Day 2: Fight. Title from We Move Like the Ocean - Bad Suns.


Several times Masayuki catches him fighting; several times Masayuki stays to watch; all those times, Masayuki watches him win.

It's very frustrating. Ever since he had joined the king's army, there hadn't been a time where he hadn't lost a practice fight Masayuki had watched. Over time, it had just become something to look forward to - his duels, that is, the ones Hori Masayuki spies on when he thinks the knight isn't watching. Sometimes he fools himself into thinking that if he can do it, then so can Masayuki, but when he enlists the knights he had beaten, Masayuki just about crushes them under his heel due to his practicing opponents going way, way too easy on him.

As mentioned: it's very frustrating.

Masayuki tries gathering information about him. The knights say he's as courteous to the nobles as courteous can get, he's stronger than most of the others, so on and so forth. They're all things Masayuki already knows, so when he just gets the same things again and again, he eventually stops. It's gone from irritating to frustrating to distressing, because his obsession with the strange knight is getting worse and worse. If his father knows-

Masayuki doesn't even know his name, or where he comes from, or what the knight calls him when they talk about the young master. Alright, so the last one isn't that important, but Masayuki knows a lot, and he doesn't like his knowledge about the knights being tested. It feels like the knight is taunting him, dancing out of his reach every time he gets close enough for him to think, I can get him now, I've got him, just to pull away at the last second, like a mouse playing with a slow cat.

When he decides that he might as well walk right up to the knight himself instead of playing his game, Masayuki waits by the dueling area once more. The knight is swinging his sword with practiced ease, and he moves smoothly, fluidly, that it feels like it's almost a sin to watch. He fells his practice partner in minutes, then sheathes his sword and helps pull Nozaki up, grinning from ear to ear and bowing politely. The rest of the knights clear out, passing by Masayuki on the way (he shushes them and shooes them away so the knight won't notice), until finally, it's only the knight standing there, humming cheerfully (and horribly) as he moves to go back inside the castle as well.

"Wait."

"-Hmm?"

The knight looks up; his helmet had been taken off, leaving Masayuki a good view of what can be accounted as the perfect face, with perfectly coiffed bangs and the perfect shade of blue for his hair. After a split-second hesitation, where the brunet calmly takes in the knight's appearance (well, he's a prince, he can do whatever he wants, thank you very much), Masayuki says, "Let's have a fight."

A pause. Then realization seems to dawn on the knight's face, and he sinks down into a bow. "Hori-sama-"

"Get up," Masayuki says, trying not to pinch the bridge of his nose. He doesn't want any delays; he's been standing here long enough for that. "I said, let's have a fight."

The knight blinks up at him curiously. "But it's nearly nighttime, Hori-sama, surely-"

"Did you hear me, knight? Let's have a fight, not a conversation. That can be saved for later."

He looks almost surprised for a moment, before he smoothly changes his expression to polite interest. "If that is what you wish."

Masayuki runs over his tactics as best as he can; he's seen how the knight fights, with swift, precise movements, so he should have some sort of an advantage if he can recognize the usual moves he makes against him and parry effectively. On the other hand, Masayuki's never had a reliable training partner, seeing as how everyone just about falls to their feet after one swing of the brunet's sword, so he has much less experience than the knight, however grudgingly he has to admit it.

They take their places on the dueling area, bowing respectfully, though Masayuki keeps his eyes trained on the knight, whose gaze flickers upwards when the brunet had been sure he had his eyes trained on the ground. Masayuki scowls and looks away. It's not like he dislikes the knight, but he does get a strange feeling in his stomach, which he doesn't feel like expounding on. After all, it can't be anything good.

