READ THIS FIRST!
Warnings: communal violence against non-Asians, graphic deaths and angst. Imaginary world. Clearly not a democracy (not that democracies are any different these days). A lot of background left open-ended because it was paining me to recreate the events that actually inspired this. This goes over my usual level of angst but given how this shit is happening around us, in today's time, it's only logical we learn to face it, no matter how safe and privileged we personally might be. If you are uncomfortable with these topics, butt out.
"-" flashbacks
The car door slammed, and Ray quickly locked them. His usual calm was nowhere to be seen, for his fingers trembled and his jaw was tight. The cold, dark night, a soft blanket of comfort just moments ago now pressed in on them, trying to bleed into the car and crowd their senses, doubts and fears blending in seamlessly with the darkness, sly, cunning. Immediately, Kai found himself rolling the windows up and double-checking the locks on Ray's run-down Toyota.
Their eyes met, panic written into every crease and fold on their pre-maturely lined faces. There was no going back now.
A heartbeat later, their lips were crowding into each other, the movements rife with wild possession. Their tongues brushed, familiar, safe and Kai knew there was no going back, because they could never bring themselves to be apart from each other for another second.
Carefully, Ray's fingers covered the cigarette burns on the inside of Kai's wrists, the simple touch filling the his conscious with a warm onslaught of images, all of them Ray's. The neko's palm trailed up to fit against his own and the kiss grew sweeter, treading into a loving, softer territory with ease only lovers that were perfectly satisfied, joyous even, could portray.
This wasn't a kiss goodbye after all. This was where their story began. He and Ray were going to be free to love each other the moment they left this town.
They parted with smiles, eyes content with a sweeping glance before Ray started the engine. Kai's body tingled, and the sky around them seemed just a little less threatening, a tad more velvety, a lot more perfect. The fear remained, as it would till they were safe again, but it was being overshadowed by this treacherous little things called hope, something the neko-jin had introduced to him, and soon enough come to embody.
It was warm. Ray was here. They were leaving, and Kai's soul felt like it was finally free to burn with the brilliance Ray said he had fallen in love with. For the first time, in however many years, Kai felt brave enough to embrace his own flame.
… and give Ray the life he deserved.
Thinking about it, it was true. The moment they came together, his world lit up. Ray was the thunderbolt that Kai had needed to spark life into his dying embers. With him, Kai could grow into the inferno Voltaire had always instructed him to embody. Except Kai never wanted to destroy. He wanted to provide warmth and protection. He wanted to grow into a man who'd be able to love and respect himself like Ray loved him.
Driving faster than he ever had, Ray whizzed past their school, or the ruins of it, blackened, charred, left standing only to present a reminder of what would happen to anyone who dared disobey Voltaire. They didn't stop for a second in front of the building and Kai never turned to look at it, but he couldn't drown out the memories of that fateful day. The screams, the gunshots, bodies of kids he had studied with, eaten lunch with, shared laughs with, littering the corridor with all the dignity of maggots crawling along… and really, when it came to Voltaire, they were nothing more than helpless insects, clothed because he let them wear, fed because he let them eat.
Alive, because he let them breathe.
Kai remembered, eyes blurry with tears he had recognised a shirt that day, Max's.
On a headless body.
Masochistically, he had turned around to look for the head, and hurled when he found it. The blonde kid's mouth was frozen in an expression of terror and that would forever be the last memory Kai had of him.
He remembered the bullet that had hit Tala right in the middle of his forehead. He remembered Bryan clutching his dying lover in despair before closing his eyes and resigning to the same fate.
He remembered Tyson being pulled away forcefully when he tried to shield a sobbing Julia. Your ethnicity won't save you if you betray us to these mongrels, after all.
They still didn't know where Raul was.
He did know where the principal, Mr. Dickenson was. His body still hung from that podium, the one he had climbed for the last time, bleeding, coughing, stronger than Voltaire with his thousands of goons would ever be.
"It is most important to remember who you are and what you stand for, when it becomes the most difficult thing to do. Principles won't know a price, in this world or the next."
