It takes way too fucking long for the guards to decide what's appropriate in terms of keeping me apprehended until they dump me back in The Outskirts. They banter awkwardly back and forth between wanting to blindfold me again or remove the gag and the handcuffs altogether. It's almost amusing to watch them not know how to act around me, now knowing I'm the prince's soulmate and all. I say almost because while they're figuring their shit out, my mind is with Eijirou himself, worrying about what the hell they're going to do to him and if I'm ever going to fucking see him again.
In the end the guards decide to remove my gag but leave the handcuffs. They even give me a sip of water and let me sit in the backseat of the car like a normal fucking human being. While the ride is completely silent, my mind is screaming for a way to figure all this shit out like I have some sort of phantom fucking power that can make Taka-whatever change his mind or... choke on the next greasy turkey leg he devours with his dentures.
Not a word is said when they stop just outside of Yagi City several hours later to drop me off. By now it's past midnight and the outside air is probably below freezing. The guard who removes my handcuffs once I'm out of the car looks at me with what's almost an apologetic gaze before he slips back into the car and not a minute later I'm standing alone in the frigid night air.
With nothing left to do, I start walking—and thinking.
Eijirou. What the hell do they plan to do with him? What kind of punishment are they supposed to give one of the top-ranking members of the royal family for his supposed betrayal (that's not actually betrayal at all, it's just hard to change a stubborn dumbfuck's mind)? And don't they fucking think I did some kind of brainwashing bullshit to him, anyway? How does that warrant a punishment upon him?
It's only been a few hours and I'm already feeling heavy again, being so far away from him. Not knowing if I'll ever get to see him again. Hoping I will, and fighting the ever-strengthening instinct to turn around, head back the way I came, and find him again. He's got to be feeling this shit, too; gotta be feeling every step I make that takes me further and further away from him.
It's fucking stupid and dramatic. I wish he wasn't my fucking soulmate. Things would be so much easier, and he probably never would've vouched for me that first time in the throne room when they were deciding my punishment for breaking into their giant ass house.
...but on the other hand, I wouldn't have these shoes or this sweater. We wouldn't have the food we do, even if it's still not enough. People would be starving to death. Freezing to death. We haven't lost a single person yet this season from famine or hypothermia, and it's because of him.
So regardless of this shitty situation, I can't bring myself to regret anything I've done in the past several months because in one way or another it led up to this. He and I would've met one way or another regardless, and if I'd listened to Ochako the morning I set out for the palace for the first time and stayed home, any other way we'd meet would've ended up way worse with my luck.
They won't touch me, but does that mean they'll leave The Outskirts as a whole alone? Will they try to fucking bomb us or someshit, just because they believe I've corrupted their prince? No way in hell they don't know he's been down here, that this is where he came when he disappeared for a day after my whipping. Who the fuck is to say they hold no vendetta against those of us living in these shitty slums, anyway? And hell, if they bombed us and everyone died—excluding me, because of my newfound, shitty immunity—it would mean they'd no longer have to worry about us (...as if they ever fucking have). What the hell is gonna stop them from annihilating us instead of continuing to sweep us under the rug from this point on?
There are too many questions and on top of my dehydration, my head is beginning to pound with every thud of my heart. Fortunately I'm at the mouth of the main road now, at the spot where they found me to begin with, so there are only a few more blocks to walk before I make it back to my mother.
...my mother, who surely won't let me get off without explaining everything to her. Yeah, I could try and tell her I went to visit the guy she thinks is Tetsu, and it wouldn't necessarily be a lie, but she knows I wouldn't up and disappear without telling her and explaining why, let alone do that for more than a day.
No. I'll have to tell her the truth. I don't know for sure what the royal family is going to do or how much my stupid decisions have affected the rest of the slum dwellers or if Eijirou's punishment will be entirely unrelated to us, but if there truly is a possibility of those assholes deciding to take this giant shit show out on us, I have to tell her. And then she can pummel my face in, give Eijirou a few more scars, and maybe even decide to kick me out herself. (After all, I sure as fuck wouldn't blame her...)
