Chapter Text
All those years that I was trying to gain the upper hand, gain control of my fate by gaining his favor, he ended up gaining mine instead.
It was like falling asleep. You plop on the pillows, sink in the silk sheets, and melt in the duvet's warmth. You feel its inevitable nature and fall for its impending allure. You need it, to sleep, and you let yourself be caught in its obvious snare. Slowly, helplessly you do, and then all at once!
Suddenly you wake up and realize: “Ah, I’ve fallen asleep. It already happened. No takebacks.”
Suddenly, I’ve…
✢ Athanasia III: Guilt ✢
“What was that about?”
“?” Claude answers with a quick side glance.
The ruling monarch and the heir apparent had just come out of the throne room, walking abreast in the open courtyard after granting audience to an Arlantan ambassador.
Just like how he had wanted it, Princess Athanasia had begun shadowing her father, Emperor Claude, with his duties. Aside from attending audiences and meetings, she has also been trying her hand at balancing books, approving proposals, reviewing decrees, such and such…
Every day, they would sit side by side, doing administrative work. Should they finish early—or rather, once they grow tired and decide to wrap up, for work never truly ends, does it?—they'd rest over tea, part ways for a bit, and then dine together in the evening. If they decide to stay late, a pair of workaholics they are, they’ll go straight to dinner.
This has been their routine recently. The emperor and his princess no longer only meet a few times a week, for a small portion of the day. No. As if being without her has become too unbearable, Claude had arranged their schedule so they meet every day, and be together from the sun’s rising to its setting.
Not that they're doing anything sus, unlike what most of you degenerates think. They just talk. Mostly. If it isn't regarding governance or Obelia’s state of affairs, then it’s only about random things.
The rest of the time, they would waste away, merely fixing their sights on something—or nothing—far away or surprisingly near, yet still quite unattainable. Mirrored in each other’s eyes, filling the air between them with tense silence; a pathetic attempt to mute the tumult in their hearts.
Should the struggle to restrain the gathering storm end in vain, and their parched souls wet their lips with its downpour, then one would play the willing victim of a certain sweet violence, while the other would assume the role of the reluctant aggressor…
“You didn’t need to be so rude to Lord Otavio,” the princess' nagging at her father resumes.
Athanasia recalls how Claude almost bore a hole through the cream-folded cardstock, wax-stamped in wine-red with the Arlantan sigil, as it was handed to him by Lord Otavio earlier. It was an invitation to a ball hosted by Crown Prince Dice.
The envelope remained sealed. Claude quickly shot down the ambassador with a resounding, adamant 'NO', and ordered Sir Robane to send him home with the 'usual reply'…whatever that was. Though Athanasia could safely surmise.
“He was being excessively persistent and impertinent,” scoffs the sovereign, striding ever brisker.
“He wasn't,” defends the girl, trying to keep peace and pace.
With the Obelian emperor’s renowned reputation for a prickly temperament, the princess had to admit that the envoy had been bold, enough to make Claude grind his teeth and tap his armchair at a rhythm faster than the ticking of a clock—or a bomb.
“You even humored him with your sparkly smile,” he snidely remarks.
Sparkly??
It was only out of courtesy, and honestly, who wouldn’t? She was supposed to be a young, newly blossomed lady being flattered. It'll look more unnatural if she’d acted with indifference.
The ambassador was merely stating that Arlanta was looking forward to the princess’ beauty gracing their halls. Their princes and noble bachelors couldn’t seem to wait to make her acquaintance, forge invaluable friendships—political and/or personal—and to form ties of... But you know how her father is.
“I fail to recognize the issue,” Athy points out. “Socializing is a good opportunity to meet future prospects—”
Claude halts.
“—for marriage.”
“How revolting,” he berates her. “Think of your age.”
It’s vexing how he treats her. This detestion of her mingling with ‘males’ would be understandable if he had been the Claude from before. It can be brushed off as overprotectiveness, justified by the sorry excuse of him being her father. Now though…
“It’s not just boys present there,” she retorts. “There will be men my age— actual age… or yours. Should I get married to one, then?”
He starts to scowl.
“Me, in this body,” her murmur turning dangerously low, then cutting him sharp. “To an adult man, like you.”
“Who said you're getting married?” Claude slices through with that deep, harsh voice of his.
