Chapter 9: You reap what you sow

I started working right after finishing the last chapter as I had an idea of how I wanted to start this one off.

-Excerpt from Shiro's journal-

'June 30th (2 months since Tatsu-nii left)

I keep hoping that I'll wake up and it'll all be a dream. This world was only fun when I had Tatsu-nii to spoil me and Nii to play with. Jibril is all right but she's only here because Nii owns her, the pervert.

I don't understand. Everything went as I predicted but then something went wrong. I had thought that Tatsu-nii would forgive everything when we explained what happened… Nii and I should have never taken that bet with Tet. We should have had more faith in our friend. We should have had more faith in our Tatsuya.

Nii used to get into trouble when he'd peep on the maid girls when they would take their baths. Then Tatsu-nii would catch, scold, and punish him for being a pervert. Steph would wash me and tell me about how his ambassador role is going and then I'd grope her. It's not perverted since I'm so cute. ;) tear stain

At first, Nii would peep but when Tatsu-nii never showed he lost interest. He's not even doing dirty things to Jibril anymore. Not that she doesn't want him to. He and I have started to lose our desire to play with Tet again.

I don't like this feeling, it's not something that I can describe. I imagine that this is the closest that I have ever felt to being the loser of a game.

[Next page]

I HATE THIS!

TATSUYA COME BACK!

[Next page]

I wish I knew where he was, the last thing we heard about was that he was in the dwarves country. He sends us letters as the ambassador, he doesn't even ask how Nii and I are doing. He doesn't write to tell us to remember to go to sleep and eat properly. It hurts more every time we get a letter. Nii and I have had to remember to do the things ourselves and it's boring.

My birthday is next month and all I want is for Tatsu-nii to forgive us.

We didn't just lose our caretaker or friend. Nii and I have broken the bond with the only family that we ever cared for. I wish I could just tell him how sorry I am. And how much I want him back.'

-After Tet's game-

I was confused by his words.

"Sora? What?"

Tet smiled, "Oh this was… well, I should let them tell you," he pointed behind me. When I turned I saw Sora, Shiro, Jibril, and Stephani.

"You guys? Can someone please explain what the heck is going on here?" I didn't know what to think at the moment.

Sora steps forward of course. "Congratulations Tatsu, you have helped Shiro and I win a bet with Tet here. The bet was that you actually could have fun with a game." Sora smiled and offered me his hand.

I still didn't quite understand. "What? When did this happen?"

Sora follows up quickly. "When Tet came to speak with us a while back. Not only that I got-"

I glared at Sora causing him stop talking. "So, everything that has happened up until now was all a part of your little bet?" I got closer to him. "You distance yourself from me, you stopped informing me of your plans, you isolated me, and under the pretext of my meetings with miss Fil you exiled me, just so I had a reason to take Tet's game," I grab Sora by the collar and shout, "so that I would have something of "equal value" to wager! All so you could win a damn bet!"

Sora's expression was quite telling. "You got it, man. We knew you could do-"

"Sora!" I stopped him again.

"What?" He opened his eyes to see my angered expression, likely not what he thought I'd look like. Before I said anything more I punched him in the face putting him on his back.

"Tatsuya?" The group shouted. Shiro ran to Sora to check on him. After all, I don't think I ever hit him harder than I did at that moment.

"Why did you hit him like that?" She questioned.

"Did-" I couldn't find the words at the moment.

"Tatsuya, are you okay?" Steph came to my side and grabbed my arm.

"Did you know?" I asked point blank, the "love" she feels meant that she shouldn't be able to lie to me I thought.

"What?" She questioned.

"I said, did you know about this bet?" I spoke louder and more clearly.

She shakes her head. "I only just found out just before arriving. Shiro said that they didn't want to risk me telling you. So I was kept in the dark as well."

I was a bit relieved since she didn't seem to be lying. I turned my attention back to Sora who was rubbing his cheek. "Why did you even take a bet like that in the first place?"

Sora got up. "We wanted to prove that you did know how to have fun playing games."

"Did it ever occur to you to ask me?" I got angrier and angrier the further this whole thing went. I lowered my arm. "No, I suppose you didn't. I thought I taught you better. Guess I was wrong after all." I noticed Shiro cowering behind Sora, she has never seen me this way before in her life.

"I don't see the problem, you've always been okay when we include you in our schemes." Sora shrugged.

