Rebel Red Carnation {Kiribaku}

VI

"Prince Eijirou, the queen has requested to see you both in the throne room."

In that second I swear the hard demeanor of his voice tells me all that I need to know, and I swear I nearly choke on my fucking heart as it jumps straight into my throat.

"What for?" Eijirou asks.

"She didn't say," the guard tells him. Even though he's a pretty good liar, I've been lying myself for a damn long time and I know instantly that she sure as fuck did say, but he isn't supposed to say a word.

Joining the everpresent, painful ringing in my ears, I can hear every, damn, pound of my heart in my head as we follow the guard—Shouta, I recall—to the elevator and up into the throne room. A wave of nausea rolls over me the second we come to a halt and the doors open, because the scene in front of me is so familiar, yet tense.

The faces of the royal family look down on me—on us, though their gazes on Eijirou are more respectful and confused than the cold, steely ones that are thrown my way. The queen herself sits in the throne, legs crossed and hands folded on her knee. As we get closer I find her expression to be that of utter contempt for me, the corners of her lips turned downward and her eyes narrowed. On top of it all, it's dead quiet.

"Eijirou, come forth," she says, voice hard.

He does as she says, and even he's tense. "What's going on?" he asks.

When the queen begins, she does it tentatively, almost as if she's unsure but still skeptical. "The kitchen staff has... raised some concerns," she starts off slowly, "about things they've noticed missing in their stock."

My stomach instantly twists, my mind flitting back to the shitty trash bag stashed in that hole in the stupid cell down in the basement, full of food the damn prince has more than likely smuggled from the kitchen. It's gotta be exactly what she's talking about, and despite our almost-friendly relationship, I still don't know if I can trust the prince to lie to his own mother—and the fucking queen—about it.

"We didn't want to jump to conclusions," she goes on, "but what with a thief—" she looks pointedly at me "—in our midst, we were concerned it might have something to do with him, especially since he's been responsible for unloading our shipments of supplies. I wanted to make sure my suspicions aren't correct and ask you first."

I hate that I can't see Eijirou's face. I can't tell if he's gonna tell the truth or try and manufacture a lie about where those supplies are, and unless I want my face shoved into the carpet—or worse—again, I can't speak up. They don't trust me anyway, for good reason. There isn't shit I can do. Fuck.

"When did they notice the things going missing?" Eijirou asks.

"A little less than a week ago," Miyako speaks up. "It isn't much, but the kitchen staff has the records of the stock that should come in, and everything was scanned into the computer to make sure the delivery company didn't make a mistake. However, there are things missing that were never scanned out."

"Do you know something?" the queen asks her son.

Lie! I want to scream. Fucking lie!

There's no way of knowing that would help, though. For all we know, this is a test to see if he'll be honest because they've already found the shit stashed in my cell.

But I guess it doesn't matter how much the fucking prince wanted to help me, or how invested in the possibility of him being my soulmate he supposedly is or was, because he doesn't lie.

"I took it," he said, calmly. Quietly. Still, his words echo throughout the room.

The queen closes her eyes, and that's all I need to see to know she already knew. She exhales slowly before locking her gaze on him once again. "Explain yourself."

Eijirou doesn't miss a damn beat. "I wanted to help Katsuki and the people in the slums. Ever since I was assigned to be on guard, he's told me all about what it's like to live in The Outskirts and how his people have nothing. They starve to death and die of diseases that are completely curable, and since—"

"Eijirou, you know what I've told you about that," the queen says, suddenly sounding completely exhausted. "Good intentions or not, theft is theft."

All it takes is one small motion of her head for my hands to be jerked behind my back and cuffed, for a gag to encircle my head. In the same instant a guard I don't recognize steps up to toward the throne and pulls out a sickeningly familiar trash bag from behind his back. His fingers release it and it haphazardly falls upon the steps, some of the contents—mostly the food—spilling out of it.

"Mother—"

"I won't hear another word, Eijirou. It was clearly a mistake to let you spend time with this lowlife. He's corrupted your mind." She waves her hand, and the next thing I know I'm being dragged away and no amount of thrashing, growling, or struggling I do can get me out of it.