I don't even make it halfway up the street where there hasn't been a single sign of life because everyone is holed up in the buildings to shield themselves from the cold when a head pops out of a doorway—a very familiar head. Ochako. The little shit probably heard me coming; it's like what I lack in hearing she makes up for.
"'Suki!" she gasps as soon as she sees me, stepping out of her own rundown little townhome. Without the slightest hesitation she's jogging in my direction. "Where the hell have you been?!" she asks, automatically throwing her skinny arms around my neck.
"It's... complicated," I mumble, giving her a relatively complacent pat on the back. "'M sure Mom's freakin' out, so come with me and I'll explain."
There's a frown pressed into her baby face when she steps back, but she nods anyway. Pausing to tell her own parents where she'll be, she follows me up the street to the curtain acting as my front door.
I'm holding my breath when I push the curtain aside, wondering just how much of a wreck my mother is due to my sudden disappearance. She wouldn't be alone had the royal family decided to take me out with a firing squad, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't have lost what little is left of her family, and I know that would nearly destroy her.
She's in the main room as she was last time I disappeared for a while and came back, where she tends to stay if she's alone. With me acting as her eyes, she feels safer being in the next room over while I'm around, but the best way she can defend herself when I'm not is to stay situated next to the grill, flickering weakly with dying embers.
She's awake, though, and her head lifts when she hears the brushing of the curtain. Her hand tightens around her usual steel pipe.
"Don't freak, Ma, 's me," I tell her. "'Chako's here, too."
She relaxes immediately. "Dammit, Katsuki," she sighs, wiping a tired hand down her face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
I bite back my snide remark and take a seat on the floor near her, Ochako following my lead and kneeling right beside me. "Hey, Mitsuki," she murmurs, always and forever in the habit of greeting my blind mother.
"Hi, sweetheart," Mom says roughly in her direction. "Maybe I should adopt you as my daughter, since you're about a hundred times more reliable than my son," she quips.
"Listen, ya hag—"
"Don't even start with your excuses, Katsuki!" she hisses, following that up with a cough. "Best believe that if I didn't need you to be my eyes so much I'd put you on lockdown in this house, and—"
"Fucking listen," I cut in through my teeth, firm. "Just let me fucking explain, okay? No excuses or lies."
Her brows shoot up. "Everything?"
Stifling a sigh, I say, "Everything."
"...I'll get the fire going again," Ochako murmurs, moving back to her feet to do just that. I don't let my eyes move away from Mom as she does so, all the while hating how good my memory is because it's like I can recall every single instant where I avoided answering any question she had about anything pertaining to Eijirou for the past several months. Back then, I'd given her a brief version of what happened during my first palace visit, that I'd been caught and put on lockdown until they discovered me hoarding the food they gave me and whipped me for it before dumping me on the street, and how I'd run into Eijirou—'Tetsu'—on the way home. I never directly answered a single question about where any of the supplies came from, either, no matter how hard she tried to pry. The one fortunate thing about her pneumonia was that it preoccupied her so much that she stopped asking, and those shitty palace guards snatched me away before she asked again.
But now here I sit, with the whole truth sitting right on my tongue, ready to spill it all and then brace myself for whatever goddamn explosion is going to come from her.
When I begin, she surprisingly allows me to get through everything I need to without a single interruption.
I tell her everything from the beginning—how I left to raid the palace to try and help our people and ended up getting caught and judged by the queen herself, ended up as their shitty slave for several weeks to make up for my 'crimes' under supervision. I confess that the reason they whipped me and then kicked me out onto the street wasn't because I was hoarding the food they gave me, but because supplies were being given to me by the one who was supervising me.
