The two stood in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts. "I thought he was dead, there's no way he's real, right?". Fleur reached out to Aster, gently caressing his hand, but it was clear to her he had another thing on his mind, possibly even a painful truth. "I can't ruin this reunion, but it's inevitable she'd find out. Why not me?". Aster cleared his throat as Fleur anxiously awaited his first words.
"I...", he struggled, Fleur's expression of concern ripped through him, this news would tear her apart too. "I was careless, so careless I couldn't even save our friend...", he said, finally choosing the words he wanted to say. "He was so young, it happened so suddenly...", his words dragged on, holding his tongue like a lock in heavily guarded prisons, it felt like a betrayal to him.
"Wait, hold on a second, I'm missing something...", commented a confused Fleur, her tone was low enough for Aster to pick it up. "Who do we care bout so dearly that you feel such sorrow?", she questioned, her syndicate hardened heart on full display. "H-he is...", Aster continued to hesitate. "H-he is de-", Fleur interrupted him, "Who is dead?". Aster took a final deep breath, "Rou Okumura is dead...".
"I don't believe you!", Fleur yelled. Aster's heart dropped. All that work to be accused of lies? It was sickening to him. "So this is how it ends...it's always the same, something mind-breaking happens, I lay witness to the hell it brings and then NO ONE believes me! Great! I thought this place was going to be different...", his voice rose and fell like his time in Tiliac, but unlike Tiliac, Fleur didn't budge.
"You've probably been through a world of pain since you've been gone. I was doubtful at first, but now I'm sure it's you.", Fleur said sincerely. She continued, "I'll tell you what, I'll take you to Rou's room, show you that everything's okay, right?", the elf suggested in a disturbingly sweet tone. Aster looked into her eyes, he couldn't say no, no matter how hard his conviction pushed him away. "If you insist...", he answered blankly, still processing things.
The persistent underboss dragged Aster to the second floor of the mansion, devoid of anyone else due to the sleeping spell, yet had an intimate energy only fuelled by the touch of their hands. Somehow, as he got closer to the room, Aster felt a miniscule glimmer of hope that he was simply hallucinating. They opened the door to find an empty room, still tinged with the scent of Rou sleeping in it. "Aster, I think we should check another room.", stated Fleur, but Aster was too busy staring into the window.
"Aster? Is everything okay?", Fleur tried to snap him out of his haze, but nothing could break his gaze, he never even blinked because the sight was so terrifying. Eventually, Fleur's curiosity piqued and she stared into the window as well, but as soon as she did, a rush of emotions hit her. "Aster...I don't like this...", she cried. Finally the unbearable realisation had got to her, blinding her with reality.
Fleur stood still, tears falling from her eyes. Not only was her best friend dead, but she gave into her own stupidity. The neurons in her brain were having a sword fight and all she wanted to do was surrender. Concurrently, Aster paced around stressfully behind her, simply wanting her to be happy, "I don't know Fleur, it was out of my control, I didn't know what else to do...", he replied, "I've never been in a situation like this before, but I'm not sure what to do now".
Fleur turned her hand, her face screwed into itself, "Well, what about Demitris?", she asked, "I'm sure he's going to be devastated, surely you care about that...". Aster kept his lips tight, afraid he'd say the wrong thing, but desperate to do the right.
"That's the thing, before I found you, I was looking for Demitris to make sure he was okay, I doubt it now...". Fleur sighed, looking out the window in sorrow, like Aster, she too could see no way out of this. However, she did notice a strange thing about the gardens below. "Aster, look, those cracks weren't there before I got kicked out, and they seem to get bigger as you go further to the right. Could it be?".
At first, Aster was bamboozled by Fleur's observation, but then he remembered. As he crossed the garden to get into the mansion, the same cracks were noticeable to him. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?", he said, now with a very plausible idea. Fleur was unsure with his response at first, still held by the chains of greif, but wanted to see if he agreed with her. "If you want to follow the trail, then I think you are...", she uttered in response.
"Yes! That's exactly what I mean!", said Aster, both enthusiastic and frantic at thd same time. Fleur extended upon his hypothesis, "The bigger the cracks, the closer we are to Demitris...", she commented. "We'll follow the cracks to his location. If our heavy hearts are anything to go by, his would be a weight that makes it impossible to do anything but greive.", remarked Aster. "We must make him our first priority", added Fleur. With that, they begun to head towards the gardens once more, in search of the distraught lover.