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It was warm, he noted. Despite the balmy weather, with its temperate breeze creeping in from the open window, the room felt clammy.
Icy, even.
Yet, he felt warm. Too warm.
Yut-Lung grunted belatedly as he felt the kick of alcohol push through from within his chest and up into his mouth. Inattentively, his hand flew to the flute of alcohol that lay abandoned on the marble coffee table and haphazardly brought it to his lips. He tasted Cabernet; the tart and sharp flavor cloaking every inch of his mouth, tardily reminding him of the atrocious taste of ill-prepared carpaccio he had for dinner.
Cabernet on a flute, he mused. Has he gone mad?
Shutting his eyes languidly, his parched mouth puffed out a slow stream of air in the process. His head throbbed with a dull but continuous pang and his body felt too tense and rigid even for the soft caress of the red silk robe draped over his bare torso as if hugging him. He lay sprawled on the length of the couch, the linty fabric of the cushion and pillows caving in to accommodate his figure.
He closed his eyes to rest them from the sting of the evening air. Not long after, his memories assaulted him. There was a momentary flash of blonde hair and green eyes the shade of the most brilliant gem he has ever seen. His chest screamed curiosity. Confusion.
Jealousy.
The vision melted into ebony hair and equally dark eyes, the shade of the night sky lay sprawling without even the scantest glimmer of stars nor of any light. He felt the emotions in his chest transform in an instant: Hatred. Loathing.
His eyes flew open as he heaved in anger.
“Rat.” he muttered.
Yet he once more closed his eyes. This time the ebony hair playing in his mind’s eye was different. It was flowing, long, almost satiny and...close. The eyes were of the abyss, the darkness unfathomable. Something was bursting from inside him, a fire within his belly. He picked up the emotion with a jolt: Longing.
He snickered disgustingly, reminiscent of an unamused laugh that penetrated his very soul.The flute was heavy in his hands and was begging to be brought to his lips when a voice pulled him out of his reverie.
“Sir.”
He downed the contents of the glass, grimacing as the substance scraped and scratched within his throat.
“Well, well. It’s nice to see you here.” Yut-Lung groped blindly for the bottle of Cabernet he was certain was somewhere atop the coffee table. The neck of the bottle connected with his fumbling hands like a stray leaf in a maze. He clutched it tighter than he intended, pouring himself a clumsy amount.
Swirling the contents lazily, he turned his head to the direction of the voice to make out the visitor. The parcels of the man’s face swimming in the vision in his mind came together in a solid, looming figure standing upright by the doorway as he opened his eyes.
Yut-Lung suppressed the heaving of his chest at the sight of Blanca set and fixed in front of him. He forced himself to continue, “The brat did not die? Talk about a charmed life…"
“You are drunk, Sir.” Blanca reprimanded more than inquired.
Yut-Lung forced a sarcastic chuckle, “Drunk? Hilarious.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with the heaviest pressure his damp hands could muster in his state. “I’d say I’m stone-cold sober.”
He tipped his head back and took a full swig of the wine, the ends of his long hair crumpling at the base of the couch. Alcohol never comforted him, yet he found the temporary burn of the substance better than the burn of the reality he abhorred so massively.
Yut-Lung raised the flute at Blanca, “Try this.”
Blanca took a step forward, effortlessly swiping the flute from the youngest Lee’s hand. There’s barely any left. “I believe you’ve had quite enough of this. It could only reward you with a terrible hangover in the morning.”
Yut-Lung rolled his tired eyes, “Do not babysit me, Blanca.”
“No, of course.” The older man bowed slightly at him and turned on his heel to leave.“Good night, Sir. Do rest.”
He made no more than a half-step when Yut-Lung’s voice, laced with desperation and the ugly hoarseness of an alcohol-coated tone, halted his progress.
“Wait a goddamn minute!”
Blanca planted his feet firmly on the ground, reminiscent of the soldier and servant he once was.
There was a shift in the atmosphere, a quick transition from a quiet stillness to a stark heaviness pregnant with threats. It was uncomfortably ugly and it made Yut-Lung feel the beginnings of rage bubble from within him, the cold yet scathing tendrils of which began snatching and grappling at his insides trying to take control.
