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“I could never leave you, Kiku. I promise. No matter what you do.”
Years of warfare, hostilities, and strife could enfeeble a once serene and authoritative nation with immense ease. Years of warfare, hostilities, and strife could drive the leader of that nation out of their own mind, discombobulating and destroying their morality.
Kiku had never let it show. He never let the rest of the world see that in his mind, he strained to see what was right and what was wrong. He never let anyone else from his nation see that he himself had been watered down to being mentally and morally bankrupt.
Yet, there was one other nation — one other person — that Kiku felt a sense of reliance and security with.
Ever since the Anglo-Japanese Alliance signed in 1902, the two felt a stronger bond and acquaintanceship as the years went by. They spoke regularly and closely — not as Japan and England, but as Kiku and Arthur.
With much more time spent in each others’ company, neither of them would admit it; but in the depths of the two men’s hearts, they could feel a burning sensation that ran far deeper than the usual benevolence formed from an alliance.
One could listen to the other talk for hours on end — days, if responsibilities would so allow it — about certain conflicts and struggles that their own countries each had to face.
Kiku had always admired Arthur for the way he listened to him. The way that his tousled, flaxen hair would sway ever so slightly when he cocked his head to the side, the silent implication of a question. The way his eyes greener than endless, rich fields in the noon would flash him, and only him, compassion and care. The way that he would say on particularly bad days that no matter what happened in Japan, he would strive to help; that he would never leave.
Arthur and Kiku held many things in common. They both were island nations, they both had significant colonial empires and influence, and they both underwent a period of isolation at some point. They struggled with finding friends and alliances to keep themselves secure, and the two believed that it was fate that they had found each other. Fate always worked in mysterious ways.
.
There was a specific dusk where Kiku and Arthur were alone with one another. Kiku had exposed the most profound and darkest depths of his soul for Arthur to see and to listen to.
His typically stoic expression was contorted with emotion and tension. “How can I be with my people when I cannot even lead myself in what is right and what is wrong?” Tears pricked at the edges of his eyelids, but he maintained whatever strength he held left. “How can I be with you ? Why don’t you just leave me? What if I hurt you?”
Arthur had inched forward, gently caressing the side of Kiku’s face as though he was made of the thinnest glass on the earth, which Kiku at the moment felt he was. The Englishman spoke softly, on the brink of a whisper. “Nothing you ever do will hurt me. We are nations, with the pretty much the biggest responsibilities on this planet — of course we’ll lose our sense of morals over time. Compared to others I’ve seen, you’ve been doing a great job already. And . . .
“I could never leave you, Kiku. I promise. No matter what you do.”
Kiku’s eyes flickered up to meet with Arthur’s; the darkest of spruce wood meeting with its emerald leaves. Deep inside of his chest, he felt a sudden burst of something that he had felt before, but on a much stronger scale. a rush of energy, a rush of emotion — a rush of love.
He raised his shaky hands, and before Arthur’s eyes could even widen, Kiku lunged forward with force, toppling the other man over, his fingers wrapped tightly around his neck, more constricting than the deadliest anaconda.
Kiku stared down at the man below him, the panic in his expression more evident than anything he had ever seen on a person before. Oh, how he wanted his gentle voice for himself. How he wanted his solicitous, nephrite eyes for himself. How he wanted Arthur for himself. The adoration and attachment Kiku felt in his soul nearly made him go blind.
A few long minutes full of Arthur’s strangled, betrayed protests had passed. The unintelligible cries had worn down, and were never to be heard again.
Like a mirage in the driest desert, the fleeting love Kiku felt in his core had finally been reduced to nothing. He stared down at the man whom he was kneeling over. The man who had been alive minutes ago. The man who he loved.
The Japanese man’s dazed eyes rested on his hands, and back onto Arthur’s neck. The red imprints of his fingers lingered across the dead man’s throat.
Kiku felt so despaired and at fault, that he felt empty. He made Arthur leave him. He made Arthur break his promise, all because he couldn’t keep his foolish emotions out of his hands. The heart that had once been in his chest and keeping him going seemed to have stopped, and he felt nothing more than flesh and bones with a disguise of a human — because after what he had just done, there was simply no way that he was doing a good job of maintaining his moralities. There was no way he was human.
Kiku leaned forward, and kissed the warmth out of Arthur’s lips, until he was certain that his former lover was out cold for good. He had died with the most soulless eyes Kiku has ever seen. A painful contrast to how he had known him. A contrast to how Kiku would have liked him to die, should he even die at all.
And yet . . . Kiku had been the one to take Arthur’s last breath . . . It was as though his hands and the markings on the Englishman’s neck were a parting gift.
My sweet corpse.
You really are never separated from me.
You never left me, and I you.
Fate always worked in mysterious ways.