Part 15: Destination Moore

When Kami-sama made Neji and Itachi, he must have accidentally spilled a bottle of hatred into Itachi's bowl. Pure, seething hatred. None of that mixed shit.

"I'm not going to press charges," Neji had growled in English, as the two of them sat inside a police station with Sasuke in between as a barrier. It didn't stop the two men from glaring at one another over the boy's head.

Sasuke had a splitting headache. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed and turn his back on the world. That would have been a million times easier than withstanding the police man's odd stare. On his right, Neji held a pack of ice to his swollen right cheek, his shirt speckled with a few drops of blood from his previous nosebleed. On his left, Itachi also nursed an ice pack against his cut lip.

The boy was so angry that he could not even look at either of them. Instead, when they were finally dismissed by the cop a quarter past six in the evening, Sasuke was the first to stand abruptly, stomping his way out the glass double doors.

The two men followed, Itachi skedaddling behind to grab Sasuke's arm when they were outside. Sasuke turned around, glaring at his brother. Simultaneously, he caught Neji's stare a few feet away. It was then that his eyes grew concerned, a string of apologies at the tip of his tongue.

"I'm fine," Neji grumbled, holding up a palm. "You guys sort this out. I'll check into a hotel. Let's talk later."

And he was gone, disappearing down the street. Sasuke watched him go.

"...Otouto," Itachi called, his hand holding onto the boy's arm as if he hadn't just committed a crime against Sasuke's friend.

He glared at the hand touching him and then at his Aniki, fury carrying out his words. "Don't… don't touch me."

Itachi flinched back as if he had been struck. Then, anger clouded his eyes. "Why can't I touch you?" he demanded. "Is it because of him? Again?" The inflection of hurt was evident in his tone.

Sasuke gawked. "You… you, do you even know what you did wrong?"

"I was protecting you! I did nothing wrong!" Itachi said, watching in disbelief when Sasuke jerked his arm back to his side. "Why are you backing away from me? Stop!"

"I said I don't want you to touch me," Sasuke hissed. "You don't have permission to touch me."

"But you're mine. Why can't I touch you?" Itachi snarled.

It was like talking to a wall. A very unreasonable, moody, possibly violent wall.

"Because I don't want it!" Sasuke screeched. "I'm angry at you. How could you go around hurting people for no reason?"

"He was touching you," Itachi barked. "He put his lips on you! I told you to stay away from him, didn't I? He wanted to take you from me."

"You're delusional! He didn't kiss me! He wasn't going to steal me! I'm not even an object that can be passed around willy nilly!"

Itachi's eyes narrowed, and he advanced, taking large steps toward Sasuke.

The size and height of his muscular body, the way he prowled toward the boy, and the frustrated look on his face did not make Sasuke feel any more calm about the situation.

"What? If I don't listen to you, are you going to do that to me one day, too? Are you going to hurt me? Beat me? Are you going to do that today?" His words gradually lost power till they were barely audible at the end.

Itachi's strides faltered. "Is that what you really think of me?"

Sasuke looked him dead in the eye. "You said you'd do anything to keep us together."

The man stood still a few feet away, fists trembling at his sides. "You always know how to hurt me, Sasuke," Itachi breathed out. "You know I need you. You know I need your love and touch, but you take it away every time."

The convoluted emotions in Sasuke's eyes faltered. His brother's voice sounded hurt, angry, and sad.

"I just want to live without feeling like you'd slip through my fingers, Sasuke. Does that really make me a bad person to you?" Itachi asked.

"You're not a bad person," Sasuke said instandly. "You're just too heated sometimes and that leads you to make bad decisions."

"I'm just protecting you, Otouto."

"I don't need it, Aniki."

Just like that, the hurt expression on Itachi's countenance melted away. Anger blazed in its place. "Fine," he snapped. "You don't want my touch. You don't want my protection. You don't want shit from me. You don't want me." Itachi's voice croaked at the end. "You are everything to me, but I'm nothing to you." The averted his gaze and jerked his forearm over his face, wiping away a tear. "Fucking forget it then. Go be with your pretentious, horseshit pretty boy."

Sasuke grunted and heaved a large sigh, but he did not choose to refute Itachi's words. Not yet. So many things had happened too quickly and now they were standing in a pile of their decisions.

"I'm going home," he stated.

