Chapter Text
It was only when he entered his dreams that he could vaguely recall what happened on that fateful evening.
It always began the same. Slowly, the world would blink into view. Then, the world began to move at a dizzying speed. While his other dreams usually meandered somewhere between the perplexing and uncanny, this one dream was always surprisingly clear. Yu could see events unfold before him as quickly and blurrily as if he was experiencing them all over again.
The first thing he noticed was the music.
Piano music drifted through the air. The smooth, thrumming strokes of a string quartet quickly followed suit. The sounds made his heart, and the rest of his senses, roar to life.
The air was thick with the aroma of peppermint, which was delightfully sweet compared the scents of vanilla tobacco and woodsy cologne wafting from the party’s dance floor. Then, he felt his fingers curl around a heavily embroidered patch of fabric. The material felt firmer than the layers of velvet that he felt swirl around his legs, which were also donned in matching breeches and silk stockings. Then, he realized that wasn’t all he felt. Something heavy tugged noticeably at his pocket. When he reached into his long chemise to brandish it, he saw that it was a watch.
A pocket watch, more specifically.
It felt weighty and cold in his hand. The golden surface was decorated with colored glass and a rainbow of small jewels. When he clicked it open to check the time, he saw that it was etched with delicate script around the circumference.
Together in Paris.
“Do you like it?” a voice asked from above his head.
When he looked up, Yu saw he was huddled close to his uncle and gripping the heavily adorned cuff of his court jacket. It was then he always noticed that the minty smell was the strongest around him.
He nodded enthusiastically.
“I do,” Yu proclaimed. The words seemed to come forth of their own volition. His voice was one thing he didn’t seem to have control over. “Uncle…I wish you didn’t have to leave. Can’t you take me with you?”
A peal of velvety laughter tumbled from his lips like an unfurling silk scarf.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” he replied. With a grunt, he lifted the young boy off the ground and unto his knee. A hand patted him firmly in the center of his back.
The loving gesture didn’t sway the prince’s stance. After all, they’d had the same conversation multiple times before. So many times, in fact, that he wasn’t sure he could count them all.
“No, you won’t,” the prince replied. His tone had turned from desperate to deadpan. “Don’t lie to me. I’ll be alone until I see you again.”
A flicker of guilt flashed across the man’s face. The expression aged him decades.
Then, a calming smile graced his features and split his sad visage in half. The effect on Yu’s whole attitude was almost instantaneous.
“I promise I’ll come back, though,” he swore under his breath. The words were spoken softly so that only Yu was the only one privileged enough to hear the promise. “Until then, if you ever get lonely, just look at this watch. Watch the minutes and seconds tick by…and before you know it, we’ll be back together again.”
A sense of newfound joy bloomed within him.
He held the watch close to his chest and nodded, cheeks pink from excitement at the mere thought. “You’re right!”
The two exchanged smiles before falling against each other in a tight, loving embrace. The young prince never wanted it to end.
The illusion was spell-binding an all-encompassing. It was as if the party was a shining marble, and he was suspended right in the center.
Then, chaos broke out.
Yu tried to avert his eyes to the center of the bedlam to see the source of the commotion, but his uncle lifted him up and away before he could get a good look.
Then, there were too many noises. Too many sensations pummeling him all at once.
Frantic footsteps.
Flashing lights.
Searing heat against his cheeks. Perhaps there was a fire nearby.
Terrified screams.
The sound of splintering wood as a nearby door collapsed inward, sending jagged shards of wood skittering across the palace floor.
His own scream was so loud that it shook his brain.
Then, Yu saw another young boy appear before him. His visage was hazy, almost smoky.
The only clearly visible feature were the boy's eyes. Yu thought they blazed like the sun. Like twin infernos against the chaotic skyline that was his obviously terrified expression.
“Quickly, go through the servant’s quarters!” the mysterious boy cried. Each word was strangled. It was probably from breathing in hot smoke, Yu figured. He knew his own throat felt like it was being seared shut. It made it impossible to object or cry out against the demand.
Then, Yu felt a hand shove him in the middle of his back. His body caved under the force as he was pushed into the narrow, dark space alongside his uncle.
“Yu, this way!” he heard his uncle call in desperation.
In the darkness, Yu tried to grope for something, anything, that would guide him back to his uncle’s side.
More chaos.
The whistle of a train.
A sharp pain at the base of his skull.
And then…!
Then…!
Blackness.
His eyes shot open.
Normally, the rattling of the orphanage’s windows never stirred him.
Yuri had learned to sleep through the sound. After all, unlike some of his other peers, he’d had years to grow accustomed to the sound. While other children came and left the crumbling building over the years, he was one of the few that remained. He was a constant, almost ghostly presence.
