Be warned that almost every main character in this story may not be right in the head, because of obvious reasons. 1. Both Shao Long and Charles weren't meant to have the best mental health. 2. Charles had it coming, what with all the sociopathic tendencies. 3. I can emotionally scar anyone who is fictional by the power of fanfiction. 4. Let's all be realistic. I've only ever met two people who aren't mentally stable. These princes can be dramatic.
Charles was a paranoid man. He tells himself in the mirror everyday, teeth gritted and eyes cold, "The world is cruel and all you can do is stiffen your heart." He had always known that his future wasn't going to be easy. Hell, that would be understating it by a shit ton of degree. His future was going to be a chaotic hell no matter how much control he could get over the courses of his life, no matter how many people he could get to subject to him , no matter how many enemies he brought down. He was prepared for it, prepared for everything because the little boy in his heart was so, so very afraid of being hurt. He'd seen people at their lowest, seen his father at his lowest and vowed to never be in the same place.
He had never expected for the friendship between him and the rest of the princes to remain the same after every single one of the coronated. It was a childish dream, and he was right. As he almost always was. The princes outgrew their childish hearts. They took over the responsibilities heavier than their own person. They carried themselves with their people behind them and because of that there was no room for rude banters and Saturday outings. No more solving ridiculous student problems, no more playing music, dressing up, doing sports, spending hours and hours in the library. They were adults and they were kings. He was the President. Things get funny from there.
It all started with Felix — of all people, it just had to be Felix — taking the throne despite everything that was going on with his family. Despite his clear disinterest. Despite his clear young age. Next came Ciel, who had it the hardest. People looked down on him for the longest of time before it turned out for the better. Then Leon, who struggled more with his personal interest, now pushed to the back of his mind for the sake of his country. And then. And then came Albert.
Albert who had prepared for the throne for longer than any of them could even dream of sitting in one. Longer than Charles knew what it meant to be a leader. Albert who had the interest of his people far higher in his mind than his own personal ones.
When Albert was coronated, that was when their relationship started to crack. Because not a month later Charles was elected and then came what none of them could ignore. The people's hearts couldn't always be the one and the same with its king. Despite everything, no matter how close the kings had once been, if their people hated each other, then it wouldn't mean anything.
Because the ones who were friends weren't their people. It was only them.
And they were so, so busy securing their own throne to focus on their straining friendship.
Charles was a paranoid man.
He had been prepared for the worst.
So when the six of them, Alex included, stopped meeting up, stopped hanging out, stopped talking to one another, he only felt calm. It was like sitting in a sturdy house he had built himself, where the outside was a raging storm. A house he had built with the storm he knew would come in mind. Caging his feelings so that it wouldn't be hurt.
He wasn't hurt at all.
Instead, he just felt a blank kind of loneliness where he tells himself, over and over again, that he knew this was going to happen. There was no need to be sad about it. In his mind, the friendship was lost long years ago. In his mind, this was just a less dramatic way for his nightmare to come true.
His life didn't change much after that. Except for some international conflicts that gradually drove him insane, and the lack of company that slowly became unbearable, because his stupid, stupid heart was struck time and time again with how he had been lonely all his life, not because he was left alone, but because he isolated himself for fear of hurting. Stupid, stupid, paranoid Charles who was a coward and a selfish, selfish man to have detached himself from earlier on for reasons he was too ashamed to admit.
His life didn't change much at all.
He was still the same asshole he was, the same insecure and cruel and manipulative piece of shit he knew he had become once the influence of his peers slowly, gingerly faded from his mind.
Oh.
There was one other thing that didn't change at all.
Shao Long was a constant in Charles' life.
Always there. Always causing a ruckus. Always a nuisance. Like an insistent fly he just couldn't swat to death no matter how many times he struck. Shao Long was like a whirlwind of chaos, bursting with unresolved anger, hatred, childishness, naivety, immaturity and complete stupidity. It was all moronic. It was all ridiculous and exhausting and annoying and a pain in the ass. And once the chaos he unleashed was trampled over, the Chinese would retreat to lick his pathetic wounds in a flurry of sobs and screams and insults.
It was pathetic. It was disgusting.
Charles hated Shao Long.
But he was the only one who stayed.
Annoying as he was, Charles would think a normal response to being subjected to Shao Long's sorry excuse of a vengeance was to be irritated beyond belief. It didn't occur to him when it started changing to relief. When he started feeling anxious if Shao Long didn't pop out during events to ruin his life as usual.
Shao Long was a constant in his life.
An annoying constant, but constant nonetheless.
He knew everything was normal when Shao Long was there, so much that his absence drove him into a spiral of intrusive thoughts, ridiculous what-ifs and a hundred an one ways how he was doing something wrong.
And then that idiot had fucking died.
