A rose to grind

-28-

"Tuesday, December 2020, 15th, at 5 p.m, Eton Junta is declared officially dead."

It was the duty of a doctor to announce the death of a patient. However, the words fell lightly upon my ears, going in from the left then escaping from the right. These words didn't click in my mind. They didn't make sense. They never had a meaning. Though, what I felt was the hot heaviness in my pocket. Automatically, my hand hovered over the outline of the syringe, then curled into a taut fist.

Eton Junta was dead. He was truly, undeniably dead, beyond a shadow of doubt. The man I spent five years loathing was now forever gone. I should have been elated, pleased, even accomplished, but all I felt was the dull ache of my heart that pounded slowly against my rib cage. Every breath I inhaled felt like I were taking in smoke. The non-existent toxicity filled my lungs, forcing me to open my mouth to sneak in a sharp breath.

The head doctor, Doctor Waine, with disappointment evident in his eyes, turned back to me to relay the seemingly bad news as if I hadn't registered Eton Junta's death, which was true.

With a sorrowful gaze focused on me, as if I were truly grieving for Eton Junta's precedented death, Doctor Waine laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. The weight couldn't even be felt on my shoulder from how light his touch was.

"It is really unfortunate for such a great man to meet his end on a hospital bed," the doctor clicked his tongue out of unwanted, and unneeded pity.

I was only filled with scorn at his words. And my hand hovering above the syringe in pocket twitched, as if I were thirsty to do something uncalled for. Even it was hard for me to control myself.

"No. I don't think so," the corners of my lips curled into a contemptuous smile, "In fact, I think it suits him perfectly. He died in the very bed of the hospital he sponsored. If that isn't a suitable ending, I wouldn't know what else is."

The old weasel was caught off guard by my words. With parted lips, the old man mumbled out, "...what does young master mean?"

My eyes fixated solely on Eton Junta's blanched, dull face, as if all his vitality and liveliness had been sucked out. It was hard to confirm that he was dead. I even wondered whether he was faking death, or if he truly had met his end.

A smile so corrupted, so vile, so full of everything that could only be considered heartless, or even devilish, free of any filial piety, made its way onto my face. The doctor was shell-shocked by the unknown, underlying meaning behind my double-edged smile. Granted, he couldn't figure it out, so it all the more frightened him to the bone.

"He is still your father," Kai stepped between the head doctor and I, separating us, so that the old man wouldn't have shit his pants from the enigmatic action.

Almost immediately, I followed up with, "Correction. He was my step-father.

Kai glanced back at the elderly doctor over his shoulder, almost as if he were skeptical and untrusting of my capibility to hold myself back. I begrudged that he treated me like dog chasing their own tail. I detested that he treated me like a ticking bomb, ready to explode at any given second.

"Why are you so nervous?" I prompted cynically, closing our distance. "Now, that your master is gone, a stray dog like you is all bark, and not bite, now? Aren't you such a cute chihuahua? How annoying."

"Yugo. Don't disgrace yourself," Kai warned in a steady tone. He peered back once more before turning back to me, bloodless lips thinned into a slim line. He almost seemed pitiful, and that infuriated me. "...you are his successor. The least you can do for him is to fake grief, even if it disgusts you. Think about the empire he left in your hands."