Archive of Our Own ^beta

A painting in a gallery stood amongst the rest of the paintings. Nobody knows how long it’s lived nor when it was created. The only known information about the painting was its name. The piece displayed a portrait of a regal young knight. His golden hair swept to the side and shined brightly with peach faded at its tips, contrasting the dark colors surrounding him. He wore a royal blue robe with gold embroidered on it and a gold rose pinned to its side. The knight sat with a bold posture and his arms on his lap. He wore evident scars and handsome features. But his eyes conveyed lifelessness and tiredness.

What an interesting piece. Rui could surmise how lost and alone this painting was with time, how its lifeless eyes bore into you, leaving you with a deep reflection of yourself. A marvellous piece by an unknown artist, waiting for its story to be shared.

Rui hums in satisfaction, figuring he’ll never know. It comes with the beauty of art that he’ll never know what gave the knight his pride nor what lost the color in his eyes.

‘ Tsukasa the Knight ‘ the silver plaque below the frame had engraved without a date, nor a name of an artist. The painting itself was rather unknown to the crowd of visitors, so no one has else has ever minded it.

Rui moves on to the next painting ahead.

——

Rui returns once again to the gallery. Considering Rui’s been here before, he already knows what to expect. The gallery displayed works lost without its original painters known. Rui greatly appreciates this notion with the assurance that if he were ever to be an unknown artist, his works could still end up on a painting such as this. The gallery displayed a diverse range of paintings from blotches of bright color to paintings that whispered its wistfulness to you. This was a good learning experience for Rui as well. After all, popularity of pieces do not enhance its quality.

Rui would’ve said, if not for the only issue with these paintings were of its colors, which hasn’t been rightfully preserved for all this time, leading to the colors fading or growing murky.

That was the case for most of the paintings he saw, except one. Rui’s suspicions were right; the painting before him stood out more than anything else.

It was exactly how it was when Rui had last seen it; its background dark and murky, but the knight’s hair was still as bright as gold. The knight still sat in a proud posture. His features were pretty, as if an angel had been sent down to bless this portrait with beauty and radiance. Perhaps the painting was of an actual person rather than a man painted with the ideal beauty and attractiveness? If only the knight could live to see this day, maybe Rui would… nevermind. Rui ceases the idea.

Of course, Rui could not forget the darkness that clouded the knight’s eyes as it gazed into his.

Huh?

Rui’s heart stops. Everything in his body feels numb.

This time, the knight’s gaze was focused elsewhere, not Rui’s. It looked more towards his left than last time.

But… that wasn’t possible. Galleries don’t usually replace paintings with its own slightly altered copy.

Not just that, the painting was actually slightly slouching this time!! Rui deluded himself earlier with the belief that the painting stood with its normal grandness. The knight even had his hands positioned no longer on his lap, but at his sides.

So with major eagerness bursting through Rui’s entire system, he visits again the next day.

And Rui was right. The knight had his head angled slightly more towards the right compared to yesterday.

He returns again and again, over and over again. The knight’s lips form a thinner line, the knight’s eyebrows furrowed a tiny bit, the knight’s fingers were curled over atop the handrests of the chair he sat and more.

It made Rui’s heart drum with excitement. What an intriguing new discovery of his! While it was incredibly morbid and eerie for paintings to move, it provided Rui with something he could look forward to.

Rui returns to the gallery for the nth time that month. The lady at the counter began to recognize him by face.

“Back here again I see?”

Rui chuckles, showing his ID (that he bought, which allowed him a year’s worth of access to the gallery daily) to the lady.

“Excuse me, have you perhaps… seen any strangely slight alterations with the painting ‘ Tsukasa the Knight ‘ ?”

The lady ponders about his question. “No, has it been vandalised in any sort?”

“No.” Not that Rui suspects it has.

“Well, then maybe your mind is tricking you. No worries, even I forget that the knight painting had his head in a side profiled angle.”

Side profiled angle?

Rui thanks the lady and rushes over to the painting.

It was true. The knight was now looking sideways, facing the other side.

It was surreal. This time, it was such a significant change compared to yesterday’s, and not even the staff could tell.

Something was going on. And Rui had to find out.

The next day, Rui camps at the gallery almost before closing time, avoiding all the guards and hiding in places that were already checked or in the bathroom. Soon enough, the gallery was closed and lights out. It was fairly easy, given that Rui hadn’t needed to use any of his backup plans.

