AN: The genre will be a mix between crime, action, dark romance (warning: Yandere!Takumi) and slight fantasy.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Hiro Fujiwara
Betrayal in Red
- Funeral of Smile -
Prologue
Summer, 1995, Palmyra Atoll.
-;-
Red.
Red.
RED.
Everything is red; the sun, the sky, the horizon. The water that surrounds him. Even all the sand is tinged in the crimson reflection of the flaming air. Lungs full of searing heat, he takes a few deep breaths, but they feel shallow and useless. He's losing his mind to the deprivation of oxygen, to the stench of metal and death filling his remaining senses.
His hands are red, trembling. Coated with blood. It drips to his wrists, down the length of his frail and thin forearms. The child is barely young enough to comprehend what he had done.
He took one's breath away.
But that, in the literal way.
The gesture was simple. Simply a tug, a pull on the trigger.
A deafening sound.
A heartless cry.
One's down.
It was so easy.
He looks down, his hands forever coated in red. Before he knows it, his world tilts upside down, and he slumps into the coarse sand, his clothes soaked and heavy.
He swears his eyes are open, and a hoarse cry struggles to escape his dry and seared throat. He knows that if he closes his eyes, it will all end. He knows it and he fights against the pull of his heavy lids.
Everything was red.
Now...
Everything is black.
-;-
The tropical breeze hardly reaches the wooden shelter hidden deep into the rainforest. Yet, it curls around the dirty-blonde locks plastered over his forehead, drying the damp sweat in its wake.
The boy breathes in a serene lull, his face, covered in an healthy later of perspiration, is collected in its unconsciousness. As troubled as he had been, his hands are no longer red, although blood clogs in the creases of his rusty nails. Would he wake up, he'd judge them as clean; clean as a murderer's hands could be.
The small girl is quiet in nature, observing and storing data away in her head. A moment later, and she's gone, her movement similar to one's of a feline; precise and agile. The leaves and stray branches do not make a single sound under her light steps, and they allow her silent glide into the forest.
He wakes up to the regular singing of wild cicadas, the blazing heat making his eyes open with difficulty. Sweat uncomfortably runs down his neck and dampens his hair but he hardly cares. All he sees is brown; slabs of wood from the shelter's beam.
The warm shade reminds him of red, and he closes his eyes, a sudden and painful tinge making him dizzy. His limbs won't move no matter how he tries to command them, and the effort makes him breathless.
Where is he?
The question is legitimate in the circumstances.
His breathing is erratic as he tries to utter a sound; any sound would do. But nothing gets past his throat, and the cicadas sing twice as loud, as if they were intend on drowning his pleas. The boy is smarter than average, very much so. He surmises that getting worked up in his state is futile; counter-productive, even.
He calms down, his eyes opening but resting passively on the roof of the shelter. He doesn't know where he is, and it could be part Heaven, the other part searing hot like he'd expect of Hell.
At least, he's conscious.
Unless his unconsciousness is playing a trick on him.
He doesn't know anymore, so he just stays like that, grateful to be able to think, but his soul heavy from his physical restrictions. His breaths calm down, and his erratic pulse comes to an halt, slowing to a resigned beat.
Until a faint rustle alerts him and throws his heart back in gallops.
His eyes instantly closes, feigning sleep as he hears light steps enter the cabin. But she notices the changes in his breathing; the hike in the rising of his lungs less innate than it had been during her long hours of observation.
It had been days after all.
Her cold fingertips touch the line of his throat and he shivers at the contact, his eyelids fluttering and his breath hitching. He's a novice at hiding the evident manifestation of his reflexes, and she sees through it all.
She hums softly, beckoning him to open his eyes.
He squeezes them shut instead, closing himself off.
A cool finger gently taps his lips.
Eventually, all he sees are wild ambers focusing on him.
And she'd never seen such a vibrant green in the irises of any living being before that. She steps back in fear, confusion hitting her like a storm, bewildered that the hue of her forest could find itself reflected so starkly in someone's eyes.
His features crease in confusion, taken aback by her reaction. He assesses her down, from her dirty bare feet to the sullied white drapery dress she wears, the hem torn and ripped away. Her hair is down in choppy strands of dark chocolate, her features delicate yet edging on ferocity and wildness.
When he tries to speak again, only a raspy sound scratches his windpipe and he winces in silent contemplation, one hand twitching in an attempt to reach for his neck.
Understanding dawns on her shock-recovering ambers, and she reaches for a vial of stream water and pulls back to him. When she places it upon his lips, he tries to shake his head, untruthful of the content of the container.
