Hirokazu

I blinked my eyes open, the scent of herbs and crushed plants stinging my nose. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and my forearm. I had no idea who caught me but I knew that I had to tell them not to worry because all that was left was a shimmering silver scar.

I opened my mouth to speak and felt that hand clench around my heart and lungs. I let out a strangled gasp and looked around wildly as I fell forward. I landed on the ground, the floor wooden and reminding me of the first seizure I had.

I curled up into a ball and covered my mouth, closing my eyes and hoping that everything would pass. That I wouldn't need that medication that burned and that I would only have to wait a little longer—

"Hey, what are you doing? You're going to make your condition worse!" I didn't recognise the voice, it was male. And angry.

But when a hand went to pull me up, they saw what was really happening. I whimpered and opened one eye, someone—somehow—had placed me on whatever I'd been lying on before and was walking over to my far right.

My vision flickered in and out of focus as I watched this figure race back and forth, grabbing things and grinding them up deftly, their strong hands working quickly and neatly.

"What happened?!" Jae's familiar voice ran out and I wanted to see her. But my head wouldn't move, immobilised by the pain slinking across my nerves and around my bones. Wrapping, tightening, crushing.

"Hold him down." The same male voice said.

I felt two pairs of hands on the top half of my body and the lower half, holding me down—I realised then that I had been twitching from a seizure. I was still having that same seizure. So much for not needing medication.

Everything was blurred and rushed, I tried to see what was going on, and why this was happening. I couldn't understand why it had to be now. Now that I collapsed when anything could happen. The excuse of saying I was 'Tainted' and that my duty as a King was to revenge the destruction of my palace and homeland by killing the Vaxxine Squad.

No one would believe that. I wouldn't.

"He should stay stable, for now." The male voice said again. I slipped from reality with the same thing relating over and over in my head.

Vivamus moriendum est…Meraki…

I sat up gasping, I looked about and tried my hardest to remember. To remember what…? I frowned and held my head, bending over myself and barely refraining from hitting my temples in an attempt to get my memory working.

"You feeling any better?" A rough voice asked.

I spun around and felt my shoulder blades pinch. I winced and moved back around, both halves of my body comfortably together. My muscles ached as I felt the tension in my lower back slowly ease up. I rubbed one side of my face and stared at the boy around my age leaning against the counter.

"I…guess?" I said, leaning forward and sucking in a breath when this movement caused a familiar tightness in my chest. I leant back quickly and looked over at the door. My gaze searching and wary.

"Your friends are off preparing your bedding, we were—I was—going to carry you into the other room."

I looked back at the boy and he wasn't looking at me anymore. His back muscles were visible through his long-sleeved shirt as he worked away, grinding at leaves and petals.

"What're you—?" But before I could finish my sentence I coughed loudly. It was a sound that even sent shivers down my spine. I'd never heard that kind of sound escape my throat, not ever in my life.

The boy looked over at me and watched me carefully. His gaze was piercing and…I guess—beautiful. His eyes were light amber red with just the right amount of emerald flecks.

I covered my mouth and knew what he was seeing. The blood seeped through my fingers as I tried to hide what was wrong. I watched his steady hand point to a door off to the left-hand corner of the room. I raced desperately towards it and managed to make it to the sink in time. I let the coughs rake through my body and soul as blood stained the drain and sink. I gasped hoarsely and looked up at myself, and then away quickly. I didn't want to see me. I didn't want to notice how much sicker I looked, how 'dying and dead' I was.

"Let me see." I didn't turn around like I'd done with Jae the first time she'd seen what my lungs could do to me. I kept my gaze down and hunched over the sink, panting softly. Hoping to hell that I never needed to experience that again.

"Let me—Oh, come here—" I frowned just before a pair of strong hands grasped either side of my face and suddenly I was staring into the face of this stranger who saved me.

I watched as his gaze swept across the bags under my eyes and the pallid, ghost of my complexion. His eyes watched my cracked and colourless lips. And, of course, the dark, visible veins in my neck. "You don't know how to control it—do you?"

He looked back up and stared straight into my eyes. He was acting as if he had no fear of anything. That he didn't care what imprint he made on me. What it felt like he was doing— he was just doing it. "I've tried before but—"

"Oh, you tried? I can see now why Dad had such a hard time talking about you people." He let go of me and licked his lips, looking back out the door and into the main room. He reached up and grasped harshly as the roots of his hair sat halfway on his neck.

I pressed myself up against the sink, his angry stature scaring me because I knew he wasn't afraid to stand true to his actions. I wonder if that was the downside to a personality trait—or if it was something else. "I'm sorry if that's disappointing to hear, but if you would like a go at living in hell like this—take it, by all means."