Yet, that night, it seemed his dream had mingled too effectively with the storm’s turbulent sounds. As a result, he’d awakened with a violent start. His breath came in gasps and condensed off his face in thick puffs that drifted upward and faded almost instantly in the frigid room.
The silence sobered him almost immediately. There was no fire, and there was certainly no bedlam. He sighed, laying his palms heavily over his thudding heart. Memories of the dream immediately faded, dispersing like his own breath, in the air.
The same dream.
The windowpanes shook hard enough to make the fragile hardware jitter in place. The wind howled with a ferocity that sounded as if it could crack the windows like sugar glass. Yuri didn’t so much as bat an eye.
After all, he didn’t know anything else. The young teen couldn’t remember a night without rattling windows or freezing bedchambers. The sound of wind whistling through the cracks in the walls was like a lullaby to him. The orphanage was all he’d known since he was a young child, so it had been easy for him to adjust to the sights and sounds associated with the aging building.
For the others, it was another story.
A young girl sobbed softly a few beds away from him. Each sob quivered on her lips from her body’s constant shivering.
Yuri rolled over and sat up in his cot. The threadbare sheets crinkled like ladies’ petticoats around his body.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice whispered through the darkness in the direction of the girl’s cries.
For a few seconds, he heard nothing. Nothing except stunned silence. His teeth worried his bottom lip. Had he surprised her too abruptly?
Then, she dared to speak.
“D…Did I wake you?” she replied. Each word was a wet sob. “I’m sorry…”
“No, it’s fine,” he whispered. He hoped the gentleness of his voice could convey the soft smile on his face. “You didn’t wake me. The storm did.”
Silence again. Then, he heard the creaking of a worn mattress. It sounded as if she’d sat up in her bed.
She said timidly, “Me too. Aren’t you scared? Of the storm, I mean.”
Yuri chuckled and pulled his knees close to his chest. The room was a smidgeon too cold for comfort without the added insulation from the threadbare blankets.
“I’ve heard a lot of storms, and they always sound scary,” he told her. “You get used to it.”
“Really?” she asked. The girl sounded more intrigued than before. “How? I mean, how did you get used to it?”
For a moment, he forgot that she couldn’t see him and shrugged. When the action elicited no reply, he continued in a hushed voice, “How? Um, I don’t know. I guess it just happened naturally over time. I do still remember the first time I heard a winter storm, though.”
“And?” another voice asked. The question came from another young boy from a few cots away. It appeared the conversation had either stirred him awake or that he’d also been awakened by the storm. Either way, he’d clearly felt inspired to chime into the conversation.
“And I was terrified,” Yuri laughed, a little louder than before. “I hid under the blankets and cried until I fell asleep. The second time I heard a storm, I still hid under the blankets…but I didn’t cry. By the third and fourth time, I had to cover my head with a pillow to block out the noise…but I still fell asleep.”
Yuri glimpsed up to look around the room. From the sparse light provided by the clouded sky and light pollution from the hazy cityscape, he could make could the silhouettes of a couple of heads and shoulders in the darkness. It seemed the audience for his story was growing.
“But you don’t seem scared now…” another girl chimed in. The statement almost sounded like a challenge.
His silver eyes sparkled. “Not really. When you experience something challenging or scary over and over, it makes you a little stronger each time. You grow. You learn.
“I used to be terrified of storms because they were loud and made things shake,” he elaborated bashfully. He directed his gaze to the frayed hem of his old nightshirt. “I thought the room would collapse or…I don’t know, something else terrible would happen. Nothing ever did. I survived and made it through. Now, they don’t frighten me, because I know I can make it through…just like you guys can.”
The sobbing girl from before made a sound of astonishment. “You really think so?”
“I know so,” he asserted.
Another boy with an intense bedhead practically swooned over the statement. His chin landed in one of his heads longingly as he said, “Man. Yuri isn’t afraid of anything…”
“Of course he isn’t afraid,” another voice piped up from the corner. Now it seemed that the entire room was awake and participating in the conversation. “Yuri is our fearless leader! He’s always calm, no matter what.”
Another girl nodded in agreement from across the room. “He’s like a prince from a storybook! Brave, kind, caring…but also mysterious!”
The last word stung.
Mysterious.
Everyone else nodded in agreement; Yuri turned bright red. He offered the brittle reply of, “Oh, no. That’s not true.”
His fingers searched for something to fiddle with to vent his sheepishness. By reflex, he reached under his pillow and brandished a rounded, palm-sized object. As always, it was heavy and cool to the touch.
“What is that?” one of the children asked. Their neck craned and their spine stretched from over the edge of their bed to get a better look. “Oooh, it’s a pocket watch! How fancy.”
A slightly more mature resident eyed the impressive piece from their bed. “That looks familiar. I think I’ve seen you look at that before.”
“Probably,” Yu agreed. He shrugged again, despite the darkness. His thumbs brushed over the surface delicately, as if not to scuff it with his imperfect fingers. “I…look at it a lot.”
