*I Never Loved You, It Was Nothing But A Dare*
#Chapter 9: Reconciliation
"Your guest, Shirogane, whom you were supposed to be watching over… has been kidnapped," they told the crimson-eyed boy simultaneously with a dead serious tone.
Shirogane woke to an unfamiliar place. His eyes didn't exactly respond immediately to his mind, but sooner or later he was able to see and feel around him. Well, as much as he could feel with his hands and feet bound. He barely but managed to toss his body from leaning on the right to the left, trying to take a good look of his surroundings. As much as he wanted to though, the lone tube-shaped florescent light was insufficient for looking around.
Wait. This is not an unfamiliar place.
"Oh no…"
He noticed that while murmuring those two words, his voice was raspy and dry; his throat itchy to no ends. It felt like he hadn't had a drink of water or spoken for years. Just how long was he out?
The sudden opening of the door at the top of the stairs from what looked to be a basement drew his attention. His gaze flew upwards and his eyes caught a glimpse of blue hair.
Maybe he didn't want to know where he was and how long he was detained. He regretted it.
"H-Homura?"
"Ryugasaki-kun? Is that you? You don't sound so good," the sliver-haired boy muttered into the receiver half-asleep himself. It was a Saturday, so he couldn't understand what Ryugasaki was doing calling him at half past seven in the morning.
"I, um we…" Ryugasaki stammered, sounding somewhat nervous.
"Yes? What's the matter, Ryugasaki?"
"There's a problem. A huge one," the blue-dragon user finally said.
"What's the problem? Shirogane molested you last night?" Homura joked, not knowing that those few words would have greatly upset the other boy on the line.
"How I wish that had happened instead!" he cried and shrieked into the receiver. "How I wish! B-but that's not it, Homura! H-he's been kidnapped!" The green-eyed widened his emerald orbs at that.
That lady had better not mess with my plans.
"Do you know who? And how?" Homura questioned the now hiccupping boy.
"N-not really. Dravise s-said he saw a silhouette leave the room though. He mentioned that the figure had long, dark-coloured hair, although the night had concealed the exact colour of the hair," was the boy's reply. Homura nodded – it made sense. Somewhere along the line, he had figured that she was somewhat mentally unstable.
"Relax. I think I've caught the culprit."
"I'll be damned if this isn't enough backup. But seriously, why are you so worried?" Homura asked Ryugasaki, who was walking beside him. Behind the boys were a few officers from the WBMA.
"I didn't like the way Shirogane's mom was dressed–"
"I had to send home the police."
That sent Ryugasaki into silence. His eyes were averted from the silver-haired's querying gaze to the sidewalk; the crimson orbs taking a shape that made them look almost wistful. For a while, the emerald-eyed kept his eyes trained on the shorter boy, but then looked away. Even he understood and respected that Ryugasaki didn't want to be looked at.
"This… isn't just about the dress code, is it?" Homura spoke, more as a comment rather than a question.
Again with the strained, suffocating silence.
"I didn't like her eyes." And this time, Homura didn't say anything.
Subaru was quiet.
Her beatings hurt, he knew she knew, and yet he didn't make a sound. Not because he didn't want to, but simply because he was too exhausted by then from enduring the pain from ten minutes ago until now. He screamed at first, but then he exhausted his voice, and became silent. But the fact that she couldn't hear him scream drew a pinch of rage from the woman, and she hit him harder.
"How dare you insult me like this! Your blank face irritates me like hell! Why aren't you pleading for mercy?!"
You know, kaa-san– Shirogane's slightly sarcastic mind thought –I don't do it 'cause I gave up. You know that as well as anyone.
Amidst all her frequent shrieks, the blue-haired boy heard the sound of the basement door creak open. He said nothing, didn't even turn his head, for two reasons.
One: if the door simply creaked open without anyone opening it, then it would have amounted to nothing.
Two: if there was someone, then that someone didn't want to be noticed, so it would have been best to not direct attention that way.
Therefore, he concluded that he would stay silent. His mind unconsciously started to count the number of hits she landed since he heard the creak.
One, two, three, four, five, six…
He waited for the seventh. A second passed, then another, then the third second flew by. He flipped his body from a face-down position to the opposite stance to find a tuft of sliver. Right then, as he processed the scene of his mother groping the air as blind as a bat due to her glasses being ripped from her face, he felt someone grab him from behind.
Blue hair… Ryugasaki?
However, before he could finish the thought, his mother snatched him from whoever it was holding him. Her fingernails she never bothered to cut dug into his skin, but not nearly enough to break the membrane. In a blurry instant, before his feet could even position themselves to stand up straight, a cold blade found its way to his tender neck.
"Move and I'll slit his throat!" he heard his mother screech through his fuzzy hearing. He was quite disorientated by then, but clear-minded enough to know that if he balanced his feet and stood upright, the blade would break skin. So he had no choice but to allow his mother to hold him up, trusting that she wouldn't allow him to fall and leave a scratch, to say the least.
His mother held him captive, hostage, a sacrifice. It was perfect. The other party wouldn't dare move because their main purpose – or so he would like to believe – was to get him out of there.
Silence drifted for quite a while longer. Then an innocent voice rang through the basement.
"No! Just let him go!"
