Relationships

“Your Royal Highness, please forgive us!” Hibiki exclaimed as he saw Kazuki and Nobu walking together. His servant chanted the same words, mimicking the feel of a Royal Court meeting.

Nobu turned and chuckled, “Oh, wow, what a greeting. It’s like being back to the Palace.”

Kazuki laughed and furtively turned to his Master. It was evident in his eyes that he relished seeing his Master begging for forgiveness like this. The man barely respected him despite being a prince like his brother.

Hibiki gasped, “Your Royal Highness, your hand!” He tried to hold the Crown Prince’s hand just to inspect it but Kazuki stopped him.

The young lad smiled, “I got this.” He leaned in a bit closer and whispered, “Besides, you don’t want to anger my brother, the mighty Crown Prince, by touching him, right?”

Before he could realize what he was doing, Hibiki replied, “R-Right.”

Kazuki was having the time of his life.

Hibiki and his servant followed after the two men. Hibiki still eyed the Crown Prince’s wound and the badly-fixed “first-aid” Kazuki did on his brother. He grimaced and made a mental note to scold his pupil later, never mind his influential brother. When they arrived at the door of Kazuki’s room, the Master shoved his servant forward and made him open the small door for the brothers.

Nobu smiled upon seeing the small, cramped room, “It brings memories back, doesn’t it, Kazuki?”

Kazuki nodded. Nobu squeezed his shoulder before stooping to fit himself through the door. Hibiki watched in horror. No Prince should stoop down or squeeze himself to get in a room but then again, he’s been making Kazuki do it for years. The servant quickly shut the door and rushed to his Young Sir.

“Young Sir, you wouldn’t recommend a punishment for my Master to your brother, right?”

Kazuki mischievously smiled and slowly moved his lips to whisper the word, “Perhaps!” He then turned to his Master with a wide grin.

Apparently, his Master disliked his behavior and chastised him.

“Just because your brother is his Royal Highness, the Crown Prince, you shouldn’t be acting like that!”

And Kazuki came crashing from his high. He just couldn’t get his Master to stop scolding him. He pouted like a puppy being reprimanded. His head was low and his eyes were glossy.

“I am still your Master---“

“Kazuki, I am dying! Hurry up!”

Panic rose in the old man’s blood. He quickly shoved Kazuki into the door, “Treat his Royal Highness! Hurry!”

Kazuki entered the room with a huge smile on his face.

....

“Nobu, I’ve always wanted to ask you about something.” Kazuki murmured as he undid the bandages on his brother’s palm.

“Ask it now.” Nobu watched his brother clean his bloodied hands in a silver basin and grab some new bandages.

“I heard from the Northerner about their hair tradition.” Kazuki murmured as he dressed his brother’s palm.

Nobu’s beautiful face distorted. He raised his eyebrow, “What about it?”

Kazuki stopped in the middle of what he was doing to stare his brother in the eye. He took a deep breath, “Are you really going to ask me about that? When it’s so obvious? Besides, I am the one asking!”

Nobu rolled his eyes, “Are we having this conversation again? Who’s making rumors? Is it Miurio---“

“Leave her alone. Our sister is smart and something like your cutting your hair mystifies her and her brain won’t stop thinking. She won’t let this topic go until you tell us the truth.”

Nobu shifted; Kazuki noticed but his brother quickly hushed his questions with his laughter. He chuckled, “Our sister is too smart for her own good. I am afraid she’ll scare away potential suitors with her wit.”

Kazuki glared and with his hand, he tightened the bandage around Nobu’s palm. He complained, “Could you not think that way about our sister? And stop changing the subject! What happened to your hair? Did you have a lover from the---“

“Could you be gentler!? This is why you can’t keep your lovers for a long time. You become very rough towards them---“

“N-Nobu!”

In that way, the conversation steered in the Crown Prince’s favor. Just to prod at his younger brother’s esteem, he stared into Kazuki’s eyes. Kazuki avoided the eye-contact. Nobu chuckled as his brother’s face became red with shame.

“Is that true?” asked Kazuki with a hesitant voice, “Did you hear it from my past lovers?” He cut off the bandage with a knife and finished the dressing on his brother’s hand.

Nobu smiled and patted him on the head, “You know what, Kazuki?”

Kazuki nodded, anticipating some good advice.

His older brother laughed, “I honestly don’t care about your love life---“

“Nobu! Please stop teasing!”

When his older brother finished making fun of him, the man sat beside him and laid his back on the wall. Kazuki unfolded and stretched his legs and followed the way his brother sat.

He smiled, “This is very un-prince-like of you.”

