Ojou-sama, Most Important
--windowlight
Author's Notes: I didn't want to use the "Flashback format" wherein the flashbacks are italicized, since it seems… very informal to me. Please note that sentences with verbs in the past perfect form (e.g. had, had been) are the flashbacks themselves and those with verbs in the simple past are the happenings in the current time frame of the story. Please bear with me .
Tons of thanks to Mizuhara Misao for beta-reading!!!
Thoughts
Chapter 1—Night
Sakurazaki Setsuna stared at the cold wooden floor beneath her knees. Her head hung low between her strained shoulders and her hands rested upon her lap clutching the dark blue fabric of her shinmeiryuu uniform. She was counting, actually, the number of hours that passed since she has last seen a certain girl of chocolate brown tresses and soft round eyes. Her gaze penetrated the immediate world around her as the memory slowly formed in her mind.
"—Me?" the sixteen-year-old princess had said quite inaudibly if it hadn't been for Setsuna's good pair of ears and the bitter silence the night had offered.
"Hai," she had replied firmly as if to confirm an order from some old man who held some kind of authority over the likes of her. But she had sensed—known—that her usually solid voice had revealed the dark, emptied chambers of her soul to her ojou-sama. Not that the girl hadn't known of it yet for the past few days.
"Still?" she had whispered with a groan, feeling the weight of guilt crushing her lungs, "Set-chan?"
The young samurai had not replied nor had she intended to. Why, of all the questions, why had she wanted to ask that? If only the woman had known how painful it had been to have been asked a question one has had an answer to since first gazing upon how the leaves danced in the wind or how the water shimmered under the sun. If only she had known what pain it had caused to have had to bury it under the cold dirt that coats one's frozen heart.
"Set-chan," she had called again only to encounter yet another agonizing moment of silence. She had looked down, letting the silken strands of her long hair cover her cheeks and the water residing in her eyes for quite a time slide down her pale face.
Setsuna had remained still and unmoving on her knees with her back to the person she had pledged her life to ever since the forged honor bestowed upon her had allowed her to. She had felt during the short span of minutes which had seemed like long tireless days that everything about the small traditional room had absolutely been nothing at all; like she had been floating in the widest of oceans without ever feeling the waves.
"Onegai…"
The desperation that lingered in such a beautiful voice had been plainly unacceptable to the loyal knight, who had flinched at the lamentable pain she had heard.
Should I speak? Am I allowed to?
After what had seemed like an eternity, the princess had stood ever so slowly, ever so elegantly. She had begun to walk towards her guardian, stopping as the distance had diminished to about a foot. She had paused, waiting for any sign of response, and, upon receiving none, had pulled down the many layers of her royal kimono until every fold and crease had lain scruffily on the ground and nothing had covered her porcelain skin.
It had glowed in the moonlight, her skin. Like she had been a goddess, Setsuna recalled.
"Onegai, Set-chan," the princess had uttered weakly as she knelt down and took her friend and protector into a desperate embrace.
"Answer me!!"
Setsuna felt the first wave of tears finally assault her cold eyes as she remembered very clearly the hurt that had undoubtedly resided in that voice. Hurt she knew she had caused. By then, she had realized how it felt to be stabbed with the bluntest blade. She clutched the white cloth to her chest until it felt like it wasn't there at all.
I shouldn't cry.
"Ojou-sama…"
Konoe Konoka had loathed that label ever since it had first come out of her friend's lips. And the tone had also gained such deep hatred in an instant; the young woman had known for several years what it implied—apology.
Always has been the passive one, Set-chan.
Konoka had lit up as Setsuna had begun moving, turning her body around and repositioning her legs to face her only beloved, but had later frowned again upon realizing that her friend had reached for her scattered clothes behind her without even sparing her—offer—a glance.
As Setsuna had tugged the kimono around her master's slender shoulders, she had not blushed nor twitched as she had always done so in the past upon seeing her ojou-sama's bare skin. Of course, she hadn't. It just hadn't been those blissful times, had it?
"Hai. Still."
Setsuna lifted her calloused fingers to her lips, almost touching them but never doing so. She remembered that moment after melting all her pride—stubbornness—and breaking one of the two most significant vows she had made, she had allowed them to touch the most flawless lips in the world.
Like kissing heaven itself.
But I was born never to have heaven. This should be my first and only taste of that place.
Konoka-ojou-sama.
Author's Notes: First fic in quite along time. And it's Konosetsu!!! Yay!!!