Haruki's eyelids twitched. A gentle voice was calling him back to consciousness.
'Come on, Young Master. The sun's lugging itself up across the sky so it's time you lugged your way out of bed. Up with you, now.'
Haruki groaned and rose out of the depths of sleep but kept his eyes closed and his head on the pillow. He lay still and listened to the elderly Ukiyo pottering about, humming and drawing the curtains, just as he had done for the past sixteen years.
'I'm not sure your father's in the best mood. It won't help if you're late to breakfast.'
This made Haruki's eyes spring open. He slowly got out of bed while Ukiyo sorted out his clothes for the day.
'Why's my father in a bad mood?' Haruki asked nervously as Ukiyo dressed him before the mirror.
'Something about the emperor,' Ukiyo replied, the corners of his eyes creased in concentration as he fit the haori over Haruki's shoulders. 'You've grown, Young Master. This only barely fits.'
'What about the emperor?'
'You know I'm getting too old for politics. Something about a… non-war pact with a western country.'
Haruki sighed. Meiji had only been emperor for two years and already he had pledged half the world, including the west, to peace. As much as he wanted to be pleased by it, he knew how his conservative father would take the news.
'My, my,' Ukiyo said, cutting into his thoughts.
'What?'
'You're taller than me now, Young Master.'
Haruki glanced at him in surprise and found Ukiyo was right. The servant who had taken care of him since he was born now stood a fraction of an inch shorter than him.
'That's to be expected, after all,' said Ukiyo warmly. 'For a boy of sixteen. Your mother would have loved to see you.'
Haruki gave him a small smile. On his way to the dining room, he touched the framed picture of her on the altar in the living room.
His father didn't speak much at the start of the meal but Haruki could tell that Ukiyo was right. His face was as impassive as ever but his occasional irate sighs hinted at trouble brewing.
Two years ago, when the war ended and Haruki had returned home, Noboru Yamamoto had welcomed his son with stiff pride. The two medals bestowed on him by Taki Reizen for actions above and beyond the course of duty had been placed carefully on the mantel.
'This is only the beginning of our nation's glory,' his father said, looking at the medals as though they were the light that would shine the way.
But the nation, in Noboru's eyes, never took those steps towards glory. Despite their victory at the end of the second war, the new emperor seemed content to leave the borders of their nation where they were. There were no calls to expand the empire or to return it to its strength in ancient times.
Knowing it would be futile, and a little dangerous, to challenge his father in any way, Haruki had listened quietly over the years to Noboru's frustrations and kept his own opinions to himself. That morning, he took advantage of his father's surly silence to bring up the news that he waited until the last possible minute to divulge.
'Otousan,' he began gingerly.
His father flicked him a glance. A prominent forehead and eyes that drooped downwards slightly at the corners.
'I've heard back from some of the military academies. And there's… there's one I've chosen. I have to accept the offer by tomorrow.'
There was a stiff nod of approval from Noboru. Since his return from the division, Haruki had been studying in a young engineer's program in the capital. Noboru had heard from teachers about his son's estimable talents in those pursuits. But such praise always glanced off Yamamoto Senior, who was anxious for his son to carry on his family's proud military legacy.
'It's a flight school,' Haruki said. Then he hesitated, eyes on his breakfast. 'In the west.'
Noboru lifted his chin slowly.
Haruki took a breath and quietly delivered the speech he had prepared over the past week. The prestige of the flight school; how it was esteemed all over the world. How he had gotten through on a full scholarship. And how, above all, it would allow Haruki to understand more about the ways of the west in case there was ever another war. How vital that knowledge might be if he was ever called on to fight.
Though he didn't know it, his rationale almost exactly echoed that of Taki Reizen's on the eve of his own departure to the west.
Haruki didn't mention to his father that Ryoumei had also been accepted into the same school; Noboru had always looked down on the Fukushima family, as he did on most families whose standing was beneath their own.
In the silence that ensued, Haruki's entire future seemed to tick away. He thought over his carefully rehearsed words and hoped they had been enough. Like Taki, he had used those words to hide his real reason for wanting to leave. A certain restlessness; an incorporeal drive that neither Taki nor Haruki understood at the time.
And so when Haruki returned to his room after breakfast having been blessed with his father's approval, he felt as though he had already taken wing.
Surprisingly, it was Ukiyo who seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea.
'Are you sure about this, Young Master?' he asked that evening.
'Yes!' Haruki said happily as he flopped back onto the bed. He glanced at Ukiyo where he was slowly unlatching the window to let in the breeze. 'Why aren't you? Even Otousan agreed.'
