『Schadenfreude』▷ jaesahi。

e n e m i e s

"Why are you hiding?" Jaehyuk asked him one day, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders as he curled up in the embrace.

Asahi didn't answer, because he didn't need to.

Friends in the eyes of many they may be, but Asahi had never forgotten to that they were each other's greatest nemesis. A Krneluce and a Calhalev, what else might there be to ruminate so?

It was hardly the first that they had slept beside each other— he, in fact, did not quite keep count of how many times it had been— but Asahi had not once let his guard down. With those ignoble eyes of the other, how could he possibly? However, Jaehyuk was far from nettled by his austere act, instead opting to cling to him like an adherent fool; except that this fool was intelligent, and was unquestionably doing this for his own amusement.

The idea of being treated like a toy was revolting enough to make him hurl. His body, however, reveled in Jaehyuk's human warmth as it made his tepid constitution feel much more alive. And like magic he was there, laying beneath the pressure of Jaehyuk's arms once again.

The mind and body were two antipodes that worked together in ways that no one could even dare consider.

Perhaps that was why they too, had begun to subconsciously work their minds and merged their precarious plans into one path that was the full of uncertainty equinox. Jaehyuk was his obverse, his total opposite and fitting puzzle all the same. And insulting as it was they were but two sides of the same coin, just two foolish children who were destined for the very same thing, henceforth tied together and forced to work their ways with overlapping ideas.

"Isn't it weird?" Jaehyuk whispered. "You of all people, hiding. And from the man you treasure the most, too."

Asahi pursed his lips.

"I'm not hiding," he said. "There's just something I need to do that's more important than that."

"Than him?"

Jaehyuk bursted into hysterics, lips stretched so wide it nearly ripped as he put himself in stitches at the halfling's words.

Eyes of red lambaste gazed back at him.

"Wow, Asahi," he gasped in between fits. "There's actually something more important to you than the great crown prince?"

"Why not?"

It stirred Jaehyuk's interest, his words that is, and the human inched closer to him.

"And what exactly is more important than meeting the man you swore your soul to?" he asked, because it was what needed be.

The sword was not a mere weapon, it was a knight's soul. In their land, a knight who had pledged his blade had also sworn his soul, and that Asahi— Ettore— had perfectly done as he knelt with such reverence to His Highness Seymour. He too had been there as the ever righteous Ettore had done so, and with a jarring grin did he watch as the prince in return all but glowered at him.

'Til now he must wonder, what had Seymour done to gain the pledge of this man?

Was it his skill with the way of the sword, or was it his glory and apodictic claim to legacy? Either way he could not fathom still, as one who had lived to fulfill the sole goal that was to kill the king and his more than repulsive bequest.

He was, after all, a Krneluce.

Hence it amused him greatly to see Asahi hiding himself from his beloved crown prince, turning his back to his ci-devant comrade that was a man now named Haruto.

A thought crossed his mind, and his lip twitched in a strange concoction of amusement and irritation.

"Or are you trying to complete equinox before going to him?" he queried. "Why? To ashamed to face your master in this weak form of yours?"

No, Asahi struggled to not say.

Jaehyuk raised his hand and placed it atop the other's cheek, a vexing smile present on his face. It was, Asahi found, the very one smile that he gave his supposed friends in this world. An expression so synthetic, his stomach churned with disgust, yet he did not move away from him. Jaehyuk's hand sauntered to the back of his head, gripping, pulling his hair as if in displeasure to merely breathe the same air as him.

"Disgusting," the man spat. "Isn't he a human now, too? Why are you being so sedulous?"

Love, diligence, care and deference.

Such were not foreign to Jaehyuk, but rather words all too familiar he was revolted beyond words. His smile morphed into a sneer, and he pulled harder knowingly, enough to make Asahi grit his teeth in pain.

"Let go," Asahi said.

He calmed his abhorrence, letting his fingers leave the other's twisted locks.

"Say, Asahi," he called. "Do you know why they used to call us two sides of the same coin?"

He could see the way that Asahi's fists clenched in anger, jaws tensing. Those eyes of pure rage that glunched at him so loathing it made his skin crawl with mad delight.

"Do you hate me?"

Asahi did not answer.

He grinned, gingerly tracing the outlines of his enemy's face.

"That's right," he told him. "Hate me. Loathe me so much it makes you want to puke."

His hand then left the other's face and took his hand instead, printing a de trop kiss on top of his pale knuckles.

"But remember, dear Ettore,"

Asahi's eyes glowed red with rancor.

"You cannot kill me."

You cannot, for you and I are each other's life and death.

So Asahi turned and stood and left, too furious to stay with the enemy he could not possibly kill.