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"You intervened," he says, voice even.
The blue of Ryoh's eyes is clear, the same shade as the sky above Orter's head when he leaves the office. It's piercing, the intensity too much on a regular day — Orter doesn't look away, his face blank. Not today.
"I did," matter-of-fact, as if it's nothing unusual.
As if he didn't point his wand at him for the life of some kid.
There is a mosaic in the very recesses of his mind, grains of sand forming into a single word that cuts right over his ribs in a devastating verdict. He wants to call him a traitor, feels the way venom pools at the corners of his mouth — it's equal parts fair and petty.
He grounds himself, the calm before the storm.
Ryoh's eyes on his are no different from the raging sea.
"He is a mistake," his voice is even, an echo of the earlier attempt at composure. "If we make exceptions for him, the order will fall."
There isn't a single modicum of emotion on the face before him; Orter hates the way their usual dynamic feels flipped. He feels the sharp end of the wand against his spine, aimed somewhere between his shoulder blades — a weapon meant to support him, suddenly the guillotine's blade hanging over his neck.
Ryoh sits in front of him, as if he wasn't ready to be Orter's executioner only an hour prior.
"He has proven himself," he says, finally, fingers locked under his chin.
There is stillness to the moment, a tension thick enough it fills the air around them until there's nothing left to breathe. The gaudy interior of Ryoh's office feels blinding, uncomfortable on the eyes to the point that he wants to close them altogether. He wonders if that's what it feels like to have Ryoh's Thirds aimed at him, the irony tasting bitter on his tongue. It's just like him to blindside those around him, isn't it.
Orter's own personal backstabber.
"He hasn't."
"He has to me."
He grits his teeth, feeling an onset of a migraine.
"Mash Burnedead is unusual, that is true," Ryoh's voice is measured, carefully curated in a way Orter never hears from him. It grazes on his nerves as if they were a naked wire; too bad Ryoh doesn't have it in him to care. "But he is extraordinary in a way this world needs more than ever, Orter. You saw how he saved Vice-Director without hesitation, and, if Mr. Wahlberg trusts him as much as he does, it is enough to sway my vote, too."
He feels the way he bites his tongue, a mixture of his worst thoughts threatening to manifest in a sequence of unnecessary quips. He replays the sound of Ryoh's voice, a benefit of the doubt for a boy he has known for a matter of hours — Orter wonders when he has fallen so low on the list of Ryoh's good graces.
He wonders how he managed to miscalculate what they had going on this badly.
"Regulations mandate that the lackmagics must be purged," his voice feels distant, as if an afterthought of the storm he feels brewing inside. There is an emotion somewhere deep within, the edges of it smudged in the darkest shade of green; a good faith, unfairly bestowed upon an anomaly of this world.
Good faith that wasn't granted to him.
Which is probably the problem.
"Your and Wahlberg's interpretation of the rules is unacceptable. We make an exception for him, and what is next?" His words are clipped, eyes cold as he stares Ryoh down for what feels like the first time during their conversation. There is an anger that feels like sharp needles poking at his skin from underneath, a threat of something lethal at the very tip of his tongue as he keeps talking, "Have you discarded your rationality in favor of nonsensical emotion?"
"What is there in this world, Orter, if not emotion?"
There is the same grating look in Ryoh's eyes, an overly-optimistic faith and relentless hope bordering on naïveté. Orter hates it more than he could ever put into words.
"You are simply too young to understand it now, but you will."
Orter feels the way something inside of him snaps, as if he were suddenly dunked into a frozen lake. There is the same condescendingly apologetic tone to Ryoh's words, every syllable a quick scrape of rusted metal against his nerves.
He feels the bile as it hits the back of his throat.
There is a barely-open eye staring at him, blood gushing down the side of his face — a promise, binding him for life, a pledge to dedicate his whole life to the cause. There are flowers; a myriad of them, covering a tombstone that houses a boy too pure for this world; a boy taken away from him way too soon.
He thinks of that loss, the void inside of his chest that never managed to heal. It's an open wound he never bothered covering; a sense of duty as a pathetic attempt at a distraction. He thinks of the way it claws at the inside of his chest, a never-ending series of pain that has become so normal he barely even notices it.
Emotions are nothing but baggage that threatens to pull him under, a weight so heavy around his neck that he wonders when it will overtake him whole; when his stubbornness will no longer be enough to keep him going.
Yet there are other ones, too.
There are memories, countless, of the most brilliant glow he's ever seen. An azure gleam aimed at him, a color so pure in all its glory that it manages to steal his breath. There is a pathetic feeling of chasing after it, running until it's just within the reach — he grabs at it, just to find nothing in his palm, an ephemeral light gone as fast as he tries to capture it; a useless attempt at attaining what he could never have.
There is a man who shines so bright that Orter forgets all about his rationality.
He wishes the irony was lost on him.
"You have gotten weak, Ryoh Grantz," he says, instead, his jacket swaying as he turns towards the door.
There are words stuck somewhere in his throat, a mess of an emotion he refuses to let out. The venom in the corners of his mouth is all dried up, burning through his own skin as it tears through all that he is. It is better this way, he thinks. It is simpler.
Ryoh, behind him, is quiet. Orter turns his head, one last look past his shoulder as he speaks.
"If you ever dare stop me again, be prepared for it to be your last."
It is simpler.