Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 202. Because

Henry’s POV

I nodded.

"You are probably right. But you still aren’t him."

"Why?" He tilted his head, the features overlapping with his younger self, with my Kenny.

"Because I don’t feel..." I stopped.

Because you are not my master; because you are not the person I am indebted to.

Because you are not the one who chose to repeatedly explain his innocence, who invited his accuser into his home, gave his accuser food, and slept in front of him; because you didn’t accompany me to the morgue to touch your first-ever dead body; because you didn’t die there, didn’t give me your phone to look through, because you didn’t let me enter your family’s home, showing me how broken it was; because you are not the one who turned on the hot water so I would be freed from seeing my image in the mirror. Because you didn’t crawl over a torso hill to save the person who slashed your legs to die with you.

Because you hadn’t thrown a towel at me after holding my head under the water with force, but also with caution.

Because you didn’t cry so heartbreakingly after waking up from the shadow possession.

Because you were not the one who straddled me to shoot an attacker. Because you didn’t have a panic attack in the hellhole. Because you are not the person constantly insisting on saving people while simultaneously breaking bones and killing the bad ones unabashedly.

Because even if my Kenny had acted the opposite of how he behaved during all those situations, he would have done it for a reason; he would have done it out of conviction, and he would have done so in the most handsome and charming way.

You are not my Kenny; you will never be my Kenny; no one else will ever be my Kenny.

And most of all, because I don’t feel hungry and satiated when looking at you; because I don’t want to hold you, don’t want to curl up on you, don’t thirst for your approval, don’t need you to like me, am not addicted to your touch, don’t want to protect you, don’t want you to protect me, don’t want you to stay healthy and alive, don’t care about you, and don’t need you to be well and happy.

I don’t want to monopolize you, and I don’t want you to monopolize me; I don’t want to see you smile and laugh at my jokes.

I don’t want to own you, and I don’t want you to own me.

My mind didn’t stop listing the reasons when his counterpart interrupted me with raised eyebrows, hinting at something.

"Because you don’t feel your heart skip a beat because of me?"

I chuckled and leaned back on my bed, closing my eyes.

"We are not like that. We are closer than that could ever be."

Kenny’s counterpart laughed before continuing to vomit. I put my hand into my freshly changed jumpsuit and traced the biting scar that framed the nipple of my left chest.

He bit me there; he opened his mouth and closed it around my nipple, maybe sucking, but definitely biting.

The thought tingled; the spot burned; my mind slowed; and my cock hardened.

No, it’s not like that.

I placed one leg over the other, still tracing that scar along with the others, loving to have them, and wishing for more.

But my master would probably fall into an embarrassed anger fit if he knew I still held his traces, so let’s keep that a secret for now.

What did he do to me while he... I don’t know? While he went back in time, like back then when he healed inside the solitary cell?

What did we do in the past that warranted those biting marks?

God, I am dying of jealousy...

I am dying to know...

And I am dying to finally see you again.

********************

I tried with all my might not to think about what he had gone through, not to let the agony I felt every time I thought I had lost him for good and the anger at his selfishly selfless decision overwhelm me.

Whatever it was, first I needed to nurse him back to health; then I could let loose and confront him with the many problems I had with him leaving me behind.

Now I wanted to get out and wait closer to the place he would arrive.

I stayed awake the whole night but then forced myself to sleep, which didn’t really work.

The prison was absolutely lenient to one of the main saviors of The Four Hundred; it was like a fucking vacation inside here.

The moment Kenny’s counterpart was imprisoned in his stead, Mrs. Howard went to the press, telling everyone who wanted to listen and also those who did not, about how her grandson had been falsely convicted, going to prison in a doppelgänger’s place.

Naturally, she said nothing about the counterparts and their role in everything.

Everything she said was undermined by Kenny’s counterpart looking so similar to him but without the red eyes, and most of all, by the survivors who spoke on the internet about how they were saved by the alleged red-eyed murderer, though they had been forbidden by the authorities from saying anything about what had happened. They also mentioned me, making my life inside prison very comfortable.

The older Kenny’s palm prints also matched exactly, as did his fingerprints, showing that Kenny would probably not grow much more in the future.

But it wasn’t a comfortable time for me; it was torture without Kenny, like everything was, and this torture finally ended when the guard came telling me it was time when the next evening came.

I was brought to a room, uncuffed, and even given a black jogging suit, including underwear. In the room was also a shower. I suspected the guard, whose cousin was among the survivors, let me use the changing room of the guards. After a quick shower and changing into the clothes, I felt very satisfied that their dark color matched the vision the junkie had of me.

