CW: Explicit language, blood and gore, mentions of suicide.
Rin whips through the forest. He’s been running for what seems like hours and yet the hunters continue their pursuit, mere seconds from catching their prey. The furious thunder of hooves are discordant, traversing paths uneven, and to the Rat, there seems to be a hundred, a veritable army ever encroaching upon him.
Up ahead, the trees thin out, leading into a large clearing. A sharp incline to the right leads to a near impenetrable thicket. He throws himself down the knoll, scrabbling and sliding with the loose detritus and soil. Just as the hunters gather at the top of the rise, he’s already weaving his way deep into the thicket.
Arrows thud into trees he races past, but soon he’s too deep to reach.
Sweat stings his eyes. Breath comes in scorching gasps. He’s gripping his arm, wound throbbing and leaking hot blood. He wishes sorely that he still had his bow and arrows – at least it would give him a fighting chance. Instead, he’s alone and defenseless in a forest being hunted down like a wild animal.
Uma’s glazed eyes burn in his mind like a warning. This is what he is to them. A thing from which life can be taken as easily as a breath.
Distant shouts and whoops encroach. Arrows fly wildly, one or two striking the very trees he’s passing. Thundering hooves are replaced with footsteps, cracking twigs and crunching dead leaves in pursuant haste.
He catches a root and goes flying, crashing into the ground with a low grunt. Dazed, he continues scrambling forward, never pausing for a second.
Multiple footsteps hasten. Arrows increase in accuracy. He glances wildly over his shoulder.
Blurring robes, sweeping arms, goldens and blues, glinting in the murk in perfect contrast. How well they accent each other.
Rin throws himself into brush, the earth concave enough to obscure his form. He presses himself flat against the ground, panting raggedly, fingers digging deep into the soil as if it could contain his fractious emotions. Sweat drips from his brow and stings his eye. The footsteps are as thunderous as hooves, and for a hysterical moment, he thinks that he’s inundated by an army of hunters, all galloping about with their bows drawn, aiming directly at his back.
But when he glances up, all he sees is the verdant leaves of brush, blanketing his form.
“He’s here! He must be here!”
Rin jolts in shock. The prince’s voice calls from but a few steps away. He quickly covers his mouth and tries to calm his loud breaths, body trembling from the effort.
“Fan out and search around. When you find him, bring him to me. He’s my game, do you understand?”
Words of assent scatter through the forest and the footsteps continue on, this time slow, halting, and seemingly surrounding him on all sides.
Knowing that he’ll be found sooner than later, Rin carefully inches his way through the brush upon his belly, wriggling and pulling himself forward like an exposed worm.
Dry leaves shift beneath his body.
Every time a hunter nears, he freezes in place, not daring to take even a breath. Only when he’s certain of their proximity, does he continue forth – this way, he makes it far with the protection of the understory.
The scent of mucid vegetation packs his sinuses until his entire being feels damp and loamy.
When he raises his head, a pair of beady black eyes meets his own.
He stifles a shout.
Pitch eye gapes at the gravid mossfur hog, grunting and pawing at the ground less than a few feet away.
His skull vibrates with the intensity of his frenzied pulse.
The mossfur hasn’t noticed his presence yet, or at least hasn’t deemed him a threat.
He swivels his gaze around.
There’s a clear path to the right. If he manages to get behind the hog, he should be able to escape. Whether he can do so without agitating the beast, and thereby alerting his hunters — that is a feat he has little confidence in undertaking.
Testing his boundaries, Rin makes a minute shift to his right.
Almost at once, the mossfur tenses and raises her head, glaring at him with her beady eyes. He stares back, breath hitching.
Neither move. Neither make a sound.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
And then, the hog blinks and lowers her head, poking her snout into the dead leaves.
Rin releases his breath with a tremble, ears roaring with his own blood. Luna, he calls silently, are you there?
Cr fzqfmafv, rlifcmf lr tlr bcis gfrqbcrf.
The hunters hone in, their heavy treads advance. He has to move now or they will happen upon him within seconds.
Ccbatfg rtloa jcv jujlc atf tbu gjlrfr tfg tfjv, uijglcu ja tlw lc kjgclcu. Dea atlr alwf, tf tjr cb alwf ab qea atf yfjra ja fjrf.