'That's why I'm not sure,' Ukiyo quipped.
Haruki stared. There was an edge to his servant's tone that he had never heard before. Besides that, it was the first time Ukiyo had said anything against the master of the house.
Before he could say anything, Ukiyo went on, 'You've been doing so well in school. All those wonderful things your teachers said about you. And –' He paused and sighed. 'Your father would do away with me if he heard me speak like this, but it's such a waste, Young Master. To throw all your talents away for a career in war.'
Haruki hesitated and felt a guilty twinge. He knew there was some truth to what Ukiyo was saying. And yet...
Ukiyo watched him and felt like it was the opportune moment to ask. 'I was cleaning out one of your old trunks last week,' he said casually. 'You nearly gave this poor old man a heart attack.'
'What are you talking about?'
'When I unfolded one of your shirts, the last thing I expected was for a gun to tumble into my lap.'
Haruki's cheeks coloured faintly.
'Oh. I – sorry, Ukiyo. I should have told you about that.'
'Where did you get such a thing?'
'It was… a gift.'
'From whom?'
'From… someone I met at the division.' The pause seemed heavy, as though Ukiyo was waiting for clarification. 'I asked to borrow it so I could learn to… become stronger.'
Strong enough to never again cower when I am called upon to fight. Strong enough to protect what is dear to me.
'But then, after everything that happened in No Man's Land, he let me keep it.'
'Who's he?' Ukiyo asked, keeping his tone light.
'He's… Taki-sama's knight.'
Haruki was sure his blush had deepened but there wasn't much he could do about it. He also knew there was nothing incriminating in anything he had said.
Ukiyo, however, had known Haruki his entire life. His intuition was uncanny.
'A westerner?'
'Yes.'
'He wouldn't have anything to do with your decision to race off to the west, would he?'
'No.'
But Haruki didn't meet his eye.
'Hmm.'
Ukiyo lowered himself to the floor by the low table with a sigh that could only be earned by a certain age. Haruki, meanwhile, stared at the ceiling and hoped he had stopped blushing.
It had been two years since he had last seen Klaus von Wolfstadt.
And yet, in all that time, there were a few select scenes that hadn't eroded in Haruki's mind even slightly.
The strongest of all were the few minutes he had spent with Klaus at the train station, when the captain had gone out of his way to see Haruki off. His simmering golden eyes, his hands in his coat pockets. His gentle questions about Haruki's home and family. The way he had so casually called him 'Little Master'.
The image that followed closely behind that was less clear but far more charged. Snow whipped about them in a frenzy and for miles around there was only Haruki, Klaus and Taki taking shelter in a grove of trees. Taki was barely holding onto consciousness but his words had brought Klaus to tears. And before Haruki had the chance to turn away, Klaus had pulled Taki into a kiss. Haruki's breath had left him before he had even processed what he was seeing. A few moments later, after Klaus handed Haruki the radio and, with a familiar wink, invited Haruki into their unthinkable secret, Haruki had walked away from the bike feeling like his heart was sinking.
He now understood why his heart sank that day.
Though it had happened in a single moment in No Man's Land, he had needed more time in the aftermath to come to terms with two things. Two equally heavy, equally impossible things.
The first was how he felt about Klaus. He was forced to understand that the feelings which had begun innocently had transformed, over the course of those intense months, into something else.
The second was that Klaus already belonged, and would always belong, to another.
It was a simultaneous strike from the gods. Haruki carried the confusion and implications and shame and guilt inside him like a lead weight during his last few months at the division. Ryoumei had noticed. And in fact, so had Klaus himself. Another memory Haruki often revisited was that sunny afternoon on the Reizen grounds, not long before Klaus was to be re-knighted. He still remembered the words of wisdom that Klaus had imparted.
Whatever's eating you, don't worry about it, okay? If it's not important, it'll go away. If it's something you care enough about, you'll sort it out somehow, even if it takes years. Trust me on that.
Two years on, he had learned by himself to come to terms with it all, but the occasional little stabs of pain hadn't gone away. He turned to his side on his bed and curled in just a little. He drew comfort from the soft, familiar sounds of Ukiyo slowly folding Haruki's clothes on the low table by the wardrobe.
He thought of bright yellow hair and broad shoulders. A height and size and strength that sometimes seemed super-human. He thought of an afternoon in the square when sunlight had gleamed on bare muscles, some bandages splotched with blood, and a laugh that reduced the world to a punchline. He thought of a wide, crooked smile and heavy arms and large hands and guilt squirmed in his stomach.
