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Power comes in different forms.
Chuuya’s used to using his fists and his feet in order to solve problems that block his way, but there are situations where not even the most powerful fighting prowess can do anything.
Not even all of Sheep’s savings pooled together could buy medicine for an incurable disease. Considered a curse by the townsfolk, Red Roses slowly cannibalizes the afflicted’s body, until their skin becomes so thorny, ending with their face blooming like roses budding.
Things categorized as curses are things where medicine are useless. Not even begging the town’s strongest and priciest mage could garner them an audience aside from one sneering glare, and a perfunctory, “May his soul find peace in earth.”
Shirase has been inconsolable, spending his remaining waking moments begging him to do something to save him. It would have been great if he could simply punch the rose-like marks that have started to form thorny spots on his forearms.
However, he isn’t the type to give up.
Just as how there are things considered as curses, there are also things considered as things that could counter them.
There’s supposedly a Beast that lives deep in the Blue Forest, in a mansion that has a garden where roses bloom with bloody diamonds. It is said if one is able to offer the bloodiest diamond during the full moon, then they’d be able to give birth to a vessel that can absorb and repel any curse.
Shirase took him into Sheep’s fold when he’d been penniless and homeless and without anything on his person aside from tattered clothing. It’s only right that he pays that favor back, even if it means risking his life to enter the territory of this so-called Beast.
-
The Blue Forest is eerily silent during his journey. There’s no ambient sound from lurking creatures, no other breath aside from his own. There’s a haunting beauty in how barren it is, trees with their skeletal trunks bleached of color until all that remains are veiny blue.
In contrast, the ground is a deep red of a ground moistened by fresh blood. Combined with the blue that extends even to the trees’ gnarled roots, it’s as if the forest pulses with blood. Vitality in its aesthetic, even when there seems to be no life in its radius.
He doesn’t bring any weapon with him aside from a serrated dagger that has been with him for several years. A small backpack hangs on one shoulder, dried food that could be rationed over a week if he’s careful not to expend too much energy.
It’s uncertain if it’s good news or not that he reaches the heart of the forest sooner than expected.
The moon above is nearly-full. The full moon has just finished and would need around twenty days before it would return—but that’s assuming that the sky here isn’t governed by strange rules.
It seems so different from the world in his cognition, and he’s been to a lot of places due to selling his services as a hired mercenary, in order to raise more money for Sheep.
At the heart of the forest, there stands a castle fenced by diamonds. The crystalline quality makes it shine with otherworldly glow under the moonlight. It has more windows than he’s used to seeing from residences, but there’s only one giant door in the middle. It would appear like a harmless, if fascinating castle, if not for the extraneous piece of décor: in front of the clock face that has no numbers to indicate time, there’s instead a bandaged man that swings like a demented pendulum, or a faulty minute-hand.
…Such tacky décor is apparently alive, for it calls out with a saccharine voice, “Shorty who’s gaping at my beauty, do help me down from here—this isn’t a fun way to commit suicide at all.”
-
“…You’re the Beast?”
The not-actually-a-décor pouts at him, rubbing his reddened wrists. “Say, why do you sound so disappointed?”
Disappointment doesn’t feel right, but it’s close. After all, with all the word-of-mouth and advice-of-caution that he’s garnered from several townsfolk, the Beast is supposedly such a formidable creature, with magic capable of countering curses. To discover that he’s just human with strange brain circuits is… eye-opening, to put it mildly.
“I was expecting someone who looks more reliable,” is his honest response. “Not someone who’d try to hang himself atop a clock tower, then having to beg a passerby to help him down.”
“Calling you a passerby is quite gauche.” The childish aura dissipates, like water driven away by a droplet of oil. “Aren’t you here to steal one of my lovely roses?”
He narrows his eyes. Instead of foreboding or fear crawling up his limbs, something like interest and relief appears. “Calling it ‘theft’ would be incorrect. I don’t mind doing a fair exchange for it.”
“A bloody diamond under the full moon,” the bandaged man says with a dreamy tone, before clapping his hands. “There’s some time until the next full moon, so why don’t you work for me in the meantime?”
-
This work is a tedious, but simple affair.
“How do you even manage to survive in this castle on your own?” He asks on the third morning, one hand on his hip and another stirring a hearty seafood chowder. “Since you are a menace upon all sorts of housework.”
