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A week has past since Ryo’s returned to the Royal Capital after six months in isolation. Abel is no longer deteriorating from unknown illness, but there is still a weird air about in the castle, something that no one, not the Queen Rihya nor the wise Marquis Heinlein want to address. And it concerns the very water magician that wrested their king back from certain death.
The water magician, whose presence has been asked for by the recovering king. Who now closes the door silently behind him with lips twisted in an echo of a smile. A secret.
“Abel! You called?”
“Thanks for coming, Ryo. I didn’t want you to see me like that, but—”
He’s overcome with a fit of coughing, bringing a handkerchief to his mouth. Ryo quickly moves to his side, conjuring a glass of water.
“T-Thanks.” Abel tries for a smile, but it comes out closer to a grimace. Propped up against pillows, face pallid and voice soft, his breathing comes shallowly. Gone is that raspy rattling. Gone too is his persistent fever. But nevertheless, he’s weak from malnutrition.
“I bet you don’t want me to see you like this either, eh Abel?” Ryo remarks crudely, “But I did have my hands in your lungs a week ago, so you really don’t have to hold back.”
“Gee. I suppose I’ll have to apologize for that as well,” he concedes easily.
“Don’t bother. Just… you should’ve called for me earlier. Thought we were closer than this,” Ryo mutters, trailing a finger across the lip of an empty bottle. So many potions and ointments. He laughs bitterly.
Abel looks chastised.
“I didn’t want to trouble you. You seemed… happy… to be back in the Rondo forest.”
“I was,” Ryo admits, “But I would’ve stayed if you’d asked me to. If I knew you’d get this sick.”
“No one could’ve known. It only took half a year for it to get to this point.”
“Has it really only been six months? You look different every time I see you,” he quips, trying to tease him lightheartedly. But it falls flat.
“And you don’t seem to age at all.”
“‘I leave Noah and the Kingdom to you?’ Bullshit. Can you believe he called me back only for his self-decided funeral? Can you believe that, Sera?”
The clang of their blades rings out in the training room. The metal grates sharply, a tone born of Ryo’s turmoil against Sera’s calm. The elf twists behind him, blade arcing wide, and his sword flicks to meet her without even shifting his eyes. Clang! Shssk. She side-steps his returning slash and bounds out of reach. She sighs, sheathing her sword.
“You fight better when you’re mad, Ryo. But I think we should call it today."
The magician slumps to the floor, blade clattering in front of him. “Sorry, Sera. I know we only spar so rarely.”
Sera waves her hand dismissively, flopping on the ground nearby. She’s beautiful as always, and all that beauty is directed at him in veiled concern.
“Can’t be helped,” she smiles gently, “You don’t even get this upset when war breaks out. His majesty is really selfish, isn’t he?”
Ryo groans, pushing a hand through his hair.
“If it were only Abel’s fault. No one thought to call me! Anytime anything bad happens it’s always ‘Just send Ryo!’ or ‘Ryo can solve this!’ or ‘I’m sure there’s a water-attribute magic made just for this!’ And yet when Abel’s about to die—”
A cup of water is pressed into his hands. His gaze meets emerald green and he looks away, unable to accept Sera’s careful compassion. His voice comes out smaller, choked to a whisper.
“I was so angry. I only left for six months! Six months! No one can be trusted. Every time I see him, I think about how easily he could’ve died without me knowing. So I thought to myself the other day. I’d rather keep him. Steal him from the Royal Capital to a place only I can see. And not let anyone else have him.”
He ducks his head, staring into his glass. The liquid quivers.
“It’d be so easy…”
“It really would,” the elf agrees, sipping at her own cup, “But you know his majesty wouldn’t like that.”
Ryo nods, finally shifting to meet her gaze.
“Sera… am I a bad person for thinking like this?”
“The fact that Ryo is asking should tell you as much,” Sera looks at him with an unreadable smile. He thinks it’s fondness. He thinks it’s pity.
From one long-lived creature to another.
“We’re not like that anymore. We decided we’re better as friends.”
They’re in Abel’s office again. He’s been given a clean bill of health, but he’s still forbidden from any manner of working. So he’s spending the day with Ryo like he often does, this time, fending off his nosiness.
“Do you regret being with her?”
“No! No, just—”
Abel’s eyes are completely on him. He likes it like this. It’s the way it should be.
“She has things more important to her. Like the Central Temple and her duties as the next High Priestess. And… I have things more important to me.”
“Really now?” he teases. Like not telling your closest friend you’re terminally ill and dying?
“Yeah. Ryo relates right? It’s why you’re not with Sera anymore.”
“Eh?” the magician blinks, surprised, “It was never like that between us. There was always something more important.”
“To her or to you?”
Ryo turns his eyes back on Abel. He looks amused. Or perhaps angry. For once, Abel thinks it’s both.
“To me,” he replies casually. Sweetly, with a peculiar curve to his mouth.
“Oh.”
And Abel doesn’t know what to say after that.
“Y’know Abel. This whole month’s made me realize how easily humans die.”
