With my last does his first end, as old as Bellia does this namesake extend. 

I lay in my bed and stare at my ceiling, Min’s words repeating over and over in my mind. It’s been hours since I left him, stormed out really, too angry and confused to even attempt to understand what he meant by them. Then the rest of the day had continued and I had been swept away to another council meeting. Then spent a while signing papers, before finally suffering through an irritatingly formal dinner. 

Really, I had very nearly forgotten about his words, right up until I stepped through the door to my chambers. My anger had risen immediately and I had wanted to go back down to the dungeons and demand he give me a clear answer, but I was tired. 

So instead I had retreated to my bed, fully intending to sleep, but now the damn words won’t leave me alone and the constant repetition of the infuriatingly confusing sentence is doing nothing to stem my irritability. 

And isn’t that just the cherry on top of the metaphorical cake? After a long day of annoying meetings and endlessly boring paperwork, thinking about this bullshit is the last thing I want to do. Yet for some reason it just won’t leave my brain. 

What does he mean by his last? His last what? His last rendezvous with a man? Is he trying to tell me that whoever I’m looking for has never been with a man before? Is that it? 

Does that make sense? 

I grunt in frustration before turning over in my bed. The exhaustion is almost too much to bear and I can feel my tired muscles protesting the movement. In all honesty it’s been a ridiculously long day and it has left me both physically and mentally drained. 

I have a council full of people who think I’m incompetent, the one person I looked up to is apparently a sex fiend, I have a couple of guards running around on a wild bird chase, and an infuriating prisoner who refuses to give me one straight answer.

Some of which could be solved relatively easily, but for some reason the world has decided that it’s more fun to make me struggle. If I could just get Jintoa Min to tell me what I need to know without all this riddle bullshit then I could send him to the gallows allong with that fucking sodomite he was with the night I caught him. Then the council would stop challenging my every fucking move and talking behind my back like the traitor’s they are. 

I wish I could send them to the gallows honestly. 

But I know I can’t. I may be King, but it is in name only. I hold none of the authority my father did or even the respect my brother had. If I did hang them all there’s no telling what could happen. It’s fucking infuriating being King and knowing that you have less supporter’s then the people who are supposed to be beneath you. If I did do anything to them, even going so far as to make an example of one of them, I could be dealing with a full fledged uprising on my hands.  

I have no way of knowing who would support them against me, but seeing as most people don’t seem to recognize me as King, I would guess just about everyone. I mean, the fact that left Min alive could already be sowing the seeds of rebellion. Especially with the way the council so obviously opposes my decision. 

It would all be so much easier if I had just done it. Just sentenced him to death, the way I was supposed to. But… 

There are so many reasons, the one at the forefront being that it would be unproductive. Why kill one deviant when I could punish both? Not to mention that Admiral Ali would have started a war I don’t have the support to finish. At least not with me still on the throne. And alive. 

But you didn’t know about Ali being Jintao Min’s uncle before today. The thought invades my mind and I unsuccessfully attempt to push it away before I start delving into territory that I just don’t want to have to think about. 

Like why I left him alive in the first place. 

It’s true that I find it beneficial to keep him alive. I meant it when I said that I wanted to rectify my mistake and catch the man he was with that night. Two birds with one stone and all that, but… More than that… 

The anger rises in my chest again and I want to punch something, Min’s face comes to mind, but I don’t bother moving from the bed. 

Most of me hates him. Hates what he is, the things he’s done. It’s all sickening and I hate myself for not being able to rid the world of filth like him. But some part of me doesn’t. A small part of me mind you, but a part of me nonetheless, can’t let go of the past. 

We grew up together for Gursh’s sake. He was always there, always by my side. 

And I don’t just mean since he was fourteen and officially made a knight, I mean always. It had been determined at my birth that he would be my guard. We had learned to fence together. To fight together. 

He taught me archery and even though I was somewhat terrible at it, he never gave up on me. Never made fun of me. Now that I’m older of course I know that he couldn’t have made fun of me even if he wanted to, but that's just it. 

No matter how badly I messed up, he never even seemed like he wanted to. He even used to tell me… He used to say…

The memory rises to my mind unbidden and I try to bite it back angrily, but it continues despite my feeble attempts. 

“It’s alright if you keep missing. Even if it takes you a thousand years to learn to hit the target, I won’t give up on you. I’ll spend lifetimes trying to teach you if that's what it takes.” He had told me calmly after a particular poor handful of shots on my part. 

“What if I never learn though?” I had whined at him, the beginnings of tears burning in my eyes. 

“You will.” He said and he sounded so sure of himself that I very nearly believed him. So instead of repeating myself I smiled at him and asked, 

“But what if I need to use my bow and have not learned how yet.” 

“Then I’ll become the best bowmen ever so that I’ll be good enough for the both of us until you do learn.” He had replied, a smile rising to his face.

I feel a smile rising to my lips before the anger takes over again, shrouding the memory in a thick mist of betrayal. 

Fuck you Min. I think as I pull myself out of the memory. Fuck you. How can you act so… So… Human back then when you’re nothing but a filthy animal. How dare you pretend to be normal while committing such filthy depraved acts behind my back.

How dare he play me like that. How dare he touch another man like that. How dare he commit such atrocious sins. How dare he. How dare he!

I leap from the bed, my tired body now pumping with adrenaline. My pulse racing. 

He breaths hot and heavy, his back pressed firmly against the wall behind him. A moan escapes his lips and his head falls back, clunking lightly as it connects with hard stone. 

The other man growls loudly as he moves his mouth to lap at the exposed flesh of his neck and Min keens at whatever contact he feels there. Soft pleas begin leaving his lips and he pulls the man closer against him, his entire body shaking. 

I shake my head and pace the room. 

“O-oh!” Min calls out as the man cants his hips upward slightly, their bodies sliding together like waves against the sand. A slow give and take of gravity as they come together and come apart in eachothers arms. 

I close my eyes against the onslaught of images. 

A hand moves between them and Min’s mouth slips open with an obscene pop, his breath catching in his throat, stifling the moan that is no doubt on the tip of his tongue. 

“Disgusting.” I spit out as I continue to pace. “Sickening.” 

Min’s fingers tangle themselves in light hair, the soft strands slipping through his finger like silk. The man's head rises from Min’s neck to devour his lips and Min gasps into his mouth. 

I come up beside my desk and grip the hard wooden side of it. My emotions now a roar. Anger, confusion, betrayal, hatred, and something much deeper, something familiar I can’t quite place. Something that doesn’t seem to belong. 

Min moans.

I grip the desk harder.

A gasp as the hand moves faster. 

And suddenly I can’t take it. Can’t take the horrible images. My stomach burns low as if I am about to ignite or maybe be sick, but nothing happens. 

I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Or why I’m recalling that night in the hallways in such clear detail. All I know is that my body feels like it's on fire. And that pisses me off. It pisses me off so damn much.  

It pisses me off that Min would betray me in such a way. That he would reject the teachings of the Almighty Gursh. That he would turn his back on good and let himself become bathed in evil. 

That he would let another man touch him like that.

“Fuck.” I say softly. “Fuck.” I repeat, my voice coming out louder. “Fuck!” Even louder, almost shouting now. 

The fire continues to burn in my veins, making me feel hot all over, my emotions going haywire. 

“What is happening to me?” I ask the room around me, but the room of course remains just as silent as it always has. Solidly refusing to come to life and respond to my nonsense of a question.