MYSTERY I: The princess in the tower

Once upon a time there used to be a princess who lived in a tower, secluded from the other nobles. The princess was said to be ill, for she never cried or smiled when spoken to. She would talk to the shadows and pluck the wings of the living birds. When the queen told her not to, the princess simply cried, telling her that there was no other way for the princess to feel the presence of alive beings. For they all felt like walking skins to her. It terrified the princess. To help the princess live with ease, her father gifted her a tower, locking her in to protect her from being terrified. The princess always looked through her windows, beautiful city lights and the laughter of people. It fluttered her heart to hear the happiness of her people. For every sound she heard and admired, she would pick up her brush and give it form on the white walls of her chambers.

However, each painting would cause the king and queen to frown. Some were a picture of a dead man rotting and a flower so white taking roots into his split ribs. When her thoughts came to light through the brush, the princess felt a tear trickle down her cheeks, as if she was given a voice that she never had before. A voice that spoke what her heart felt. She would beg the queen and king to visit her, thrashing her hands on metal barricades, bleeding here and there, sobbing to be heard. Eventually, no one came. The princess grew up, realizing that she had been abandoned and the only thing that was left behind was… a brush that spoke on behalf of her bleeding heart.

The princess decided, she would try finding people who resembled her brush. She would become friends with them. The princess sent letters after letters to be freed but none was returned, and then she wrote one in her own crimson ink. Begging them to let her go on a journey. When the new palace knight came to pick up the princess’s letter, his eyes fell on the wall filled with deranged expression of her feelings, the knight halted in awe and smiled. “They are beautiful.” He had whispered and the princess had heard. The letter crumbled under her palm, her heart raced and a flush of delight coated her cheeks. “I found him.” She had murmured. “I found a person like my brush.”

That day, the princess decided to stay within the bounds of cold towers. The princess requested only one thing from her parents. To let that knight come and visit her, if done so, she'll live as if she didn't exist.

Her eyes burned red as she saw him throw the glass between the interrogation room. His hands cuffed together. A loop-sided smirk on his lips and a glint of rebellion in his eyes when he glared at the interrogator– Yukio Manabe.

“Some hospitality this is, senpai.” His voice dripped of venom. Yukio could only match his freaky smirk with the stoicism of his own. “I could have you rolling on the floor but I'm not, consider this hospitality my last kindness to you, Hiroshi.”

Hiroshi banged his cuffed hands to the table between them but Yukio continued to be unfazed by Hiroshi as he flipped through the pages of evidence. “You lured me out! I didn't know the justice system liked to play dirty!”

Yukio’s lips curved an invisible line up, he pushed his glasses back up, a glint of arrogance in them when he looked down on the thrashing Hiroshi. “I think you are mistaken, Hiroshi. I do not work for the system. I work for my personal curiosity, satisfaction and entertainment. And you were no more than a rat who came out from his little nest smelling the cheese. It took me just one day to lure you out, you were just that easy.” Hiroshi's banged his cuffed hands against the table once again, thrashing to get his legs free, the officers had cuffed his legs to the chair. “Shit!” His cursed under his breath, unable to break free.

“You told me Kaito would be there! You promised I would get to see him humiliated! That was the whole point of this whole mess!” Hiroshi whined, the weight of his crimes lost in the craze of jealousy in his eyes. Yukio shrugged. “You kind of did. You even got him to do your bidding for a moment there. So I fulfilled my end of the bargain.” Hiroshi thrashed and yanked his hands, the metal dug into his wrists and he finally turned to the glass separating Hikari from the interrogation room.

Hikari felt his eyes scanning her from behind the glass. She knew he couldn't see her from his side but his eyes still felt like a blackhole that pulled her in, consuming her in. “I know you're there, Hikari.” He mumbled, amiable and charming as he always was. The agitation long gone and replaced with wickedness. The wickedness that knew her through and through. “You think you are better than me too? You and him- that bastard Kaito, you rich spawns of satans! You look down on us poor people! But you are not better than us! You knew I was up to no good and still let me be. The blood is on your hands too, Hikari. We'll be going to hell together. I dug two graves for us.”