Despite the last sentences that Itachi spat, Sasuke noticed that his Aniki had trailed behind him when he turned to start walking in the direction of their townhouse. The man lingered approximately a hundred feet away, never any further than that, but the boy refused to glance back at him. When he finally turned the key to the apartment, he closed the door behind him, and his kind heart refused to allow him to lock it behind him.

Sasuke chose to climb the stairs and go to the master bedroom instead, where he grabbed a towel and shut the bathroom door so he could wash off the stench of sweat and police joints. Steam piled in the room quickly and, when Sasuke finally stood under the hot spray of water, he exhaled a loud, tired sigh.

Just another two weeks, and the quarter would be over. That meant he'd have three weeks off for winter break. Thank fuck. He really needed to destress.

When Sasuke finally stepped into his room, he noticed that Itachi was already in the bedroom. His Aniki sat broodingly in the corner of the room, stubbornly staring outside the window. The curtains were parted, a stream of moonlight beaming against the pane.

With no fight left in him, Sasuke ignored the man and climbed into bed. If the steam released from his shower did not alert his Aniki of his presence, then the mattress, which creaked under his weight, did. But Itachi did not turn in his direction and Sasuke did not insist he do so, so they were both in a stalemate.

The boy tugged the covers over his shoulders and turned away, only given the opportunity to close his tired eyes before he heard movement.

"Otouto," Itachi called from across the room.

Sasuke pressed his eyelids together tightly.

"Sasuke." Another murmur. It was slightly louder this time as if Itachi didn't understand that Sasuke had ignored him the first time.

The boy shifted, pulling the sheets tighter to his body.

Utter silence filled the room.

"Baby?" It was a whine this time, sounding like a kicked puppy.

A flare of anger ignited in Sasuke's chest. Why was it that he felt like he was doing something utterly despicable to Itachi?

"My love," Itachi whispered when he wasn't rewarded with a response. It was filled with such despair and downright pitifulness that it filled Sasuke with immense guilt for not responding.

"What?" he grumbled, refusing to turn.

"I love you," Itachi said, voice low and filled with emotion. "Don't ignore me."

Sasuke heaved a sigh and sat up in frustration, casting a withering glance at his Aniki. "So loving me gives you the right to hurt my friends?" he asked condescendingly.

"...No."

It was a very ironic image that Sasuke was privy to when he looked in the man's direction. His Aniki, a gigantic wall of muscles with handsome, hard features, sat with knees drawn to his chest and large, round eyes staring pleadingly at Sasuke and silently asking for his tolerance or forgiveness. Or both.

"Maybe we should take some time away from each other," Sasuke finally said, sounding defeated.

"No." The response was immediate and filled with more bite than any of Itachi's previous words. "We don't need time away. I've lived enough of my life away from you, Otouto. We don't need time away."

It was as if Itachi believed that the repetition of such phrases would convince Sasuke to come aboard his beliefs. The boy sighed, opening his mouth to interject, but Itachi didn't give him the chance to do so, covering his ears and lashing back.

"We don't need it," he insisted. "I refuse."

"Then, let's just break up before it gets worse."

"No!" Of course, covering his ears didn't mean he couldn't hear Sasuke's words. A ghastly look of utter horror covered Itachi's face as if someone had gouged his soul out through his eyeballs.

"It wasn't a question," Sasuke responded.

"I said no," Itachi hissed, palms dropping into fists. "We are not breaking up. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never."

Sasuke sighed, looking down at the bedsheets bundled up around his waist. "We've only dated for a day, and we ended up in a police station with aggravated assault. Maybe all of this was a mistake." Even to his own ears, Sasuke sounded defeated, tired beyond repair.

"NO." Itachi's booming voice caused the window to slightly shudder. "It was NOT a mistake. WE are NOT a mistake!" With each passing word, Itachi's voice grew louder and louder until it bounced off the walls in full panic mode. "How could you even say that to my face?"

"Then, hurry up and take the goddamn responsibility!" Sasuke hissed, glaring at the man, who surprisingly shrank underneath it.

A sorrowful look resurfaced in the man's eyes. "What do you want me to do?" he whispered. "Don't leave me, Otouto. I love you. I'm sorry."

"How about you learn how to love me the right way?"

When Itachi's eyebrows furrowed instantly after Sasuke's question, the boy knew exactly what he was going to say.

