Not the Eccentric update. That'll come... at some point. Rather it's a YuukaNen one-shot with Kaguya-hime story pieces that escalated way too far all over the place. (It was supposed to end at a 2000 word point but got to almost 8000 words instead. Totally the reason why Eccentric always has updating problems - me writing excessively for my one shots.)
By the way, should I make a separate thread for the one-shots from now on?
@mooza: Thanks for reading! MemiTechiNeru drama is fun, but Manafi already put in her claim for Memi.
@Minami-chan: The Keyaki class kids are a troublesome bunch sometimes, but their experiences together will help them to better communicate with each other in the future, hopefully.
@four4four: Aoi will do her best.
Bamboo Cutter
Watching the cherry blossoms fall from the tree in her courtyard, Yuuka wondered how the water birds at Lake Biwa looked as the spring came. She held her brush and journal in her hand, carelessly writing a poem of her thoughts.
Yet, she knew that she would not be able to see the Lake that she had once visited with her father. She pondered, concluding that she might not have the chance to see it ever again.
For all the beauty of the courtyard of the Sugai family, a family of officials loyal to the Emperor, this estate was merely a cage within a vaster world. Just a little bit of evidence for a plot to overthrow the Emperor, damning evidence under the magistrates’ eyes, could cut off the bloodline of the Sugai family with its head ready to be executed.
Yuuka, a mere scholarly girl, had been put under house arrest.
She did not expect a good end. Even blood relatives of the Fujiwara family in charge of this land of the rising sun had been quietly dealt with when they fell out of favor. She thought quickly back to the situation where the uncle Michinaga put his own daughter as the Emperor’s empress when his niece had already been the Emperor’s empress.
Her brush stopped. The ink dried slowly on the paper, and she quickly tore it out. Like the fleeting blossoms, she felt that her words were also ephemeral, and they like her loyal family would soon be forgotten as if eaten by a hakutaku.
If she rode a horse, perhaps she would reach a land far away and be free. If she became a Buddhist nun, perhaps she would be spared her life. Yuuka mused escapes as quickly as she shot them down.
The exotic cat that her uncle had brought home long ago let out a lazy meow, interrupting Yuuka’s thoughts.
“Tom, are you hungry?” Yuuka asked the cat, walking into her room from the open courtyard.
The cat with the strange name from somewhere else waved his tail, but he kept his fat torso happily on the tatami mat. He seemed to almost shake his head no. He hadn’t enjoyed his food as much recently with the disgrace of the Sugai family, which had caused the servants to leave as well.
Suddenly a noise came from the front of her family’s estate.
Yuuka jumped while Tom lazed about. The girl panicked, Perhaps it was the Emperor’s people coming to take her head already. Even if it was just a thief, she was alone with no way to deal with it. Then, she mustered up the courage within herself. She had no choice but to check the noise out.
The scholar went to the front with a decorative sword that had been left in her father’s study. If someone found out that she was going to the door with a sword, she would have been doomed with a label of rebellion, but that hadn’t come to her mind.
Slowly going to the location of the sound. She also heard some rustling and the faint outline of a voice. It didn’t seem to be the Emperor’s people. A common thief seemed more likely, even if thieves didn’t often have the guts to attack officials.
Yuuka approached the sound and charged.
Forgetting to unsheathe the sword, she slammed the sword, which was basically a stick, toward the intruder’s head, “Stop right there- Huh?”
The intruder caught the sword and threw it to the side, nearly making Yuuka trip, “Ouch! Hey!”
Yuuka’s brain stopped as she set her eyes on the intruder. It was a beautiful young lady that seemed around her age. This young lady was dressed in simple and fresh clothing of good quality fabric, showing an amount of wealth thrown onto her. Yuuka’s gaze went to the intruder’s red lips, and Yuuka slapped herself in her mind for thinking that it would probably feel nice to kiss this person even though she had never kissed anyone before.
“I-I’m really sorry about that…” Yuuka apologized.
“No, it’s okay.” The intruder shook her head. She showed off her hand as if saying that her guts were too great to be defeated by a mere stick. “I’m the one who climbed over your wall to get away from those annoying suitors.”
As if the deities above planned it, the sounds of young men running by asking where a beautiful young lady had went could be heard right outside the estate. The intruder quickly placed a finger on Yuuka’s lips to keep her quiet.
The thought that the intruder was single crossed Yuuka’s mind before she internally chastised herself again.
Tom then meowed, having walked over sometime in the middle of the two humans’ interaction. He gave a sharp look toward the intruder before warming up, rubbing himself against her leg with a series of purrs. The cat then proceeded to tell his master that he wanted food.
“Tom is hungry right now. It seems he likes you though.” Yuuka extended the intruder an invitation, “Would you like to join us for dinner?”
“Thank you.” The intruder smiled brightly toward Yuuka.
Keeping her blush under control, the scholar introduced herself, “I’m Sugai Yuuka.”
“Moriya Akane.” The intruder replied. With a thoughtful face, she then took Yuuka’s hands lightly and asked, “Actually, if you don’t mind, is it possible for you to hide me here from those suitors for a day or two, Sugai-sama?”
Startled, Yuuka nodded, “Of course. But, you don’t need to call me Sugai-sama. The Sugai family has already fallen out of favor… so it may perhaps be better to not be here.”