Her heart palpitated at the severity of his words, they demanded the acceptance of the truth. The truth that she knew but still let it go. His eyes that stared at nothing but her through those glass, drilling a hole through her. She breathed, her soul grasped for something to hold onto, as if exposed naked and helpless, Hikari needed out- she needed to be away from these eyes that did nothing but stripped her naked of her mask. One step backward is all it took before cowardice took over and she bolted out of the interrogation, slamming the door behind her. As if there was a soul connection between them, Hiroshi could feel her run away, he laughed, manic and insanity in every pitch of laughter that echoed in her trails.

She heaved and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran– thak! Until she collided into a familiar chest that she had wanted to see the least. His onyx eyes stared down at her, judgement and coldness sang the allure of criticism in them. She didn't want to hear it! She wanted to run away

No no! Not him!

Kaito stopped her visible treating figure, pulling her against him by her arms. “No more running away, Hikie.” His voice was gentle and yet, it carried a chill to it. It terrified Hikari. Even he will.. she knew it, even he would cast her into a tower of lonesome and misery, he wasn't the brush that spoke the colours of her language, he wouldn't allow her the luxury of reds and blues, he'll force her to be a nothingness of black and Hikari knew better than anyone, she wouldn't be able to deny it anymore longer.

That I am alone...

“No… no. No no! I don't want to go back and you can't make me!” She yelped, pulling her arm away from his grip but failing. There was nothing but fright in her eyes, a reflective reaction of Kaito's cold ones. He didn't comfort her, he didn't allow her to cry on his shoulders, just the lack of warmth that ticked like a clock in the middle of the dead night, waiting for her to calm her nerves and face the time the night has brought to her.

“I am not making you. I just want the truth, Hikari. The truth you hide from all of us.”

He whispered the words she wanted to hear and yet, they appeared to be a bellow to her ears. She ripped her heart apart when she handed her lover over and here Kai was, asking her the colour of her blood. And so she did, screamed the colour she bleed, the colour of anguish and ashamed dignity.

“What good the truth would have done! He was more than obvious about his hate towards the rich– towards you! I was ashamed alright! To love a man who hated the only friend who didn't want me to be locked up back at home.” The spark in Kai’s eyes light, dread washed with glitter of hopes. He shook her shoulders, snapping her to reality. “I never cared what he thought of me, Hikie! I only cared about how he treated you and you were still calling it love when I know love looks like anything but that!”

Pushing Kai off her, fury towards her own self boomed in her eyes in the form of hot tears. “I care! I chose him over you! I needed to make it right! I knew he was doing something shady when at night he would disappear and make suspicious calls! I knew he wanted to screw you over– I wanted to protect you both but in the end I couldn't–... Even when I found out that you were the kitsune, I thought you found out the truth about Hiroshi and it was too late, I still wanted to believe that Hiroshi was innocent but I couldn't... I really couldn't protect you or stop him! And look what he did, he killed 5 innocent people and their blood is on my hands now!-” She choked through her words, the spots of crimson spread throughout her hands, overflowing from her skin to splattering to the ground, pooling around her, pulling her in. As if the hands of those who died were pulling her in, drowning her along with them. Punishing her that she deserved!

“Hikari!” His voice pulled her out, tears that fell, eyes that couldn't differentiate from reality to hallucinations, in amidst of this his clear voice grounded her. “You did nothing. You killed no one.” He affirmed, his hands holding onto hers, closing her palms. As if the crimson pool vanished and turned into the elixir of life. Hikari cried. “But I did… I betrayed everyone. Senpai and Yashiro will never forgive me for lying to them. I lied to you, I'm so sorry. I..” she sobbed through her words, finally coming empty with spilled truth.

He pulled her in with a gentlest of touch. She cried in his white Hakama and Kai brushed through her hair, soothing her. “I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have hidden about being the kitsune from you. Hikie, none of us were truthful. Not me or Manabe Senpai. So.. let's just move past this.”

How Hikari wished she could simply forget and accept being forgiven or… forgive. For she knew that she was nothing but a burden to those around her, a child who threw a tantrum. She was unwanted– even by her once lover. Maybe he never loved her to begin with, maybe he only embraced her to pull her friend- To pull Kai down in the dirt with him and she still tried saving such a man… It was a wound that might never heal, it was a crime that shouldn't ever be forgiven.

The remaining truth was far from her worries right now, the only thing she can do is beg for forgiveness.

If only Hikari had known that Hiroshi's sins would only haunt her from here on, a plaster of colours that itched the princess’s eyes, the colours that the knight had bled in the tea she drank with her.

Love truly poisons one.