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Chapter Seven:
"It does not concern you, my Lady…"
Moments before this was stated to her in a bitter manner — pulling away again from her sympathetic reach and his marvelously purple eyes gazed at her with contempt — Lady Shirley Fenette sat primly with the acclaimed "Prince Charming" of Britannia in the great chamber, fussing silently as he stared sullen off into space and rotated what looked like a transparent slipper between his hands.
"That will do, Nina," the redheaded noblegirl said, flashing the maid a brilliant, invented smile. The bespectacled girl flushed tomato red at the smile and order and scuttled out, slamming the door behind her accidentally. The noise startled Lelouch back to his tapestried-surroundings.
"Does something trouble you, my Prince—?"
"—Lelouch is fine," he interrupted her.
At the inquisitive look, Lelouch mumbled, delicate fingers spayed on the crystal-clear object in his hands, "You are permitted to speak informally to me as my fiancée, correct?" When he smiled afterwards, it was the smile she had given Nina; like she was beneath him in intelligence; like she was a small child to be lorded over.
Against her better instincts and decorum, she asked, eyeing the slipper with slight distrust, "That is a curious item you have. What is it? Some glass slipper?"
"Acrylic, actually." He missed her raised eyebrow at how he sounded so sure, "I must find its wearer."
"For what reason?"
"It does not concern you, my Lady…"
Those venomous words. Those troubling words. Who could have put him in such a sour mood?
Moments later, she would come to a definitive resolve, and spirit herself into the candlelit great chamber, unnoticed.
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Size eleven and extra wide.
…WHO was the shoe's owner?
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Suzaku Kuruugi fainted. No. Scratch that. Suzaku Kuruugi swooned like a fairytale princess.
Luckily to his pride, the people who caught him did not press the topic as he awoke. Awoke to his uncle's bed. He knew it was for the smell on the expensive, tussah silk sheets— dark and leathery and stale cigar smoke lingering unpleasantly — and to the fact that he did not own a bed. Suzaku awoke every morning in a location that depended on what chore he had finished the earlier evening — the pasture, or the stables, but mostly it was in the ashes near the kitchen fireplace.
The girl… (Kaguya, his consciousness murmurs warmly… my…...) fretfully backed away, calling to someone out of view as Suzaku sat up, lifting a hand to his forehead. Another man with champagne-gray hair and eyes, in what looked like drab and antiqued military attire, appeared to stand beside her.
"Have you been eating?" the Japanese man asked him gruffly. Suzaku blinked, green eyes still clouded.
"…Eating?"
A deep frown rested over the man's features. "I guess that answers my question."
Just when the brown-haired boy would protest that he ate… maybe not a lot but he did… the girl beat him to speaking next, her emerald eyes lighting up, "I told you he was here, Tohdoh!" She was immediately shushed by the severe-looking man. Her shoulders fell at the reprimanding.
"Why were you looking for me?"
"Because we are family, Suzaku," she insisted, her chest heaving underneath her riding cloak. "Because you are the only one now who—!"
"Kaguya! Restrain yourself!" Tohdoh cut in to scold, feathery eyebrows bristling.
She snapped back, "Come off it! You and rest of the Liberation Front are hoping for the same!"
Suzaku winced as the argument continued, clearing his throat to draw their attention.
"…Are you both related to me?"
"Tohdoh isn't but he's your godfather so he's pretty much family." Kaguya smiled cheekily. "Ever wonder why you fought so well? He trained you since you were little. I remember you being able to roundhouse kick the head off the straw puppet we nailed together in the settlement. Can you still do that?"
"Why didn't I come to live with you?" It had almost came out accusatory and Suzaku could not help feeling it in the base of his throat as it clenched his Adam's apple.
"Because…" She threw a dirty glare over his shoulder at the portrait of a lavishly-dressed and partially-sneering Charles. "Because they got you first. And between the confusion of the beginning war and everyone getting injured so fast… no one really knew until it was too late."
"And you are my cousin, Kaguya?"
As he spoke her name carefully, familiarly, she squealed and hugged him around the shoulders. "You do remember me!"
Suzaku laughed, wrapping his arms around her to return the feel. "Yes…! We were at the shrine… and the rain storm on Kyoto Mountain happened… and when we came home… Father was so angry…" He paused, stiffening at the memory. Kaguya withdrew from his space, watching as liveliness in his tanned face waned.
His stomach then growled fiercely.
She hid a newly-formed smirk behind her hand as Suzaku turned red with embarrassment and Tohdoh rolled his eyes. The older man clapped the boy's shoulder, widening green eyes at the considerate motion, "Eat first and then we'll discuss why Kaguya broke the rules to come here in the first place…"
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It was not the smartest decision she could have made that day.
Stealing an item that was not hers by right, and straying unaccompanied in the commoner's town where her misanthrope of a Mother warned her held the most dangerous of characters. But Shirley had to start SOMEWHERE on the mystery of the shoe owner...
"Oi, where are you going?" A bearded Japanese man from a small group of his friends outside a local tavern called to her, wiggling his grimy fingers. She ignored him but clutched her fur cloak and suede-satchel to herself more possessively. His muscular arm snaked out, wrenching her and jerking her arm painfully back.