“I don’t particularly care what the Emperor thinks. That man has no guts.” Akane reassured Yuuka.
Yuuka had no words. People didn’t insult the Emperor so easily, but she couldn’t protect the Emperor either. Instead, she just followed Tom as he led the way to making dinner and having said dinner. A small nagging feeling bugged Yuuka as she thought about Akane’s name, an intense color for a beautiful woman but also something else.
They ate a plain dinner together at a small table. Tom sat off the side, happily rolling around with fish in his stomach. Yuuka heard not a single complaint from Akane despite their meal being so plebeian, unsuitable for those who belonged to the class that wore glamorous, layered clothes.
Yuuka sighed as she set down her chopsticks with a last word of thanks for the food, “Akane-san, I apologize for the state of our dinner.”
“No, it’s okay. It reminds me of home.” Akane shook her head, smiling at Yuuka. She then joked, “You’re just a little clumsy with cooking.”
“Home, huh.” Yuuka murmured. A few poetic words fluttered through her mind, but her home had already faded around her for home was family.
Akane explained, “I grew up in the countryside with my grandparents.”
“Hm.” Akane’s words sounded familiar to Yuuka, but she couldn’t quite place where she had heard them before.
“Although they always liked to say that I came from a bamboo tree.”
“Ah.”
“I guess it’s better than coming from a peach or the stars.”
“Wait? Akane-san, you’re… Akane-hime!?” Yuuka finally came to the realization as to who Akane was. She was a beauty from an unknown family who had been so sought after by the upper class, courted intensely, that she had even caught the eyes of the Emperor. She had even been given an honorary title of princess.
“Don’t get me started on people who call me that.” Akane pouted, “I’m just a normal girl.”
Yuuka could understand that living in the part of society ruled by court and polite society rules around the Emperor was stifling and unrewarding at times. She still couldn’t help but say, “Well, you are pretty.”
Akane giggled, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But those nobles and even the Emperor who said things like that. They’re a bunch of shallow little jerks. I give them a task, but they come back with fakes.”
“I suppose that’s how it is.”
“Yea.” The princess leaned forward toward the scholar and teased, “Hey, Yuuka, would you give me Tom in exchange for my hand in marriage?”
“Huh…?”
“Tom for me.”
“Sorry, but Tom is part of the Sugai family.” Yuuka replied plainly, “You can become Tom’s other master though. The house is so empty right now.”
The fact that everyone else had been taken away, only herself under house arrest here, saddened Yuuka. Even Akane, her new companion, would definitely leave in a day or two.
Akane consoled Yuuka with a pat on the head, gaining a confused look from Yuuka.
Night fell. Yuuka set out a futon for Akane and let Akane go to sleep. She herself could not yet fall asleep, so she stepped out into the courtyard with the light of dim candles and the moon up in the sky. Tom accompanied the scholarly girl, wrapping around her leg for a moment.
Holding her brush and page in her hand, Yuuka wrote out a quick line.
Suddenly, a voice read out the line on the page, “The moon is beautiful.”
Yuuka turned around in surprise to see Akane still awake, standing behind her. Akane smiled apologetically for surprising Yuuka, and the two exchanged silent words with their eyes.
The two sat down on the porch and looked at the courtyard at night. The fireflies glittered like stars on the ground. The moon reflected in the koi pond, glimmering with the stars. Even the cherry blossoms drifting down seemed like the sky falling.
“Your handwriting is pretty.” Akane pointed to the ink on Yuuka’s page.
Yuuka smiled shyly, staring down at her words, “Thank you.”
“Do you like the moon?”
Yuuka murmured, briefly gazing at Akane, “It’s very beautiful. It… The moon is beautiful, isn’t it.”
“It is.” Akane nodded, “I like the moon a lot.” She extended her arm, hand reaching up for the moon like the monkey reaching into the water’s reflection. She couldn’t reach it.
“Do you want to go to the moon one day?”
“I rather like it here actually.”
Akane stood up and stepped down into the courtyard. She twirled around happily, and the fireflies hovered around her. Her cheeks
held a rosy complexion; perhaps it was from the warmth of spring that lingered even in the night.
Yuuka’s hands moved without her thinking. Her eyes followed Akane’s figure while her heart sang words and phrases that appeared on paper. The girl under house arrest felt that if she closed her eyes a moment too long, Akane would disappear just like the cherry blossoms.
Yuuka said in reply to Akane’s words, “Yea, I like it here too.”
She was sure that they meant different things.
Two days passed like a flowing river. Surely, the time for Akane to leave had come, but Yuuka’s selfishness scolded her and said to take Akane’s hand and keep her in the Sugai estate. Yuuka slapped away that selfishness because she knew that there was little future for the Sugai family.
“This is goodbye.” Akane said sadly at the front gate of the estate, “Let’s meet again.” Her usually strong and energetic voice trickled off at the end of her sentence.
Although Yuuka couldn’t promise such at reunion, she nodded, “Yes, let’s meet again.”
“I don’t really want to leave. Even though I’ve only been freeloading here.”
“You can stay here as long as you want.” In the end, Yuuka’s inner selfishness broke out. “The Sugai household can be your second household. My father would have surely said something like that too.” She hiccuped a little at the thought of the Sugai family head.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to trouble you further.”
“I’ll fight off any suitors you have. Even though I look like this, ink grinders are pretty hard, you know?” Yuuka made a show of rolling up her sleeves.
