, Ken Murata wondered if the sand beneath his toes could have been boulders back when he'd lived -- back when both of them lived. He curled his toes in and gathered more of the fine, powdery substance in. The wavelets left wet little kisses at his feet and bottom and the soft foaming of the surf seemed to round about him as if he were a curiosity, an unplanned obstacle in their attempt to sweep the beach before they returned to the drink. The water flowed past and around the young man, not minding him. Murata wondered vaguely if he was sitting in a metaphor. Nah.He was just thinking too much again. The universe would not have gone out of its way to tell him he was unwelcome, not when he already knew.

It wasn't often that he experienced these "episodes". When he was younger he could not tell dreams from reality and had needed Dr. Rodriguez to sort him out. Ancient and young, wise and innocent, world-weary and eager, Murata was a walking paradox – the poster boy of irony.

Murata looked to the other side of the beach where a boy and a girl were sitting comfortably watching the same sunset as he and wondered how the same sight meant two very different things for them. Perhaps he wasn't all-knowing after all.

Ken stood up and brushed the sand off his shorts absently, more out of habit than anything. Then he looked upwards at the stars and gave them a small smile. They understood. Everyone saw them, and they saw everything. They were all-knowing and wisely kept silent.

Walking to the pension house became just a question of putting one foot before the other. He would shut down his mind until he saw Yuuri and go back to being the Maou's friend. For now he would be someone else's – someone else as old and tired as he. He closed his eyes once more and it was that morning back in the Original King's palace. He could still remember the feel of cobblestones beneath his feet as he gazed out into infinity, his hands on the railing of the balcony that looked out into the beyond. A cold breeze was blowing but his body did not have a moment to shiver as he felt a soft, thick, fur cape wrap around his shoulders and held fast by strong, muscular arms that rounded his lean frame. The advisor leaned back into the warmth.

"You're thinking too much again," the Original King said.

The Great Sage smirked. "Someone in this relationship has to,"

The monarch gave an indignant huff and was about to loosen his hold but the Great Sage would have none of it and held onto the king's arms, keeping them around him. "Stay," he double-black said quietly.

The ruler relented, his infamous stubbornness put aside for a moment as he laid his chin upon the point where the Sage's neck and shoulder met. "I'll always be here, no matter what anyone says to the contrary," he said.

The Great Sage sighed. "I know," he breathed. "I think that is what scares me the most, Dieter."

The Original King laughed, then tightened his hold. "You haven't addressed me as that in a while, Eldwin,"

"Would you rather I not?"

"You alone call me that now. Soon enough I won't remember I was anyone else but this country's leader. People forget I am a man, too."

The Great Sage scrunched his eyes shut and fought back twin tears that threatened to roll down from infinitesimal wells he'd let run dry for the longest time. "I won't forget," he promised as he and the King both looked into the sunset that would mark their final moments and begin that of the king's ultimate sacrifice.

Eons later Murata would time and agan wonder why his friend had given up the freedom of his immortal soul for finite beings that squabbled over the transient: land, power, money -- time had taught him that these did for one so little. It was the truth of the insane: the world has crazed itself with greed and his friend had paid the ultimate price for his kingdom's posterity. The Sage wanted to kick and scream -- to unleash his wrath on the descendants of the descendants of the descendants of the people they have lived to serve. For the people's love they both have given up everything, and now that Shinou was gone, it seemed as it was all for naught.

Left before right, left before right. Keep walking.Murata closed his eyes, muttering to himself, not caring when he stepped barefoot on sharp objects or bumped into things. His throat constricted. The floodgates threatened to burst, but he fought it down -- the despair, the misery. He talked to Shinou. He prayed to the gods. He got his answer in the silence. He screamed in his head. "How do I know you ain't gone away? Heaven's on your doorstep, and you ain't gone away?" Murata fell on his knees and put his weight on his hands.

Make up lies, tell you things and you ain't gone away, the wind told him. Murata curled himself up into a ball on the sand and wept.

Ken Murata woke up when he felt a warm jacket around his shoulders. He hadn't realized that he had arrived at the door of the cottage he'd shared with his friends and that he'd been standing still at the doorway unmoving for some time. He smiled at the faces that greeted him as he took the sight of them in: Yuuri, Wolfram, Gunter, Gwendal, Conrart, Cecilie, Annisina, Giezela, Greta and, in his head, ever present, the man these people called the Great One. It was at that moment that it struck him: his friend had kept his promise after all. He hadn't gone away.

Sayo: I don't own "Gone Away" by Binocular and most especially not Kyou Kara Maou! Song's on my profile if you wanna listen to the song that inspired this fic.