He hated it when the assassin acted as though he was nothing more than a master to serve, nothing more than an employer, a party to a contract. He hated it. He hated it so much. Nevertheless, he grounded himself in the foundations of his character. Yut-Lung had been taught in childhood that cruel are the ways of the world so crueler he should be to evade destruction and failure, a mentality that allowed him to endure and withstand the blows and tugs of the shadows that bound him to the Lee name. He had neither the time nor the energy for such petty things.
More so for fleeting, transient relationships with people.
He steeled himself despite the threat of an obvious outburst. “I believe you have something to tell me, Blanca.”
As Yut-Lung stood up, he felt the air leave his body. The room before him seemed to swivel in quick successions. He noted the look in Blanca’s eyes as they change from guarded reservation to apt concern. He grimaced at the sight and forced himself to stay upright, looking at him square in the eyes, as if to send out a bold challenge, a scathing demand.
In seconds, Blanca shifted his gaze downwards, enough to mildly escape Yut-Lung’s probing. “Indeed I do, Sir. However, I believe it’s better to wait until the morning.”
“In that case, I have something to tell you. Sit down.” Yut-Lung declared in a calm, autocratic tone. A thin cirrus of hair fell over his right eye and he wished for the flimsy cover it afforded his eye to obscure, in the slightest, the turmoil brewing inside him.
“Sir Yut-Lung I--”
“Sit down, Sergei. That is an order.” He spat at the man. Yut-Lung considered himself an expert in hurtling commands, and he reveled in the obedience that followed thereafter.
He would not take any rejection. Never from this man.
The charged pause seemed to persevere for the longest time before Blanca finally managed to speak in a curt voice, “...Understood, Sir Yut-Lung”
Understood?
Yut-Lung snorted inwardly. No. Nobody understood him. Not the youngest--no, the remaining--Lee heir. Nobody understood the child feloniously orphaned by way of his own family’s deeds and thereafter forced to fester and soak in their poisonous hands. Nobody understood the same child who was forcibly and brutally reared to specialize in taking and toying with lives through methods that in and of themselves are crafted to save and to nurture. Four hundred years of history and marvel and beauty of the exquisite craft was not enough to endear Yut-Lung to it.
He hated the art despite his unmatched expertise and natural aptitude for it.
But none of them knew. None of them understood. Nobody understood the suffering, the full, abundant rage and the boiling hate that cultivated in the years of absolute sorrow he endured, and the hopeless frustration he harbored towards his situation, towards the world. Nobody. Not even this assassin for hire.
Especially not the assassin for hire.
He watched as Blanca placed himself at the center of the sectional sofa, his suit crimped at places where his joints bent and curved in toward his body. He noted that even in the bulk of the suit, his defined brawn was slipping through. Yut-Lung never understood the appeal of physical prowess. As a man trained in subterfuge, the only weapon he knew were concealable tactics that delivered the same results. Overt actions always slipped his interest.
Perhaps that was why there was a disconnect. They were very different. Irreconcilable. Incompatible.
“Have you ever been to Hong Kong?” Yut-Lung asked the seated man, closing his eyes in an attempt to suppress the flood of memories he kept locked up in the deepest recesses of his mind.
“A few times, yes.” Blanca answered promptly.
Yut-Lung strode towards the coffee table, snatching the bottle of Cabernet and the the flute Blanca earlier relieved from his hands. He felt sick, his eyes were stinging, and his hair felt heavier on his throbbing head. He pushed back the strands that crawled on the side of his head with the back of his hand and rapidly poured a glass and drank the contents to the last drop.
Blanca sighed in obvious disapproval.
“How did you find it?” he poured another glass to the brim, effectively emptying the bottle.
“It was a strange but beautiful place.” Blanca straightened in his seat, his coat spreading tight across his chest. “In retrospect, it reminds me of you, Sir.” he offered as an afterthought. His eyes talked of reminiscence, an impassioned singing of the soul that seemed to radiate outward and into Yut-Lung.
Yut-Lung tilted his head, as if welcoming a distant memory. His hair traipsed over his shoulder like an opaque obsidian sash flowing from behind him. “You’re not far off. It is my birthplace.”
He continued, keeping the hand that held the flute of wine steady, “My father, Lee Hong-Lung was the most powerful man among the Chinese heads, a direct descendant of the emperors of Qing who governed over the good and the bad, the light and the shadows of Chinese society…”
The pause he intended was to accommodate a reply from the quiet man in front of him, but Blanca offered no response and instead crossed his hands plainly atop his lap. Yut-Lung crossed his own over the exposed flesh of his chest that peeked from the confines of his robe. The champagne flute filled with the Cabernet threatened to fall from his heavy hand. He glanced at the glass momentarily and swallowed as the deep purple-red of the liquid in the glass seemed to shout at him, reminding him of blood.