“Seriously,” a bite in her tone, bitter bile boiling up her throat, digging her nails in her palms, trying to drown out that other pain within her chest. “What is it that you want from me—”
And what is it that I want?
“—Father?”
His jaw tenses and he glares some more.
Don’t you already know? His eyes seem to tell her.
It's not the first time he sends her a message with just a look, assuming she 'already knows'. The girl could guess, but her guesses are most likely inclined toward her own desires, things she wishes he meant, and keep wondering if she guesses right, only to be left confused in the end with no way to confirm.
“I’m tired of the things we both know,” she answers sadly his wordless ask.
After seconds flew by with only their silent staring, a bout of who’s more annoyed at whom, Claude yields and walks away.
She sighs, but it was far from relief. Either she has nowhere else to go, or nowhere else she’d rather be, but with him, regardless of their spat, the princess follows him a few steps behind.
A pang of guilt unfurls in her chest.
Is this the sort of treatment she has chosen over the unconditional love showered by Lily and Felix? Athanasia couldn’t even meet their eyes anymore. It was apparent that the two of them were disappointed with how she has been acting as of late, and yet they still continue to worry about her well-being.
What am I even doing?
The princess must look to them like a teen in her rebellious phase. She had actually expected them to reprimand her at some point, in some sort, for associating with the 'wrong person,' or at least educate her on the delicate subjects of puberty and morality, but it did not transpire for whatever reason.
Look at how my real parent is faring.
With his back turned, shoulders broad, arms slightly swaying by his sides, veins tracing beneath his skin...
Wait...
She feels her cheeks warm.
What’s wrong with her?! While here she is, heart being torn apart, and he’s just... walking away without a care in the world! Battling the urge to run her fingers through the soft golden hair at his nape, and bash his head against a vase at the same time, just to see what’s going on in that mind of his.
Annoying.
Like those long pair of shadows rooted on their feet that’ve been stalking them relentlessly. Disfigured dark pursuers condemning their every move, silently denouncing, seeming to sneer at her torment.
It takes several seconds for the princess to notice that they have stopped and that Claude has gone into the room in front of them. With how the palace guards are holding the doors open long after he enters, she realizes that she is expected to follow.
As she crosses the threshold, the one on the right salutes her with indifference, while the other one can't hide the worried knot on his brow, and for a brief moment, Athanasia thinks of Felix.
✢
An unfamiliar space. Medium-sized, almost empty. No furniture meant for comfort and idling; only a few narrow tables hugging the walls, collecting dust. In her periphery were browning books on shelves, the hardly melted wax of candlesticks on stands, and a striking crimson carpet runner that lures to a thick, equally-colored curtain at the end of the room—the kind that hides something grand.
The door behind her creaks, ending with a thud, the clicking of a lock, and darkness.
What little light had managed to sneak in through the arched windows was eclipsed by this man's almost bare chest, his tall shadow veiling her features, further dimming her vision.
Claude flicks the fluttery sleeves to peep at her upper arm. The purplish hue that had formed there the other day, painted by the intensity of his barely contained urges, has already evened out.
Though this man would rather not use words to convey his intent, Athanasia is not oblivious to his odd behavior. During moments where his fervor overbears him, Claude would content and limit himself by gripping at her limbs. The bruise he would heal only after a day or two, as if to ensure his frustration is conveyed through this inflicted ache, shared until it has seeped well deep within her soul, leaving her to flaunt the lingering blemish as a sign of possession.
Gently, he brushes his knuckles against the skin where the mark had been, as the princess suppresses a shiver.
She isn't fazed now. In retrospect, she never was. Claude does not attempt more than this. Occasionally, he plants a kiss on the tip of her fingers, her knuckles, her palms… Once (and only that one time, as Athy recalls, during their first non-platonic contact by the bench) on her neck. Another time (or was it imagined?) on the apex of a bare, blushed shoulder… That’s all. A peck, a lick, a suck. Rarely, his teeth would test but never cut.
All the while, he would not utter a word nor make a sound, and neither would she as she lets him.
But now is not a good time to indulge in such games. Their earlier discourse ended unresolved, leaving the mood hanging over them sour ever since.
That's why, when from the corner of her eye she sees his hand lift again poised to hold her, she slaps it away before it can.
