Chapter Three
"Could you send him up here?" she asked, hated how weak her voice sounded. Mika's face fell slightly, before setting in an iron mask.
"He's probably filthy! He isn't trampling his stink here!" she protested.
"If he bathes straight away…?" Akane tried, and Mika folded her arms. "Please, Mika," the tears threatened to fall, and she felt Mika relax slightly. "He can use my bathroom."
"Ugh, fine, but just this once. It's not like you'll be able to see him in the future, anyway," she replied, not realising the impact of her words on Akane.
"W-what? Why not?" she stuttered, hiding her face from Mika.
"Once you're a married woman, you can't just meet privately with a strange wandering man! It would start a scandal, and if your fiancé was a respectable man, he'd have him exiled at the very least," Mika didn't even seem to gauge Akane's worsening mood as she chattered away. "At the worst, he may even have him executed." Akane tried her best to ignore the almost-joy in Mika's voice. "I'll explain that to him, shall I?"
"Uh… if you so wish to," Akane switched to formal without even thinking about it.
"I'd say good riddance- he can stop stinking up the place!" she almost joked. "And I've heard good things about Makishima- he's a smart man, very charming as well. You're pretty lucky!"
"Mika, can you go and make Kogami have a bath now?" Akane whispered.
"What's the rush? You know how bad it looks that a man is entering your room at such a late time in the evening!" Mika snapped.
"Mika." Akane spoke her name, her mood deteriorating rapidly. "Just do it."
"Uh… yes, Akane-sama," Mika bowed quickly and hurried out, not used to Akane ever using that tone of voice with her before. It was usually Mika herself doing the bossing around. Akane sighed and let a few more tears fall before trying to compose herself before Kogami's arrival. Time seemed to drag on as she waited, and she was tempted to pick up one of Makshima's books, but she felt as if she did she would wind up ripping the stupid things up, or stabbing them. Because of them, her precious time with Kogami was now gone, and all they'd end up being was memories. All because of a stupid stranger! She felt like punching something, and her sorrow had been replaced by near overwhelming fury. But finally, Kogami entered, rather sheepishly, with a glaring Mika behind him as he shut the door in her face.
"Never could stand that Mika," he sighed as he walked closer, not bothering with greeting until he knelt down and kissed her hand. "Hello."
"Hello," she replied softly. She felt weak, probably because she was exhausted and upset. "How have you been?"
"Better than you, by the looks of things," he sighed softly, sitting on her bed. No matter how she tried to cover it up, she never could hide things from Kogami. When she didn't respond for a while, he reached his arm up and stroked her head in an attempt to comfort her. "What's the matter?"
"Didn't Mika tell you?" she simply responded, too tired to even cry at this point.
"Yes. Yes, she did." He sounded a bitter, and mumbled several swearwords under his breath, most of them directed at Mika. "She even seemed to enjoy it too. That's not all that important though. Well, regarding you it is. Regarding me, not so much."
"It is important," Akane replied. "How can I just not see you anymore?"
"Ahh, that's a bit far-fetched. We can still see each other, but you'd have to have guards or even your new husband around," he rolled his eyes. "It would kind of suck, but it's better than nothing, I suppose." He looked away briefly, before looking back at Akane's face and jumping in his own skin. "H-Hey! Why are you crying?!" Akane answered by launching herself at the traveller, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing loudly into his chest. Startled for only a moment, he responded by returning her hug, holding her close to his body, gently rocking back and forth, trying to soothe her. Her sobs eventually quietened, and her eyes dried up, but they stayed there for what seemed to be an indefinite amount of time. Finally, they parted, and Akane immediately felt cold again. "Feel better?" She nodded, rubbing her eyes ashamedly. Now she really did feel like a spoilt brat!
"Sorry. You must think I'm being really stupid about all this," she apologised, looking up at him.
"Not really," he smiled warmly as he could. "I doubt even I would be okay with being forced to live with a complete stranger. And other things."
"And other things," she sighed, shuddering. "I'd never let someone I barely know do that - I'd have to use my sword!" she tried her best to cheer up. "That would show him, huh?"
"You would be truly terrifying," Shinya smirked. "I think I'd have to surrender if you came at me with a sword. Oh, I completely forgot!" he stood up quickly, winked at her and left hastily. Akane knew he was coming back, but she didn't know how long he would be. She swung her legs out of bed to go and close the door, not liking the cold draft that swept over the room. When Shinya finally came back, she saw he was holding something in his hands. He held it out to her, and she took it. It was a book, an actual book, not a scroll. She opened it and found that it was completely empty. Not a single word on any of the pages, other than a quickly scrawled message in the front from Kogami:
To Akane, Happy belated Birthday! Love, Shinya
She blushed at the 'Love, Shinya', and looked at Kogami levelly, expecting an explanation. "What? I figured since you loved reading stories so much, you could write down your own."
"But what would I write about? I haven't seen that much of the world to even write about something interesting!" she laughed, but it was true. "And there's not much chance of that happening now, is there? Maybe you should take this back and write your experiences in it!"