His mind offered him a vision; of long, braided, black hair that curled in a coil on the floor on top of pooling blood. He shook the thought from his head, keeping his wits about him.
“My mother...she was a peasant’s daughter from a family of peddlers. At the age of ten, she was bought off by my father to be his concubine. He was well into his senior years at the time.”
Yut-Lung was light on his feet, yet tonight he has never felt sloppier and ungainly as he tried walking--stumbling--around in the small area of his chambers.
He needed to sit.
Scrambling to the coffee table, he perched himself at the edge, crossing his legs and leaning forward close enough to see the fullness of Blanca’s face, close enough to see the eyes that now looked at him with a copious mix of intrigue and apprehension, like he was a threat, or an animal of uncertain temperament whose behavior was being ascertained by an outside observer.
He hated it.
“Isn’t that revolting?” he asked, unsure now of what he was referring to; his mother and father, or how he looked in front of his--god, he hated to think about it--employee.
Figuring there won’t be much of a proper conversation, Yut-Lung continued his exposition, “My mother had me when she was 15 and not long after, my father died. That was when they came to us, my brothers. They assaulted her repeatedly and killed her. And I was right there, in my beloved brother’s arms, watching, confused and scared as they brutalized her.” he paused, looking fully at Blanca’s eyes in a defiant, mutinous glare.
“I feared they would do the same to me.” He swallowed what felt like bile that slowly rose up his throat. He did not need to tell Blanca who they were. He did not need to mention their names, or their sickening faces.
It hurt. It burned.
He slid at the edge of the coffee table, enough for his knees to touch Blanca’s, enough to make it so that the flute is the only thing that kept them apart. He looked straight into the older man’s eyes and whispered, “See, Blanca? I have every right to be filled with hate don’t I?”
Yut-Lung gave the older man a single, despondent smile before backing a few inches and sighing in resignation. “They didn’t spare me out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re demons and rightly so. But I was a Lee. I share with them our father’s blood. That is all.”
Blanca posed to move, leaning forward for reasons that escaped Yut-Lung’s mind. He watched at the older man bit his lip, shaking his head faintly. “I am so, very, sorry, Master Yut-Lung.”
“Nonsense.” Yut-Lung waved a slender hand. “People feeling bad for me makes my skin crawl in disgust, Mister Blanca. I don’t need your sympathy, I don’t need your help. I am not a charity project.”
Blanca reclined in his seat, looking determinedly back at the eyes Yut-Lung’s silky hair partially covered. “Empathy is different from sympathy, Sir. And I offer you mine in acknowledgement of your confidence in me.”
“Did you offer the same to Ash?”
“Ash needed more than empathy from me, Sir."
“Of course, you're his ever-loyal teacher, after all. And you say we’re similar. But what about him? How did he react o the same brutality…?” The aroma of currant invited Yut-Lung to a sip of wine but stopped himself from bringing the glass to his mouth. Instead, he extended a slender arm toward Blanca and offered the glass it held to him.
The Russian intended to raise a hand to reject the offer, yet the crumbling composure of the Chinese heir told him to do otherwise. He didn’t want to upset him further. He took the glass from his hands and set it on his lap, swirling the contents counterclockwise. “Ash is...nobody can tell what he’s going to do next.”
“You did, that one time.”
“Everything was merely conjecture on the basis of the boy I knew years prior.”
“Yet you got everything right, down to the last dot.”
Blanca did not respond. He raised the glass to his nose and breathed in the small, round hints and nuances of oak and cherry. Yut-Lung watched as he took a sip and held his eyes until he put the glass back down to his lap. In that moment, Yut-Lung found himself wondering how much and how accurately the older man looked like one of them; a snivelling bastard that enjoyed the finer pleasures in life at the cost of others’ own. He brushed the thought away as instantly as it had come.
“I have not the vast knowledge of wine such as you do, Sir Yut-Lung, but this is one, it’s strong and fluid. Tart and muddy. Light and shadow. A lot of contradictions. Like you and Ash.”
Yut-Lung flinched. In the many times he was compared to the Lynx, this was the first time the juxtaposition hit him like the full impact of a bullet from a loaded gun.
