Anja

I hugged myself and let out a soft breath. I opened the door and saw the boy who healed me not long ago, lying unconscious on a bed of white and grey.

I sat down in the corner of the room and wrapped the blanket his guard, Jae, gave me. I sighed and closed my eyes, imagining us meeting over a conference meeting between our parents—both of whom would be alive—and we'd share our likes and dislikes. We'd become friends and I would've helped his mountain cat when she wished to go hunting. I sighed and opened my eyes slowly, once I looked at him properly, I realised that he was staring blankly up at the ceiling.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked my Inglesh ringing out hollowly.

He sighed and blinked, I took that as the most I was going to get out of him. I let out a shaky breath and decided to talk about my childhood, just to pass the time.

"When I was three years old, my parents were struggling with the political aspect of ruling Alya, and sent me away to a village where I grew up on a farm…"

I didn't feel much emotion in the room as I spoke, not on my face, in my body position. I didn't feel any energy from Hirokazu either. He just continued to stare at the roof.

"And when Aleksei and myself finally arrived at the palace, it took only a few weeks for me to catch up with my parents." I shrugged and sighed. "They were murdered a few months afterwards…"

There was a faint rustle of bed sheets and I looked up through my strands of clumped hair and wet lashes. Hirokazu had rolled over, facing away from me.

I forced myself to stand up, but before I opened the door Hirokazu spoke.

"What does it feel like to love someone as you do?" He murmured.

I paused and lowered my gaze. I turned around and leaned against the wall. I stared blankly out at the wall across from me and didn't really think about how to answer.

"If you truly love someone—if you would die for them—it is dangerous," I said simply, I crossed my arms and my gaze flickered to Hirokazu.

He was sitting up, staring at his hands as he blinked. He seemed suddenly young, I wanted to know everyone's opinion of him, not as a King. As a person. Who was he?

"Would you die for him?" He asked, still staring at his own hands as he'd never realised their potential.

I sucked in my breath and watched closely as I replied slowly. Like forming the first words of mankind. "Yes."

Hirokazu rolled his head onto his shoulder and looked at me, his gaze holding an agony that I'd never seen before. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and watched as a silent, crystal fell down the curve of his cheek.

"I've never felt something like that before." He whispered, his voice painful to hear.

I watched as he looked back down at his hands, his hair falling down across his face. I walked towards him and sat beside him. I didn't know if he did this often, but if he did—he was one broken soul.

I leaned in close and hugged him. He stiffened and then relaxed melting into his own emotion as he began crying more. Harder, he let it go. But just because every tear drop contains a shard of emotion from your very soul, it doesn't mean that you need to cry it all away.

"Surrender to this feeling," I said. "To surrender is to accept, to give in is to understand. Understand and accept that your other half thrives off of your existence."

I'd never said that in Inglesh before. My mother always used to tell me this whenever ever she saw me and Aleksei together. She would always smile happily and treat me like I was a gift from heaven.

Hirokazu let out a soft groan and looked up at me. His different-coloured eyes were like two different galaxies next to each other in the night sky. He met my gaze and the energy he projected sent a nervous shiver down my spine.

"I don't think my other half would want me." He murmured.

I laughed, I stood up to my beliefs, and I had no idea what kind of life he had lived. What he believed and didn't. But I wouldn't allow him to just throw away my family's beliefs as he owned them.

I stood up, clenching my fists so hard I felt my nails break the skin of my palm. "Your other half is your other half. Whether they want to be or not, you are you and that will be what it is. I cannot understand why you are so desperate to die for someone. But there are so many people in this palace who will gladly die for you."

I said this with such conviction that I felt like the time I went off my rockers at Aleksei when I asked if they got rid of me because they didn't love me the way I thought they did.

Hirokazu didn't look at me. "I know, that's why I am going to leave this place."

I blinked, shocked. "What?"

He looked at the wall, hunched over, defeated. He trembled the slightest. "I don't want anyone to die for me." He said.

I frowned, confusion washing over me like a tidal wave from the sky. "Then why—?"

"I will only allow them to die for me if I can die for them." He hugged himself tightly. "No one here wants me to die for them, my father died for this country. My mother died for both of us. To try and save me, and to reassure him."

I stared, I'd never heard such words.

"I only want for someone to love me in the way that they will fight by my side and accept who I am, not try and avoid it and try to save me instead. To love me by respecting my wishes as a person, a boy. Not a King."

I felt something stir inside of me and didn't try to bury it. I hugged myself harder and nodded once.

"If that's what you wish, I have no doubt your half will show up."