Sorry I'm late to post it here
Here goes chapter3!
Haru dreams that night.
He dreams of a place where Rin is happy; a place where he can stare at his angelic, smiling face, and where only tears of happiness fall from his eyes. It's a wonderful place with lots of water and a giant tree, full of small pink flowers Haru has never seen before.
"It's so romantic..." Rin moans, as he lies on the grass, his hair filled with pink petals. He looks like a child, no more than thirteen. Haru just watches him; he stands far away even if it aches not to be near him; his fingertips burn at the lack of touch but somehow it doesn't feel right, it feels too soon yet to stand so close to Rin.
He blinks and the scenery changes. They are now walking hand in hand on the sand next to a huge oasis - it's pure madness, the stretch of water looks endless before their eyes when they don't have enough water for everyone back in his village; what is that holy place?
The silence enveloping them is a comfortable one. Rin feels warm, but not overwhelming. It's easy to breathe next to him, and natural to just simply be here by his side and not to ache for his touch. It's so simple and yet so it's right at the same time. Rin kisses him gently on the temple and the simple gesture is enough to fill Haru with an immeasurable joy.
He blinks again, they are at a wedding. Their wedding.
His pillow is wet under his head when he wakes up. The sun is timidly showing its rays through the small window of Haru's room. The Royal Guards are already knocking violently on the wooden frame.
He tells Nagisa not to open the door; this time it's something he needs to do alone.
The Favorite - Chapter Three
Haru had thought a lot about what Rin had said the night before, about the last wish he would be granting him. He thought about asking for an intense love-making hour session to be honest, but considering they won't be alone in the throne room, Rin would be most likely inclined to refuse; he doesn't want the last thing Rin will remember of him to be this tentative of humiliation.
And, on top of that, it would be begging; and Haru won't fall this low, even in his last moment - especially because these were to be his last moments.
Everything is pictured in his head now. Bent on his knees, his head lowered, Rin will ask for his final wish, and with a bright and singing voice Haru will speak, proud of his life, proud of what he had accomplished and of whom he had loved unconditionally. 'I want Rin to be happy,' he will say. And then his head will fall on the floor, red blood spurting on the black and white small tiles and he will be gone. He'll be dead, but Rin will remember him for the rest of his life - and he'd better, after all the moments they have shared together and what he has done to him, he'd really better.
That's his perfect ending; at least in his head. He will die as a free man, and the one surviving will be haunted by his ghost until the end of time, never giving him mercy, ruining his marriage and his life.
Haru finally opens the door. Behind them, there are servants, a lots of them. The first one pushes him to the side and opens the second part of the door. A dozen servants, each holding a tray with a different dish, enters his room. Nagisa eyes start shining; the poor boy has certainly never seen so much food gathered in one place in his whole life. They are even dates and oranges, apricot and nectarines, honey and milk. There are probably enough supplies to feed the entire harem; it's so much that it leads Haru to think the servants have been mistaken, or that they will wait for them to finish their part before taking the leftovers to the other slaves.
But, astonishingly, they don't.
As soon as the trays are set on the floor, the servants exit the room and close the door behind them.
There are no soldiers, or weapons. There is no death threat.
Nagisa is crying, not touching any food, for the emotion had shut down his appetite for the time being. They have seen some executions before; they know what a real last meal looks like. And it's nothing like what's displayed in front of their eyes.
"He must really, really love you." Nagisa says when his tears have dried. His stomach growls, and he starts eating, his mind at peace. He is the only one though; Haru still thinks it's only one of Rin's special treatments reserved to him, another kind of perverted game he likes to play recently.
And so Haru waits, patiently, for a guard to take him to his final destination eventually. He eats very little; the sight of Nagisa eating so much and smiling warmly is enough to make him full anyway. The plates are half empty by lunch time, and Nagisa's belly is all round. As for Haru, he waits, unruffled; time runs by slowly, but in the end and against Haru's beliefs, nobody comes.
.
o0o0o
.
"Haru-chan, are you in love with the Prince?"
Haru is looking at the window, enjoying the view twice as much as before. The question he is being asked makes the time pass by more slowly. Outside they can only hear the singing of the rare birds living in the Prince's gardens, hidden in the leaves. Nagisa patiently waits for an answer, his legs close to his chest and his arm wrapping around them. He smiles tenderly.
"Yes; I am." Haru says quietly.
It feels so weird to confess his love aloud. It's exactly as Haru had dreaded it; it's like he had just torn a part of his soul and had given it to someone else - but it's Nagisa so, it's okay, it's more than okay. It's the very first time for him. He had always been afraid of admitting his feelings but now it doesn't matter anymore, and he feels like someone has to remember them and to keep them carried on after he's gone.
