Disclaimer: Akagami no Shirayuki Hime doesn't belong to me.

Warnings: Spoilers from the anime and manga!

Loyalty

His past was a matter of high secrecy for him. With the years and the refining of his stealth skills, he had learnt how to evade masterfully the questions about his childhood and growing up that often came when he spent certain amounts of time in places. Especially for noisy women and distrustful men.

It wasn't something he liked to recall or think deep about. The word he would use to describe his first few years in the world after he gained conscience of his surroundings and his judgement, was 'difficult'.

He knew he appeared as a mystery or even a hazard to others because he refused to speak about it or managed to redirect any questions without really answering anything. At the beginning was hard to get a decent paid job because of that. If people couldn't trust him, it was unlikely for him to be hired unless they were unsavory folks. And boy did he know about those kind of things…

But experience and tight situations had taught him how to distract and confound to slip by unnoticed when necessary. He could be very persuasive with becoming dangerous or a flirt. He could play any roles and disguise any intentions. And that particular skill allowed him to get information, and that kind of knowledge was the most powerful one.

He was a specialist and also a ruthless one.

…but he was also a human and as such, he had weaknesses.

"C'mon Obi!" Shirayuki pleaded with her eyes moist and sparkling. He smiled forcefully and crinkled his brow.

"…ah, Mistress. I'm not sure, really. Master Zen would have my head"

The redhead pouted and Obi almost gave in, but the nagging voice in his head reminded him the thousand reasons he had to stay strong in the face of this terrible temptation.

"We have nothing to do until they open the ward and release the quarantine, Obi. We're gonna die of boredom here!"

Obi eyed warily the several empty bottles on the table and sighed deeply. When had the situation spiraled out of his control? The mistress was generally a level-headed person and now, she seemed to want to free herself of some imaginary shackles he didn't know she felt.

Perhaps she wanted to visit Tanbarun or his father in the mountains? He could arrange that, if she really was that home-sick. He believed not even Izana would mind one bit.

Although they would have to wait until the Lyrias Fortress was deemed safe for people to enter or leave. It was a funny situation to be in, really. The winter had started to dwindle in middle march and the first spring flu had stomped on them with a force equal to a hurricane. Everyone in the Fortress and the town had been infected with it at least once and they had to declare some sort of preventive quarantine to avoid others to spread the illness. It wasn't anything deathly but the Royal Pharmacy had declared that they couldn't predict the possibly variations or repercussions in other environments and that it was for the best to isolate the ill.

By the letters they received from Kiki and Mitsuhide, Zen had almost lost his mind in worry when word reached them about Shirayuki being one of the most delicate cases of the flu. It was after all, her first time in a Lyrias' spring. Obi had recovered in a week and he rooted himself to the redhead's care twenty-four/seven.

The first few days Shirayuki was really sick. Pale, trembling and with high fever. Haki, as the noble in charge of the Fortress helped her to bathe and dress as she was too weak and Obi was…well, a male.

After the first, most violent symptoms diminished, she went back to her usual self, trying to sneak out of bed to help others and in the pharmacy. Obi was right beside her every time to dissuade any try, and to tuck her back in bed. She wasn't fit to any strenuous activity; she was still pale and had lost a few pounds of weight so she would tire easily.

Everything seemed normal until the fever struck her again with a vengeance. Obi would admit later that he was panicking as she showed no signs of getting better. And the letters from Zen were becoming more and more threatening; His Majesty Izana wouldn't bulge in letting him come, because of the risk of becoming infected too.

But Shirayuki, as always fought hard and the fever eventually broke. From that happy day, had passed almost two weeks. The weather was terrible for the still sick and the recently recovered, so the Fortress kept the quarantine until the conditions improved. Shirayuki had been helping and being the busy bee she loved to be until the previous day. Obi feared the sickness anew when she woke up with purple rings under her eyes and didn't manage to concentrate in anything for more than half hour. It wasn't anything like her.

He followed her silently all day and his uneasy grew with every passing hour. The peak presented itself when she managed to sneak to the cellar and snatched a few bottles of aged liquor. He didn't even know that she drank or that she even knew about different kinds of drinks, in the first place.

