Chapter 9: Marriage = Boring

Rima follows Kairi through the halls. They go on away she's never gone before, and Rima realizes that these are the back halls, the ones the servants use to stay a step ahead of the people they serve at all times.

They return to the main hall in front of a set of doors Rima recognizes. "These are Nagihiko's rooms," she hisses at Kairi, and Kairi nods.

"Where you wanted to go," he says, and then uses a large key from his pocket to unlock the double doors.

Rima follows him in through the first set, and Kairi stops in front of the second set, pushing the key into Rima's palm. "You can't leave if you don't say goodbye," Kairi tells her, smirking slightly, and Rima blushes as red as the roses on her room "I'll come back" Kairi looks down at his watch "One hour"

Rima opens the doors alone. She sets her laptop down by a chair near Nagihiko's bookcase, next to a stack of books that threatens to fall if Rima were to look at it funny "Nagihiko?"

Nagihiko isn't asleep. His lights are off, but with the moonlight that filters in from outside Rima can see that he's awake, his eyes on the ceiling. At Rima calling his name, he sits up, his covers falling from him to pool at his waist. His chest is bare, and Rima likes the way his collarbones stick out sharply beneath the line of his shoulders.

"Rima?" Nagihiko says, before he buries his hands in his blankets "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to say goodbye," Rima says "well, Kairi wanted me to say goodbye"

"What are you talking about?" Nagihiko says "Aren't you locked up in the tower until the prince saves you?" Nagihiko rests his head against his headboard "Your wedding is tomorrow"

"Amu's in my room," Rima says "She'll look enough like me in all the veils and makeup that anyone who isn't from the palace will be confused for as long as it counts. They've never seen me without my heels, height wouldn't matter"

"But why…" Nagihiko's hand feels around the table next to his bed for something, but he gave up "Rima, we read about what might happen…"

"Amu and Ikuto are in love with each other," Rima says.

"And what about you?" Nagihiko asks "You can't leave. You're supposed to marry Ikuto, if you marry him, even if… Even if it will be hard, there's always the garden"

"I'm leaving," Rima says again and walked a bit towards him "I can't marry someone else, Nagihiko"

"Someone else?" Nagihiko frees one hand from his blanket, reaching up to cup Rima's face.

"You were wrong, before," Rima says "You are my prince."

"Rima…" Nagihiko's hand curves around Rima's neck. He's shaking, Rima thinks. She is too. "You're not mine. You're..."

"I'm not anyone's," Rima says "Right? If Amu marries Ikuto tomorrow, I'll never be anyone's"

Nagihiko looks torn. His hand stays at the back of Rima's neck, and Rima moves closer, getting onto the bed and taking a chance, straddling Nagihiko's hips so she can look at him in the eyes, no matter how inappropriate.

"Since I'm leaving," Rima asks while staring at the parted lips of Nagihiko, who was suddenly so nervous by her actions, his hot breath tempting her "can I kiss you?"

"But Ikuto…" Nagihiko says, and Rima slides her lips at Nagihiko's own, a bit, but not touching

"Is not my prince," Rima says, and Nagihiko laughs, so quietly, and leans forward to kiss her.

If she's only going to have one chance to kiss Nagihiko, Rima is going to make sure she'll never forget it. Emotions try to claw their way out of her as she feels Nagihiko's breath against her lips, tiny puffs of air that are as intoxicating as the feeling.

Rima's hand wandered up to Nagihiko's straight silky hair and she tried so hard not to do anything beyond the lines. Nagihiko kissed the corner of Rima's lips, lips trailing lightly from her skin only to land on to the spot under her ear and Rima let him. She liked his long eyelashes tickling her ears. Rima kissed Nagihiko's temple and she leaned her forehead on his. Rima can see Nagihiko trying to stay awake and suddenly, she wondered how many sleepless nights the prince had.

In the end, Nagihiko had closed his eyes and sighed, his hand on Rima's waist was dropping and Rima laughed softly, he looked so serene, she held both Nagihiko's cheeks and she kissed his forehead softly "Hey, I love you"

Rima gently got off from her straddle and placed a blanket on Nagihiko. With an exposed chest, he could catch a cold; after all, it was near December. She took her laptop and exited the room, not bothering to give a last glance at Nagihiko, knowing she would only be tempted to rest beside him.

