Finally, the longed-for vacation arrived, and Fourth and Gemini as Tinn and Gun decided to go on a trip.  They packed the car, borrowed again from Ayan, with everything they thought would be needed, including two portable refrigerators, one containing the beer cans that Gun and Tinn's friends had asked for, and the other containing other drinks.  Tinn's mom, who had invited Gun's mom, whom she had known long before as both women were members of the Order of the Seventh Fire, to gossip, packed them a wicker basket full of snacks.  The two women hugged their foster sons as if they were their sons, then wished them a good time and watched the boys get into the white Toyota and drive away.

Gun drove, letting Tinn take a nap.  Songs that they had recorded not so long ago, just before the last day of school, played from the loudspeaker.  They were going on a well-deserved vacation together.  The weather was beautiful and they couldn't wait for Kluen and Dao to welcome them to their resort.  Ayan and Akk and Akk's twin brother Yok were already there, taking the most comfortable rooms with the best views and unpacking.  Akk, Yok and Ayan even had a pillow fight, which ended with Yok throwing Akk into a small fish pond at the back of the hotel.  Everyone was constantly sending them photos and videos, urging them to hurry up.  Yok suggested that they bring some snacks with them, he took care of enough alcoholic beverages himself, Ayan and Akk brought with them piles of board and card games.  Akk and Dao reported everything via a live broadcast on PintStagram (Earth's equivalent of Instagram), showing them a beautiful resort and amazing views.

Fourth wished the real Tinn and Gun were there, but Akk, Ayan, Yok, Dao, Kluen, Louis, AJ and JJ (another pair of twins) were members of the Order of the Seventh Fire themselves and knew the boys' situation perfectly well and  that's why they came up with a joint holiday.

“Yok didn't want to come at all, I had to get him out of his garage,” Akk informed them carelessly, laughing as if he had just told the best joke in his life.

“What?  Why?”  Gemini raised his eyebrows.

“He's still down after breaking up with Dan.  I wish I could find him someone cool, but no one is as cool as my Aye, right Aye?”  Akk pulled Ayan, who was a bit reluctant, and ruffled his hair as if Aye was a cute dog.  Gem and Fourth merely exchanged knowing glances.  In their home world lived twins Akka and Ayana, and their names were First and Khaotung.  Fourth decided that he would tell his friends everything as soon as they got there.  They planned to light a fire at night.  Gem was to play the guitar and the others were to sing.  Everything was prepared and waiting for them.  It was their first vacation together, their first long journey together.

A comfortable room with a view of the beach, the most delicious breakfasts in the area, many hours of late-night conversations with new friends and good fun awaited them.  The weather was fine, even though it was getting dark.  The sky turned gray before they could turn around, but they paid no attention to it.  They were engrossed in conversations with Akk, Ayan, Dao, Kluen and Sean running back and forth almost aimlessly.  It quickly turned out that Sean wasn't running around aimlessly, but instead he was chasing a small, slim boy whom Gem and Fourth recognized as Gun Atthaphan's doppelgänger.

The journey took a long time, and Gem managed to doze off at some point.  When he woke up, he insisted that Fourth, or Gun, let him drive their car, but Fourth claimed he wasn't tired yet and their resort was not far away.  Gem looked at him closely and noted with concern that Fourth looked noticeably tired.  He was so focused on driving that he answered every question in monosyllables.  Only at the last moment did Gem sense the danger approaching without warning, but he didn't manage to warn his boyfriend.

Suddenly, something happened that they didn't expect. In the worst nightmares they couldn't imagine what had happened next.

Their plans, their dreams, their future together... Everything suddenly ceased to exist, and their well-ordered lives and the world in which they were happy fell apart with the grinding of metal, someone's scream full of terror and despair and the silence that fell  around them and a darkness they did not expect to appear.

The last thing they saw was the flash of the headlights of a car that seemed to be black, but neither of them could be sure.  Their shrill screams pierced the silence of the night, mingling with the grinding of metal, the barking of dogs, and the distant rumble of thunder that heralded an approaching storm.