She frowns and decides to proceed as she did the past few weeks. Gulping down a mouthful of water, her lips descend on his and she efficiently forces her way past his lips, feeding him the much-needed water.
He coughs, raw and rough, sputtering water everywhere as his eyes open wide with ablast surprise.
Little did she know that he had interpreted it as something other than instinctive need; a wild and natural logic. His version of the act is something intrusively intimate, especially for the young boy he is.
Once again, his lips drop open to utter some desperate words, but nothing comes out. So she takes another gulp, and leans towards him. This time, he resists the shock of such a contact and let the cool water run down his starched throat.
"Thank... Thank you," he says difficultly, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. The words hang in the air, but she doesn't move, perplexed by the foreign sound. The back of her hand skims along his throat, and her eyes urge him to speak again.
When he does, she feels the vibrations underneath her splayed fingertips. And she hums along after a bit, trying to reciprocate his words in her own way.
It was after this peculiar session that he finally understood. The girl did not speak his language.
-;-
In his lengthy recovery, he found out that she apparently lived on her own in this island, feeding off stray beasts she always managed to catch, God knew how, at dawn. She'd disappear at night, and take short naps in high branches in the hot days, curling in the fork of a heavy trunk, and yet always keeping an eye on the boy's wellbeing.
Her unfettered ways had brought something he had never yet tasted; it was a mixture of respect and reverence, but also a strain of longing. Usui Takumi hardly longed to be anyone, but here he was, wishing to be as free as she proved herself to be.
He had somewhat been labeled as a genius child, after all. Ever since the age of four, his dexterous fingers had effortlessly glided over the computer's keyboard, his form faster than most adults. He could encrypt data ever since he hit his seventh years and as he grew, he showed to be a promising weapon for the future cyber-generation.
Alas, his skills became his downfall, because his family couldn't protect him, although they had tried. When his biological mother had died, that was when his life started to turn for the worse.
When his father had chosen a woman to replace his mother.
Whom started to take profit out of him.
Using him.
Red.
Red.
Red.
Maybe his hands will clean up with time.
As he sits on that large canopy tree trunk, a cool hand comes to curl around the nape of his neck, and he leans into the touch. Why was that girl's touch always refreshing cold was a wonder he didn't question.
"Hello," he smiles, albeit sweetly when ambers gaze down at him. She had jumped upon the tree's trunk, eyeing him down with perfect balance despite of standing on her tiptoes. Her hands cross behind her back as she leans closer to his ear.
"Hello," she echoes, her voice tentative and uneven in tones.
Beckoning her closer with a small gesture of his hand, she bends lower as he stretches to reach for her, one hand curling around her neck. The flask of water he holds at his side is already open and he swigs a long gulp before feeding it to her, their soft lips touching without abashment.
Ignorant of whether it was out of habit or simply because he wanted to do so, all in all, he finds the gesture somehow so endearing and affectionate he couldn't give it up.
When came the time where he could freely walk and run without any strain, the boy was already months older.
The boy, so good at digital technologies, hardly knew the wonders nature had to offer, after all.
"It's breathtaking," he voices towards the lush waterfall, on a sunny day. The water sparkles under the sunrays filtering through hefty trees, and he steps into its refreshing coldness with a sigh full of relief.
"Beautiful?" She asks with a lilt of her head, the word curling with her soft spoken voice. Nodding with a smile, he confirms her word.
"Very," he says, and widely opens his arms to show the immensity of the word.
That very night, he craved for discovering the forest by himself. Sneaking out of the shelter, his steps lightly thud on the ground, twigs creaking and breaking under his now hardened foot.
Heading in a random direction, he threads the ground, blindly pushing away thick foliage as he can manage in the darkness. Something beckons him towards the blue lagoon he had learnt the pathway to. Quickly enough, he navigates through the heavy forest and hits the lagoon, its surface reflecting the trillion of stars he could hardly see, back in the city.
Fireflies take flight the second he touches the glassy surface with the tip of his fingers, ripples settling in and troubling the still water. Something stirs in his heart, and he wishes he could've brought her here to watch the ephemeral midnight wonder with him.
A lighting bug drops onto his outstretched hand, shinning with might, fading in and out in rhythm with its peers.
The blonde boy smiles at the insects and at their collaborative shine. But all of sudden, all the light dies down, the bug that was on his hand taking flight with haste.
A cold wind falls on the forest, leafs and branches rustling with ill omen.
Heart in his throat at first, he freezes, before taking off in the same fear the firefly had been animated with. Stray twigs cut at his hasty departure, his cheeks bruising and his hands and knees scrapping at some accidental falls. Wind sifts at his ears as he hurtles down his way, his heart beating painfully.