“No, I don’t want to hurt…” she says softly, averting her eyes. “...right now,” she adds, implying a ‘maybe later’ instead of a firm 'anymore,' and instantly hates herself for it.
Like a bad habit… Is it only through pain that we can touch?
Athanasia wonders how he took her rejection. Her insides churning with anxiety. Was he shocked? Angry? Or…? It was her first attempt, maybe… confused? She fears knowing his reaction for some reason, so she fixes her gaze on the ground, sheepishly curling her toes in strappy sandals, pointing a few centimeters at His Majesty's closed larger slippers. He’s still way too close.
“Let's not play…” she whispers with her head down, palms on his torso, pushing him away with just enough strength for him to take the hint.
And just like that, she sees his feet stepping back. She peeps at his face but his expression has become even more indistinguishable than before.
Athanasia is both surprised and scared. It was so easy to deny him, and yet it took her this long to even try. The fact that the need didn't even occur to her and that Claude would quietly acquiesce… To realize what this insinuates concerning the extent of their wants– hers, his– is frightening.
“Play?” His voice is deep, and dark, and seems to drip with disappointment. The dead air builds a wall between them and she misses his warmth. “Right. This is a game to you.”
“I-is it not?” Athanasia wanted to say with sarcasm, but the lump in her throat made her stutter and swallow, and she sounded more bitter instead. “...F-father?”
“You…” His fists clench by his sides. “You think by calling me that it’ll keep me at bay? This, this 'game'…”
Pausing upon hearing himself stammer, he tilts his head in self-disapproval, furtively succeeding in clearing his throat.
“... is how I draw the line… for us. Athanasia—”
Claude steps forward slightly, briefly, then stops, his whole being tenses as he restrains himself from approaching.
“I have never been more serious.”
“How could you even say that?!” She exclaims in disbelief. "You've known me only for what? A few weeks? Months, maybe—?!”
“More than that,” barely making a sound as if he himself is horrified at the thought, incredulous with what he is about to say.
The princess waits on an eager edge, hoping that she can finally understand him and this thing between them that she keeps postponing to address. Too afraid to define. Too fearful to face future judgment, responsibility, and commitment, to something that defies societal norms. A grave transgression to a higher power, possibly…
Yet he admits as his earnest becomes even more severe, “I feel like I’ve known you beyond this life.”
Are you kidding me?! Before this life?! You had Athanasia killed! Your own daughter!
“No!” Cutting off his nonsense, carefully backing away from this deluded man. “You're just confused!”
“I know exactly what this is.”
“No, you listen! You’re mistaking what you feel! It’s because you cared for me all those years as your daughter and—”
“Daughter?” He scoffs.
Athanasia expects an upturn of a lips' corner, smug after a teasing as he often does in his subtle, vulgar way. There is none.
✢
She was wearing a pink dress. He was wearing a smile. As Claude draws the crimson curtains, her father’s last gift was revealed.
Athanasia glimpses at the man beside her, then back at the man in the portrait. The thought that he might not return… If she hears him call her name the way he does before, will it feel the same? Even after unearthing all these twisted feelings?
“Dad,” she whispers as if the painted canvas would answer back.
But her subtle utterance was answered instead by a flash of light, straining her eyes that had adjusted to the dark.
The Claude beside her has summoned a mana circle aiming at her father's image.
“Wait, Dad!” The princess clings to his extended arm in an attempt to stop him, but the spell just gets bigger. “No! Don’t do it, Dad! Please!”
Making obvious his displeasure, he clicks his tongue and draws more mana.
Athanasia knows exactly what he wants and how to give it but it hurts. Everything about all of this hurts. To give in is to accept that the image of the man long gone is all that’s left of him. So she endures the tightening in her chest and gives him what he wants.
“Claude!”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” A snide behind clenched teeth. “Say it again.”
Her eyes start to fog and fill.
"Claude…"
And they spill.
The mana circle disintegrates into sparkling specks of dust, its soft illumination dying down into nothing, gradually dimming the room as the walls go silent, waiting for her to say it a third time.
Athanasia could not be reminded more so than now that this Claude is not him by how he comforts her. How he had just grabbed her waist and pressed her body onto his in a way that the other Claude would never do. That slight charge whenever their skin is about to meet, a pull to adhere at the molecular level, was never there before… Or was it? And it was merely, deliberately brushed off as innocent affection?
