[[ Before the Storm]] - Closed for redking-rising
Regret.
The word had a rather bitter taste to it and Kouen detested that fact. Long ago, he made a promise to himself that he would never even come close to this feeling and yet… life had its way of getting the best of him. No matter how much he distanced himself, no matter how much power he gathers, they would never be enough to wipe away the bitter regret lingering in his mind.
Those lives that perished in the infamous palace fire, lives that were worth so much more than his own…
And now, him.
Judal.
This young man was the walking embodiment of Kouen’s mistakes. What used to be a strange but veritable connection between them had fractured under an unknown pressure. Or perhaps Kouen knew the reason but he chose to ignore it, allowing the hidden animosity to grow until it finally burst forth and destroyed everything in its path. Everything was distorted, skewed out of its ordinary axis and every passing day made it more difficult to distinguish what is right from wrong… if that distinction still existed.
He was conflicted, unfamiliar emotions swirling in his chest and clouding his mind. The burden on his shoulders felt like an actual physical pain and no matter how strong and insurmountable he may appear to everyone, Kouen was still very much human. No matter how much he denied this fact, it will always come to haunt him be it in his sleep or in every waking step he takes.
"You shouldn’t be here." he murmurs, his voice wavering ever so slightly even as his eyes remain hard, steadfast.
“Probably not” He said simply, though even a the words left his mouth, the Magi slid off the window sill, letting bare feet touch down on marble floor. He could feel the tension in the room between them, and yet… He knew he could probably hear belter than anyone the quivering shake in the older man’s voice.
Folding his arms behind his head he moved through the dark room, black ruhk swirling up around him with each step as the power he’d amassed in the passed months was still a struggle to control.
“But I gotta say, I missed you. Did you miss me?” He asked, his smirk on his lips growing as his voice tried to mask that he was geniuine in his declaration that he had missed the older man. As much as he thrived on the power he gained with Hakuryuu, the talks they had just weren’t’ the same…
“Though I suppose probably not considering all this” He chuckled, glancing around the room that Kouen now had to call his own. “But hey, better than the alternative right?” he offered, his eyes dancing as he slid his thumb across his throat in a macabre way of showing just what that alternative was.







