Yamaguchi didn't regret his decision. Really, he's glad everything worked out; Tsukishima is safe in the Firefly empire, and his friends are happy on the Nekarasi. Kageyama and Miwa probably moved onto the train; Yamaguchi rests sure that they got the fulfilling and lucrative jobs they'd always dreamed of. So everything was fine; there was nothing to miss, no decisions to rethink. Sure, Yamaguchi didn't exactly love the Slithering Isles, or Daishou for that matter, but this had never been about him anyway.
Winter had come to a close far faster than the olive-haired boy had expected, with barely thirty days left before the spring equinox. Not that there was much way to tell seasons apart this far south. Winter in the Slithering Isles was warmer than any summer Yamaguchi had ever experienced up in the northern scrapping lands. Everywhere, from the garden outside to the confines of the palace walls, the air was warm and stagnant, heavy with unshed humidity. The people of the archipelago measured their time in only two seasons, rainy and dry, which Yamaguchi took to mean wet, and even wetter, for even in the winter, the storms were long and frequent. Perhaps Yamaguchi was too harsh; he had only just settled into his new life and had only been on the island for a few odd weeks. Still, he missed the frigid snow and clear skies that would linger well into spring the further north.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Yamaguchi didn't have much time to sit and think about how much he missed life on the mainland. His schedule had been awash with wedding preparations the second he stepped foot on the capital island. It would take place in three months' time, during the supposed epicentre of the rainy season, right at the change of spring to summer, for those who had more than two seasons. The significance of such a time, which had been drilled into Yamaguchi's head along with many other cultural and history lessons, boiled down to old beliefs of fertility and favour from the Goddess. Thematically, he understood why the time had been chosen; political leaders liked to stick to tradition as a show of nationality, but he still wished they had chosen a less rainy date. The ceremony was meant to be conducted outdoors, and soaked wedding attire sounded like a nightmare.
Half of the time, Yamaguchi didn't even know why he was included in the planning efforts; no one ever asked his opinion. His outfit was decided by Daishou, and the same went for the meals and the music. Anything not chosen by his fiancé was left up to the whims of Daishou's mother. Even Yamaguchi's own wedding party wasn't up to him. He had wanted the Kageyama's to stand in as his family, but no, instead he would have to settle for Daishou's distant cousins. That particular decision had caused quite the fight between the two, Yamaguchi had to throw a full-blown fit for the Kageyamas to even be invited. Daishou had been particularly hostile after that situation, and in order to placate him, Yamaguchi had to act especially docile, further reducing his say. Oh, how he hated wedding plans.
To add insult to injury, no one in the palace took him seriously. Yamaguchi was a foreign commoner from the dirty and uncivilized northlands; he supposed they had no real reason to respect him. The only thing he had to offer to the royal family was his synergy, which was kept secret from even the other noble families. As far as the servants and palace workers were concerned, Yamaguchi must've seemed like an overly lucky crown chaser, some kind of parasite ready to leech on his newfound social status. That thought made him feel no better as the servants and guards talked about him as if he were just some shiny new toy for Daishou to play with; maybe he was.
Yamaguchi couldn't help but feel ungrateful with his unspoken complaints; anyone from 16-B would've killed to be in the lap of luxury like him. Still, he was terribly unhappy. Those months on the Nekarasi had been Yamaguchi's first taste of freedom, his first step into the outside world. There he had a purpose; he was important and had value. People on the Nekarasi cared about him in a way that went beyond the surface-level necessity the people from his hometown treated him with. Those months, stressful as they had been, were the best Yamaguchi had ever experienced. He had taken his first bite of the forbidden fruit, and now, locked inside yet another golden prison, he craved more.
He had a new duty, though; act the part. Yamaguchi had known, all the way back in Haibuichi, that his actions would gamble away his freedom, and he stood with that choice. He still did. It was either him or Tsukishima; that was what it boiled down to. Tsukishima, for as terrible as his parents seemed to be, had taken up a place of fondness in Yamaguchi's heart. The freckled boy was loath to see the blond prince unhappy or injured. Tsukishima deserved to live out whatever princely life was meant for him. Tsukishima had started with a life full of choices, full of opportunities, and had been blessed with the gift to look ahead and see the results; he deserved to keep that. Realistically, Yamaguchi was still better off in the Slithering Isles than when he was back in 16-B. He had never been offered choices, had never been given the chance for a better life; to be royalty in a foreign nation, even if he was unhappy, was an incredible shift in lifestyle. To condemn Tsukishima to a life of unhappy marriage, when he could've had anything else; Yamaguchi could never do that. He felt too deeply for Tsukishima to see him suffer.
