Opposites Attract

Part 2

Munakata finds himself strayed in the middle of the woods. He looks around only to find emptiness. His instinct tells him to go forward. Suddenly a figure of a man appears, walking toward him in a slow pace. The man is wobbling. Dark of the moon conceals his face but Munakata has this sense of familiarity with the man. He reaches out his hand pleading for help. As soon as Munakata approaches, their surroundings are consumed by wildfire. The man falls on his knees. Munakata hastens, deep in his bones he can feel that he must help him. He still can't recognize the man's face but he recognizes the blade piercing through his abdomen. It's his very own sword slowly killing the man who is now lying on the ground soaked in blood. Munakata is driven by impulse to help but when he lifts his hands, he doesn't see his own hands. Rather, his hands have shrunk and his vision goes blurry – a reminiscence of the day when he was nine and had just gotten his first pair of glasses. That day he felt powerless as he is right now. He hears a weak whisper.

"Reisi..." It's the same husky voice he has known over the years he's become king. His heart drops. He can only witness Suoh Mikoto dying right in front of him. Every second is torture. It's excruciatingly painful to love someone who death can touch.

Munakata's eyes snap open. He wakes up to a reality of tears brimming in his eyes. It's that dream again. The same recurring dream he's been having ever since the day Suoh Mikoto laid a hand on him. Munakata stays in a daze. How much longer does he have to bear this pain? He pulls himself together, changing his yukata into a turtleneck and trousers. He grabs his coat and storms out of his apartment. He leaps from one building roof to another until he lands in his go-to hiding place – the same old place he's gone to spy on the Red King whenever he's troubled by the dream. He doesn't dare to count how many sleepless nights he's spent doing this otherwise called stalking. He waits patiently. He knows Suoh's bedtime hours by heart. If Suoh Mikoto is ever consistent with anything, it's his sleeping schedule. Munakata just has to stay put until a little after midnight and Suoh will open his bedroom window on the second floor of HOMRA bar to smoke before he goes to bed. That careless man even keeps the window open the entire night. To Munakata's advantage, it allows him to take a little peek to make sure that Suoh remains sound asleep in the comfort of his bedroom, instead of dying somewhere else. That gives Munakata a peace of mind, so he can go on with life the next day.

He recalls the first days he was crowned the Blue King. The Gold King summoned him almost immediately. He spent hours at Mihashira Tower being lectured "With great power comes great responsibility" as if Munakata hadn't memorized the quote in his school days. Still, being a gentleman that he was, he listened to every word the 90 year-old had to say. He almost ran out of patience until the Gold King handed him a sealed letter he claimed to have been written by the Silver King. Knowing the notoriously mysterious Adolf K. Weismann took an interest to personally write him a letter, Munakata couldn't help but instantaneously open it and read the cryptic message. "Attraction is not a choice." He read silently and looked over the Gold King who responded with another quote "What you seek is seeking you". Only after he met the Red King did he learn the gravitational attraction toward another king.

Sounds of red clansmen bursting out of the bar snap Munakata out of his thoughts. Right on schedule there he is – Suoh Mikoto exhaling smoke out of his bedroom window. Munakata watches attentively. He knows the tricks of the trade for this operation "Watch Over Suoh", careful not to get caught. Luckily the Red King's laziness surpasses his care for any potential stalker. A half dozen cigarettes later and Suoh is off, out of Munakata's sight. He figures Suoh must be dozing off. He's thinking of calling it a day but something is holding him back tonight. Any other nights before he wouldn't have had a second thought of leaving, but not tonight. Not after Suoh confessed to him days before and left with a bang – kissing and touching him like that. Munakata bites his lip, imagining what hints of nicotine on Suoh's tongue might taste like. With this thought in mind, his addiction to Suoh relapses. Before he knows it, his legs have led him to Suoh's bedroom. He's crouching by the open window, surprised by the sight of naked Suoh whose lower half is merely covered by a towel. Suoh's soaking wet hair is evidence of a shower. Apparently he wasn't dozing off. Munakata has no words to explain his action, only freezes at the seductive view of Suoh's six pack abs, water dripping down his face.