Azure: 19

Navy: 18

Moon: (looks) 47

Navy didn't know what to do with himself. He had hurt the boy who had done nothing wrong, and now he was...now he was what? Was he ok? Was he dead? Navy could only agonize himself, the pain engulfing him and the guilt tightening around his throat as he tortured himself for three days. He just sat and stared into the distance on the roof, sometimes crying, sometimes muttering, doing anything to distract himself from what he had done. Why had he let himself go crazy? Why had he thought that Azure would do anything to hurt him? WHY?

He wasn't hungry. He wouldn't allow himself to feel the pain. All he let himself do was relive the moment over and over and over again.

Until the fourth day. Who knew how his father had found out where he was, but a security guard climbed all 54 stories to find him, and so how could Navy waste the man's cardio workout by not letting him drag him down to see his father?

They took the elevator, thank God. But it was a small luxury, because as soon as he saw his father waiting in the lobby, he froze with fear. This wasn't Azure. Moon was actually going to hurt him, and there was nothing Navy could do to stop him. Because Navy could feel none of the anger he had felt yesterday; only the defeat he had been drilling into himself these last three days. And so as the guard deposited him before his father, Navy just bent down and started to pull his shirt off, wanting to get it over with.

But before he could do anything, Moon grabbed him by the throat and yanked him to his feet, tears streaming down his face as he looked into his son's eyes. Growling, he said in a shaky voice, "You are the reason that your mother is gone."

The news was shocking. Not completely unexpected, but shocking.

Navy had never been allowed to see his mother since she fell ill when he was two. He had never missed her, because his father had always hated him for looking too much like her. Navy had always considered her more a curse laid upon him than a mother. So the news that she was dead hardly phased him. But as soon as Moon let go of him and he toppled to the ground, the man ripping off his singed shirt, Navy started shaking as the words pelted him.

"You were never good enough to save her," his father growled, and Navy cried out at the sound of his father pulling his belt out of the loops. His father's hand came down on the back of his neck, holding him in place as the belt came down on his back for the first time. Someone screamed, but his father kept shouting, and that was all Navy heard. "You could never be enough, you are weak and now the whole world knows it." Every time he heard the belt's inevitable whoosh before it snapped down on his back. And each time, he only flinched, never giving his father the satisfaction of so much as a sound.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Call the police!" someone shouted, but it was drowned out by the pain and the shout of his father, "You are a failure, and I've known it since I first laid eyes on you. You are expendable, and you are stupid, and you will never amount to anything because you are too cowardly to face your failure. YOU are the reason your MOTHER IS DEAD!" he screamed.

And that was when Navy heard it. Not the snap of the belt against his scarred back, but the pad of footsteps and the dry chuckle that followed it. "Cowardly? That's rich." That voice... but why would he come back?

His father's grip on his neck loosened, and Navy looked over to see Azure, bandaged and shirtless, striding into the room and standing before his father. Moon screamed, "WHAT!?" advancing upon Azure, but all Navy could do was shake and crumple to the ground.

Azure just shrugged and said, "Well, the only cowardice I see here is a man too prideful to bring his wife to be healed by the enemy company. Didn't you know my father could eradicate cancer? Well, of course you knew. How could you not? You probably paid everyone treating her to keep it a secret from her, knowing that she would hate you if she knew she could be healed. But you were selfish. You wouldn't let yourself be beaten by Sun, would you? You simply couldn't admit defeat in that way, could you? And now you're blaming your son for her death, calling your son the coward? When all you had to do was ask for help!? You are pathetic."

"NO!" Navy screamed as his father leaped, clawing at the boy's chest, ripping at him and slapping him with the belt over and over again. But he didn't want to stand, couldn't bring himself to do it, closing his eyes and sobbing as the footsteps rushed by, the scuffle quickly diminishing until his father was screaming, "LET ME GO, LET ME GO YOU BASTARDS! I PAY YOU, LET ME GO!" Navy opened his eyes to see the security guards grabbing onto his father, forcing him to the ground and ripping the belt out of his hands, the room suddenly flooding with sirens and policemen rushing around. But Navy wanted nothing to do with them, and Azure seemed to know it. Sprinting over to him, he helped him to his feet, barely glancing his way before slinging his arm over his shoulder and helping him out one of the side entrances.

They limped through a back alley, sliding down a wall and sitting on the hard ground. Navy just shook, his back burning, trying to keep himself in a position where nothing would hurt, but the pain was flaring up everywhere. But that wasn't the problem.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, hanging his head. "I don't want to turn into my father."

Feeling the hand under his chin, Azure turned his head so they could see eye to eye and whispered back, "I don't either."

Navy smiled, and Azure smiled back, a warmness emanating from both.

"Let's change it then."