CW: Explicit language, mentions of mental/emotional abuse, blood & violence, self-harm.
“How long will you be staying here?” Jun asks, peeling an apple with a small knife. The nascent morning sun catches on the blade for every motion. It’s a rare appearance in the recent deluge, along with the sweet sliver of blue peeking out from between black clouds.
Bellow stretches out on the toenmaru, one leg swinging off the edge, and his hands cushioning his head. He’s long out of bandages, but there lingers some signs of his injuries. Faded bruises on his face and his recently aquilined nose.
And there are the silent signs. The long pause as he parses through the fog in his injured brain, before finally answering, “As long as I want, I suppose.”
“Bell has been so good, Jun,” Small chirps, spinning his cane around playfully. “He’s been going along with the hunts whenever he’s well enough. And last time, oh, last time he even brought back a rabbit and cooked us all a delicious stew!”
“It was palatable,” Bucky admits, giving an angled nod. She picks up a second apple and helps Jun prepare the fruit. “The Guildmaster has told me she has half a mind to take Bellow on as Guild cook.”
The Bull’s face turns a deep shade of red as he grouses and grumbles incoherently. Although, by the way he can hardly contain a grin, it’s clear that he’s pleased by this news.
Jun smiles at the brutish fellow and offers him a large slice of apple. Bellow snatches it from his hand and tosses into his mouth, chomping with relish.
“And how are your injuries?” the little lord asks, glancing between the two patients.
“Head’s gonna take time to heal,” Bellow gruffs, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “But other than that, I’m back to normal. Not much that can keep me down.”
“You are so strong, Bell,” Small hums in agreement, cheeks flushed dark as he pats the larger man’s shoulder. “Mother says I can have the cast taken off in a few days.”
“So soon?” Jun raises his brows and inspects said cast. It’s impressive handiwork, clearly the work of a Healer from the Clinic.
“Healer Musa gave us an elixir. I don’t think it’s anything they give freely at the Clinic. Not officially anyway.” Small rubs his cheek, frowning. “But mother is such good friends with Healer Musa, he did everything he could for us, even if it weren’t strictly legal. It’s also why Bell’s symptoms aren’t as severe as they should be.”
“That is unsurprising,” Jun nods, cutting an apple slice for Small. “I have heard that the Clinic dabbles in magic, which explains their unusually high recovery rate. Though I do have mixed feelings about using unregulated remedies.”
Small balks. “Y-you won’t report Healer Musa will you–?”
“No, absolutely not. Evidently, his efforts have been highly efficacious and thus I must be grateful.” The lord passes his friend the fruit and gets to work on cutting up the rest. “Be assured that even I skirt the law, should it mean saving a life.”
“It’s a bit broken,” Small hums anxiously as he nibbles on his snack. “Mother says that the law is there to act as a guide but not as a moral code.”
“A guide to what, I wonder?”
Bucky sets down her knife and pushes her plate of perfectly cut apples towards Jun. There’s a glint of challenge in her eyes. A faint tug at her lips. “A guide to how far our shackles go,” she says, succinctly.
Goldens flash like the fruit knife.
“Where’s Rat anyhow?” Bell grunts, picking his teeth with his pinkie nail. “What, he get scared to show his face after gettin’ decked by Iris?”
“He has been…preoccupied,” Jun says, frowning faintly. He sets down the knife and pushes the plate of rather shoddily cut apples towards the others. Bucky’s efforts sit beside, pristine.
“Yeah, he’s been getting pissed at the Sweet Brier almost every day. What the hell did you and your old man do to him anyway?”
Jun furrows his brows. For a moment, he hesitates saying anything. That old treacherous loyalty to his father threatens, like a ghostly ache from an old wound. He sets his jaw and stifles his uncertainty. These are good people. Friends.
“I believe that his stints at the Sweet Brier Inn have something to do with his contract.”
“Contract?” Bucky raises a brow. “With whom?”
“The Governor,” Jun says, a tad monotone. “Rin’s conflict with my father is a ruse. He has in fact contracted to work for him. To be his ‘eyes and ears in the Slums’, so to speak – although I am uncertain what that entails. Certainly not just inebriation and slander.”