The way his whole being would engulf her existence… No longer was it the soft, shy warmth that glows and gleams, but a wildfire, burning and consuming everything in its path. Every part of her where his hands lay or his eyes claim would come alive like a birthing of a star but then dies just before. From its premature death, a black hole of sin and guilt in its wake, sucking up all the possibilities of what they could have been if they weren’t…
“Athanasia.”
Her heart jumps at her name rolling off his tongue. Did he feel the same when she called him?
“Athanasia…”
As he takes her hand gently, counting her knuckles, tracing her bones, again Claude sighs her name.
Her name.
Mine.
“He’s not coming back.”
Athanasia flinches with the sting of his warning. Then firmly, he holds her wrists.
“Even if he does, he’ll be an entirely different person. That man will neither be him nor me. I can’t even imagine what he’ll do by then…”
His grip tightens.
“...What I’ll do to you.”
The princess struggles out of his grasp, retracting her hands in anger, suddenly repulsed by his touch.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance! Spare us both with the…"
And she couldn't get the words out. Couldn't say it out loud and make it more real. Couldn’t bear looking at him anymore that the girl stares hard at the ground instead, as if she can pull from it the rage and courage she needs to hurt this man with the truth—
“I am the daughter you begot from your dead lover…”
—but the truth hurts her instead.
“How could you? To your own flesh and blood? Aren't you disgusted?! What kind of sick animal are you?!”
Each word spelled out by her tongue is a stab to the heart. It would have been nice if it was his chest that was bleeding, or at least the both of them dying. But there was no way of knowing with this man, having a ready answer like silence, and so Athanasia was left to suffer on her own.
“I hate you... I hate you!”
Her fists chastise him with each pound on his chest, hitting him with as much strength as she has left. And the emperor just takes them all in: the beatings he lets land, the raw rebukes of her bared heart, and the sight of her messed up self. Just basking in the outburst of her misery.
“I hate you so much! Now we can't go back! Why couldn't you just keep it to yourself?!"
“Can you?” Claude sighs. “Because I couldn't.”
Sobbing and resigned, she holds onto his arms to keep herself up and he holds her elbows just as she begins to falter.
“Why are you crying?”
“Don’t you know?!”
“...Of course, I do.”
He steps in closer, leans in lower. She feels his nose on her scalp.
“But I want to hear you say it,” his lips scribing the secret against her temple's skin, his warm breath wafts her hair. “The things we both know but won't say, I’m also tired of it.”
She stills.
“Each time I reach for you, you hesitate, and I can't move forward. Athanasia—”
The direness sends prickles up her spine and she shivers from the sudden chill.
“We can’t do anything about who you’re born from.”
It is inevitable, this impending confrontation. But this morning she woke up thinking, hoping it will not be today, and in all honesty, hoping it will not be in any day soon. Preferring to wallow in their state of limbo for as long as can be allowed…
Is that what I want?
“What I want,” he tells her, peering at her downturned gaze, trying to make her see him. “Is for you to want me despite the fact.”
He lifts her chin, and when their eyes meet briefly, he speaks with a kindness unbecoming of the tyrant that he is. “But it’s always been up to you.”
She turns away but he holds her head on either side, his palms warm on her cheeks, her ears, her hair caught between his fingers, gently directing her face toward his.
“I can’t keep on guessing.” Desperately, he pleads as their eyes finally lock. “You need to tell me what it is you want.”
This. Didn't you want this, Lee Ji-Hye? Didn't you want him?
Athanasia questions her pitiful self, that version of her that died in her sleep.
But not like this. Not too much.
The one in the gallows answered instead.
This… This is too deep. Too dangerous. We're not gonna get out of this unscathed.
Oh, how she dreads that unfamiliar feeling! That alien emotion, totally terrifying, and extremely detrimental. Like a thousand stars bursting in succession, unfolding the mysteries of the universe. A phenomenon glorious and ethereal that will bring about the end of the world.
It is then that she hears it in her head, that song that played on the bus one rainy night during a ride home. Soaked in her server’s uniform, cloth clinging cold on her skin beneath the air conditioning, she hugged her tired bones as the downpour drummed overhead, while the speakers sang of waiting. It was funny how her memory carried that song over from one life to the next, having only heard it once, to be played specifically for this moment.
