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Summary
Maki doesn't go back home after buying the knife.
Not the next day, or the day after.
He does not come back.Or: What happens after a hysterical child attempts to kill an adult thrice his size, with more violent experience and physical strength, and why it was better that way.
When the story is stuck between a stone and a hard place, where does one go next?Series
- Part 2 of We Demand A Second Stars Align Season!
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Bookmark Notes:
“A child?” Arashi straightened from his slouch. “Like, my age?”
The maid, acquiesced, surprised.
“Precisely.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so earlier? I have friends from more modest neighbourhoods, maybe that’s why.”
“Young Master, you are mistaken…”
But Arashi was already taking wide strides to the main entrance. He opened the door wide and looked in the direction of the portal.
“Hey,” he called out, “if you’re here to see me don’t just stand there and ring- wait.”
He squinted in the darkness. The figure with dark clothes was sitting under the street light. They turned when Arashi opened the door and yelled, looking surprised. The black and blue face that watched back was all too familiar to Arashi, who took a second to recognise his friend.
“Maki?! Is that you?”
“Young master, do you happen to know this person?”
But Arashi did not pay attention to the servants’ words anymore. He left the house’s doorstep - still in socks - so as to crouch next to Maki.
“Hey… hey!” he passed a hand in front of the other boy’s eyes, and was all too concerned to realise that Maki was quite dazed. “Maki, it’s me, Arashi, the great Ouji Arashi. What happened to you? Should I call a hospital?”
Maki flinched when Arashi’s hand landed on his shoulder, and he seemed to focus once more on the present moment. His gaze finally found Arashi’s, lost and confused. Arashi refrained from shaking his friend by the shoulders, instead waiting more or less patiently for anything that might count as an answer.
“Hospital… no I… I don’t have the money… why… Why are you- here?”
Arashi blinked, but pushed back his first confused response, focusing on Maki.
“You’re in front of my house.”
Maki’s eyes slowly flitted from Arashi to the manor behind them. Then, the thought seemed to click, and he let out:
“Oh.”
Then.
“Sorry.”
There was a plethora of replies Arashi immediately had to stop himself from delivering off the top of his head. Like, why was Maki apologizing, or that he was an idiot, or maybe just ‘who the fuck did this to you?’. Instead, he stood up and inspected Maki with a stern, grave expression. Then, he called the maid that had accompanied him to the doorstep over to them.
“Carry him inside, gently,” he instructed them, then to another one watching from the main corridor, “call the family doctor. Be quick.”
Anyone who played a sport knew about accidents, and they knew that concussions were dangerous if left untreated. Arashi took immediate measures, taking advantage of his parents’ absence to do as he wished. Once Maki was safely carried inside despite his unconvinced protests that he could walk, the portal closed, the door did too, and it was as though no boy had ever stayed crouched under the streetlight of the manor’s entrance.
Everything was clean, prim and proper, as it should be. Looking at the drawn curtains, no one had any reason to think otherwise.
That was how it started.