I expect the explosion to come when I tell her that the one supervising me was the prince himself and not some random guard, but she merely relaxes a little, almost like she knew, or suspected at the very least. Then I expect it to come when I tell her that the one she met, Tetsu, was actually Eijirou who fed her a made up story and disguised himself from the rest of the slum dwellers to blend in, but her eyes only close, the rest of her face entirely unreadable, something that unsettles me. Regardless, I keep going, tell her that he's been sending us all of the supplies I've 'smuggled' in for the past few months and was found out, accused of being corrupted by me, and that's why I disappeared yesterday.
"They wanted to kill me," I tell her, stiff. "Execute me for some bullshit brainwashing him or whatever... like a fucking homeless guy like me would know how to brainwash someone."
At this point, Ochako's eyes are on me and wide. I can't tell if she's figured out why they decided to let me live and bring me back, but she doesn't say anything. Neither of them have said a thing since I started, and my fucking stomach seems to be a sea of serpents or someshit...
"Now why would they do that?" Mom muses, eyes cracking open a little. "Let you live. Why would they spare someone who thinks corrupted their precious prince? And... why would he help you to begin with? He's of royal blood, and we all know how damn selfish and greedy those bastards are, so why would he be an exception?" He eyes open further, and while she's blind, she's got to know they're trained right on me.
Nothing about her is suspicious or even confused. Her face is so fucking blank, in fact, that for once I can't even try to guess what the hell she's thinking.
"It's because the universe has one seriously fucked up sense of humor," I mutter. "Because Prince fucking Eijirou is my soulmate."
As soon as the words are out, I brace myself, but no explosion happens. Instead she laughs, tilting her head back until it thuds against the wall behind her where she stays, just laughing, for probably half a minute.
In the midst of her annoying chortles, I see Ochako's head swivel in my direction, but I can't look away from my ridiculous fucking mother who's probably woken up our nearest neighbors with her snorting and cackling.
I haven't moved a single inch by the time she gets ahold of herself again, and Ochako is the one to speak up.
"You don't believe him, do you?" she says.
"Oh, man," Mom breathes, wiping at her eyes. "I haven't had a laugh like that since before Masaru died."
"I'm not fucking joking," I quip.
"Of course you're not. Why would you? The last thing any of us ever wanted was for one of the members of the royal duckline to be our soulmates. In fact, several of is have joked about it quite often in the past, and we never thought it would actually happen."
"So you do believe me."
"I have to, with what I felt between you two when he was here pretending to be one of us. I suspected then. Don't you think there was a reason I suggested you go see him several times? Now, the Tetsu I met actually being the Prince... that's a little harder to grasp, but it makes more sense than you stealing from stores in Yagi City all the sudden after returning from the palace." Ochako grabs my knee the second she senses I'm about to retaliate, and Mom continues. "And I have to admit, as shitty as it is that your soulmate is a member of that royal stock show, I'm relieved that Chiyo's suspicions about where you were getting everything weren't true."
I nudge Ochako's hand away. "I was never that desperate," I mutter.
Mom merely hmphs and begins to cough, shaking with each one that rattles through her chest. I'm automatically scouting out the place to find the few cough drops we got from Chiyo. She hears the shuffling though, and waves her hand with the shake of her head.
"Don't waste 'em," she rasps. "I'm doing better."
I glance at Ochako for confirmation, knowing she'd have kept tabs on Mom while I was gone, and she gives me a nod before her attention turns back to my mother.
"You really think it's a bad thing that the prince is 'Suki's soulmate?" she asks, innocent. "I mean, because of it we're doing better this winter than we have in a long time."
Once she's wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, Mom leans back against the wall. "My first instinct is to think it's unfortunate," she sighs. "But I suppose it isn't really good or bad. It just... is. Nothing any of us can do about it, and since we're all destined to find our soulmates eventually one way or another, it only made sense something called my son to the royal pig sty."