A shadow follows him above his head, pacing with his frenzied escape towards the wooden shelter in sleek jumps, from tree to tree. Deep down, he knew that there was that one implicit rule; that he shouldn't be out at night in the forest. Not without her.
Skin burning at the bleeding injuries and the fear coursing his veins fueling his run, he continues on, his breathing turning erratic along with his heart-rate.
Something shackles his ankle and he falls awkwardly, feeling a white hot pain down his calf. Things happen so suddenly, and a shrieked hiss falls, making the night still and the hair on his nape stand with dread.
Twice the length of a house cat, a feline tackles his burdened leg, clawing his skin in its wake. One short cry cuts through his throat and he scrambles back up, nails digging into fresh soil. His left leg feels unstable because of the burning pain, and he falls again, not even two feet further. Eyeing back, all he sees through the pale inkling the moon gives is a small feline clawing open a nasty snake, jaws and incisive working through scales and blood.
Without another look, Takumi crawls back up and heads to the shelter with all the strength he has left. When he hits the open door, he slumps down on the entryway, certainly weakened by his calf injury burning him from inside out.
-;-
That night, he dreams of felines and snakes. Of small leopards and cobra. They turn all red, dripping with blood, and somehow, he's killing them with his bare hand. Twisting and cutting their windpipes with his own two hands.
He wakes suddenly, gasping, the sun shining back without a regard to his late-night doing. He's lying on the bed, a damp fabric on his forehead and his calf burning in a buzzing and spreading pain.
Thankfully, he manages to rise up and head out, supporting himself against the wooden beams of the shelter. Wincing whenever he uses his left leg to support his weight, he weakly stumbles his way out.
Five minutes is close to eternal agony, but that's how long it takes to her to find him awake. Happy to see her despite the state he is in, he begins to step towards her but something stops him.
She has a deep frown etched upon her face, her mouth twisted in blatant displeasure and quiet disfavor. His heart sinks down, joy shifting to dread. Her hair is a mess, and her eyes burn with a slow rage he'd never seen shining in her ambers before.
Seeing that he has stopped walking, she reaches to him instead, yanking at his forearm. Her hands tangle into his hair, pulling his head back. Easily positioning him, she tugs on his hair, making his naked neck stretch.
Pain seeps so easily, first aggressive and hot as she sinks her teeth in the sensitive skin of where his shoulder and throat meet. It lasts a beat longer, and as she clenches her jaw around his skin, he knows there'd be a deep mark lining his pale skin. He knows that, but he also knows that somehow, this is a punishment for disrespecting her rules. For sneaking off on her the night.
Breaking her trust.
He deserves it, and somehow, he hopes that it's all he'll have to pay, because he's so scared that she'd leave the burden he must be. All at once, she pushes away, leaving him disoriented and cold despite the permanent heat of the island.
Stepping back, she stops at a far distance from him, and after a while, leaves rustle behind her, revealing some adults wearing khaki uniforms pacing towards her. She shifts so she keeps both their arrival and the boy in her eyesight.
"Very good," a soldier, or guard, words out. He's escorting a man clad in a business suit despite the heat. Something bitter rises in Takumi's throat because a tall woman follows the man, helped in her step by another soldier.
"Finally, we've found him, dear."
A voice he'd recognize between thousand.
His step mother.
Red.
As they reach him, all he wants to do is run away, and he attempts to do so, but the wild girl jumps on him before he can. She keeps him locked in her grip as he struggles as he can, utterly regretting the gashing wound on his calf and the perpetual pain running in his body.
"Thank you, Ayuzawa," the immaculate blonde woman says to the wild girl in a gratifying tone. Young emerald eyes rake the ambers he thought he had learnt to know.
"You... You have a name?..." He whispers, wanting to puke the content of his empty stomach more than anything else.
She smiles bitterly, not looking at him but straight ahead. "Yes, I do. But you never asked me, did you?"
His throat constricts at what he hears. "You... You can speak my language?... You understood me the whole time but you...?"
"Yes."
His step mother's grip curls around his wrist before he can utter another stunned question at that girl he had pinned as cut off the civilization. Leading him away, he struggles to watch back, to watch the girl and the soldiers, patting her head as if congratulating her of some good deeds while he was sold away by the only friend he would have cared about, had she not betrayed him.
Red.
Red.
Rage.
Red didn't wash away that easily after all.
-;-
A/n: 23/06/2016
Do you like it? :) This is the prologue. The main story will feature them after a few years from then. I hope you will like it, it's my first fic ^^'
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