Takemura Itsuki

A small gust of wind blew from the right to the left. The blonde hair of the figure softly flattered a little on the forehead before being back in its original shape after the wind had gone. The streamlined eyes of the figure of Katsuki were fixed at the front. His arms were on the railings of the white castle, his right leg a little bent inwards, and his back bent a little frontward. His eyes were glaring at the beautiful view of the garden in front of the castle. The bushes were cut professionally to look like a little maze while the surrounding area of the little maze was just black-green little grass. In the middle of the maze-like structure was a large circular fountain. Katsuki’s eyes were fixed on the fountain as he peacefully stood and watched the water coming out of it. Katsuki then turned his head a little up, looking at the crescent moon in the middle of some dark clouds. As he looked at the peaceful scenery, he suddenly remembered the narrowed eyes and the crossed arms of the slender female with black heels and a green robe. “You should have known.”

“That filthy hero has taken away the peace of my life,” Katsuki thought. “This place… It’s changed a lot over the past years.”

“In what aspects?”

I turned my head back, and looked at the smiling face of another figure just my age, wearing the green robe. He quietly walked towards the railing, and stood on my left. With his eyes fixed on me with a large smile, he asked again, “In what aspects has this castle changed, Katsuki?”

“Ayato…” I looked into his eyes for a second, and then turned my head to the front. “The pressure here is rising day by day, don’t you think?”

“Of what?”

“Of the prophecy.”

Ayato turned his head to me, with a doubtful smile on his face. “The hell you mean?”

“You can’t act serious, shithead,” Katsuki replied with his straight face.

“I know, man!” Ayato replied. “But you were just so serious tha—”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, second in-command.” Ayato silently turned his head to the front, looking at the same scenery as me in the middle of the comfortable wind blowing. “The prophecy is something that can’t be changed, right? What’s about to happen will happen.”

“Can say.”

“So why are you taking the pressure of your defeat on yourself, Katsuki?”

Katsuki turned his head at him, looking seriously into his eyes. He turned at him too.

“You’re just… destined to fail over and over, so why are you even sad about not being able to do something which you couldn’t have done anyway?”

“Both the times Itsuki had gone out of my hands were just because of his pure luck. Both the times, I had my chances of killing him up, but I fucked up.”

“That’s because you were destined to fuck up, no?”

“I can do it, Ayato. I had seen him fight. I know his weaknesses.” Katsuki turned his head to the front. “Next time he’s before my eyes, Imma kill him.”

“You can’t kill him this time,” Ayato said, turning his head to the front. “He’s at the capital now, right under our noses. If we kill him here, in our own home, there is a great chance that the revolutionary sentiments might rise up. We gotta do it in a way that no one at the capital gets to know about his death.”

“When are the rankings taking place?”

“About a month or two, I guess.”

“We gotta do it before it starts,” Katsuki said. “That’s the only option left right now. The prophecy said that he’d become famous by participating in the competition, and he’d earn fame. If that really happens, we won’t be able to kill him.”

“Yeah, because if he’s killed being famous, more people would rise up against the king for him.”

“Yeah.”

“But don’t worry, man,” Ayato smiled, turning his head at me and patting my left shoulder. “Don’t take any pressure on yourself. That Akira is a bitch. Don’t pay heed to her words.”

***

“Can I do it?”

I had my eyes tilted toward my loosely opened palms which were in the middle of my thighs. “Without Haruto, will I really be able to do it?” I thought. I suddenly remembered him extending his right hand towards the red ruby at the corner of the roof of the building which was falling down, with little pebbles and pieces of bricks falling down all around him. “Yeah, it’s always because of him that I win… or rather… that we win.”

“I want him back beside me. He doesn’t even know how much I still miss him every single day.”

“Miss me?”

I turned my head to the front. I looked at the faint black hallucination of the figure of Haruto. “H-Haruto…” I said with my humid eyes wide open.

“You miss me?! The great Itsuki?! The loner?!”

I smiled a little, my lips trembling. “So what, you dumbass? You don’t miss me?”

“It’s not usual for the great loner Itsuki-sama to miss someone as little as me, Itsuki-sama.”

“Yeah, it’s just not so me, Haruto. I’ve seen shit you were seeing, and I’ve experienced loneliness just like you did. So, I guess I have changed a little again.”

“Damn, pal!”

“Stop it, you dumbfuck!”

“And, do you think I miss you?”

My mouth remained wide open as I froze, glaring at the black silhouette standing in front of me. From my right wet eyes, a drop of tear ran down my cheek.

“Do you think I do? Do you wanna hear the truth?”

“I-I…”

“I don’t.”

“… At last, it was you who left me in the first place, Itsuki.”