Divinity | MxM

Chapter 13

Raiden walks silently beside Seki as they make their way through the giant house. Raiden has slowly become used to the place, but he can't help but think it's much too big for one or two people to live in. 

Nevertheless, he lets his eyes wander along the architecture as Seki leads him to the common room filled with books. They head in and Seki walks in front of the younger. As they approach the many bookshelves, he lifts his hand and gently lets his finger tap along the spines of the many books, which seem to have been standing there for years untouched. 

"When I was born, no such thing as the internet existed," Seki begins, "so I'm not surprised there isn't much to find about me there."

Raiden raises an eyebrow as Seki grabs one book that's ticker than the others, and drags it from the shelf. There's a paper sticking out between the many pages, which Seki uses to look up a specific side.

He turns towards the endear and lets out a deep sigh, "This is me at 15."

He turns the book around and lets Raiden's eyes explore the page before him. The younger male grabs the book to get a better look and feels his eyebrows twitch a little at the picture shown there. Obviously, it's without color and the years of standing hidden in the bookshelf have caused the page to turn slightly brown.  

Still, it's clear to see that it is indeed Seki in the picture. His appearance hasn't changed much, aside from a bit sharper features on his face and his hair was a bit longer back then. The supreme appears to be standing in front of a crowd, with his chest firmly pushed forward and a determined look on his face. 

But what really catches Raiden's attention is the coat of arms exposed on the front of Seki's uniform. It's not one Raiden has seen before, so it immediately catches his attention.

"Were you... a soldier?" he questions as he studies the picture further. 

"Close," Seki smiles, but it seems more sad than joyful, "I was a knight."

Knight? That word isn't used often anymore and Raiden only recalls hearing about it in history class years back.

"At 15?" Raiden frowns. How can a 15-year-old be allowed as a knight? Raiden can't even remember what he was doing at 15... probably causing trouble.

"Yes. I was the highest-ranked knight of my time. My age was negligible as long as my powers were of use," Seki mentions with a sigh, "already at that time, my powers were strong enough to earn me a spot in the royal crew. Maybe too strong for a child."

Raiden looks up at the other, seeing how Seki's expression seems to darken slightly as he turns back towards the shelf beside him. He once again lets his hands run against the books as his eyes linger on the words written on each of them.

"All of these books are memories of my past, whether good or bad," he says, "I keep them here to remind myself of my own history and of my kingdom that was lost centuries ago. It seems my brain fights very hard to keep those memories away but... no matter how desperately I want to forget my past, some things will haunt me to the end of my days."

Raiden stares at the other for a while, before letting his gaze fall back upon the book in his hands. What on earth causes a supreme of this strength to say such things?

"What happened?"

The words come out softly, but Raiden can almost feel his throat tighten up simply from asking. He doesn't know why, but maybe a part of him is scared to know the truth. Maybe... a part of him is desperately hoping that the man he's bound to is not a monster.

Seki also seems frozen upon the question. The entire evening, he has been rather open about anything Raiden found interesting. But this question seems to hold another dark side of him that isn't quite easy to explain.