Gem opened his eyes first and struggled to get out of the shattered vehicle.  Before doing so, he looked around for Fourth, but he was nowhere to be seen.  Only after a while did he realize that the car was overturned on its roof, and there were not only shards of glass and plastic around, but also blood.

Whose blood was it?  His or Fourth's?  Or maybe someone else?

In addition to Ayan's white Toyota, or rather its wreck, a black Mercedes lay on its side nearby in the other lane of the wide street, its front end completely destroyed, and clouds of gray smoke coming from the engine.

Gemini looked around helplessly and saw several onlookers recording the whole event with their phones.  Nobody came to help them.  They all just stood and watched as if they were just spectators in a movie theater.  Gem was furious with them.

Why didn't anyone approach them?  Why didn't anyone even try to help?  Did they not understand what had happened?  Or maybe they didn't care at all?  Where has the empathy gone?  Could people in this universe not know such feelings?

Fourth... I need to find Fourth!  He thought desperately looking around.  Fotfot, where are you?!  FOURTH?!

Fourth was nowhere to be seen.  And though Gemini saw the flashing lights of the police car, saw people talking to each other, and saw the branches of nearby trees moving in the wind, he heard no sound.  He started slapping his hands against his ears as if that would help, but nothing changed.  There was complete silence in his head.  He wanted to scream, he was sure he was screaming, but no sound came out of his throat.  He fell to his knees on the rough asphalt, raised his hands to the sky, then cried silently.  He was sure he had lost Fourth forever.  He saw blood, and his boyfriend was nowhere to be found.  He realized that his body must have already been taken.

He understood it, but he didn't want to believe it.  It dawned on him as he knelt among shards of glass, plastic, and metal.

My Fourth, my mysterious stranger... No, that can't be true.  He's definitely around here somewhere, for sure.  I couldn't lose him.  NO!  This is not really happening!  Please, Fourth, speak up, come to me!

But though he summoned him in his mind, he felt it was in vain.  Usually he could read his boyfriend's thoughts, but now he couldn't make contact with him.  His mind was filled with a murderous emptiness and silence that he hated most in the world.

Fourth, babe, baby, talk to me!  Give me a sign, show me you're okay.  Come to me, I'm here.  Fifi!  I beg!

His scream rose skyward, startling two curious kids who had stopped their bikes at the scene of the accident, but he didn't realize it.  His world went black, and a heavy, tarry ooze seeped into his heart, weighing it down more and more with each passing second.  He didn't know how long he had been unconscious.  He didn't know when the police and ambulance arrived, he didn't know if and when Fourth had been taken away, he only knew that he couldn't sense his life energy as if Fourth had suddenly disappeared.  And that was what he feared the most.

A man dressed in a paramedic uniform approached him, said something to him, but Gemini didn't hear anything.  He tapped his ears with his finger to let the man know he couldn't hear him.  He wanted so badly to ask him about Fourth, to find out how he was, if he survived, and if so, where was he now and how was he?  Gem wanted to know everything, even if it meant the worst news.  The man lifted him with strong arms, examined it from all sides, looking for signs of more serious injury.  The boy was badly injured, he had a nasty-looking cut on his temple, in which a piece of thin, jagged metal was stuck, and his hand was cut with glass, probably from the mirror in which Gemini was looking at himself as soon as they got into the car.  The rescuer was sure that Gemini was in such shock that at that moment he didn't feel pain yet.  He immediately called his friend to him, who, seeing the wounded Gemini, shook her head, aware that this could be a difficult case.  She said something to the man, and Gem wanted to know what it was, but he tried in vain to pick up any sound.

Both paramedics took him to an ambulance he hadn't noticed before.

Trams, buses and cars have been stopped and a large traffic jam has formed.  Two policemen were directing traffic, trying to make sense of the chaos there.  Another policeman took care of driving away onlookers who couldn't bring any helpful evidence to the case, while his two colleagues wrote down the names of witnesses who had arrived first or had been here before.

