Flower Amongst Thorns [Boy x Boy]

Chapter 15

Ivy let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding in, before biting his lip nervously, "I guess I could tell you since you've brought me all the way here..."

"You don't have to, if you don't-" Art started to repeat what he had said earlier, but was quickly interrupted by Ivy.

"I want to."

"Y-you see when I was a kid- Ugh, I think it'll be easier to just show you." The smaller explained, earning a confused expression from the swordsman sitting beside him.

He began pulling up one of his pant legs, when Artios abruptly interrupted, "Woah, woah, woah! What are you doing?!" 

"Just wait, it's nothing weird. Well it's kind of weird, but it's not what you think." Ivy reassured.

He then continued, revealing a long vine that looked like it had been tattooed on, running down his leg, from thigh to just below the ankle.

It was dark purple in colour and if you looked closely it had a faint golden gleam, making it stand out very much against the teen's pale, grey-ish skin.

"That's... a tattoo." Artios commented, a bit lost for words.

He was trying not to judge the small teen for his choices, but that was a really odd mark to purposely create on one's skin.

"It's not a tattoo." Ivy corrected, "From what my parents have said, I was born with it. It's not like I ever chose to have it."

"Surely you can get it removed then?" Artios asked, "There's plenty of places that can help with that."

"I've tried everything. Rubbing, scrubbing, scratching, burning, cutting until they had to tie my hands behind my back." The eighteen-year-old brushed his fingers over the faded scars littered across his thigh. "This isn't normal ink. It's magic."

Not this fairytale crap again...

Did he actually expect Artios to believe that?!

"My mother was poisoned when she was pregnant with me, or at least that's what I was told since I was younger. It is why I was always much weaker than the other kids my age." Ivy continued, "The mark started of as a small leaf on my upper-left thigh and grew over time bit by bit, every single day. It was said that on my nineteenth birthday it would reach the tip of my toe and drain all my life energy, taking me along with it."

"My family got doctors from all across the country to fix my... condition, but nothing worked. I now realize that was expected, since mere medicine cannot compete with magic..."

"So I snuck into the library every single night to study and find out more about the poison and it's cure, and just when I was about to give up, I came across a small book hidden behind a pile of huge encyclopedias."

"I was drawn towards it, almost as though it had been calling to me all along. After spending days of reading through the whole thing carefully, I found out the reason those medicines weren't doing anything. The solution was not some concoction cooked up in a pharmacy, it was a magical flower called the Luna."

"Everybody in my household said that I was a fool for believing in such childish fantasies at my age, and continued to call random doctors against my will who did nothing but make empty promises about how they were almost there, or the antidote was almost ready."