— doesn’t water hold memory? | neuvillette
prompt: “idea... an immortal person's only way to see their friends is to go to a museum but the artists can never get it quite right so they end up forgetting the faces of their loved ones” (from one of my irls, @mellowpierrot)
HELLO TO EVERYONE READING THIS FIC 😁😁 i wanna say good day but if i say good day its gonna sound way too formal… ANYWAY, now that i actually have time to write i got freaking writers block and i had no idea what to write for some time.. BUT when i got this prompt my gods i genuinely got straight to tumblr HAHAHAHAH i hope you enjoy the fic heh
- gn reader
- sorry in advance for the angst
- sorry to the neuvillette enjoyers
- this is every song that contains someone forgetting what other people look like bcs i couldnt choose
- reader doesnt speak but neuvis lines are italicized and bold, everyone else has no formatting
- ‘’ for thoughts, “” for dialogue
- PROOFREAD 😁
- 1.47k words
divider by:
read under the cut!
the museum was never meant to be beautiful.
it was meant to be accurate.
that had been neuvillette’s only condition.
nor grandeur, not reverence, not even preservation—only truth. a place where fontaine could remember itself without distortion, without performance, without the embellishments of grief or the softening hand of time.
and yet—
every painting lies.
consistent lies, at that.
to the blind eye, each painting looked fine—beautiful, even.
each detail carefully placed to make sure each scene captured everything ‘right’.
the artist really wouldn’t know though.
were they even there to begin with?
no, they were not.
. . .
he stands before the largest one first.
it spans an entire wall, swallowing the room in color and light: the opera epiclese at the height of its final trial. the audience is frozen mid-breath, the architecture immaculate, every detail rendered with obsessive care.
at the center—
furina.
crying.
but not correctly.
her shoulders are too straight. her expression too delicate, too composed—as though sorrow were something elegant instead of something that breaks a person apart.
neuvillette watches her for a long time.
he remembers everything.
her voice—high, theatrical, trembling beneath layers of performance.
the way she deflected questions like a dancer avoiding blades.
the way she had finally, finally shattered.
he remembers it all.
but the painting still feels wrong.
because memory, he has learned, is not something that can be seen.
only felt.
“…you endured more than this,” he murmurs.
the painted furina does not respond.
. . .
he moves on.
the deluge hall is colder.
not physically—but something about the way the light filters through the high glass ceiling gives the illusion of depth, like standing at the bottom of the sea and looking up at a sky that no longer belongs to you.
poisson.
it is always poisson.
a mural stretches across the far wall: water bursting through the city, people running, reaching, dissolving into something the artist has made almost luminous.
too luminous.
too kind.
in the foreground stands navia.
her grief is present—but restrained.
contained.
wrong.
neuvillette stops.
he remembers her scream.
not the sound—no, that’s not quite right.
he remembers the shape of it.
the way it tore through the air, raw and unrefined, carrying something far heavier than loss alone.
the painting does not capture that.
it cannot.
nothing can.
“…they should not have made it beautiful,” he says quietly.
behind him, sigewinne answers, as she always does.
“they didn’t know how not to.”
. . .
she joins him at his side.
they stand together in front of the mural—two of the only witnesses left who can still say, with certainty, this is wrong.
“they’ve softened everything,” neuvillette continues. “the edges. the fear. the… finality.”
sigewinne nods.
“it’s easier to look at it that way.”
“easier is not truthful.”
“no,” she agrees. “but it’s survivable.”
he does not respond.
because survival was never the point.
not for him.
not for fontaine.
. . .
the next hall is filled with the living.
or rather—the ones who had lived.
portraits line the walls in careful rows, each accompanied by a name, a date, a brief account of their role in the events that reshaped the nation.
the traveler appears again and again.
never quite the same.
sometimes painted with softer features.
sometimes sharper.
sometimes distant.
sometimes close.
none of them, correct.
neuvillette pauses before one where they stand beside him.
he studies the space between them.
too wide.
too formal.
as though they were strangers forced into the same frame.
“…no,” he says.
sigewinne tilts her head. “no?”
“we stood closer than this.”
it is a small detail.
insignificant, perhaps, to anyone else.
but to him—
it matters.
because memory does not forget proximity.
even when it forgets everything else.
. . .
he continues.
names pass him by.
faces pass him by.
and he remembers all of them.
navia.
clorinde.
lyney, lynette, freminet.
wriothesley.
arlecchino.
furina.
the traveler.
he remembers their voices.
their decisions.
the weight of their choices.
the way they moved through the world.
he remembers.
he remembers.
he remembers—
and then—
he stops.
