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Life is a mystery, or so they say. We don’t choose it, is what they say. It is either decided by someone else, someone higher than us, or we’re just floating around the Universe, waiting to be hatched and exist. We don’t live unless we’re in a body. We don’t exist unless we’re in a body.
Which one is real, you might wonder. There is no real answer, that is, if you want to analyze it through. Floating in the Universe, being chosen by bigger beings, being responsible for our own fates, we exist either way. There’s something stored for us all, and there is a something we came here to do.
Enjolras thought little of his life, throwing himself at every chance to make a difference, believing that was his purpose, and following it to no end. He knew the consequences of his actions, knew the way life would probably treat him, but he had no idea—no one does.
No one has time to think when light buzzes in front of you. There is no time to breathe, to think, to react. You freeze, unable to understand, without a moment to pause and consider where to move, what to do. Planes crash, buses run over dogs, kids fall from their bicycles. That’s life.
No one lives without a soul. That’s what they say.
And yet, Enjolras did.
He didn’t know, didn’t understand what the emptiness at his chest meant—couldn’t get his friends as they babbled about songs and sonnets and curly hair and perfume. He didn’t understand love. But not because he wanted to, he just didn’t know what love meant.
He was still passionate, and had enough faith within him to gather people around him, eclipse them with his light, make their hearts shudder with emotion after he finished a speech. He had those qualities, and yet he didn’t have a soul. He didn’t believe he had a soul, but he had no idea that was true.
Life is a tricky thing. You don’t get a guide to get it through—you learn in the way, falling most of the times, but rising above at the end. Or at least, that’s the idea.
People think we don’t choose our fates, that we wander through space and things suddenly crash in front of us. That life is a game and if you’re not lucky, you lose. But what’s there to lose? Enjolras didn’t have a soul, and yet he felt perfectly fine. Wandering alone, without a big part of himself, but he didn’t know what that part was, so he didn’t miss it.
It was as clear as water. He didn’t have to think about things that “mattered” to other people.
And yet, one day life suddenly decides to crash.
Maybe someone higher decided upon it, maybe a hidden part of him—a piece within himself he couldn’t even begin to imagine—plotted for it to happen, or maybe he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, Enjolras crashed.
It was a second, a speck of a moment, and everything went black.
He wasn’t prepared to feel so much in so little time. He couldn’t understand what this was about. But he opened his eyes, looked around at the mess that surrounded him, looked at the children crying and the people shouting, looked at the despair in people’s eyes as they saw around them, and Enjolras felt.
His chest began working, and it took him a moment to register the feeling. It wasn’t a pleasant one. It wasn’t that bad, either. He just ached. But for what?
Another moment and there was warmth in his chest, spreading through his body, reaching the tips of his fingers. He didn’t get it yet—there was so much happening around him that he couldn’t register the way he was being filled from within—a feeling not much people get to grasp.
“Enjolras,” a voice said, inside his head. Enjolras froze. Was he mad? “Enjolras,” the voice repeated, this time warmer, this time closer.
Which didn’t make sense, because it came from his own head.
Enjolras found himself at a loss of what to do. There were people running everywhere, and no one noticed the little crisis he found himself in, so probably no one would see him talking out loud. Yet, it didn’t feel like it had to be done that way.
Who are you? he tried thinking, see what happened. “I’m sorry,” the voice said, and Enjolras’ chest began pumping blood at an atrocious manner. It was disconcerting. “I had to step in, I shouldn’t have.”
What do you mean? Enjolras frowned and crossed his arms despite himself. The voice was of a man, that much he could tell. He still didn’t understand how this was happening, but he didn’t have time to think it through. Who are you?
“That doesn’t matter,” Yes, it does, Enjolras pressed before the man could continue. He exhaled a breath, breath that didn’t belong to him. How did that happen? “You died, Enjolras,” the voice said. “You were going to stop existing in this plane, and I couldn’t—“ Enjolras’ heart pumped with more insistency now. He had a sudden realization that the emotions he was having weren’t his at all. That explained a few things. You couldn’t what?
“Do you have to ask so many questions? God, you never change,” Enjolras frown grew deeper and for a moment he felt angry at not having a face to link this voice to. He groaned. Answer me, he demanded simply, glaring at the people that made such a fuzz around him.
Enjolras felt his own shoulders fell down. “I had to stop it,” the man started, and there was something familiar with the tone, another thing he couldn’t understand yet, and he started getting angry at so many things being unknown. “I couldn’t imagine you dead, so I stepped in.”
Stepped in.
Enjolras didn’t know what to say. His head was a mess of thoughts, too much things that didn’t make sense, but yet he could see—a boy, shorter than him, with dark curls and a broken smile. He tried reaching out to the memory, but something was blocking it. No, not something.
Someone.
People believe in ghost stories because some like to think there’s life after death. Others are honestly scared, but try to prove to the rest how little they care about these things, going into graveyards and talking about spirits. No one understands the extent of the human soul—no one, not even God.
If there’s a God, that is.
And yet, it all comes back to each one’s points of view. We can’t say anything involving anyone, not when we don’t have the knowledge to back it up. We think we know it all, and if we don’t, we just simply make it out in our heads, make it real just for the sake of being right, but there’s no guarantee our ideals won’t smash in our faces.
Are ghosts real? Do they wander around us? Spirits, souls, trapped in our realm, without a route of scape. Do they stay because they want to, or because they don’t know how to leave? Do they stay at all?
So many things crashing inside his mind, Enjolras sat down, trying to breathe in and out. There was something persistent about the man’s voice, and he still didn’t know what.
Tell me your name, he pressed, holding his head between his hands.
“It’s not important,” the man dismissed, warming Enjolras in ways he didn’t know someone could. He felt as if soft hands were caressing his face, trying to soothe his worries away, fluttering at his cheeks, as if something soft was being pressed against them.
Enjolras felt like crying.
What is going on? if he were talking, he was sure his voice would’ve broke. He suddenly found himself needing more of that warmth, of that soothing voice inside his head telling him how important he was, how much he cared for him. Enjolras had never felt this way before—didn’t even know someone could feel this way at all.
He couldn’t say he was being loved, because he didn’t know what love meant.
Love, as many other things from life, is on the eye of the beholder. People have said this enough times, made rants about it and its different forms, how different it is from one person to another. There is no way to categorize love. That’s not how it works. It comes from within, a force to be honored, something to believe in, something to wash yourself in. There is nothing like love, no words can describe it, you just feel it.
Enjolras wanted to hold this man, wanted to ask so many things, wanted to discover so many others, and demand where had he been all this time, but he didn’t need to, because the man knew.
They were one now.
His name was Grantaire, and he once had had a body. He was a soul, a mere spirit orbiting around him, as he had done in life so many years ago. Enjolras felt guilt wash over him at the lost memory of the boy who always stared, of that kid that was always around, yet never crossed more words with him than greetings. He always looked lost to him. Enjolras didn’t know Grantaire only loved him.
Love was still a difficult thing to think about.
But life is unexpected, regardless of what you think, and love is everywhere.
Enjolras, being without a soul, only meant that he needed to find his other half, his soul. The right one, who could love him no matter what, without earth bounds and complications. The one that he could love too. And that was Grantaire, who had always been there.
He still didn’t know that what he felt was love.
Maybe he just didn't need to.