Rima licked her lips and exited his room to meet Kairi. She handed him the keys with finality.

"Are you really going to leave?" Kairi asks, and Rima whispers "yes".

She follows Kairi into the side hallways, saying goodbye to Nagihiko mentally and the palace, looking straight ahead toward home.

#

The first thing Rima notices when she gets off the plane in Japan is the breeze. It's that slice of fall Japan always get before winter sets in hard, and Rima takes a deep breath of it. The second thing Rima notices, when she sees her ride waiting for her, casually dressed in white capris and a blue button up, is that Kukai's hair is even longer than before.

"Hey," Kukai says. "Welcome home" He grins "I thought I'd be late, but I was just on time."

"Hey," Rima says, voice crackling at the sight of a familiar smile in a familiar place and Kukai looks at her in a panic.

"Don't cry!" Kukai says "You know I don't know what to do with crying people!"

"I'm not going to cry," Rima says "I don't have anything to cry about" She pats Kukai on the arm.

"You don't have anything?" Kukai asks, searching for a suitcase "Just the laptop?"

Rima waves her passport, which has luckily been in her computer case "No," she says "Just me"

"Then let's get you home," Kukai says "Your neighbor, Kirishima… He's been watering your plants."

"That's a relief," Rima says, and gets into the car.

"I saw the royal wedding over on TV this morning," Kukai says "Saw Amu marrying that prince you were engaged to. Even the prince looked surprised by that" Kukai clears his throat. "On second thought, please tell me you don't want to talk about that either"

"I don't," Rima says, and turns on the radio as loud as it would go.

#

Rima turns off the internet after the fifth mention of the crown prince's wedding. It's not that she resents them getting married; she doesn't, and the Queen's pleased smile and Amu's fluent English rendition of her required speech probably pleases the people as much as they do her. She does, however, feel unsteady and somber when she sees Nagihiko standing behind Ikuto, his right-hand man, with a worn smile on his face and anxiousness in his eyes that Rima is responsible for.

With the internet off, there's not much to do but look into the text document Rima's been slowly adding into since she arrived at the palace. She has notes about Nagihiko, notes about Ikuto... Even more revealing are the notes about her.

She starts to write before she can think better of it, feelings spilling onto the page easier than they ever have before.

She goes back to work for the first time the next day and Utau makes an alarmed noise at her that's somewhere between a rooster at dawn and an injured pup. "Do you get jetlag flying from America to Korea?" she asks, and Rima sighs.

"No," she says "I've been working on a novel"

"I'll believe it when I see it," Utau says, as Saaya glares at her from her desk way too near the door, and Yuu waves in a sedate hello.

"I'm going to finish this one," Rima promises.

#

Rima's neighbor, Kirishima, knocks on her door four days after she gets back.

"I heard you'd returned," he says, holding out Rima's house keys "You know, when you said you wanted me to look after your plants for a few weeks, I didn't know that meant a few months."

"I thought you'd stop," Rima says "I'm so sorry, I had no idea I'd be gone this long"

"It's okay, I didn't mind," Kirishima says, grinning. "Besides, you're pretty cute, so it was no bother."

Rima smiles back at Kirishima "Thanks," she says "I really appreciate it" She doesn't feel anything. No pleasure at the compliment, no spark of interest, unlike before. She doesn't know if it's the broken magic at work, or if Rima is just so full of Nagihiko that there's no room for anyone else.

"Not a problem," Kirishima says, and Rima closes the door, resting her back against it for minutes afterward before she returns to her laptop, sitting down and getting back to writing, the only thing keeping her busy.

#

It only takes her two months to finish a draft of her novel. She devotes hours to it every day, trying to record every frustrated emotion she can't make go away.

It takes her almost the whole of another month to work up the nerve to show it to anyone. "How's the book you're writing coming along?" Utau asks her, and Rima gags as she tries to tell Utau it's finished.