Kai was now coughing and sobbing and Ray's grip tightened on the steering, tears tracking down his cheeks. All he said was,
"We're lucky we get the chance to make it out."
…
Kai clenched his fists. His palms hurt from the fifty hits he had received on the back of his hand from Boris the day before, and digging his nails into the abused flesh made a wave of pain so violent, rise up in his chest that he momentarily forgot… about all of it, about Voltaire's sickening plans for him, that he was being trained to fulfil, and his dead parents innocent dreams for his future, that he had so thoroughly failed.
The teacher walked up to his desk, noticed the condition of his hand, said nothing and moved along. Kai felt the pulses of anger thickening, tightening around his throat. Around him, the world moved on, unaware of the mind-numbing turmoil crushing him. The air was still filled with mindless chatter and excited whispers. The teacher continued teaching, and the clock never stopped ticking.
Nobody seemed to look at him. Why would nobody look at him?
It was hard to breathe, it was hard to live, and nobody ever bothered to look at him and acknowledge that he needed help.
He couldn't ask for it, the words won't occur to him, and nobody cared enough to watch him for however long it took to be able to read somebody's soul. He knew his own ached for affection, relief, a smile that wasn't riddled with pity but understanding, an opportunity to speak maybe, but the world moved on, unmindful. He couldn't breathe.
So he did what he did best.
Silver drew red and he hissed in pain. He wasn't trying to be a melodramatic piece of shit, as Boris told him depressed people were. It was just that his thoughts, his feelings, his pains had grown too big for his body to sustain. He gave them an out with every cut he traced.
He felt pathetic, his body was taut as if on the verge of breaking, but as always no one was looking.
"I am going to have to ask you to not do that, not here at least."
He knew that voice but appropriately startled, he took a few seconds to place it. It was the new student, the one who came with his older brother and a sister. They had supposedly immigrated here from a village far west that was currently in the middle of an ethnic cleansing. This was Ray Kon, and he had a cut across his face that spoke of a life lived, and gave Kai hope that scars didn't always disfigure.
Sometimes, they told stories, sang praises, showed you that your life was worth every assault you had lived through. It was worth all the hardship.
Slowly, he turned to face his classmate. His expression was open and kind as always, genuinely so and Kai felt his knees weaken.
"Mind your own business." He growled.
"Talk to me.", Ray replied.
…
There was nothing co-incidental about any of this.
Once the stars aligned to make their paths cross, they melted into each other like they belonged together, two halves coming together and suffusing to become one.
Or so he would have believed if Ray wasn't twice the man he was.
He had spat and cursed, threatened and run, only to find the neko-jin steadfastly waiting to welcome him with a warm smile if he ever did choose to return. It took Kai months to figure out, the prayer he set out into the universe with every tear he hid, every scar he inflicted, every mirror he broke, every shiver he suppressed, was being answered.
Somebody was looking, waiting to understand. Kai took a very long time to understand Ray's motives because no matter how much he wished for companionship, he didn't know what it felt like. Once he understood, his steps picked up momentum and he found himself running again.
Towards Ray, this time.
Maybe it was because he had suffered that he could pick up on suffering, because he had. He had looked at Kai, known he needed help, and offered it.
If Kai had known love, he would have inevitably met betrayal. Fortunately for him, Ray having an ulterior motive never occurred to him, because the worst that had been inflicted upon him was still upfront. When he ran, he ran without doubts.
With hope.
He burst into the library he knew the neko-jin spent his afternoons in. When he walked up to him, his steps were unhesitant, eager, even.
Ray looked up at him.
"I want to talk."
…
He, in fact, couldn't.
Ray didn't mind.
They talked about things that didn't matter and never once did they discuss the demons in Kai's head. When they parted that night, Kai's head still felt too full, too cramped.
… but the weight of his thoughts no longer made him feel as if his knees might sink into the ground any moment.
He had been given Ray's number. They would speak again. One day, Kai would manage to actually talk to Ray and he would listen.
