<< Pretty When You Cry - Mack Lorén >>
"You look like shit." Aida remarked bluntly as she pulled a small, yellow, worm-like creature with sharp teeth from the underside of a herb leaf and flicked it away.
Kai stuck out his tongue and grimaced, shielding his bloodshot eyes to the blazing sun, "Watch your language."
"Bite me."
Just a few short hours before dawn, he had finally been able to fall asleep, his mind exhausted by the rapid shift and swell of his emotions.
Despite his mental age, his nineteen year old physiology was clearly still full of frustrating hormones. That must have been it. Otherwise, he would have never behaved in that way. He would have never let him touch him like that, experimenting or not.
Kai sank down onto the grass beside his sister and closed his sore, tired eyes.
Even after sleep had pulled him under he couldn't seem to escape him, forced to see that same scene over and over again in increasingly twisted ways, like a curse that he couldn't shake.
"I take it you haven't developed a sudden urge to learn how to garden." His sister commented in her usual flat tone.
Kai peeked at her from the corner of his eye and smirked, "How do you know? Maybe I've decided to become a botanist."
She flicked him sharply on the forehead and Kai yelped rubbing at his head with a pretend scowl, "Fine, you vicious little Demon. I need a favour."
"What kind of favour?" She asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Kai had contemplated this from the moment he'd left the mountain of Mirai. The Witches were hidden inside the center of a sprawling forest, more than 50km's away from the city of Nasiru.
Not only was it forbidden for a human to enter this forest without cause or permission, but it was a journey that he would be unable to traverse in a single day; he would be gone for three maybe even five days at most, and he didn't wish for his whereabouts to be completely unknown.
Kai hadn't completely lost his wits just yet. If he didn't return on time, he would very much like the search party to know exactly where to look.
"There's something I need to do and it means I'll be away for a little while, five days tops. But, if I am any longer than that, I need you to tell everyone where I am. I want a huge search party, you hear me? Massive."
She opened her mouth to object but Kai pressed his hand over it and hushed her before his father could hear their voices carry through the open door, "Before you say anything, no, dad can't know and I can't tell you what I'm doing yet, it's too hard to explain but it's to do with my Artifact, ok?"
"I'll leave you a map with every possible route I might need to take marked on it, and until the time has passed, I'll need you to keep up a cover for me. I'm going to say that I'm joining a hunting expedition in Sekhet forest with some friends to search for my Artifact."
Aida pushed his hand away and glared at him, "You don't have any other friends. Does that mean you're going to at least take Rami with you?"
Kai kept his face impassive and ignored the way his stomach flipped at the sound of his name, those damned dreams just wouldn't stop haunting him, "No. Ra - he doesn't know about this either. I need to go alone."
"Alone? So...you'll be outside of the city - at night - alone?" She twisted her hands together anxiously and Kai gave his best attempt at a reassuring smile.
"What? You're not worried about me are you? Oh wow, Aida, do you actually care about your big brother's wellbeing?" He asked in a mocking, overly-emotive tonality, scooping her up into a tight hug and planting kisses on top of her head as he mussed her hair, "I love you too little sister!"
Aida struggled like a cornered animal, shoving his head away and lashing out with her feet until she connected with his shin and Kai was forced to release her with a pained cry.
"Creep! I'm not worried one bit, I was just wondering if I could get your room if you die. You have a better view." She grumbled, shooting daggers at his over exaggerated display of rolling on the grass, clutching at his leg. She promptly kicked him again and Kai held his hands up in surrender with a bright laugh.
"Ok, ok, I give. And yes, it's all yours. If I don't come back, everything of mine is yours. Deal?"
He held his hand out for her with a wide smile.
Aida regarded him thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded slowly, ignoring his hand, "Ok...I'll do it, but...Kai?"
Her voice had dropped, all playful pretenses disappearing in an instant and she looked away from his face awkwardly.
"Yeah?" He picked himself up from the floor and waited.
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, struggling to voice what she wanted to say. But eventually she whispered softly under her breath, staring at the grass like it was of utmost interest and importance, "Come back..."
In that moment, Kai felt a wave of guilt crash into him.
How could he have left the way he did in his first life?
He didn't even leave a note and he had never tried to reach out to anybody from Zenin after he left, not even his family. He had been completely swallowed by that black void that had taken root inside of him like thick, sharp claws that had latched on, refusing to let him go. As a result, he had dismissed everybody's feelings but his own whilst he continued to spiral further and further.
And if he was being honest with himself, truly honest, he knew that the expedition to Asmarata was a death sentence, especially for him. The Fate had told him so after all. And right up until that last moment, when he had changed his mind, Kai had welcomed it.
But how had his family felt when he didn't show up for the celebration?
They'd have returned home, confused but hopeful that he'd simply overslept or lost track of time with his friends, only to find his bed empty, his room ransacked and their mother's photo gone. No note, no contact, no sign that he was even alive for a whole decade.
Aida had already had to navigate life without their mother, lacking even a single, clear memory of her.
And then, Kai had abandoned her too.
And his father...
He had lost his wife, only for Kai to take his only son away from him twelve years later.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat and hugged her again, genuinely this time. Ignoring her much weaker protests, "I'm sorry, Aida. Of course I will, I'll always come home again, I promise."
She stopped struggling and hugged him back, briefly, before pushing his head away with a disgruntled pout, "Don't make it weird."
