Wrong place, wrong time.
That's what I fucking want to think as I'm sitting on the cold floor of the tiny ass cell I'm thrown into—not the same as the one I was in before, but probably the one right next to it. I want to think that if I'd gone to Ochako's or just fucking stayed home, or gone down to the shed, they wouldn't have found me. They'd have given up searching for me after a while and left me the fuck alone.
But I know that's a lie. They'd have torn apart The Outskirts and done whatever the hell it took just to find me, and I don't doubt that would mean injuring or even killing innocent people, destroying their homes or their belongings. With the way they handled me when they did find me, tearing the knees of my jeans with the force they pushed me to the ground with, hauling me like a ragdoll to the car, and then manhandling me into this shitty cell where they finally removed the blindfold—but not the gag or the handcuffs—it was clear they were desperate.
So being where I was, as much as I fucking hate to admit it, was more convenient for both of us, even if it put me back here for hell knows why.
Not a word was said on the drive back unless these fuckers used some shitty sign language, or did something to take advantage of my hearing loss (assuming they even know about it). When the blindfold finally came off and they dumped me into the cell, the guard who slammed the door and left my eyes watering from the pain in my head at the sound didn't say a damned thing, so as I'm sitting here on this cold fucking floor, all I can do is wait and ponder.
It has to do with Eijirou. Has to do with him and all his bullshit about helping me and my people, with how he was very obviously going behind his family's back to do it and breaking rule after rule for us despite risking his own ass in the meantime. There's no fucking way it's anything else.
It was only a matter of time before he got caught, though. Not once did he tell me how he was obtaining the shit he sent, and whether it was supplied directly from the palace or if he used money to buy it, someone was bound to notice something missing eventually. I knew it all along, but because the people around me were doing so much better than they would've had it been a normal winter, I turned a blind eye.
Dammit! So why me? Wouldn't they just bomb the fucking place, put us all out of our misery? Or do they have to have some sort of shitty sacrifice, maybe make a video of my execution that they can later show my friends and have my mother listen to so they'll know better than to take what's not theirs or whatever? So they'll stay away from the capital city, and hate the palace and the royal family more than they already do?
Or are they going to torture and execute me to teach Eijirou a lesson, since they don't fucking believe we're soulmates? Even if they looked right at the proof, the doubts I have that they'll spare me run deeper than the rooted anger I've always held within me for them.
There are so many fucking things I don't know, things I can't even begin to try and predict. As I'm sitting here in this shitty cell, seemingly completely alone, my anxiety continues to rise. My mouth is dry. My ears hurt. My head hurts. My back is sore. And my heart seems to have forgotten how to slow to a normal pace.
The only relief I feel is in that shitty, heavy ache that's been sitting within me for weeks from being so far away from Eijirou. It's still there but it's so much more muted than before, so much easier to ignore. He's close. I'll probably be seeing him soon.
That thought alone is the only thing that keeps me sane while I'm trapped in this cell.
———
Taking an educated guess, I'm down in that basement for what feels like half a day or so before anything happens and when it does, it's loud. The same guards as before come down to drag me back out of the cell. While this time I've got a better grip on myself, I don't fight. The last thing I need is to make this shit worse than it already is because apparently, I'm hoping deep down that they'll show me some sort of mercy or at the very least leave my friends and family down in The Outskirts alone. They don't deserve to be punished for my stupidity...
Fortunately these fuckers don't blindfold me again so when I see one of the guards key in a specific code in the elevator, I know exactly where we're going—the throne room.
I wonder if I'll get a last meal. Or will they just kill me on an empty stomach the way I've lived most of my life? Surely they don't care enough about me to show me any hint of kindness. The odds of Eijirou being there to vouch for me are slim to none, and even if he tries, I can't see any way his parents will listen to him after what he's done.
My estimate turns out to be right because the huge windows in the throne room give way to the late evening sky. Even though I'm fully prepared to just fucking cooperate, the guards do their bullshit manhandling thing again to get me out of the elevator and drag me up the length of the carpet in the direction of Queen Kaiya who is, once again, surrounded by the rest of the royal family—including Eijirou.
Maybe I should be intimidated or whatever by their presence, looking at me like a bug on the floor again and knowing most—if not all—of them want me dead, but I can't even be bothered to pay much mind to them. My eyes are locked on Prince Eijirou the second they find him, and I can't so much as make myself blink.
There's relief in seeing him again—a relief I've never known before, and something that touches my very fucking soul. Something about it makes me feel... whole, for lack of a better word. And yet with being near him again comes a sense of dread, too, because who the fuck knows if this is the last time I'll see him?
My attention doesn't avert to the queen until I'm forced onto my knees and she's speaking.