I flop back onto the floor, sitting back against the wall and letting my eyes train on the fire. "Not that it matters anymore," I murmur. "Who the fuck knows what they'll do with him to try and 'cure' him of the stupid corruption bullshit they think I put on him? Doubtful I'll ever see him again."
Those words alone direct my attention back to my own internal heaviness and the ache of longingness spreading down every one of my nerve endings, wrapping around my lungs, settling into the pit of my stomach, tightening in my joints. How my mother manages to survive like this—even endure a worse feeling, what with her soulmate being dead—I don't think I'll ever understand. All I know is that I don't give her enough credit for it.
"You will," Mom murmurs back, her voice so much softer than before—than usual, to the point where it takes me off guard and my eyes shoot in her direction, narrowed. "No matter what those bastards do, there's no way you two won't cross paths again. That's how it works." She reaches for me, fully expecting me to meet her halfway, and how can I deny that? I let my hand collide with hers and she squeezes it like she's trying to spread reassurance through it. It's rare that my mother and I make physical contact; neither of us have ever been all that touchy-feely (except for when it came to Dad, in her case, which makes me fleetingly wonder if that's how I might be with Eijirou someday, if what she says is true), so it's a bit of a jolt. Her hands are rough, but still softer than mine, and quite the opposite of her milky eyes. "Somehow, you'll see him again."
"...yeah," I mutter. "Anyway, I think your fever's comin' back, so you should sleep."
"Is it?" she muses. "Sleep sounds good, since I've been up since you disappeared worrying about your ass."
"Whatever. Go lay down. I'm gonna go... do a patrol with Ochako."
"Don't be out too long," she murmurs once I've put her to bed and extinguished the fire a bit to make sure the damn building won't catch flame. After that, Ochako and I head out into the frigid early morning air, wrapped in one big blanket.
It's quiet for a while as we walk along, silently checking up on the neighborhood. That is, until Ochako's small voice cuts through that quiet—something of a relief to my ringing ears.
"What's it like?"
"What's what like?"
"Having a soulmate. I mean... meeting them. Knowing who they are... all that."
I snort lightly. "Shitty," I scoff.
Her head tilts up. "Really?"
I force back a swallow, turn my head slightly away and pretend to be distracted by something. "...no," I decide. "I mean, it's hard to say, considering who mine is and being unlucky enough for it to be the fucking prince."
"I think it's pretty lucky," she says, lifting the edge of her blanket. "Look at all the good stuff it got us."
I spare a shallow shrug.
We walk another block before she continues.
"Okay... think about it as if he wasn't the prince. As if he was just some normal person. Would you still say it's bad?"
No. The answer is instantaneous, like it comes from my fucking instincts or someshit. I swear to fucking god if having found my soulmate has turned me into a damn sap or whatever, I'm gonna fucking lose it.
But no, it's not bad. In spite of the heaviness and ache of longing from being away from him, there's a sense of relief in knowing him, in having the whole shitty ordeal of finding him and realizing who he is be over because now it's off of the list of things I dread.
"It's alright," I tell her. "I could do without wanting to fuckin' be with him all the time, though, especially since I don't know what the fuck's gonna happen to him and if I'll ever get to see him again."
"You will," she says firmly. "You heard what Mitsuki said. My parents would tell you the same thing, I think... and anybody else who knows their soulmate."
I scuff the sole of my shoe along the ground. "Hard to say," I mutter. "I hate this... fucking jittery feeling of being worried about him. It's a goddamn nuisance."
I feel her grin more than I see it. "Things will work out, 'Suki. Just hold on a little while longer."
Easier said than done, that's for fucking sure. Every time I sleep, he's in my dreams. My waking thoughts are filled with him when I'm not focusing on helping my mother get better, distributing food, stoking the fire—and even then he's there, in the back of my mind. It's disgusting. I can't sit still. I even break down and try to call him a few times, but it's hopeless. I don't know how much longer I can handle this before I inevitably go batshit insane.