xiii.

Toushirou takes Karin into the forest, to a place where sunlight filters through the foliage of leaves. Light catches in the burbling brook, the wind rustles, gently scattering leaves and shifting branches.

When they arrive, he smiles privately, filled with nostalgia of many crisp spring afternoons spent here, and he's happy he can share this place with her.

He breathes in deeply, the scent of pine sweet.

"I should have Kiyone to prepare lunch. This is a good place for a picnic." He says, realizing far too late. They could have gone back, he supposed, or he could have gone by himself, and Karin would wait here. "How about next time?"

"Alright." Karin nods, and sits on the grassy banks. "Next time."

He joins her, legs stretched out. "Do you like it?"

"It's… pleasant enough. I guess."

"You should see it in summer."

Her shoulders stiffen at that, tension in her spine that wasn't there before. When Karin speaks again, there's an edge to her voice, like she's humouring him but can't remember the politics of conversation. "I'll look forward to it."

Maybe she means it. Maybe she doesn't.

There's so much he doesn't understand. He's no fool, there's something she wants from him. He'd like to say that he knows the princess well enough that he wouldn't be here with him otherwise. He knows her well enough to notice that she's behaving differently. Kiyone tells him it's a good thing, Toushirou is… curious, at the very least.

So he waits, and the conversation falls into a lull of silence, until Karin decides to talk.

Somewhere, far away, there are birds singing.

Karin meets his gaze, feet sliding underneath the folds of her dress. "I'd like things to be different."

He blinks, not expecting that. "What?"

Her cheeks darken, flushing into a pretty pink, matched only by the determined that he is recently becoming acquainted with.

Toushirou thinks suddenly of roses, red and soft and held so carefully in his hands, how Karin had laughed so carelessly when he let them go, how much she's changed since then. She's become such a different person, impossibly unrecognizable, it's a miracle that he was able to know it was her at all.

"I mean." She huffs, and he catches a flicker of something, streaked in shadows and restraint, something that makes him want to hope and promise her anything. "I want to be friends."

"Yes." Toushirou agrees easily, happily. "I'd like that."

He smiles at her, wondering if this meant that she trusted him, or at least, was beginning to. Small steps. In the meantime, he'd take care.

"So if I asked you anything? Anything at all, you'd tell me nothing but the truth?" She raises her chin high.

"Of course, princess. I always have." He teases, unable to help himself, the beginning of a smirk on the corner of his cheek.

This is something he's more familiar with.

She glowers at him, her face diffusing into red. "Don't call me that. I'm not a princess anymore."

"A figure of speech," Toushirou amends, pressing his mouth into a line in order to stop the smile. It is and it isn't, and Karin knows that, her glower deepening. "Won't happen again."

Karin stares at him, doubting the truth of his words.

"Let's make a deal. I won't call you princess if you say what's on your mind once in a while." He watches her mull over this, eyelashes fluttering in surprise, softening the hard edges of her face. "How about it, Karin?"

He offers her his hand, another olive branch.

Something flickers over her face. Hesitation, perhaps. But it's gone as quickly as it appears, and Karin nods, smoothly taking his hand and accepting.

"Yeah. Yes, that sounds good."