The Things Inbetween Destiny (we were chaos)

The first time, it was raining. Hakuryuu remembers that much clearly. It was before the fire (he sorts everything in his mind into before and after, and the before was always a little bit blurrier, harder to remember than the after).

He was running through the gardens looking for shelter, uncaring that the rain was already soaking him but knowing that if he stayed out than Hakuei would get mad, so he had to get inside. He was supposed to be practising his words with their tutor so that he could help her with the books when he was older, but he had gone outside because words were boring and the gardens were vast, and he wanted to explore.

Then it had started raining, so he was hurrying back inside, laughing despite the cold creeping down his back. Until he saw Judar, rushing straight towards him with a bright smile, and he slipped on a patch of grass and fell. In his head, whenever he thought about it, he was still falling when Judar reached him, though in reality he was probably already on the ground, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as he tried to stand and failed, falling back down on his ankle, which twinged with pain.

"My king," Judar laughs, kneeling down beside him, offering out a hand, "Clumsy."

"I'm not your king," even back then he was petulant, though he was smiling through the tears, sniffling lightly, "And I'm not clumsy! You startled me."

"You're easily startled," Judar was still teasing him, kneeling down beside him despite the wet grass and the wet everything, shaking back damp hair. "But I don't care. My king is strong, even if he is clumsy."

"I'm not clumsy!" He still sounds petulant even to his own ears, trying to get up again only to fall back down when the pain in his ankle flares back to life, tone unusually thick as he scrubbed at his cheeks, "And I'm not your king."

"You're hurt," he's not smiling now and it's not a question, his questing fingers dancing over his ankle before pulling back, "Do you know what they say heals pain?"

"What?" And Hakuryuu hates the way he played along, hates the way he didn't push those hands away as Judar lent closer, kneeling over him now.

"A kiss." He laughed once and then, before Hakuryuu could stop him or really comprehend what was happening, Judar had pressed his lips against the corner of his, quickly, only a matter of seconds before he was pulling away. "See, all better now."

"It still hurts, stupid," Hakuryuu frowned, blushing as he hit him on the shoulder to try and make him go away, though that only made him laugh harder, forehead coming down to rest against his shoulder. "You didn't make anything better."

"You're not crying anymore," he whispers softly, his hair cold and wet against Hakuryuu's neck, "So it kind of worked."

"Stupid," he mumbled, even though he was smiling now too, resting his cheek on the top of his head as the rain continued to fall around them, "Kisses don't heal everything."

The second time was after, almost immediately after. The last thing he remembered was the fire, and when he woke up he was still burning, screaming despite the lack of flames around him, the fire burning inside this time, scarring the entire left side of his body.

He was vaguely aware of people surrounding him, working on him, hands pulling and tugging and putting him back together, though it was his insides that were broken, no matter how much he appeared to be burnt on the outside. He tried to tell them that, force the words from his lips in between the screams, but they either didn't understand or they didn't care so eventually he fell silent.

It was after the silence, when the burning died down and instead all he felt was empty, his cheeks wet from silently crying, that he noticed the boy sat at his bedside. Judar was just as quiet as he was, if not more so, as Hakuryuu's breathing still hitched occasionally, the covers shifting as his chest rose and fell, the bandages around his head rustling occasionally as he pulled on them, not used to this half-blindness. Judar didn't make a sound though, not even to breathe, and he didn't fidget.