You love your brother. You love him more than anything else in your entire colourless world, because though he can't colour it, he lights it up and keeps the monsters of the dark at bay - and you love him for it.
But you can't stand it anymore, walking with his friends to the citadel; eating dinner with the others everyday; waking up at night, alone, because he's out with them again. It hurts too much when he's not there, and you're sick of missing him all the time, because, recently, he hasn't been there at all, and it's almost unbearable. Almost, you think, to keep yourself together, because if he was everything to you, you would break.
He's always told you to be honest, so you are. You tell him everything that you've been feeling, but before you can apologise for it, and try to explain it all to him, he starts yelling at you, because he doesn't understand - how could you be so selfish, he asks, and you think that's a good question, even though you're not even good in the first place.
The two of you will never understand each other, and you tell him, because he told you to be honest; because you know this is the only way to solve it. And when he says he needs some time, you agree to it. "I think I need some time away from you, as well, to sort myself out," you say, with a tone in your voice that even you can't really place. He just pulls away without a word - for a moment there's this ripping feeling in your chest - and he's gone; you're alone in the room; so you sink to the bed and cry, because it hurts more than it should, and you feel like he'd just ripped himself out of your heart; now you couldn't stop bleeding.
Yet you don't go after him, because you have to stop relying on him. You have to grow up, and you both know it all too well.
The next few days are agony, because seeing him now is even more painful than before. He smiles more with the other swords, and eats dinner with them every night, while you sit silently outside, watching the fish swim around in the pond. There are Koi, and catfish, and a bunch of brightly coloured smaller fishes, all swimming around. One of the Koi remind you of yourself; just shades of grey amongst its multicoloured peers.
You used to think that each of the Koi represented each of you, but it couldn't be the case, because recently, you'd spotted an extra one. It was hard to miss (how could you not have noticed it before?), and it looked... familiar, yet you couldn't place who exactly it was… memories were tricky, but you'd counted and named every single Koi in the pond except that one. It was kind of frustrating, but…
Golden specks flitted across the surface of the pond, water rippling as the golden koi's back breached the world above it, and for a moment it feels as if it reaches out to you, wanting to stay up there, before it plunges back to the bottom of the pond, swimming in graceful circles around your fish, darting in to nip at it. You want to cry out - but it's like your mouth's been sealed shut, so you sag back onto the bench. The grey Koi tries to swim away, but fails, and slowly, stops moving. You think it's dead, but then you realise it's waiting for something - Namazuo's Koi swims closer, and for a moment you're fooled into thinking he would actually come save you, but instead he swims away with the golden koi, and you can't stop the tears from falling, because he's finally, actually, leaving you.
Nothing can be done, because nothing is to be done; because nothing will stop him from leaving you. So you let him slip through your fingers, just like that, wondering only for a moment who the golden fish is before you're pushed aside to make way for the newcomer.
In that moment, somewhere in your world that even you have never seen, a shadow breaks the surface, and enters. It's grey and dulled, but it knows you better than you know yourself. And you've met it before, something nags at the back of your mind; a lost memory, but you push it impatiently away - the first you've ever blown a memory away.
The golden fish glances at you as it leaves, chuckling at your foolishness.