"Nope, it's for you. End of discussion," he told her. "I know- you can write down all the horrible things you want to say or do to your father or Makishima, and when you're done we'll rip the pages out and burn them, so nobody ever needs find out." He smirked. "Our little tradition, almost!"
"You're so strange," she told him, and they fell into silence for a while, both staring at the notebook. Then he spoke up.
"Hey, Akane?" she hummed in response. "You can keep a secret, right? You trust me?" She nodded, mutely. "Good. I know I can, I don't even know why I asked." He wrapped his arms around her and brought her in for a hug. "I'll obviously be telling you about my journey later, but first, there's something more important I have to tell you. In my journey, this time, I was welcomed into another country's palace. Have you heard of Emperor Sasayama?" Akane nodded mutely- where was he going with this? Sasayama was her father's enemy! Her heart began to race again. "Well, he welcomed me into his palace, and even when he found out that I'm your father's freelancer, he still treated me as an ally. And… the thing is, Akane, you have to admit your father's rule over here is corrupt."
It was. Her father's rule really was- her father was a tyrant, even she had to admit that. For a while now, she'd planned what she would do when she was in charge, or rather, her husband was in charge (she hated the fact she could do very little because of her gender, but she adamantly refused to ever let a fickle thing like that stop her), and she had an entire justice system set out that seemed fair to her AND Kogami. She'd even dared show it to her bodyguards, all of whom had agreed with her. Whenever a single person stepped one foot out of line, they would be executed or exiled, no question. Not only that, her father had even created a test all people had to take once they were eighteen to decide what they were to do with the rest of their lives- work here, or work there. There was very little, if any, leeway. Additionally, all the people wanting to get married had to send a letter to her father asking for permission. If her father said no, because one was a farmer and the other a tailor, for example, then they were not permitted to see each other again. End of relationship. It really was finite. Not only that, her father allowed criminals, if deemed not that dangerous but had that edge about them, were allowed to defend the country's borders, controlled only by the fear of an arrow to the back of the head. "It is. It is." She muttered into his ear.
"Emperor Sasayama thinks the same. He intends to overthrow your father soon-"
"And what will happen to my mother, and my bodyguards, and my friends?" she whispered back.
"Nothing. The guy's a lazy bastard if I do say so myself, so he doesn't want to put himself on the throne. He wants to put you on the throne."
"Me? Why does he think I'll be any good at that? How does he know I'm not like my father?" Akane asked, worried.
"I still have the things you wrote down about what justice looks like in your eyes, so naturally I showed him," he sounded incredibly blasé. "But I've already sent a messenger to him explaining about your marriage. That's why I took longer than I should have done. We're going to see how he is. If we don't like him, he's got to go."
"I don't like him already, can he already go?" she tried to joke, like Kagari would have done. She could feel the smirk on his cheeks already.
"I wish," he sighed softly. "But, to tell you the truth, I've heard some… unsavoury things… about this Makishima guy."
"Like what?" she felt incredibly scared now. Kogami usually knew what he was on about, and she really did value his input and opinions whenever he was around. Mika had said she'd heard good things, but what did Mika know? She left this castle as much as Akane did! And on top of that, she was just trying to comfort her!
"I really don't want to scare yo-"
"Tell me," she snapped, startling even him. She really wasn't feeling like being babied, especially by Kogami.
"For starters, he enjoys executions, but there aren't as many over there as there are here," Kogami started slowly, still whispering in her ear. "He gets… rather excited about them, let's say." He was definitely implying something, and Akane had a vague idea of just what it was. "He's also a rather articulate man, but he's also manipulative; he's sent men on suicide missions or just whatever he wanted them to do with a few words alone. His power isn't just physical, it's mental as well. It's a common whisper on the street that he rallied several people into joining the riots in his country, but the law can't touch him, or anyone of high birth, for that matter." He clutched her even tighter. "If I had my way, I wouldn't have you marrying him until I was confident these rumours were false. It's not like I could stop you marrying him completely. I really am powerless." His face darkened slightly. "Akane. You won't tell anybody about this, will you?"
"N-No. Of course I wouldn't," she muttered. "I'd never betray you like that. And, in some horrible way, I find myself agreeing with you." He petted her head one final time, before standing up.
"Look at the time!" he grinned. "Looks like I've kept you awake. Go to sleep now. I'll tell you my tales tomorrow. Goodnight now, Akane."
"Goodnight, Shinya," she called as he left. She fell quickly and soundly asleep
Meanwhile, Shinya Kogami, despite his calm exterior, was flickering through as many emotions as he could think of as he walked quickly to his lodgings. Anger at Makishima and Akane's father; raw jealousy at Makishima; irritation when he thought about Sasayama's shit-eating grin; joy at seeing Akane again; immense sorrow at seeing her cry. However, he couldn't describe the feeling that made a blush rise to his cheeks whenever he smelt the omnipresent scent of roses he had come to associate with Akane.