Soren stopped.
The question was simple, but it made his stomach drop.
'Aunty…?'
The pieces clicked together too fast.
Louise Cruentus.
Not Arden.
Cousin, not sister by blood, but close enough that the title still made sense, close enough that "Sis" could still be real.
Unlike Arden, Cruentus was a name he had never heard in ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, not in dialogue, not in settings books, nowhere, and the realisation should have been interesting, should have been something to file away for later, but Louise's question dragged his mind back to something he had been avoiding ever since the letter.
He didn't answer quickly enough.
Louise's confident energy faltered, and she looked down, fingers twisting together as if she was physically trying to hold back regret.
"Sorry," she murmured. "I shouldn't have brought that up."
Her voice softened, and guilt threaded through it in a way that made Soren's throat tighten.
"When I heard the news about Frey…"
She hesitated, and that hesitation hurt more than the words.
"I tried to request leave to come find you, but they wouldn't allow it because I was a second year. I'm sorry. I should've done more."
The remorse in her tone hit him harder than he expected, because it wasn't performative, it was sincere, and he was still carrying the original Soren's grief like an open wound beneath his skin.
Before the memories, it would have been easier to separate himself, to think of the original Soren as a shell, a body he inhabited, a past that didn't truly touch him.
Now the boundary was blurred.
He couldn't dismiss her words as someone else's tragedy anymore, because he had felt it, he had felt the love, the despair, the way the original Soren had folded in on himself until there was nothing left but apology and silence.
It made it difficult to breathe properly.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
He wasn't the person she was talking to.
Not really.
Yet here she was, looking at him with eyes full of concern, and the warmth of that concern made the guilt twist deeper, because it was undeserved and yet… he still wanted to accept it.
"Are you really okay, Soren?" Louise asked softly.
Her gaze didn't flinch.
Soren's heartbeat sounded too loud in his ears.
He wanted to tell her the truth, that he wasn't him, that the Soren she cared about was gone, that she was holding onto someone she couldn't get back, but the words caught in his throat.
What would saying that even achieve?
Would it bring her comfort?
Would it bring anyone comfort?
No.
So instead, he said nothing, and the silence stretched between them, heavy with everything he couldn't explain.
Then warmth closed the distance anyway.
Soren blinked as Louise stepped forward, and before he could react, her arms wrapped around him.
It wasn't a gentle hug; it was firm, almost desperate, like she was trying to prove she was here now, even if she hadn't been then.
"I should've been there for you," she whispered. "I know how much Frey meant to you… but I couldn't do anything."
Her voice wavered.
Soren stood stiffly for a moment, mind blank, body caught between instinct and shame.
Then, slowly, his arms lifted and returned the embrace.
It wasn't graceful.
It wasn't confident.
It was simply the only thing he could do.
"It wasn't your fault, Louise," he said quietly, and the name felt wrong and right at the same time. "I'm sorry."
The apology slipped out before he could stop it, and he didn't even know who it was meant for, Louise, Freya, the original Soren, or himself for being here at all.
They stayed like that for a while, unmoving, the bustle of students around them fading into a distant blur, as if the world had decided to give them a pocket of quiet.
Eventually, Louise pulled back, crimson eyes soft and wet.
She smiled, not her playful grin, but something smaller, real enough to hurt.
"Thank you, Little Brother."
Soren's throat tightened until swallowing felt impossible.
He could only nod.
Louise wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, drew in a breath, and her cheer began to resurface, not fully, but enough to stand on.
"I'll come see you again soon, okay?" she said, and the brightness in her voice sounded like a choice. "Don't you dare run off on me."
"Yeah," Soren managed.
She gave him one last smile, turned on her heel, and walked away.
The sound of her footsteps faded down the street.
Soren watched her go until she disappeared around the corner.
Only then did he realise he had been holding his breath.
When he finally exhaled, it came out shaky, and he sat down heavily on a nearby bench as if his legs had only just remembered they were allowed to give out.
The wood was cool through his trousers, grounding in a way his thoughts weren't.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to steady himself, but the disorientation returned in soft waves, not as violent as the first day after the memories, yet persistent, like the original Soren's emotions had left fingerprints behind and his body kept reacting to them out of habit.
"What should I do…?"
The words slipped out in a whisper and vanished into the afternoon air as if the world didn't care enough to hold onto them.
He leaned back and stared up at the clouds, bright and indifferent above the academy streets.
Everything about that encounter had shaken him.
Not because Louise's warmth was overwhelming on its own, but because of what it had reminded him of, and how it had pressed on the part of him that still didn't know where Isaac ended and Soren began.
He had been living in someone else's life, inheriting someone else's body, someone else's skills, and now, apparently, pieces of someone else's grief, but meeting Louise had made one thing painfully clear.
Some people still remembered the real Soren Arden.
They remembered him as a person, not as a name on a ranking list, not as a rumour, not as an outcast in Class F, but as someone they had loved enough to miss, someone they had wanted to protect, someone they had failed and regretted it.