What that feeling was, exactly, Yamaguchi didn't know. The blond confused him, left his emotions upturned and disoriented with every word. Yamaguchi had grown attached to the prince rather quickly, faster than he had with his other friends. He felt differently about Tsukishima than he did Hinata and Yachi, or even Kageyama, but he couldn't place why. Something about Tsukishima was different, something about him had drawn Yamaguchi in. The freckled boy had admired the other; something about him was just so incredible. Yamaguchi had never felt that way before, had never experienced the same nervous excitement around anyone else.
The kiss didn't help. Yamaguchi had honestly been too shocked to react, and before he knew it, the train had pulled away from the station. What had it meant? Tsukishima couldn't possibly have held an affinity for him in that way; he had made no indication of such feelings. Had he? Yamaguchi couldn't tell; it was all so confusing. The kiss haunted his otherwise dull days, an enigma hidden behind the rosy fog of memory. Maybe it had just been the adrenaline of the adventure. Yes, that must've been it, Yamaguchi decided. Surely it meant nothing more, Yamaguchi had just misconstrued the affection. But still, he found an ever-increasing part of him hoping there had been something more behind it.
Tsukishima's kiss, and a great many other things, consumed Yamaguchi's mind amidst his days in the palace. He was isolated from most other people, and as such, incredibly lonely. The scullery maids and servants didn't dare speak with him, it would risk their jobs, but all the nobles and higher-ups turned their noses at his presence. Perhaps Yamaguchi wouldn't have minded the solitude if he ever was truly alone, but he was afforded no such luxury. Always, there was a guard at his side, stoic and imposing. They talked with him very little, and the conversation he did manage was often dull and awkward. They gave him no privacy and followed him everywhere, no matter how hard he tried to lose them. Yamaguchi didn't resent them, couldn't bring himself to as they were just doing their jobs, but also wished desperately that he could find time to be truly alone and breathe freely.
Yamaguchi knew why he always had a guard on him, he was valuable to Daishou. The man cared little for him in terms of emotion or affection; the sugar-sweet words from the Firefly Palace were a ruse, just as Yamaguchi's own sympathy had been. He was, however, valuable politically. Synergists were rare, a near child's story so late after the leaving of magic, and they were precious resources. Yamaguchi could make great machines, could fix technology from ages past, understood the mechanisms behind the gifts the Goddess rained down upon the scrap lands. For many hours a day, so much so that it felt like a job more than time allowed for a hobby, Yamaguchi was led to a private room with a supervisor and given machines to tinker with.
The supervisor, a rotund and aging man with beady eyes and a patchy beard, scribbled ceaselessly on his notepad as Yamaguchi coaxed life and function from the once destitute machines that were given to him. He never saw what the man was writing, but he could assume the man tracked and recorded his methodology. Yamaguchi was an experiment, a new and exciting little test subject for Daishou and his family to examine and put to use. He was unsurprised when the broken machines he fixed slowly evolved into bits and pieces of what he recognized as war machines. Guns, elaborate mechanical crossbows, an engine, Yamaguchi wasn't stupid; he knew the Slithering Isles had begun preparations for something. Unfortunately, he had neither the energy nor the lines of communication to do anything about it.
He had to use his synergy to fix the machines they gave him. Never his own cleverness or ingenuity, always his gift. This constant use drained him of much of his energy, he would leave the room tired and lethargic, and he recovered less and less with each night's sleep. Even if he had the vitality to go and do something about his suspicions, he had no way to tell anyone. His ability to send letters to his friends was heavily restricted and, very likely, censored. He was allowed to write to the crew of the Nekarasi, but they were constantly on the move and hard to reach. Yamaguchi wasn't even sure that the palace messengers sent half his letters. Yachi and Tsukishima, who were far easier to reach, were strictly off-limits; he was allowed no contact from anyone associated with the Firefly Empire.
