Warning for violence and mention of death.
The very first time Haru had laid his eyes on the Prince was on the day he was bought.
The sun rays were sheltering worn out bodies, waiting in line with their knees covered with burning sand. It had only been the second day for Haru; some had been there for weeks, waiting for a rich lord to buy them or for the unlucky ones, Lady Death's scythe. The most strapping and willing to live had developed numerous strategies to palliate the lack of water. Haru could see the recent scars on their lips; they had deliberately provoked the guard to punch them, so that they could drink their own blood to survive through the heat and the thirst.
Haru hadn't needed all of that. His stature was slender and delicate; his nails were done and his hair smelt of orange blossom. It was a blessing that the robbers chose the day he went to the public bathroom to attack. He had seen some of the men who had been taken with him, men from his village he didn't know, being dragged out their cells and never to come back again. Some were dead; some had been made warriors and were sacrificed on endless sandy fields. Haru had tried to forget about them, but it was almost impossible with the lack of water and of warm clothes at night not to think about death.
A Royal guard had thought, maybe on a whim, that he looked way too pretty to be sold to anyone else but the Prince. And that's why after two days of dehydration and starvation, two days without having felt anything but sand and the blazing kiss of the sun on his skin; Haru found himself in the Royal bathroom with two older women washing his back, where he was being offered a handful of grapes in a rust-colored basket, embellished with very thin laces of gold drawing the shape of a woman's naked body.
Haru thought he was hallucinating, he thought he was about to wake up any moment but it's only when, washed and dressed in the most sophisticated way, royal guards escorted him to the biggest bedroom he had ever seen, it was only then that Haru understood that it was none but another living nightmare.
The door slamming loudly behind him sounded like the growling of fate.
Standing right in front of him was the young Prince, looking at the luxurious gardens from the balcony of his refined room, his back facing Haru.
He wasn't fully grown yet, Haru could tell; he was just like him. A teen, merely. And yet he was the Prince. And yet he owned him.
Haru wouldn't have any of that. He was a free man and he would be for the rest of his life; he'd rather choose death than slavery. He wouldn't let that boy have him, in any way he could imagine in his head; he wouldn't let the Prince possess him.
The Prince was still wearing light sleeping clothes, his hair was free from any ornament; he was just standing with a white dress, vulnerable to the morning cold breeze. Wine-colored bangs floated as the air went in the room. The Prince turned his head, just a little, as he heard the guard entering his private room. Haru took notice of his eyes; they were the same color as his hair - and, Haru thinks now, even from that time he had looked quite lonely; Rin had looked depressed the first second he had seen him and he still wonders what he was looking at this morning from the window of his luxurious but empty room.
Was he waiting for something to come?
Haru wanted to run away but the sadness in those red eyes told him otherwise for a few seconds, and this short moment of hesitation was all it took for his escape to fail. The moment he tried to turn around, a guard was already on him; he punched him and pushed him harshly on the floor. But a sigh, almost imperceptible, made the guards' fists froze in midair as they were about to correct Haru again for his behavior. Then came short and lazy footsteps; and Haru wished they would release their grip on his neck so that his face wouldn't be stuck on the tiles but instead, looking up to the Prince's face.
His wish was granted, though. A hand curled in his chin and lifted his head; the Prince had knelt.
"Enough." He said, and then, the guards retreated, one by one, leaving them alone in the royal bedroom. He hadn't even meant to give orders, his voice was nothing but a child's one and yet he had probably every adult here wrapped around his little finger.
The Prince stroked his skin, his long and painted nail scratching and tickling the corner of his mouth. "He was right," he murmured, so lightly and fondly that at some point Haru wondered if it was something he had been supposed to hear, "Your have eyes as clear as water."
The Prince had asked for his wound to be healed that day, nothing more. Haru was brought back to the Prince's room every day by orders, but never did he touch him. They just spent their days talking; or at least the Prince did talk a lot, for Haru had stayed pretty silent at first. But he found himself not willing to anymore, as time went by, as he got more and more used to the Prince's aura and it was only a matter of time before Haru found himself trusting him like he would have never imagined to.
"Haru! Come here." He had said one evening at the balcony. The sunset was breathtaking, painting the sky with different shades of pink - that's probably why the Prince wanted him to see it too. They've stared together at the scenery until the moment Haru was left alone in contemplation - he could feel the Prince's eyes on him, again. It made him feel nervous.
"Haru, would you be my friend?"
