(TRC) Rhyme and reason-5
9.Fai was a liar, decided Kurogane. One just like his father, just as pathetic and ridiculous. He looked across the rattling carriage to the bed in which the aforementioned prince lay, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by several pillows. If not for his blond hair, Fai would have blended in completely with the bed sheets, pale and slight as he was.
The idiot had denied there was anything wrong with him, even after he had fainted. Desperate, he had turned to the king and queen. The queen just turned as white as her son, and started her hysterical screeching again, clawing at her own face and moaning incoherently. The king just looked carefully down at his feet, and with the same care, said, “My son has haemophilia. There’s nothing you can do.” That said, the king had shut up and said nothing else, refusing even to see Fai.
“You idiot,” Kurogane said now, half-heartedly. He had only just understood the meaning of ‘haemophilia’. A part of him was wondering how he was going to explain himself to the leader if one of the royal family didn’t successfully survive the journey to the border; the rest of him was just…blank. He didn’t know what to think, if it was his position to worry over someone he barely knew and whose parents didn’t even care about.
At the word, the boy stirred, opening dull eyes to smile weakly at Kurogane.
Kurogane felt his teeth grounding together when he saw the smile. You liar.
“Hey,” Fai called, trying to sound lively and blithely ignorant to his current circumstances. “Kuro-pii? Why so glum?”
The man rolled his eyes. Even now, the idiot refused to acknowledge reality? “What do you think?” he growled back.
“I think…”the boy narrowed his eyes at his guard. “How about playing ‘I Spy’?”
10.Kurogane noticed that ever since he had been consigned permanently to bed, Fai had begun a dangerous interest in sharp objects. His latest annoying question was, “How do people swallow knives?”
The man had snatched enough pairs of scissors and mirrors away from the prince to know that the question should not be explored any further. “They don’t,” he snapped, constantly being on edge putting him in a permanent bad mood. “It’s a fake knife; they don’t actually swallow it.”
Fai looked dubious. “Really? But it does look like it’s going down their throats. Fujitaka told me all about it in a circus he went to before.” His eyes slid to a silvered knife in a jeweled sheath that lay on the windowsill. Kurogane hastily grabbed it.
“Never mind,” said Kurogane trying to distract him. “Isn’t it time for you to be resting?”
11.Over the week that it took for the train to finally chug into the last station, Fai had grown paler, his bruises had grown darker, and his behaviour more listless-except for his constant badgering of Kurogane about knives and occasional rhetorical questions uttered aloud about the afterlife. Kurogane thought he would be driven mad before the week was out, and was extremely thankful when he saw the faint speck in the distance that was their destination.
When it was time for them to disembark, he gently lifted the prince in his arms-Fai was no longer able to walk. Kurogane stepped off the metal machine, Fai for once silent and nervous as he lay ensconced in blankets, scarves, coats and human warmth.
“Kuro-tan?” Fai’s voice was thin and soft.
“What?” Kurogane looked down, pressing his lips together.
Fai exhaled, mist clouding over his lips. “This is goodbye, right? This is the border, isn’t it, Kuro-pii?” A thin, cold hand touched the corner of Kurogane’s mouth.
Kurogane nodded. There was nothing to say.
He walked over to where the rest of the group stood, all of them huddled over for warmth. “Where are the envoys that are supposed to be here?” He frowned, his instincts telling him that something was very, very wrong. “Didn’t someone send a message ahead to inform them about our late arrival?”
One of the rebels huffed, a cross between a snort and a curse. “Don’t be stupid, Kurogane. You didn’t actually think we were going to hand them over to the enemy, did you?”
Kurogane stood stock still, arms wrapping tighter around the bundle in his arms. “What do you mean?” Something was very, very, very wrong.
“You fool.” The man punched his shoulder, not hard, but still hard enough to show disdain. “The queen’s one of them. We turn the royal family over to the enemies, who’s to say the situation doesn’t get more messed up if the king manages to get them on his side?”
The rebel in Kurogane spoke up, the only part of him still thinking straight. “Then there never was a deal with the enemy? The leader lied?” Lies, lies, lies. Didn't anyone tell the truth anymore?
The other rebels present laughed, their guffaws coarse and muffled in the cold air. “Oh, sure we’ll hand them over. Just not alive.”
Fai became very still in Kurogane’s arms. His breath misted, vanished, then misted over again, steady despite the racing heartbeat Kurogane felt under the palm he had on the boy’s chest.
“Put him down next to his parents.” The first rebel pointed at a spot next to the king, whose head seemed permanently inclined downwards. “He won’t need to stand long anyway,” he added, laughing at his little joke.
Kurogane’s muscles seemed locked into place. Then Fai’s hand touched his face again. “Put me down,” the thin prince whispered. He struggled to be upright, curled up as he was in Kurogane’s arms, and very gently, pressed his icy lips to Kurogane’s cheeks. “Put me down.”
“I can’t.” The red-eyed man was still frozen, his brain refusing to send the correct commands to his muscles.
“Put me down.” Fai placed both hands on either side of Kurogane’s face, forcing him to look down at the glassy blue eyes. “I’m dying anyway. Please, Kurogane.”
Kurogane flinched, and woodenly, stiffly, bent down and let Fai’s feet touch the ground. Fai wobbled, but with Kurogane’s hand at the small of his back, stood well enough.
“Step away, man.” The first rebel was irritated that the execution was taking longer than planned. “Step away or I’ll shoot you, too.”
At that, Fai firmly shoved at Kurogane, knees buckling as he pushed his makeshift pillar away. “Goodbye, Kuro-pii.” He smiled the smile that Kurogane hated so much. “This is goodbye, remember?”
Kurogane just stared, numbly, as the rebels raised their guns and fired.
The ending always has an epilogue.
There were no dying words, no romantic confessions spoken with dying breaths as Fai bled to death, side by side with his parents. There was only the sound of gunshots echoing across the icy tundra, and the sound of Kurogane’s heart ripping itself into two.