He often closed his eyes and wondered what it would be like to be Taki. How happy they must be, all the time.
'Ukiyo,' he said quietly. He hoped there had been enough of a pause between their last conversation and the question he was about to ask.
'Yes?'
'When there's something that you really want... something you think about all the time, no matter how much time passes… but the only thing you know for sure is that you'll never… you know… have it –'
He paused and almost sighed at how pathetic he sounded.
Ukiyo closely observed his young master's voice. The inflections. The care he put into each word. The tightness in his voice that he tried to mask.
'What do you do?' Haruki finished plaintively.
How do you stop thinking about it?
He was grateful he was facing away.
Ukiyo weighed his words thoughtfully. 'You know something my grandfather used to say? He used to say, Impossible is possible's favourite disguise.'
Haruki didn't understand.
'Anything can happen, Young Master,' Ukiyo clarified. 'Even things that seem impossible at first.'
Haruki almost laughed. He felt another hollow pang.
How could he explain such a thing? How could he explain to Ukiyo the singular impossibility, dressed as nothing but impossibility itself, of what he wanted? That he dreamt of things that might as well be happening in another world. A world of princes and knights.
A world meant for greater men than him.
'Trust me. That's – it's never going to happen.'
'The gods work in mysterious ways.'
'Ukiyo –'
'Alright,' Ukiyo conceded gently, hearing the frustration and hurt in Haruki's voice.
Ukiyo picked up on it again; how much his young master had changed since he returned from his time at the Fifteenth Armoured Division. It was as though he had grown up over the space of that single year. He knew that what had happened in No Man's Land – the heroism that had earned him his medals – must have had a part to play in it, but he suspected it ran much deeper than that.
He sighed.
'If you're sure that whatever it is will always be beyond your reach, and all you want to do is forget…'
Haruki waited.
'Then you should do everything you can to be worthy of it, even if it will never be yours.' A small pause. 'I think that's the best way to find peace and move on.'
It was only after hearing Ukiyo speak those words that Haruki realised he had already decided to do just that. To strive to be worthy of the world of princes and knights, even if he could never be a part of it.
'You're right,' he said slowly.
'I always am,' Ukiyo said blithely as he pushed aside a pile of folded jinbei and moved on to another. 'Though I wish I weren't, this time. If you fly too high, you won't be able to see me on the ground anymore.'
Haruki smiled.
'I'll miss you too, you know. When I'm in the west.' This brought about a soft, disbelieving grunt from his servant. 'I will!' he insisted.
'Why would a bright, talented sixteen-year-old boy worry himself about an ageing old cretin like me?'
Haruki turned onto his stomach to face him. 'When I was six, you taught me how to pit cherries with chopsticks when Otousan wasn't looking. And every time he looked, we would both be eating normally again but there were all these cherry pits on the table and he didn't know where they came from.'
Ukiyo laughed. 'You remember that?'
'Yep. See? How could I ever forget you?'
A smile crossed the old servant's weathered face.
'You're just like your mother. She was a saint.'
Then Ukiyo's smile went away. He thought about Haruki's parents – the turbulent marriage he had quietly observed over the years before her death – and a few lines creased his forehead.
'But you must be careful, Young Master,' he said, his voice slightly different. 'It seems to be the curse of saints to fall into the hands of devils.'
'I'm not a saint,' Haruki countered in slight embarrassment. A damning heat crept up his neck when he thought of all the unsaintly fantasies he had concocted over the past two years.
'I just want you to be careful. Be careful whom you trust.'
Be careful whom you give yourself to, Ukiyo wanted to say. He suddenly wanted to bundle him up like he had done when Haruki was an infant and protect him from whatever lay in the west and beyond.
'I will,' said Haruki with a smile, who by then was used to Ukiyo's overprotectiveness.
Ukiyo was happy to note that Haruki's mood seemed to have lifted.
'Don't ever think you're not worthy, Young Master. Regardless of whether they choose someone who is descended from heaven or a pauper on the streets, the gods will grace whomever they please. You will do wonderful things. I've always known it.'
The gods will grace whomever they please.
It was the same advice that Taki Reizen himself would give Haruki, years later, in a cottage in the west.
Haruki fell asleep that night with Ukiyo's soft words echoing in his mind. He thought of the gun in his trunk and the planes he would fly. He didn't yet know of the tanks he would command or the men he would inspire.
Even though he had come to peace with the fact that the one he wanted would always be beyond his reach, Haruki Yamamoto had his heart set on becoming someone who might, nevertheless, be worthy of him.