"Katsuki Bakugou." She says it in a quip, like my name leaves a bad taste on her tongue. "I was hoping I'd never have to see you on the floor of my throne room again, but it turns out your much more stubborn and conniving than I thought."
And what about you, being so fucking selfish and ruthless and cold?! I want to fucking scream it at her, to accuse her and tell her just how absolutely fucked up her way of thinking is!
Eijirou was wrong in thinking he could convince her, convince Miyako of helping us. With the way the both of them are glaring down their perfectly fucking powdered noses at me like I'm vermin, the same as before only so much harsher, they're no different than the rest of their shitty, stuck-up, and selfish family. For some reason he is the only one who sees me and my people as human who deserve basic rights and decency, even if I'll never understand how the fuck that happened.
"I'm sure you're quite proud of yourself for weaseling your way into my son's head and corrupting him because it got you what you wanted, but you were foolish to think it would last," she continues. "So I've brought you back here in the presence of my family to pass judgement for your crimes, and because the last time you tried to slip past our guard we showed you mercy, you can expect this time to be far less merciful."
Nausea washes over me again. It's a damn good thing I haven't eaten much in the last twenty-four hours, because I can't fucking imagine what it'd be like to puke while gagged, not to mention how much more they'll hate me for dirtying their fucking rosy carpet, these pricks...
They're going to kill me, and they're not going to make it quick.
Because of course they think I 'corrupted' Eijirou or whatever, twisted his mind and made it something that would serve a purpose the rest of them are too fucking greedy to care about. They probably think I hypnotized him or used some sort of witchcraft to bend his will for all I know, because they can't accept the fact that he doesn't blindly follow their bullshit, worn out customs.
The queen glances off to her left, quickly, and then readjusts her posture. It's slight, but it happens.
"This won't be like last time. My family has already decided what your fate should be. However the method of that fate is still undetermined, as we all have different opinions on how it should be... executed," she says with a certain amount of reservation, maybe even hesitation.
Were this not such a dire situation for me and one where my life is quite literally in the hands of these snooty-looking bastards, I'd probably quip a laugh at her ironic choice of words. Executed. Sure, they haven't said what my punishment is going to be, but it doesn't take a fucking rocket scientist to figure it out.
My eyes find Eijirou again. His frame is stiff, his jaw tight, and his eyes haven't seemed to leave me once since the second I was dragged in. Those eyes, usually so bright and lustrous, trying to find the best in every situation, seem to express nothing but sheer panic reserved only for me.
I want to find some sort of reassurance to send him through a look alone, but with my stomach in about a thousand knots, the walls moving slightly out of their places around me, and my head feeling like it's spinning at a thousand kilometers an hour, I can't even reassure myself. He knows what they want to do to me. He knows they don't have any intention of being gentle. And I know that once it's done, life will never be the same for him and he'll deal with that loss every day just as my mother does.
The queen has already addressed her family, though it's clear that Eijirou has been given orders not to speak, since they think he's biased and brainwashed or what-the-fuck-ever they have in their heads about the whole situation. As they had before, these assholes go back and forth about a method of taking me out, some of them even acting like they've been victimized even though I haven't seen them before in my entire damn life.
The old man—the one I can only assume to be Eijirou's great uncle—favors public execution while others think it's better to do it quietly, with lethal injection or someshit instead. There are a few who don't speak up at all, such as a nervous-looking kid who can't be much older than Eijirou and I on the far right, and that guy with the two-colored hair and eyes who agreed with Eijirou the first time around. Some part of me wants to wonder if they don't agree with this, but a bigger, stronger part—the part that's been conditioned all my life to hate every single one of the douchfaces in this room—says that they're indifferent. They don't care how I'm taken out, and they probably have 'more important' shit they'd rather be doing, like sticking their thumbs up their asses.
You'd think that, as the people in front of me are discussing a method of execution for me like it's a casual dinner conversation, my mind would be reeling with regrets and panic, or even of how to get out of this situation and back to my fucking family. Maybe I should even be having some sort of pointless existential crisis, but my thoughts are focused on nothing but Eijirou and how damn unfortunate it is that the universe decided to stick him with me as his soulmate.
I'm so wrapped up in this thought process that I completely miss the decision the queen comes to, whether they plan to stone me or decapitate me guillotine style, whether it's going to be in the eyes of the public and televised or something that happens quietly in the privacy of their dungeon or whatever. Regardless, it doesn't matter because I'll be dead soon anyway, no matter what—
"Wait," Eijirou's choking out, stepping forward in a robotic motion. All eyes, some glares, swivel straight to him.
"Eijirou, you were ordered—" Queen Kaiya begins, a certain kind of authority in her voice.
"I know," he strains out. "But—you can't kill him," he manages, addressing his mother, or maybe his family as a whole, while his eyes are still glued to me as mine are to him.