"What's wrong with the way I love you? I give you love and attention. I give you all of my time. I give you my heart, my smiles, my care. You're my angel. I do everything for your sake. How can there be something wrong with the way I love you?"

Sasuke closed his eyes briefly and exhaled deeply through his nose. He knew it. What he didn't expect was the amount of confusion in Itachi's words as if Sasuke was the angry adult reprimanding a child for breaking a vase that the child did not break.

The ironic, yet non-coincidental, thing was that his entire world revolved around Sasuke, and the way he perceived love was projected onto the boy. The way Itachi described his love for Sasuke was, in retrospect, what he wanted from the boy: love, attention, time, affection, all-encompassing devotion. Among other things.

And usually, yes, those were all things exchanged in a relationship, but the things Itachi wanted were carried out at extremes.

"It's too much, Itachi," Sasuke stated.

Itachi was quite ready to refute. "It's not enough. You don't understand. If it was enough, if I was loving you enough, you wouldn't talk about needing time."

Sasuke noticed his Aniki replaced the "breaking up" with "needing time." Either his subconscious was shifting the terms to make it easier for his mental state to handle the situation, or he refused to step near the words "breaking up" as if they were trigger words. With his knowledge of his brother at this point in time, Sasuke bet it was both.

"Having enough love for me isn't the issue," Sasuke said.

Itachi's legs kicked out before him, and he huffed an angry breath. "Are you complaining about me loving you too much?" He spoke rapidly, words stuck together like glue, as he laughed, sarcasm etched deeply in his tone. "What's next? Are you going to complain that my hair is too long, or that I'm too tall? How about my clothes? Do you have a problem with my clothes, too?" The man stood, a long string of profanity leaving his lips. A shaky, frustrated hand swept through his hair as his eyes flickered around as if he was trying to gather his thoughts or shake off unwanted ones.

Sasuke glared at his Aniki, the unpleasant tone in the man's voice grating on his nerves. "So, if I say yes, should we break up then?" he asked, tone clipped.

Itachi's gaze immediately zeroed in on Sasuke, anger dilating his pupils so massively that Sasuke could see the dark eyes glaring at him from across the room. "We're never going to break up," Itachi hissed. "Do you hear me, Otouto? Over my fucking dead body."

"Then, we need to compromise," Sasuke growled. "I can't handle your mood swings like this. You're all smiles and cute one day, and you're angry and possessive and assaulting others the next day. There is no in between."

"What do you want me to do?" A mixture of anger and desperation.

"Let's go see a psychiatrist. That's the ultimatum. If you say no, we're done here."

H.J.

Dr. Moore was a psychiatrist who resided on the east side of town. He ran a clinic from a rented office space inside a five-story building. His clientele was vast and wide and he had thirty years of experience treating a variety of disorders, including but not limited to ADHD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, bipolar disorder, and other personality disorders. Whichever website his potential clients reviewed, they found nothing but high praise for Dr. Moore. He was a walking DSM-5 manual if there ever was one.

He was a man in his early sixties, hair as silver as a sliver of the moon and blue eyes as bright as two twinkling jewels.

His office was a quaint space. One armchair for himself, while his respective clients chose between a long sofa or a single-seated couch.

Of course, none of that mattered to Itachi who marched in like he was Wrath, himself. His fingers were latched tightly around Sasuke's own, tugging the boy to sit down next to him on the sofa. Begrudgingly, Sasuke followed with a light scowl on his face.

Itachi had refused to let his Otouto leave his sights since two nights ago. Literally. No matter what Sasuke did or where he went, he would tag along, not caring if his baby did not approve of it and ignoring the scathing looks he received in the process, because, currently, Itachi's main focus was to keep his Otouto from doing something stupid… like running away.

Dr. Moore had looked up from his notepad with a slight arched brow at the intrusion from his new clients. He chose not to comment on it and leaned back in his seat.

"Itachi Uchiha?" he asked.

Itachi grunted in his spot, a deep-seated glare in his gaze. Pure, unhinged waves of irritation leached from his body, filling the room with a tension so thick that it was impossible to cut with scissors. Aside from their entwined fingers, which he set stubbornly in Sasuke's lap, he refused to acknowledge the shrink.

"Sorry, Dr. Moore," he heard his Otouto say. "It's been a rough couple of days."