Had Kai been a philosopher, he would have smiled at how foolishly human it was to latch onto the treacherous, intangible, flighty and fragile sensation of hope. Fortunately again, Kai who'd never hoped in his entire life before, and only wished, was breathless in the face of the idea that all of his wishes might one day come true. He didn't stop to feel insecure, simply because he had never known security.
Slowly, but surely, he took brazen steps closer to Ray.
…
Every single meeting he joined Voltaire for only helped in strengthening the wall of guilt and shame rapidly coming up in his chest. He didn't agree with a word his grandfather said, but blooming welts across his skin formed a cleverly invisible gag.
"I hope for the world to be a better place by the time you grow up, and if it isn't, I want you to have the courage to challenge it and right it by your own self." His mother used to say.
Kai scoffed. He couldn't face his grandfather. How would he face the world?
He knew his grandfather was wrong. Nobody in the world should be hated for being different, looking different, worshipping different but to these people, different was wrong. It was despicable. It deserved death.
To Kai, different was nothing but a vague idea he couldn't catch. Maybe because he had never felt any sense of similarity with anybody around him.
Except Ray.
To Kai, they were all people like him, no matter what or who or where or when. If they were criminals, they deserved punishment. If not, they should be left in peace.
The day he dared to voice that opinion, Boris had used a hot poker on him and pissed in his mouth and as he lay there, burning, aching, humiliated and half-dead he made him recite the national anthem and pledge loyalty to Voltaire's idea of what the country should look like.
He felt dirty, but more than that, he felt he had dirtied the anthem. Never again could Kai bring himself to sing it.
…
Ray's fingers stroked his as he cupped Kai's palms.
"So long as you to refuse to become who they want you to be, you hold power. So long as you are powerful, you can change the world. Have patience. We won't let our home go to the dogs."
Kai believed him, and that night they fell asleep with their hands clasped together.
…
A girls' hostel housing foreign students was broken into by goons in the dead of the night. Light bulbs were broken and shrouded by darkness, countless women were dragged by their hair into washrooms and raped. Their faces were pushed into urinals and their rooms were trashed.
Kai had known what was about to happen. He had tried alerting the police, but then found Boris sipping tea with the police commissioner.
So he did what he had always done.
That was the first time he cut himself after meeting Ray.
…
The next morning was also the first time he spoke to Ray with his shoulders tensed in anticipation of the neko-jin reacting negatively to his words.
"I am going to kill Boris."
Ray's face remained impassive but his gorgeous amber eyes came alive like thunder lighting up a stormy grey sky, sinister, powerful.
"Need help?"
Their eyes met again and a jolt of realisation ran through Kai. This wasn't Ray's first time facing shit like this. Compelled by a need to comfort, so overwhelming, so unfamiliar and yet so unmistakably directed towards the boy sitting next to him, Kai threw an arm around his shoulder.
The pleasant weight of Ray's head fell against his chest. Beautiful raven hair tickled his nose. It smelled like pine and dew drops early in the morning, innocent, enriching and real. With his characteristic surety, Ray said,
"I am not going to run away again. I will be the person I wished we had found when we were being targeted back where I lived before."
…
Kai's hands were red but the body had been disposed of. Ray, with his careful planning and detail-oriented mind, had made sure they left no proof that could be traced to them.
He had never felt better in his entire life, and the idea that he needed to become a killer to feel fine, terrified him.
As expected, silver words were whispered in his ears and the soft exhales blew the doubts away, except this time they were accompanied by lips tracing Kai's ear lobe. He knew what was coming, he had been waiting for it, he welcomed it.
Ray fell apart in his arms with the beauty and finality of golden leaves breaking and drifting to the ground in the high of autumn. It almost felt like destiny, like he had found his soulmate.
As Kai drove into the Neko-jin's panting, flushed body, tanned arms rose to pull him into a kiss, their first kiss.
It tasted like hope.
…
They lay side by side, naked and exhausted. It was their first time and it had been sweet while it was happening, but the walls closed in, caging their new-found joy soon enough.
The world was bitter, they were bitter. Together they usually found solace, but given what they had done that evening…
"His death won't change anything. There are thousands like him out there."
