[ Maybe later, he'll regret this. Not because of any violence or punishment that Set will enact upon him, but because he, too, remembers that moment they'd shared, tangled together beneath the tree's roots. Maybe later, Gen will regret having brought Set -- proud, wild, bright as the desert's sands and just as scorching -- to heel like some mutt. (Like himself, always throttled by Yuko's leash.) Maybe later, he'll wonder if there was another path he could have taken.
But in this moment, that nebulous 'maybe later' simply doesn't matter; it exists far beyond the tiny point that his field of vision has been honed into. His entire life has been sustained by the presence of a single other boy, the singular anchor he could tether his pretense at sanity to, and Gen is incapable of considering anything else. All that matters is that Kurose Reiji is returned to him, is his once more, as soon as possible.
No matter what it takes.
Set buries that memory in the dirt, and Gen trods upon it without hesitation as he steps forth to lord over Set. ]
... it's Liem. [ The vicious flare of his anger quiets in volume, though not in intensity; a bonfire shrinking down to a single white-hot piece of steel, warping the very air around it with its heat. There's the bitter bite of betrayal, too, acrid as smoke as he mutters, ] Son of a bitch. I trusted him.
[ Liem will pay for this. He'll make sure of it -- through Set. ]
He has a shard that belongs to me. Says he hid him somewhere safe. [ 'Him,' he calls the shard, in the same breath that he declares it his. There's no hiding the manic, desperate, possessive quality to his words when he speaks of that shard. ] You're going to do whatever it takes to get him to cough up where he is, then bring that shard back to me.
no subject
But in this moment, that nebulous 'maybe later' simply doesn't matter; it exists far beyond the tiny point that his field of vision has been honed into. His entire life has been sustained by the presence of a single other boy, the singular anchor he could tether his pretense at sanity to, and Gen is incapable of considering anything else. All that matters is that Kurose Reiji is returned to him, is his once more, as soon as possible.
No matter what it takes.
Set buries that memory in the dirt, and Gen trods upon it without hesitation as he steps forth to lord over Set. ]
... it's Liem. [ The vicious flare of his anger quiets in volume, though not in intensity; a bonfire shrinking down to a single white-hot piece of steel, warping the very air around it with its heat. There's the bitter bite of betrayal, too, acrid as smoke as he mutters, ] Son of a bitch. I trusted him.
[ Liem will pay for this. He'll make sure of it -- through Set. ]
He has a shard that belongs to me. Says he hid him somewhere safe. [ 'Him,' he calls the shard, in the same breath that he declares it his. There's no hiding the manic, desperate, possessive quality to his words when he speaks of that shard. ] You're going to do whatever it takes to get him to cough up where he is, then bring that shard back to me.