"I think it's..."

"Send it to me," Utau says "Let me look at something you've written, for once."

She emails the manuscript to Utau on a Friday, and Utau corners her about it the following week, after the Wednesday deadline rush that has all of them buried under piles of last minute submissions.

"Rima," Utau says, stopping Rima as she heads to the fax machine, "I finished."

"You finished what?" Rima asks.

"Your book," she replies "I finished reading your book."

"Oh," Rima says "What did you think?"

"It was really, really good, Rima!" Utau says "Really good! I loved the lords, you know, and I loved Rapunzel; the way she was caught between obeying the curse and following her heart."

"Yeah," Rima says "I wanted her to really be put in a lose-lose situation."

"It created a lot of tension! I thought she was going to marry the first lord, toward the end there."

"It wasn't an easy choice," Rima says "For Rapunzel, I mean."

"It was nice to read something different," Utau says "I love clichés, but this one was done a little differently" Utau leans against the wall "You're good, Rima. I don't know why you've never showed me a whole story before."

"None of them ever felt finished enough," Rima explains "This one feels finished"

"The only thing is," Utau says, "the ending was so unsatisfying"

"That's how life is," Rima says "Sometimes you don't get a good ending. Sometimes you just have to keep going."

"But this," Utau says, waving Rima's manuscript around, "isn't real life! It's a fairytale, Rima! I wanted to read a happily ever after"

"Then what you need," Rima says, walking around Utau so she can use the fax machine, "is a different story. This is how my story ends. That's the way it is."

"It doesn't have to," Utau says. "Isn't it your story?" Utau frowns. "You can write a different ending, if you want."

#

Rima answers her phone without looking at the ID "Mashiro Rima," she says. "Hello?"

"Mashiro!" Amu says, and Rima almost drops the phone.

"Amu," Rima says "Tell me all about, I don't know, everything?"

"The Queen thinks I have deplorable manners," Amu says, "but she likes my English accent"

"That's good to hear," Rima says "You've already won her over, then."

"How are you?" Amu asks "I could talk about Ikuto, and the palace, but you already know about that. So tell me about you. How are you, Rima?"

"Not bad," Rima says. "We're busy at work. Lots of boring novels this month too, but a couple of interesting ones, Yuu is in talks to get an English translation for one of them, actually, so that's interesting, and..."

"How are you?" She's more insistent "Not your job. No one cares about your job. You don't even care about your job."

"I care about my job," Rima says half-heartedly "Yuu cares a lot about our job."

"Rima, don't make me hit you."

"You and what army now?" Rima asks "Don't mess with a Judo champion" Amu laughs, and Rima thinks she sounds happy "I'm cold"

"No one asked about weather, either. You've probably got the heat so high it feels like California summer in there, but you'll complain as soon as it gets hot outside again."

"I wasn't talking about the weather," Rima says, pressing the heel of her palm into her chest "I just feel really cold."

Nagihiko had been warm. Rima remembers perfectly the warmth of his company provides her. Only that, she thinks.

"Oh," Amu says "I think Nathan is cold, too."

"There's nothing we can really do about that," Rima says "I made my decision for everyone's benefit"

"Aren't you lonely, Rima?" Amu asks, and the answer is yes.

"I can handle loneliness," Rima says "I'm glad you're happy."

"I am" Amu says "Thank you"

"I'm going to go now," she says. "You're boring now that you're married."

"You were always boring," Amu retorts "Except when you were drunk."

"Avada Kedavra," she says, and hangs up. There's a chill in her flat. Rima turns up the heat until the mirrors start to fog, but she can still feel the cold in her bones.

The only person who can warm her is beyond her reach now.


Cookie: Huh~! Huh~! Bet you didn't expect that! Bet you weren't expecting that! Welp, if you're unsatisfied, Rima says and I quote "What you need, is a different story. This is how my story ends. That's the way it is." Don't you guys go quoting Utau on me now!

Rima: Your abusing your free time, go study for your prelims next week.

Cookie: Oh that's what teamwork was invented for. Besides there was a 3 day blackout so we have an excuse to use.