Three days is more than enough to open his eyes about the situation. Dazai is the name given by the so-called Beast, and that’s the name that he has incessantly cursed throughout his stay.
His current job is to act as some maid-of-sorts for this man, and that involves taking care of all housework, as this human-skinned beast is lazy beyond reproach. On the rare times that Dazai has enough energy to stop napping or lazing around, he causes so much trouble. He can’t even be trusted to help wash vegetables, an act so easy that the memory of it gives Chuuya hives.
“Mm, aren’t you here now?” Dazai raises his eyebrows and sinks more comfortably in the pile of pillows on the armchair on the head of the dining table. “There are many like you who come here hoping to cut deals with me, after all.”
He shudders as the memory of rooms entombed with thick dust. They’ve been a nightmare to clean yesterday. What’s the use of all those rooms, when there’s only one occupant anyway?
But, he doesn’t say anything about that. He glances out of the window, where it overlooks the rose garden.
It should be nearing noontime according to the clocks, but the light layered above the garden is a faint blue. The sun isn’t visible, as the skeletal trees in the surrounding area are tall enough to form a domed canopy to filter out the sight of the sky. It seems as if only the moon could detangle those branches to allow a glimpse of the sky during nighttime.
Then again, even with this kind of lighting, the garden’s undeniable beauty is obvious to the eye. The dense row of gravestones beyond the garden is also very visible. Doubtlessly buried in that soil are the many travelers who have failed to acquire the blood diamond properly.
“If you dare to trick me, I’m going to cut you instead,” he says instead, mild in tone despite the sincerity of his threat.
Dazai may be a walking twig, but his face’s thickness is one-of-a-kind. He’s unaffected by the threat, instead whistling and saying, “If you cut me and I end up bleeding all over the place, it’d be you who’d clean it up.”
He clicks his tongue. “You’re lucky you live alone here, or else any companion would die of hypertension due to dealing with you.”
Faint snickering. “If that’s your way of asking if I’m single and lonely and looking for someone to warm my bed, it’s a very clumsy attempt.”
He takes the big pot away from the flames, his current task of cooking lunch completed. “If you’re feeling cold, I can always burn your bed as you sleep.”
“How scary, how scary,” is how Dazai eventually replies to his caustic words, the tone not unlike someone coaxing an unruly pet.
-
Nearly two weeks since he has stepped into the territory of the Blue Forest, and he has grown quite used to literally pulling Dazai off his bed come mornings.
“If you’re that much in need of a beating, I’m more than happy to oblige.” His hair is all messed up, his clothes askew. Lately, every night is spent in futile attempts of warding off the Beast away from his quilts.
“It’s too entertaining watching you drool as you sleep,” Dazai defends his actions of climbing someone else’s bed with this utterly false statement. “It’s pretty funny, it’s almost like you’re a dog.”
“What does drooling in one’s sleep have to do with dogs?!” Then, he whips at the other using the blankets that he pulls off his bed. “Also! I don’t drool in my sleep!”
“Isn’t it a good enough payment for my hospitality? I give you a place to sleep, and I take that as well?”
A heavy eyeroll. “I must be cursed if I have to deal with someone like you.”
-
And then, there’s a strange slithering sensation inside his brain, like knowledge trying to bud free from its confines.
-
Ah, that’s right.
He’s here because in search for a blood diamond, so he can undo the curse on Shirase. He isn’t here on some vacation, he isn’t here to become the maid of this lazyass bastard. He’s here so he could help Shirase survive; he isn’t here to find something like a happy ending.
He raises his eyes and looks at the man in front of him.
Dazai’s expression is a deep lake undisturbed by pebbles thrown into its surface. The easygoing childishness is swallowed up by the air; only a terribly dull visage is left. “Ah, is it time for this performance to end?” A slow clap without any warmth. “Perhaps as expected of someone so small, our time together is regrettably short.”
-
Restraining a beanpole doesn’t require much effort from his end. Not only because the other man seems to be allergic to exercise and physical training. Even if he may be the Beast in the folklore, Dazai is human, after all. It’s not surprising that he’s weak compared to him.
Then again, what he lacks in physical strength is present in his steady composure not cracking even when he’s tied up and manhandled towards the garden. Almost-bored, “Have you discovered something?”
