26th of August
CrossAcademy22
Ciel threw the teacups and the plate of cake to the floor.
'You call this tea!? It tastes horrible!'
Sebastian stared upon the ruined cake and the broken teacups on the floor. He bent down to pick them only to receive a kick on his side and he winced at the slight pain.
'Who asked you to clean them up!?' Ciel asked angrily.
'I apologize.'
'I don't want you here. Get out! Leave me alone.'
He was lying. The tea was perfect, but he no longer indulges in such luxuries. His sense of taste is different now. Even the perfect cup of tea Sebastian makes no longer tastes the same like it had once. They're just bitter... and hell, he can't even understand why he had loved them.
The cakes and sweets too, they're nothing but a mixture of... of flour, sugar, eggs, whatever... and then baked. What more is there to them? Maybe the flavour, but to his tongue their sweetness too, no longer captures him in a paradise he'd used to love indulging in as the cake melts in his mouth.
Huh. Paradise?
He hates tea now.
And he hates August even more.
But he doesn't yet know whether or not he truly hates sweets... hm...
It was almost evening when the young demon screamed out in pain.
Ciel's blue eyes turned an agonizing red and he shut them tightly. His hands went to cup his ears and he curled himself into a ball, not caring if the pillows fell off the bed. Tangled together with the bed sheets, he let out another scream of pain.
It hurts so much... his ears. He can hear almost anything.
There's a mouse pattering in the ceiling.
A bird clawing at the windowpane.
Someone walking up to his door...
Sebastian entered with a worried expression plastered all over his face.
'Young master, please calm down,' Sebastian said, voice half-dripping with worry.
He tried to reach to Ciel, but the boy pushed him away harshly. Ciel started to rock himself back and forth like a child having experienced a traumatic event.
'Control your senses, young master. Calm down,' Sebastian repeated. 'It'll go away.'
Ciel tried, and but it was to no avail. It just hurts so much.
'Damn you! Go away! Leave me alone!' Ciel cried out in frustration to his butler. Not even the stupid older demon can do anything to help him.
With a sudden, swift movement, Ciel was thrown to the wall and the bedside clock crashed down to the floor in the process. Shards of broken glass and pieces of broken wood littered the floor. Ciel's eyes glowed red again and despite the pain in his ears, a harsh glare was sent to Sebastian.
In a mere second, he'd lunged forward to Sebastian in rage and sent the other demon flying backwards until the butler hit the dresser. Sebastian slammed hard against the piece of furniture, breaking it to pieces. He groaned as he tried to sit up amongst the pieces of wood of the once beautiful dresser. Finally managing to sit, he let his back rested against the wall, feeling the sore parts and the damaged organs in his body.
It seemed Ciel's strength doubles when he's angry.
With his head hung low almost to his chest, he coughed out blood and it tainted the front of his shirt and tie. Damn... he thought. Blood was there on the other parts of his body but they were hidden well by the black fabric of his coat.
As if that was not enough, Ciel walked over to Sebastian and was about to hit him again when the pain became unbearable and he collapsed to the floor on his knee with a loud scream, his hands covering his eyes.
His eyes started to change colours from red to blue and to the contract sign on his right eye before repeating the cycle.
'Se-Sebastian...!' he choked out in pain.
His hand that was reaching out, searching, found Sebastian's sleeve, and he gripped at it strongly.
'Give in to your desire, young master,' Sebastian whispered calmly, and somewhat soothingly, to Ciel's ear.
Ciel's mismatched eyes looked up at Sebastian's red ones, full of anger. Sebastian wasn't sure if that anger was for him or for the pain the young demon was enduring.
'I...I can't...' Ciel rasped, and his head fell forward to rest on Sebastian's chest.
'Even demons have their limits. It's been almost a year, young master, and you have yet to have your first–'
A loud slap resounded throughout the room and a red print was soon visible on Sebastian's pale cheek. A drop of blood trickled down from the slight cut made from Ciel's long, black nail.
'My first what!?' asked the former human angrily, though he knows the answer.
Ciel was huffing and his breathing was erratic from the pain, and he soon slumped down against the wall. He let his eyes wandered up to the ceiling, trying to calm down by looking at the light. His eyes closed.
'I... I can't... I desire it, but I can't... I can't take that sweet...'
...alluring...
...soul.
His eyes fluttered open slowly, his demonic eyes returning to their normal royal blue. They snapped open though, when he realised what had just crossed his mind. He had vowed not to say that again, but his lust and hunger forced him to. Damn it. Finding that his senses had returned to normal, he stood with trembling knees. Sebastian who wanted to help him was pushed away.
'Don't help me,' Ciel said. 'And Sebastian, don't come to my room even if I call out for you tonight. Let me on my own.'
Ciel was giving his back to Sebastian, so the butler couldn't see what kind of expression his young master was wearing. As a butler though, there was nothing he could do but obey. He bowed and without another word, left the room. He doubt that Ciel even wanted to hear his voice right now.
As soon as the door was shut, Ciel walked over to the mirror, not caring the terrible condition of the room. He looked at his own dishevelled look. His dark hair was sticking up everywhere, his eye blue and the other bearing the contract seal. There was a large swell on his forehead from when Sebastian had thrown him to the wall.
He didn't care if Sebastian did that because he understood his butler's intention. He had wanted to grab his attention away from the pain by focusing it to anger instead. But the truth is, he didn't want to lose this pain.
Because he deserves it. It's a punishment for him to be lusting after that one soul.
Elizabeth Midford's soul, that is.
It's always like this whenever it's the twenty-sixth day of August. It's been three years, but it's always like this. It's always like this because Elizabeth mourns him year after year and puts bouquets of flowers for him.
He doesn't need all that.
Why can't she see that? Even though she knows that his body was never found, she keeps going back to the empty grave. His empty grave. That grave is just there to remind them that Ciel was no longer there.
That he was dead.
Why can't she understand that? He wants her to understand it because for as long as she longs for him to return, he too won't stop longing for her soul. He desires her soul very much. Almost like Sebastian had once, and perhaps still, yearned for his soul. Her soul has this painfully sweet scent and it allures him to her.
He's angry with himself for that. It's not just the scent that lures him, but also what comes with it.
Kindness.
Radiance.
Innocence.
The joy of living.
Her soul is soaked with all these... much human qualities, and it's as if the once-human part of him wants to feel them once more. And for that, an excruciating pain would visit him every year when people's memories of him are the strongest: the twenty-sixth day of August.
The demon part of him wants her soul, but the reminiscence of human in his heart refuses it.
Because she's someone he'd once love and still does.
Elizabeth Midford, that is.