He didn't know what kind of relationship the original Soren and Louise had shared before everything fell apart, but it was clear it had been real, and that reality made the guilt feel sharp in a way he couldn't laugh off.
He had felt the original Soren's love for Freya in the library, and even though he recognised it as foreign, it had moved him like it was his, it had made him ache like it was his, and that was the cruel part.
If he could feel it that easily, then what did that make him now?
A thief?
A replacement?
A caretaker of a grief that belonged to someone who wasn't here to carry it anymore?
Soren closed his eyes, but it didn't shut out the thoughts.
Louise's arms around him had been warm, and for a second, his body had wanted to lean into it the way the original Soren would have, desperate for something steady, and that impulse had made his stomach twist, because it wasn't his place, and yet it had still felt good, and that made him feel even worse.
He opened his eyes again, staring at the sky until it blurred slightly.
'She deserves the truth.'
The thought came, immediate and clean, and then the rest of him recoiled from it, because truth wasn't always kindness, and in a world like this, truth could be cruelty dressed up as honesty.
If he told her he wasn't Soren, what would she do with that?
Would she believe him?
Would she look at him with fear?
Would she break, right in front of him, because the brother she had been waiting for was gone, and all she had managed to find was a stranger wearing his face?
He swallowed hard.
'And if she doesn't believe me…?'
He had seen what rumours did.
He knew how quietly they could ruin someone, how they didn't need to be loud to be lethal.
Back on Earth, he had watched a friend's name turn into entertainment, a running joke passed between classrooms and group chats, twisted a little more each time it was repeated, until even silence started to sound like judgment.
He had watched people flinch away without ever speaking to the person they were condemning, watched professors "keep an eye on it" and call that responsibility, watched concern become curiosity, then boredom, while the target was left alone with a story they couldn't outrun.
He had learned the hard way that once a narrative took root, it didn't matter what was true anymore.
He couldn't afford to become a different kind of rumour, one that involved madness, possession, or betrayal, and he couldn't drag Louise into that danger, not when her sincerity was so clear.
And even if he could tell her safely, even if he could make her understand, it still wouldn't bring Freya back, it wouldn't undo anything, it wouldn't fix the hole that had been carved into their lives.
It would only make Louise grieve twice, once for Freya, and once for the boy she thought she had found again.
Soren's fingers dug into the bridge of his nose until it hurt, as if pain could force clarity.
His chest still ached when he thought of Freya, and he hated that, hated how easy it was, hated how the memory had trained his body to mourn someone he had never met.
He knew it wasn't entirely foreign anymore, because whatever had happened in the library had made the original Soren's feelings bleed into him, and now they were tangled, and he couldn't simply pull them apart and throw one set away.
He couldn't unfeel what he had felt.
That was what frightened him most.
If this happened again, if more memories came, more emotion, more reflex, then what?
Would he be swallowed?
Would Isaac disappear under the weight of Soren Arden's life until all that remained was a person made out of other people's history?
He let out a slow breath and forced himself to focus on what was in front of him, the rough wood of the bench, the distant footsteps on the street, the sunlight warming the side of his face.
He could spiral later.
Right now, he needed a decision that would keep him moving.
'Louise is family.'
The word family carried too much baggage, too many associations, and for Isaac, it was a complicated thing, but in this world, in this body, it was a fact with consequences.
Louise was kind.
Louise was strong.
Louise cared.
And Louise had looked at him like she was relieved he was still alive.
Soren's throat tightened again, and he blinked quickly, frustrated with how easily emotion rose in him now, as if the library had shaken something loose.
He didn't want to hurt her.
He didn't want to take advantage of her affection.
He also didn't want to push her away the way the original Soren might have, not out of coldness, but out of shame, because he had felt how that shame worked, how it convinced you that you were a burden, that you were poison, that the kindest thing you could do was disappear.
But Louise had already come looking for him.
She had already decided he mattered.
Avoiding her wouldn't erase the connection; it would only make her chase harder, and that would end with her getting pulled into whatever mess surrounded him.
He looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers, and felt the faint ghost of her grip still there.
"Okay," he whispered, not to the sky, but to himself, because he needed something concrete to hold onto. "I'll… handle it."
It wasn't a plan, not really, but it was a commitment to keep moving, to stop freezing every time the past reached for him.
He could be careful.
He could be respectful.
He could accept Louise's care without pretending he deserved it, and he could try, in whatever awkward way was possible, to honour the fact that the original Soren had been real, and that people like Louise had loved him.
That didn't make Soren's guilt disappear, but it gave it a direction, something to do besides rot in his chest.
He leaned back again and stared up at the clouds, letting the silence settle.
Sooner or later, he would have to learn how to navigate these pieces, how to live in a life that wasn't his without crushing the people still inside it.
For now, all he could do was sit, breathe, and accept that this was real.
Not the game.
Not a story.
A life.
And he was the one left to carry what remained.
————「❤︎」————