In a few seconds, their swords are swinging every which way, clangs echoing in the area. The knight's faster than Masayuki had been expecting, diving in and out of his reach without even trying; the brunet is, though relatively unharmed (most likely to do with the same reason he had won every battle with every other knight), is getting the familiar feeling of frustration welling up inside. He shouldn't be, really, and if he just focuses on the fight, maybe he'd actually win, or come close to it, but every time he's sure that he can land a hit on the knight, green eyes flicker upwards into his and it's distracting. As if his hair isn't enough, even those specks of gold mixed in emerald are enough to pull his mind away from the duel and drift to- what? He's not sure. But it's certainly somewhere he doesn't want his mind to be in.

After what feel like hours of swords clashing against one another, the two jump away from each other, Masayuki staring down his opponent in annoyance. "What are you doing?"

"Fighting, Hori-sama, like you wanted," the knight says, and the way his lips form the words makes Masayuki want to throw him off the castle, though he doesn't know why.

"No, you're- you're doing something," he says, trying not to sound like a child learning new words. He can almost feel the knight laughing at him from inside, and something throbs above his right eye. "It's- distracting me. What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything, Hori-sama," the knight replies smoothly, eyes narrowing in amusement as the smallest of sly smiles creeps onto his face. "Maybe it's just you."

Masayuki rushes forward, sword at the ready, but the knight is faster than he had accounted for, swinging his own sword upwards to knock the hilt right out of the brunet's grip. His sword clatters a few ways away almost forlornly.

Silence. Then the knight retrieves his sword from the ground and presents it to him in a bow. "Your sword, Hori-sama."

"I could have done that myself," he says, not quite calmly, not quite aggressively. Masayuki takes the sword out of the knight's hands and sheathes it, looking down at the cobalt-haired knight before him. "Up."

He stands up, eyes twinkling. "Is there anything else?"

"What's your name?" For some reason, Masayuki had never really heard anyone mention the knight's name, though he was sure it couldn't be because nobody knew it. Maybe it had just slipped his mind, though that sounded unlikely, too.

"Kashima Yuu, Hori-sama."

"Oh." A Kashima. Of course he was a Kashima; that family had been on good relations with his father for years, and it's clear to everyone that they get along as well as best friends. But last time he had heard, the Kashima family had two daughters, and Masayuki hadn't heard of them having a son being a knight... "Then... you're...?"

"Hm?" He tilts his head - no. It can't be. This knight is...? "Oh, my gender, is it? I'm a woman, Hori-sama, though you're not the first one to make that mistake."

"... What?" Masayuki says, having virtually run out of things to say. What do you tell someone you've recently thought of as the opposite gender and therefore acted like being in the presence of any other male? Even worse: had he just been defeated by a woman? And now, the worst part: the woman knight was taller than him. "... What?" He manages again.

Kashima laughs - she actually dares to laugh, what on Earth- "My apologies, Hori-sama. I thought you knew? You've been watching my fights ever since I came here, right? Oh, but please don't tell the king," and here, her voice drops to a lower volume, "I don't know if the king would allow a woman among his knights. You are fine with it, Hori-sama?"

"I... guess so," he replies. Although she is a woman, she still had defeated him in battle (though that may be because he had been distracted by her eyes, and her hair, and the way she smiles after every successful dodge - damn it, everything becomes so much more complicated now that he knows she's a she), and gender ceases to matter in the middle of a fight, unless chivalry was there, somehow, while people would be dying left and right. "Well - I think I need to talk to you for a bit."

"Am I in trouble, Hori-sama?" She asks quietly, and Masayuki feels like he has to lie down a bit to get rid of her voice in his head.

"Nothing like that- just, I know a lot about the knights in here, except you. If ever my father finds out about your- gender, I can, maybe, vouch for you to stay."

The knight's eyes shine like a beacon in the night. "Is that so, Hori-sama? You're- You're the most- wonderful- I'm very, very honored-"

"Save it," Masayuki says, sighing as he turns around to hide his face. "I did say we were to have a conversation after the fight. Which I, er, thank you for."

Before this, he hadn't ever thought that he'd be happy to lose a fight, but, oh well.


Tomorrow: Star.

Slacker, 6/2/15