“It looks so expensive!” another child said. Their voice was almost dreamy. “It must have been a gift from someone truly wonderful. Who gave it to you?”
At this, Yuri laughed sadly.
“I...can't remember,” he said. He almost sounded bitter at himself, as if the lapse in memory was his fault.
He continued softly, “This watch was the only thing I had when I came here, but I can’t remember who gave it to me. They must have been a really special person.”
A gentle press of the release caused the watch to snap open with a satisfying click. Inside, a phrase glittered in the moonlight.
Together in Paris.
Who? When? Why?
He clung to the questions like a stranded man would cling to boulders in a stormy ocean. The answers were adrift somewhere, but still too far out of reach for him to firmly grasp.
It was…frustrating. Maddening. Depressing.
The room became stone silent at somber Yuri’s admission. The curious faces that spotted the inky blackness of the room suddenly dissolved into forlorn, mannequin-like expressions. Seeing the orphanage’s ‘fearless leader’ display such pure sadness made the mood deflate. While the darkness hid their individual expressions, it did nothing to conceal the blanket of melancholy that settled over the cold bedchamber.
Finally, one of the other teens dared to speak up.
“Oh…Yuri, we—”
The sound of footsteps thudding heavily up the stairs interrupted the statement. The children scattered instantly, as if they were a herd of rodents that had caught the sight of a fox in the brush.
Every listener dashed to their beds and quickly ducked beneath their blankets.
By the time Yuri thought to slip the pocket watch back under his pillow, the room was filled with light from the hallway. A tall man with an arched spine and terrible posture stood framed in the doorway before stepping inside the room.
It was the orphanage’s headmaster, Morooka. The town's residents called him ‘Poor Morooka’ because of his terrible personality and his position as head of the city’s most notoriously run-down orphanage. While the building and its condition were pitiful to the townsfolk, to him, the institution was the one and only place he could reign over with delusional authority.
Amongst the parentless subjects in the kingdom he ruled over, his haughty demeanor and foolish pride earned him the name ‘King Moron.’
Upon seeing Yuri sitting upright and guilty in his bed, he strode across the room and raised a hand to swipe at him. Thankfully, Yuri reacted just fast enough to avoid the reprimand.
“You nameless brat!” the man griped. A sour frown pulled deeply at the corners of his pursed lips, which did very little to conceal a massive overbite and quivering chin. “You think you would have learned some manners by now! Shut your mouth and go back to sleep.”
“Yes, sir,” Yuri replied distantly. “I apologize.”
As Yuri reclined back in bed, the headmaster saw the glint of the pocket watch in the dark. A terrible smile stretched across his unusually small head.
“I remember the day you came here,” Morooka said, each word dripping with venom. “Together in Paris, huh?”
There was mocking veneer to King Moron’s words that made Yuri want to bolt out of bed and punch him.
“That was the only thing you had on you where you came here…not food or money,” the man continued mercilessly, unable to see how hard Yuri was gritting his teeth in the shadow of night. “You didn’t even try to sell the tacky thing! As if you, a penniless little orphan, has any reason to know the time of day.”
Yuri closed his eyes and kept breathing against his pillow steadily. The berating would end soon. It always did. He just had to wait it out until King Moron has exhausted his ammunition.
“What? You gotta job or something?” he continued, laughing at his own words. “Is someone putting your skinny little arms to work in a factory somewhere? Nah, then you’d have to be useful. Oh! Maybe you need it for a rendezvous with more loudmouth brats?”
The sound of his wobbling footsteps made Yuri wonder if the man had been drinking again. Even his breath was ragged as he staggered across the creaky floor to the opposite end of the bedroom.
Before he reached the door to leave, he turned around one more time. It seemed he couldn’t resist trying to land one last blow.
“That’s just what Paris needs,” he sneered while throwing open the bedchamber door. “Another filthy rat crawling in its gutter.”
The door slammed shut with a thunderous boom. The sound of shattering glass followed a few seconds later. One of the bedroom’s few decorations, a framed pictured of a rose, had fallen to the floor with a crash.
The sound of smashing glass seemed to prompt some of the younger children to cry. Even some of the older children that were closer to Yuri’s age quivered and kept their heads buried under the blankets.
A heavy sigh escaped him. No doubt he’d be punished in the morning for his improper behavior. A long day or chores and menial tasks was surely ahead of him. It wouldn't be the first time he'd suffered such punishment either.
Then there was the hazard of the broken glass.
The young man didn’t want anyone else to suffer for his own self-indulgence. Wasn’t one person’s well-being worth less than a crowd’s?
To Yuri, the answer was obvious.
He also knew that it would be impossible to creep to the downstairs closet to grab a broom without alerting King Moron again.
So, Yuri stayed awake until dawn picking up every shard by hand.