Gemini was terrified.  His whole body trembled with uncontrollable shivers, tears flowed from his eyes and blood ran down his face, although he was unaware of it.  Icy cold enveloped his body from the outside like cool water in a frozen lake somewhere in Europe.

This was the second time he had faced death, but this time it had far worse consequences.  And although he understood what had happened almost immediately, he couldn't accept it.  At the hospital, everyone heard him whisper two nicknames alternately: "Fourth" and "Gun."  Only he could hear absolutely nothing.

* * *

A few hours later, when all the tests were done and a piece of sheet metal had been removed and all the wounds had been disinfected and bandaged, a woman he had met while staying with Tinn entered the room where he was lying.  He knew she was of the Order of the Seventh Fire, but he had no idea what position she held.  The woman sat down on the chair next to him and handed him a notebook and a pen.

"What happened?" he asked, writing very quickly and carelessly.

"You had an accident." The woman answered him.

"I know that, but what about Gun?"

"Gun is dead and you'd better forget about him as soon as possible, it's better for you that way." Those brutally honest words were like a sword falling on his chest, cutting his heart in two.  This sincerity was so unexpected and so painful that Gem, who was no longer in physical pain thanks to the medication he had been given, wanted to scream, but again no sound came out of his mouth even though he opened it wide.

"Where's Gun's mom?  I need to talk to her, I need to apologize to her!"  – Gemini begged on paper.

"I don't think this is a good time to talk to her.  You must forget about this boy."

"I can't do that!"

"You have to!  You are under my protection from now on.  Neither Tinn's mother nor Gun's mother want to talk to you right now.  You have to leave them alone."

Gem wanted to write that it wasn't the real Gun, but when he looked at the woman's stern face, he gave up further attempts to extract information from her.  He didn't understand anything.  He thought if he found Gun's mom, Fourth would be there with her.  He didn't know why the two things were connected in his head, but he figured it was impossible for Fourth to die.

* * *

“Who are you?”  The boy lying on the hospital bed with only a few wounds asked, looking at the two people standing next to the hospital bed he was lying on.  Uncle Jim exchanged horrified looks with his sister.  The woman came to this world many years ago with her own brother, with Earth Pirapat, who ran his own restaurant on a daily basis here.  On the Gaya II she met the man of her dreams and decided that she didn't want to return to their world where no one was waiting for her.  She got married, gave birth to Gun and led a pretty happy life until the car accident that killed her husband.  Since then, she could no longer live in one place and moved constantly.  Jim thought his sister was running from something, but she never told him what she was running from.

“God, he doesn't recognize us,” the woman whispered and clasped her hands.  Uncle Jim hugged her.  He knew that his sister felt responsible for this boy, P'Zee entrusted Fourth to her care and believed that the boy would be safe here, while she was unable to foresee the danger and protect him.  She felt remorse and resented herself for not having done something better.

“Are you kidding me Fourth?”  Earth addressed the boy lying on the bed directly, as if he really hoped Fourth was joking, but he knew all too well the history of Fourth and Gemini, and if Fourth didn't ask about his boyfriend first, it must have been  really bad for him.  If Fourth remembered everything, he wouldn't be acting like this... Exactly, how?  So... So calmly, as if nothing was reaching him.

“Who's Fourth? That's my name?”

The woman yanked Jim by the arm and led him out into the empty corridor.

“He really doesn't remember anything, Dr. Timmy warned us. You can see it yourself.”

“So, what's now?”  The man asked helplessly.

“We will tell him that his name is Li Ming and that he lives and works with you.”

“It's not going to happen! No, no way!” Jim protested.

“Come on, I'll talk to Gaipa and Leng, they'll help us.”

“You want to trick him like that?”

“And what more can I do?  He doesn't even remember Gemini or Tinn!  Let's use it.  Only then will he be safe.”

“I don't know if it's a good idea, I really don't want to cheat him, he's my ward.  I don't know if Zee will agree.”

“Do you see any other way out? This is the second time they were attacked while they were together.  For their safety, we must separate them.  I spoke to Zee this morning, he said they've already captured the monster impersonating NuNew, but they haven't found the boy, and the woman who is said to be behind the attacks is still on the loose.  The boys are not safe yet.”

