Chapter Ten – Ruby Red

When Ka’yen woke up, he found someone else inside his room. That fire wolf…again. His figure was rather indistinct but his voice gave it away. When he saw him splayed on the floor, the wolf rushed to him and quickly took him in his arms. “Ka’yen what are you doing on the floor?” he had asked. He wanted to say that he was just feeling the temperature of the marble tiles but his throat clamped down.

“… you’re burning…” he hissed when he managed to lay him down on the bed and brushed his large calloused yet warm hands on his sweat-damped forehead.

Ka’yen could barely make out his figure flying around the room to get what he needed. Chanyeol came back with a huge ceramic bowl with water, and a clean cotton cloth. He sat beside the bed, dipping it on the water before squeezing it dry and wipes him with it.

In just a few blinks Ka’yen finally had a clear view of a pair of garnet eyes watching him with worry. He never felt so conflicted before. Right now… he was feeling mixed emotions at once.

He felt betrayed… having him being played like that for a fool. He thought the King wanted his services for his talent and abilities. It just turned out that he was taken because he had the same face as Luhan’s brother—Baekhyun. Maybe the King wouldn’t look at him if it wasn’t for his face. He was such a fool because he thought he finally had someone who could see him for him.

But that was just a lie wasn’t it.

And then… the fact that he was the Heartfire child, and the King didn’t tell him that as well. Now that was infuriating. But Ka’yen couldn’t even open his mouth to scream profanities and curses like how he would want to. He was angry… because he had the right to know that…

Hadn’t he asked Xiumin to find out the truth, the king would keep on using him like one of his pawns in chess.

However there was also a part of him that says he’s more of a fool here than anyone else. Because he let himself be used like that. For other’s benefit, for other’s merit.

What about Chanyeol? The Fire Wolf?

Xiumin told him that Chanyeol was Baekhyun’s mate. Seeing him so worried right now made him wanna laugh. This is a fabricated emotion. Chanyeol never saw him as Ka’yen. From the very start, when he kissed him out of nowhere, Chanyeol has been seeing Baekhyun in him.

That was why he was so fond of him. That was why Chanyeol kept on clinging on to him. For him… he was his long lost mate. For the Fire Wolf he was Baekhyun.

Even now, his worry and his sympathy, those words of concern were never meant for him, it was for his lover.

Funny, how he felt so hurt because of that. He didn’t know Chanyeol, nor spend years together with him, but here he was now, hurting and foolishly crying thinking that even the Fire Wolf had never looked at him for who he was.

Xiumin had mentioned that Baekhyun was also Kyungsoo’s friend. That fact made him want to guffaw and roll on the bed until he cry his hearts out. Even that man saw him as Baekhyun. Everyone was looking at him but was not seeing him.

They were calling his name but they were not searching for him.

They wanted him by their side but it wasn’t him they wished they had.

They wished for that man with gold, fluffy hair with tips of those strands streaked with magenta.

They wished for that man with glittering eyes and laughs that resembled an angel.

They wished for that man who died, and left them here.

“Why are you burning up? Did you stay outside for too long?” Chanyeol reached out to wipe his face with the cloth, but Ka’yen weakly slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me…” he quietly whispered.

“Now is not the time to be stubborn Bae—Ka’yen…” Chanyeol bit his lower lip, silently scolding himself. He caught the other’s slight scoff before he insisted on standing up.

“Don’t sit—“

“I said don’t touch me!” Ka’yen glowered, his fists bursting in flames and burning the sheets.

Chanyeol was surprised as well, but he put out the fire before it could do more damage. He watched Ka’yen stand and wobbly supported himself with the bed’s posts. “Where are you going? You’re not well, stay here and I’ll ask for Yixing to heal you.”

Ka’yen still went for the room’s exit, but Chanyeol caught his arm before he could even reach the knob and turn it.

“Ka’yen.”

The said man brushed his hand off, before dashing out of the room.

When outside, he searched for his two friends, Ravi and Leo. He found them by one of the living rooms of the fortress, happily talking with each other and he didn’t want to interfere.

As he was about to turn to the other direction, he found himself face to face with Luhan.

As much as he wanted to lash out on him, he preferred to keep things to himself. Luhan doesn’t need to know that he knows. Maybe until it was too late. Luhan had scarred his heart, because he trusted him… he opened up to him… but what did he get in return? Betrayal?

