Alaric

"Har...old? You’re actually here?" A sharp gasp escaped my lips as I stared at him, my vision blurring slightly at the margins. "Where the hell have you been? I have been searching everywhere for you. They say... they keep saying you aren’t real, and I..."

Harold gave me a long, questioning look before his lips slowly curved into a familiar grin.

Why the hell is he just standing there grinning? I thought, panic starting to claw its way up my throat.

Here I was, completely spiraling into total mental chaos, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I had spent weeks wondering what the hell was happening to my sanity and why he had suddenly vanished without a trace, yet he was looking at me as if nothing had changed.

"Where did you disappear to when I needed you the most? Why did you lie to me about where you live?" I demanded, running a frantic hand through my hair before heaving a ragged sigh. "Where have you been, Harold? Answer me!"

Harold didn’t reply right away. He simply stared at me, casually folding his arms across his chest. Without a word, he turned on his heel and began walking slowly toward the crashing waves of the sea.

"I have always been right here watching you, Alaric," his voice drifted back to me over the sound of the ocean. "But you have been happy recently. I didn’t see the need to be around. I can’t be near you when Nico is always taking up your space, and both of you look so damn happy together."

I let out a heavy, breathless sigh, pressing my palm flat against my pounding chest. "What the hell are you trying to say? There is no way in hell Nico and I are together! Is that seriously why you left?" I shouted, my voice cracking as I hurried after him, tracking his footsteps until he was standing right at the wet edge of the shoreline. "Be careful, Harold. Step back."

Harold looked over his shoulder, a soft, knowing smile playing on his features. "You don’t need me anymore, Alaric. I’ve seen how much you have switched recently. I am glad you have changed—it’s great for your career, truly. But I only came out today because you summoned me." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"I summoned you?" I echoed, my hand tightening against my shirt.

I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, the cold weight of logic began to settle in. How could Harold have possibly made it to a private beach in Japan? How did he know the exact island, the exact spot, and the precise moment to find me?

*Was he truly not real? Was he just a broken figment of my imagination?*

I heaved a deep, shuddering sigh and roughly rubbed my face with both hands, praying that when I opened my eyes, the illusion would be gone. But he didn’t disappear. He just stood there by the tide in his immaculate red suit, grinning back at me.

"You... you aren’t real..." I whispered, the realization fracturing something deep inside me.

Harold shrugged indifferently. "What do you think? Who do you honestly think I am, Alaric?"

In the absolute blink of an eye, the distance between us vanished. He was suddenly standing directly behind me, his breath cold against my skin as he lowered his head to murmur into my ear.

"I have always been you, Alaric. *You*."

He let out a low, echoing chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine. Before I could grasp him, he pulled away and walked directly into the breaking surf, his polished shoes sinking into the dark water.

A wave of pure terror washed over me, and I yelled out after him. "Harold! No, stop, it’s not safe! You can’t go into the open sea! You’re going to drown!" I screamed, my legs moving on instinct as I rushed into the water after him. The tide was pulling heavily, but he kept walking deeper and deeper, the water rising past his waist. "Harold! Harold! Harold!"

Then, over the roaring of the waves, I heard another voice. Someone else was screaming my name from somewhere up on the beach, their shouts filled with utter desperation. But I didn’t bother to turn around. I couldn’t. Harold was walking straight into his doom, about to be swallowed whole by the ocean.

I dove deeper into the cold surf, ignoring the warnings from behind me, entirely fixated on the red suit slipping beneath the dark waves.

Suddenly, a violent force crashed into my back.

A pair of powerful hands grabbed me by the shoulders, wrenching my body backward with immense strength. I lost my footing entirely, slipping beneath the surface into a chaotic swirl of foam and saltwater before being forcefully hauled upward.

The moment I choked, gasped for air, and wiped the stinging brine from my eyes, I frantically looked out toward the deep water where Harold had been walking.

There was nothing there. The horizon was completely empty, and Harold was gone.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Alaric?!"

Nico’s voice cut through the roaring in my ears, sounding less like his usual arrogant self and more like a man possessed by pure terror. "Have you completely lost your goddamn mind?!" he yelled, his voice cracking under the sheer force of his panic.

I coughed up a lungful of salty water, aggressively wiping my dripping face as I forced my eyes open. The powerful hands still gripping my shoulders belonged to Nico. He was drenched from head to toe, his chest heaving rapidly as he stared down at me. Looking past his trembling frame, I noticed the shoreline was in utter chaos. My manager, Dorothy, along with the director, the photographer, and half of the sportswear management crew, were all standing at the edge of the sand, their faces pale with horror.

I blindly looked back over my shoulder, searching the dark horizon for any sign of a red suit. The spot where Harold had vanished into the surf was dangerously far out. If Nico hadn’t tackled me, I would have been dragged into the deep undercurrents at the center of the ocean without knowing.

What the hell was I doing? The thought hit me hard because I could have drowned and died. "Why the hell were you walking into the sea like that?’’ Nico demanded, his grip tightening on my arms until it was almost bruising.

I turned my gaze back to him, shocked by the sheer intensity in his expression. His eyes were stretched wide, wild with an explosive mixture of fury and desperate relief.

Why the hell was he so angry? I wondered, my mind too numb to process his rage.

Nico stared at me, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped. Seeing me stand there completely silent and shivering, a dark, devastating thought clearly crossed his mind. He looked at me as if he believed I had intentionally tried to drown myself—as if the pressure of the race, the toxic fans, and the suffocating shoot had finally pushed me over the edge to end it all.

He thought I had ignored his desperate screams on the beach because I was trying to commit suicide.

The terrifying realization seemed to break something inside him. The raw panic in his eyes instantly hardened into a wall of pure bitterness.

"You know what? Fuck this shoot," Nico snarled, aggressively releasing my shoulders and taking a step back into the shallow water. He turned toward the shore, glaring at the stunned marketing executives. "I don’t give a damn anymore. We’re done."

Without waiting for a response, he turned his back on me and walked away angrily, his heavy, wet strides kicking up spray as he stormed up the beach, completely abandoning the campaign.

I watched his retreating figure, utterly paralyzed. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was so incredibly mad at me. I hadn’t done anything to hurt him. I was just trying to save Harold.

And it almost ruined my life.

"Alaric! Oh my god, are you alright?!" Dorothy’s frantic voice broke my thoughts. She rushed into the shallow waves, snatching a large white towel from one of the trembling production assistants and immediately draping it over my soaking shoulders.

I offered a stiff, robotic nod, wrapping the towel tightly around myself. "I’m fine," I muttered, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.

But deep down, I knew I wasn’t. I was nowhere near fine. The terrifying reality of what had just happened settled deep into my bones, chilling me faster than the ocean water.

Harold wasn’t real. It had all been an illusion created by my fractured mind.

But even as the cold, hard logic stared me in the face, I found myself desperately fighting against it. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it.

And now I had offended Nico who thoughts I was suicidal.

Can the day get any better?