He wasn't regretting killing Boris, he was regretting having to do it himself, because the rich feeling of blood on his fingers had been committed to memory, and the euphoria he felt as the fucker lay taking his last breaths was addictive. Almost as addictive as kissing Ray.
"Well, it's one less man to fight out of thousands.", Ray said.
Looking back, Kai would see this was the exact moment he realised Ray could be just as ruthless as Voltaire.
He wrapped his arm around the tan waist and drew the boy into his chest. They were safe for now.
…
The next day Tyson Granger announced the students would take out a march against the brutality shown in the girls' hostel. Kai couldn't go, so he stayed up all night carefully drawing banners and signs with Ray, which he handed to the protestors in the morning with a guarded 'be careful'.
Watching over the march, hidden away, he caught sight of Voltaire's new gunman hiding behind a tree himself, cocking his gun to take a shot. Kai, having had enough of murder for one lifetime, turned to give Ray a look beside him, and before the gunman could take a hit, Ray had shot him in his throat, silencer fixed gun only hissing mildly in protest.
Later in the evening, Kai would ask him, "Do you think this is right?"
He would laugh and say, "No. I am going to hell and I don't mind."
…
Expertly forged identification papers passed from right under the nose of the toll booth officer. This restriction on movement could only be lauded to the dictatorship of Voltaire. Kai clenched his teeth, and refrained from adjusting his wig. Kenny had worked hard on these papers. He couldn't blow it now because he was angry that they had lost.
Ray smiled at the official with the ease of a conman spouting his millionth lie and Kai felt a heady rush come over him when he realised the only person Ray had even been completely honest with was him.
Their hearts thundered as they waited for the exit to clear. Freedom was a couple of feet away. Kai could taste it and he realised he had never been so scared, and yet so thrilled at the same time, ever before.
Finally satisfied, the officer handed their documents back and gestured for the bar to be raised. Never letting any suspicious look cross his eye, Ray took the papers from him, smiled and rolled the windows back up.
As the car crossed the official boundary of the deadly town, their eyes widened, and refused to believe the truth of things. They were out. They came out. It was okay. They'd be fine.
A tiny laugh rolled past Ray's lips and Kai reached out to grab his hand.
His own face was confused if smiling was safe now or if it was still too early, if Voltaire could still see or hear him, but as they put miles over miles between the toll booth and themselves, he relaxed. They played music, Ray teased him saying he would look better if his hair was actually the god-awful red the wig he had worn earlier was coloured. He smiled and told Ray somebody just might confuse his eyes for gemstones and pluck them out.
Breathlessly happy for the first time since Kai had known him, Ray giggled and said, "That sounds like a compliment, dumbass."
Kai realised that was true and huffed in indignation.
Till Ray pulled the car over, snapped their seat belts, grabbed Kai's collar and mashed their lips together. They kissed like they never had before, and they never would get to again. Ray's fingers were crawling under the hem of Kai's jeans and tugging. Without sparing another minute, Ray pulled Kai's length form his boxers and started licking along his still soft cock.
Kai groaned and his fingers tightened in Ray's hair.
Ray hollowed his cheeks out and Kai hissed. He wasn't interested in waiting, teasing, chasing his prize anymore. He wanted and Kai was more than willing to oblige.
As Kai hardened in Ray's mouth, his grip grew more forceful as he started directing Ray's head with rough and brief pushes and pulls. The neko-jin gagged on his dick but didn't seem to want to stop, making lewd noises and sending blessed vibrations down Kai's shaft as he committed to lap up around the head of Kai's cock as often and as much as possible.
"Ray, shit, I am going to-…"
When Kai came down Ray's throat, the position made it inevitable that some slipped down his dick and onto his hips. Carefully, Ray licked him clean before belting them back into their seats and starting the car again.
…
Ray shot till his soul started aching.
He shot till blood was spilled in his own house.
Lee had joined in one of the protest marches. He had dared to defend a Roman junior when attacks happened. Before that day, every body had admired Lee for never giving up. Now, they wished he had learned how to.
