Work Text:
A male, harbouring the age of 17, sat down on the cold circular floor— surrounded by bars of gold, and wilting petals of roses painted a dusty pink. His head was adorned by sandy blonde hair, shaped like the spikes of a shark’s teeth. His skin was fair and glowed in highlights of pink that radiated from the petals. His face was like a portrait painted by a magnificent painter, one that saw beauty without blemish, and knew only perfection— for it was fair, soft, and beautiful. He sat just as gracefully as he appeared, with a drape of a soft white blanket cast over his bare lower half, keeping him just as decent as he was always meant to be.
From the description I just gave you, you’d suppose this being was perfect.
But he was not.
Though he sat with grace and poise, his limbs were numb, and they dared not to move their place. Though his eyes were soft and embedded with the colour of a ruby, they had seen many things… so many things that one would almost consider plucking out their eyeballs if but only to test the chance of eradicating the horrible imagery from their mind. He shifted his pupils in the glassy walls of his scleras, and landed them on a pair of broken, tattered, and torn wings attached to his back that- just like him -had once been beautiful, untouched, unscathed, and unharmed. Now they were ruined, stripped of most of their feathers and bones, and forced to hang as a dreadful reminder for the consequences of actions he could not undo.
The boy stifled in a stiff breath and dug his fingers into the blanket tossed around himself before he pulled his head up to glance out of the cage that kept him encased like a pretty little bird. The setting around him was no short of fancy, and it pleasured itself in matching decor and aesthetic with his cage. The floors were a gold and white marble, with blossom pink walls, and dusty pink veils that hung from the windows. The adolescent widened his eyes slightly in exhilaration and peered forward to those windows, brushing his nose against the golden bars whilst he felt the breath of the fresh air exhale over his fine features. He looked at it for a moment and seemed so whimsical, but that joy in his eyes was snatched suddenly as he remembered that… he couldn’t leave his cage, and he could not touch those windows.
He felt like crying, but his red, and puffy eyes had been wrung dry. He had cried so much before that he wondered if he would ever cry again. It was almost as if he were given a limited amount of tears, a limited amount of clear balloons of water that kissed his cheeks like a mother would do to their child, and the whimpers and cries of sadness that escaped his throat were the comforting words of “don’t worry, I’m right here”. But now that they were gone for what he feared would be too long, the boy felt something ache in his chest. He brushed his calloused fingers along said chest— feeling it over the scratchy tough patches of burn marks, dents of disintegration, and scars of knives. He presses his palm against his breast, feeling his heart beat thump against his skin as if it were giving him a high five and cheering him on saying— “you’ve got this, Katsuki!! Keep fighting, Katsuki!!”.
But what did Katsuki have to keep fighting for…
The people who had imprisoned him were so cruel… so… malicious and… selfish. It wasn’t his beauty that they snatched, but his freedom, and how badly he wanted to gain it back. The thought jumped on him like a puma, and his body subconsciously flinched like that was the first time the thought creeped up on him. He looked at the windows more sadly now, and he gripped the bars before he pressed his face up against it, sniffling with his red scratchy nose— picking off flakes of dried skin that left his nose area raw and red. He slowly opened up his puffy eyes and watched the setting in front of him, stomach lurching with the urge to once again run in soft fields of grass, jump in meadows of daisies, and speak how he wanted, when he wanted, and where he wanted.
But alas… it could not be so. But wait… what is all of this? Scratchy flakey skin— burn marks— cuts— red puffy crying eyes— tattered wings— wasn’t he supposed to be without blemish? Wasn’t Katsuki meant to be perfect? Surely, by the first description I gave you, that is the impression I gave you. But… what I gave you was the past. So many things had been ripped away from Katsuki… his pride, his freedom, his choice, and even his dreams and goals. He was a beautiful creature, truly, but he couldn’t see his beauty any longer. All he saw, all he felt, and all he had was pain and hurt. Katsuki had so much once, and although much was handed to him on a silver platter, there’s was still much else that he had to dig up in the barns. He worked hard for what he once had, and for so long Katsuki was under the impression that it could never be taken away— that it could never escape his grasp, wounded too tightly around his fingers like string. But this string was thin, and the knots loosened over time at such a slow pace that he hadn’t the patience to notice. And when Katsuki finally noticed… someone else had already cut the strings and tied on new ones that he couldn’t untie. Katsuki was a piece of the past… the wilting petal of the present… and the futile device of the future.
Katsuki swallowed down hard, trying to stomach his thoughts through the perilous torments in his mind. He clasped the blanket around his waist and slowly stood up, fastening it tightly to his hips lest it dragged. He carefully reached his feet out forward and tapped his bare toes onto the cold golden floor, grimacing as he wished it were grass. Katsuki tried to ignore the petals that crushed and crunched under the weight of his body, and he somehow dragged his whole body over to the bars. He clasped them with his hands, and rested his soft face against their cold touch. He shuddered and imagined the hand of darkness holding his head, murmuring sweet lies that promised freedom if he only bent to his captors wills’ and became one of them. That was all he had to do… become one of them… hurt others as they hurt him, kill others as others wished to do to him… what was innocent lives compared to his freedom anyway…?
“Would they let me go…” Katsuki whispered to himself and sunk down to his knees.
He watched the window again and grimaced. His stomach felt sick as he watched birds fly in the air, dancing in the wind and beckoning him to follow. He grew a quiver over his pale lips and turned his head for fear of crying— imagining how wonderful it must be. Sighing shakily, Katsuki rubbed his eyes and winced.
Would they ever let him go… even if… even if he didn’t become one of them? One with the darkness?
Katsuki sighed again and slowly rolled into his back, gasping in pain and jolting back up. He winced and looked behind him at his wings, forgetting how sensitive they had become. He grimaced; if only… if only they could return. He loved his wings. Surely… surely his captors didn’t need to steal them from him… he knew they did it for fun.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGH!!!”
Katsuki didn’t know what got into him, but he yelled. He screamed and strained his poor throat that only begged for water. He winced again as a sharp pain stung his throat, and he cautiously turned his head around before his eyes landed on a dainty marble bowl of water. He glared at the ground, and his wings slouched. He hated to be surrounded by such beautiful and pure things… it was as if his captors were trying to mimic his home and mock him while doing it. No other place here looked as beautiful as his room where they kept his cage. Was this decent, or rudeness? Why did they treat him so fairly and yet so cruelly at the same time?
He sniffled a bit, and picked up a petal. He brought it to his face and brushed its rough skin against his lips, holding it there whilst shutting his eyes and breathing in. The flowery scent filled his nose, and Katsuki smiled. It was so refreshing… it brought him back to happier times.
Happier times that… he may never get back………