“So he’s not really pissed at you?” Bull wrinkles his face in confusion. “All that shit he told us, ’bout you dumping his ass. That’s all an act?”
“Certainly.”
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.
“Memx.”
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“Do you have a theory, Bucky?”
She flashes Jun a faint smile. “It feels very much like he is trying to generate such rumours, no?”
Jun stares at her. “You think he is trying to attract the Otsuki’s attention. Or at least those who are aligned with them.”
“Perhaps, he is a part of the recent campaign to fleece out of the sympathisers. Although, it is done in a crude manner. Rather than drawing in the fish, he is scaring them away.”
“I do not think it is the sympathisers he is attempting to draw in.”
There’s a terse silence that follows.
Jun and Bucky exchange uneasy glances, troubled by the implications of Rin’s actions yet unable to think of a way to extricate him from his bind.
“I will keep a close eye on him,” Jun finally says, rubbing his nape in frustration. “I have ample opportunity to question him about this. In time, his intent will be made known.
“Yes, I heard that you and Rin have aligned yourself to the Marquis,” the ex-Rose takes one of Jun’s apples, perhaps out of etiquette. “Even after what they did to Bellow and Small, which is an interesting decision.”
The lord dips his head and sighs. “I thought those who injured you worked independently. They had been punished as if so, and I had unfortunately been swayed by the performance.”
“You doubt your decision now?”
Jun nods, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “And I find myself unable to abandon my initial quest. Rin has undoubtedly fallen to the Marquis’ charms, at my behest no less, and thus I must stay near.”
Bell snorts, his face contorting into one of pure loathing. “Knowin’ the Marquis, he’s up to somethin’ bad. I wouldn’t leave Rat with him for one second if I were you. It was stupid to go to him in the first place.”
“I admit that I had been foolish,” Jun agrees, worriedly. “My propensity for blind trust has proven to be dangerous to not only myself, but also to Rin.”
“That’s how the Marquis works,” Bellow snorts. “He says the right things and does the right things, and as soon as you fall for it, he snaps you up and never lets you go.”
“Like a Honey Snakeberry,” Small squeaks, eyes as round as saucers.
“A what?”
“It’s a Western flower that has the sweetest scent of all known flora, but as soon as insects are drawn to it, it strikes like a snake.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it. The Marquis is a Snakeberry.”
The little lord leans back against the external wall, drained of colour and energy. Dark smudges under his eyes tell of restless nights, agonising over said Snakeberry. “He tells me that he is committed to me, but I fear that the Marquis has a stronger hold than he would be led to believe. And I cannot deny the fact that the man has done some good–”
“Are your ears full of water?” The Bull growls, smacking Jun upside the head. “Didn’t ya just hear what I just said?”
Jun rubs his sore head, blinking at the irascible man. “You seem very well acquainted with the Marquis.”
“I’ve known him since he started throwin’ his weight around in the Slums. Long before he was the Marquis.”
“Then you would know of his history with Rin?”
Bellow grunts his assent and occupies himself by flicking Small’s cheek. Faint cries of protest and deep blushing ensue. “He ain’t tell you what happened?”
“No. He seems rather intent on keeping the past in the past, which I cannot fault him for, however–”
“–It’s good to know what you’re up against.”
Jun pushes out a sharp breath. “Indeed.”
There’s a short silence as Bellow considers his words, brows furrowed as he wades through thick mental sludge. Eventually, he props himself upright against Small who, after a hesitation, curls his arms around the man’s shoulders.
“It wasn’t so much that Korain wanted Rin,” Bell starts, gruffly. “It was the other way round.”
Jun nods, pulsing his jaw as his suspicions are confirmed.
“You know how Rin gets. All weird and obsessive once he’s latched onto you. And then he pisses off once he gets bored. Well, it weren’t like that with Korain. He stuck with Korain for longer than he’d ever stuck with anyone, even me. For years, you wouldn’t see one without the other. It was Rin and Korain, and Korain and Rin. They were alright at first. Looked like they really belonged together.” Bell shrugs, averting his gaze elsewhere. There’s a hint of bitterness in his tone, and Jun detects a long dormant hurt being stirred by this memory.
“Anyway,” Bell continues, “Back then, Korain had this habit of testing people. I dunno what else to call it. He’d create situations where he’d force you to choose one way or another. If he didn’t get the answer he liked, he’d punish you.”
