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After they got the torture room cleaned, things were silent for a few minutes. Ban went to sit on the terrible stone slab where he’d been cut apart, and after a couple moments, Yuki squeezed Momo’s hand and they went to sit with him. Yuki rested his free hand behind Ban in a moment of silent invitation, and Ban quietly leaned over against Yuki’s arm, so Yuki wrapped it around him. No words were exchanged, but maybe they didn’t need words. Maybe they still understood each other the way they once had: in the silence of their thoughts, without need for words, like he and Momo did now.
Ban didn’t give any indication of whether or not he believed this, though. He just leaned against Yuki, eyes half-lidded, and Yuki reached up and ran his fingers through his hair, like Ban had always done for him when they were younger, and Ban’s eyes closed fully and he leaned his head on Yuki’s shoulder, just as Yuki discovered the first mat in his hair.
It wasn’t a tangle. Some sort of brown, hard, crumbly substance was dried in there, and as Yuki tried to get it out, his fingers came away covered in the crumbling brown dust and smelling faintly of iron. He wondered if it was rust, if somehow rust had gotten into Ban’s hair, and continued stroking, before his fingers suddenly hit something wet, and warm, and congealing, and they came away the thickened red-black of drying blood.
Yuki stiffened, and gasped a little, imagining unhealed gashes running along Ban’s skull, and looked over at Momo, raising his bloodied hand. Momo’s eyes widened, and then they narrowed with focus, the silver heart on his cheek glowing, and the scratches on Yuki’s wrists from the handcuffs faded, but nothing changed on Ban’s head.
“There wasn’t anything for me to heal,” Momo said quietly.
Ban raised his head slightly. “What?” he said. “Of course not. If they leave anything behind, they have to be gentler in the next sessions.”
“Then why is there still blood in your hair?” Yuki asked.
Ban shrugged. “They don’t like to clean it,” he replied. “And...I haven’t had the energy to do it myself.”
“Well, isn’t there a sink in here?” Momo asked. “We could clean your hair for you!”
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you…” Ban said, but his eyes flickered with hope, so Yuki squeezed him tighter, and told him that it was no trouble at all.
Momo hopped up, and went over to the sink nailed into the wall, plugging the drain and starting the water running to fill it up.
“It’s cold,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Ban said. “It doesn’t need to be warm.”
Momo peered into the sink as it filled up and Yuki went back to stroking Ban’s hair. “Why is there a sink in here, anyway?” he said. “We didn’t use it much for cleaning.”
“It’s for waterboarding,” Ban said. “It seals up well, so the water doesn’t come out...they don’t do that often, though. Maybe once, twice a week, at most. Unlike the pokers.”
“How is once or twice a week not often?!” said Momo, aghast.
“Because it’s not every day,” Ban replied.
“That’s…” Yuki shuddered. “I’m so sorry, Ban.”
“It isn’t your fault,” Ban told him. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
“You’re my best friend, Ban!” My soulmate, Yuki almost said, but that wasn’t true, not anymore. “Of course I’m going to be worried about you.”
Ban smiled a little against Yuki’s shoulder. “You’ve really grown up, haven’t you?” he said.
“...I really missed you, though,” he said.
“I missed you, too,” Ban replied. “But...I think it was for the best, that I left.”
“Why?” Yuki asked.
“Well, for one, you and Momo were able to soulbond,” Ban said. “I don’t think you would’ve done it...or, at least, done it so soon if I’d stayed, which means that you have two soulbonds now, which is wonderful.”
A hot flash of guilt shot through Yuki. He couldn’t say anything, though--if Ban didn’t know, he didn’t want to hurt him more by telling him, and Momo didn’t know, either--didn’t know what a failure Yuki was as a soulmate, didn’t know the reason behind his glove. And Yuki couldn’t ever tell him.
“And, for two...did you know I used to be King Takanashi’s advisor?” Ban said. “My power, the ability to see the future, it made me an invaluable resource to him...before it stopped working a few months after the castle fell.”