Nobu smiled and leaned his head on Kazuki’s left shoulder, “Ha, life must’ve been easy for you since you grew like a commoner.”

“Oy,” Kazuki sharply raised his left shoulder to hit his brother in the cheek, “doctors aren’t commoners---“

“Yea, they are commoners with specialties. That’s all that there is really. There’s no difference.” He paused, “There’re only two social classes in this country: royalty and everyone else. Everyone else includes commoners and doctors.”

His brother scoffed and before he could say anything, Nobu interjected, “Don’t hit my cheek again. My cheeks are precious.”

Kazuki narrowed his eyes at his brother, “I can’t believe you have an ideology like that.”

Nobu shrugged his shoulder, “Try being raised in the palace in your next life instead of leaving your brother to go to some mountain, become a doctor then pretend to have a normal life.”

For a while, they kept silent but that was until Kazuki murmured, “I didn’t know you hated your life there.”

Nobu laughed, “I don’t! Who could possibly hate being a royalty? We have everything everyone wishes for.”

Kazuki nodded and replied with a questionable “Yes.” Nobu heard the tone in Kazuki’s voice but decided not to ask about it. He watched as his brother cleared the room to set out the futons for the night. When they both lay on their own futons, Nobu asked, “Are you comfortable?”

“Aren’t you?”

He nodded, “I sleep on burning bricks* and not futons and wood.”

Kazuki laughed, “It’s just a night, Nobu.” He held out his hand to his brother, “Here, for added warmth.”

Though he accepted the offer, he still couldn’t hold his tongue from speaking a snarky reply. He gently squeezed Kazuki’s hand, “It’ll be warmer if I burned you.”

“It’ll be warmer if we burned this whole room. What do you say?”

Both of them laughed without constraints, without care for anyone else who might be awake at the moment. The laughter subsided; the residue (a smile) remained and the song of sleep began to sing in their ears. Kazuki laid, his eyelids already too heavy to the song’s first note while Nobu watched him, passively listening to the crickets, to the wind, and to the world outside them.

He asked, “You must be happy to be married to the one you’ve always wanted. I’ve given Lady Gu to you. Her family felt humiliated when I voiced my decision to decline her. They were all the more confused when I asked them to marry her to you. They thought I was being unfair but I did it because I know you’ve always wanted her so,” he paused, “are you happy? Do you feel contentment?”

He waited for an answer but it seemed that Kazuki was already deep in sleep. He smiled, let go of his question, and closed his eyes but that was when he heard a soft voice whispering:

“I wish I was.”

...

“Why are you here?” Yura rose from her bed, “Who allowed you to enter?”

With such an authoritative voice, Kazuki couldn’t help but try to calm his shivers. It was not fear. Though clothed in her sleeping garments, Yura held her blankets to her chest. She turned to him with an indecipherable expression in her maroon eyes.

Kazuki smiled, almost blushing. He leaned on the table in between them, “Can’t I visit my wife? Besides, I’m here to bid goodbye to you.”

Yura turned away to light the candle on her desk and remained staring at the wall to her left. Kazuki savored seeing her side profile lighted by the candle on a small, jade dish on her table.

“Are you,” she paused, lowered her head, and gripped her blankets, “going to war again?”

The tone of her voice flattered the man. Kazuki stifled his chuckle but couldn’t smile. His face lightened up. He nodded, “Are you going to miss me---“

“Publicly, I will.”

He smiled, “That’s not good enough. How about personally? Will you?”

Irritated, she glared at him, “Why can’t you understand that was a rejection? I don’t have romantic feelings for you but I treasure and value you nonetheless---“

“Will you miss me---“

“Of course, I will but there is nothing romantic in that.”

Kazuki frowned. He let out a sigh, “I want more than that. If you can’t give that, I’ll search for it somewhere.”

Though it wasn’t necessary, he curtsied to Yura before storming out of her room but before he could exit, Yura called out to him. He pathetically felt like he was needed. He smugly smiled as he turned around. He smiled impishly, “What is it, Princess Gu**?”

She lowered her head, “If you want more, then, you should sleep with me so I can give you an heir.”

“You mean, make love out of duty?” He scoffed, “That’s not even love, then.”

“I can’t ever please you, can I, Kazuki?”

“You’ll never love me so you’ll never please me.”

She narrowed her eyes, “You are confusing---“

“But I won’t decline the offer.”

FOOTNOTES:

*I read some parts from Two years in the Forbidden Palace and the main character there has a bed made of brick and wood on the upper layer. The bed has a hole at the end of it where a fire could be started and used to warm the bed.

**They either call her Princess Gu or Lady Gu but more appropriately Princess since she is the wife of a prince.