Akane giggled. It was when Tom came and gave a similar show of strength that Akane finally gave her normal bright smile and said, “Then, I’ll be in your care for a while more. I might never leave, you know?”
“That’s fine too.” Yuuka clumsily cheered and hugged Akane.
In the middle of the hug, Yuuka realized that Akane smelled very nice and felt very nice to hold. Even if she wanted to part, Yuuka was stuck in the embrace by Akane’s strong arms, and she worried to herself if Akane could hear her heartbeat racing.
The cherry blossoms finished for the year, their short two weeks ending. Yet, when Yuuka woke up in the morning, she found her lonely life changed. Next to her futon, she would find Akane who had claimed that she felt more at ease sleeping with others due to her childhood in a relatively small house.
They had grown incredibly close, Yuuka clinging to Akane’s warmth.
Hearing the chirping of the songbirds, Yuuka opened her eyes one morning, feeling a weight atop of her. She blinked away the lingering pieces of sleepiness and found Akane on top of her.
Yuuka turned red, heart suddenly racing, overly self-conscious of Akane who appeared to be still asleep, the placement of Akane’s leg between her own legs, and the way that Akane’s arms pinned her down. Yuuka internally chanted sutras to herself to calm down, and she cried out silently as she saw Tom exit the room with a judging look that seemed to accuse them of being too bold so early in the morning.
“I… hate…” Akane murmured in her sleep. “The Emperor…”
The scholar pinned underneath wondered what the princess was dreaming about. Soon enough, she heard Akane mumbling about beauty foods and shoes, the dream topic seemingly changing until Akane stopped sleep talking.
Feeling overwhelmed, Yuuka tried to shake Akane lightly and wake her up.
Akane woke up with blurry eyes, not all coherent yet. Seeing Yuuka underneath her, Akane tightened her hold on Yuuka and gave Yuuka a kiss.
“...I love you.” Akane said as if about to cry.
Yuuka felt her breathing stop for a moment. Although Akane only gave her a quick kiss, Yuuka could still feel the sensation of Akane’s lips on her own. They were soft.
Even though they shouldn’t have, even though they should have kept their heads above the sea of inappropriate acts in the morning, Yuuka kissed Akane again, “I love you too.” She threw away the last bits of self-control holding herself back.
By the time they got out of bed, it was noon. Their clothes were thrown to the side. Yuuka softly breathed in the scent of Akane’s hair as they embraced. Akane really was beautiful, and Yuuka had been dyed madder red. She could understand the suitors who chased after the princess in her arms.
She wanted to apologize. Hearing Tom’s resigned footsteps at the two women who he had accepted as his masters, Yuuka opened her mouth.
Akane spoke first, “I’m sorry for making you do this…” Her heart sounded loud with guilt for trying to seduce the scholar in the morning.
Yuuka quickly retorted, “No, I should be the one apologizing for… dirtying you like this.”
“Don’t apologize.” Akane shook her head and peered into Yuuka’s eyes, “...I really have fallen in love with you, Yuuka.”
Akane’s fingers intertwined with Yuuka’s. Perhaps, Akane felt a red string of fate looped around their pinkies, tying them together. Yuuka wished that she could see it, or at least, she desperately turned her ears away from her heart’s whispers that words of love were as ephemeral as the faded red of cherry blossoms.
She fell in love with the warmth beside her.
Even if she couldn’t tell lies apart from truth, she chose to think that their moment together was truth.
They didn’t talk about their lust filled morning again. Soon enough, the heat of late spring and early summer settled into the estate. Flowers began to bloom on the branches of a tree leaning in from the wall of the courtyard.
At this time, the youthful scholars and noble young people would be gathering and creating poetry and music. Yuuka reminiscenced on the year before where the daughter of the Nagahama clan had almost fallen into the lake where a gathering had taken place only to be saved by a quiet youth of the Hirate clan. Yet now, all she could do was look at the lonely flowered branch and move her brush.
A poem from the land of the setting sun, a large kingdom that her own home had connections to, came to mind as Yuuka looked at the flowers. Before she could finish reciting the Chinese characters in her mind, the scholar found Akane come up from behind.
Akane placed her chin on Yuuka’s shoulder, “Aren’t those flowers beautiful?”
“Yes, they are.” Yuuka nodded. The romantic inside of her mumbled that the blossoms were not as beautiful as the woman beside her.
Akane took those words and walked toward the branch of flowers. Using the slowly deteriorating wall as steps, she climbed up a little to the worry of Yuuka and gracefully plucked a flower from the branch. Hopping down with the flower in her hand, Akane smiled widely.
“You worried me, suddenly scaling the wall.” Yuuka let out a sigh of relief as she saw Akane return to her side.
Giving a sheepish apology, Akane tucked the flower into Yuuka’s hair, “I just thought that this would look beautiful with you.”
Yuuka blushed. She felt Akane’s cool hands gently adjust the flower and her hair. It was her face that had become warm rather than Akane’s hands that had become cold.
The flower pulled from its living branches wilted away without a sound, unnoticed. Festival goers played music in the streets for summer had come. Even joyous shouts for prosperity could be heard from the common people as the Emperor’s carriage passed by.
Yuuka and Akane sat in the courtyard, looking at the stars and the moon in the night sky. Beside them sat a bowl of chilled fruit. Tom entertained himself away from the couple, petting the koi fish in the pond.