As infrequently as he sent out messages, fewer were the replies. Kenma was usually the one to write the replies, with help from Akaashi when they were too busy. The letters came to him pre-opened and heavily censored by the palace. Most of the time, over half the words had been blotted out, and the intended response became ever harder to decipher. From the little information offered to him, Yamaguchi gathered that things had been going well for the Nekarasi. Hinata and Kageyama had returned safely, and Miwa had managed to make her way to the train as well. She now helped Akaashi with the domestic duties of the train, for which he was grateful. Kageyama had become the head of the gambler car, wherein he had his own table where people could try and 'bet against the house', as it were. When news of Yamaguchi's 'choice' made its way to the crew, they were livid. Bokuto, Kageyama, and Hinata had all wanted to storm the Slithering Isles and demand the hasty return of their friend, but there was not much that could actually be done. In one of Akaashi's letters, he wrote about how much they all missed Yamaguchi. Things just weren't the same without him, he wrote, and that it was difficult to know that Yamaguchi was somewhere out there, unhappy and alone. Kenma, Akaashi said, had been more sullen and reclusive than normal. They spent even longer hours squirrelled away in the engine car tirelessly keeping the train together. The machinery too seemed to miss Yamaguchi, as things once again broke with regular frequency. In the final line of the most recent letter, Akaashi wrote that should Yamaguchi ever return to the Nekarasi, he would be more than happy to let him tinker with his arm; Akaashi knew just how much it fascinated the younger boy.
Yamaguchi kept the letters tucked away safely in a chest in his little room, and he cried tears of melancholic relief each time he read them. This is what he had fought for, the happiness and success of his friends, his family, so why was he so distraught? The Nekarasi and her crew had become a second home to him, a tight-knit family of ragtag former lowlifes. He missed it dearly. There were so many things he ached to tell them but couldn't because he knew it would put him at risk.
One of the things he had yearned to discuss with the crew, most especially Akaashi and Kenma, was the arrival of mysterious letters on his windowsill. They came much more frequently than those from the Nekarasi, and they were written in a handwriting he didn't recognize. Great crows, the size of small hawks, delivered them to him, and they always seemed bedraggled from a long journey. The letters knew more about him than what he was comfortable with. They knew his name, his situation, his synergy, everything that had happened in the previous few months. Moreover, they offered him things. The letters were always written with kindness and delicate but composed words. They fed him information from the main continent and offered him speculation on Yachi and Tsukishima. They also offered him a way out. Each letter, no matter the subject, ended with the same line; We know you are unhappy there, in the snake's clutch, all you need is ask, and we can free you. It was all very unnerving.
Still, as time passed and Yamaguchi was made to spend more and more of his energy to repair increasingly concerning machines, he toyed with the offer. Something was wrong; no nation at peace had a need for so much active military machinery. The air ever smelled of smoke, and from his balcony at the palace, Yamaguchi could see the tree line reducing. The Slithering Isles had enacted a great industrialization, and Yamaguchi didn't like it one bit.
Slowly, he started to take pieces of the machines he was tasked to fix. A wire here, a piece of metal plating there, small things that he could coax the machines to do without that would also make them useless once they were no longer under his enchantment. Daishou and his advisors grew ever frustrated as more and more of Yamaguchi's machines failed to work after they left palace grounds, and he managed to convince the wicked prince that it was due to his exhaustion. He was given a week of recuperation, wherein he couldn't leave his bedroom and was ordered to rest. There, as silently as possible, for he was ever wary of the guards just outside his door, Yamaguchi built a sound machine. It was a simple metal box, small and light enough for one of the crows to carry over their long flight. It could capture sound and play it back to the listener. Yamaguchi carefully labelled the two buttons, one to record and one to play. Then he spoke.
"Please, something is afoot here. I need to leave, and soon. They are planning something. Warn whoever it is that you belong to, the Snakes plan to attack. I need you to help me leave this place."
Yamaguchi handed the box off to one of the large crows as it brought him yet another letter. As it flew away with his box of whispers, Yamaguchi prayed to the Goddess that his message would be well received.