I get too scared to jump if I wait too long.
✢
Athanasia attempts a kiss.
Claude was obviously caught off guard despite being ready to catch her waist. Such rash actions were never in her nature, but they were never really themselves ever since, and it felt so good to be the one this time to make the other tremble at least.
With the indecision to act suddenly forced upon him, his lips remain firmly closed. His arms hesitate until the last minute and resolves to push her away.
“No! Th-this...” Stammering, his breathing shakes, as well as the large hands cupping her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders. Fear and fascination fuse behind his eyes. “...still a child. You’re not re—”
“I won't break…” The princess whines. “You won't break me…”
A knot forms on his brow, his worried gaze flitting about her face searching for meaning.
“Just," he considers nervously. "...just to—"
Their teeth clash as Athy goes for it again, capturing his mouth open in mid-sentence. Not having the slightest idea of what to do, having not done this before, and just being propelled by the need to get close, she lets her impulses guide her and ends up biting his lip.
She hears him groan and finds him staring sternly. Too serious, too near, the sapphires a vast blue, and she drowns upward to the sea of skies.
“Tongue. Show me,” he orders, low and harsh.
On command, she closes her eyes and lets him lead.
Why did his lips have to be this soft that she can almost make him bleed? And his tongue that fills her taste of afternoon tea? How can she ever hate him now when she won't ever forget how good he feels in her mouth?
And whose heart is it that’s beating so loudly? Deafening her ears, drowning the sound of her whimpering?
Losing herself fast, not knowing where to brace, she mindlessly claws at the ripples of his midriff, and they flinch at the same time. The minute movements his muscles make become palpable beneath her palms, rising and falling with each shallow breath. Taking her trembling paws, Claude places them over his shoulders, and she anchors tight around his nape, eliminating whatever little space remains between them.
Steady fingers splay over her spine, sliding down the small of her back, pulling her rather impatiently nearer, until she feels him hot and hard on her belly. Curious heat coils in her core, stirring a terrible sort of thrill through her veins, from her tipped toes to the nails digging into her father’s skin.
Is it only through pain that they can touch? Uncontent with just beholding a beautiful thing like fire, to burn is the only way to hold. Fleeting as it flickers and fades. Extinguishing when possessed with a clenched fist. Or let free the flames to consume the feeble flutterers, incessant incestuous insects suicidal in their intent, plunging to their blissful ends.
These things that they're doing will definitely leave them battered and bruised but they do it anyway. For when else can they? When has she ever been held like that? Not once in her first life. Only now in this. And maybe never again in the next.
This man… He can do whatever he wants with me, and I'll let him. I swear to god, I'll let him.
But then Claude breaks the kiss, pressing a thumb over her lips.
“I need you so much closer,” he admits as if in pain. “But you’re not ready.”
Then his grip loosens. Slowly, a gap forms between their bodies and she loses his heat.
“That line, Athanasia,” he tells her, while their eyes still mirror each other's haze, and steal the air escaping each other's mouths. “Do not cross it again. I won’t be able to stop myself next time. Do you understand?”
She nods.
Still high from the near fulfillment of their mutual longing, his surprising display of gentleness and restraint when they collided, and that he’s even capable of such, lulls her with a strange sense of security wrapped in the warmth of her tormentor.
How is it that the very person that causes her chaos can bring her such calm? This level of comfort… she could fall asleep in his arms.
And yet…
Something that feels this good couldn’t have come from something that’s intrinsically wrong, and her stomach sinks right after reaching the peak of contentment. For them to be together, too many rules would have to be broken, and loved ones would have to be hurt. Conflicting emotions and morals will ebb and flow like the ocean tides, and the guilt will undulate forever so long as the moon dances round the earth, and the earth to its sun… Such is how Athanasia foresees her fate, and fears.
“Are we going to be alright?” She asks.
And when he fails to answer fast enough, in all unfairness, only but a second too late, her eyes immediately search for the one that can take her home. Like a child lost in a crowd.
Looking past the cruel man, to that portrait of the man less cruel, one long gone, she burns their happy memories in her heart.
— portrait —
I desired to see you again, to touch you, to know who you were, to see whether I should really find you like the ideal image which I had retained of you, to shatter my dream, perchance, with reality. — Victor Hugo
✢