"Really?" Nagisa has this playful light in his eyes; Haru doesn't have a good feeling about this. "And you've never told him?"
He frowns at that statement. How could he possibly know?
"I don't want him to know." Haru mutters, and resumes watching the clouds outside the Palace.
"But he told you he loved you, right?"
Again Haru frowns. Is Nagisa a mind reader? Or had he been there in the bathroom with them yesterday night? At least one thing's for sure; Nagisa has always been very wise when it concerns love's issues.
"I find it curious that you won't tell him you love him. Why? Is that only because you're stubborn as a mule, really?"
Haru looks away. He doesn't want to give his reasons. Nagisa is a slave too, therefore he should understand. He shouldn't need to ask.
"But, Haru-chan," Nagisa goes on, not waiting for any kind of answer - and Haru is glad, really. "I think you should tell him. Tell him that you love him before it's too late." He pauses, takes a piece of gingerbread left on the trail in his hand, and eats it. "It's part of the tradition, you know."
But Haru never cared about some barbarian traditions that weren't from his people.
Being so passive makes him feel ants in his pants, and so in the beginning of the afternoon Haru decides to leave his room and to walk into the Palace's garden once more. Maybe he will spot Rin there. He'd like to see him, before his guards eventually come for him. But he isn't there; Rin is in none of the places where Haru can freely look for him.
After an hour or so of idleness Haru finally chooses to return to his room.
On the way back he is pleasantly surprised to see people aren't paying much attention to him. It's a change, a very welcome change but after he gives it a thought it just doesn't feel right. It's awkward; after all the fuss he had done last night, and the news of the execution, people should be only talking about him, people should be laughing at him, or feeling sorry for him. But now everybody seems to ignore his presence altogether.
Maybe he is dreaming again. Maybe he is already dead.
When he comes back Nagisa is holding a white and rectangular piece of parchment and tears are dropping from his eyes to the Prince's missive.
"You've been summoned," he whimpers, and then Haru holds him in his arms and lets him cry on his robes.
.
o0o0o
.
The two guards nod when they see Haru approaching the throne room with little, halting steps. He nods back. Haru is still a slave, but everybody knows him here. He is the slave, the favorite, the one everybody is jealous of. And soon he will be the one who went too far, the one who pushed his luck with the Prince to its limit when he shouldn't have, and who will pay the price of his arrogance. For believing that there was something more than just a master-slave relationship between them, or that there could have been more when their fate had been decided by the kind of sheets they were born in.
Haru swallows, his throat feels dry; Nagisa's words can't leave his mind now that he is about to face his fate.
This is literally his very last chance to tell Rin how he really feels about him.
Why is it so complicated to choose his last words? 'Rin, I love you; please be happy with your new life' isn't catchy enough. He wants Rin to cry at his disappearing. He needs more time...if only he could have-
Haru finds himself in the middle of the throne room before he has time to finish the train of his thoughts.
"Haru, you're finally here!"
Rin's voice is clear and cheerful. There is no one but his usual guards and a soldier, no older than him, standing in the middle of the room a little bit...incongruously. The guy is wearing spectacles, and the uniforms of the outside patrol - what is he doing here?
"This is Ryuugazaki Rei. He will be our new guard - since we're one down since last night."
The scene looks unreal. Haru had walked upon his execution and now Rin is talking about...a new...guard? - That doesn't make any sense.
"What happened?" Haru asks, still wondering if he is going to get killed here.
"Oh, hem, he just - he was missing this morning." Rin answers, missing the point; his voice sounds unsure and quavering. "So I got us a new guard. Show him the way, will you?"
"What?"
"Well, I don't know. Start with the garden and then the promenade-"
"No I mean Ri-My Prince," he corrects himself in time, "What is happening?"
Rin avoids his gaze even more. "I'm ordering you to be this guard's guide for today. Is that still too much to ask of you?"
When finally their eyes meet, Haru finds out that there is something broken reflecting in Rin's red eyes. He looks like he's lost something and was pretty sure he'd never find it back.
Haru's feet walk on their own after he's been dismissed, the new guard - Ryuugazaki, was it? - following him like his own shadow, talking and talking like a chatterbox.
"No but I don't understand. Yesterday I was still in the Palace entrance, guarding it with pride and a beautiful uniform and now-"
Of course, Haru doesn't pay attention to the man. His mind hasn't been able to leave the throne room yet. He still can't believe it.