Rui set a stool down to sit on and a lamp before him. Considering he’s locked himself inside a potentially haunted gallery for the whole night, he may as well pass the time on his sketchbook rather than waiting around for something to happen.

A sketch of the knight’s portait is finished during this time. Rui heaves out a sigh, double checking the sketch for any other errors he missed on.

“…are you done?”

Rui’s heart jumps out of his stool that he falls from it. He quickly looks up to the painting and directs the lamp’s light towards it. The painting was now transformed into a figure with life. The man in the painting moved.

“You! Over there!” The knight points at Rui as if anyone else were in the room. “How is it that you can tell of my movements?!”

“I… don’t know..” Rui responded, his ass still stuck to the floor, utterly bewildered by a painting talking to him. “You… who…. What are you?”

“Me? I’m the world’s greatest knight the world has ever seen!! Before—… I was turned into a painting…” The knight props up a hand to rest his chin on, squishing his cheeks as he does. “Now I’m downgraded to the world’s most beloved painting ever.”

If only the knight knew, Rui thought.

“If only he knew, that’s what you thought huh??”

Can paintings read his mind?!?

“It’s way too obvious from your pitiful expression, really!”

Huh.

“I don’t understand you. Why were you trapped in this painting—how were you trapped in there? Why is it that I’m the only one who could tell?” Rui could only hope that he was able to tell from his sharp ability to notice details, but he differs, for it was definitely not the case.

“You fool, That’s what I’ve been asking!” The knight sighs, “I was trapped here by a powerful sorcerer and cursed to be forgotten by everyone who leaves.”

More questions bubbled up in Rui’s head, but the only ones he could let out were:

“Why? How?”

“Magic.” The knight replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He didn’t seem to be joking though, seeing as though a painting was now moving and talking to him, it could only make sense.

“Magic? But how come? Magic doesn’t exist outside of fantasies and dreams”

The knight remains silent, his eyes laced with fear, his adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that. My…. M-my memories are a little foggy as of now. I’ve been stuck here for a little over a millennia and I’ve forgotten the faces of many people in my past as well. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow?”

Come back tomorrow?

It was risky, considering how Rui wanted to be known as a great artist and not a criminal trespasser, but he could make this work.

“Of course.” Rui begins planning his tomorrow’s break-in.

“Good. I’m Tsukasa Tenma by the way, the greatest knight in the entire kingdom! Remember that.”

“Tsukasa. I’m Rui Kamishiro.” Rui nods. If Tsukasa wasn’t stuck behind a painting, maybe they would’ve shook hands.

Time had passed quickly and the sun was beginning to rise, so Rui waved goodbye and left the gallery and the unknowingly stunned knight who was having his life flash before his eyes.

——

Tsukasa looked more anxious the next time Rui visited (broke in). He announced that he had news to relay to Rui.

“After hearing your name, I’ve realized why you don’t seem to forget about me.”

“Hm? Do tell.” Rui inched himself closer to the edge of his stool.

“It’s you.” He pauses. “You are the sorcerer who cursed me into this painting.”

…..

“Tell me you are joking, knight.”

“Listen, what I say is true! And I didn’t realize it at first until I heared your name, and it was confirmed! You’re Rui Kamishiro! You bear the name of the greatest sorcerer of his time! In fact, you must be a reincarnation of him.”

“Reincarnation…?”

“You’re almost the splitting image of him. It’s a little…” Tsukasa squints his eye at Rui. “Unnerving. How I get to see him again after all this time, I thought I’d never see his face ever again.”

Rui feels ashamed on his past life’s behalf. “I’m sorry.” Rui doesn’t know the full story, but a voice in him pleads for him to apologize for everything.

“Don’t.” Tsukasa abruptly voiced with harshness and remnants of pain. “Sorry, I just…..”

“Tsukasa.” Rui calls out his name, more firm and sincere. “I promise, I’ll get you out of here.”

As a result of that, Tsukasa’s eyebrows furrow into a scowl and his body tenses. “Don’t bother, please, I’ve tried for many years yet nothing’s changed.” He insisted.

“But I, however, am the one who imprisoned you in here wasn’t I? So I’m the one who could let you go. It was my fault after all.”

Something about those words repulsed the knight even more, but lets go of it. “Perhaps, you could try.” Tsukasa sighs defeatedly.

Rui understands that there’s more to the story than this. What prompted this sorcerer Rui to maliciously trap a knight in a painting for all eternity? Was it envy? greed? revenge?