“Do you not want to go enjoy the festival?” Yuuka glanced toward Akane, “The food and shows are a once a year pleasure.”
Akane replied as if her words were obvious, “You aren’t going.”
“I’m under house arrest after all. That his Majesty allowed me to live this long so peacefully here is already too kind.” Yuuka placed her hand on Akane’s.
“Don’t say that.” Akane scowled. “I want to stay with you. I’ll freeload here for eternity. A man like him doesn’t deserve the life of someone like you.”
“Rude as always about him.”
Akane laughed, “You’re using the same rude pronoun.” Some parts of her rubbed off on Yuuka just as parts of Yuuka rubbed off on her.
Throughout their time together, Akane had revealed to Yuuka why she hated the Emperor so much. There was his arrogance, his inner palace, his politics, his casual disregard for human life, his uselessness, and his ideas that women belonged to him because he was descended from a god. Akane added another reason onto her list, that Yuuka’s life was in his hands.
In this courtyard together, they could temporarily forget about the world. This courtyard was their own paradise together.
“I’m okay with you freeloading forever though.” Yuuka spoke lightly, “Rather, this has already become your home.”
“Eh?” Akane paused.
Yuuka didn’t continue to elaborate. “You’ve got some juice on your lips.” Instead, she casually licked the corner of Akane’s mouth.
They turned away from each other, blushing in the dimness of the night. Yet, their fingers didn’t dare to part. Tom swatted the koi fish that had come to close, causing the reflection of the moon in the pond to break apart.
Eventually the time came for the warmth that Yuuka could barely tell apart from the chilling truth to end. On a night without the moon, the orb in the sky having shrunk into a crescent and then into darkness across the days, Akane stayed outside, looking upward rather than to go to sleep.
Yuuka joined Akane on the wooden porch with an uneasy feeling.
Suddenly, Yuuka felt her eyes blinded by a bright light. When she managed to pry open her eyelids, she spotted a celestial being holding a white furred, red-eyed rabbit, a veil like the moon covering the being’s face. That entity ignored Yuuka but exchanged glances with Akane.
Yuuka’s heart dropped as she saw Akane’s expression.
“I have to go back to the moon.” Akane whispered, turning her eyes away from Yuuka, taking a tiny step toward the moon’s messenger. “I’m sorry.”
Yuuka shook her head and tried to smile, “Thank you for letting me live a happy illusion up until now.”
“No-” Akane stumbled in her step. She twisted to face Yuuka with a desperate cry that she was misunderstood.
“Princess, do not linger any longer on this impure Earth. You must return to the moon.” The messenger interrupted sternly.
Yuuka tried to ignore the messenger. “You don’t need to say anything because I was aware from the very start.” Yuuka shook her head again toward Akane, her voice cracking as she tried to convince herself that everything was okay. “Was this lowly servant’s body able to satisfy you, Akane-hime?”
“...you…” Akane choked.
“I really loved you.”
Even though she was a simple scholar who could not compose even a single line of a masterful poem, even though her family had already fallen to disaster as a clan of traitors, Yuuka’s heart gave itself away to Akane. Yuuka was glad that she could fall in love before waiting for a final execution.
“I love you. Why don’t you understand that?” Nearly shouting, Akane grabbed onto Yuuka’s wrist and tried to kiss Yuuka, “I won’t touch people that I don’t love…”
The messenger seemed disgusted by the pair’s physical intimacy so foreign to the sterility of the moon. The being tried to call again to the princess but was quickly ignored.
Yuuka faced away silently.
The messenger tried to speak again, “Princes-”
“Leave.” Akane spat out furiously, sending a glare toward the moon’s messenger. “I won’t return to the moon tonight regardless.”
Backing away, the messenger spoke quietly with the rabbit and retreated, leaving the courtyard to just Yuuka and Akane again.
“Yuuka.” Akane called out.
Yuuka lightly shook her arm, removing Akane’s hand from her wrist. To the scholar’s surprise, Akane let go. Yuuka didn’t face Akane but she said quietly, “You don’t need to lie. You can go home if you want. I was happy to have been able to love you.”
“I’m sorry for being too greedy… hic… I’m sorry that I just do what I want… hic. Please don’t hate me. I knew… hic… I shouldn’t have tried to take advantage of you.”
The scholar whipped around and denied, “I was the one who took advantage of you.” Her heart screamed in agony at Akane’s tears, the usually strong princess broken down.
“Can we j-just continue living our idle happy days together?” Akane rubbed her eyes as if it would stop the tears but only made them puffier and red. “Is it so bad that I want to stay here with you? This is home.”
Yuuka knew that she had gone mad long ago. She could no longer convince herself with insecurities but breathed clearer with the reaffirmation of a mutual affection.
A bit unsure if she still had the right to do so, Yuuka embraced Akane and murmured, “Akane looks the prettiest when she’s smiling.”
Finishing up a simple yet delicious lunch made by Akane, Yuuka and Akane walked throughout the compound, strolling about. They passed through another courtyard that had fallen into disrepair.
Akane entered the garden of that courtyard and looked around at the flowers in full bloom still despite the lack of servants caring for the plants.
Yuuka followed after Akane, and she stopped under the shade of a large pear tree that was in the middle of bearing fruit. Placing her hand on the bark, she noticed a swing on the other side of the tree.