. . .
the final room.
unmarked.
unnecessary.
unavoidable.
sigewinne does not follow him inside.
she won’t this time.
. . .
the air here is still.
heavier than the rest of the museum, as though time itself has settled and refused to move any further.
the paintings are smaller.
more intimate.
less concerned with history.
more concerned with something far more dangerous.
closeness.
. . .
he walks slowly.
he always does.
as though rushing would make it worse.
as though taking his time might somehow preserve what little remains.
. . .
then he sees it.
your portrait.
it is… technically complete.
the brushwork is meticulous.
the composition, balanced.
the colors chosen with care.
there is nothing, from an artistic standpoint, that could be called unfinished.
and yet—
it is wrong.
because your face—
your face is not there.
not blurred.
not obscured.
not damaged.
simply—
incorrect.
. . .
neuvillette stands before it, unmoving.
he does not need a plaque.
he does not need a name.
he does not need to wonder.
he knows.
he has always known.
. . .
he remembers you.
not vaguely.
not distantly.
but in full, unwavering clarity.
he remembers the cadence of your voice.
the exact way you would pause before speaking, as though weighing every word before offering it.
he remembers the warmth of your presence beside him—not overwhelming, not demanding, but constant. steady.
he remembers conversations that stretched into silence without discomfort.
moments where nothing needed to be said, and yet everything had already been understood.
he remembers the way you stood near windows, watching the rain.
the way you listened more than you spoke.
the way you stayed.
. . .
he remembers everything.
everything—
except your face.
his breath falters.
just slightly.
enough for him to notice.
enough for it to matter.
. . .
“no,” he says.
the word is quiet.
measured.
controlled.
it does not tremble.
but it is still wrong.
. . .
he steps closer.
studies the painting.
tries to correct it—not with his hands, not physically—but with memory.
he knows how your eyes should look.
he knows the shape of your smile.
he knows the subtle details no artist could ever capture—
and yet—
when he tries to place them—
they do not fit.
it is like trying to recall a dream upon waking.
the feeling remains.
the certainty remains.
but the image—
the image slips.
every time.
. . .
he closes his eyes.
that should help.
it always has.
. . .
he recalls you standing beside him in the palais mermonia.
the sound of distant rain against the windows.
the quiet understanding that passed between you without words.
he reaches for your face.
for the simplest thing.
the most fundamental detail.
nothing.
his eyes open.
slowly.
deliberately.
as though doing so too quickly might make the loss permanent,
but it already is.
. . .
“…this is incorrect,” he says.
the statement is automatic.
reflexive.
the same tone he once used to pass judgment.
to declare truth from falsehood.
but there is no one here to correct.
no system to appeal to.
no higher authority to overturn this verdict.
only absence.
. . .
he studies the painting again.
tries to find something that aligns.
a detail.
a feature.
a fragment.
anything that might anchor his memory to something tangible.
there is none.
and that—
that is what terrifies him.
because everything else in this museum is wrong.
but it is consistently wrong.
the errors are visible.
understandable.
correctable.
this—
this is something else entirely.
this is a void where certainty should be.
. . .
his hand lifts.
almost unconsciously.
he does not touch the canvas.
he does not dare.
but he hovers there, fingers suspended in empty space, as though reaching for something just beyond perception.
“i remember you,” he says.
not to the painting.
not to the room.
but to something that is no longer there to hear it.
and the words are true.
painfully, undeniably true.
because he does remember.
he remembers every moment.
every conversation.
every silence.
every shared glance that now means nothing without the face that once gave it context.
he remembers loving you.
and that—
that is the cruelest part,
because love, without form, becomes something unbearable.
something unplaceable.
something that lingers without direction.
. . .
he lowers his hand.
slowly.
carefully.
as though any sudden movement might shatter what little remains.
behind him, somewhere far away, the sound of rain begins.
soft at first.
then steady.
then unrelenting.
. . .
neuvillette does not turn.
he does not leave.
he stands before your portrait—
before the face he cannot recall—
and commits the only truth he has left to memory.
“i will not forget you.”
even if the world does.
even if time does.
evem if water itself refuses to carry what it once held so easily—
he will remember.
not your face.
not anymore.
but everything else.
and somewhere, in the quiet spaces between rain and silence—
in the absence that refuses to fade—
that will have to be enough.
— — —
© kodzulyn, 2026 | do not plagiarize, use my works for ai, translate or repost without permission. thank you.
#FAHHH
#yummy angst
