[FoH] #33 - Gone (Jerial)

The words fell from his lips like citrus, stinging every cell of his tongue as they flowed forth from his mouth. It was a lie, it had to be. He would never leave him -- leave them, rather. Would he? He had promised to keep them together, to keep them safe for as long as he had breath left in his body. That was his oath to them, and in return, they swore their allegiance to him. They were a team, an alliance, a force to be reckoned with. They were a family. Or at least he thought they were.

How could he have disappeared? How could he just leave them all, without even so much as a goodbye? He could've at least told them he was leaving. But then again, he supposed he knew they would do anything to stop him, or even worse - to follow him on their own. They would never let him go and that's why he had never told them he had gone at all. The Gerudo supposed he had no room to talk. After all, he had left without a goodbye or even without a note to tell them that he'd ever be coming back at all. He wondered what they had said, what they had felt, what they had questioned, when he disappeared like that.

Had they missed him? Had they kept his bed at the inn made on the off chance that he returned to them? No, he supposed only his mother had done that, or perhaps, even still did that to this day. Knowing Vanda, she was probably as big of a worrywart as ever. If anyone cared for him at all, it would be her. Karan would probably be upset with him. He'd earned a scolding from her for sure, and he had to say that he deserved it. And then there was Jung. There was always Jung. Was he thought about by Jung as much as he thought about Jung? He doubted it. It was scary to consider - to know - that the Keaton had not even thought twice about his disappearance. Had he even cared at all? He couldn't let himself think like that. Truth or not, he had to believe the Keaton cared, even now.

He couldn't blame him, because at one point, he was him. But it didn't stop it from hurting all the same.

Where would he even have run off to? He desperately prayed that he hadn't charged straight into Kravok's Castle on his own on some insane scheme for vengeance. He wouldn't entirely put it past the Keaton, especially if he was in one of his...moods, so to speak. But then again, Jung, when not crazed, was one of the most calculating people Jerial had ever met. He wouldn't do something so brash simply to rescue, or reclaim, Kit.

Kit. There was that name. Or was it Eden, now? He could barely keep track of it all. Before today, she was nobody to him. Their paths had crossed only briefly before, and he never once considered that their world would be so small as to think that she could know - let alone know - Jung. He should have learned his lesson by now - everyone in this Goddess-forsaken land was connected, their fates intertwined by some mysterious, inescapable force that longed to torture them so. And now, he had become tangled in their twisted web.

Honestly, he didn't want to admit it himself, but he almost hated that girl. He almost hated her because Jung almost loved her. He hated the way he looked at her, he hated how his world was reflected in his eyes when he stared at her in that heart-wrenchingly devoted way of his, like no one else was in the room but her and Goddess did it break his own heart when the other's was spilled out before her like putty to play with.

They had asked whether or not to kill Lily, but how he wished it were Kit instead.

No. Calm yourself, Jerial. You're acting rash, unreasonable, and to do the unthinkable in this condition would have to be the absolute stupidest thing you have ever done in your entire life. Well, that wasn't the entirely true.

The stupidest thing that he had ever done was surrendering his heart to a man whose own heart was gone long before he had even met him.