Because it came from him.
“Like you...as you are.” Blanca said under his breath, handing the flute back to him. “Contradictions.”
Yut-Lung’s usually lithe fingers trembled as he took it from Blanca. “Don’t be smart with me.”
Blanca merely smiled.
The Chinese heir clasped the flute with both hands, the act of which made him too cognizant of how dependent he was at the substance tonight. “Ash...I can see the rage in him. I know of it. I see the slumbering demon behind that angelic face. A furious demon; vehement and frenzied. More frenetic than I seem to be. And yet…” he ended with a soft, resigned laugh.
Yut-Lung clutched the tresses of silken hair at his temples, squeezing tightly, “Yet he gets to find redemption? Only him?”
He examined the flute. It didn’t seem like it receded even after Blanca took from it. Yut-Lung traced the rim with his index finger, lingering at the spot where Blanca’s lips made contact with it. Slowly, he rotated the flute and raised it to his mouth, drinking gradually while creating a barrier with his tongue to manage the stream from the glass. He released it with a satisfied sigh, balancing the flute from its stem with a thumb and a forefinger.
“The world is cruel, Sergei. I know that. I’ve known that longer than I’ve known my purpose as a Lee. Yet, I still..” he trailed of and let puff of breath take the place of the words he could not vocalize.
“Sir Yut-Lung…” Blanca started, placing a cold hand on top of Yut-Lung’s hand, bringing it to his lap in a slow but steady transit downward.
A thin stream of wine slipped from the side of Yut-Lungs mouth to his chin, dropping on their hands as it left the edge of his face. Blanca slowly raised his free hand, planting it squarely on Yut-Lungs jaw, angling it so he can position his thumb over the outline of his lower lip. Yut-Lung tensed at the touch, eyes too heavy to make out the situation. He closed them instead and savored the ghost of a contact.
Blanca wiped the streak of wine from Yut-Lung’s chin and smoothed his hair over the Lee’s ear. “Sir, I think it’s time to rest.”
“I said do not babysit me.” Yut-Lung murmured as he stood up to drop the flute on the coffee table.
“I was merely suggesting. I apologize, Sir.”
Yut-Lung turned to the assassin, head pulsating hard and fast, the alcohol wreaking havoc in his body in a speed he never knew possible. “Don’t. It’s fine. Whatever. Just…”
Inasmuch as he credited his next actions to the whims of alcohol, Yut-Lung knew within himself that it was a long time coming, and that it was, at one point, going to happen, inevitable even. Or at least he’d like to think so.
He swung himself over Blanca, trapping the man between his slender legs as his red silk robe hung in folds and creases over both of them. His eyes searched for a reaction from the Russian’s dark ones. He looked for surprise, shock, confusion, fear, but found none. The assassin sat unmoving even as Yut-Lung endeavored to straddle him further. Blanca looked up at him as if waiting on his next move, patiently allowing him the liberty to do as he pleases.
The quiet of the night permeated the chamber, creating tresses of heavy air within. There was a ringing in his ears that deafened even the most rational senses he still had over the influence of the Cabernet. Yut-Lung gasped heavily, arms gripping the back of the couch with the most force he can muster.
“Blanca.” He exhaled slowly, the two syllables dancing like imps on his tongue. “Have you no loyalty to your master?”
His hand left the curve of the couch and slid down to Blanca’s back, splayed and floundering as it went down to rest at the base of his spine.
Blanca’s own hands moved, planting themselves securely on Yut-Lung’s thighs in a touch that felt almost like a warning, yet he reclined just slightly, bringing him closer. “I figured, in the course of my employment with you, that I should stop being a servant, Sir, and more of a friend, I suppose.”
Yut-Lung refrained from rolling his eyes at the audacity of the man before him. It was the funniest, most ridiculous thing he has ever heard from anyone. A friend? Nobody makes a friend out of Lee Yut-Lung.
“Friends do not desert one another, do they?” Yut-Lung answered nonetheless, whispering each word at Blanca’s ear as he moved closer. Draping his arm around the older man’s broad shoulder, he let one hand cease its wandering at Blanca’s back and reached to the bottom of the couch seat. “Yet for your dear beloved Ash you would throw me, your friend--,” he enunciated every syllable with the most he could lace with disgust, “--to rot and fester?