He looked down at me, he was taller than me by a couple of inches, I shifted my gaze back to the mirror and saw myself. I looked…different. My skin was seemingly past the whole 'pallid' situation. It was whiter than sheets, closing in hot on ghost white. I watched my eyes and leaned in closer to the reflection. I watched my mouth open slightly and without thinking I turned back around to the boy.

"Why is my other eye Mist Tainted?" I demanded. The boy frowned and then realised what I was talking about.

"Oh, you mean that's not your normal colour?" He said. He leaned in close and I could feel his breath across my cheeks as he practically examined my eyes. I stiffened and did my hardest to just keep my gaze locked onto his eyes.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"What's yours?"

"I asked first." He looked at me as if warning me to not go into a loophole of words.

"Hiro."

"Huh, nice to meet you I guess." He looks back at me again. "About your eye—it's—I mean I know how to reverse it—but only you can actually fix it." He said, leaning back and watching me carefully before turning around abruptly and walking out of the room.

I strode after him and swayed against the wall as my head and body disagreed with one another. I groaned and sank to the floor, placing my head gingerly in my hands. I looked up at him as black splotches covered my vision. "How do…you fix…it?" I managed to articulate this without falling to my side and slipping to the floor with my lungs threatening to squish my heart.

He sat down next to me, his elbows resting on his knees. He let his head roll back against the wall and he looked down at me from the corner of his gaze. "I can teach you to control it." He said simply.

I looked at him, bewildered. "You can talk to it?" I asked, watching more carefully. My head was still in my hands, my back hunched as I tried to focus and strengthen my breathing.

He shrugged. "It's how I saved you from that seizure earlier." I looked back down at the wooden ground peeking up at me from in between my fingers.

"How long ago was that?" I asked, hoping his answer would be a few hours or 'this morning' kind of thing.

"Three days ago." Came the reply. I let out a soft whimper and felt wet lashes stroke my fingers gently, I blinked back a few of the tears and let out a soft sigh. I removed my hands from my face and hugged my knees to my chest.

"After you…did what you did—I felt the same four words repeating in my head." I gulped, prepared to say them—

"Vivamus moriendum est, Meraki." The boy said softly. I looked at him, for the first, proper time since I leaned against that wall and tried to calm my racing heart.

I blinked up at him. "How do you—"

"My Dad used to say it to my Mum." He said quietly. He seemed to have taken a more…broken feeling into his body. His eyes seemed dimmer, absent, and his shoulders hunched over his abdomen like he couldn't quite express what he needed to let go.

"Do…do you know what it means?"

"Let us live, since we must die, my other half." He muttered, his eyebrows curling ever so gently over his unique eyes. He looked back at me and seemed more confused than angry.

"How do you know this?" He asked.

"I—I'm not sure…I don't think it was me speaking per se…"

"The Mist…of course! If I can speak to it, and you aren't reacting violently to that act—the Mist must have an attachment to something in this area. I just have to find out what."

He stood up and smiled down at me. He placed his hand out carefully and his smile suddenly became hesitant, like he was almost wary of touching my skin when he had a strong purpose to do it. I reached up and as soon as our fingers latched around each other, Mist enveloped our hands. I stood up and just stared, slightly fascinated. It'd never reacted this way, it had no purpose coming out like this, not to protect me—or to repair me.

It wrapped its way up my forearm and curled gently around my elbow. I looked over at the boy's arm and it had done the same. I opened my mouth to ask what was happening but all that came out was a choking noise. The boy looked up at me in alarm, concern across his features. I kept my gaze on our hands. Iwouldn'tlookIwouldn'tlook. I locked with his gaze and something snapped inside of me when my lungs started to suck all the air out of my body, but it wasn't with a dark intention. I knew this because I saw the same thing happening to the boy as well. I watched as all the Mist that I had been born with, kept safe inside of me flew out from in-between our two touching hands. I felt something inside my chest hug tighter and my other hand naturally flew to over my heart.

I watched in utter astonishment as the Mist split into two halves and flew into both of our chests. I looked up from the half-bent-over position I was in. I watched as the boy's eyes rolled into the back of his head and had three seconds to catch him.

I was surprised when I handled his weight with ease. I picked him up and walked over to a single couch by the fire. As I neared the fire, I realised how cold I was. I lay the boy down on the couch and sat right in front of the blazing warmth, lying down on my side.

Before I knew it, I was dozing off as the black spots in the corners of my vision promised a suffocating sleep to distract me for just a little longer…