Chapter Text
The more statues of terror-stricken beasts and moldy, half-broken furniture Kei passes by, the more his hair rises in apprehension and the higher his stomach rises. He doesn’t dare to turn back however; the second the little blue bird spoke of a slender brunette held in one of the cells in the lonely castle, Kei jumped up and demanded to be taken to wherever this cell was. The thought of his brother being safe and in one piece gave the courage for the blonde to continue walking through the large, lonely hallways, and he ignored any sounds of protest from the slender rabbit or wary warnings from the black kitten.
As he treads behind Hinata, Kei notices the how eerily quiet the cursed animals become: he notices the tensed muscles in the black cat, the tremors in the owl, the unusual silence from the rabbit, and even the nervous hops the blue bird takes. He keeps his eyes forward, the lack of light in the dark halls causing his eyes to squint. If it is the brunette he is looking for, then he and Akiteru could leave right away from this sinister castle and return back to their lives.
They reach a jail cell hidden away in the darkest corner of the tower. Kei feels the iron on the door chip off with rust and age, and he shoves forward, calling out for his brother’s name.
“Kei?” The blonde rushes forward to the figure curled on the ground. His crippled body is barely visible in the dimly lit room, and if it wasn’t for the lone torch on the wall, the blonde would have mistaken him for something else. Kei presses his palms against the icy, cold muddy skin of his older brother, pulling him into his lap. The brunette could barely tilt his head before grimacing in pain.
“Akiteru! What in the world happened?” He gently sets his brother against the wall and tugs off his cloak to wrap it around Akiteru. His eyes are dull and exhausted, and his lips struggles to form words.
“Please Kei, run from this place immediately and don’t come back.”
“Who’s done this to you?”
“There is no time to explain, please leave now while you have the chance!” The brown-haired man pleads, pushing his brother’s hands off his shoulders. Kei grits his teeth and begins to lift his brother onto his back, ignoring his protests.
“Do you think I’m going to leave you behind?”
Suddenly, Kei finds himself letting go of his brother and spinning back. He hears a tiny yelp from the small bird and cat as they lunge forward to avoid being crushed by his feet. The jail is pitch black now— the heavy slam of the door snuffing out the torch in the room—except for the lone beam of light filtering through from the moon outside. He falls to his knees, head spinning and his stomach rising like ocean waves at the beginning of a storm, too overtaken by terror to raise his head and look at the bulky figure in the shadows.
“What,” the shadow hisses and Kei feels his heart plummet, “are you doing here?”
“Kei, run!”
“Who’s there? Who are you?” His voice wavers as he slowly pulls himself to his feet. His eyes could not tell the mysterious figure’s face from the heavy darkness of the room and could only distinguish the outlines of the thick torso and cloak that covered the man.
“The master of this castle.” The man’s voice is deep, rich with apathy and velvety hues of cruelty. Kei feels a tide of rage at the figure for keeping his brother here in such a miserable condition, but he stills it as he clenches his jaw.
“I’ve come for my brother. Please, let him out! Can you not see with your own eyes he is sick and in ill health?”
“Then, he should not have trespassed.” the man says coolly. The gray owl winces from the corner the four animals cower in, not daring to raise their voice.
“Please, I beg you, my only brother could die. I will do anything, pay anything, give anything to let him be free!”
“There is nothing you can do.” The voice of the man is booming, causing the blonde to rub his sweating palms against the wool of his shirt nervously. “In your brother’s blind ignorance, he has become cursed to be this castle’s prisoner.”
“Then allow me to take my brother’s place.”
Despite being nearly concealed by the darkness, Kei could feel the man’s eyes boring into his. “You?” He says challengingly. “You would take your brother’s place?” The hair on Kei’s arms rose at the icy tone of the man. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees the rabbit and owl wince, huddling in the corner. He sees Akiteru’s eyes widen in horror, reaching forward with a cry.
“Kei! Please, no! This is my own mistake, I must bear the responsibility!”
“If I did,” Kei says levelly, steeling himself to stare forward, “would you let him go?”