Yut-Lung rested his head on Blanca’s shoulder, not for the comfort of it, rather to ease the pulsating tension seeming to tear his head apart. Despite the discomfort, his voice came out as sinister as he intended. “Aren’t you then merely switching sides? Just choosing one injured pet over the other?”
He then pulled back, his long, wispy hair moving like a curtain of charcoal strings behind him. In his hand now rested a polished Smith and Wesson, a model 27 just like Ash Lynx’s choice armament. It pointed directly between Blanca’s eyes, the circumference of the barrel obscuring the area between his thick, angled brows.
“You like it? I posed for its acquisition, specifically. We are similar after all, as all you bastards keep saying.”
Blanca paused. “I’m not surprised,sir. The weapon, indeed, is remarkable. I hope the weight of the unit does not bother you as much as it bothered Ash the first time he held one.” he recited calmly as though the turn of events were something he had expected.
The Chinese leader angled his head upwards, as if beckoning the assassin to come closer. Blanca arched forward until the barrel of Yut-Lung’s revolver rested flat on his forehead. The cold steel of the gun seemed to soften under the light of the moon and against Blanca’s skin.
“Hmmm. I do not mind.” Yut-Lung mused. A voice in the back of his head told him he did.
He released the safety, the click reverberating around the quiet of the night. “What do you get out of this trailing behind Ash? You think there’s redemption for you if you ride along on his?”
“I am beyond redemption, your highness.”
Yut-Lung’s hand faltered for the briefest moment but hustled to instantly regain control. His fingers felt foreign and detached as he viewed them embracing the polished surfaces of the gun. A shadow of fear overtook his hands and he dreaded the possibility of pulling the trigger prematurely. The uncertainty and danger ate at his core but strangely enough, he found the mettle to push it back down. “If I blow your brains out right now, at this moment, he’s certain to fail in whatever goddamn legendary mythos he wishes to star in, won’t he?”
Again, Blanca did not respond.
“It’s terribly unfair, don’t you think?” Yut-Lung slurred as he shakily dragged the barrel down Blanca’s temple...
“It’s unfair.”
...To his cheek
“I deserve a chance, too.”
...To the corner of his lips.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t pull the trigger.”
Blanca offered a gentle smile, the corners of his mouth curling up to stress the flair of slight amusement that took over his earlier rigid face. ”It would be a messy cleanup, Sir.”
Yut-Lung’s hold tightened on the wooden grip. His eyes fixed sternly into the abyss that were Blanca’s. They were softer now, a downward turn of a hue. He couldn’t read him.
Why couldn’t he...
He tossed the gun aside, the sudden unbridled impact firing off a shot in the direction of the couch, just inches beside Blanca’s right leg, but he neither flinched nor moved.
Yut-Lung did.
He flung his arms around the older man’s neck and moved forward until his lips caught Blanca’s for the briefest moment before pulling back the fewest of inches. He lingered atop his lips as he caught his breath. Slowly, he rested his forehead against Blanca and stared him down with all the effervescence of the rage within him, trying mightily to redirect the surge into forceful breaths. The colors in Blanca’s eyes seemed to shift and shimmer from Yut-Lung’s vision, morphing into shapes that he could not catch as fast as he wanted to.
Blanca sighed, smoothing Yut-Lung’s hair back again, his fingers clutching the most of the silken strands that his hand could manage and trailed them down over the front of Yut-Lung’s shoulder, eclipsing the gold brocade running along the hem of his robe. “Sir Yut-Lung, you are upset, I understand.”
“You should know why.”
He lunged forward and once more captured Blanca’s lips, the movement neither chaste nor testing. It longed for it. Hungry and desperate, as though the contact is all that grounds him from the physicality of it all. Blanca sat still, not responding yet not rejecting, and kept his hands firm on Yut-Lung’s hips to keep him steady as his movements grew more erratic and frenzied at the passing of each second.
The muffled sounds of several heavy footsteps buzzed beyond the door of the bedroom. Several frantic voices shouting Yut-Lung’s name echoed in the hallways. They must have heard the gunshot and were rushing to his...aid. Idiots, every single one of them.
“Master Yut-Lung! Is everything alright?!” a muted voice called out from outside the room like phantom hands pulling Yut-Lung away from the hypnotic feeling of his lips moving in eager activity with another.
Yut-Lung cursed against Blanca’s lips and pressed into him until he could feel his heartbeat thump against his exposed skin.
“Master Yut-Lung!”