Rin had spared him.
"-and they didn't even ask for my opinion you know they just decide to give me those ugly robes that don't even match my glasses and-"
They reach Haru's apartment quicker than he thought. Haru opens the door; Nagisa is curled into a ball on his bed, probably still crying, with his legs tangled around the sheets. The blond lifts his head as he hears the door being opened and the sight is nearly enough to make him pass out.
"Haru-chan!" he screams, and then runs into his arms. He doesn't ask what happened, because Nagisa can guess it just fine and also because, after seeing how confused Haru looks he had certainly judged that it wouldn't help to ask him anything.
"Who are you?" he asks instead, to the newcomer standing straight like a rod behind Haru.
"Ryuugazaki-san! New Royal Guard of the Prince." The guard bends to salute them, Nagisa put his hand on his mouth to repress a laugh. "It's an honor to serve you."
"Oh but, we're not member of the royalty, Ryuugazaki-san. We're both slaves." The guard looks baffled for a moment and then, realizing what he had just done, blushes crimson red. Nagisa laughs a bit this time, not minding being discreet or not. "Haru-chan is the Prince's Favorite, that's why you may have been confused."
"I thought the Prince was supposed to get married very soon - I mean I didn't want to be offensive," he adds quickly after spotting the pain showing on Haru's face, "But it's just normally the Prince should pay more at-t-tention to the future bride than-"
"I understand." Haru says weakly. He walks to his bed and lies there for a bit. He drifts off for a short while, his back hiding him from the two other's view. Only one thought occupies his mind, lingers on his bones, and makes everything else appear pointless.
Rin saved him.
It's the only thing that matters to him at this very moment. The Bride could wait, the Bride could even do whatever she wants; Rin had chosen to save him and he wouldn't have done that for a mere stranger coming to the Palace to celebrate a arranged marriage. Haru feels this warm, overwhelming feeling inside his chest, burning his insides and climbing to his throat, to his eyes.
He cries silently, listening to Nagisa's cheering voice speaking to the guard he had to take care of today and Haru curses. He loves Rin, he really does; maybe a little bit too much - and he forgives him everything, always. He wants to see him. Not even to touch him and being touched; just to see him flesh and bone and to talk to him, face to face, just like they used to when they were teens.
"Nagisa, would you mind showing our new guest the Palace with me?" He asks him an hour later - the guard, having nothing else to do, had accepted Nagisa's offer to eat the rest of the buffet they have been delivered this morning. "I'm not really in the mood to do so but the Prince asked me to."
"No problem! Come on, Ryuugazaki-chan!"
"Don't call me that way..." The guard says, defeated by Nagisa's natural affable attitude.
"You're right; Rei-chan sounds more easy and more short!"
"I didn't mean it that way!" Rei blushes again and pests. "And it's not the proper way of saying things."
"Nagisa didn't have the chance to have a proper education, you know."
Haru's cold comment puts an end to the conversation, and makes Rei's cheeks go red with another kind of embarrassment.
They walk down the alley, through the gardens; they even make Rei visit the water rooms and the place where he'll eat. On the way towards his new barracks they fall on Rin. He is walking peacefully, chatting with his mother and his younger sister. Of course, his court is still following him - they are fewer this time, Haru notices - and there is still that mysterious, banal woman near him, tugging on his arm. Haru looks away. He can't believe that he is jealous of such things - he never thought he would be, considering what they used to have, what they used to be. Haru looks away but Nagisa doesn't, and thus the short blond doesn't miss the warm and sincere smile the Prince gives them when he sees his favorite passing by, accomplishing the task he'd been asked.
Rei bows again when he says goodbye, as they have reached the barracks' entrance. God, this guy can be so embarrassing, thinks Haru but then, he notices Nagisa is kind of blushing as well - so he doesn't say anything, and pretends he has seen nothing of what is displaying in front of his eyes.
They come back silently to their apartment.
Haru lies down again in bed but fails to sleep. Rin is still haunting his thoughts - so he gets up, and without really knowing what do say or why he has the sudden urge to see him, he walks towards Rin's bedroom in the middle of the night.
.
o0o0o
.
His hand freezes as he is about to knock. Surprisingly there are no guards, there isn't a soul in sight and it should have alarmed him. Haru's forehead falls on the frame of the door. Rin isn't alone tonight. There is someone with him, a woman to be precise, and Haru can hear their voices, their laughs, their moans so perfectly that it's making him sick.