The swing had been something that her father had the head steward install. Though the children of the Sugai family originally played on it, when they had gotten bored of it, Yuuka’s mother had taken to sitting on it to watch the children laugh while Yuuka’s father stood behind her mother.
Yuuka took a seat on the swing, seeing that it was still usable.
“Yuuka, are you tired?” Akane inquired upon seeing Yuuka sitting.
Yuuka answered, “No, I just wanted to sit on this. It’s nostalgic.”
“A swing?”
“Yes.”
Akane asked, going behind Yuuka, “Would you like me to push you?”
Yuuka laughed like a child as she flew up into the air on the swing and Akane pushed. A split second anxiety brushed her mind that she would crash into Akane going down, but luckily, her princess had the common sense to move.
Tom meowed, bathing in the sun as he drowned out the cheerful noises of his two masters.
The Emperor’s decree came roaring down like the executioner’s blade. In the middle of afternoon tea, the Emperor’s men broke into the Sugai estate. The paper of the sliding door was torn apart. Marching intimidatingly, they entered the room to find Yuuka conversing with Akane, an official halting in surprise at the beauty beside the scholar.
The lead official of the squad read out from a scroll to Yuuka, “The Emperor has decreed for you to become an example for the traitors within the court.”
Yuuka set down her cup. Even though she was shaking, her heart resigned itself to a calmness of death, so she nodded, “I see.” Glancing toward Akane, Yuuka smiled apologetically, unable to word out anything in response to Akane’s grim expression.
The Emperor’s men pulled Yuuka harshly to her feet and grabbed onto her arms with vice-like grips, dragging her away. They peeked at Akane but quickly looked away.
“You will be escorted to await your punishment.” The lead official stated primly, “Be thankful that his Majesty has given you this time before the judgement you should have received.”
Akane rose to her feet, calling out to the people taking Yuuka away, “Wait.”
She was ignored, and Yuuka was quickly being forced away toward the exit, leaving the place that they had spent so much time together in. Akane chased after Yuuka and shouted for the Emperor’s men to stop again.
The lead official walked toward Akane and told the princess, “Akane-hime, do not worry. We will be taking this criminal away.”
“If you wish, the Emperor will receive you any time, princess.” Another official spoke up. “Please stay back as to not get involved with this traitor Sugai.”
Akane bit her lower lip in frustration.
“Please don’t get involved any further, Akane. Thank you.” Yuuka called out to Akane, twisting back to see the face of the person she wished she could spend her life with.
The people holding Yuuka scowled and roughly pushed her, giving her a punch in the face to shut her up, causing her lip to start bleeding. Yet, Yuuka didn’t let out a sound, only a glare toward them.
Akane barked out, “Stop.”
The lead official gestured for the men to halt in their actions, only letting them grip Yuuka’s arms to the point of bruising. He nodded at the serious tone in Akane’s voice.
As the Emperor had already spent much effort into courting the moon princess, even legitimately dispatching people to China to find the fire rat’s legendary robe, and the Emperor had spoke of his willingness to trade anything reasonable for Akane’s hand, the official knew that he would be in trouble if the Emperor knew of Akane-hime’s presence at the Sugai estate and if the official did nothing to try to promote his lord. Those expeditioners died, but he preferred to keep his own neck.
“Spare Yuuka’s life.” Akane spoke slowly, “And I’ll marry… his Majesty.” Enunciating every word so that she could not be misunderstood, she wanted to gag at the idea of being with the Emperor. Yet, she was willing to sacrifice a small thing for a greater selfish desire.
“No-” Yuuka objected, only to be jolted violently.
They had already reached the exit of the compound. Yuuka thought to herself that this was how her short happiness would end, parting at the same place that she had first met Akane.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yuuka spotted the ceremonial sword from long ago that she had tried to attack a mysterious intruder with. It was still in the same place that it had been haphazardly thrown to, and that intruder had been Akane. Yuuka could no longer waver back and forth before picking up her courage to fight.
Her mind went blank, choosing not to hear anymore talking about marrying the Emperor. Smashing her shoulder into one of the people holding her, Yuuka tore her arm away from the other, ripping herself free. She fell to the ground with the way she tried to escape, but she wasn’t trying to escape.
Instead, she scrambled to grab the weapon.
“I can’t accept that!” Yuuka cried out. She found herself unable to get the sword, a heavy foot coming down on her fingers as she was more firmly captured this time. Choking, Yuuka reached for Akane, “Akane!”
Yuuka saw as familiar fingers picked up the sword. She looked upward with all she could to look at Akane’s face as the Emperor’s men tried to push the scholar into the ground to stop her from struggling more.
“I’m sorry, Yuuka.” Akane mouthed, ‘I love you.’
A harsh pain hit Yuuka, an impact to the back of her head. Everything went black, and she could no longer see the beautiful madder red. And yet she could imagine the glistening of tears dripping away nonetheless. Perhaps she was the one crying.
The prison cell felt cold. Yuuka shook her head and paced about. She had recovered from her injuries, but not once again had she been able to meet Akane. This cell that she was held in was more like a room than a prison. Again Yuuka was under house arrest.
Given good food, good water, good sanitation, even soft bedding and a desk with materials to write with, Yuuka should have felt cold at all.
At night, flower petals fluttered into the cage-room. Yuuka took a deep breath, holding paper and a brush in hand, and she gazed at the full moon. She wrote a meaningless sentence. Then she wrote another.
