Barty's eyes slowly ran over the text written on the small piece of paper. He wasn't sure how many times he had read it. He also didn't know when tears began to flow from his eyes, covering his cheeks and dripping onto the note in his hand. Time seemed to slow down. Barty never cried, no matter the situation. He always experienced everything in silence, pretending that nothing bothered him. He didn't cry even when his own father told him he no longer has a son. But now? He burst into tears as he sat on the ground in the living room of their apartment. Their. Now there's no "their". Now it's only him.
He still remembered the night before. Regulus and him, arguing over some stupid things, just like always. Then a door slammed and Barty was no longer in the apartment.
They had such arguments all the time, in such situations one of them always left and came back the next day. Always. It was supposed to be the same today. Entering the apartment, Barty expected to find Regulus in the living room. They would talk and it would end with them kissing until they lost their breath, as if this kiss was supposed to convey all the unspoken words between them. Then they would talk and Regulus would give in, agreeing to take him with himself on this mission. It was supposed to be just like always. However, everything has changed. Today, when the brown-haired boy walked through the door to the living room, he didn't find the boy with black curls sitting on the sofa waiting for him, instead he found this one short, stupid note ending with the words "Maybe in another universe we made it ~ RAB". Yes, they had talked about this mission thousands of times, it was also the trivial thing they had argued about the day before. Barty kept insisting on going with him, to protect, and Regulus kept refusing, saying that he had to do it himself. Back then, Barty didn't think it was that serious. He he was almost sure that when they would talk about it today, Regulus would understand his point of view and allow him to accompany him. But he was just stupid. If he had told him that he loved him and didn't want to lose him, instead of calling him an egoist who only thought about himself, could things have turned out differently? Maybe they would be sitting here together now, thinking about how to escape this war. But now it's too late. Maybe in another universe...