The Brilliant Royal Divorce Plan Chapter 60
AN..... Sorry that my updating is all over the place... but it's early so don't complain :P
CHAPTER 60!!!!! OMG OMG OMG
As if hit by an arrow, Kame sat bolt upright at the voice - only to see Maru and an incredibly pissed off Jin standing in the doorway.
“Kame,” an expressionless, butt-naked Ueda complained from under him, “you’re crushing my vital sex organs. Please get off.”
Jin’s left eye started to twitch, much like Maru’s. Maybe it was contagious.
“As much as the situation is inappropriate right now,” Maru stepped forward and dragged the soaking Kame off Ueda, “I’d still like to thank you for coming back.”
“I don’t want anyone else to die for our mistakes Maru.” He grabbed a towel to cover the necessary parts just as guards rushed in at the commotion. “Escort my guests to their rooms please.”
“Do you not have anything left to tell me? Like how you became the king of Hokkaido?” Maru shrugged off the guard who had laid a rough hand on his shoulder.
Ueda smiled sadly. “Do you remember telling me once that it was your father’s dying wish for you to intervene when Junno is about to make a stupid mistake?”
“Of course.”
“Then don’t ask any questions. I don’t even know how or why I am who I am. You are an intelligent man Nakamaru-san. You can see as clearly as I do why this whole marriage needs to be done or nobody leaves here alive.” He waved at the guards to get a move on.
“That’s why…” Maru turned around one last time before the guards ushered them out, “I wanted you to tell me that there is another way.”
Watching the disappearing silhouettes of his friends, Ueda sank back into a puddle on the floor and fiddled with a rose petal miserably.
“There is no… other way.”
“Umm… Your Majesty?” two maids timidly tip-toed beside him with more towels and some clothes, “Please allow us to clothe-
“BOTH OF YOU GET OUT!!” The beautiful king roared with unexplainable fury at the innocent girls, “WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO ENTER?!? I CAN CLOTHE MYSELF SO GET OUT!!!!” He was close to lashing out with a knife.
Tearing the robes from their hands, Ueda gave a dismissive flick of his wrist and the startled maids scuffled out like scared sheep. Only he could look so decidedly terrifying while dripping wet and almost naked on the floor.
The trip out to Sapporo city had given Ueda a sliver of hope that he didn’t want to see… Maru’s words etched even more. There just was no other way.
Dressing himself turned out to be easier than finding the motivation to get off the wet tatami and dragging himself out of the room. At the end he gave up, flopping listlessly onto a patch of dryness, Ueda called for a manservant. “Get this place cleaned, and get rid of the bath tub.”
“Oh this is pathetic…” The voice he least wanted to hear came within earshot, “Can you even PRETEND to be someone who’s being crowned as king tomorrow?”
“I was jumped on while in the bath tub, Yuri,” Ueda didn’t even look up, “can you please leave?”
“I heard from Uchi,” the princess paid no heed and stuck up her nose, “why did you not just elope-
“BECAUSE I WILL NOT HAVE YOUR MOTHER KILLING MY FRIENDS!!”
“Don’t act all great! You just didn’t want ANYTHING to happen to hottie…”
“Either way you win,” Ueda gritted his teeth, “but if you’re here to gloat, right now’s not a good time.”
She sighed and sat down heavily beside the flawless beauty. He could smell the aroma of fried prawns - it was well past dinnertime. “Look I’m sorry for not telling you first about the wedding plan-
“Guess what genius? Too late.”
“It’s not.”
His eyes widened in another impossible hope. “What do you mean?”
“Great job Kame-chan,” Maru looked around at the 30 guards with them in one relatively small room, giving them dirty looks. “I’m going to the garden to cure my claustrophobia.”
Kame observed his slam of the door. It was loud enough to rattle nerves but not enough to suggest the man was ready to hit anyone.
“He’s not happy with me,” he remarked.
“No shit. You jumped on Tat-chan in the bath and now there are like 3 trillion guards with us everywhere we go!”
“Jin my hair is coming off! Kame whined as Jin’s hair-drying became hair-grating instead.