“I'll talk to Zee about it later,” Jim gave in.

In fact, it was Earth Pirapat and he went to planet Gaia II to help the local team of Shadowhunters, which, unlike his native unit, was a very recent unit and its members still lacked the appropriate experience and often also training.  Jim was responsible for mediating between Earth and Gaia II.

* * *

Gem was furious when he found out that his guardian knew that Fourth survived but she didn't tell him anything. He wanted to go and visit him right away but she didn't let him go out. She said, or rather wrote in his notebook, that it was too dangerous for him to go out and that he needs to stay home for his own safety. In first two weeks after Gem found out about Fourth, she used to close the door what created in him uneasy feeling that he was at the orphanage or prison.

Gemini thought many times about how to pass the information to Fourth.  He had lost all contact with him since their accident.  The problem was not only that he couldn't hear himself and stopped using his voice.  Another issue was that Fourth couldn't remember anything and P'Earth warned Gemini, now called Heart, not to try to talk to him or remind him of anything under any circumstances.

"You aren't safe," P'Earth wrote in the notebook Gemini handed him. "In your real world, there is still a person at large who nearly killed F, we can't risk it. It's for your own good. Forgive us."

But Gemini couldn't forgive that.  He missed Fourth every day, and what hurt him the most was that the boy also couldn't remember what they had shared before.

Gemini sat down at the desk and placed his slender fingers on the keys of the keyboard.  He wanted to play again, to hear the sounds again, and he would love to hear Fourth's voice.  He couldn't bear to lose Fotfot for the third time.  The first time when Fourth had saved his life in their universe.  The second time when it turned out that Fourth is NuNew's boyfriend, and now it's happened for the third time.  Gem loved him with all his heart and that was why it hurt so badly.

Fortunately, fate was on their side and allowed them to meet again.

That evening Gem was home alone.  In the dim yellow light from the kitchen lamps, he reached for the liquor bottle.  He wanted to drown his own memories in this way.  He wished they both had lost their memories, maybe it would have been easier then.  When he suddenly felt someone's presence, he spun around, and when he realized in a split second who he was looking at, he dropped the vessel in horror, breaking it and spilling the precious liquid on the floor.  Fourth didn't understand.  In addition, he was surprised that the boy opposite him apparently used gesture speech to communicate with others.  Ashamed of what he had led to, he backed away as fast as he could.  He didn't understand the gesture language, he didn't know that Heart had assured him his parents wouldn't find out, and he hadn't had a chance to see Heart's eyes filled with disappointment and pain.

Heart tried to clean up after himself, but gave up when one of the glass shards painfully cut his finger, causing a tiny trickle of blood to appear.  Heart waved his hand resignedly.  He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall of the kitchen island, and allowed himself a moment of weakness.  Unaware that he was doing it, he repeated over and over again in a voice hoarse, as if rusty from disuse, one word, a nickname that had a unique meaning to him, although to an outsider it was only a numeral.

“Fourth, Fourth, Fourth...” He spoke louder and louder.  He couldn't hear himself, had no idea he could do it.  Now he was beginning to regret not agreeing when New asked him to perform with Fourth at a small concert Zee had planned for the Non-Magical.  How many times had he wondered what it would be like if they really performed together on the big stage?  Would stage fright eat them up the first time?  Or maybe they would do well and be rewarded with thunderous applause?  Maybe their voices could create an extraordinary harmony, a melody filled with love and happiness that others would enjoy?  Now, if by some miracle they returned to their world and Fourth regained his memory, and Gemini regained his hearing, perhaps in their songs, apart from love, there would also appear despair, longing, loneliness and an intense desire to overcome the invisible barrier that separated them from each other.

Gemini was rocking back and forth as if that would at least ease his pain.

He met him again.  And he ran away from him again.  His hero, his stranger, his beloved.