I could barely contain my anger. "You idiot, you used to tell me ahead of time!" I looked down at my feet. "I thought- I thought you no longer wanted me around. I thought you no longer saw me as someone you could rely on."

"Tatsuya, come on, you know that wouldn't happen." Sora tried to be reassuring, but all I heard was that he used me.

"I'm…" I paused, "I'm not so sure about that anymore…" I took Stephani's hand and turned away. "Let's go, Stephani."

"Go?" Sora, Shiro, and Stephani all said in unison.

I paused. "I'm leaving. I will, from now on, only be the ambassador. I will send correspondence back when I make contact with other countries."

"Tatsu-nii, where are you-?" Shiro grabbed my waist.

I didn't even look down to her. "Let go, Shiro. I'm leaving. You can't stop me." I knew that if I looked down at her I'd change and crumble.

"But-"

"Shiro… You reap what you sow." I push her off me and take Stephani with me. "You should learn from your own mistakes. No matter how few of them you think you make. People are not your pawns, they have feelings and can be hurt or broken when misused."

Shiro stood there. "Tatsu-nii…" I could hear her starting to cry. I had to keep my composure and stay strong.

I paused once more. "Good-bye Shiro, I don't know if I'll ever see you again." It hurt me to say all that but I had to do it. They wouldn't learn if I caved. I continued to walk, Stephani trailed behind me looking back at the siblings.

Sora ran after me a bit. "Tatsuya, you can't just leave! I challenge you to a game. If I win you have to stay!"

"Good-bye Sora." I didn't even hesitate this time, Sora clearly didn't get why I was so angry in the first place.

I was later told by Jibril, that Tet stuck around until after I was out of view and said something like, "I'm surprised that even you two were so short-sighted when it came to your friend."

To which Sora and Shiro said nothing and simply returned to the Elkia castle. After that, I don't know what happened to them for months.

-Present-

It has been two months since I left Sora and Shiro. In that time I visited the Elven nation due east of Elkia. My connection with miss Fil paid off as I was able to enter and be granted an audience with the leaders rather smoothly. Bureaucracy at it's finest I suppose. They asked about Sora's intentions to which I informed them that my only duty is to establish diplomatic communications with them and that I was not allowed to discuss the objective of the new king and queen or state secrets. Not that I knew what they were doing at that time. From there I managed to get a sort of ceasefire between them and Imanity, they would move their focus onto the dwarves due south of them in exchange for Imanity making no move against them. I also requested that they relax the slavery they practice but to go further would require the use of a game. Of course, it was all verbal agreements but I sent Sora and Shiro a letter with details of the agreement between us.

From The Elves, I then head Northern coast to meet the Siren people, which I was worried at first as they were more aquatic based than humans, but my worry was for not. They had no magic but they had better individual mobility than Imanity. They proposed a political marriage to which I declined them on all accounts for the time being. Sora needed to focus on whatever his next move was before the pressure of politics cloud his judgment. The letter I sent then did not include the details of the political marriage suggested as Sora would be childish and say something like, "Can I choose?" As they are not "yet" a neighboring country I didn't push for a treaty of any type. But in the letter, I did mention that the Sirens were likely the easiest to conquer when it came down to it, as they were rather straightforward and a bit clumsy.

All this time Stephani was by my side and our relationship appeared to be going smoothly. We only got to the stage where kissing became normal for us but we didn't do anything more than that. I am a bit old-fashioned where I want to wait until I am married to do anything more. That said, I still have thoughts, I mean she's so cute and this trip is taking her to places she's never seen before. She loves all the sights and new places we visit. But I can tell she wants to go home as well, seems no matter where you go home is still home. I know how she feels, the only reason she stays that I can imagine is the condition of "love" and that she knows this is hard on me so she wants to be there for me. At least I hope that's the case.

My latest and current stop was the dwarves. Short and burly like in every novel I've ever read, I've been allowed to stay with a member of the Dwarf council, Rowand. He is quite nice, in fact, most if not all Dwarves treat us well. Seems there is no animosity between the Dwarves and Imanity as they have never had borders shared, there aren't even any stories of the two fighting in the times before Tet won the battle of the gods. In fact, the only thing they have ever shared was a common adversary in the Elves. So far, in my time away, the negotiations with the Dwarves went so smooth it was almost too easy. They've heard much about what happened when Sora and Shiro took the throne, in particular, they were impressed by Sora's quick introduction of crop rotations. They requested to have their farmers taught how to do. Of course, it wasn't for free, I requested the building of a tunnel highway from their land to the kingdom of Elkia, to open direct trade relations. The fact that the elves, mostly, lived in the tree canopies made the plans go smoothly. What was to be traded was better farming equipment to Elkia for Northern fish and this worlds version of tobacco that they called "rough weed," Both of which are easy for Elkia to produce. Once the negotiations went through they allowed me to stay for a time and learn more about the nation from a first-hand perspective. This is the most recent letter I sent back to Sora and Shiro.