There have always been others, Haru knows that; he had been one of the others for so long but it had never hurt him so much. He knows he should just go, that his place no longer belongs behind this door but he can't find the resolve to move. It's like Rin's soft noises are hypnotizing him, forcing him to stay and to listen to the man he loves having pleasure with someone who isn't him.
That's it. That's the way Rin chooses to kill him off. The sweet decapitation was too much of a gift for him; he deserves the cruel and slow way, he deserves to go mad and to lose his mind before he can rest in peace with his eyes full of dreams of him and Rin living happily ever after. He would have rather died this morning than being there tonight, standing in front of Rin's door and feeling banished from his own home.
He had never wanted so much to own Rin like Rin owns him. Haru feels the hot and destructive feeling of jealous and rage coming up to his chest again; and suddenly he wants to see her. Is she the woman he saw yesterday? Or is she just another girl his mother bought him?
Is she the Bride?
Haru wants to know - in his mind he deserves to know who will take his place - and so he sits against the guardrail on the other side of the long corridor, his legs against his chest and his arms wrapping around them, and he waits.
He waits for hours but no one comes out of Rin's room.
Nagisa finds him just before the first guard's round. He drags him back to their room, Haru feeling like nothing but a dead weight. He crawls on his bed but doesn't sleep until the sun is up to the sky. He doesn't wake up until night time - and it's only because there is something he needs to do.
.
o0o0o
.
Rin in lying on his bed, half-asleep. The red curtain hanging from his four-poster hides the moonlight from his face that would prevent him from sleeping properly. He misses the sight of a shadow, obscuring the red tissue and he only opens his eyes fully when he hears the rustling of the fabric against the skin, and the sound of an unknown body jumping on his bed, its legs strangling his hips perfectly.
The man on top of him has his face covered with white and blue headdress, his belly is bare from clothes revealing his perfectly toned stomach but it's not the first thing that Rin sees. It's the man's eyes; blue like the sky above their head, sad, angry and desperate blue eyes looking at him and then, looking at the pillow beside him - more precisely at the thing hidden behind it. Rin snaps.
"No-" he says but it's too late, the man - no Haru, he knows it's Haru; he has sensed him coming even before he had reached his window, he knows the feeling of his legs against him too well, he could recognize his pair of eyes among hundreds of blue ones - takes the dagger out of his hiding place. He raises it above his head. The moonlight reflects on the refined sliver blade as he lowers his arms, but the weapon never reaches the Prince's delicate and aghast features he was aiming at. The dagger stops in midair, as does Haru's sudden blaze of insanity.
"...it's mine." Haru breathes, his voice unsettled.
"Ah, I guess I've lost my bet."
Rin sits up, his heartbeat is erratic in his ribcage but overall he manages to stay composed after the failed attempt of assassination. He looks at Haru; his eyes are glued on the silver blade that had once been his. "Yes it is yours. Well at least it was; I own everything that had ever been yours since the day you were bought."
Haru doesn't even mind being reminded of his status; and it's really strange, coming from him. He seems captivated by his old dagger. "Why are you sleeping with it?"
"In case something like that happens?" Rin scratches the side of his head. "No but, more seriously Haru, what are you really doing here?"
They whisper in the dark, fearing a guard could overhear them. Haru could get arrested and killed for what he is doing but, it's not the first time he'll play with his life for Rin, and somehow it feels like it's exactly what Rin was looking for all along.
"I came to claim back what's mine." He murmurs, his hands still holding the dagger.
Rin falls on his back again, looking at Haru, his thumb stroking the fabric of his pants on the start of his hip. "Do you really intend to kill me, Haru?" His voice doesn't sound that alarmed, or even disappointed - it looks like he really asks out of curiosity. As if it wouldn't even bother him if Haru answers him 'Yes'.
Haru's hands are still frozen, his knuckles turning white - what is he doing? what is he thinking? Is that really the only way for him and Rin to be together? Is there no other way for them to be happy than in death?
There is no other way. Haru would rather kill them both than witness, every other day of his life, the one he loves more than life itself being married to someone else.
"Because, the Haru I know would never do this to me if he really loved me."
The cold breeze of the night blows on the velvet curtains, making them wave. The silver blade falls soundlessly on the bed.
Haru doesn't own anything anymore.
Rin has taken all away from him.
A single tear runs in his cheek, a tear that Rin caresses away with his delicate fingers. He waits for him to say something, Haru can see it in the depth of his eyes; and so he speaks, honestly, and displays the weight burdening his heart.
"I hate you. I hate you so much." He sobs.
Rin only smiles in response, and holds him close in his embrace.
If you want to hug Haru too clap your hands o/ *clap clap*