Ouch, angstiest chapter yet.
Chapter 21 - Pain
It hurt. It hurt. It hurt so much.
Suoh ran while his heart throbbed with pain, trying to drown his distress in speed while getting somewhere no one would reach him.
In some shadowy part of his brain, he knew he was overreacting. He knew a blow received in the middle of an argument shouldn't send him running from the building. He knew Nokoru and Akira must be confused and perhaps worried right now.
But he also knew with much more certainty that the fragile wall he'd unconsciously built as a rampart against his recently ever-growing fears had shattered: the thought that there was no reason Nokoru would ever harm him since he'd never harmed him so far. And now he found himself engulfed in disproportionate fear.
Panting, he entered the elegantly furnished school blimp, where no one would think of looking for him, where no one would go in by coincidence, and to which, indeed, only the members of the four councils had access. It seemed he could make intelligent choices even in the midst of turmoil.
He threw himself on the floor, put his head and arms on the couch, and cried like he'd never cried in his life, even when his mother had announced him, at age six, that his older brother had finally died because of that horrible person.
Nokoru hit me. Nokoru hit me.
The thought would not leave him. It wasn't that it physically hurt. It did - a throbbing on his jaw line and lower lip, a salty taste in his mouth that meant blood - after all, Nokoru had been in woman-defending mode. But Suoh was used to getting bruises, cuts and burns while training. If Nokoru had struck him by accident, while gesticulating enthusiastically as he was wont to do, Suoh wouldn't have minded at all. He wouldn't be crying with grief and trembling with terror. In fact, he probably would have been able to evade the blow.
But it was no accident. Nokoru wanted me to have this bruise. He wanted me to feel pain. Maybe he even wished he were stronger so he could hit harder.
Suoh sobbed, all the while telling himself ineffectually to cut the melodrama. He couldn't. He was nearly tired out, his mother didn't like him, his clan despised him, Nokoru was mad at him, he could not choose his future, he had no one to turn to, he'd get a scolding when he got home with puffy eyes, then he'd have to train although he didn't feel at all like it, then he'd have to go back to school tomorrow and face things, and maybe he'd have to live his whole life being hurt by the one he loved most. Like his older brother. Like some of his cousins. He couldn't take it anymore. He wished that horror he envisioned couldn't even be a possibility. He wished he could be someone else. He wished his heart would just stop hurting so. Even for a moment.
He'd never really understood why a Takamura was so completely helpless in front of his One. Now he understood better. If Nokoru wished him to suffer, or even simply didn't care that he suffered, nothing was worth fighting for, even his own security, even his pride, even his life, even making an effort for things to get better. There was no happiness outside of Nokoru.
Suoh had naïvely spent a good part of his life believing that being a Takamura was a blessing for the precious, unique bond it created.
But all too often it was a curse.