When Ray cried, it felt like Kai's world tipped off-balance. When his eyes begged Kai to provide some sort of relief, his throat choked up. When he threw his arms around Kai in a desperate plea for love, Kai held him as close as he possibly could.
What was truly enchanting was watching Ray pick himself back up for Mariah, and partly for Kai himself. Kai watched, held, kissed, and watched some more as the grief turned into bitter acceptance and a semblance of recognition entered the golden eyes again. They would find desperately sobbing Mariah and the brother inside Ray would rise to press kisses into her hair. Experiencing Ray's strength firsthand was like falling in love all over again.
Till he noticed his face had hardened, the smiles had disappeared and the only two people for who his eyes softened, were Kai and Mariah.
It killed him to know what his grandfather had done to this beautiful, infinitely kind and patient boy.
"We can't save the world if we're dead. We need to think of ourselves." He had started to say.
Kai would be unable to produce a counter to that statement, and return home appalled that Ray wanted to abandon their home.
"You swore you weren't going to run away.", Kai reminded him. Their dates together these days were tense, no sign of light-hearted jokes, or comforting conversations. They argued all the time, as the world fell apart around them.
"If turning tail and fleeing like a coward means getting to keep you and Mariah safe, brand my fucking forehead."
"We're not the ones being targeted.", Kai said.
"Oh, we'll become targets the moment they realise we are sympathetic to their current ones."
…
They argued and got mad at each other, but through the rippling waves of fear, pain and anger, never once did they even think of leaving each other.
Ray wasn't going to leave Kai behind.
Kai wasn't going to ever consider staying if Ray left.
So they remained stuck, till the next bloodbath.
Kai had never liked Mariah. He found her irritating and Ray was always amused by how often the two bickered, but that day… oh, what he won't have given to save Mariah that day.
She had slit her wrists because the pain of sitting helpless, watching your neighbours be slaughtered in front of your eyes became too much to handle. One of her brother's had died, and the other was trying running all over the place forging documents, or trying to convince Kai to see sense. The girl, barely fourteen, had been alone, scared and unable to understand how to make everyone stop.
So she made her heartbeat stop instead.
Ray's eyes didn't once lift to place the blame on Kai, but Kai felt his entire existence lose meaning in the face of that innocent girl, that child, laying cold and lifeless on the floor because the adults around her had so miserably failed her. She didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved this.
She was cremated like Lee and the pot of her ashes, seemed to be the only material possession Ray cared about anymore.
The violence had picked up around them. The truth was out and people were calling it what it was, a genocide. Kai felt his limbs tremble every time the word was mentioned. Voltaire had also gained power and influence. He had overridden the system ages ago with his money, but now he had come to seize official control of the army and police forces. Everybody knew what was coming.
It had been three months since Mariah's death. Situations had only gotten worse and Ray had only become more unresponsive. They hadn't kissed or touched once in those past three months. Kai hadn't managed to look Ray in the eyes once in those past three months.
They sat side-by-side, in the school playground after football practice when Ray asked Kai to look at him, and he did, guilt and shame making tears spill down his cheek.
This was his fault. Mariah's death was on him.
"Can" Ray's breath hitched. "Can we please leave now? There's nothing left here, Kai."
Kai felt his eyes widen.
"You still want me to come?"
Ever perceptive to Kai's needs, Ray's eyes regained a sliver of their past fervour.
"It was not your fault."
"You wanted to leave-…"
"The papers weren't ready. We won't have been able to leave even if you had agreed. I should have been paying attention to her. How could I leave her to deal with this alone? I have failed her Kai."
Ray's eyes spilled over and there and then, Kai decided that was the last time that would happen.
…
When he stormed into Voltaire's study, not a trace of nervousness laced his gait. A spark of anger had fanned the dwindling flame inside him into something that scorched the inside of his chest. He felt the way he had after killing Boris.
"What is it, boy?"
"You need to stop this madness now."
"Come closer, I can't hear you."
Kai frowned, pretty sure he had been loud enough and clear enough. Slightly suspicious but not sensing any immediate danger to himself, he walked closer.
That was fatal.