And although Gemini wasn't a religious person, this time he folded his hands as if in prayer, looked up at the white ceiling, which seemed mustard in the light, and mentally said the words in two languages.  In this universe, everything was darker, sadder, and more oppressive, and the colors much more faded and subdued.  He missed not only Fourth, but also his brothers, Phuwin and his not-so-clever jokes, the way Phu accused him of stealing his clothes every time, Dunk, who had been almost inseparable from Joong for some time.  He even missed his somewhat annoying friend, Rose.  He even remembered NuNew with warmth.

One afternoon, in a fit of desperate courage and mad longing, knowing that his guardians were not at home, he slipped away and went in search of Fourth.  He found him at a chicken restaurant, where he saw Fourth wearing a rather tasteful apron arguing with someone Gemini recognized as Earth Pirapat, one of the Knights of the Light.  He wished he could hear what the two of them were arguing about.  All he saw was Fourth angrily taking off his apron and throwing it on a nearby empty table.  Fourth ran out and passed Gemini as if he were invisible air.  It hurt, but it let him know that Fourth obviously didn't remember him.  Gemini returned to his home heartbroken.  In the apartment he searched all the cupboards in vain for his stele.  She was nowhere.  He didn't know if he had lost it on the day of the accident or if it had been taken from him so he couldn't use it.  The fact that Fourth didn't recognize him made him feel even more alone and abandoned.  Right now, he'd give anything to have even his annoying little brother show up and take them both home.

To home.

He suddenly understood what Fourth was talking about when he told him that he had never felt at home anywhere, that the word was very abstract to him.  Now Gemini also felt like he had no home, and this place was just a building where he slept, ate breakfast, and tried to get through each day without boring himself to death.

I want to go home, he thought desperately, I want to see my mother, my Fourth, Dunk and Phu, I want to come back home, my home where Fourth remembers who I am to him... I want to go home.

And he felt like a small child taken from his parents and placed in an orphanage, among strange walls, hostile looks from other pupils and harmful opinions of their guardians.  He felt much more of a stranger here than at Tinn's house, where Tinn's mother had done everything to make his stay there more pleasant and to lessen his longing for his own family.

Now that silence had become his best friend, he began to see the world differently.  He had too much free time, which he often devoted to drawing.  He created portraits of people close to him, places he remembered from their universe, sometimes he also painted various important scenes from his life.  One painting was made in several copies, including one with oil paints, and it depicted the moment of their first kiss in Tinn's room.  He became an expert at sketching Fourth's likeness.

Sometimes, when he lay on his bed at night, he would stare at the ceiling and imagine what was going on in their real house.  At the Institute, their relatives and friends must have done everything to get them out of there.  Especially since it turned out that even here they weren't safe at all.  Someone had attacked them.  Someone who had bad intentions and someone who definitely knew who they were and where they came from.  It had to be someone from their universe.  Gem could only hope that Zee, First, Phu, Dunk, and the others would quickly track down this person, locate and catch him, sending him back where he belonged: to the darkest dungeons in the basement of what looked like an abandoned hotel from the outside.  In these cells, looped playback of a single piece of music was sometimes used as a means of torture, driving convicts or suspects to the verge of insanity.  These methods were not very humane, but the creatures they were used on deserved no lesser punishment.  Gem had heard of a man who murdered his little son, beating him, burning his skin with cigarettes, and even strangling him.  The boy struggled with the effects of his injuries for a month before his frail, malnourished body gave up.  Just thinking about the existence of such monsters made Gemini want to do the same with the person who committed this act.

“You piece of trash!”  He remembered shouting it in the man's face as he jumped up from his chair behind the table in the interrogation room.  The piece of furniture tipped over with a dull rumble hitting the floor, but Gem didn't pay attention to it then.  He was furious.  The blood in his veins was boiling.  He could feel the magic coursing through his body in waves, and he was ready to use it to hurt the man.  Hatred was alien to him, and he had not understood, until now, what drove men to such abominable and horrible deeds.  “How could you do this to him?!  To your own son?  A child who was freaking innocent?  You fucking psychopath! I hope you'll get what you deserve, you scumbag.”

