Tatemae

Day 7 - Late Afternoon - Lion's Den

I wake to the sound of footsteps.

There's a boy practicing his footwork through sparing in the middle of the arena. He has the face of someone I used to look up to, but who scares me now.

I can hear the Lumière boy from the other cell. He's still screaming like a banshee. "Hey! You! You monster!" He calls. "YOU BLOODY MONSTER! CAN'T YOU HEAR ME!"

And they can hear him. The Fos simply chooses not to respond.

"FACE ME WITH HONOR YOU DAMNED SAVAGE!" He screams. The boy goes on sparring, choosing to completely ignore every word hollered at him. "BURN IN HELL!" He yells, after the deafening silence goes on too long.

"Listen!" I yell. "It isn't worth your time!"

The other cell with the trapped Lumière falls quiet. For a moment, there is peace. The Fos boy sparring in the middle of the arena stops for a second, to listen. He continues thrusting imaginary strikes within a moment.

"You've been sleeping almost the whole day." The boy says, softer this time.

"I have a lot to think about."

"Oh?"

"They'll kill me soon. I've come to accept it almost completely, but part of me still feels a tug to stay... I have a lot to think about."

"I bet. It must be absolutely humiliating." The Lumière says, giving a sigh. Through the chaos of sword strikes, I think I can hear the other boy slumping down onto the dirt floor in defeat. "YOU DAMNED FOS! Are you the one who will kill me as well?!"

"It's not. It's not humiliating." I say. "What's humiliating is knowing that it took so long for me to realize that the Lumière and the Fos... well, we're one in the same. I can't believe it took me so long to see that we're all human."

Silence.

I rush to the bars again and see that the Fos boy has stopped sparring and is instead coming towards me with a rather disturbing frown across his face. His teeth are pointed and shine in the sun in many ways I've seen Poppy's when she comes to visit me. Now, however, this man is not a devil in disguise. I very much know who and what he is. He comes towards me with nothing but evil intent.

Do I rush to the back of the cell? Does he have a key like Poppy did? Can he come in here after me? ...Is my end coming earlier than my End?

He stares at me through the bars.

"YOU." He calls.

I'm pretty far into the dark of the cell, but I know it's likely he can still see me. He puts his sword in his right hand and shakes on a bar with his left. The metal rattles with a harrowing urgency.

"GET OUT OF THE DARK YOU ANIMAL! WHAT ARE YOU, COWARD?!" He calls. "All Lumière are bound by their damned honor. Face me like the arrogant little pack animal we both know you are."

I say nothing. The darkness jangles my blood.

"You must think you're so smart. You must think you're rising above your nature, even!" The boy hoots. "Ha! What a laugh! You can't run from what you are."

I've finally figured out who the boy reminds me of. He face a face like Ash. His hair maybe white, and his eyes mostly empty white sheets, but he's still has the features of the brother that only a week ago I thought I looked up to and pretended to love. He has the same chiseled chin, high cheekbones, and hooded eyes of the monster who masquerade as a loved one to me.

"Can you hear me?!" The boy yells, shaking the bars harder. His cynical smile morphs into something stronger than anger. I look at him with a mix of terror and something bolder. Pride. He sees my thin smile and it finally pushes him over. "I'll kill you!"

How does he get the door open?

He charges for me with the sword ever looming over my face. He hoists it over his shoulder and I watch as he lines me up in his view, making a mental note of the best place to strike my neck.

This is it. It's over. I'm going to die.

...Finally.

"YOU LITTLE LUMIÈRE PIECE OF—"

"STOP!" Poppy yells. I don't know where she comes from or how she's there, but suddenly she's panting in the cell, looking queasy and out of breath. "Stop..." She says, as the boy looks back at her shiny white hair and blank eyes and begins to lower her sword.

He raises an eyebrow, and looks back to me with his sword just inches from my neck. The heart within my throat is beating violently against my skin.

"This... this was... my... my sister's..." She takes a deep breath that feels like it lasts for days. "My sister's prey. For... for... Meonjeo-jug."

"The animal insulted our race and he deserves to die."

"He... he'll... d-die soon..." She struggles for the monoxide, taking it in with satisfaction like she would a black heart.

"Now." The boy says, drawing his sword back.

"No. He... this... this isn't your fight. It isn't... any of ours."

The Fos with the sword gives me a stare that only the devil himself knows the true effect of. He swings his sword back over his shoulder and walks out of the cell with an eerie phantom of my brother following behind. "I have my own damned animal to slaughter anyway now." I hear him whisper under his breath as he vanishes.

"I was scared." I tell Poppy, stepping out of the light.

She motions for me to be quiet with her finger and then gives a faint smile that is more a display of pain than it is of joy. She dips her head a bit as if to say sorry, than steps out of the cell without saying a word.

I cringe as the door locks behind her.