Like a fucking dumbass that he was, because seriously! How much trouble could he get himself into? How bad must his luck be for him to die just like that? How masochistic was he to always run head-first into trouble every chance he got? Sure, yeah, maybe two years since the event Shao Long had taken to hiding himself in his mansion and they hadn't seen each other during the time in between, but still! How could he—
That fucking bastard.
How dare he leave him so! So randomly!
Did he know what effect it would have on him?
Did he understand the kind of overwhelming emotion to have the pillar that kept you sane all this time to suddenly disappear like he had any right to?
When Charles held that cold body in his arms, amidst the smoke-engulfed room, all he could think of was, loneliness.
And just like that, the number of people he could count on to know him heart and soul had been reduced to zero.
When he got home — the paramedics did a great fucking job getting rid of all the carbon monoxide in his blood — he collapsed on his bed and screamed, and screamed and screamed, so much that the guards around the White House looked around in alert for possible assassins.
That night, Charles prayed, wished, begged the heavens to give him one more chance in life, for he would do anything just so the hole in his heart could be filled once again.
The next morning, Charles woke up, not in the White House and his first reaction was to snort.
It took some time to come to terms with his....new life. A couple of minutes of disoriented thoughts and a few visible flinches when he saw his....dormmates having normal every day conversations, wearing uniforms he never thought he's seen again, beckoning him over to have breakfast. It was terrifying, once the realization sunk in, when he double checked the date and did every possible way to wake himself up from ridiculous dreams. Gone back in time.
A second chance.
A new life.
When he saw Shao Long again, it took everything in his being to hold himself back from dropping to his knees and sob, or rushing over to the blockhead and give him a good punch, or grab him by the collar and throw him out the window. He saw the man — wait, what was he now, a boy? Hah — before Shao Long saw him.
He had a fairly longer time to study his appearance than the other did. With his friends already in class, all that was left was for him to stand there, next to his classroom door and stare and stare and stare all he liked.
Because the Shao Long at this age looked about as childish as his heart was as an adult. All large pupils, fuller cheeks and that stupid braid of his that made him look like a middle schooler, what his his sorry height and aura of a spoiled young master.
Once again, that day, Charles snorted.
Shao Long, oh Shao Long. Disgusting as always.
And then their eyes met.
For a moment there, Charles felt a sudden buzz in his heart, an itch that screamed familiarity at the way the boy had looked into his eyes. Like a familiar glint he'd always noticed whenever he looked at him. For that one second, it was almost as if he was looking at his Shao Long rather than a younger, crappier version of the man.
But then that little motherfucker decided to open his shitty mouth and laughed.
It was so awfully familiar and annoying and disgusting and everything Charles didn't want to feel right after waking up drunk on bullshit.
He loved it.
Like a piece of puzzle, his life fell into place.
The sky is blue, the leaves are green, Shao Long is guffawing, everything is perfectly fine.
He sent a raised brow to Gion — God, had the prick always looked this haughty? — to which he responded with a shrug.
Right.
Charles was about to retort something to the uncontrolled laughter, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since first came dawn, to say something sarcastic and you know, the usual things he said to Shao Long whenever the guy was acting particularly stupid, when the laughter died in Shao Long's throat like the abrupt crashing of wave on the shore.
What previous amusement was present on the boy's face was replaced instead, with a look of horror and anxiety. It was another familiar look. Shao Long wore this face a lot recently. Or more specifically, around the last few times Charles saw him.
Before he could comment, Shao Long was already gone, leaving an empty spot by the door where he had previously been. Like he was never there. As if he hadn't clung to the doorframe for his dear pathetic life as he laughed away seconds ago. In a surge of surprising panic, Charles snapped his attention to inside the class, breathing out a sigh of relief when he saw Shao Long already seating himself.
Charles stared and stared and stared, until the bell rang and he was dragged into class personally by Albert.
He ignored the looks of confusion on his friends' face. Ignored the questions Alex had asked and the teases from Ciel.
All he could think about was that, it struck him as odd to have the Shao Long of this year to openly laugh or show outright fear to him.
It didn't take much to connect the dots.
After all, Charles had always been too smart for his own good.
He chuckled, somewhat hysterically, into his own palm to muffle the noise and the thought slowly embedded into his mind.
Shao Long came back. Just as he did. His Shao Long was here. His Shao Long was alive, and here, and knew him heart and soul, his constant, his pillar, his only source of comfort.
His Shao Long was here.
_____________________________________________
It should be appalling how easy it was for Charles to find comfort in knowing, just simply knowing that no matter what happened in his life, as long as there were some certain certainties, then everything was fine. He felt like even if America was to burn to the ground, if he could get a burger anywhere else he would be plenty fine. Similarly, if he was to suddenly change timeline, if he had someone he knew deeply with him, then no problem.
Seeing his friends from the friendship he had fallen out of long years ago? Fine. Seeing the prick Gion again? Absolutely okay. Needing to study again? Sure thing.