Gemini didn't hit him.  He didn't even raise his hand.  It was his magic that spilled out and, like a gust of hurricane, hit the man, knocking him to the floor.

Suddenly, with a loud hiss and the stench of burning hair and bones, black smoke began to come out of the area around the man's heart in larger and larger clouds.  Gemini knew what it was.  He was always a diligent student and also at the Institute he listened attentively to the teachings of Mr. Jakapan.  It was one of the demons, apparently taking over the body of a spiritually weak man.  The smoke slowly began to form into a figure and a moment later, instead of smoke, a figure confusingly similar to his beloved Fourth was standing in front of him.  It distracted him.  He knew what he had to do, knew he had to reach into his belt, take out the silver dagger that was sheathed at the bottom of his back, and drive the blade as deep into the creature's heart as possible, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.  He stood there paralyzed, breathing hard.  The specter resembled his beloved hero so much that it blocked his every move.  He felt that if he did what he had been taught, he would hurt the real Fourth, betray him.

Without First and New's intervention, it would have ended badly for him, as the demon was about to take over his body, making him something of a zombie.

He thought about all this as he sat on the floor of his living room.  Finally, exhausted, he fell asleep.  He was awakened only by the warm touch of the hand of a woman who in this universe introduced herself as his mother, but never was.  The woman kept a cool distance from him and communicated with him by writing in a notebook.  It was humiliating and painful for him.

If you want to pretend to be my mother, you could at least put in some effort and learn at least the simplest of sign language, he thought ruefully.  This building was like a prison he couldn't get out of.

The "mother" noticed the broken glass on the floor, picked up one piece and showed it in the palm of her ward's hand.

"What is this?"  She wrote on a piece of paper in the notebook she handed to Heart.  The boy shrugged.  He didn't want to tell her about it.  However, a moment later he remembered that his "parents" didn't know anything about what Fourth was up to, and perhaps they didn't even know that Gem had met him. He took this opportunity to text her that it was the boy who delivered the chicken  for supper.

"He must have seen your collection and wanted to have a drink, but I scared him and he ran away," he wrote.

He hoped Fourth would get away with it without any problems.  He couldn't be more wrong.

* * *

During an argument with a policeman and his wife, Li Ming got a good look at the boy who was sitting with his parents on the couch.  His heart beat faster as their eyes met.  The boy seemed oddly familiar, as if he had met him somewhere before, but he didn't know where.  He tried to remember it, but the woman's words effectively distracted him.

“I didn't do it!”  He defended himself.

Heart looked at him with despair written on his face.  How could everything have gone so wrong?  He wasn't going to frame Fourth, he didn't want to get him in trouble, he didn't think these people would be so obstinate.  If he could, he'd walk up to Fourth, shake him, and yell in his face, "It's me, your boyfriend, your Tinn and your Gemini, it's me, why don't you recognize me?!".

And suddenly it dawned on him why the woman who had taken care of him in this universe had allowed them to meet.  He understood it, and it hurt him.

Of course.  They wanted to show him and remind him that Fourth didn't remember anything, including him or what had happened between them.  It shattered his last hope of getting back the boy he loved no matter who he was, what his name was or what universe they were in.  His guardians clearly misunderstood his sadness.  The woman patted his head and smiled as warmly as possible.  He had no grudge against her, she finally granted his request, allowed them to meet, only that this meeting turned out to be a cruel torture.

He doesn't recognize me, he doesn't know who I am.  It must be terrible not having any memories, he thought and hid his face in his hands as he watched Li Ming talking outside the building with his guardian, Uncle Jim.

And just when he had accepted the fact that he had lost his boy forever, a miracle happened that he didn't dare even dream of.  Li Ming entered the living room and offered to pay off the spilled alcohol by working off everything.  Gemini was afraid to hope again, he was afraid of being disappointed, he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to communicate normally with him, but Fourth, or rather now Li Ming, who he had become so much more, was eyeing him suspiciously, narrowing his eyes and wondering  how she knows him, they've never met before.  Heart tilted his head to the side and gave him a weak smile.  Li Ming snorted under his breath.

