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The short conversation with Aoi has done nothing to lift Shinya’s mood. After all, they have had the same type of conversation several times over the course of his imprisonment. He hasn’t bothered to keep track of time so hearing that Guren and Kureto are returning is the only indication of time that he has.
“Meaningless anger, my ass,” he mutters. He has plenty of reason to hate the whole Hiiragi house. For one, the cell is not even equipped with a toilet, meaning that he has to call upon a guard or wait for one to make his obligatory patrol rounds. Guards also like to watch him eat; heavens forbid that Shinya sneaks out a chopstick and use it in an attempt to force open the locks and escape the prison ward.
(He has tried it once. But without his trusty Byakkomaru or any weapons to defend himself, he was an easy target as soon as he let himself out of the ward.)
So. Guren. If he is returning Shinjuku with Kureto, does this mean that he is still possessed by Mahiru? There is no way that he went on to conspire with Kureto and kill his own comrades had it not been for that crazy bitch’s influence.
He rests his elbow on his raised knee and hangs his head. A whiff of his own body odour makes him want to gag. Add limited number of showers to the growing list of reasons why he is angry at Kureto.
Maybe he needs to sleep on this. It’s not like that is what he has been doing frequently since he has been locked up in here anyway. He drags his body to the threadbare bed and carefully climbs onto it. He has made the mistake of dropping down onto it before and that is one experience that he does not want to repeat.
Sleep is hard to come by but once it does, Shinya relishes in it.
-
“Well this is much less anticlimactic,” someone sneers.
Shinya jumps out of the bed and his body automatically arranges itself into a battle stance. Standing in front of the bars is, of course, no one other than Guren himself.
“If you’re here to boast and taunt, go away. Why don’t you go play lapdog for Kureto some more, hmm?” Shinya spits out. He turns away from Guren and returns to the piece of crap bed. He was hoping to see Kureto and get out of his confinement, not deal with Guren drama.
Metallic clangs ring out in the small space and Shinya hears the unmistakable sound of the cell door opening. Shinya faces Guren again, only to see the bastard dangling a set of keys.
“I borrowed this from the guards, hope they don’t mind,” he smirks. He tosses it onto the floor in front of Shinya’s feet.
Shinya peers into Guren’s eyes. They are their normal hue of purple but he can’t shake off the feeling that something is still wrong about Guren. The way he talks, the way he moves is identical yet vastly different compared to the years Shinya has known him.
“Did you kill them too?” Shinya asks while maintaining their eye contact.
Guren chuckles. “What kind of person do you take me for? I stole these from them. Killing them would have been excessive and unnecessary.”
“But killing your own soldiers at Nagoya was,” Shinya deadpans. He sees a muscle twitch in Guren’s jaw.
“Sometimes you need to do the wrong thing for the right cause, Shinya,” Guren stage-whispers. “We’re repeating the same argument we had three months ago. It’s damn time that you got over that pesky little detail. You also seem to forget that I was possessed by your dead fiancée at the time.”
Shinya grits his teeth. “Funny how you don’t refer to her as your ex-lover after the fact that you practically gloated about your tryst to me. Tell me, Guren, just what were you thinking when you agreed to be a part of her plan all those years ago? Did you truly believe that reviving a forbidden practice will save us against the monsters? At what cost? Innocent children? People who pledged their loyalty to you and the army? Answer me, Guren!”
He realises that his hands have moved on their own accord to grab Guren by his shirt collar. Despite his feet dangling a few centimetres above the ground, Guren does not look bothered or anything other than calm.
“You seem to forget that you willingly went through a surgery to use a Black Demon. And need I remind you that you killed innocent kids just to be selected as Mahiru’s prestigious fiancé? Darkness touches all of us, whether it is by choice or not depends on the person.”
Shinya drops his hands and pushes Guren away. “Spouting poetics at me won’t resolve the problem at hand, Guren! I was a kid; you were an adult fully cognizant of the situation. Your family’s livelihood wasn’t at stake when you made the decision to screw all of us over. I can’t believe that this is truly what you and I have been dreaming about since we were kids. If I knew that desecrating the Hiiragi name came with the sacrifice of so many people, I never would have wanted it, you bastard!”
“Liar,” Guren purrs. He snatches up Shinya’s hand and presses his fingers to the pulse on his wrist. “Tell me that one more time and I’ll believe you.”
“Fuck off,” Shinya retorts. He pulls his hand back. Guren, being the ginormous asshole he is, doesn’t release his hold and steps forward until their faces are too close for comfort.
“You are not romancing your way out of this,” Shinya mutters.
Guren takes an exaggerated whiff. “I don’t think I want to when you smell like literal shit.”
“That’s top-class Hiiragi courtesy for you,” Shinya hisses. “There’s more to torture than its physical components.”
Concern flashes across Guren’s features before he regains his aloof manner, which is really pissing Shinya off. “And here I thought they would have hold off torturing you until the grand lord returned.”
“They haven’t tortured me,” Shinya informs him. “If anything, Kureto, more specifically Aoi, has been treating me like a kid who has been having frequent temper tantrums.”
Guren smirks. “From the reports I’ve seen, I say that that’s an accurate description of your stay here.”
That’s it. Shinya tackles Guren to the floor and strikes him across his smug face. “Why are you here? It seems to me that you’re only here to amuse yourself.”
“Is it hard to believe that I missed you?” Guren sneers. “I’ve gone three months without you, after all. I had to do Kureto’s bidding while biding my time to come see you again.” Guren lifts his head off the grimy floor, forcing Shinya to sit up to dodge whatever he had up his sleeve.
“Shut up.” Shinya stands up. “If you have any pride left as a man, leave me and don’t come back. I . . .”
The bastard still has the nerve to grab Shinya’s face and kiss him. Shinya retaliates immediately by biting down on Guren’s lips hard enough to draw blood.
“Kinky,” Guren comments. He steps out of the cell. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll have seen the light by then. Good night.”
Shinya picks up the keys from the ground and hurls it in Guren’s direction. They hit Guren in the back but the man shows no sign of pain. That wasn’t Guren talking to him just now. He doesn’t know him at all. It’s almost as if Kureto has managed to brainwash Guren. The Guren he knows takes the death of each individual solider personally; he is never the one to brush them off so casually.
The guards make no move when Shinya steps out of the cell. In fact, one of them even holds the door open for him as he exits the cell compound. Shinya clenches his hands into fists. He will make them pay. He will make them pay for all those deaths.
And above all, for whatever has happened to Guren.