Yuki held back a wince--of course Ban hadn’t been able to access his power after he’d broken their soulbond...he was honestly surprised Ban hadn’t figured it out, already.
“The water’s ready,” Momo said, his voice just slightly subdued. It made sense--Yuki had always admired Momo’s ability to keep smiling through anything, but today had sucked, totally and completely. It was no wonder Momo’s face had fallen.
Yuki and Ban headed over to the sink, and Ban crouched down and dipped his long hair in, and Yuki and Momo began to wash it.
Ogami Banri was no idiot. He knew the signs of a broken soulbond well.
How could he not?
When he had left Yuki, all those years ago, the first place he had gone was a library, to study as much about soulbonds as possible. He learned how to break them, and the process that took--you made a choice, hard and clean and clear with no regrets, no feelings of love or hate or anything in between, and snapped as hard as you could. In a matter of weeks, the soulbond would fade from your skin as though it was never there, and on the other side, your former soulmate’s skin scabbed over under the soulbond until it fell off, leaving a scar behind and leaving them unable to access the magic that had once connected their souls--and he learned how to break someone else’s soulbond--to crush their soul and destroy it. The symptoms on the unlucky person’s soulmate would be the same as one who had broken their own soulbond--a fading mark over months or days, indistinguishable from a break until the soul itself finally snapped and the soulbond ran red with blood before healing into a scar.
And he knew the effects of a broken soulbond, too: total loss of any and all magic gained through the soulbond. Yuki and Banri had each only had the one: if Banri broke it now, not only would Yuki have to watch his soulmark break off and scar over, but he’d lose his telekinesis. Banri would be glad to no longer see glimpses of possible futures whenever he turned his head, but he couldn’t take Yuki’s power away from him.
And, selfishly, he still loved him too much to ever be capable of breaking the soulbond. He had left, after the visions in quick succession: Yuki collapsing dead from a falling beam, and then, after Banri had shoved him out of the way and taken the blow: Yuki, in a court, an established bard with Momo by his side, both of them smiling, happy and soulbonded. Yuki wore a glove over his and Banri’s soulmark, but even in the vision, Banri could feel its continued existence. The visions spun past at a dizzying speed while he slept--a war, an Okazaki prince’s patronage. Momo and Yuki, secretly somehow the most important people in the country, failsafes against a lost war. Yuki’s wedding, him and Momo smiling radiantly at each other, Banri nowhere to be seen.
And when he had awoken--when Yuki had told Banri about Kujo’s deal--he had known why.
Banri had closed the book and left it in the library, left their soulbond intact, and used his visions of the future to settle in the country of Takanashi, far from Okazaki, and prepared to never see Yuki and Momo again.
And when Kujo came again--when Kujo brought the war--when Kujo brought the child who could control minds and started hammering on Banri’s soul, because a prisoner who could see the future was a prisoner who it was hard as fuck to contain--Banri realized his mistake.
He realized it the day they took the king away for execution, the day he realized there was no more hop, the day his soul began to shatter--
Yuki wouldn’t know why.
Banri hoped against hope that he wouldn’t realize. That he would think he had just forgotten the color of Banri’s soul, not that Banri’s soul was breaking or that Banri had snapped their soulbond. Or--even worse--
Banri knew more about soulbonds than Yuki. He’d considered breaking his, after all. But Yuki had never once thought about breaking a soulbond. What if he didn’t realize? What if he thought he broke theirs on accident?
He couldn’t think that, Banri knew he couldn’t. He could still feel Yuki’s soul in the back of his hand if he concentrated, so surely Yuki could feel his as well.
He only hoped that the state of his soul wasn’t the reason for the glove in that vision he’d had.
It took three full tubs of water to get all of the blood out of Ban’s hair, and a fourth to make sure that they hadn’t missed anything. Afterwards, Ban wrung it out and detangled it with his fingers. He smiled at Yuki as footsteps came closer--guards, probably, to bring them back to the cell.
“You’re a great soulmate, Yuki,” he said quietly, and Yuki felt guilt gnaw at his chest and leave him silenced.