As the rag pressed into his nose, gripped in a hand that rounded his neck from behind, his last thought was how he could ever save Ray now.
…
Waking up was characterised by dull fumbling and incoherent speech. It had taken Kai half an hour to recall what had happened, half an hour and one second to realise his body felt lethargic and his head was woozy because he had been doped up.
Within five minutes, he was out of the door and running towards the school because that was where Ray would be.
What he found instead would play again and again like God's sadistic little prank in his dreams till the day he died.
Through the mess of dying bodies, and goons that recognised him, saluted him and made him cry, he looked for Ray. He looked everywhere, found sights he'd rather not have seen but he didn't find a trace of Ray.
His heart, that had dropped to the pit of his stomach, didn't know whether to rejoice or cry.
The seven minutes it took Kai to run to Ray's house were the worst seven minutes of his entire life, and it was only when a sleepy Ray opened the door that Kai found it in himself to breathe.
Then, he broke down on Ray's doorstep.
…
Two years later
Stumbling out of the pub entrance, Kai found himself giggling at nothing. Noticing his husband's glee, Ray pressed his warm body closer to Kai's side and started laughing at nothing himself.
They were thoroughly intoxicated and high on love.
The past two years had been painful, but magical. Ray had taken a long while and attended therapy to get over Lee's and Mariah's death. Kai had started a small sports shop downtown and struggled to make the ends meet till the time Ray felt he was ready to work himself.
Despite all of that, against all odds, they had managed to remain as devoted to each other as ever. Kai pinned it down to the fact that loving each other no matter what was the only thing either of them knew how to do right. Ray said it was just because Kai was an amazing booty call. They laughed.
They laughed, and tried to move on.
Struggling with mental issues and financial problems, but doing it together had only brought them closer. It wasn't really a surprise though. They had managed to hold on to each other in the midst of a mass genocide, bills and panic attacks weren't going to break them.
They had grown to be each other's pillars of support that they leaned heavily against. At this point in time, the mere idea of a life without Ray had the potency to shatter Kai's entire institution. Just a month ago, he proposed and in a week, they were married, promising themselves a proper honeymoon once they had enough money put away.
Life was difficult, but they were lucky to have each other.
So when the familiar black van pulled up in front of them in that abandoned alley, Kai knew it had come to an end.
Ray stiffened under his arm and they felt the all too familiar feeling of abject terror assault their senses again. Their hands clasped but before they could run, doors were being thrown open and armed men were jumping out, barking at them in angry Japanese to stay exactly where they stood.
The next few seconds will forever be a blur for Kai. Maybe he couldn't remember because he didn't register, or maybe he couldn't remember because his brain refused to acknowledge what had happened. Panic rushed in Kai's ears drowning out every voice except for the six shots that were fired at his husband. Sick to the stomach and unable to move, Kai catalogued every spot Ray was hit in, his right thigh, his abdomen, his shoulder, his heart, twice and in his head.
Another broken, crumpled body… but this time it was Ray's.
Was Kai screaming? He couldn't tell. He was scrambling and kicking to get to Ray, but arms had grabbed his shoulders and legs. His eyes ached, tears? His throat clenched and with one cold gust of wind the flames were doused so well, they would never be kindled again.
He was moving, he was in a car. He was still being held hostage, no matter how desperately he fought. They had left Ray in that alley, his Ray, his beautiful, amazing Ray, dead in a back alley, his body laying torn and forgotten for however many hours before dawn.
Kai wasn't crying. He couldn't cry. He couldn't breathe.
Well, Ray was the one who had first shown Kai how to breathe. No wonder when he left, he took Kai's life with him.
Riding shotgun in the car he was being held in, was a figure he immediately should have recognised but didn't till their eyes met, red, one pair triumphant, the other lifeless.
"Welcome back to your destiny, Kai."
Wholly impulsive, because I needed to vent. Review and tell me how horrible it is. Wrote it all in three hours so its bound to be shitty but I really needed to get it out of my system.
Haven't edited. Will do in the afternoon. For now, I have class in two hours and really should sleep.