For a moment they just stayed like that, immersed in that awkward silence, until Snow finally gathered enough courage to glance at him again.
Even though he had given into his demand, ZaiWin1Literally zai (blade) + win (chaos). didn’t look any happier than before, his face still serious and bleak.
Lightly massaging his aching wrist, Snow tried to focus on what VinWei had asked of him again.
“It wasn’t your fault …” he whispered, but the harsh, threatening glare he immediately received made him instantly shut up.
Frowning in anger at his own cowardly reaction, for once Snow raised his head and faced him, eye to eye.
“Fine! It was all your fault! Are you happy hearing that instead?” he demanded. “If what happened was your fault, then it was my fault as well! If you’re kneeling like that in regret, I will kneel as well!” he declared, scooting to the edge of the bed, ready to make true on his words, but two large hands immediately grabbed his arms, pulling him back.
“What are you doing?!”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Snow demanded, trying to get rid of those annoying hands. “I’m trying to ask you to forgive me! So that I can forgive myself! You won’t let me say that it wasn’t your fault! Because I’m an idiot, who is always blindly trying to fix everything around me! Which means that I’m an idiot based on the fact that I’m a Celestial! But what can I do? When I’m actually glad that you did what you did? If that red array had killed you, I … I … I would have died as well!” Snow openly declared, his eyes filling with tears at the mere thought of what could have happened, his throat constricting, making it harder to breathe. “So what if you ended up hurting me a bit while saving my life? But you don’t want to hear any of that! You will only say that I’m silly, and you will brush it away under the justification that I think and feel this way because of what I am. Because of something I cannot change! Since that’s the case, the only thing left for me to do is to ask for your forgiveness. It’s either that or tell you what you’ve just told me. That I will leave your side, and that you won’t see me again until I somehow find a way to control it.”
The hands around his arms immediately held him more firmly, as if that could stop him from simply disappearing. And yet, the blue eyes staring up at him looked confused, as if ZaiWin had been caught by surprise by something unexpected.
“You didn’t like hearing that, right?” Snow asked, wiping his eyes. “That I would simply leave. And yet you just threw those same words at me without a second thought. You didn’t even care about how hearing that might make me feel!”
“That’s … not how I meant it,” ZaiWin finally said, still at a loss for words, trying to quickly put his own thoughts in order. “I just want to make sure you’ll be safe. I cannot go through what happened yesterday again!”
“And you think I don’t feel the same? You think I’m okay with seeing you get hurt? With knowing that I might have killed you if you hadn’t acted so fast?”
Snow frowned, his frustration and fear quickly escalating to anger.
“Let go of me!” he demanded, successfully taking advantage of Zaiwin’s stunned state of mind to shake his arms free from his grip. “I hate it that you can make me feel like this! I hated it that I’m always confused all the time! I hate it that you can make me feel happy and that you can make me feel horrible in the next instant! My heart is always either jumping from exciting or hurting so much that I wish I could die! I hate it that you always manage to convince me to do what you want, even when I don’t want to! That I’m always stupid enough to blindly believe your words! I wish I could just slap you and leave you here! Kneeling like an idiot! Trying to make me blame you for something that was not your fault! Worrying like an idiot that you hurt me while completely failing to see what really hurts me! And I hate myself even more! For feeling hurt because of a stupid thing that I know that it’s none of my business! For losing my calm because of something so ridiculous. For having placed your life at risk because of that!”
Snow squeezed his chest and bent forward, coughing.
ZaiWin’s head was buzzing from everything he’d just heard and hadn’t been able to process. Suddenly, the only thing he knew for sure was that Snow was in pain again. And so he simply reached out to him, wanting to somehow make him feel better.
His hand was immediately slapped back, so hard that a burning sensation actually remained on his skin. And then those dark eyes were glaring threateningly at him, as Snow tried his best to keep his breathing under control.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me! As long as you keep stubbornly insisting on remaining inside your own head, trying to make amends to a Snow that only exists in your imagination, you’re not allowed to touch me!”
ZaiWin blinked at that, feeling increasingly more confused. No matter how much he looked at Snow he just couldn’t recognize the young man staring angrily back at him. And all those unfamiliar words … where were they coming from? Sure, he could clearly see those small, pinkish lips move, and he could clearly recognize the sound of his voice. But there was no way that he was the same person he had known all that time. The same person he had thought he knew, a small voice corrected him, coming form the back of his mind.
So … what was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to say? He felt so overwhelmed that all he was able to do was stare up at those dark eyes in bewilderment.
He was not allowed to touch him. The words finally registered in his mind, and ZaiWin immediately frowned at that. Somehow, of all the things Snow had said, of all the insults he had directly and indirectly thrown his way, that was the most unforgivable thing of all. He needed to touch him, he suddenly concluded looking up at him. If he couldn’t touch him, what little peace of mind he was able to attain on a daily basis, would be completely gone! And so, without a second thought, he reached out his hand to touch Snow’s face. But, like before, it was quickly and violently slapped away.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?!” the strange young man in front of him demanded angrily. “Besides! Didn’t you just tell me that you would leave me here and go who knows where, for who knows how long?! What are you doing? Wanting to touch me! You just told me that you could easily spend endless days without even seeing me! Without even knowing if I was dead or alive! Not being allowed to touch me is nothing compared to that!”
“I … didn’t mean it like that.”
“You didn’t mean it like that?!” Snow immediately repeated, the irony heavy on his voice. “Is there any other way to interpret those words?”
“I just wanted to make sure you’d be safe,” ZaiWin argued but Snow’s scowl only deepened.
“No. You were just using me to make yourself feel better! You used my feelings for you and blackmailed me into making that stupid promise! This way you can tell yourself that I’ll be safe and you can make yourself feel better! To accomplish that, you practically threatened to throw me away! After you’ve skilfully convinced me to say that I belong to you! Is this why you wanted me to say that? So that you could have the right to throw me away?”
“Snow … you’re mixing everything up,” ZaiWin gently declared, clearly trying to appease him, reaching out to hold his clenched hands, but Snow quickly evaded his touch.
“So what if I’m mixing everything up? Who’s fault do you think that is?” he immediately fired back. “But no. The Snow inside your head is nothing like this! He can just accept whatever you tell him without questioning. If you tell him that he’s wanted he’ll just nod his agreement. If you tell him that he’s not needed, he’ll just sadly accept it. He never gets angry. He never feels insecure. He never feels jealous. He never feels frustrated. He never gets hurt. He’s a freaking Celestial, and so he’s either happy or sad. He either feels safe or afraid. And he’s an idiot who will quickly forgive and forget all the hurtful things that are done and said to him. And so you only need to worry about keeping him alive and unharmed, like some frail doll made of glass. And you can simply wallow yourself in self-commiseration, when you fail to do that. And that’s all good and well. It’s just that … I’m not that perfect. Not that holy. Not that sacred. And even though I keep quiet about it all, in truth, it gets very lonely. And I can’t help feeling sad, knowing that you can’t see me at all. That you rather talk and interact with the Snow living inside your head.”
Yup communication even its in anger