Kai laughed, swiftly wiping at his eyes before she could see and promptly messed up her long hair again.
He flipped her off and darted back inside before she could catch him.
And smacked head first into a hard, warm chest that still smelled faintly of gasoline and something smoky.
He immediately made to turn away and run. He didn't want to see his face right now. But just as he tried to step back Rameses grabbed his wrist and pulled him through the kitchen.
"No! Get the fuck off of me! Let go!" Kai pulled at the vice-like grip and tried to struggle his way free, but he was far stronger than him and he knew it.
Before he was unwillingly pulled through the door, he caught sight of Aida backing away into the garden with a look that screamed, 'I'm staying out of whatever this is.' And Kai shot her a murderous glare, "Traitor!" He called, grabbing for the doorframe in a last attempt to not be left alone with the last man on Zenin he wanted to be alone with.
But Rameses simply sighed in frustration and grabbed his other hand, pulling it free from the frame before casually slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and marching him out of the house.
Kai gasped, momentarily shocked by the bold action and even his father jumped back in shock when he passed them on his way inside, "By the angels! Put me the fuck down you crazy fucking bastard!" He yelled, kicking and hitting at every inch of his body that he could assault, but if he was hurting him, he didn't show it.
As soon as they were outside, he simply slid the door to Kai's garage open and unceremoniously dumped him onto the stool beside his half-completed hover bike.
Kai, who had stopped struggling a long moment before, simply stood up and made to walk back towards the front of the garage without a word.
"Kai. Please." Rami's hand shot out and grabbed his forearm, tightly, "Please. I don't understand what I did wrong? I can tell you've been crying all night. I just...can you just talk to me?"
Taking a deep breath, Kai rotated his wrist and then grabbed for his hand with his free one, pinning it to his chest. Before he could catch on, Kai had stepped to the side and rotated his hips, sharply jerking Rami's arm downward and behind him, whilst simultaneously landing a harsh kick to the back of his knee and sweeping his foot underneath him to knock him off balance.
He followed him down to the floor, straddling his back and applying pressure against his twisted arm until he hissed in pain, his blue eyes wide with shock at the unexpected maneuver.
Kai smirked and bent his head down to his ear, "Do you think because you're a little stronger than I am that you can do whatever you want to me? If I tell you to get the fuck off me and let me go, then you say, yes Kai, and take your fucking hand off of me. Got it?" He jerked his arm at that painful angle, digging his knee into his lower back and Rameses gritted his teeth, nodding firmly, his eyes screwed shut.
"Good. Now, when I let you go, I'm going to leave, because I don't want to see your fucking face right now. I already told you last night. I wish you were dead. I hate you. I don't have to explain why, I don't owe you a single thing. I picked you up off the streets and gave you a home, a family, everything. You owe me!" Kai sneered at him, his voice climbing with every word, all of the frustration and pain spilling out of him, and Gods, did it make him feel better? Yes. Absolutely it did.
His eyes flickered to the heavy wrench on the edge of the table and a sudden dark thought slithered across his mind before he could stop it. He could do it now...
Isn't this why he came back?
'I'll kill him. Even if it's the only thing I can change, I'll make sure he dies before me.'
That's what he had promised. And here he was. Powerless and trapped underneath his hands. It would be so easy, right? All he had to do was pick it up and -
And what? Hit him over the head. Again and again and again until he stopped breathing. He was strong so he would have to hit him a lot. There would be so much blood. It would hurt him too so he'd have to be quick, otherwise there would be a terrible struggle. And then...the body. What would he do with the body? He'd have to clean the blood first...
'No, wait! What am I thinking about right now? I can't do this. What the fuck!'
Kai released his hand like he'd been electrocuted, frightened by his own mind and crawled away until his back hit the table leg, breathing heavily to calm himself.
Had he really just considered murdering someone in cold blood. Rami?
He wondered then if the stress of everything that had happened had finally caused his mind to break.
Rameses raised himself up onto his knees and inched his way towards him carefully, his eyes piercing through his skin as though he were observing something important.
After a few more seconds, when Kai's heart had calmed down, Rami's blank, inexpressive face broke into an odd, wide smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "You can do it if you want to."
Kai's hazel eyes widened in shock, "What? Do what?"
But Rami continued to stare back, the flat, serious expression fixed back into place like a mask, "If you want to kill me, I'll let you. I'm still not sure what I did to make you feel like this, but...if you truly hate me...then I'd rather you just did it."
Kai didn't know how to respond to his words. Everything he thought he knew appeared to be contradicting with the way Rameses was behaving towards him now.
Or was it?
Maybe this was part of it. Perhaps all of this was another trick, another way to pull him in and gain his unyielding trust and affection so that, when it was time, when he was ready to drive the knife in, it would hurt so much more than anything else could hurt.
Wasn't that what he had done before?
Kai pulled himself up from the ground without a word and looked down at him, kneeling on the floor at his feet.
"I'm going away for a while. Don't follow me." He remarked, coldly.
Rami's eyes widened and he quickly scrambled to his feet as Kai turned away to leave.
"Wait. Kai, can you just - going where? Where are you going?" He'd made to grab for his arm again, but after a sharp warning glance from Kai he held his hands up against his chest in surrender.
Kai grinned to himself, raising his hand as he left to flip him off without looking back, "To see a Witch about an Angel."
And then he added, "I might kill you if I make it back."
**