Lf iegmtfr lcab jmalbc, rcjamtlcu eq j rtjgq gbmx jcv pjyylcu la tjgv lcab tfg rlvf. Ktf wbrroeg rmgfjwr jcv yemxr jcv vjgar jkjs, yegralcu ogbw atf ygertfr. Qlat j afgglyif, wjvvfcfv rdefji, rtf gjwr tfg tfjv lcab atf cfjgfra tecafg.
Rin takes off, scrambling to his feet and dashing through the clearing in the understory. Alarmed shouts and laughter are accentuated by the hog’s enraged squealing, and the metallic ring of blades being drawn forebear her end.
Trees whip past in a verdant blur. Muscles burn. His heart clamours. Robes stick to his overworked limbs, soaked in sweat and humidity.
Creatures skitter from his path. Lingering raindrops caught on leaves drip upon his skin.
In the distance, squeals are suddenly cut short. A cheer follows, a cheap celebration.
He’d bought himself some precious seconds at the cost of a mossfur hog. Next time, he won’t have such luck.
But as if the gods were taunting him, said luck runs out in a mere instant.
Trees thin out into a clearing, duff petering into packed dirt, and several feet ahead, a sheer escarpment.
The sands of the Blue Plains stretch out around him like a churned sea.
When he peers over the edge, he sees the forest extend to the lower layer, with a restless river flowing towards another scarp. In the distance, the rumble of a waterfall.
Rin spins around, panting raggedly, and steps back towards the treeline–
–when two figures emerge.
Erie, with his sword drawn, and Botan with a nocked arrow. Both bearing the cruel, triumphant smiles of hunters cornering their prey.
“HERE!” Botan bellows over his shoulder. Far-flung calls of assent echo back, scattered through the woods.
Rin stumbles, dread and panic wringing his guts like a wet towel.
“Did you believe that you were going to escape?” Erie laughs, swinging his curved sword in idle eights. “Even after making it so easy for us?”
Rin follows the prince’s eyeline. There, splattered upon the ground, is a trail of bright red blood. Leading all the way from the treeline to his feet. Just like the guinalo deer.
He starts and grabs his wound, feeling the entire sleeve drenched in blood.
“If it was so easy…why did you chase me?” Rin squeezes out. The wound throbs in rebellion and he locks his jaw.
“There is no hunt without a good chase.” Erie’s teeth flash in the desaturated gloom. His very being dazzles. “I must admit, you did almost give us the slip. Very nice touch with the mossfur.”
“So?” Rin snarls, hackles raised. “What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
“Mn. That would be rather anticlimactic, wouldn’t it?” Erie gestures to Botan and the big man lets down his bow.
The prince chuckles and approaches Rin, sheathing his sword. “No. Let’s do this properly. I will even forgo my weapon.” He pulls the saya from his obi and tosses it to Botan. “What say you, Rat? A fight to the death?”
And it’s clear whose death the prince is referring to.
The raven explodes in strident laughter. “All this, because I won’t kiss your ass like everyone else in this shithole? You bluebloods have worse tempers than Blossom fiends.”
“Not quite,” Erie smiles, pacing around the youth as if he were appraising him. “Jun is much too kind-hearted for his own good.”
“Obviously,” Rin says, dryly. “If he didn’t think the best of everyone, he’d be able to see right through your pretty face and your pretty words, all the way down to the rotten core. Is spewing shit all you know how to do?”
“Is that any way to speak to your future emperor?”
“So this is about Jun, then?” Rin skips towards the treeline, before twisting around to face the pacing royal. “What, are you jealous? Who knew that the future emperor is nothing but a petty bitch!” A manic giggle chases his caustic words and Erie flinches in anger.
The prowling hunter pauses mid-step, circle broken. “Poor Jun can’t even see the danger he’s in.”
“Oh, please. The only danger he’s in is of having a good time.” He jerks back when Erie lunges forward, hands clawed for his collar. There’s still a good two feet between them. “He’s acting like a dick because he’s trying to fit in. I get it. He wants to impress his rich, blueblood friends. But let me clarify a few things for you, pet–” A hard pivot to avoid a jab to the face. “I’m the best lay Jun’s ever had — and ever will have. Think he’d ever give that up for a pompous, self-centered prick who only knows how to suck himself off?”