“Tests?”
“Yeah. Once he caught Rin chattin’ up a Rose at the Sweet Brier, so he made Rin spend a night with her. Paid for a room and everything.”
“What happened?”
“What d’you think happened? Rin fucked the Rose, ‘course he did, who wouldn’t? He was drunk and horny and Korain paid for the night. Turned out, the perv was spying on them the whole time, I dunno how, but he knew exactly what they were doing. What was said. What wasn’t said. He weren’t happy ‘bout it, so he punished him and Rin never looked at anyone else again. Not while they were together.”
Nausea rises up the lord’s gullet as his stomach flips endlessly. “What…what was the punishment?”
“Korain tore him down. Made him believe that he wasn’t good enough to be with anyone but himself. Made him feel real grateful for even acknowledging him.”
“…” Jun stares at the sour-faced Bull, a chill running down his spine. ”You saw this?”
“Nah. Rin told me. But he wasn’t tellin’ it like I am now.”
“How was he telling it?”
“With a smile.” Bellow scratches the side of his neck. “Always with a smile. It was like Korain could do nothin’ wrong. The guy could have gutted a kitten in front of him, and he woulda been a fuckin’ saint. No matter what Korain did, Rin never stopped simperin’ after him. They were both as mad as each other.”
Jun purses his lips as he inadvertently draws parallels with his own relationship with the raven. But Rin isn’t the Marquis. He could never be. Discarding the troubling thought, he pursues his questioning.
“How else would the Marquis punish Rin?”
“It was mostly the mental stuff, y’know. Fuckin’ with his mind. He’s good at it too. Pushed Rin so far that he started punishing himself. And then they got deep into Slowane and…well, even I don’t know what happened. He just holed up in that Temple with Korain for months. And then, one day, he came to see me. Told me he ran away from his own wedding and that he wanted to fuck. So we fucked. And that was that.”
“Has Rin always been so obsessive?” Bucky raises, curiously. “He did always strike me as a particularly emotive person, although I am unaware of the true extent of it.”
“Always. If he ain’t madly in love with you, then he wants to kill you. Sure, there’s the in-between, but that’s rare. He mostly bounces from one or the other.”
“No wonder Madame Kahin took interest in him,” Bucky says, glancing coldly at Jun. “Although, she was far too late. You had already taken root within him. ‘Little lord’ is all he’d talk about. Think about. The only one he kept in his heart, even when he was deep under Kahin’s spell.”
“You’re his new obsession,” Bellow agrees, disgruntled. “Seems like he’s starting to pull away though. Won’t be long before you’re out in the cold like the rest of us. Held far away until he gets lonely enough to bend his arm.”
Jun bristles and glares at the man. “That would be an incorrect assumption,” he clips, not bothering to soften his tone. “We are committed to each other.”
“You sure about that? ‘Cus it looks like he’s goin’ right back to obsessing over Korain–”
“We bear the same scars,” Jun says, firmly. “We have saved each other countless times. Almost died for each other. He has abandoned his prejudice for me. Signed away his soul for me. He will not leave me, as I will never leave him. We are one, Bellow. This is not another obsession to soothe his pain. This is different.”
Bellow meets Jun’s austere gaze with his own, uncertain. He scrutinises the lord’s face for a while, before giving a reluctant nod. “Whatever you say, blueblood. You better hope that’s the case, or Rin’s in real trouble.”
“I am certain,” Jun says, and this time, he chooses to place his faith in the right person. He chooses to place his faith in Rin.
***
Korain opens the door just enough to wedge his body in the gap, obscuring the full view of his room. He stares detachedly at Jun, a fine brow arched above.
“My dear advisor,” he says, smiling thinly, “whatever brings you to my door?”
“I wish to see Rin.” The lord’s tone is brusque. His demeanour as chilled as the softly falling rain outside. “He is in your quarters, is he not?”
“Whyever would he be with me? Are you two not promised to wed?” The Marquis’ mock concern grates on Jun’s nerves.
“Move aside, Marquis.”
