My first morning in my new home started with a rushed tour; according to my personal maid I was supposed to see 'everything necessary' - the dining hall, library, common bathrooms - but as succeeding at dragging me out of bed and getting me dressed up ate a good amount of time reserved for the tour, we only took a quick walk in the garden. After that Aina walked me through many stairs and hallways, until we were standing at the end of a quiet hallway, large wooden doors in front of us.
"...And this", Aina panted, still maintaining her inhumanly wide grin. "...is the meeting room and your entrance, your guardian-ness."
What I saw in front of myself was two doors, just as huge as the rest of the building. I had to tilt my head backwards to see what was engraved above the doors; a decorative letter 'Q' with the Queen's tiara. Behind these doors was the room where the Guardians made decisions. Ever since the Seiyo was built they had gathered here and discussed about war strategies, budgets and laws. Citizens had to obey whatever they would decide. I took a deep breath. Whatever we would decide.
"Are there more entrances?" I asked, trying not to be confused of where they would fit those.
"Yes, one for each Guardian!"
Aina pushed the doors open and I saw a fairly small, round-shaped room with a round-shaped table in the middle. It had exactly five wooden chairs, each one with a letter engraved in the back rest. K, Q, J, A, J.
Aina nodded at me. She was more exited than I, for a fleeting moment I thought about pushing her in the room instead. Sadly, she pushed me inside first.
I knew I heard the steps of four other people as I headed towards my chair. Thanks to Nikaidou, I knew what I was supposed to do before sitting down. I stopped three steps in front of my chair, looked down and bowed slightly at my colleagues. They did the same movement at the same time. According to my teacher, this was an old tradition to be done before the first meeting. Most of the traditions in our country seemed to be rather useless, if you asked me.
"So, I am the new King's Chair, Tadase Hotori. It is a pleasure to share this with you." a blonde boy looked at the rest of us one by one with a smile of a golden boy. "I wish to make this nation a better place to live for every citizen. I hope you agree to work hard with me to reach that goal."
I glanced at the King; the skin of his face and hands was free of flaws or bruises. A rich boy. What a hypocrite.
Everyone was looking at me now. I put on the mask of calmness.
"Rima Mashiro. The Queen." I resisted the urge to add 'but as clever human beings you already knew that, right? Why else would I be here?'
"Amu Hinamori, The Joker's Chair." said the girl next to the King as she played with a wisp of her hair. Her voice was shaking.
"My name is Yaya Yuiki, I'm the Ace's Chair!" Yaya Yuiki nearly jumped up and raised her hand, like kids do in school, excited. Her smile was maybe brighter than the sunshine.
"I am Nagihiko Fujisaki and I am the new Jack's Chair. It is a pleasure to meet you all and work with you."
Even the smallest sounds in the room disappeared after Fujisaki's introduction; the Joker stopped playing with her hair, the Ace's smile faded, the King looked confused. Maybe they weren't sure how to react to a person who swore to commit a suicide in the name of the country yesterday, or perhaps the name Fujisaki scared them. My observations about the lowest Chair were that he was a carbon copy of his sibling; long, silky, black-hair flowing down his shoulders, pale skin. And just like his mother, his polite smile didn't reach his amber eyes; he didn't mean any of his words. I regocnized a calculated liar when I saw one.
The King cleared his throat.
"Indeed. So, what are our topics for the first day?"
A servant brought a pile of papers in the middle of the table, another servant placed five pens next to it. They asked us to sign the documents, politely. The King looked confused again as he picked one of the documents, saying that we would discuss about it. The wonder boy stared at his document for a moment, his eyes moved from a line to another. Then he turned to face the servants.
"There must be a mistake. This is says it is already confirmed. It only needs our signatures."
"These were the ones that the government wanted for you to handle today", a servant curtseyed slightly, putting her head down. "Documents are handled with utmost care. There is no mistake."
"But this one only needs our signatures too!" the King tried to object, picking another document from the pile. "And this!"