“The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?” The scholar murmured aloud to no one.
No matter how well she calligraphed her strokes, there was no one to read them. For some reason, the ink seemed to leak down and blur, but she had already run out of tears.
By morning, the moon had left, and the sun came up.
Yuuka heard the sound of impatient footsteps coming closer to where she was staying. She nearly jumped in surprise when the visitor came into site.
It was a young man with sharp features wearing elegant clothing. Rather than just that, her visitor was the Emperor. At first glance, he appeared handsome, the work of many generations of the Fujiwara family. Yet, his expression seemed severe and upset. His advisor behind him appeared to fade into the shadows.
Without a preface, he barked at Yuuka, “What did you do to her?”
Yuuka was taken aback. “What do you mean by that?” The female that the Emperor spoke of was Akane, but Yuuka hadn’t received a single word on Akane since she had been taken away.
“Why is it that you are so special in her eyes, Sugai?” The Emperor’s voice seemed to almost crack.
Yuuka stayed silent.
“We should just kill you here.” He grumbled.
Although afraid of death, Yuuka ignored her shaking hands and spoke boldly against the Emperor. “If you can make her happy.” She gripped her hands into fists and stopped shaking. “Then kill me as many times as you want.”
Seeing her resolve, the Emperor folded his arms, “As if we would. At the very least, we will fulfill this request of hers.” He looked at Yuuka as if she was stupid.
Yuuka glanced away.
The Emperor’s advisor handed the emperor a small box. He took the box and threw it at Yuuka’s feet.
Stating regally, he told the scholar, “Go. Disappear from this court. The Sugai family is no more. We bestow a scholar the main section of the former estate and lock away the rest.” In other words, he was letting Yuuka go but forcibly erasing the existence of the Sugai family. “You have no more relationship to any of us.”
Yuuka didn’t pick up the box.
The Emperor walked away with a smirk, “Never set foot in the heart of the capital proper again.”
The Emperor’s advisor paused to tell Yuuka, “You will be escorted home tonight.” Then, the advisor left as well.
On that night, rain fell fiercely, the sky covered by clouds. Yuuka returned home with nothing having come with nothing, but she lost something that she could never replace. At the entrance of her home, she saw guards stationed there to keep her locked in.
Walking inside, nothing seemed to have changed. Tom, still alive but a little skinnier, came up to his master, eyes darting about for his other master, and rubbed against her as she curled up into a ball on the floor.
Akane pushed aside the servants, storming ahead in a multi-layered kimono. After seeing that smirk on the Emperor’s face and his declaration that she could see where Yuuka had been kept, she immediately headed toward that area.
When she arrived at the room, she found people already cleaning up and throwing away the signs of a prisoner ever being there. Seeing papers being discarded, Akane hastily grabbed one and held it close to prevent it from disappearing.
She felt alone here.
Behind her, she heard the sound of footsteps. The servants all stopped in their work and bowed in respect. The Emperor arrived.
Akane refused to bow to him.
The Emperor took the paper out of Akane’s hand. “Why don’t you throw away that scrap in your hands?”
“Give that back.” Akane tried to retrieve it, but he held it above her head.
“It’s a poem?” He shrugged, looking at the contents of the paper, “We will admit that the scholar has pleasant handwriting.”
“Her words aren’t for your eyes.”
“Nor are they for yours. You will be our consort, and she will live in a separate world.” The Emperor embraced Akane, but she didn’t fight back, staring at him hatefully resigned like a doll.
He kissed her, his rough lips brushing against her. Objectively, as the Emperor, his skin was smooth as were his lips, but Akane could feel nothing but disgust, seeing his possessive eyes.
The paper fell to the side.
Yuuka woke up in the morning feeling cold. When she looked out to the courtyard, there was snow falling like flower petals from the sky. The flowering trees were however flowerless, bare with only the white of winter as decoration.
She once more felt herself used to being alone.
She was informed that a visitor had come. A small spark in her heart wished the visitor to be Akane, but the most she could ever see Akane again would be if the Imperial carriage passed by her home. She hated the idea of Akane belonging to the Emperor and had lost many nights of sleep.
Instead of just one visitor, a pair had come. Yuuka invited them in.
After the destruction of the Sugai household, Yuuka had been put under house arrest again, but people were allowed to visit. Although still considerably dangerous to associate with someone from a traitor’s family, even when the family was gone, the Hirate and Nagahama youngsters who Yuuka had met and chatted with at gatherings before came to visit as friends frequently.
“Neru, Yurina, I’ll brew some tea for you.” Yuuka let them sit down and went to prepare tea for her guests.
They chatted about meaningless topics for a while such as poetry or the instrumental skills of the noble girls around the capital. This was their usual preface to the darker side of their conversations.
“You likely know already, but the Emperor still has not announced his marriage with Akane-hime.” Hirate Yurina spoke.
Yuuka nodded. Over half a year had passed since Akane exchanged her marriage for Yuuka’s life, but the Emperor had since not made any outright moves.
“His uncle is trying to push a consort, the Emperor’s cousin, onto the Emperor.” Neru took a sip of tea, giving a theory as to why the marriage had not been fixed. “It seems that there is some disagreement in the back.”