Erie fumes, throwing another blow — only to be blocked by the raven’s forearm. “You are obscene!”
“Aw, pet. How kind of you to say~”
Mira’s training kicks in as he begins the rudimentary defensive dance, his motions drunken and sloppy, yet precise in their timing.
This takes the prince by surprise, who falters for a split-second, before intensifying his attack. “Say what you want, but you will never sit at the same table as Jun. Do you know how long we’ve known each other? From birth. That’s twenty years we have to your mere weeks. Our bond is one like the rock to the earth. Unmoving and eternal. You, however…” Erie’s face contorts, expression cruel and whet. “You will always be a rat. A mere plaything and nothing more.” Increasingly powerful attacks for each, savage word: “You. Are. Dispensable.”
A red glow flickers in that pitch eye. The stirring of a hulking beast in the abysm. Rin lets a blow slip through his defenses, taking it in the left cheek, and concurrently steals the opening, jabbing the man multiple times in the torso.
Erie is thrust back, a strangled cry locked in his throat. He staggers and clutches his aching trunk.
With palpitating breaths, Rin takes a moment to steady himself, rubbing his sore cheek. “Such certainties for someone who’s never tried the goods.” He flicks his mussed braid over his shoulder. “You’ve had twenty years to lay the groundwork, so I think getting jealous now is pointless, pet.”
A heavy, oppressive air bears down and twists his features. Pitch blares red, the louring bell of his avarice. “Jun is mine,” he growls, viciously. “I bought him so he belongs to me. This gold coin here is proof of our transaction.” He pulls out the coin, flicks it, and snatches it out of the air. “So I’m not letting him go. Least of all for you.”
“Insolence!” Erie lunges, resuming his attack. This time, he uses a flurry of moves from a mixture of styles, many – if not all – wholly unfamiliar to the raven.
Very quickly, Rin finds himself inundated, overwhelmed, his defenses crumbling like a weather-beaten wall. Blows land on his face, chest, and stomach. Blood gushes from his mouth. He’s pushed back, further and further, until he hears the roar of the waterfall behind.
White fury and pain engulfs his senses. To think that he’s going to die at the hands of this blueblood – this fucking prick – after struggling, fighting, and surviving desperately for eighteen years. How humiliating.
With a snarl, he retaliates with a wild fervour, Mira’s meticulous training discarded for something more primal. Teeth, claws, and maddened attacks shake the prince — enough to throw him to the ground.
Rin doesn’t hesitate.
He straddles him, pinning him down, and slams his fists into Erie’s head, over and over, until blood starts pouring like a geyser, painting his flying fists gory. Crimson eye is lost to the scarlet noise. Voices call for him to stop, but he ignores them, too rapt is he in the prince’s suffering.
And then–
“Rin!”
Bloodied fists freeze mid-air. A startled crimson eye flits to a pair of goldens. His heart clamours, rattles, shakes.
“…Jun.”
The rest of the hunters have finally arrived, standing before the treeline with their bows all drawn. Leveled directly at him.
Save for one. Jun. He simply stands there, bow still slung over his shoulder, staring at him with gaping eyes. There’s a noticeable tremble in the lord’s sickly form, sweat dripping from his jaw.
“Rin. Do you realise what you’re doing right now?” Jun steps forward, cautiously. There’s a flicker of reprehension. “You are harming the Crown Prince.”
The Rat gnashes his teeth, snatching the semi-conscious prince by the collar. Erie groans, head lolling. “So what?” Rin hisses, jagged lines of fury etched deep into his visage. “He hunted me down like an animal, Jun. He shot me with an arrow. He tried to kill me. Are you telling me I shouldn’t defend myself?”
“I’m telling you to think twice before you lay your hand on the Crown Prince,” Jun says, flatly. He pauses, as if reluctant to come closer. “Do you not have a modicum of self-control?”
Rin slams a fist into the prince’s face. Something goes flying. A tooth.
Anger seeps into Jun’s visage. “The Mother will hang you for this.”
“I’ll be long gone before she can get her hands on me.” Rin drops the unconscious royal and staggers to his feet.
Arrowheads rise with him, tracking his every movement.
Even Cillian has drawn his bow at him, brows wrinkled in perplexion. When their eyes meet, fear sprouts in those pale blues.