“Alas, I cannot.” Korain slips outside and closes the door behind, keeping his back pressed against the heavy ancient wood. Onyx eyes glint in the dim evening light. “We both know why he is with me and not you. So, it would be wise for you to turn around and walk away. Come by in the morning. Join us for a drink. But tonight is ours.”
A calloused hand slams into the door beside Korain’s head. The lord arches overhead, his aura crushing. “I know your true face,” he seethes, voice gravel deep. “I know the ugliness that resides within you.”
Korain bends his head back, meeting that oppressive glare with a cloying smile. “It matters not,” he sings, fixing Jun’s disheveled robes for him. “My Marchioness has already chosen. He sees only me. Hears only me. You questioned his commitment, did you not? Well, allow me to elucidate. The reason stands before you.” He gives the bigger man a pat on the cheek.
A thick, sickening rancour swells in Jun’s chest until he finds himself unable to catch his breath. It comes in sharp, growl-edged huffs, as if he were reduced to nothing more than a rabid beast, straining desperately against a leash. “…What do you want?”
Phoenix eyes alight when the little lord seemingly acquiesces. Korain claps his hands together and brings fingertips to his chin. “In exchange for Rin? Oh, nothing too extravagant,” he hums, barely suppressing his glee. “I just want a tiny favour. A title. Land. Legitimacy. I want to be your people, Governor Hwan Jun.”
“That is all?” Jun leans back on his heels, eyes narrowing to wary golden slits.
“A trifle.”
“A title and some land. That is what you are willing to trade Rin for?”
“What else?”
Jun lowers his head and closes his eyes, his hair shifting into his face, obscuring the true expression of utter loathing contorting his features. It is a face he has never worn before. And he finds it rather refreshing.
“No.” His voice is soft. As quiet as the drifting autumn rains. “I do not have that kind of power.”
“You will find a way.”
“No.”
Korain’s eyes tick as he studies that loathsome expression. He cocks a brow. “If you kill me, you will ensure that you lose him.”
“I will not kill you.” Jun drops his hands to his sides and makes an effort to calm himself. “Violence is far from the appropriate solution.”
There’s a flicker of disappointment. “Au contraire, violence is the only appropriate solution.” Korain smirks and tugs opens his robes, exposing his chest.
“…You wish for me to kill you?”
“Not me.” Korain strides forward until they are but a breath apart. “I want you to cut out every part of Rin that you touched, that you invaded. The smirch of your parasitic influence that even I can’t rid of.”
“You have gone mad,” Jun growls, pushing the man away. His wrist is promptly captured in an iron grip. That delicate hand has surprising strength. “Release me!”
Korain yanks him close, raising his face to Jun’s. Their lips brush. There is a sweet scent from Korain, accentuated with the bite of ethanol. “If you do not give me what I want,” he breathes, “then I will simply take it for myself.”
There’s a blur of motion. The flash of steel. A spray of hot liquid.
Jun staggers back, something forced into his hand.
Korain stares at him with an eerie, stretched smile, blood pulsing from his shoulder. And then, he’s panting, eyes bulging, face stretched in sheer terror, babbling, shouting, screaming for Jun to not kill him, please, please don’t kill him, and then he’s on the ground, deathly still, the pool of blood growing beneath his body by the second, and Jun’s kneeling beside him, shaking, unable to comprehend what just happened, and he realises he’s holding a knife–
“Jun! NO!”
And he’s shoved back, slammed against the stone wall, knife clattering onto the ground. And there’s Rin, holding Korain in his arms, covered in his blood, staring at Jun in pure, unadulterated rage, and he’s yelling at him, screaming at him, asking him why, why is he killing him? Why is he killing Korain?
But he can’t reply. He’s too numb. He’s too far away. And by the time he finds the words, he’s being dragged away by Princess, and there’s a whole damn crowd, and within seconds, the gory scene disappears from his sight.
Ah i want to kill him so bad~
I feel like I might need to pay for your blood pressure meds by the end of this XDD
You’ll get first strike, i promise!! <33
Oh
PFFFFFT- stop accidentally spoiling my plot!!! XDD
Thank you for reading! <33
Ya know i ain’t one for violence but I would like to commit a hate crime and homicide on a fictional character called Korain~ 😊👎
Bahahaha!! Yknow I’ll allow it! ^3^ Thank you for reading~ <333