The man remains silent, remaining in the shadows of the room. The rain from before had finally settled to a calmer steady sprinkle, making it the only sound of the room. The uneasy quiets swallows Kei into a pit of unsettling anxiety and panic, as if he is an unfortunate fisherman sucked into a stormy ocean grave.
“Fine.” Kei sucks in air through his lung, slowly relearning how to breath. He swallows down the blooming sadness in his heart as he watches his captor slowly lift Akiteru out with one hand and places his other on a broken pile of poles lying outside the cell.
“No, please, spare my brother!” Akiteru twists in the man’s grip, reaching out for Kei. The man ignores the engineer’s pleas as he mumbles out a curse onto the poles, morphing them into a gloomy, creaky-legged palanquin.
“Your brother is now none of your concern.” He throws Akiteru into the palanquin, caging him in the cursed pile of wood. “Take him to the village.” At his command, the palanquin lurches forward down the stairs, wobbly walking on its own out of the castle grounds. The blonde feels his eyes well with blurry tears, dreading the hooded man in front of him and despising himself for ever creating this much pain and misery for Akiteru.
The man whirls around, his face still unseeable as he extends a hand toward Kei. Suits of rusty armor the blonde prisoner assumed to be only old decoration lunges forward and tightly grips his arms, shooting pain through his entire body.
“And you, ” the cloaked man commands coolly, “take this human to his room.”
Kei had spent a good amount of hours drifting between fitful sleep and bouts of uncontrollable weeping before he wearily lifts his head from his pillow.. How long would he be trapped here in this inhospitable, cold castle? All Kei wants more than anything in the world is to be by his brother in their small, warm cottage. He wouldn’t mind facing all of the sneers and jeering from the villagers and would rather face their horrible personalities rather than to be trapped in a castle where he knew nothing of his surroundings.
With eyes red and tender from tears, Kei pushes himself up on his bed, his muscles stretching and popping from his curled-up position on the mattress. As he groggily sits up, he notices he hasn’t bothered to take in his room until now. He expected his room to be more bleak and as grim as he felt inside, yet the interior is nothing remarkable compared to the overall setting of the castle. It is simply furnished; the only lavish thing in the room is the window that taunts Kei with the view to the forest back home.
To his brother.
As a pang of hot anger and detestment for the hooded man sprouts from his chest, Kei turns his head as he hears a soft ‘click’ of the door. The lock shifts from the other side and quietly cracks the door open. The blonde could see a pair of eyes peering up at him.
“Hinata, is that you?”
The door opens wider to show the sheepish blue bird hopping into the room. “Am I allowed to come in?”
“As long as I won’t get you in trouble for it.” He immediately regrets his words as he sees the wince on the bird’s face.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were mad at me.” The bird flutters onto his bed, busying himself with his feathers to avoid the blonde’s eyes.
“And why would you think that? I only got myself into this mess because of my own actions. I should’ve never told my brother to go to the fair.” Kei smiles bitterly before his lips twisted into a frown. “Even in the worst of times, I cause my brother misfortune. He must really detest me.”
The blue bird shook his head quickly but hopping onto Kei’s palm. “No, don’t say that! Even while he was here, Akiteru always spoke so endearingly and highly for you about all of the amazing things you do! I think if anything, he is regretting you taking his place.” Realizing the last statement, the cursed bird stammers and apologizes quickly.
“That’s not what I meant!”
Kei lets a out a slow exhale and swallows the lump in his throat. “No, it’s fine. I knew what you meant.” Despite of that, he couldn’t help but feel the guilt of putting his older brother through so much agony. After years of taking care of him, this is how he repays his brother? His stomach rises before he forces it down. He plays with the soft orange tuft of hair on the top of Shoyou’s head.
“The Master wasn’t always like this. It’s just that when it comes to people, he—,”
“Frankly,” he finally spits out his words that were soaked inside for so long, “ I don’t care in the slightest bit for your master. It doesn’t excuse what he has done to my brother. ”
Hinata stays quiet with a pensive look on his face. “When you live in a cursed castle for so long, you start losing your touch of humanity.” And with that, Shoyou quickly cuts off the conversation with a sudden shake of his wings and a hop onto the floor. “You must be awfully hungry, huh? Have you even had dinner yet?”