Shirogane opened his eyes with all the strength he could possibly muster in his eyelids, although only succeeding in creating thin slits for him to see through. Ryugasaki was standing face-to-face with his mother, and Shirogane wasn't quite sure about this but the mentioned teen's eyes looked somewhat watery.
"Ryugasaki…"
"And who are you to order me around?" the feared lady questioned the bluenette.
"I… I never said I had the power to order anyone around! But you shouldn't hurt Shirogane-kun like that either! H-he'll get hurt…"
"And why should I care? Do not interfere, you insolent–"
-BANG!-
All eyes except two pairs shifted their gazes from the lady to the person behind her. God knows when Homura snuck behind Shirogane's mother. Incredibly, nobody even noticed his shifted presence until he shot the marble dead at the woman's head – nothing serious, the bleeding was minimal, but she is unconscious.
And the knife spun out of control. But that wasn't out of Homura's expectations, neither was what happened after the knife spun. If its course unaltered, it would've sliced Shirogane's neck right across, but fortunately for him…
Ryugasaki's reflexes were too fast for his brain to keep up. Neither fear nor pain entered his mind until he grabbed onto the knife – with his bare right hand – and squeezed the blade tightly.
He gave a painful yelp, and the blade tumbled to the ground along with the released Shirogane. Blood flowed from the fresh wounds.
"Arigatou, Ryugasaki-kun. I told you I'd figure something out. I was waiting for the chance, is all," he calmly spoke in his own refined manner. Both the bluenettes stared at the silverhead, their mouths agape, stunned. The blue-dragon user used his unwounded hand to press hard onto the other in a futile attempt to stop the red-coloured river.
"B-but when? And how? W-why didn't we notice you? Why didn't you tell me your plans from the beginning?" Ryugasaki blurted out, gently tripping over his own words as they escaped his lips.
"I know plenty of quotes," answered Homura. On the ground, Shirogane understood his words immediately.
"To fool your enemies, you must fool your friends first…" he mumbled, his eyes shifting away from Homura. "He needed you to be as natural as you can, yet he knows you're no actor. But he understood your personality. He knew you would be the one stupid pawn that would supply him with his chance to strike. Am I right?"
Ryugasaki was stunned into silence. He tried to catch on to what they were saying.
"Your explanation is rather flawless," Homura confirmed. "Now let's get out of here. You need to have that bandaged."
This is awkward…
Shirogane just had his wounds disinfected, treated and bandaged at a hospital. The bandages on him covered a quarter to a third of his body. He was feeling stiff in his left arm, and not from injuries. More like he was feeling a not-so-dead weight cling onto his limb.
He sighed. "Ryugasaki-kun, do you mind?"
"Hm?" His attention now moved to the sapphire-eyes staring at him. Shirogane cocked his eyebrows a little and closed his eyes.
"I repeat: Do you mind?"
"Mind what?" asked back the other boy.
"Letting go of me," answered the former.
Ryugasaki's cerulean fringe fell, covering his eyes, as he lowered his head a little; his hands still stubbornly clinging onto Shirogane's arm. "You… don't like it?" he asked with a small timid voice now.
The blue-eyed boy widened his sapphire orbs gently in minor shock. "No. No, that's not what I meant. I just–"
"…kowai."
"Did you say something, Ryugasaki-kun?"
"*Watashi wa kowai! I'm scared of losing you again!" he shrieked. Shirogane stiffened slightly at the clingy Ryugasaki's sudden outburst, but immediately got rid of the tension by smacking the boy in the head while making sure that he didn't hurt him.
"Itai! What was that for?" complained the smacked boy. But he was compensated immediately when Shirogane stretched out his hand to pat his head.
"I'm not going anywhere, baka. So don't cry," the midnight-blue haired teen said as he wiped the crystal droplets at the edges of Ryugasaki's eyes.
"Promise?"
A chuckle. Shirogane clasped Ryugasaki's injured right hand in both his own. "Yeah. And I won't let you get hurt again." He squeezed the mass of bandaged flesh more precious than his own life tighter.
'Cause I'm scared of losing you too. So please, stay with me.
Because I love you.
*Watashi wa kowai: I'm scared! (Or at least I think it means that in Japanese. If I'm wrong, correct me.)
A/N: Okay, I know I took way too long to type a total of 1800 to 2000 words, but hopefully you guys enjoyed the conclusion to this minor Springtime arc. Next arc will be the ending Summertime arc – warning: time skip – because I'm too lazy to write the things that go in between. Just know that by summer, our kawaii Subaru's feelings for Kakeru – and vice versa – would have shot up a little.
Tell me my mistakes, flaws, errors, anything you find not right with my writing. But there's no need to comment on the inconsistency of my writing because I am fully aware of it. I only go on hiatus when I run out of ideas. Assuming you guys have heard the proverb/idiom (I have no idea which category this goes under) 'Hit the iron while it is still hot', once I stop writing, even when the idea hits (or is given; thank you Bdaman lover4ever) I find it hard to pick up the flow again.
I've learnt my lesson. I'll plan my next arc before I write it so I hopefully won't keep you guys waiting too long between each chapter. And help me out with voting on my one-shot idea please!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING ON MY STORY. This is the update you guys have been waiting for, so I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for sticking with me.
~PhoenixFireBlade~