He dipped his head down before walking past through him. He hasn’t taken three steps when Luhan called him out, “Ka’yen, is something wrong?”

Ka’yen cringed but didn’t let the other see it. He shook his head as a response before running outside, not bothering to voice it out since he was afraid of what will come out from his mouth.

Luhan didn’t believe that nothing’s wrong but before he could even persist, Ka’yen had ran away already just in time Chanyeol came into view.

“Have you seen Ka’yen?” the wolf asked. “He’s been acting weird and he’s sick…”

Luhan’s mouth fell, “Sick?” So that’s why Ka’yen looked pale. “He—He just left and…” He didn’t get to finish because Chanyeol brushed pass him. Luhan then turned around to follow.

Ka’yen took one of the horses from the stables and jumped on it. He rubbed the stallion’s soft hair before holding on to it. “I’m sorry I don’t have much time to put on a saddle…beautiful one. Can you please take me out of here… I promise I will let you go after I get away… and you could go back home…” he quietly whispered to the stallion. He was answered with a neigh though. And with this Ka’yen smiles weakly.

He slapped the stallion’s bum and it dashed out of the castle before Chanyeol could even see him.

“Ka’yen!” Chanyeol had search around the fortress but the redhead was not there. When a report came in a few minutes after, that Ka’yen left the castle and even the kingdom’s premises taking one of the stallions in the stable, Chanyeol looked at Luhan.

“I’m going to look for him,” was what he said before he shifted to his four-legged form and left the fortress.

“Thank you…” Ka’yen rubbed the stallion’s nose and smiled. He had taken him in the entrance of the forest, although he wasn’t sure about what he wanted to do right now, he wanted to get away, to leave and be alone for a while.

There were so many lose ends in what he saw last night. He doesn’t know how those images managed to reel when it wasn’t a part of his memory. Ka’yen was watching from his own point of view, as if he was there that time.

But that would be absurd, for he was that baby with ruby red heart.

As much as he wanted to cry, now that the truth was out, that he was neither someone who was born from his mother’s womb, nor a man who was recognized because of own name and fame, but a fake identity, a fragment of someone, and that he would cease to exist when that someone comes back.

Who was he? Why was everyone so fond of him? That Baekhyun… he was so lucky… to have those friends by his side. He shouldn’t have died. If he didn’t, then maybe Ka’yen wouldn’t be here feeling lost and confused.

“You must go back, I have something else to do.” He told the stallion before he let it go. Ka’yen braced himself in his thick coat before facing the forest.

“This is just one of many forests,” sighing, Ka’yen took his first step, “But I won’t find it if I don’t get started now.”

That dais, he wanted to find the place where he was…’born’. It was the only thing that connected him to his own identity. The child born in the dais, living in someone’s half heart.

He walked for hours, despite his condition, Ka’yen would find the reason why Baekhyun made him.

‘Where in the world are you, Ka’yen…’ Chanyeol had been looking for him the whole day. The sun has set, and soon darkness will fall. It will be harder for him to search for that guy by then.

Something tells him that Ka’yen knew the truth. Which of the two, he didn’t know. When he found him, collapsed on the floor in his room, he thought he’d seen Baekhyun in his death once again. It scared him, so much that he panicked and almost forgot what he had to do.

It was odd enough to find Ka’yen’s chamber locked, much more when no one answered when he was expecting an annoyed man with scarlet hair to punch him in the gut if he continued annoying him. But then when Ka’yen woke up, he was looking at him as if Chanyeol had done a serious crime.

That’s why he thought of that possibility. And it could be the reason why he left.

Of course… it had to be in the forest near Eldama. Ka’yen fell on his knees and rolled on the snowy ground. His knees could finally rest.

Ka’yen looked at the night sky, reaching out to the falling whites.

Baekhyun-ah. You’re so unfair. How could you have everything, when I was left with nothing. I didn’t get to have my own face and my own voice, Ka’yen scoffed, despite of the warm tears that falls. Everything about me was yours. The dais was once again frozen solid, it had been years since his father took him from it.

I am the Heartfire Child. Why? Why me? What do I have to do, Baekhyun? Why did you make me? At least show me how… at least give me something to live for… and not just to breathe and be your shadow.

Ka’yen screamed his lungs out when he couldn’t bear it anymore. “At least tell me why I’m here you bastard…”  

a.n. sorry for the crappy chapter