"Eijirou, that's—" Miyako speaks up firmly.
"No," he booms, his voice echoing off of the walls. "You can't kill him because he's my soulmate."
The entire family reacts to Eijirou's words. A gasp travels around the room. They've all got their eyes locked on him now, some with shock and others with disbelief. Miyako and Queen Kaiya are the only ones with a semblance of anger on their faces, which tells me he hadn't said this to anyone but either of them.
"How can you let your son say something so preposterous?" asks the old man, clearly appalled.
"That is absolutely absurd!" a woman beside him practically squeaks. "There isn't any way our very own prince can be the soul partner of a mongrel such as that."
Part of me wants to laugh at the ridiculous fucking language these assholes are using, like they're from centuries ago or someshit (though, who knows—maybe they are because modern medicine has kept them alive; it's not like I know what kind of shit doctors are capable of).
It's clear the whole damn room is about to start arguing, and when more than a few voices start to mingle together in such a big room, I can't single out any of them or understand a damn word of it. Fuck, my ears hurt, and I wish they'd either shut the hell up or just kill me already!
"If you want proof," Eijirou says in that same booming voice, and though it also causes a flinch from me, it's successful in shutting everyone up. "If you want proof, look at my back," he says, calmer now that he's got their attention. "And if you don't believe that, then look at his eye. And his palm. Put us side by side and compare them all." He pauses. Swallows, like he's hesitating. "Even... hurt one of us to leave a scar, and watch it appear on the others' body. I'm not lying."
It's even more amusing how some of them seem so unsure of what to do. A few of their gazes move back to me, this time in shock instead of looking at me like a bug on the floor. Others can't seem to look away from him. Queen Kaiya and Miyako are looking at each other in such a way that suggests there's a silent conversation going on between them. A few begin to whisper to each other. The only sure thing is the nearly-palpable confusion in the air. Even the guards have their brows raised, their eyes scoping around the room as they try to figure out what exactly is going on.
Eijirou steps forward, comes down the steps, and in one swift motion removes his shirt. "Look," he tells them. "You had him whipped, remember?" He's captured their attention now. "The last time he was here and you thought he was corrupting me you punished him, and now the scars are on me, too. Just like the phenomenon has always worked." With his shirt bunched up in his fist, he turns back toward them, giving me and the guards still holding me in place a good look at his back and all of the scars from the whipping I endured. "There's a custom that was put in place in this family from the minute this phenomenon was discovered, and it's that you can do no harm to the soulmate of one of the members of our family, especially if it's someone of higher ranking like me. You can't do anything to Katsuki because you'll be breaking one of your oldest rules, and if you do, you'll have to kill me, too."
"Eijirou, that's enough," the queen murmurs.
"I'm telling you he hasn't brainwashed me, Mother. I'm telling you that he and his people need help because our family has neglected to acknowledge their existence for decades and it's not okay. People in The Outskirts are starving and dying of diseases we prevent and cure in the capital every day. It isn't their fault, either—the way our family has run this country for centuries has always catered to the rich, successful people and abandoned those who weren't fortunate enough to make it. It's an unfair, unjust system. You can't punish him because I'm the one who saw through the corrupt way we run this country when I met him, and it's not fair that you'll leave thirty percent of our population to die in filth. You have to—"
"That is enough, Prince Eijirou," the old man cuts in, loud and gruff. "I refuse to sit here and listen to you badmouth our family and the completely fair way we run this beautiful country! You may be the prince but you're still in training and you have no say here. In upholding our past tradition of preserving the lives of our own soul partners, we won't kill the peasant, but we'll have to think of a proper punishment for you later."
"Takama—" the queen begins.
"Enough!" shouts the man again; it's enough to stop even the queen in her tracks, make her back down, and suddenly I'm remembering some of Eijirou's words on the phone a while back, the first time we spoke since he left:
"That's the thing, Katsuki. I think they'd be on board if it wasn't for my great uncle. He's the one who clings so desperately to old traditions and despite what the public is told, he still has a lot of control over... pretty much everything. It's a generation thing. My family believes that the oldest among us is the wisest and therefore the most powerful. Thankfully, my mother's birthright was to assume the throne when her father passed away, so he couldn't, and I'm really—"
It clicks together, then. The queen may be the queen, and she may hold the most power in theory, or at least in the eyes of the public and to people like me, but when it comes right down to it, it's this old, balding bastard who's got the power. It's like he controls everything from the shadows because of the shitty traditions and customs put in place by their damned ancestors about a billion fucking years ago. It seems even the queen herself can't overcome him.
"Lock up the prince for his defiance and we'll decide his punishment later. As for him..." He glares at my direction and waves a dismissive hand in disgust. "Throw the pesky rat back in the sewer where he came from and let him rot."