Their bed was cool when Azusa woke. He enviously glanced at Albert and Victoria, who cuddled on the bedside table. His arms were empty. He wondered if she'd left him to cook breakfast. Cute Yui in a cute apron… He smiled at the mental image and rolled out of bed.
Last night felt like a lovely dream… Yui had been so soft and sweet in his arms, clinging to him and calling his name again and again…
Deep down, he never felt truly sure about her choice—she liked him for reasons he couldn't comprehend, so the dark part of him almost wondered if… not that he thought she lied, but… perhaps she made a mistake and confused sympathy for love?
His doubt fell away under kisses and promises of forever and ever…
Yui chose him. She really, truly wanted him. Loved him, desired him, wanted to be closer than skin…
Sleepy, Azusa followed after her scent, leaving the room, through the hallway, and.. her trail stopped dead right in front of a large window. He blinked at it, feeling more awake and perplexed. Azusa opened it and looked down several stories into the courtyard, but there was nothing lingering in the air.
Something about this was… strange...
Unease curdling in his stomach, Azusa checked the kitchen. The library. The garden. Their bedroom again.
Nothing.
Her scent vanished at that window.
"Ruki!" He burst into his brother's room. "Yui-san…. is missing!"
Of the Sakamakis, only Shu, Subaru,and Reiji were willing to search. Ruki gave instructions to the Mukamis, while the eldest Sakamakis threw barbs and eventually volunteered to take certain areas.
Yuma and Azusa roamed the woods. The trees were cast in shades of purple by the eclipse, and Azusa glared into the gloom as if the misty miasma of night were hiding her.
Racing along, Azusa recalled the pit in his stomach as he trailed behind Yui and Ayato… he never thought he'd prefer the sight of Yui in another's arms.
He was starting to get sick from too many feelings, maybe? It felt like the knots in his stomach would tear a hole. The friend on his leg ached, too, probably stretched open from the hours of exertion, but Azusa thought this didn't count as breaking his promise to her.
The forest opened up into a plain. They were outside the boundary of Eden, and the sight of red sparks on the horizon wasn't much of a surprise to him. Yuma didn't notice, charging on ahead, so Azusa didn't say anything.
Getting closer, Azusa saw those familiar glittering red wolves and knew what he had to do.
Yuma called out, "Hey! Azusa, where the hell are you going?!"
Azusa didn't listen to his brother's yell to come back, you idiot! He chased the familiars, who didn't retaliate or attack him this time. They led him to the edge of a trap, and Azusa could only accept.
Standing proud atop a large rock was a man with reddish-pink hair and an eyepatch. He grinned, wide and sadistic. To the familiars, he said, "Well, well, you've brought a weak little vampire for me to play with." One glittering gold eye looked him up and down.
Azusa ignored the taunt. "Where is she?"
"Who?" His only eyebrow raised. "Oh. The woman. You don't have her?"
"What…" Azusa glared at the man, who looked clueless, but...was it a front? "Give her back."
The man's nasal voice dripped with condescension. "You mean we've been trying to steal her all this time from some buffoons who lost her on their own? Gotta tell ya, that's anticlimactic." He shrugged, and the glow of bloodlust returned to his face. "Oh well, might as well get some entertainment out of you."
Azusa escaped with a shattered arm and an angry Yuma.
The sweater Yui liked to grab so often was in ragged shreds. On his sickbed, Azusa clutched the fabric. "I'll get another one..." He promised. "Come back to me…"
His brothers gave him pitying looks, but no one said anything.
Yuma reported their incident with the founder to Ruki and Kou.
"He wasn't lying. It's obvious who did this." Ruki's eyes narrowed. "Their brothers didn't notice when they left the castle, but they're long gone."
Azusa kept his head in his hands. Of course the triplets took Yui… they were provoked... Azusa should've kept watch after they were intimate. He'd lost his sense of danger in his happiness with Yui.
The eclipse should've made a magical barrier impossible, but they were hiding her somehow; the familiars Ruki and Shu sent out returned with nothing, or not at all.
Ruki remained calm. "Ayato is an arrogant man. They'll return to show off their prize."
Azusa, on the other hand, grew desperately frantic. He refused to stay in bed and heal, so his brothers chained him down.
Thrashing and delirious, on the verge of sleep, Azusa could almost see Yui stretching out her hands to him, calling, "Please, please… save me..." These visions of her crying, begging, arms spread upon a cross tormented Azusa, but no one could find her.
Part of him couldn't accept this—he held her in his arms not so long ago! He became one with her—the way he'd always longed for but never truly believed he could have—and she'd disappeared like a dream in the morning.
Azusa wandered like a ghost through the world without her. The world seemed so empty without her, and paradoxically, small. Being with her made the world bigger and more interesting.
