CHAPTER 5.5 - Interlude

In the middle of a February night, paths were extremely difficult to navigate when you couldn't tell where the sidewalks ended, and the blizzard fogged out most of the street lamps into an orange haze. The snow had dropped so quickly that the salt trucks had no chance to clear the roads yet.

Ludwig's feet were numb in his trainers, which he hadn't even time to properly put on before dashing into the wintry tempest. His cashmere hoodie was not made for the weather either. The only reason why he dared to brave the suburban streets in such haphazard attire was because his destination was only half a mile away.

Upon getting there, Ludwig slammed his frozen fists into the door like his life depended on it. The sound would undoubtedly be deafening from inside, but out here he could barely pick up the sound let alone feel the icy wood against his hands.

It took approximately four minutes and twenty eight seconds for the chains on the door to clatter open. "Ludwig...?" Kiku's voice was thick with sleep. "What are you doing, I have work in four hours."

"Sorry," Ludwig muttered hoarsely, gripping the step rails with one hand to keep his balance while the other clutched at his face. "Sorry, I really am, but I just... I'd nowhere else to go."

Kiku shifted his stance, and a ray of light from the hall behind him illuminated the impromptu visitor swaying on his feet while the vicious snow blew around him. All traces of sleep on Kiku's face vanished faster than a wisp of smoke in the very same storm.

"Come inside at once," Kiku said sharply. "Now, before you freeze to death."

Ludwig obeyed and let the pair of thin hands usher him down the hall. Kiku deposited him into a padded dining chair and thrust a roll of kitchen towel at him. He then all but sprinted up the stairs, undoubtedly for a first aid kit, while Ludwig tried his very best not to bleed all over the pristine bamboo floor mat.

Kiku returned with not only a first aid kit, but with a rolled up blanket tucked under one arm and a small cloth pouch which he filled with ice from the freezer.

"Don't," Ludwig tried to protest. Some places had already begun swelling, and he could barely speak without his jaw bursting into fiery agony. "It'll be ruined—"

"Shut up, please," Kiku interrupted politely as he wrapped the thick blanket around the shivering man's shoulders. Ludwig watched in growing dismay as blood dripped from his chin and hair onto the fabric, ugly crimson splotches slowly debauching the beautiful Japanese embroidery.

"Can you remove your hand?" He looked back up to see Kiku had seated himself across from him and was holding an alcohol-dipped cotton ball with a pair of tweezers. "If your nose is broken, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."

"It's not broken," Ludwig replied, wincing as he slowly detached the wad of towel from his face. The subzero temperatures seemed to have helped in staunching the blood from his nose, but sitting in a room where the air no longer felt like knives in his throat, it was sluggishly bleeding again. He accepted the ice pouch and applied it until he could raise his head without leaking everywhere.

Now that his face was unobstructed and laid bare on full display, Ludwig had braced himself for Kiku's shock. Horror, or even disgust. Here he was at barely ten past four in the goddamn morning without so much as a warning, treading snow and blood all over his friend's immaculate home.

And thus, Ludwig didn't know how to react as he watched Kiku's expression harden with none other than anger. It did not disfigure his composure much, but Ludwig could see it in the tightening of his lips, so fierce they nearly grew as pale as the rest of his face, ashen and drained. His eyes were alight with black fury, darting back and forth to all the places on his mangled visage that throbbed and pulsed with every heartbeat.

After what felt like eons of suffocating silence and judgement, Kiku finally spoke. "This needs to stop."

"Don't tell Gilbert," was the first thing that tumbled out of his mouth. He winced when the sharp movement tugged at his split lip.

Kiku shook his head. "This..." He gestured aimlessly over Ludwig's slouched form. "This won't heal overnight. You can't expect to avoid him for that long."

"I'll think of something." He always did. Making up convincing excuses—it was one of his special skills that he'd honed, and he felt almost proud of it in a twisted way. "But not like this. Not when he's... please Kiku, God—"

"Okay." His friend raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, I won't say anything. I promise. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"I fell a couple times on my way." Now that the rest of his body had begun thawing in the warmth of Kiku's home, Ludwig felt the feeling slowly return to his extremities, including every bit of soreness in its rawest form. "Just scrapes here and there."