The Prince had taken his dagger - the one that had been Haru's in another life, a life where he was a free man - and together they have shared their blood. They would now be linked forever, with a straight scar on the flesh of their forearm continuously reminding them of their bond.
"You can call me Rin now," The Prince had said, "For you, my friend, I'll just be Rin, and you'll just be Haru. We're the same. We're just men."
From that time where they have both drunk each other's blood and licked on each other's arms, Haru understood that he wouldn't quite be happy with only being friend with the Prince. Every day when he came back to the brothel he heard about hundreds of stories about Rin, about how he liked to spend the night and more precisely, with who; and that person was never him. He remembered it as he drank Rin's blood. It tasted just like his, but there was something else, something on the skin that made the taste delightful.
He wanted to taste more. He wanted more of Rin and as he was his property, Haru started to wonder why the Prince had never asked for Haru once in the countless nights he had already spent here. The thought drove him crazy to the point of insolence.
Just a week after their sharing, Haru kissed the Prince on a whim. Their faces were too close on the silk red cusion; they had stopped talking and were just gazing blankly at each other. Rin was growing more and more beautiful by the days. Haru had matured, too, not only physically; his heart had started beating on a different rhythm since the days Rin's eyes decided to invade his dreams.
And if only it had just been his eyes.
Rin's mouth tasted of something divine. The Prince was so shocked that he let him do this, let him savor him in a forbidden way; because no one was allowed to touch the Prince in a way he hadn't touched one before.
When he broke the kiss, Haru didn't apologize. He just waited, half expecting Rin to shout - only half because, they were friends after all, what kind of person would shout at a friend? - but Rin did none of it. Instead he looked stunned, kind of frozen in time and desperately gorgeous. It was sunset again. The golden rays were illuminating the back of Rin's head, enlightening the blood-wine bangs' that fell on his cheeks; it made him look unreal, inhuman, unreachable.
And yet Rin leaned in and sealed their lips again.
They spent the night together.
It had been the very first time that Haru let Rin own him without a fight.
The Favorite - Chapter IV
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The crook of Rin's neck brings him back memories of that time where everything seemed so simple, so easy. It was a time made of just him and Rin, their sleepless nights talking about the sky and the lost ocean, about creatures that were leaving in the depth of it, about the life Haru have had before he ended up here. Now, everything just seemed so far away, like a childhood memory that Haru could only remember tinted in sepia. It was only a few years ago.
How did they end up like that?
How on earth did Haru think the only solution was to kill Rin and to follow him in death for their story to have the happy ending he thought they deserved?
When did his relationship with Rin fuck him up that far?
Rin was caressing this back with a motherly care he thought he'd never feel again, coming from him. He strokes his arms and his shoulders, he waits patiently for his eyes to dry. It's only then that Rin dares to speak.
"Let me ask you this again, Haru. What are you doing here?"
The silence that follows isn't broken by anything but the guards patrol walking in the garden, their footsteps hitting the sand monotonously. There isn't even a breath that comes out of Haru's throat for he had shut it down, altogether - he doesn't want to talk to him. He doesn't want to tell him. He doesn't want Rin to know just how in love he is with him because it will be worse than dying.
"What were you trying to accomplish here, really? Did you really think you could kill me? That I will let you do so without complaining? You'll be killed on the spot when the guards find out. Unless..."
Haru hisses; he hates it when Rin starts to lecture him, he hates it because most of the time Rin can read him right and Haru has a feeling that tonight, as he wears his heart up to his sleeve the task won't be a very arduous one.
Rin stills and waits, again, for him to relax. The palms of his hands rest gently on his hips; it's not by any mean a way to immobilize him or to prevent him from leaving his lap, it has more to do with the way Rin silently shows his affection and caring. He wants him to feel at ease, he wants Haru's turmoil to stop. But how can he wish for such a thing when his only existence is at the core of Haru's pain?
And indeed Haru relaxes, helped by Rin's touches alone. The muscles on his thighs and back become less tensed, allowing him to sit better and fully on Rin's bare legs. The Prince sits up as well; he opens the velvet curtain of his four-poster and lets the moonlight hit on their faces. The white glimmer illuminates Rin's skin, and makes it shine - no, it makes it glitter. Rin's face is made of a million of incredibly small diamonds and under the moonlight they shine; and then the moon reaches his eyes and Haru can only see round and refined pair of rubies looking intensely back at him.
The sight of Rin mystifies him; it always does.