Dr. Moore flipped a page in his notepad, leaning back further into his chair. "Tell me what's been going on," he coaxed. His voice was firm, but friendly, and his countenance was filled with an open flexible nature that encouraged speech.

"Nothing," Itachi hissed, tacking on a sharp glare. His grip tightened on Sasuke's hand when he felt the boy try to pull away.

"You promised," Sasuke growled in rapid Japanese. Again, he shifted between languages, only using his native tongue with Itachi and Neji while reverting back to English when it came to everyone else.

Itachi gritted his teeth, frustration filling his chest to the brim. He did promise, and, if he were to go against it, his Otouto would leave him forever. Just the thought made his chest cave in.

"Since this is our first meeting, it's considered an evaluation. Let's start with some history and go from there," Dr. Moore suggested.

"Fine," Itachi responded.

"You mentioned over the phone that anger seems to be a concern. Can you elaborate on that?"

"I don't have an anger problem-"

Itachi was cut off by his Otouto. "Recently, he's been getting angry more often than not. When he's angry, he cannot control himself and physically hurts others."

Itachi's gaze shifted downward, sitting there like a chastised puppy, who had just been called a "bad boy."

What followed was a line of inquiry about Itachi that gained different answers.

"How often would you say you feel angry?" Dr. Moore asked, looking at Itachi.

Itachi: "Rarely." A snort.

Sasuke: "Often. Maybe once a day."

Dr Moore: "Do you get panic attacks, Itachi? Feeling like your chest is closing in, sweaty, nausea, pounding heartbeat, feeling like you can't breathe?"

Itachi: "No."

Sasuke: "All the time."

They answered simultaneously. The psychiatrist paused, looking at the both of them, before back down at his pad, scribbling something down.

Dr Moore: "On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being highly stressed, how are you feeling today?"

Itachi: "One."

Sasuke: "Nine. And that's on a good day."

"Otouto," Itachi whispered harshly as if the boy had just spilled all of his secrets to a stranger.

Dr. Moore: "Are you depressed?"

Itachi: "No." A scowl this time.

Sasuke sat a little straighter. "How would you be able to tell?"

Dr. Moore shifted in his spot, folding his hands together to rest atop his notepad. "Well, are you crying or crying more often? Feeling a sense of hopelessness. Feeling empty. Irritability. Headaches. Any decrease in interests that you typically find pleasurable?"

"Yes." Sasuke answered immediately.

"That's untrue," Itachi growled in English. "The sex is mind-blowing. How could I be depressed when my dick gets hard for you just by looking at you?"

He watched, almost with a sense of triumph, as his Otouto's face grew red as if a million images danced through his brain. Images of him. Like he was the center of the boy's attention.

This time Sasuke didn't refute his words.

Dr. Moore continued. "What about hobbies? Things you do for fun?"

Itachi: "Sasuke." That was the most confident answer he'd given today.

Sasuke: "Aniki!"

"Ever been on antidepressants?"

Sasuke: "No-"

Itachi: "Yes." Another honest response. He must have been on cloud nine from getting such an adorable response from his Otouto.

Sasuke's head snapped so fast in Itachi's direction that he was worried he'd get whiplash. His eyes were so wide that they almost bulged out of his head. Subconsciously, Itachi's thumb stroked at the back of Sasuke's hand in a soothing gesture.

Dr. Moore: "What was the name of the antidepressant you were on?"

Itachi: "Desvenlafaxine."

Dr. Moore: "Do you recall the dosage?"

Itachi: "One hundred milligrams."

Sasuke was stunned silent, slouching back on the couch as he tried to process it all. Itachi and Dr. Moore continued.

Dr. Moore: "Any side effects?"

Itachi: "No."

Dr. Moore: "Do you recall when you started the medication?"

Itachi: "Three months ago. I stopped it a few weeks ago."

Dr. Moore: "Did you feel better on the medication?"

Itachi: "No. I don't know."

Dr. Moore: "If there were no side effects, what was the reason for stopping it?"

Itachi: "I didn't need it anymore."

Dr. Moore: "Because?"

Itachi refused to answer. Dr. Moore must have picked up on it because he moved on.

Dr. Moore: "Did you taper it off slowly before you stopped it?"

Itachi: "No."