"There is no mistake."
A silence settled in the room again. The King stared at the servant like a stubborn child, the servant kept her head down humbly. The Jack cleared his throat.
"King, I suppose we should work hard with what we have."
The King stared at the Jack, perhaps coming to the conclusion that being afraid of a dude with silky hair and feminine face was the real deal.
"Right, so let's start, um..."
"Perhaps we should divide the documents. The work will be done much faster."
Before Fujisaki could steal any more of the King's leader authority, he shoved smaller, uneven piles of documents in front of all of us. My pile was remarkably smaller than the Joker's. And we signed, document after another. And another, again and again. The Ace rotated her wrist, yawned and said that she had never seen this much paper. Apart from her we were mainly quiet, focused on doing our new job, ruling a nation.
Hours went by and finally we managed to get every name in every document. The King wished all of us a good evening, and that tomorrow would be more interesting workday. I wouldn't care less if I would keep doing nothing but putting my name in documents; I wouldn't be able to screw that, or at least the odds should be on my side.
Aina guided me back to my room for five minutes and then she walked me to the dining room; it was a hall with wide, long dining tables, made out of wood as everything else in the Seiyo. I sat down in the end of the nearest table to myself; I didn't have the courage to join the Ace and the Joker, who were lively chatting in the another end of the same table. The King and the Jack sat in another tables, not together. Aina brought my meal for me, grinning as always.
"Seiyo's kitchen has the best meals! You didn't hear this from me, but it's all thanks to Su!" she said in a voice of a conspirator, leaning closer to me.
"Who's Su?"
"Su is the best cook in the world! Well, actually she's just a kitchen maid, but", Aina leaned even closer, I felt her breath in my ear, unpleasantly. "she sometimes adds some ingredients in the food and it's always better Su's way!"
I nodded, hoping that Su's additions wouldn't be poison or laughing pills. If it were to be the latter, it most certainly worked well for my maid.
I ate my meal in silence, having to admit that it was the best one I had ever tasted. The only sounds in the dining hall were pings of containers and occasional giggling of the Ace and the Joker. For some reason Aina wasn't there to guide me back to my hallway after I had eaten and after wandering around for a good while, I had to accept that I had lost my way. I sat down on a bench of a certain hallway, sighing. This hallway was way more decorated than mine; the flowerpots seemed to have some sort of an order, the paintings on the walls pictured dancers and performers. A quiet tone was carried into my ears; music. I looked around and noticed a door, ajar. I tried to change my position on the bench to see who was in the room when the music stopped playing.
"Leave."
"Thank you for the lesson."
Footsteps. I considered about running away but that would be just stupid; I was a slow runner and whoever walking out of the room would surely see me. I reminded myself that I wasn't here unauthorized – heck, I didn't even know where I was – I simply got lost.
Someone walked out of the room, closed the door carefully after themselves; and noticed me. Her amber eyes widened as she stared at my petite figure sitting on the bench. Before her vocal cords could form a 'why', I offered an explanation.
"I got lost. I insist I am not a stalker."
Nadeshiko's lips curved into a soft smile. This was the first time I saw her properly without shadows – and she was beautiful. Her face seemed perfectly-shaped, the blocks of black hair on a neat ponytail downright flattered her facial features; the amber eyes shone bright surprised of the reunion, lighting up the pale, soft skin. Her lips were painted slightly red, she was wearing an outfit I had seen only in the posters of Fujisaki performances; straight-lined robes falling to the ankle, long wide sleeves.
Before I was able to stare at her any longer, Nadeshiko walked to me and offered a hand. I re-located my eyes from her face to her hand.
"We should go, Mari", she said, winking.
The fake name made me flush. I forced myself to lay my hand on hers and let her guide me out of the hallway. We walked in silence, I realized the awkwardness of the situation. I asked her what was that place anyway, breaking the silence.
"One of my mother's hallways. I was on a rehearsal", Nadeshiko answered, smiling gently.