Rui won’t know the reason today.

——

Rui returns with a grin on his face, carrying determination to know more. He asks Tsukasa how he only moved within the painting during closing time. Tsukasa replies that he could only move when everybody was gone, except around Rui, that is.

Naturally, Rui would be highly interested in the life of a knight who was imprisoned inside a painting. So he asks the knight to share more of himself.

And so the knight tells his story, how at a young age, he had been willed to become a knight by his brave made-up adventures he created with his sister Saki! The pair would create adventurous stories about saving the kingdom with Toya, someone who the knight deemed as a brother. Tsukasa began radiating a tad bit the more he continued.

“My sister… She always had a joyous smile that always lifted my mood. I’ve owned a handful of fond memories of them before they left me.”

“Left you?”

Tsukasa nods, “for the black rose kingdom. They left me and our kingdom behind… because…” his words trail off to the distance. The knight’s lower lip began quivering as if frozen. The deafening silence screamed his indifference in continuing his words.

“Anyways I… I was actually the greatest knight in the kingdom! I always did whatever it took to protect my kingdom from evil monsters and slayed them.” Tsukasa huffed with a smug grin, “everyone threw festivals singing praises of my name back then!”

Rui chuckled, amazed. “That sounds wonderful.”

“It is indeed! How about you, Rui? What kind of person are you in this era?”

“Oh, well, I’m a painter, hence why I visit this gallery often and I’m an only child in my family.”

“A painter? That seems awfully fitting for you. I always knew you had an eye for the arts.”

“Did you know me in my past life?”

“Oooh hahaha! Which one? You see, legends state that the reincarnation cycle resets every century or so, and look at me! I’ve been withering in this canvas for as long as magic has stopped existing!” The knight jokes, clearly averting the question.

“Tsukasa, you know exactly which one I’m talking about.” Rui bluntly states the obvious.

“Oh yeah, him! Yeah, I didn’t really know him.”

Rui could swear there was a bead of sweat running down the portrait’s forehead.

He makes a mental note of the information he’d learned today:

The knight…

• was close to his siblings until they grew apart
• was a beloved knight who did everything for the good of his kingdom
• had a major aversion towards the sorcerer and anything close to him
• knew the sorcerer
• had deep eyes burdened with secrets.

It isn’t long before the egg shell cracks.

——

“Rui, what in Hatsune Miku’s name are you doing right now?” 

“Trying to conjure up a spell that could possibly release you from the painting.” Rui replied in a serious tone that juxtaposes the position he was making. Rui was squatting with one arm raised upwards behind him and the other facing Tsukasa. It was a yoga pose in a newspaper Rui saw that was meant to harness energy and power, and its descriptions were too detailed to be fake! 

Tsukasa bursts out laughing at the scene, “The sorcerer you would’ve laughed at you disapprovingly if he saw all this.” 

“Tsukasa, do you know anything else about the sorcerer?”

Tsukasa’s eyes widen for a brief moment, “Ah, well, he was.. said to be naturally gifted with inane talent for magic. It’s not a surprise that he was the one who made this intricate spell that set me in this painting. He was infamous within the black rose kingdom, always helping them with whatever sorcery skills he was required.”

It doesn’t add up. So why did the sorcerer banish this selfless knight into this prison?

“Rui, why are you doing all of this? You earn nothing as a reward. And if anything, you could be left with no result after all.”

“It was my fault from the beginning, is it not?”

There it was again, Tsukasa furrowed his eyebrows and his whole body tensed. He sighs once again, “What if I told you it wasn’t your fault, but mine.”

The knight shuts his mouth and averts his eyes from Rui’s. He seemingly won’t answer any other questions Rui has about it.

“Well then, when I set you free, you’ll let me paint you however I see you as.”

“Eh? But you could just do it now.”

“It’s not as rewarding, no?”

The knight blinks twice, then groans. “Looking at you has become unbearable. My memory may be foggy but you help me remember him and his tired eyes, the kindness he held, and his interest in lot of things around him.”

“You say kindness, as if a kind person would do this, huh?” Rui gestures at the whole trapped-in-a-painting issue. “I don’t understand. And it may be my pride speaking, but I can’t imagine myself doing such.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Tsukasa sulks in his place. “A kind person could never act upon evil without a reason.”

“Tsukasa.” Rui says desperately, as if Tsukasa could run at any moment, when in reality, he couldn’t. “You can’t keep concealing yourself like this. You’ll only hurt yourself more.”