Dr. Moore: "Were you on any other medications in the past?"

Itachi: "No."

Dr. Moore: "No anxiety medications?"

Itachi: "No."

Dr. Moore: "On average, how many hours of sleep per night have you been getting in the last two weeks?

Itachi: Five hours.

Dr. Moore: "And three months ago when you started the Desvenlafaxine? How many hours were you getting on average per night?"

Itachi: "I don't know."

Dr. Moore: "If you were to ballpark it?"

Itachi: "Less than two"

"Aniki," Sasuke's tortured voice slid into Itachi's eardrums, making him turn toward the boy with a cocked head.

"What's wrong, my love?" Itachi asked, switching to Japanese. It flowed smoothly, elegantly, as if he was a trained scholar.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" Sasuke responded in kind, eyes brimming with tears.

Itachi bit his lip and his gaze shifted away, the blatant shame and guilt etched permanently into his features. "I didn't want you to know," he muttered with a scowl.

His Otouto was quiet after that. For the rest of the session, Itachi would glance at him almost obsessively as if attempting to read his emotions, but the only thing he could get from Sasuke's countenance was a swirling ball of nothing.

Not that he was the greatest reader of emotions. If he were to rate his emotional quotient, he'd probably score lower than anything in his entire life, but, like all things, Itachi was slightly more aware when it came to his Otouto. That was why he swore he saw a hint of frustration and sadness lingering in Sasuke's faraway look that was plastered on his face. The boy practically zoned out for the rest of the session. He only seemed to pick up snippets of the conversation here and there, his focus elsewhere.

"Were you on any medications for your insomnia?"

"No."

"I see…. Any history of substance abuse?"

"..."

"Over-the-counter sleep aids? Stage One drugs like heroin or cocaine? How about alcohol? … Ah, I see. Any family history of depression or anxiety you're aware of?"

"No."

That's how the rest of the session flew boy. Dr. Moore asked more questions than he did in his entire career, and Itachi responded with curt, usually one-worded answers, refusing to divulge information like most of Dr. Moore's typical patients who would talk his ear off.

At the end, his Otouto seemed to have jolted out of his thoughts, because he sat a little straighter as the psychiatrist was speaking.

"You mentioned that you've been having approximately five hours of sleep nightly during the last two weeks and had a harder time sleeping before that. Although each person requires varying hours of sleep to feel rested and due to your history of insomnia, I'm going to prescribe you a dose of Lorazepam for sleep. You can take a one milligram tablet once per night and increase by half a dose up until two. I'll include the instructions in the prescription. Lorazepam helps the body relax and leads to better sleep.

"Additionally, since you did not have any adverse side effects on Desvenlafaxine, I want to restart you on a low dose and increase it gradually. A good portion of patients who have insomnia develop depression and vise versa. Sasuke mentioned there was some recent irritability and mood changes. I definitely would not rule out the behavior as a symptom of withdrawals from the medication. Desvenlafaxine is an antidepressant, and suddenly stopping it without tapering it off can cause imbalances in the brain and, therefore, affect behavior.

"Of course, these are only my suggestions. As the patient, you have the right to participate in your treatment and refuse any medications."

"He'll take them," Sasuke responded sharply before Itachi could get a word in. With his statement, he shut down any room for argument.

Itachi looked away with a glare. "Fine."

"What about his daytime anxiety?" Sasuke asked.

Dr. Moore looked at Itachi, considering the options. "How anxious are you typically?" he asked.

Itachi was aware he'd asked that question before except, this time, with Sasuke's piercing stare into the side of his head and the looming thought of losing his right to hold his beloved Otouto's hand in his like he was doing at that very moment, he chose to answer more honestly.

With Itachi opening and closing his mouth like a fish, the psychiatrist must have noticed he was having a hard time getting the words out, so he provided additional details.

"Would you say you often feel restless or on edge?"

"... Yes."

"We've established you have trouble falling asleep. Any trouble staying asleep?"

"... Yes."

"Sasuke mentioned that you get angry often. Do you feel more irritable lately?"

"... Yes."

"Do you often feel like you're constantly worried about events or things. Either in the past, present and/or future?"

"... Yes."