Kiku's eyes were trained on a spot below his chin, which Ludwig tried to hide under the blanket. It was too late, because Kiku's eyes didn't waver from the same spot even after it was covered.

"Just the scrapes?" Kiku inquired quietly.

"They're the ones bleeding the most," Ludwig answered instead.

"Hold out your hands please."

Ludwig complied, barely feeling the sting as Kiku gently wiped the gravel out of the wounds with the dipped cotton. After applying ointment, he neatly wrapped both of Ludwig's torn hands with gauze. He then applied the same treatment to his face, tilting up his chin for better visibility and access. Despite the undeserved gentleness of Kiku's process, Ludwig felt like he was on full display atop the kitchen table like a preserved animal being prepped for dissection.

"I don't have anything that'll cover this part." Kiku was likely addressing the left side of his face, where the swelling felt the worst. "I'm really worried that something is fractured, or broken—"

"It's not," Ludwig assured. "It hurts but not like it's fractured. Trust me, I'd know."

Kiku laid down the last soiled cotton ball atop a mountain of ones just like it, a precarious stack of wipes and fluff all stained with red and rust on the kitchen table.

"Who else knows?"

It was no longer a question about fractured bones.

"Just you and Alfred." Ludwig thought back to all the people he interacted with, the ones he pushed away because they came too close to finding out. "Not Feliciano."

He could never have let Feliciano find out. Not when he always seemed ready on the verge of tears when Ludwig caught his fingers in a door or stubbed his toe particularly hard. Or when he broke down wailing on the porch when he visited to bombard him with questions that were answered with silence, before Ludwig slammed the door in his face. "I think Gilbert put things together before he..."

Before he drank himself into a coma because he fucking warned you, and you still ran off to live with the guy—

"What happened to Gilbert is not your fault," Kiku said firmly. "Just like how this right now isn't your fault, either."

"It is, though. I said a lot of things I shouldn't have. He has a temper, just like Gilbert... I riled him up too much."

"Gilbert gets annoyed at the smallest trigger. Has he ever beaten you up because you said something to piss him off?"

"Of course not!" Ludwig snarled, horrified that Kiku would even suggest such a thing. He could feel his face glowing with shame when Kiku raised a brow, as if to emphasize a point. "And Ralph didn't 'beat me up', you're over-exaggerating. Lots of people throw and hit things when they're angry and I think he just lost control. Hell, even I've thrown pens and stuff—"

"Pens and stuff," Kiku repeated. "Those are very different from your face."

"He's usually careful not to."

"So he normally hits you in other places. Well, thank God for that," Kiku said sarcastically, throwing his hands up in an unusually animated outburst.

"You're making it sound a lot worse than it actually is."

"A lot worse than what?" Kiku cried. "Why did you feel the need to run if this isn't as bad as it sounds? Ludwig, pardon me if I'm missing something, but you just showed up on my doorstep in nothing but your loungewear looking half frozen to death."

"I'm sorry, I'll leave as soon as I can. I forced you to take me in and I know how much I owe you for it."

"Stop saying that," Kiku pleaded. "You're scaring me. This isn't—"

"Normal, I know!" snapped Ludwig. "I know it's not. I'm not..." His eyes had begun simmering behind their sockets again and he shut them tight, too ashamed to show tears. "It's not healthy, and I know it. But he's trying his best. We're working it out, and he's getting much better."

"I understand this is difficult for you to hear," Kiku said softly, "but sometimes what you feel for him, what you both feel for each other—it's just not worth it. You must still love him very much, but..."

Any other day, he would have agreed in a heartbeat. But now, sitting here wrapped in Kiku's blanket and yet feeling more naked than he ever had, Ludwig could not muster the energy to affirm the fact with the same enthusiasm.

"I know how hard it is to go against your instinctive urges." He kept his gaze locked on his knees. "I can't just abandon someone for their character flaws and ignore the effort he's put into our relationship."

"Ludwig..." began Kiku, who sounded very sad.

The wind picked up outside and whistled in through the vents above the stove. It was an eerie and hollow sound, filling the remaining silence while the two men sat in Kiku's kitchen, each unable to remember what they wanted to say.