Abel chokes on his coffee mid-sip, and he smacks his chest several times until his coughing stops. So Ryo’s in this kind of mood today. The magician observes him, chin in hand, elbow propped on the desk comfortably. He appears gloriously entertained.
“Really?” Abel raises his brow, wiping his mouth with a hankerchief, “Not the two wars you’ve participated in? Or that village you froze several years ago?”
“That’s different,” Ryo dismisses, “And the village had it coming.”
“Geez…” Abel mutters with a bewildered expression, “So I guess it’s about me.”
“Bingo. I’m glad you’re self-aware.”
The magician nods at Abel with cheer. The king sighs fondly.
“I already apologized many times, but I’ll keep doing so if you want. I think I owe you my life three, no, four times now?”
Ryo tilts his head back and forth slowly, as if he’s recounting all of Abel’s slip-ups. He smiles something secret. It’s the smile Abel can never read, that he’s seen rarely except for this month, when it seems to be all Ryo wears.
“Don’t bother keeping count anymore,” he muses, “From now on, anytime you’re in mortal peril, I’ll be there.”
“Eh? You really don’t have to do anything like that! In fact, I actively refuse!” Abel declares, flustered.
Ryo chuckles brightly.
“Nah. It’s not something you have a say in. That’s a promise from Ryo to Abel.”
“...I’d say I hope you’re joking,” he sighs, “but I know you too well for that. Then what about your life? Rondo, and your adventures? You can’t possibly want to shelve all that to babysit me in the castle,” he counters, gesturing with his cup.
“Abel. I know you’re not that ignorant,” Ryo teases, “Look at me and tell me you don’t know.”
The magician motions to his face and then to the Fairy King’s clothes lazily. He looks back up, locking Abel into his stare. Glacial blue, clear, endlessly deep. Warm.
“How long have we know each other? Don’t I look the same in your eyes as the first day we met?”
A cup clatters to the table. The scent of rich Kona fills the air. It spills over the desk, dripping to the polished floor.
“You—”
Ryo doesn’t get to appreciate Abel’s shocked expression very often. How nice.
“Yeah,” Ryo laughs, “So it really isn’t an issue at all.”
“It really isn’t an issue at all,” Abel tries the words in his mouth, and then he snaps out of it, concerned, vision searching, “Ryo, are you sure you’re okay like this?”
Ryo nods absently, with that same secret smile.
“Y’know Abel. I thought many unhealthy things to myself within the past month. Like—what if I froze you into a sculpture? So no matter how many years pass, you’ll be the same for me?”
“Don’t say such scary things,” he shakes his head.
“I could spirit you off to the forest,” he breathes, “Keep you in Rondo, where no one could ever lay a hand on you. You’d be for my eyes only. My eyes only until you take your last breath.”
Oh. So that’s what Ryo’s been feeling.
He draws closer. He’s leaned over him now. Their lips are almost touching.
“That sounds like a confession,” Abel remarks, despite his best judgement, his voice a whisper.
“Does it?” Ryo whispers back.
And Abel feels himself being drawn into Ryo’s uncharacteristic possessiveness, his grin, and the nonsensical man that carved a place into his heart some journey ago.
And he closes the distance easily.
Their lips brush softly. Feather-light. Then firmly.
Ryo presses his mouth to Abel’s insistently, like he’ll drown if he can’t taste Abel. And Abel lets him taste. Lets him because even with Ryo’s moods and scary words, he’s always been able to eventually find the hidden meaning.
You should trust me more.
Am I important to you?
I’ll have your back no matter what.
His lips are warm. His hands are warmer still, grip tight against Abel’s shoulders, to the point of fabric tearing. And Abel lets himself caress Ryo’s cheek tenderly. Lets himself tilt his face so that their mouths fit together more perfectly.
I want to protect you.
I want to stay with you forever.
And when he finally pulls away, it’s Ryo’s secret smile again, but this time, he thinks he can read what it’s supposed to mean.
I love you. Don’t you dare leave me again.
“Y’know, I don’t think I’d mind being only Ryo’s. I mean, even though you’ve spent the last month being moody and scary, you should know that you’re the most important to me, too,” he whispers into the silence.
“But Abel is the king. So he has to be responsible and not slack off.”
“What are you insinuating about me?”
“Sleepyhead Abel. Lazy Abel. Slacker-who-hasn’t-done-any-work-for-the-past-year Abel. It’s already noon.”
Abel snorts, hugging Ryo tighter to himself.
“Even though you have a bad personality, knowing what I know now, I fear I’ll never want to part with you again.”
Ryo huffs.
“Good. Because I’m not leaving you either. Also, I forbid Abel from dying. You’re not allowed. Ever.”
“Ryo—you know that’s not how it works.”
“I’ll make it so. I’ll even tell Marquis Heinlein to put a banner up or something. Because if anyone or anything tries to kill Abel, it’s on sight. Anddddd because if Abel dies, I’ll gladly turn the world to Permafrost. So you better live forever, okay?”
“Geez…”