A vicious grin slashes across the Rat’s bloodied face. He slowly retreats backwards, gold coin gripped tightly in his hand. “How long have you been planning this?”
A few of the hunters waver in surprise. Confirmation.
Rin rubs his thumb over the coin, drawing what little comfort he can. “Ever since I first arrived, I suspect.”
Another waver.
“A shame, really,” he hums, boring his glare into each and every one of his firing squad. Cillian flinches and averts his gaze. The rest glare back, disgust, hatred, sadistic glee, impassivity, a mixture of responses to his silent challenge. “We could have been such good friends. And none of you even got to try the best mouth in the East.”
“Concede, Rat,” Botan growls, drawing his bow tighter. “Else you will be trussed up like that dead mossfur and dragged back to the palace behind a horse.”
“Sorry, pet. That doesn’t really get me off.” Rin’s heels dip over the edge. He can smell the cold mineral scent of the rapids below.
“Rin, come away from there. It’s not safe.” Jun frowns, reaching out as if to grab the raven.
“No,” Rin snaps, gaze sharpening. “I’m not safe here. With you. With any of them. And you…you’re not safe either.”
The little lord furrows his brows. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I’ll fix you, little lord. Don’t you worry.” Rin flashes him a smile, slips the coin under his tongue, and leaps off the cliff.
Luna light erupts and wraps him like a numinous cocoon. Blinding ivory, snowdrift catching on blistering tundric winds. There’s no pain when he hits the water.
The current however, batters his body like an army of marauders, inexorable and pitiless. What hand of nature cares for a soft body, flung into its depths? It churns without mercy, thrashes and chews. And just as his vision darkens, he feels himself plunging again — this time dragged down the turbulent waterfall.
The last thing he’s aware of is Jun’s devastated visage, staring down at him over from the cliff edge. Rin smiles and closes his eyes, letting himself be swept into oblivion, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t lost the little lord after all.
***
Jun stares blankly at the rapids. There’s no sign of Rin anywhere, lost is he to the frothing waters. He leans back on his haunches, cold, unfeeling. Instinct screams at him to jump, jump now, follow Rin and ensure that he’s still alive — but something snuffs the urge. Something much larger and far more powerful than he.
“Is he dead?”
“H-he killed himself!”
“Good riddance. Is his Highness still alive?”
“He’s waking up. Just bruising I think. Ah and the tooth — can someone grab the tooth?”
“The Mother will be displeased.”
“Did you see him jump?”
“He can’t have survived the fall–”
“How did he know we planned this?”
“Jun probably told him.”
“He didn’t know.”
“Neither did I!”
“Clamp your mouth, Cillian, you fool. Why were you protecting the Slummer anyway?”
“Your Highness, can you hear me?”
Jun rises, unsteadily, face ashen and goldens flat. He stumbles from the edge, feeling as though he were wading through dense, impenetrable mud. The chorale of voices reach him through murky depths. Hands reach out from the brume, but he reacts to no touch. The one he yearns for is no longer here. He may never feel it again.
The little lord sways, knees buckling beneath his weight. Without a sound, he crumples into a boneless heap, unconscious before he hits the ground.
Omg QAQ (ノಥ,_｣ಥ)ノ彡┻━┻
juuuuunnnn QAQ
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Don’t cry dondon!! TT—TT He’ll be okay. Maybe.
Thank you for reading!! <333
🔥🔥🔥 AHHH!!! Gods! If only Rin could have plucked the crown prince’s eyes out! I hope his nose is at least permanently bent, unmaking that ruthless bastard for the disgusting POS he is. I am so proud of our little Rat. My heart was racing reading this chapter. Wahhh… 👏
LMAOOO don’t worry he got a few good strikes in!!! Thank you for reading curio!! <3333
No no no… there’s definitely something wrong with Jun… and his dad let it happen? Or did he not know?? It’s this father bastard right??!!
TTuTT Everything’s fiiiiiiiiine~~ Nothing’s the matter at all~~ Thank you for reading Clozed!!! <3333
THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR THE CHAPTER! IVE BEEN BINGING THIS SERIES ALL DAY, ITS PHENOMENAL
Wahhhh!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING TOASTY!!!!! <3333😭