Stephani and I returned to the room that Rowand provided for us after getting a close look at the silver mines that he runs. She turned to me before I even closed the door. "Let's go back."

"To the mines? They're closed for the day." I was never very good at the pronoun game.

She shook her head. "No." She took my hand and looked into my eyes. "Let's go home."

I took a deep breath, taking my hand away. "Steph," I then hugged her tight she hesitated to hug back, "I'm sorry, I've kept you away from home for so long. I thank you, for being with me so long. It's selfish of me to keep you away with me. But you know I can't just go back. After everything that has happened, how could I just, 'go back,' like this."

"Why?" She pushed away, "Why can't you go back? Because of Sora or because of you?"

"I-" I didn't have an answer for her because I didn't even know anymore myself. Once I cooled off, I regretted everything I said to them, but I couldn't take it back. How could I? They probably hate me for leaving. Even if I did return, I doubt they would just accept me back with a simple apology.

"You what?" She gazed into my eyes.

"I think, you and I should play a game." Words I thought I'd never be the one to utter.

"What?" She clearly thought the same.

I cleared my throat. "I mean, a game where if you win you get the love condition taken off, and if you lose it still gets taken off."

"Then what's the point?" The terms meant that I stood nothing to gain from the game.

"I want to know if I've managed to make you fall for me without the love curse. If I haven't then you are free to return home if you have then I'll be glad." I thought I was doing something good for her.

She got noticeably mad at me. "Is that what you think? That I've been following you because I was under the spell of that game I played with Sora all that time ago?" Her cheeks became puffy and her eyes started to water. "Dummy." She covered her face before the tears began to run.

"What?" Her words made little sense to me.

"King Sora, he took played a game with me for the same thing just before we found you with Tet. he said it was going to be in celebration of you having fun in a game. I didn't tell you until now because you were in a bad place and I didn't have the chance to." She was close to balling. "But it's been two months and you never even noticed anyway."

But-" She was right, I thought for a while now that she was no longer struggling with the requests I made and she wasn't overly in love anymore to the point she nearly hurt herself. But I didn't make the connection that she wasn't under the spell anymore. "I'm a damn fool for not noticing. I'm sorry." I bowed my head. "I don't deserve your forgiveness." I raised my head. "But if that's the case why have you stayed with me for so long?"

She rubbed her face. "Dummy, the person I care most about was in a lot of pain. What else was I supposed to do? I wanted to help you get through your hurt. But you just want to run away from your friends just because they did something that you didn't like."

I'm dumbfounded. She was right, but what I hated more was that I couldn't bring myself to go back no matter what how much I wanted to. "Stephani, I'm sorry." I fell to my knees. Tears welled up in my eyes. "I really, really don't deserve you at all. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I began to cry, something that I don't think I've done since I first met Shiro.

Stephani came to me, knelt down and cradled my head to her chest, stroking my hair. "Shh, darling. Let it out. You've better so strong for so long. You deserve to let it out for once."

I don't care to explain how I must have looked, but it was something that I hoped to never show anyone. Though I should count my blessing that it was Stephani and no one else that saw this side of me.

After I settled down. I asked Stephani to make one thing, "Steph, can I ask for just a bit longer? There's just one more place that I want to go before we head back."

She lifted a bit my head and kissed my forehead. "Of course Darling. Where?"

That's all for now. Where are Tatsuya and Stephani headed to next? Find out when we continue in The Tag Along. Tatsuya was never intended to be a "yes man" and he hasn't forgiven Sora completely but he does regret leaving the siblings who still needed him. I was thinking to have Tatsuya get into a love triangle with a Siren but opted against it to move the story along, and I'm not usually a fan of love triangles.

As always I encourage reader response. Comment, suggestions, criticism, rant, correct grammar or continuity, share ideas, or anything else you have to say I welcome it. For those of you who enjoy my little story, I want you to know I really appreciate your views and comments. And of course, thank you for your views.