He entered the room where she slept, hoping to find her tucked into her bed, rosy sheets up to her chin nice and cozy. She'd look lovely there, sleeping like a princess with her creamy blonde hair fanned around her face like a halo.
"It's cold..." Azusa pulled back the coverlet and climbed into the scent of her, smothering himself in her shadow. Her bed wasn't warm without her, and the smooth covers felt strange against his skin.
He gazed upon the vanity where he once piled books high, hoping to make her smile…
The seat where Yui used to sit and stare at her rosary on the tray…
The yellow walls changed their shade according to the light from the window she used to look out of, expressions drawn complicated and sad…
The bedside table where he placed a cup of tea. Her expression when she took a sip was so happy, it made him feel like he was full of fireworks, brilliant and light...
Azusa lingered in her room too often, or perhaps it had been too long since she visited; the scent of her began to fade.
In the secret place, a little circle of light from above was the only proof that this dark space connected to the real world. Sitting in that small pool of light in the darkness, tending to the weak and unwanted, Azusa thought she looked like an angel.
The smell of her and of Belle had already faded here. It had long been replaced with mold and damp.
Azusa stood in the church where she grew up. The pews were growing dusty and the roses were wilting, with brown edges and drooping petals falling on the floor.
He could still see her spinning, arms out as she told him, "this place is a part of me." The reason she was no longer too scared to come back until… was it him? Was it okay to come back if he was there with her? If so, where was she now?
He stood in front of the large stained glass windows and looked upon red roses and vines set in panels of glass.
Would it help, Azusa wondered, if he prayed? He'd never really tried it before, but Yui believed. He bought her a Bible. Maybe, if there was someone up there, they'd remember he did that?
She spoke of singing hymns to children and telling them Bible stories, and he'd never gotten the chance to actually hear it. He'd just...assumed they'd have time, later, when she was ready…
Yui was supposed to show him the lovely orphanage she knew.
When Azusa and his brothers attempted to escape their orphanage, they were gunned down. Lying on the ground and bleeding out from a starburst wound, Azusa mostly felt relieved by the final pain. Oh, he'd felt sorrow for the blue sky, for their shattered dreams, but not enough. He never told anyone that: he wanted to die. He wanted to be over.
Part of him still carried his death around like a weight. He had no ambitions or goals beyond the visceral, beyond pain and earning his right to live… until her.
The nightmares were bad, full of the scent of blood and the sound of screaming and Azusa couldn't save her because he couldn't find her… but the good dreams were worse, sometimes.
In those, they lived in a little yellow farmhouse with their children. Their bodies were free of bandages and their scars changed colors in the sun. The kids chased Belle around the yard all day and their youngest daughter slept with the puppy at night.
Azusa would wander through the rooms of their sunny home, finding the basket where Yui made a whole family for Albert and Victoria, or looking at the drawings tacked up on the walls. He'd climb into a big fluffy bed with a patched quilt and a sweet wife, and sometimes Belle and the children would climb in with Azusa and Yui and sleep together as a family.
His brothers visited on the weekends: Yuma brought over baskets of vegetables, Kou made jokes and played with their cats, and Ruki looked proud of him.
Best of all, when he stretched out his arms, Yui jumped into his grasp and pressed kisses to his face. She would never escape, because she didn't want to. He made her happy.
Azusa woke up and cried in his empty room.
"You don't want me to be hurt," he reasoned aloud. His treasures glinted in the light and their bright jewels sparkled. "I said I wouldn't do it… but you're not here..."
Azusa could see his own dead-eyed expression in the blade of his knife. The unreality of the world cleaved back with the first slice, deep and clean. It hurt. It was satisfying. Something inside him was pleased.
The world slowed down, and he could think again.
"Hey, Eve… come back." Blood dripped down his arm and he caught it in his palm, blood dripping on the permanent scar. "It hurts…"
Again, he raised his knife. The next slice was slower, more steady. A long, long line.
"Yui-san… I need a new bandage…" He tried calling out to his vision, but his imaginary Yui simply cried. Azusa gazed at her mirage and whispered, "I'm sorry... I lied to you, so… please come hit me? Scold me. Hurt me. Anything is fine..."
"I don't want to hurt you. Please believe in me," he knew she'd say, her face crumpled with sadness.
Feeling disgusted with himself, Azusa threw down the knife and held the cut closed. "No more. I can't… I promised her..."
Promises don't go away, even if they're broken once. She promised to be with him forever—she could still come back and keep it, so he had to keep his promise, too.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, as tears mingled with the blood.
His brothers said, "Don't give up so easily."
His brothers said, "Jeez, change your clothes!"
His brothers said, "Eat something, eat something."
They finally took him back to Eden to attend some fancy dinner—a mandatory event by the order of the King—and Yui came back to him.