I was then escorted out of prison, where Ethan waited for me.

"Good to see you on the other side." He extended his hand, and I shook it curtly before he motioned to the big limousine at the end of the path to the prison, which stood on the street. Behind it was an ambulance that would apparently follow us to the spot where we hopefully would find Kenny.

While we walked to the limousine, Ethan explained the situation.

"You are now out on a day’s leave from prison. We have to appear in front of a judge tomorrow to show that you didn’t run away and are cooperating. Then, until the parole hearing, you will get an ankle monitor and will remain in Mrs. Howard’s care."

I nodded absentmindedly and saw a bodyguard stepping out of the car, opening the door for me.

After stepping in, I sat across from an even more styled-up Mrs. Howard, with big golden earrings on her ears and the iconic red lipstick on her lips. It didn’t look sketchy, as it had when her body was so much older, but instead made her look like an elite with extravagant taste.

"Where is he?" She questioned, her hands resting on her walking stick, which lay sideways on her lap.

"Where the first portal had been, he will arrive at 1:23 in the night, at the burned-down forest." I answered, looking at Ethan, who was stepping in and sitting sideways between us.

Hearing what I said, Ethan took out his phone and typed into it before announcing an address. "The address is still the same, and they have finished the street we need to take in there. Though the burned forest is still untouched."

"Perfect." I nodded. If Ethan told me that they had planted a new forest there in the time we had been away, I wouldn’t know where to find another burned-down forest.

The limousine started to drive, and Mrs. Howard turned slightly to the open partition of the driver and copilot’s seat.

"I need a hairband."

She was given one and threw it at me. "Your hair is wet."

"Mhm. Thank you." I pulled my shoulder-length hair up and tied it together, as she apparently demanded. I also took a watch that Ethan, more politely, didn’t throw at me.

"In what condition is he?"

"Full of blood; I don’t know more." I had asked the junkie for more information, but I didn’t get any.

"He won against the giant." She stated. It wasn’t a question, but I nodded nevertheless.

She again called for the bodyguard in the co-pilot’s seat.

"Get my husband’s thigh bone ready for when that prick shows up!"

"No," I interrupted her.

"No bones after what he went through."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Are you telling me how to discipline my grandson?" There was a disbelieving furrow on her forehead.

I nodded slowly.

"I am."

She fixed me with a strange smile, and I countered with a smile myself.

Ethan cleared his throat a few times, uncomfortable at our standoff.

"Mrs. Howard, it wouldn’t be good if Mr. Howard were to get traumatized by seeing bones after he fought a gigantic man who also had bones. The best approach would be to not let him see any parts of a human body that are not attached to someone who is alive and well."

Kenny’s grandma pressed her lips together before again commanding the bodyguard behind her,

"Just bury that swine again!"

"I still have my stick for this one." She gripped the mentioned stick on her lap tighter.

I looked out of the window, not dwelling on my victory so as not to anger her even more.

It was deadly silent when we arrived at the finished street where my ’sister’s’ body had been found. Now this unfinished district was only used as a transit route because the buildings were not yet finished after they continued the project following the catastrophe more than a decade ago.

I sprang out of the car the moment it stopped and walked toward the forest. Mrs. Howard, Ethan, and a few doctors followed with a stretcher, while the ambulance halted behind the limousine.

Before I entered the burned earth, I turned back.

"At 1:23, he will arrive. Everyone stay ready until then, but back up."

Then I turned to the old lady,

"Mrs. Howard, Kenny’s counterpart has only seen me in his vision."

"You are too cheeky for my taste." After grimacing, she turned around and motioned for a bodyguard, who went back to the car. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The next time I turned around, I saw the bodyguard bringing her a very comfortable-looking chair that they somehow had brought with them.

I chuckled and turned back to continue into the middle of the burned forest, staring at the watch I had received, praying.

The night wasn’t that cold, and for Mrs. Howard’s and my enchanted eyes, it wasn’t dark. This burned-down forest reminded me of the first portal where everything started and the Black Forest of the Deer-Monster-World, together with the desolation Kenny’s absence brought.

Time seemed to crawl slowly, so slowly that I began to doubt whether it was passing at all.

When it was finally, FINALLY, 1:22, I turned my body while looking around.

Please.

Please.

Please.

I am begging you.

And then, just like that, without a ’whoosh,’ without a grand entrance, and without any other announcements, I spotted him not far away, doused in blood, lying there as if he had been inside this burned-down forest all along.