"I know you love me," He says when he feels Haru fully relaxed on his lap, "I know it because I've learn to read you after all these years. I know how you react, I know what your looks mean; I can see the desire showing in every single inch of your body when I'm just about to touch you."
"The body and the heart are two different things." Haru adds harshly. "It's not because you own one that the other follows naturally."
"Isn't it bleeding right now?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Your heart." Rin answers, his voice gentle, no more than a whisper. "I can hear it bleeding."
He rests his ear on Haru's chest on top of the place where the said heart should be, listening carefully to his beating. "It has been bleeding for a week now, nine days and nine nights to be precise; hasn't it?"
Haru has never wanted more to grasp on Rin's hair and to tear all of them away, one by one. He feels so angry, so frustrated; because just like he had thought when he's on edge Haru is way more easier to read, and Rin knew that, and he had been the one orchestrating those nine days and nine nights of pure torture just for that intent.
"You're the only one to blame for that."
"I know." Rin says, bluntly.
Haru laughs bitterly at his honest provocation. "Then what was all that for?"
"Why did you come here tonight?"
And then it becomes too much. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. Haru is sick of it, sick of how easily Rin thinks he can play with him - and of how much it's working, he's sick of being in love with him, he's sick of being trapped in a cage he doesn't even want to escape anymore. His hands find themselves on the Prince's throat; he forces them to lie on the bed again.
"Stop that, Haru." Rin orders; and he does it without any trouble because the grip on his neck isn't even hard enough to make him ache - it's just a desperate attempt to make Rin realize that he's gone too far and that he has to stop playing games before Haru loses his mind for good. "I am your Prince and you have no right to touch me that way."
"Really!? We're back at that again, aren't we?!" Haru growls; the rage and frustration leaving drops of water in the corner of his eyes again. "You know it's not true! You know it's not only that!" Haru's shining eyes fall on Rin again. "For me, with me, you're not the Prince. With me you're just Rin. You're just a man..." He breathes as he calms down slowly, his forefinger stroking the scar on Rin's forearm. "You're my friend."
"Am I, really?"
Haru's frowns, bewildered by the sudden rhetorical question Rin asks him. "Of course you are."
Rin stays mysterious, his face unreadable under Haru's hands. They're still on his throat but only to drop a caress, here and then, as Rin's Adam apple moves when he speaks. "Because that's not what your heart is telling me." He says, and Haru shouldn't be surprised by the route he chooses to take, "It doesn't want to be my friend. It wants to be much more than that."
Haru gets off of his burning chest abruptly, as if the touch was enough to leave a burn. He tries to avoid Rin's intense gaze as well; it feels very uncomfortable to be so close to Rin right now because the man he loves with all his heart is getting closer and closer to the secret he had held within him for years.
Haru tries to escape, and of course Rin chases after him, and follows his movement like a shadow.
"It wants to be my lover, my sole and only." He adds, determined, after he's taken a solid grip on Haru's wrist. "And it feels destroyed at the thought of someone else fulfilling this role, it got persuaded that the only solution was to kill the both of us in order to find happiness again. It thinks death is the only way to free us from our chains so that we could love each other in a perfect world where we would be nothing but equals. That's what your heart is telling me."
There was a time when Haru wouldn't have surrendered without a fight. There was a time when Haru was still young, and strong, and not in love; there was a time when Haru was free and when he didn't know Rin yet and the Haru from that time would have probably resist against that man.
But that time is over. That Haru is gone.
"You can't understand, can you?" Haru talks, his voice strangled, his words carefully chosen, "You really want to take everything from me. As if owning me wasn't enough. You really want me to become less than a man-"
"I have never wanted to own you."
"But you do!"
"See?" Rin laughs, bitterly "You're not the only one who can't act as he pleases."
And for the first time in ages, Haru sees Rin's mask falling apart. He would have liked never to be born than to see him broken like that.
He hides his pain on the crook of Rin's neck again. It always calms his nerve when he's about to crumble. There he can smell Rin's scent; there he can taste his skin and the warmth of the flesh never fails to sooth his fears away, as he listens carefully to Rin's words.
"You know Haru, it's only because our hearts are feeling the same that I can read you so well. You weren't the only one who thought about death. But even that I can't decide, because as the Prince I can't fail my people before producing an heir. I thought for a moment that I could escape marriage as well, but my duties again forbade me to live the kind of life I long for. I wish we could carry on that way forever...but I would be blind to think it's even possible. I am the Prince, I have duties; I don't own my life and yet I own others'. I am not just Rin. I can't be just Rin, regardless how hard I want to be; and it has to be that way even with you or I'll never be able to move on."
