“When you don’t love yourself?” Yuri completed.
Star’s gaze whipped upward to meet Yuri’s.
“I hear the voices in my head,” Yuri said pointing to his skull. “This lifetime and a thousand others engraved my soul with the voices of the shadows.”
“I would have spared you that if I could.”
Yuri smiled. “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be me without them. Do they make me doubt? Yes. I worry that you will all wake up one day and think I’m not worth it.”
“How do you… overcome that?”
“I don’t really overcome it as much as I understand that each moment together in the here and now is more important than a thousand other past lives. Did we do stupid things in the past? Sure. Will we do some in the future? Probably. It’s what it means to be mortal, right? Live and learn? Hopefully not be as stupid in the next lifetime. I’d like to love in the meantime.”
Star changed into the new clothes, only hesitating a little, and not avoiding Yuri’s gaze. Yuri dug out a pair of thick fuzzy socks too, and handed them over.
“How is it anything I want appears?” Yuri asked. “I’m not a creator anymore, right? You said you and the other archangels created it? But it responds to me?”
“Catalyst, not creator. You are the beginning and the end. You could wish this all to stop and we’d be sent back to our worlds,” Star said, slipping on the socks. “This world between is fueled by my magic. Others add to it. You and I are one soulseparated by chaos, so technically you can do anything here and my magic will let you.”
“Is this power you were meant to use for the Onari?” Yuri asked, wondering if they were violating some other rule or plan his ancient self had created.
“No. Creators will create until the day they die. I have nothing left to give the Onari, and leave their progress to the young. I could leave this world, commit myself to a few more centuries of life as Onari and fade to the next life.”
“Sowed your wild oats, eh? Lovers abound?”
Star flushed and shook his head. “Not really.” His stomach growled and he glared at it as though it betrayed him.
“Let’s get you some food,” Yuri said.
Star sighed. “I don’t wish to hurt the prince’s feelings, but his biscuits are like eating sand. The strawberries have flavor, so I don’t think it’s just me.”
“Biscuits?” Yuri held out his hand for Star, happy when the man took it. They headed down through the house, most of the curtains drawn to let in little light, which Yuri found strange, but Star moved along the darkest edges as if afraid to touch the few sections where light glowed.
Noise came from the kitchen and Yuri followed the sounds to find Lucian digging through cupboards, and Theo frowning at an open book as though it were a foreign language he was trying to decipher.
“I can’t find a recipe for a dough nut,” Theo said seeing them enter the kitchen.
The sun shone through the window over the sink and across the room from a wide seating nook that left few dark corners for Star to hide in. The man hesitated in the doorway. Yuri grabbed a stool and set it at the counter near the pantry, which was the only section without a sunbeam bathing it, and Star slipped into it without a word.
“Biscuits?” Yuri asked Lucian.
Lucian paused and grabbed a tin, opening it to reveal a batch of leftover cookies. Shortbread perhaps, though when Yuri picked them up, he understood what Star meant about them tasting like sand.
“Did you cream the butter and vanilla?” Yuri asked as the bit crumbled in his fingers.
“Butter is a type of cream, yes?” Lucian asked. “I speak a dozen different languages, but this particular one of baking origin, I find baffling.”
Yuri smiled. “You can sit and watch if you’d like. I’ll make some shortbread dough while the donuts rise. We could probably use something more substantial like eggs rather than desserts. Even a loaf of bread and some peanut butter would provide some protein.”
“I’ll eat whatever you make,” Lucian said.
“Me too,” Theo agreed.
Star kept to his corner, arms crossed on the counter, head resting on them while his gaze followed Yuri.
“Anything I need appears in this house and is real, right?” Yuri asked Star.
Star shrugged.