“But it has nothing to do with you.” The knight in the painting responded coldly.

“But it does. You said it yourself, I’m the sorcerer who put you in here.”

“No, but you’re different from him.”

“How am I any different now???”

“You don’t see me as a murder!” The knight half-yells.

“A murderer?”

“Rui… why do you think magic ceases to exist today?”

Rui remained silent.

“Why do you think my siblings left me? Why did it take my best friend to imprison me here just to be forgotten?! IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF ME!” He lashes out. Murky droplets of paint fell below the painting’s eyes, staining his face.

For all of Rui's life, he’s always seen magic as bright and colorful in books. It was a new world, an escape from the crooked world they were in. What magic held was beyond human comprehension, hence why it was nonexistent. It was only an imagination of vivid bright colors that dazzled and brought happiness to everyone. Until Rui had recently found out that it wasn’t. Instead, magic was also dark and heavy. It was also a curse laid upon people, and could’ve sprung hatred. Rui could see it from the painting before him. It told him a story.

“Do you see me any different now?” Tsukasa begins to stare downward, the tear droplets falling the same.

“No, not so much.”

The painting, though it could move, stills. Tsukasa’s shock was quite comical for Rui to watch.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a brave and selfless knight who would do anything for your kingdom. You love your siblings wholeheartedly and your people respect you just as much.”

“But.. I ruined everything. Lost the trust of the people I love. Given orders to execute anyone who possessed magic.” The knight weeped harder.

“What you did may be inexcusable, but you shouldn’t punish yourself to this extent.”

“Yet you still are the sorcerer who imprisoned me.”

“And did this sorcerer tell you when you’d be set free?”

“When I’ve fully accepted my sins and changed.”

“…And how many nights have your eyes bled crying alone?”

Tsukasa blinks, “Thousands…. It’s become uncountable.”

Rui gently caressed the painting with his hand. The canvas’ texture was rough and coarse.

“Then you understand how you were blinded by the ‘ betterment ‘ of your kingdom, so you’ve longed for ways of repentance and, as a result, have rotted your life away in this prison. I think that is change.”

“You sound like him. You still bear the gentleness in your words that bring me with ease.” Tsukasa lets out a weak laugh. “I’ve missed him.”

“You loved him.”

“I still do.” The knight admitted in a hushed whisper, as though it were a secret to the world, yet it was loud enough for Rui to hear. How could a painting shatter when it wasn’t made of glass? Only the hurt in the knight’s face could cause such.

“The sorcerer loved you back.”

“How? How, when it’s physically impossible for someone to? How could someone as lovely as him love a monster like me? When I’ve taken everything away from him.” Guilt struck the eyes of the knight.

“The sorcerer did have an eye for art. It’s greatly apparent to me how beautiful the painting before me stands, how it outshines every other painting here. I look at you and think, how could the sorcerer not have loved you.” Rui extends a hand towards Tsukasa.

For the first time, the knight bursts out laughing loudly with the tears in his eyes.

“Well then, maybe in the next life I won’t be trapped in a rectangular case of your love. And possibly.. things could turn out better between us.”

“Perhaps.” Rui nods, “Admittedly… I’ve felt a piece missing in my life as well.”

Tsukasa couldn’t hold back his aching smile that was touched by his words. Tsukasa reaches out a hand, touching the painting with the tips of his fingers from the inside, but it emits a bright light. With a deep breath, Tsukasa stands up and walks towards it. The light radiates brighter from the painting, requiring Rui to cover his eyes. He hears a light farewell from the other, until the knight in the painting is reduced to tiny fragments of uncollectible dust on Rui’s side. The knight in the painting was no more, as what only stood within the canvas was dark and gloomy colors of a throne room. The painting or the Knight ironically has none, giving it up to interpretation of the viewer, having never known of the painting in the first place.

——

When Rui finishes his newest painting, a smile graces his lips.

The painting depicted a young knight. His hair coloured golden and swept to the side with peach dyed at its tips. The knight was adorned with beauty with a soft grin. He sat boldly and wore his scars proudly. The walls within the painting reflected his brightness, though its soft shades barely competed against that of the knight’s. His eyes conveyed how much he loved. His eyes were warm and deep, as the one he gazes at could bask in the warmth of his sunset-like eyes. The knight who loves and cares deeply for the people.

‘ Tsukasa the Knight ‘ the painting spoke.