He’s never had the patience for tricks and mindgames. Straightforward questioning is more his style. “Can your roses really counteract curses?”
The longer that he’s stayed in Dazai’s castle, bathed in that gentle blue haze, the less he feels the desire to return to his old life. The less motivated he feels in trudging back out of the Blue Forest, the less desire he feels to be back with Sheep. It should be laughable, because it’s not as if his life has seen improvement upon staying in this castle.
In fact, he’s had more headaches while in this place than the entirety of his life.
The idea that he’d choose staying here over returning to those that he’s sworn to protect should be beyond laughable.
And yet, something twinges in him.
Maybe he’s been cursed as well.
“It’s not my roses,” Dazai corrects him, more serene than the warm moonlight. “And it’s the diamond that blooms from their petals, washed in blood and in the light of the moon.”
“And such a thing is enough to counter any curse in the world?”
Dazai’s hands and feet are bound tightly together. He doesn’t seem to mind, bending towards him with crescent eyes. Their foreheads touch, his appearance reflecting vividly on the other’s eyes.
“It would absorb the curse inside it, therefore removing the curse from the affected person.” It sounds reasonable enough, but something tells him that it’s not the entire truth. His doubt must be too obvious, because Dazai sighs and rubs their foreheads together briefly, before pulling away. “I don’t lie in negotiations like this.”
He doesn’t shove the bandaged man away from him. “If you consider admitting this information to be a ‘negotiation’, then there must be some trade-off.”
“It’s a small thing,” is followed by a snigger. “After you use the diamond, I just want you to return it here, that’s all.”
He doesn’t glance at the dense graveyard nearby. There’s no need to. There’s a big possibility that returning here would mean sending himself to a freshly-dug grave. Curses are tricky things after all, and no sane creature would want to dabble in it.
Dazai doesn’t strike him as the type of person who cares neither about material belongings nor sentimentality. Even as he has presumably stayed in this castle for a long time, there’s hardly anything that shows a lot of personal touches.
So, the reason for wanting the diamond back must be—
“You’re gathering the curse energy it absorbs?”
Dark eyes flicker. A shrug that doesn’t outright admit to it, but doesn’t deny it either. “Sounds like a fair tradeoff, doesn’t it?”
He responds by plucking a diamond nestled in the middle of the nearest rose. Raises it up to his lips, feeling the coldness of the lustrous gemstone. Dazai cooperates by taking it from his mouth using his own lips, teeth catching his lips, a small nip enough to let a droplet of blood well out.
“Hold it in front of the cursed person and it’d absorb the curse from them,” is hushed in the middle of this gorgeous garden. All the other diamonds shine at him, their glassy surfaces faintly reflecting his monstrous body, one that has long been ravaged by black fire. “And then, someday, come back to me.”
“I won’t forget it,” he says, something like irritability pinching his chest. “I’ll return here.”
“It’s a promise,” Dazai says after a while. There’s an ethereal quality to him now, almost blending him in with the Blue Forest. “I’ll hold you to your promise, Chuuya.”
-
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Power comes in many, different forms.
Physical prowess, emotional stability, mental aptitude. Strong curses rooted deep into the earth itself bypass conventional knowledge, unable to be defeated by the usual methods.
The curse that has taken Chuuya’s identity and fate is perhaps the most powerful curse in this land. An exchange that the other man once made in order to save the world. An exchange that Dazai has been trying to invalidate for so long, he couldn’t even keep track of the years anymore.
Deep in the middle of this forest where the sun doesn’t shine, he could only cultivate a garden of roses and wait for Chuuya again and again and again, so he could come here and be purified slowly, slowly, slowly.
Surrounded by all the rooms that are filled with memories over the years, by the ever-present blue to remind him of his beloved’s eyes, this castle promises to defeat the ravages of time.
Power comes in many, different forms.
“To make someone unmotivated like me persevere even to the point that I’m considered a beast by others,” Dazai touches the glass windows as he watches Chuuya’s back as he leaves the castle again, as he waits for Chuuya to return to his castle again. The longing in his gaze could be called beautiful and beastly in equal turns. “This kind of gravity that you possess… is perhaps the most powerful force of it all.”
In this land where the sun doesn’t exist whenever Chuuya isn’t around, he could only wait for him until the cycle repeats all over again, again, again.
Until the day that when he comes back to him, there’d be no need to leave.
-
end