"Here's what we can do," Dr. Moore said. "Let's tackle the sleep and depression first and see if it mellows out irritability and any other changes in mood. Usually, when you treat the depression and get in some sleep, your body will feel more regulated. Desvenlafaxine is used to treat both anxiety and depression. I'll give you a 2-week supply of each, and we will need to monitor you for any changes. Good and bad. Then, we can check in at the two week mark and go from there. Do not mix alcohol with the medications."

Sasuke nodded. "Understood."

Itachi grunted.

When they got home, it was early afternoon. Sasuke set the prescription bag on the kitchen counter, quiet as a mouse, and simply stood there with his head bowed.

Of course, Itachi was close behind him, staring at him with furrowed brows. "Otouto," he called when the boy didn't move from his spot as if he was a lifeless doll on display. Itachi frowned. "Sasuke," he repeated, tugging gently on the boy's fingers.

Immediately, the boy tugged his hand away as if Itachi had burned him, and, when he swiveled around in the man's direction, a look of utter fury reigned on his face. "Why did you stop?" Sasuke demanded.

Itachi's frown deepened. "Stop what?"

"Why did you stop taking the medication? Why didn't you tell me about it? Am I so unimportant to you that you would rather hide it from me than tell me?" Sasuke hissed. "If we didn't go today, were you never going to tell me?"

"I… It wasn't a big deal." Even his words sounded like a half-assed excuse to his own ears, and his precious Otouto saw right through them.

"Don't," Sasuke replied with a glare.

"Why are you mad at me?" Itachi whispered.

His Otouto closed his eyes, exhaled harshly through his nose, and reopened them again. Then, in his most patient voice he could possibly muster, Sasuke said, "You started on antidepressants because you thought it was a good idea. You were trying to take care of yourself. I'm not judging you, Aniki. I would never. You did something good. But how could you just stop the medication out of the blue? Why did you stop it? You… the things you wrote in that journal… Why?"

Itachi scanned his Otouto's face and considered his words for the longest time before his brain finally pulled together a string of coherent thoughts and identified an emotion. "You're worried about me," Itachi murmured, the sadness recoiling underneath the newfound revelation.

"Of course I'm worried about you," the boy hissed. "And the alcohol… were you drinking while taking the medication? Oh my god, is this how much you love yourself?"

Itachi's response was instantaneous as if his brain had an immediate "reply to sender" feature embedded in it. "I love you. I don't know anything else, but I know I love you."

His Otouto's angry eyes softened before they returned back to their original state. "Why did you stop?" he demanded.

Itachi reached a hand out again, hooking his index and middle fingers around Sasuke's corresponding fingers. The touch was firm, but not overwhelming, as if he was just making sure the boy was not a figment of his imagination, who would just leave him out of nowhere.

"I left them at home when I got on the plane. I forgot them." Itachi's tone was slightly lower than usual, and his voice was hoarse. "And you made everything better. I didn't need them."

Sasuke grunted, but didn't pull his hand away like the first time. Itachi called that progress.

"And the drinking with the medication? Was that why you were in the hospital?"

Itachi looked down at their adjoined fingers, unable to look his Otouto in the eye. "Yes," he whispered.

"Are you a fucking idiot, Aniki?!" Sasuke screamed, jerking his hand away .

The man flinched, but his clammy hand gripped the boy's fingers tighter, refusing to allow him to pull away.

"Were you trying to kill yourself?" Sasuke spoke the words so harshly as if he couldn't believe that he was directing that question at Itachi.

"I'm sorry, Otouto," Itachi croaked. He didn't respond to Sasuke's question, but his apology seemed thoughtless and ill-timed. The oddity was that, even though Itachi knew he was being cryptic, he didn't correct himself because he was too unsure how much of that question was applicable. "Please don't be mad at me."

Sasuke laughed bitterly. "Wow. I'm not mad. I am pissed. This is how little you think of yourself, Itachi. Are you even my Aniki anymore? The Aniki I knew would never thoughtlessly leave me. The Aniki I knew would never play with his own life like he was a cat with nine lives. The Aniki I knew was smart, strong, kind, loving, and sweet. He would always take care of himself because he knew that, if he did, he would also be able to take care of me. But you're not the same Aniki I know."

The more Sasuke spoke, the more tears trickled down his face until he was outright bawling. He was so angry and frustrated that he had to stop talking because his words no longer made any sense.

In fact, the boy was sobbing so hard that he was inconsolable. He was ashamed to admit