Kei feels the hard knot in his stomach, and he doesn’t dare to turn down an actual meal after a long day. “Well, I am hungry. . .”
“Then off we go! The chef can whip up a great supper in a blink of an eye. I think we’ll have stew tonight. Oh, but you should probably change out, you look a little…”the cursed bird sniffs and clears his throat. “Well, it’s alright, we can get a nice bath warmed up for you after dinner.”
Hinata nudges the wardrobe nestles in the corner of the room. “Come on now, we don’t have all night! Wake up and give Kei a change of clothes will you?” To that, within a blink of an eye, the wardrobe groans open and shuffles over to the shocked blonde. He trips as he stumbles back in surprise, but a stool slides over to catch his fall. He lands heavily on the cushion; he is filled with incredulity at the concept of inanimate objects being able to move on their own and is so encaptured by the moving objects in front of him that he has no focus to protest against the wardrobe pulling off his shirt and combing his hair.
When they finish—and after much objection to Hinata insisting Kei to “get a clean trim”— Kei follows the blue jay down the grand staircase in a state of stupefy. Unlike from before, the halls and corridors whirls with animals and furniture alive with energy and life; the castle continues to give off its dark and unsettling mood, but now exudes a sense of eccentricity. Kei pauses to let a family of one-eyed amber mice pass in front of him on their way to the east wing and picks up snippets of conversation from a set of broken children’s toys on the stairwell.
It is a home, he realizes; a home for everything ever imagined that was ever looked at with disdain or fear. It is a place that welcomes the unwelcomed.
He sits at a long wooden table in a warm room with a roaring fireplace. A set of tea cups and a teapot scuttles over to him, pouring his a cinnamon-scented cup of tea he delicately sips. Hinata flutters away to an adjacent room and comes back a few minute later, cheery and bumbly as ever.
“One delicious bowl of stew right up!” he chirps.
“I truly appreciate how kind you are being right now Shoyou, but . . . are you sure it’s okay for me to be down here?” Kei feels his stomach twist. As much as he despises the hooded master, he wouldn’t dare to see another episode of the man’s anger—whether at him or at his other servants.
Before Hinata could reply, the slender black kitten hops onto the table and sits in front of him. His coat shines and is as delicate from the cat he had seen earlier.
“It’s the least we owe you for everything that has happened to you. I’m sure Kuroo can get over a poor captive eating a full meal. The master can have . . . a short temper when it comes to humans coming onto his grounds.”
“Akaashi!” Hinata says. “Where were you? Is he still mad?”
“I was in the throne room for a good past hour. Koutaro and Tooru got the worst of scoldings. Lucky for a bird as cute as you, I covered for you and said you were in the kitchen with Kozume the entire time.” The cat’s green eyes flicks over to the blonde, and Kei’s mind clicks when he realizes it is the same cat from before.. “We are the ones that usually gets reprimanded when humans come onto the castle grounds.”
The blonde man bit his lip. It seems the villagers were right in that all he is good at doing is causing misfortune on others. They must be celebrating now that I am gone. “I’m sorry.”
Akaashi shakes his head. “Do not apologize. That was a very brave thing you did, dear.” Hinata quickly nods, and the pot of tea blows out a puff of steam from its nose as a sign of agreement. He forgot how everything in this castle could easily hear what one is saying.
“But I lost my brother, my dreams, everything. And there is no doubt I have caused an unspeakable amount of grief onto my brother.” Kei huffs out and take another sip of his tea to wash away the lump in his throat. He feels like a fool; he feels as if he were an unfortunate merchant stuck in the middle of a foreign town with nothing in his pockets and no comforts to turn to. A sense of rootlessness sinks in him and leaves him as a plant whose roots were destroyed by a storm.
The black cat notices the look of forlorn on the man’s face. “Keep your chin up, Tsukishima. It’ll turn out alright in the end. You’ll see. For now, just rest and have a warm meal.” And with that, the cat turns and trots away to find a servant to bring out the food.