It was as if he couldn't get enough of it. Shao Long was right there! Ignoring him, yeah, and possibly ignoring almost everyone else but all of that wouldn't matter because that asshole was here and that meant his life was back on track.
Countless times, he thought, he heard the princes calling out to him, asking for his opinion, voicing complaints, asked to mediate, asked to determine who should apologize, what they should eat for dinner, how they should do their homework. The likes of it. He wasn't sure how many of those he answered truthfully and to how many of which he murmured a simple I don't know. Most of his attention was hyper-fixated, almost obsessively over what Shao Long was thinking next door.
Shao Long shouldn't have been here longer than he was. He looked just as surprised to see him, as if for the first time in years. Yeah, it was probably because of this stupid hairstyle, wasn't it? That dickhead Shao Long would, of course always focus on the visible flaws on his person and would sooner direct his critical claims than care for manners. Of course it would be his fucking hair this time. The thought brought a sneer to his face, to which the rest of the class watched with utter horror.
They should have gone back in time on the same day.
Maybe just this morning.
It was hard to tell much just by observing, that the Shao Long he was looking at, wasn't the teenager from almost two decades ago, what with the silly pout he seemed to subconsciously have on his face, possibly because he, a spoiled brat, just liked to pout so much. But his difficulty was mainly due to him being so used to a quiet version of Shao Long, the Shao Long who would look down in the middle of the crowd unless it was Charles whom he was talking to. The Shao Long who didn't retort to anyone's bullshit and instead looked at them with a pained grimace, as if their physical existence was the most disbelieving occurrence in the universe. The Shao Long who, when presented with crappy talk, didn't respond with fake smiles and instead, a blatant disapproval and judgmental stare.
This Shao Long was much quieter, if his friends' reaction to his sudden change bore some truth.
His Shao Long was always quieter when he was alone.
But he wasn't alone, Charles thought gleefully when they were at the SC's meeting room.
Shao Long had him.
That was all they needed, wasn't it? Each other.
Eighteen years of dancing around each other, with poisonous words and harsh jabs.
No longer looking at anyone else around them, eyes always only fixated on the other, obsessively, persistently, passionately.
Wasn't that familiarity?
_________________________________________________
When the fight broke out, Charles was only a little ashamed to admit that his focus hadn't left Shao Long nearly as much as it should. His memory had always been good, he remembered well what someone did, if not what they said, particularly regarding something he took serious matter in. Shao Long was a special case. A very peculiar special case. It was hard for Charles to not remember what Shao Long did. He had done it back when he was six. He could do it all over again.
So it didn't come out as much as a shock when Shao Long didn't say anything. Maybe a little weird for others that he wasn't smiling as per usual, but otherwise, Shao Long didn't comment on their very moronic argument about board games and test results. Okay, so maybe his friends were a little stupider in that regard, but nonetheless, Gion was also being a bit of a dumbass there.
And ah, there it was. When Shao Long finally noticed the conflict between them, there was the look he always wore when he was around Charles' ministers. Complete ridicule. Ah, the nostalgia.
(Maybe, just maybe, he should see a therapist to check if his sanity was beyond saving at this point of time)
And then boom, came Evan in all his glory.
The man was so annoying that Charles had to physically hold himself back from grimacing.
And then came the Game.
And then came Shao Long's refusal to join.
Damn, this bitch really didn't give a fuck about authorities, doesn't he? (It never failed to take his breath away)
Tch, but Shao Long didn't want to play. Sure yeah, this game was dumb and he lost the last time he played, but oh, come on. Shao Long was a business prodigy. Scratch that, he was a business demon. He was ruthless and efficient and fierce in his industry. Among their generation and the future ones, who could even dream of beating him? Not even Charles could confidently say he could. Was the guy scared of losing like last time? As if that was an option, at least not with Charles being the one responsible for his loss that one time.
Fortunately, Charles would hate if Shao Long were to return to China now, of all times. So no, he didn't feel like tricking the gremlin this time. He also wouldn't let him, heh, win. Let's see how pissed that would make him then.
Shao Long was arguing with Evan, with the most sass he had ever seen in a person, ever.
Once upon a time, the victim of such sass had been him, and he remembered not being particularly delighted about it. Watching it, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether. It was hilarious, it was satisfying. He loved it.
Alas, he wanted Shao Long to play.
No worries, if there was anyone in the world who could force Shao Long to do anything, the crown would undoubtedly go to him a thousand times over.
All he needed was a tap on the shoulder, and something short of a whisper. All it needed.
And the glare was back on his face, directed at him with the familiar frost and hatred.
"Fine." He hissed.
Ah, Charles absolutely loved it.
9/9/2023
Summary:
Charles: Omg Shao Long is so annoying, why is he ignoring me?
Shao Long: Bitch what the fu—