"Ray, please let me go."
Ash strained against his brother's grip and raised his head to look at him. The expression, all of it. As much as he had before. Eyes wide, soft. Perfectly the kind that he knew would work.
"I promise I won't come near this time," he added.
"Forget it, Ash," Ray said, gripping his wrist tighter. "Your pleas and your cuteness will not work on me."
"Brother Ray." He drew the words out, keeping his gaze locked on Ray. "Please."
He knew how to play this game. Knew how to use Ray's soft spot for him – the only one in the mansion he could truly exploit.
Knew how Ray would eventually give in to that particular tactic if he used it long enough. He had done it more than once.
Ray glanced down at him.
For a moment something shifted in his face. Ash saw it. The grip on his wrist didn't loosen but the certainty behind it did, just slightly, just enough that the outcome felt open again.
Then Ray blinked and it was gone.
"It's your birthday, Ash," he said, tightening his grip on Ash's wrist even more. "You cannot avoid this."
Ash kept the expression going anyway.
"You have always helped me skip events before," he said. "Why can't you do it this one time?"
He paused, waiting for exactly the right time before he continued with the question he needed to ask.
"And today is the day the Fracture is supposed to be destroyed."
"You got me into trouble with father the last time I helped you go see the fracture," Ray said without missing a beat.
Ash said nothing.
"You tried to sneak inside the Fracture," Ray continued. "If Miss Elena hadn't seen you at the entrance, do you know what would have happened to you?"
There was no need for him to elaborate further as Ash lowered his head. His father had indeed scolded Ray for helping him go see the fracture.
He was caught trying to sneak into a fracture. He was five, after all. Five-year-olds shouldn't have entered Fractures at all.
The problem was that understanding something and feeling it were two different things.
When he had seen the Fracture that day, standing at the edge of the entrance with the shimmer of it right there in front of him, something had happened that he still couldn't fully explain.
It wasn't just curiosity. It was stronger than that. Almost like he had been pulled toward the Fracture by something else entirely.
Like someone was calling out to him through it, and telling him he needed to see them inside. Needed to move closer before he lost himself to it.
So much so, that by the time the decision to do so came to him, he had already taken one step closer. He couldn't deny how tempting that had felt at the time.
"Now this is your birthday party and affinity test. You will attend and take your test. I don't want another lecture about my irresponsibility."
He lowered his head further.
"And father is the one who sent me to find you," Ray said.
Ash looked up immediately.
"Wait."
He stared at his brother's face.
"Father is here?"
"Yes," Ray said.
The hallway felt different, somehow after that word.
Ash's father was not a bad man. Not once in five years had Ash doubted his father's intentions or morality.
But Draco Vulkan was a kind of person who simply changed the atmosphere of whatever room he occupied. Blue hair, red eyes, a particular way of standing, the way he kept silent at all times…
When Draco was in the mansion, Ash found himself thinking before he spoke, moving differently than normally, and being cautious.
He could be his usual self around Rose and his brothers, but his father… There was no way he could be.
"Why is he here?" he asked in a whisper that barely reached his brother.
"What do you mean by 'why is he here'?" Ray responded sharply. "It's your birthday and affinity test. Your father has to be here, of course."
It was easier to admit how rarely Ash saw Draco, than to think about the reasons behind this. Draco didn't spend much time in the mansion.
Rose managed it easily. And the brothers filled the mansion with noise and laughter.
It was easy for Draco to visit only from time to time, and leave shortly after. His absence had become the normal state of things.
To find him in the middle of the birthday party that he'd been avoiding all morning long was unexpected to say the least.
Unexpected and uncomfortable. But there was no way for him to avoid it. No way to skip his party with his father waiting for him to celebrate it.
"Now do you understand," Ray said with a glance towards him, "why I can't let you skip your own party?"
Ash looked at his brother's face.
Then he looked ahead at the hallway leading toward the sound of voices and movement and the birthday celebration.
"Alright," he muttered and released himself from his brother's grip, finally letting himself walk down the corridor.
No matter how much he wanted to see the Fracture being destroyed - and how long he'd spent trying to convince Ray to let him escape from the party, nothing could help him now.
And he didn't want Ray in trouble because of that.
They walked down the corridor together.
Keeping his head low, Ash looked ahead. His expression was calm - that of a well - mannered five-year-old attending his party.
'DAMN IT.' Ash thought.
There had been one chance today - the day the Fracture was to be destroyed. There had been Raiders there, working on the destruction of it.
And he had intended to see them come out, see what the actual work of Raiders entailed. Only to realize he'd been too late.
He had missed it.
One chance to see a Raider in person and it was already gone.
The voices from the party grew louder as they got closer.