Yurina quickly reassured Yuuka upon seeing the scholar’s worried look, “If you worry that Akane-hime will get caught in the crossfire, you shouldn’t worry too much. The Emperor takes great care to keep her isolated and protected from others, be that good or bad news.”
“Thank you.” Yuuka weakly smiled, “I just don’t know how to feel when they do get married.”
Yurina and Neru couldn’t give Yuuka empty words to believe that the Emperor and the moon princess would not get married.
“If he dies, then they won’t get married.” Yurina said lightly.
Yuuka smiled wryly, “Are you planning treason?”
The Hirate clan was a vassal clan to the ruling family of the Fujiwara, and they had intermarried with their ruling clan before, Yurina being third cousins with the Emperor. Yet, a great divide had formed between the clans, causing rumors of planned insurrection to build in the recent years.
“You didn’t hear those words from this mouth of mine.” Yurina fiddled with her short hair and gave a cheeky smile.
“Who knows.” Neru laughed.
On the other hand, the Nagahama clan was a strong military family of loyalists, loyal to the crown and the Fujiwara clan. Neru seemed to be an outlier.
They changed topics, returning to the more light-hearted side of conversation. The tea had gone cold, but no one cared to drink anymore. The Hirate and Nagahama pair left as the sun went down, promising to meet with Yuuka again.
Although the snow began to melt, Yuuka fell ill with fever. Sweating profusely, feeling a burning heat matched with a freezing chill, she could barely get water to drink. Preparing food was unlikely to go well.
She heard visitors come in worriedly and tuck her into bed and take care of her.
Bedridden, Yuuka’s brain dreamed of happier days. A cool towel was pressed onto her forehead, and porridge was made. The porridge was tasteless, nothing like what Akane made, being the porridge of Yuuka’s two friends.
Tom sat as a pile of warmth on Yuuka’s feet, meowing for her not to die.
Her sight was blurry. In truth, she could make out the panicked faces of Yurina and Neru, but there was someone else she wanted to see.
“...please freeload here… forever...“ Blinking away tears, Yuuka mumbled, “Akane, don’t leave.”
Yuuka fell unconscious, struggling to breathe. Her body burned, gasping for air. She could vaguely hear a cat’s crying and shouting to quickly go find a doctor to treat her. She ignored all that as she chased painfully after a dream in a dream.
Her friends watching could do nothing to help.
By the time the doctor came, Yuuka’s body calmed down a little, allowing him to do a check-up. The doctor’s diagnosis was that Yuuka’s body had suffered too much stress in the recent months, hurting her ability to fight off sickness. He prescribed some medicine and advised Yurina and Neru on how to take care of a sick person.
After the doctor left, Yurina and Neru stayed to watch over Yuuka.
“Yuuka is really…” Yurina spoke to Neru. “A precious person.”
Neru berated herself, “To think that we first came to talk to her because we’re a pair of traitors against the royal family.”
Tom swished his tail and gave a look toward the pair. He had already accepted that they were a part of his master’s circle of humans, so he was making sure that no one else left while they waited for his master’s other half.
When the first sprouts of spring popped up in the hard ground, Yuuka coughed, choking, not because of a lingering sickness but because of a shocking piece of a news. Various testimonies on the event popped up around the capital, and Neru was recounting them to Yuuka.
Apparently, Akane killed someone with a ceremonial sword. After silence for months on the activities of the moon princess, she did an outrageous deed.
Some said that the princess was mad. Some said that she had stopped an assassin that was trying to kill her beloved Emperor. Some said that she was being framed for a crime.
When Neru described the supposed appearance of the sword, Yuuka couldn’t help but pause in wonder.
Yuuka whispered under her breath, “...isn’t that my family’s sword?” She was glad that Akane kept it at least.
In the next moment, Yurina entered the room, panting as if having rushed to deliver a piece of news. Taking a second to catch her breath, the short haired girl blurted out, “Akane-hime killed the head of the Fujiwara clan.”
The room froze.
The head of the clan wasn’t the Emperor, but he was practically the puppeteer of the Emperor. Though the Fujiwara clan was the ruling clan, it was a separate entity from the Emperor on technicality.
Neru shook her head and asked for a repeat, unsure if she heard that correctly. She heard it correctly the first time.
“Also, there’s other news.” Yurina frowned. “The Emperor has announced that Akane-hime will be crowned Empress tomorrow.”
Sitting in the courtyard, watching the cherry blossoms bloom, Yuuka sipped a bitter white wine. There was no moon in the sky. Her emotions in turmoil, she gazed at the courtyard.
The scholar noticed a white rabbit with red eyes. She wondered where it came from but simply watched the rabbit bounce around the courtyard.
The rabbit approached Yuuka and turned into a girl, a goddess from the moon. The rabbit-goddess caused the container of wine to spill onto the grass and took the cup out of Yuuka’s hand. Dipping a tongue into the wine, the goddess made a face of disgust and threw the cup away.
“The princess is not by your side.” The goddess observed as if scolding Yuuka. Then, the goddess declared, “She will be taken back to the moon.”
Yuuka choked out in shock, “I don’t want that.”
“Don’t worry. You will be able to see her beauty all you want from the Earth as you look up at the moon.”
“Even if I were blind, I wouldn’t want her to go to the moon.”
“Then, do you wish to touch her body, you lustful human?”
“I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy being with her like that, but even if I lost all my sense of touch, I wouldn’t want that.”
