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Click, click, click.
Ringing in his ears, the sound bounced of the walls like an echo of his heartbeat, except sharper, louder, easily heard and annoying, frustrating, wrath-inducing. Wave upon wave of irritation at having being caught, bound and helpless like a mere child who could not defend himself, ropes chaffing into his wrists and drawing blood, crimson, thick, viscous like honey and just as sweet.
It continued, the monotonous sound making the asphalt beneath his knees vibrate the slightest bit, indiscernible by all but him, and maybe the man in front of him, whose expression was as flat as the sound that his boots made clicking against the ground.
"How does it feel to be restrained?" Came the question.
Ren looked up, blue eyes meeting ones of the same colour - same colour, but different shade. Just like them, them and their relationship, similar yet different, infinitely different, like parallel lines destined to never meet, but they defied it, meeting, crossing each other but then drifted apart, never to connect again - his cerulean clashing with cobalt blue, and suddenly they weren't here anymore, not in this room, but were flying, further and further from earth, into the universe, into something that was only for them.
He did not deign to answer, did not wish for the other party to have the pleasure, satisfaction of hearing the pain in his voice, the hitch and the change in pace of breath. It was already taking most of his strength to not cry out in pain, having been abused beyond reason by the ones who had brought him here.
There was a sound of annoyance, and it made the Ren gloat on the inside to have made the perfect calm facade of Masato to crumble. Something thudded against the ground, and a ivory cane pushed his chin up. "What did you come here for?" Masato barked. His normally velvet smooth was harsh, rough around the edges with outward anger. It was rare to see the composed leader act this way, but it made Ren all the more pleased with himself. It wasn't easy to rile Masato up.
"Do you really think I'll tell you, Masato?" He smirked, lips curving up sharply. The expression looked as though it was made for his face, as though he was born to have a perpetual smirk, and it suited him so well Masato wanted to slap it off of him so bad. "Do you really think I'll reveal something as important as that?"
At this, Masato snarled, and the sound of it was hostile and wild and brutal, so strange coming from the imperial featured male, but Ren just laughed, contrasting the way their personalities contrasted. It hurt to laugh, the pain tearing at him from the inside and from the inflicted wounds. Winking, he purred, "Honey-chan."
With anger on his face, Masato kicked him sharply across the head, then left the room, slamming the door behind him.
A sad glint in his eyes, Ren chuckled.
The silence was unbearable.
It wasn't actual silence, per se, since there was the echoes of Masato's heels clicking against the hard asphalt as he circled the other man like a predator would to its prey, to circumference him in fear and anxiety, to make it easier to pounce when the target was confused, shaking with it. It was one of the first things he had learned as a child, how to scare, how to induce fear, how to make his chosen target's legs shake and wobble, lose all their feeling in them and lose all their strength.
How to make them worthless.
It was a black mark he would always carry with him, over his heart. The black tattoo, like ink, metaphorical over his chest and literal on his back, spread across the entire span of his being in a phoenix with its wings spread, head thrown back as though to preen, as though to show the world what it was made of. The lines were clean, like the shots he fired when he killed and the slice of his sword as he swung it through the body of an opponent, delivering clean, quick deaths.
Despite all he had learned, however, despite how much pride he took in his skills of being able to disarm a man physically and then mentally in a span of a few minutes, it did not work on the one currently kneeling in front of him. For all that he was worth, Jinguuji Ren should be begging for his mercy, for his life, but he was doing none of those. He even had the guts, had the sheer audacity to mock him, and Masato could not - would not - stand for that.
Once he heard the slam of the door behind him, the loud noise bouncing off the walls around him, echoing down the hallway as though that could relieve him of the anger that he was currently feeling, he leaned back against said door and heaved a sigh. It really hadn't been in his intentions to kick Ren across the face, but it didn't matter, now, did it, now that he had already done it.
It seemed so long again, their childhood friendship. They'd met, years, decades, eons ago, it seemed to Masato, that he'd been able to call Ren his nii-chan, been able to share everything with the other boy, his sweets, his secrets, his laughter and his happiness. Unconsciously, he reached out with the hand not holding onto his cane, and tried to grasp for something that wasn't there.
Lips parting, in disappointment, he looked down at the cane in his hand. Fueled by a sudden surge of hatred to the object that proclaimed him the heir to the family, he flung it away from him, the clanking of the cane falling to the ground sounding nii-chan and Masato in his head and it hurt because he wanted to go back to those happy times again.
Eyes closed in pain, Masato screamed.