Jin’s pressure on the towel increased. “I have to dry it properly otherwise you’ll catch a cold! Stay still!”
The younger man simply sat and smiled coyly to himself, leaning back into the intimate moment. Maru’s exit had taken most of the guards away, and his next death glare made the rest quickly retreat. Every other time he’d gotten wet from a mission, it was Ryo who told him off like a mother hen and dried him by the fire.
But Jin’s hands felt warmer. The strong palms, calloused from years of sword-wielding, ruffled his slightly brown locks gently and made him purr.
“Ne Kazu?” Jin nuzzled the crook of Kame’s neck, “I’m going to join the secret service when I get back okay?”
“Why suddenly Kazu?” Kame chuckled at the unfamiliar nickname.
“Well everyone calls you Kame and I wanna be special,” Jin licked Kame’s neck teasingly, “and next time I will mark you.”
“Welcome, but really… the secret service? Why?”
“I know it’s impossible to ask you to stop that job so I’m just gonna have to make sure I’m by your side. And plus you can’t talk to anyone about work unless they have also signed the code of secrecy. I hate that.” Jin’s towelling had stopped and he was totally focused on hugging his turtle from behind. “I don’t want you to be alone anymore.”
“Then who’s going to take care of Junno?” Kame asked, “You’re the head of palace security!”
“I can still do that job but I need to be part of your life too. Will you accept my hand in-
The younger man’s eyes almost let out a light of their own in anticipation of what was to come. Or maybe it was tears of joy.
“- will you accept my hand in marriage?”
“….you know everything I’ve done and you still-
“Don’t give a fuck? Indeed I don’t care.”
“Ask the question again Jin… I want to hear it again,” Kame let the streams trail down his cheeks.
“Will you marry me o beautiful one?”
“Of course.”
[Ueda’s room, a few courtyards away]
“Your plan is crazy, it’s going to stuff up and we are all going to get killed for it. Apart from you, of course,” Ueda shook his head in disbelief. He had decided right then that this girl was crazy for coming up with the plan and because only crazy people fall in love with Junno, he also decided that he was crazy too.
For falling in love with Junno, and for secretly thinking the plan might work due to its sheer stupidity.
Yes, since he was crazy, he was allowed to think so secretly
“It’s going to work because of its sheer stupidity,” Yuri shrugged, “what have we got to lose?”
“Apart from our lives, nothing.” The normal, genius Ueda snapped back into reality.
The princess pointed to the handkerchief resting on top of Ueda’s other clothes, still slightly damp from Kame’s splashing. “How long is your life really going to last without him? If you’re dead on the inside, why don’t you do something reckless for once?”
“I can’t… please stop tempting me Yuri. I know you like him and I know you mean well but this is Takuya-san’s country. I can’t just leave it and run for the hills!”
“What about me?! I’d rather not get married to someone foreigner who will NEVER love me! I’ll be cooped up in that palace and everyone is going to hate me for being from Hokkaido and he will NEVER come and see me because he’ll relate me to losing you!”
“Too bad. You should have thought of that when you agreed to marry him,” Ueda shrugged. He knew she was only saying those things for his happiness and refused to budge. Eye already brimming with tears, he stood his ground and forced them back.
She gave up. “At that stage I thought I actually stood a chance against you… Please, just… for all of us!”
“Even if it succeeds, do you think you can pull off surviving the aftermath?!” Ueda turned to stare his half-sister in her eyes. Their eyes really did look alike. Both red, puffy and threatening to overflow.
“To be perfectly honest, you may be talented, beautiful and have the right blood, you don’t love this country. You didn’t grow up here and people don’t respect you. This isn’t something you can learn in a library…”
“Are you implying I will be incompetent as king after you get married?”
“Yes,” she didn’t even try to hide it, “You can rule a country but you will never be able to truly feel a connection. For you, this place is nothing but pain so why the hell are you even bothering?!”
“STOP ASKING ME SUCH OBVIOUS QUESTIONS AND JUST GO AWAY!!” The beautiful man tore out of the room. He slipped once on the still damp tatami but fixed his footsteps and ran like the wind. Yuri followed without faltering, grabbing the handkerchief off the pile of clothing.