"Don't tell me I wandered to the Queen's hallway", I said in disbelief.
"Well, you are the Queen's Chair now so, no, no you didn't. But she does use three different hallways so be careful." she giggled softly.
"Three?" I repeated like a stupid parrot. "And what rehearsal?"
"Yes, three. And I practice dancing for our performances."
Of course, that was only natural. I felt the warmth of Nadeshiko in my left hand, we breathed in the same rhythm, walked at the same pace. I thought about how she should carry the Queen's tiara on her head, I imagined how she would have waved at the citizens with a warm smile.
"Nadeshiko", I said, "Why are you not the Queen?"
She inhaled, chest rising under the robes of her outfit. I looked at her.
"Due to situations", she forced the smile on her face again. It looked so real even I was almost fooled.
"What situations?"
"I can't tell you, I'm sorry."
I wanted to tell her that I deserved to know; I had taken all the responsibility in her place, all the pressure, I had said goodbye to my family and moved in the Seiyo for that reason. But I didn't want to look childish, so I shut my mouth.
"I'd tell you if I could, I am truly sorry…"
"Understood."
As a daughter of my papa, I knew about filthy secrets, liars and how to recognize both of the mentioned. My lucky guess was that Nadeshiko fit both descriptions; it wouldn't be wise to trust her before getting her secret out of her.
She walked me to my own hallway, all the way to my own door and opened it for me like a hospitable hostess. On a whim I asked her to stay with me for some time. She seemed surprised, doubted for a moment but eventually agreed.
"You have a nice room, Mari", she said as she stepped inside. "Much bigger than mine."
"My name is Rima."
Nadeshiko turned to look at me, black hair swaying.
"I know", she said, "why a fake name?"
I spreaded my arms, shrugging. She smiled.
"How did you even manage to find out about my brother?"
"I used to work at the weaving mill. Some women there talked a lot, all I did was to listen."
That wasn't exactly true. Even though some of the weavers did gossip a lot and they might have mentioned the Fujisaki bloodline once or twice, the real information came from my papa. He had, or at least used to have connections to people who were able to drop a hint and say 'you didn't hear this from me' afterwards. When we received the letter with the information of me being chosen, papa started to contact those people – I never knew who in particular - immediately in order to track down the rest of the five. Fujisaki was the only one he succeeded at as one of his contacts said something along the lines 'you didn't hear this from me, but that Queen Izumi… Her child isn't going to be the Queen so she… Remember, you didn't hear this from me… she blackmailed the whole government and the child is going to be the Jack instead! And you didn't hear this from me!" We didn't know how watertight this story was, but after papa told me that, I snuck out of the house at night to see the new Jack.
And saw Nadeshiko instead.
"You worked at the weaving mill?" her eyes widened, excited. "Tell me."
"I was there for six months. I carried cotton and fabrics, sometimes I weaved." I said truthfully.
Her lips formed an 'O' as her eyes sparkled in admiration. I didn't understand why; I worked so that I wouldn't starve. But maybe Nadeshiko, as a wealthy girl, saw the same romanticism in working to get food as I used to see in the harbor; that was the only explanation I was able to imagine. I observed Nadeshiko's face again; flawless, taken care of, perfect. Again, she was the polar opposite of me.
"Why are you here?" I asked the question I had left unasked for all this time.
"I live here with my mother and brother, of course", she said, I could feel the 'idiot' hanging in the air.
"Your brother looks a lot like you", I noted.
"Well, we're twins." Nadeshiko laughed. "Well? Is he worth all the sneaking?"
"Nah", I gritted my teeth, recalling the Jack's smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Nadeshiko nodded showing her agreement. She stayed for a while until she looked at the clock and rushed away, apologizing. I asked her to come again, she doubted for a moment before she agreed to show up. I didn't let myself be lulled into false feelings of hope or having a friend or whatever; I didn't trust Nadeshiko enough to raise hopes of seeing her again.