Rebel Red Carnation {Kiribaku}

XVI

It takes way too fucking long for the guards to decide what's appropriate in terms of keeping me apprehended until they dump me back in The Outskirts. They banter awkwardly back and forth between wanting to blindfold me again or remove the gag and the handcuffs altogether. It's almost amusing to watch them not know how to act around me, now knowing I'm the prince's soulmate and all. I say almost because while they're figuring their shit out, my mind is with Eijirou himself, worrying about what the hell they're going to do to him and if I'm ever going to fucking see him again.

In the end the guards decide to remove my gag but leave the handcuffs. They even give me a sip of water and let me sit in the backseat of the car like a normal fucking human being. While the ride is completely silent, my mind is screaming for a way to figure all this shit out like I have some sort of phantom fucking power that can make Taka-whatever change his mind or... choke on the next greasy turkey leg he devours with his dentures.

Not a word is said when they stop just outside of Yagi City several hours later to drop me off. By now it's past midnight and the outside air is probably below freezing. The guard who removes my handcuffs once I'm out of the car looks at me with what's almost an apologetic gaze before he slips back into the car and not a minute later I'm standing alone in the frigid night air.

With nothing left to do, I start walking—and thinking.

Eijirou. What the hell do they plan to do with him? What kind of punishment are they supposed to give one of the top-ranking members of the royal family for his supposed betrayal (that's not actually betrayal at all, it's just hard to change a stubborn dumbfuck's mind)? And don't they fucking think I did some kind of brainwashing bullshit to him, anyway? How does that warrant a punishment upon him?

It's only been a few hours and I'm already feeling heavy again, being so far away from him. Not knowing if I'll ever get to see him again. Hoping I will, and fighting the ever-strengthening instinct to turn around, head back the way I came, and find him again. He's got to be feeling this shit, too; gotta be feeling every step I make that takes me further and further away from him.

It's fucking stupid and dramatic. I wish he wasn't my fucking soulmate. Things would be so much easier, and he probably never would've vouched for me that first time in the throne room when they were deciding my punishment for breaking into their giant ass house.

...but on the other hand, I wouldn't have these shoes or this sweater. We wouldn't have the food we do, even if it's still not enough. People would be starving to death. Freezing to death. We haven't lost a single person yet this season from famine or hypothermia, and it's because of him.

So regardless of this shitty situation, I can't bring myself to regret anything I've done in the past several months because in one way or another it led up to this. He and I would've met one way or another regardless, and if I'd listened to Ochako the morning I set out for the palace for the first time and stayed home, any other way we'd meet would've ended up way worse with my luck.

They won't touch me, but does that mean they'll leave The Outskirts as a whole alone? Will they try to fucking bomb us or someshit, just because they believe I've corrupted their prince? No way in hell they don't know he's been down here, that this is where he came when he disappeared for a day after my whipping. Who the fuck is to say they hold no vendetta against those of us living in these shitty slums, anyway? And hell, if they bombed us and everyone died—excluding me, because of my newfound, shitty immunity—it would mean they'd no longer have to worry about us (...as if they ever fucking have). What the hell is gonna stop them from annihilating us instead of continuing to sweep us under the rug from this point on?

There are too many questions and on top of my dehydration, my head is beginning to pound with every thud of my heart. Fortunately I'm at the mouth of the main road now, at the spot where they found me to begin with, so there are only a few more blocks to walk before I make it back to my mother.