“You speak pretty words.” The goddess praised Yuuka as someone who only talked and never did anything. “Then, what do you want?”
“I just want to be by her side.”
Soon after the Emperor crowned the Empress, he announced that Akane-hime belonged to the royalty of the gods of the moon and had no choice but to return to the celestial object in the sky. Rumors started that the princess gifted him the pill of immortality out of love before she left, and that an expedition of men heading up to burn something on the tallest mountain, the one closest to the moon, had been decided strengthened the people’s beliefs.
In truth, the emissaries from the moon came to retrieve Akane once more. This time, they would not let her stay on the tainted Earth. The Emperor argued back, but he was powerless against the people from the moon.
Akane did not love him. Living with him and feeling his flesh, though he never truly touched her to her relief, she found that the Emperor was a pathetic man. Yet, she was afraid that he would kill Yuuka since leaving for the moon would be tantamount to breaking their pact.
She begged the people of the moon to give the Emperor a pill of immortality. She beseeched of him to never touch Yuuka in exchange for the magic elixir. He agreed emotionlessly.
Akane sat in the carriage flying through the sky, looking out the window.
The beautiful princess saw the cherry blossoms blooming. Spring had arrived, and nearly a year had passed since she first met Yuuka. She wondered if Yuuka was looking up at the sky and if the flowers in their courtyard had blossomed yet.
A handmaiden called out to her, “Princess, there are much more beautiful flowers on the moon.”
Akane ignored the servant. Looking out the window, she found herself crying, the tears falling from the sky like jewels.
The capital burned, lit up red by flames consuming the court and the palace. People frantically tried to put out the blaze, but the red continued fluttering like petals. The noise of swords tinkled like bells amidst the chaos.
Three pairs of footsteps hurried through the halls of the Emperor’s dwelling. They could hear shouts and sounds of slaughter.
Yurina quickly spoke to Yuuka, “Yuuka, you don’t need to be in such a dangerous place.” Even as they ran, Neru, Yurina, and Yuuka,
the former two attempted to shield the latter from the mess of an attempted coup from their faction.
Yuuka shook her head, “I need to talk to the Emperor one last time.”
Yurina nodded. Then, looking to collapsed hall to the side, the short haired girl cursed under her breath, “Tch. It’s escalated way too quickly.”
“This way.” Neru quickly pointed in a safer looking direction to the place they expected the Emperor to be escaping from. “If we’re too late, he might be already killed.”
The three girls ran. As they had predicted, the Emperor was attempting an escape through a hidden back entrance of his palace. Aided by an eunuch, he was injured by an arrow to the shoulder.
Upon seeing the girls, the eunuch fled.
The Emperor barked out a laugh, “I see. You’ve come to take my life.”
“No, I’m here to talk.” Yuuka stepped toward the Emperor, signalling for her friends to stand back. She noticed the Emperor holding a sheathed sword.
“There’s no meaning to talking anymore.”
“What difference does it make for you to speak a few more sentences?”
“A world of differences. They say that a flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause the world to change. If she had never met you, perhaps things would have been different.” The Emperor spoke so melancholically that Yuuka had nothing to say. Seeing her troubled expression, he threw the sword to her feet. “This is your sword that she used to kill the Fujiwara head.”
“I see.” Yuuka nodded. She picked up the sword and took a little bit of it out of the sheath to check the condition. The sword had been cleaned and sharpened.
“Kill me with it.”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“Then I’ll kill myself with it.”
“I don’t particularly care what you do with your life, but before that, let’s talk.”
“I’ve already said that I have nothing to talk about. You wish to talk about Akane, do you not?” The Emperor sighed.
Yuuka nodded.
“Why don’t you take this pill and ascend to the moon like Chang’e then?” The Emperor threw a package wrapped in paper to Yuuka. Speaking lowly, he laughed, “Maybe then she’ll smile for me once.”
“Thank you.” Yuuka passed the sword back to the Emperor.
She turned her back away as she saw the image of the Emperor committing suicide reflected in the eyes of her friends. Opening up the paper package for a moment, she saw that the paper was one that she had used in her short arrest to write on and that there was indeed a pill inside.
Akane heard a sound from the front of her extravagant new house on the moon. She had chased away all of the people who she could, but the moon’s denizens kept a careful watch over her to prevent her from escaping. They knew of her longing for the Earth.
Sluggishly heading toward the entrance, Akane wondered what sort of wild animal got in. She hoped that it wasn’t a rabbit. There were basically only rabbits on the moon, and she was so sick of them.
What she saw wasn’t an animal but rather an intruder, a human.
Akane halted in her footsteps.
The intruder rubbed her shoulder in pain, having climbed over the wall and landed on her shoulder in a bush. The intruder had a few leaves stuck in her hair, but when she noticed Akane, she couldn’t help but give the biggest teary smile.
The moon princess asked disbelievingly, “Yuuka?”
“A-Akane!” Yuuka sniffled and ran to Akane.
Akane squeezed Yuuka tightly in a hug and laughed while crying tears of happiness, “You’re pretty bad at climbing walls.”
Yuuka nodded and cried, “Let’s go home.”
Yuuka took Akane’s hand. It was warm. Holding hands, they started on an adventure to go home, to go back to Tom and enjoy the flowers peacefully and to grow old together happily and healthily.
The moon gazed fondly upon them.