The banging on the door grounded in his ears until the throbbing in his head became too much to bear. He pulled back and shouted at the direction of the door impatiently. “FUCK OFF!”
Panting and out of breath, he turned to look back at Blanca. He examined the older man’s face, noting the look of commiseration painted so clearly on his angled face.
”Do not fucking pity me.” Yut-Lung snarled.
“No, of course, Sir.” Blanca answered in a defiant tone, his voice laced with the barest hint of defined exasperation.
Yut-Lung got off the man unceremoniously and laughed. Blanca promptly picked up the revolver, put the safety back on and placed it on the surface of the couch, the barrel facing its back and away from both of them. He swiveled and stood at attention after Yut-Lung, watching and waiting.
Like the soldier he is, Yut-Lung noted. He hated it so goddamn much.
He turned back and wobbled towards to his bed, clutching his head. He couldn’t think. His body was weighing him down, pulling him to the ground as though blocks of stone were tied to his feet. He looked at the ground and focused on the patches of light that bled through from the open window. His eyes stung so much from tears that threatened to fall. The robe felt abrasive against his skin despite the smooth, velvety nature of the fabric.
Everything felt uncomfortable and hopeless and vexatious and he just wanted to rest…
He turned his head toward Blanca, extending a slender arm to him. “The gun.”
Yut-Lung saw alarm flash momentarily within the older man’s eyes but moved to ignore it. He was too tired and too consumed with the despondency of the night to make something out of it.
“Let me escort you.” Blanca announced, ignoring his demand as he moved forward and rested his hands by Yut-Lung’s elbows guiding him away from where the couch that nested the gun was.
The Chinese heir swatted it away, “I won’t shoot you. Just give me the fucking gun.”
Blanca tightened his grip on Yut-Lungs arms, taking advantage of his broad stature to shield the area from Yut-Lung’s sight. “I know, Sir. I can’t let you shoot anyone else either”
Yut-Lung slumped against the broadness of Blanca’s chest, letting out a raspy, scratching snicker, “There’s no difference as to whoever I want to shoot, Blanca.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t let you do it, Sir. You do not discriminate value in a life. Even with yours.”
“My life is a waste and you know that firsthand. I’m not worth more than the evils of the underground. I merely made an empire above it. Stop acting like I’m doing the world a favor by being alive. It’s pathetic.”
Instead of an answer, Blanca pulled him to the direction of the bed, dragging him and flinging him across the down mattress, watching as Yut-Lung’s hair coiled and fluttered until it rested like a halo of willowy branches around the man. Yut-Lung groaned at the sudden impact, visual static swimming in incomprehensible circles before his closed eyes.
“Goddamn you.” he whispered, voice cracking in exhaustion. “Give me the gun.”
He felt the mattress dip by his leg as Blanca climbed on top of him, effectively trapping him down. He unbuttoned his coat and flung it across the bed. Yut-Lung watched as he likewise unbuttoned his dress shirt enough to give his chest some liberty from the constraint.
As he bent down, Yut-Lung felt him breathe down on his lips and knew right then that his attempts at negotiating have failed so immensely. Yut-Lung was drunk, angry, and lonely. He deserved at least this kind of self-destruction. So he let himself lay still, his mouth hung open, breath escaping him in short bursts as he waited for Blanca to descend on his waiting lips.
Yut-Lung reciprocated eagerly when he did, mouth clashing with the Russian’s until they felt numb and stung with pressure and pleasure. Blanca used his knee to part Yut-Lung’s legs and positioned himself in between, placing a firm hand on Yut-Lung’s thigh to keep them steady. He broke off the liplock and dove down to press his lips forcefully against Yut-Lung’s throat, nibbling as he went further down. Yut-Lung groaned under his ministrations and placed his trembling hands on Blanca’s broad shoulders.
“Stop distracting me.” he said in between hungry pecks, his body betraying the words that left his occupied mouth.
Blanca slipped his tongue in his mouth, searching and toying and exploring. Yut-Lung needily and voraciously met him halfway, allowing him to taste all of him. Their mouths fought against each other, taking the dance from the hungry to the ravenous. Yut-Lung tasted the faint scent of gunpowder and the bitter kick of tobacco. He didn’t know he smoked.
Nevertheless, he took in all of it; his body flush against the older man’s, his hands finding purchase wherever they can on his body. Blanca’s hair dangled from his head in an opaque tattered shroud that obscured the rest of the room from Yut-Lung’s view. Their breaths mingled and their hearts volatile.
