#HalloweenVault2

GothicLit

WORD COUNT: 440

⸻

Every time Riaru managed to open her mouth, she was the ten-year-old child all over again, watching her twin's dead body being lowered into the brittle ground while her father's heavy hand pressed between her shoulder blades, his words fell heavy in the distilled air. Her throat dried and roughened like sandpaper, and her tongue felt heavy and thick, clamped between her teeth. 

Sometimes, as they laid side-by-side on the big canopy bed, skinny bodies sunk into the black liquid silk sheet, dull moonlight shimmered through Kage's ethereal ageless form, Riaru thought about telling her sister, telling her sister that she was dead, that she no longer existed in this dimension. Riaru thought about interrupting her sister, interrupting the wistful, excited monologue that couldn't possibly interpolate Kage's endless love and admiration for the now-Emperor Prince.

Riaru wondered if Kage actually already noticed, but was willingly ignorant. If Kage's habits were simply the soul retaining prior-to-death's routine, or if Kage was only acting it out, desperately holding onto the world warmth because she was Kage and Kage refused to accept fate's hands. 

Kage was always there with her whether she liked it or not, her sister's ringing voice seemed to intertwined deep in the conversations to the point where Riaru couldn't tell if the other person was answering her or Kage. Riaru studied Kage as both of them sat neatly in front of the bronze vanity mirror, maidens crowding around them. Their reflections, twenty years apart. Kage's pink petal-lips curved, haughty and confidence, despite the purple bags and the gaunt haunt of her cheekbones, while Riaru's solemn downcasted eyes and faint frown lines began to etch around her eyes mouth. 

Kage's pupils always shone, even though it wasn't her locks that the maidens thread the comb through, wasn't her black river of hair that got twisted up with extravagant gems and pins, wasn't her own lips and cheeks reddened with rouge, wasn't her body that got donned in the most expensive and heaviest fabric in the kingdom. 

Riaru tried to suppress the thoughts, but when Kage eventually took her hands and steer her out of the Phoenix Chamber to pay respect to the Empress Dowager and the Emperor himself, Riaru couldn't help but filled with a claustrophobic paranoia. Because every time the Empress Dowager beamed at her, because every time the Emperor smiled and embraced her gently as though she was the world of his, something black and sticky and viscous at the back of Riaru's head rose and gripped her throat, heavy and sweaty and tight like her father's hand twenty years ago, whispering in her ears: あなたの名前は今、影です。

⸻

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Wait, look, I actually finished something that's somewhat comprehendable under the max. word count.

Anyhow. No translation will be provided, but do tell me what is your theory for Kage and Riaru's relationship from the hints given :)