"Are you deaf? I said where are you going, little Britannian?"
At her persistent struggling, he clenched her arm harder to prevent her from by any means of escape. Another taller, fatter man from the group presented her other arm forward to the rest, "Look here, gentlemen. She's a rich one. Aren't these pretty jewels? I'd sure like to borrow them from her. She wouldn't mind, would she?"
As he started to forcefully slip the ruby and sapphire–decorated silver rings from her trembling hand, Shirley screamed piercingly, "No! My Father's ring! Please—!"
The first Japanese man grinned ferociously, silencing her with his hardened hand over her mouth, "Oh, I think you've gone and upset her. I apologize dearly for my friend's behavior. Why don't I make it up to you, little Britannian? I promise to make it worth your while…" He moved in, inches from her face, leering.
As this happened, she realized that the market goers — Britannian and Japanese alike — knew perfectly well what was happening to her.
They just wanted nothing to do with it. And averted their eyes.
…her Mother had been right... and there would be no hero to come and save her like in her childhood picture books...
"I think you've done enough to scare her."
Her round, olive green eyes concentrated on the speaker of the newer voice. A raggedy-looking Japanese boy. He cradled a bulging brown bag of food under one of his arms and casually stood off to the side of the rowdy, drunken men. The boy said again, his expression eerily blank, "You've made your point. Please let her go."
"Oh, a brave traitor. Do you think you stand a better chance sleeping with her than us?"
"Let her go and I'll let you all walk away from this unharmed."
They laughed at him and his monotonous threat like he was a trivial insect, one of them waving him off exaggeratedly. Shirley begged, tears welling, as the hand on her mouth limped, "Please… have mercy on me, sir…" She cried out again, thrashing as the bearded man shook her entire body, rage screwing up his tanned face.
"Look at the number of graves of our people that you Britannians have slaughtered—and then talk to me about MERCY!"
Shirley flinched as his fist swung. It never made contact as the ragged boy ducked into the fight, twisting it away from her and breaking bone as the man's wrist snapped nastily at the inflicted momentum. "Move! Now!" Suzaku roared at her as she lifted her skirts with a terrified but determined look.
She charged past the rest of the men without hesitating, disappearing into the east rear of the market. He followed soon after, leaving the drunks to stagger helplessly with several bruises and two or three cracked bones, and a few outside fans of the brawl who called back to him adoringly.
Suzaku found her — her orangish-red hair flyaway from her high bun, panting, wiping sweat from her brow — under an broken, tented cart. "Have they hurt you, my Lady?" he asked, still cradling his undamaged bag. For the second time that day, his personal space was invaded promptly by a strange, gleeful girl.
"You saved me! Thank you!" Shirley spotted her rings in his crooked palm and then hugged him once again tightly, repeating her thanks over and over.
"As long as you are... safe..." He noticed her then observing his feet, not bothering hiding her show of it. "...is something wrong...?"
"This may seem like an odd sort of question but please indulge me… "
She shuffled through her satchel, fishing for something in a hurry, and presented to him a pointy, transparent slipper he knew all-too-painfully... that the sight of made his feet ached in remembrance. "I am on a journey to find the wearer of this slipper. This may seem silly, but... would you mind trying on this on for me?"
Emerald eyes met to her magnetic, olive pull.
Before they could move forward, or he could respond, there came a shout of "There she is!" and the feel of a double barrel handgun pointing harshly between Suzaku's eyes. He heard her speak panicked: "Don't hurt him! Guards, he hasn't done anything!" but no more than that.
Something turned off in his head — a difference scene placed before his eyes. Not a Knightmare before him. Not this abandoned, rear section of the marketplace. But the same feeling of helplessness (as a leering, heavier gun was pressed against him, by fat, bejeweled fingers)—
Suzaku came back to reality, lashing out, and the armored man with the gun instead shoved the barrel to Suzaku's left side of his chest, pulling the trigger.
Everything seemed to freeze, breathless.
And then the screaming returned, wordless, higher than before as the grim-faced Knightmares forcibly escorted the hysterical Shirley from the tented area.
He knew this familiar hurt in his chest (like last time..?).
Suzaku felt himself dazedly sinking to his haunches into graying ground and then lower, the back of his hair sliding up the wall. Shakily, he reached for his Father's watch from the inside pocket of his jacket. Two smoking bullets laid lodged between the spiderweb glass crackings smeared lightly with globe-drops of blood.
He just needed... some rest. Just a little... to catch his breath back.
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TBC...
It never ends for Suzaku. Especially when he plays the hero... heroine... whatever... x33 HOLY CRAP...15 DAYS UNTIL I TURN 22. Wow. I'm old... The Doctor Who fandom has snared my attention lately BTW. But I needed to make this update. But those of you who are watching Series 5 of DW, let me know. I'll be ecstatic. Vayle Ravendal has Suzaku and Lelouch plushies for me but refuses to hand them over until the boys make out again. -pouts- Next chapter has it, kays? YAY! BOY LOVE! I thought that would make everyone who was still waiting on that. Had to slice this chapter in half from the next because of plot complications. I have to completely redo the next chapter. BUT everything finally came together for this story! Gonna be a great ending planned. Comments, again, are never a nuisance. ;33