Yut-Lung cursed himself so feeble. But he could not repress the euphoria of feeling himself come alive at that moment as though cracked, busted bulbs lit up wherever Blanca touched him. It was an astonishing feeling for the young Chinese heir; to be held and touched without the often accompanying ulterior purpose. In the few months he spent in the company of Blanca, he learned it was beyond the older man to be reticent of his actions, opting instead to indulge in the truth when asked. He was the opposite of him; a deceitful, devious monster.
But all of this proved of no worth tonight. It was only him, Blanca, and tangled the contact of one fiery skin to another.
Blanca moved back up, essentially pulling him away from his mind’s wandering. He smiled so faintly Yut-Lung would have missed it in a blink of an eye. Blanca claimed his lips once more and gently took his lower lip between his teeth, sucking on it for an instant before pulling back.
“It is still my job to protect you.” he whispered against his open mouth. He slipped back down to Yut-Lung’s jaw, leaving gentle presses until he is situated at the crook of his shoulder, planting soft kisses in intervals just there.
Oh.
His job.
All of a sudden Yut-Lung felt cold. Numb. Drained. Distant.
Of course. A job.
Ash still had Blanca by the neck, he concluded. No, he had long since won him over. Even before the Japanese boy. Even before him.
Blanca’s loyalty. His admiration. His affection. Ash had them offered to him willingly without lifting as much as a finger, while Yut-Lung gave himself up entirely for the same yet failing. It’s unfair. He wanted them too. Needed them. The reality that he could only pay someone to give a semblance of the same to him felt like the stab of a rusty, serrated knife in the chest, and suddenly he felt sick.
He was quiet and unmoving when the unwelcome stream of tears escaped his eyes. He fixed his empty gaze at the ceiling, counting the seconds before he put an end to the madness the cruel night accorded him.
“Go to your pet, Blanca.” Yut-Lung finally spat, voice barren and desolate.
Blanca’s head slowly rose from where he was planted on Yut-Lung’s neck, hovering just right above his face. Yut-Lung knew how vulnerable and repulsive he looked; tear-stricken, drunk, and just an altogether repugnant mess. Even so, he wished for Blanca, no matter how unlikely, not to notice the wreck that lay sprawled on the bed.
Blanca’s hand flew to Yut-Lung’s face, attempting to wipe his tears off from the side of his cheeks as they slid down in an endless current. He gave him a gentle kiss then, so gentle that Yut-Lung prayed for it to last forever.
“Just fucking go.” he mouthed, voice breaking.
“No, Sir. Not yet.” Blanca whispered to him.
Not yet.
Yut-Lung pushed him away, turning on his side to shield the barrage of angry tears that started to gush forth from his tired eyes. His chest heaved and his lungs felt too heavy for the simple task of breathing. His heart physically hurt, like a wreath of thorns were constricting incrementally to crush it. He clawed at his chest and suppressed the sobs in his throat that impatiently waited to be vocalized. All he could do was release a shuddering breath, aware that it was audible enough for the assassin’s ears.
He did not care anymore.
“Go.”
He never thought his voice could sound so small and weak. And he hated it.
Blanca stroked his hair, softly humming an unfamiliar tune that made the pounding ache and heaviness in Yut-Lung’s heart climb levels upward. He felt Blanca situate himself on the bed just above his shoulder. Despite the overwhelming disappointment and frustration with the turn of events and looming reality that there was nothing he could have done about it, he didn’t recoil when Blanca’s hand found his shoulder and stroked downward in slow, repetitive motions, each one seeming to erase the morsels of pain. He couldn’t understand why his touch could do such things.
He hated that he needed it.
“Rest well, my Moon.” Blanca whispered in his ear, pausing to place a tender kiss on his temple, and then on the clumps of hair above it.
Yut-Lung pinched his eyes closed and surrendered as the tears ran in rivulets down his face, silently cursing the world and himself for existing at all.
He did not know when he finally fell asleep. All he knew as the comfort of a much needed slumber embraced him was that Blanca’s touch and his voice seemed to eased the pain even when they caused it. How paradoxically appropriate.
Likewise, a thought burned itself in his mind like an unforgiving and fiery rod: Blanca chose the Lynx, everybody’s champion, over him, a devious snake. And he will be gone by the morning.
And he hated himself for it.