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The sun came up, spreading golden rays across the water, the only thing Dongsik could stand to look at for very long. The ocean had become a refuge for him again in this century, like it had in the last. It's vast, unchanging surface was comforting.
He'd spent the last... who knew how long alive (he’d stopped counting a long time ago), and in places he spent a lot of time in, he could always see what had been, an uncomfortable juxtaposition of past and present that he sometimes got confused on. The human mind wasn't meant for this kind of life, for all of these memories. It helped with the other kings around him, although he hadn't quite found them yet. This time.
"Are you okay?"
The sun hadn't completely risen, he realized, turning his head to look at the man standing next to him. "What?"
The early morning light highlighted his face and gleamed off his hair. "You look like you're not sure if you want to step into the ocean," he said.
"No. It's too cold right now," Dongsik said, and then blinked and looked at him closer. "I'm sorry, what?"
The man bowed. "Lee Daehwi," he said. "You had this look on your face that said you were about done with your life here."
"Yang Dongsik." He returned the bow. "No, just... missing friends." The past, the simpler times, the slower times. Maybe he did need to go off and hide somewhere away from people again. Except he knew they were close because Excalibur was waking up, and he didn’t want to miss them.
"No way to visit them?" Daehwi asked.
Dongsik turned back to the sun, noting it had risen completely now. Sunrise was so fleeting, even that didn’t have a juxtaposition of the rest of the world, one of the reasons he got up in tame to see it. "No," he said. "I don't know where they are. We've lost touch." Never mind that I don't know what their names are this time around, and I can't actually just... look up their true names and expect to get the actual people. He couldn’t say that out loud.
"I'm sorry to hear it," Daehwi said. "I was going to breakfast. Would you like to join me?"
Dongsik blinked and turned to look at him again. "What?" he asked.
Daehwi shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "I'm on my way to breakfast. I'm here on my own, so I wouldn't mind company. I'm not the same as old friends, but would a new one be so bad?"
He wasn't one of them. Dongsik knew them immediately, something about how each of them acted, no matter what body they were in. He was lonely, though, and he didn't think even Ivan would begrudge him a friend. "No, you're right. Thank you, I'd love to."
Daehwi smiled and gestured, and they walked along together.
His old friends held back the shadows of the past, anchoring him in the present. Maybe this new friend would do the same.