And then Obi found her in her room, one and a half bottles empty and grim-faced. Her hair was disheveled and lackluster, and she looked faraway, with a sort of melancholy that was completely foreign and terrible in her radiant and joyful face.

He was absolutely thunderstruck.

What in the heavens was happening?

"Mistress?"

The redhead snapped to attention and her gaze focused dazedly in him. She seemed to have trouble deciding who he was and that told him about her stage of inebriation and alcohol-tolerance level.

"Oh, Obi. Hi"

The man approached her with slow steps, his catlike eyes narrowed in her hunched figure and the thought struck him that there was something very wrong with her at the moment. He sat deliberately slow in the chair besides her and smiled.

"What are we doing tonight?"

Shirayuki smiled a wry sort of smile that made him feel a painful clench in his chest and raised the half empty bottle a bit.

"We are commemorating. Want some?"

Obi knew that his alcohol tolerance was high so he accepted with a nod. He never took off his eyes from her trembling hands, as she served him a cup of liquor. The first sip told him that she was actually a very hard drinker, because that sake was dreadfully strong. Why she was a hard drinker was the first alarm in his head.

He remained silent, though, waiting for her to talk and spill whatever was bothering her so much. It had to be something really bad; he had never seen Shirayuki partaking in drink and in that state of sadness.

After several cups and a bit of small chat, Obi decided that perhaps she needed a small push in the right direction.

"What are we commemorating, Mistress?"

The girl took another swig of burning sake and suddenly her eyes watered. Obi paled dramatically. If she was going to cry, he wouldn't have asked anything. Tears were Master's Zen domain, not his.

But he supposed it was too late to back off. And so he waited, drinking as fast as Shirayuki was, awaiting the moment when she would feel prepared to answer and in the meantime, Obi steeled himself to confront something he had the suspicion he wouldn't like.

But he wasn't prepared. He was waiting for something along the lines 'I'm tired of this life' or 'I'm gonna marry'. But not this.

"Mother died today fifteen years ago. I was four"

The truth was that Obi was completely unable to handle sticky conversation regarding family. And the reason laid on the fact that he didn't even remember who his progenitors were. And he was never adopted either.

He avoided the issues like the plague, but he only knew a way to comfort and it was sharing as much pain as the person in front of him to help them feel in company of someone who would understand.

He hated to reminisce the loneliness in his youth and the sadness while watching all his orphanage mates being adopted. All of them but him. He hated it…but Shirayuki was hurting badly and nothing in this earth was worse than seeing her so heartbroken. And so he shared.

Because, after all, he was human and had weaknesses...and she was one of those.

The morning lights cleared the darkness in the room and bathed them in a warm glow. Shirayuki's eyes were puffy and red but she was looking more tranquil at the very least. Obi had sat eventually in the floor against the wall and was serenely watching the woman.

They wouldn't talk anymore that day. But the bond they had was infinitely stronger now, reinforced by the shared pain of difficult pasts. Their gratitude was so great that it wasn't possible to express with words and so they gazed at each other and smiled.

And life went on.

Heya guys!

You are amazing! I was so surprised with the amount of support! Thank you for every single review and alert you gave me. I have my inspiration in the top.

I hope you liked this chapter. For some reason I tend to be a bit on the dark side of their relationship but i'm trying for something happier. I wrote down every suggestion and i'll work on most of them, I promise.

I'm sorry for any typos I may have. I don't have a beta, so I miss things sometimes and english is not my native languaje. If you want, you can point some of them and I'll be sure to correct them.

A bit of answering here: 'Litschi' asked if in the second chapter Shirayuki realized how Obi felt about her, I will reserve that answer for later chapters. Jiji. And 'Semblance of Apathy' said something about the chapters being chronologically in order; in fact, they are not and I play with ages at my convenience. But some future chapters will have something to do with early ones and i'll make clear for you in those moments.

Let me know any other prompts you want and tell me what did you think of this chapter!

Until next time!

-Eve.