“We'll see who has the last smile,” he muttered, knowing Heart couldn't hear him.  Now Heart was afraid his guardians wouldn't approve.  They knew perfectly well why the boys had been separated, and Heart guessed they were the ones who insisted on it.  Imagine his amazement when they agreed to let Li Ming work for them.  Maybe they had hearts?  Maybe empathy wasn't as alien to them as he'd expected.

Gemini noted that while Fourth's appearance changed, became more serious and more edgy and explosive, one particular feature of him remained the same: he was still a humble, helpful kid who, despite the hardships, was ready to make any sacrifice for  other.  This time he was doing it for Uncle Jim, though Gemini was sure Fourth wouldn't admit it.  He was too proud for that, he wanted to be independent and self-sufficient, which was another trait he took from the world into which he was born.  And these very features gave Gemini new hope that perhaps all is not lost yet.  As Fourth and Uncle Jim were getting ready to leave, he surreptitiously took out his phone and started taking pictures of Fourth.

“Maybe I can't hear your voice again, which I miss so much, especially when you used to say my nickname and when we sang together, but at least I'll have pictures of you with me and it will help me get through the hardest times.  Thank you for coming back to me, Fourth," he wrote on a piece of paper, which he placed among many others tacked above his desk.  His room was gloomy and dark, sad as his life had been until now, but when he saw Fourth again and made sure the boy was safe, a big stone fell from his heart.

After that, he eagerly waited every day for Li Ming to come to his house, and to his great delight, he discovered that Fourth, although he had no memories, had never stopped loving him.  In a fit of emotion, exactly at midnight on New Year's Day, he connected their lips in a longing and affectionate, though gentle, kiss.  He was as happy as ever then.  Life as Heart taught him to appreciate every little thing, a little thing like the warmth of a hand holding his hand, spending time together walking around the neighborhood, discovering a world that was previously imperceptible to him, or the joy and pride that was painted on Li Ming's face,  when he heard Heart utter his own nickname with some difficulty and a clearly hoarse voice.

Gemini hoped that the Knights of Light from Earth won't forget them and one day would come to take them home.  And for now, he was going to live Heart's life to the fullest and take advantage of Fourth's complete memory loss, which seemed to be doing many things for the first time.  Gemini could get back at him for embarrassing him the first time they met.  He enjoyed watching Li Ming blush sweetly as he kissed him on the cheek without warning, or just as unexpectedly appeared behind his back to whisper the two words that made up his nickname, Li Ming, directly into his ear in his hoarse, barely spoken voice.  Gemini remembered how on Earth it was Fourth who did literally everything to embarrass him and always teased him then, although he knew that Nattawat did it as a joke, which is why he never took offense seriously, sometimes he only pretended to be offended to force his beloved  some cute behavior.

Across the lifetimes and universes, one thing remained common: Fourth always liked to stroke him under the chin as if he were a giant cat, which Gemini found very amusing.  In every incarnation of Gemini, Tinn or Heart he loved the same handsome and charming boy who always did everything to see his smile and supported him like no one else.  What they had experienced together, Gem intended to keep in his memory forever.  After much discussion with P'Earth, he decided that for now, Heart and LiMing needed to give each other a chance to create a happy life, and for that, LiMing intended to go abroad.

"If it makes you happy, if you're sure that's what you really want, I'll be there, I'll go there with you," he texted him on his phone.

More than once he tried to find Tinn and Gun's old PintStagram accounts, but to his disappointment, he found nothing, and he remembered that the two often posted pictures together.  Someone took care to remove all traces of Gun and Tinn's existence.

😍🥰🤩😆😈😇🔥🐾🐱🤣🎸🙊💔😬😁❔❗⁉️❓❕ 🦋👏

*From the author!

To understand what's going on here, you'll have to watch the Moonlight Chicken series

I also recommend: The Eclipse, Not Me and Star In My Mind, which served as inspiration for this chapter.

I'm sorry you had to wait so long again, I promise it won't be a sad ending

Love you all my Magical People 🪄✨

~Annie