Chapter Text
Kurode didn’t remember when he’d stopped pacing and started wrecking things.
All he knew was the sound.
The room echoed with it. sharp cracks, the thud of objects hitting walls, the scrape of a chair leg dragged too hard across the floor. His breathing came in harsh, uneven bursts, like he was gulping air through broken glass.
He stood in the center of the destruction, chest heaving, fingers twitching with leftover adrenaline he didn’t know what to do with.
It wasn’t enough.
Nothing he did ever felt like enough.
His vision blurred at the edges, not with tears. he was past tears. but with that suffocating, electric static that made everything feel unreal. Too bright. Too loud. Too wrong.
A cracked vial rolled across the floor and tapped his boot. Kurode flinched away from it like it had teeth.
“stop it..” he whispered to himself. It came out more like a plea than a command. “stop.. just.. stop, stop it..!”
But stopping was impossible. The inside of his skull felt clawed open, and every thought screamed over the next.
Merold is right.
He’s tired of you.
You take too much space.
You ruin everything you touch.
You will always be viewed as his shadow.
He pressed his hands over his ears, nails digging into his scalp. “shut up.” His voice cracked. “just shut up....”
The room tilted. His heartbeat raced in a frantic, sickening rhythm that made his fingertips numb. His skin buzzed with the urge to do something, anything, to make the chaos stop. His hands twitched toward a shard of glass almost automatically. familiar territory he didn’t want but kept slipping into. He grabbed the biggest and closest shard he could and rolled up his sleeves with shaking hands.
The pressure in his chest was unbearable. like something trapped inside him was trying to burst free. A raw sound tore from his throat, half-sob, half-snarl, and he staggered backward until his spine hit the wall.
He slid down it, legs weak, head dropping.
With utter fear yet craving for relief, he dragged the glass shard along his wrists his elder brother once protected like it was my melody. Drip, after drip. The blood kept dripping from his cuts to the floor boards, making a faint plop on the way down. His shaking figure got worse the more he cut. but he didn't care. he just wanted this to be over.
after all of it. his breath wouldn’t steady. His thoughts wouldn’t quiet. The things Merold had said. offhand, frustrated, too sharp. they were replaying over and over, until they no longer sounded like Merold at all, but like the truth Kurode always feared lived inside him.
Too much.
Too intense.
Too emotional.
Too easy to break.
His pulse pounded against his ribs like a trapped animal. The urge to disappear. run, lash out, vanish, anything, twisted in his gut. He grabbed the shard again, gripping it tightly in his once soft and protected hands. but it still wasn’t grounding him. he needed more
He wanted the world to stop spinning.
He wanted his mind to stop screaming.
He wanted...
he didn’t even know what he wanted.
Just. something that would make this unbearable weight inside him unstitch itself.
A shudder tore through him. His throat felt raw from breathing too fast.
I’m going to lose everyone.
Why would anyone stay?
I'm just a shadow of the worlds greatest knight.
Why want me when the perfect one is there.
His entire body clenched at the thought. A cold, slippery terror slid under his ribs.
That was when he realized he was whispering Cielomort’s name under his breath like a mantra, like a warding spell, like something sacred he didn’t deserve.
“Ci—” His voice caught. “Cielomort, I… I can’t… I can’t do this”
The confession dissolved into a ragged inhale.
Kurode pressed his forehead to his knees, shaking as the blood continued to trickle down into the pool of blood forming on the ground beneath him.
The room felt too small. His skin felt too tight. His thoughts felt too big.
He didn’t hear the door open.
Not at first.
Only when the soft shift of air reached him, quiet and careful,did he freeze. His heart lurched painfully.
He didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
His entire body knew.
“Kurode.”
Cielomort’s voice was gentle, but not delicate.. warm enough to melt frost, steady enough to anchor a storm.
Kurode flinched, instinctively curling in on himself. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t come closer. You don’t want to see me like this.”
“I already do,” Cielomort replied softly. “And I’m not turning away.”
Kurode squeezed his eyes shut. The shame hit him in a sharp wave, but so did something else. relief, aching and frightening in its intensity.
Cielomort stepped forward, the soft thud of his boots slow, deliberate, giving Kurode every second to pull away, to scream, to run.
Kurode didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
His breath trembled as Cielomort knelt beside him, close but not touching. Not yet.
“Kurode,” he said again, quieter now. “What happened?”
Kurode let out a broken laugh. “what didn't.”
His voice cracked entirely on the next word. “I. happened.”
He waited for disappointment. For judgment. For distance.
What he got instead was a softness that made his throat burn.
“You’re hurting,” Cielomort murmured. “That’s not something you have to face alone.”
“I’m a mess,” Kurode whispered. His hands trembled violently in his lap. “I’m... wrong. He said I’m too much, that I’m impossible to deal with, and he’s right, I know he is, I know—”
“Kurode.”
Cielomort reached out. not grabbing. not forcing. just placing one warm, steady hand over Kurode’s shaking ones.
The contact broke him.
A harsh sob ripped from his chest before he could swallow it down.
Cielomort moved closer, easing an arm around him, not pulling, only supporting, as though giving Kurode a place to collapse if he needed it.
And he did.
He leaned into Cielomort like a dying star seeking gravity, hands clinging desperately, breath coming in shuddering gasps that shook both their bodies. Cielomort's clothes slowly getting recoloured in the quavering boys blood
“You’re safe,” Cielomort whispered into his ear gentility. “With me, you’re safe.”
Kurode’s fingers curled into Cielomort’s shirt, clutching like he was holding on for his life. “Please don’t go,” he breathed, the words spilling out before he could swallow them. “Please stay. Even if I’m like this.”
Cielomort tightened his hold. not in a suffocating way, just strong enough for Kurode to feel every inch of it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Not tonight. Not because of pain. Not ever because you are ‘too much.’”
Kurode’s breath hitched.
Cielomort’s voice was a steady rhythm in the chaos, a low warmth that soaked into the cracks.
“You are not too much for me,” he murmured. “You never have been.”
Kurode broke once again. softly this time, a slow crumbling instead of an explosion. In Cielomort’s arms, the weight inside him loosened, just enough for him to breathe without drowning.
Just enough to believe, for one flickering moment, that he wasn’t alone in the dark.