Rin loses his hand in the mass of Haru's hair. He ruffles the dark bangs, caressing the skull with his sharp nails gently. He smiles sadly. "I am so sorry. I know I am being selfish but I need you to say it, Haru."
"I won't."
"Please."
"I can't." He mutters against Rin's skin; the sound is so hushed that he probably can't hear him. "I can't give it to you. It's the only thing I have left."
"Are you talking about your heart?"
"My heart. My honor. My freedom. Call it as you wish. I don't want to give you all. I don't want to be nothing more than an object."
And the thought alone of giving in makes him shiver in fear and dread. Haru takes a big breath to find the courage to talk again, the scent of Rin giving him the resolve he needs to get out of his trap. "If you really love me Rin then you will understand. You will leave me free from you."
"Are you refusing me the only thing I ever really wanted from you?"
Haru doesn't answer. Instead, he looks away, his gaze falling by pure hazard on his old dagger that Rin is now holding - he immediately looks back at Rin again, slightly panicked. What does he intend to do now, finish them both?
"And if I gave you something back, if I gave you something for you to own; would you allow your heart to be finally mine in return?"
He then gives back the dagger to his true owner. Haru takes it delicately on the palms on his hands as if it was nothing more than another trap he was more than willing to fall in if it could permit him to stay close to Rin a little bit longer. "It's a little bit flimsy, don't you think? You're trying to negotiate my love with a simple dagger."
"It's just a start; and that's the only thing I have within easy reach anyway. You've been crunching my legs for half an hour, you know."
It elects a laugh from Haru's lips, a laugh he would gladly hide, just like the love in his eyes every time their eyes meet. Suddenly, everything becomes so vain and futile, so unimportant in regards of their practically nonexistent future.
Because after all the situation is painfully simple. They are just two men in love. When they are together nothing else really matters. To hell with traditions, expectations, social ranks and jealousy; for once Haru should put his pride aside and let Rin have what he wants, the only thing he has ever wanted to have from him, forget about his pride before it's too late, before he regrets.
The dagger is a precious gift to him. It will do for now. It's good enough to swap his love with - but only because it's Rin.
Their faces are only an inch apart, maybe less. Haru can feel the hot breath of Rin, blowing on his eyelids.
"Can I kiss you?" He asks. The tip of his lips is burning at the thought and yet he waits for Rin's approval. He wants this moment to be right, because it'll be the very first time that he'd give himself to Rin entirely, heart body and soul.
"Ah, you haven't understood a single thing I said, hn?"
Rin caresses his face, and runs his dried lips on the skin of his jaw. His mouth rests on his ear.
"When I am with you I want to be just Rin. Nothing applies to you when it's just the two of us. You don't have to wait for my touch. You never had to."
Rin then takes Haru's hands in his, and places them on both sides of his face. He looks at him with ruby eyes shining in the night, and at this moment Haru realizes how much of a fool he had been in the past. Rin never wanted him to break the rules, because there were never rules to be broken. He had done everything to make their relationship look normal in this place, bypassing their status and Haru had done nothing but played along the Palace's rules.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He hushes, his face closer to the face he loves than it has been for days.
"I thought I didn't need to."
"You're a fool."
"I plead guilty."
Rin is smiling when Haru finally kisses him. He lingers there, far too long for their average kiss; but it's been so long, Haru would want their lips to be sealed forever - he would give everything he has for them to stay together forever. But he doesn't own a thing, except for his own dagger; he has nothing to give back.
Rin rests his forehead on Haru's when he breaks the kiss. "I love you." He says timidly, as if it was the very first time he confessed; and somehow it makes sense because it's indeed the very first time that Haru is free to answer as he pleases.
He lays them on the bed again, stretching Rin's legs so that he could set in between them, and link their hips firmly against each other's. The next time he kisses him it's a whole different kind of kiss; Haru's lips are full of passion and love, of want and desire, and of some sort of gratitude he doesn't really know what do to with. But there a thing that's for sure; and it's that he wants Rin tonight, he wants to love him like any normal lovers would do; because they are just two men in love, and that's the oldest story the world has known.
"I love you too." He murmurs, and then he loses his mind in the wildest of Rin's smile.
Two more to come.
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