They stopped running at Taku’s small shrine. Kneeling down and staring at the engraved kanji filled with molten gold, Ueda clenched his fists in silence as if trying to prove a point.
“This man died for me. I will not let him down. Please leave…”
Yuri threw the hanky so that it covered Taku’s name. “THIS man,” she pointed at the bloodstains on the now off-white silk, “loves you. This man gave up a country, is willing to marry me because YOU want him to and he is probably in his room right now, crying his eyes out. How can you be such a heartless bastard and let him?!”
“JUST LEAVE!!!!!” Ueda stood up and shouted in a blood-chilling scream, swinging his arms in a violent motion towards the open door, the gust of wind blowing the hanky onto the floor.
IF YOU KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS I’M GOING TO CRUMBLE!
Yuri turned on her heels in disgust and strode away with a flick of her sleeve. “Then as you wish Your Majesty,” her voice strained, “I will marry him in two days. But I will have your coronation put off until after the wedding… I don’t’ trust you as a king yet. Have a good hard think about what you actually hold precious in your life before then.”
The princess nearly made it out of the door when Tatsuya bent down to delicately pick up the handkerchief. She rushed back, snatched the piece of embroidered material and held it above her head. “You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve Taguchi-san’s blood and his precious stitching until you sort out your heart!”
In a flurry she was gone.
When the Hokkaido royal family hold weddings, they hold weddings. Maru could not ever have imagined the sheer scale of a project whipped together in less than ten days could be so much grander than when Junno had last gotten married to Ueda. Every white wall in the giant maze of a palace was now painted exquisitely with dainty sakura blossoms, all blowing in the direction of an auspicious, lucky wind. Interiors containing gold gilding had been removed, the gold melted, cleaned and retiled for maximum shine, not to mention the spectacularly white roof tiles had been meticulously scrubbed one by one to welcome this great day in history.
Good Lord if Koki can see this, he’ll go home cursing our palace staff for being incompetent. We planned for months and couldn’t even get this far…
Maru chuckled dryly. The groom-to-be beside him was clinging onto his arm like a spoilt baby, face set in iron.
“Junno for the sake of politics please TRY to look remotely happy?” he tried uselessly, earning a stony glare. “Fine then, but promise me if you get drunk at the formal dinner and the princess doesn’t want to have sex, don’t force her.”
“Maru that’s disgusting! Who do you take me for?!” Junno recoiled in shock, “My heart belongs to Tat-chan and no-one else! You KNOW that!”
The serious man put both his hands on Junno’s shoulders and gazed deep into his hazel orbs. “I know this is tough on you. That’s why I’m allowing such words right now… Remember, you are the emperor of Honshu, not a normal person. The term ‘Tat-chan’ must be erased from your dictionary as soon as you set foot inside that bedroom chamber do you understand?”
He did not expect Junno to straighten, nod slowly and smile with no expression.
In fact, he did not know it was possible to curve one’s lips upwards in such an empty way at all. The Taguchi Junnosuke he grew up with and vowed to protect was nowhere to be seen - this one did not need protection. Sleek, handsome features still adorned Junno’s face but in an unexplainable way, they seemed different. In a way, the Junno now carried an even more beautiful air, like a frosted rose complete with thorns.
“I’m not so idiotic that I don’t know my duties. It’s children, right?” the young emperor looked up into a patch of bright Hokkaido sky, shielding his eyes from the bright daggers digging in. “Especially under these circumstances. Don’t worry Maru, I won’t cause anyone any problems.”
“The really insane part of me wants to dote on you one more time before you turn into a proper ruler,” Maru ruffled Junno’s hair affectionately, “are you sure you will never regret this love?”
“Not even if it poisons my bones and kills me slowly.”
“Well said Taguchi Junnosuke-sama,” Maru bowed steeply, “remember this feeling and carry it in your heart. This is what happens when you do not have what it takes to protect the ones you love. My later father and I both hope for you to become a man who can carry your own weight and protect what is important to you. The next time you fall in love-
“There will never be a next time.”
“That’s what Jin said when Yamashita Tomohisa left, look at him now.”
A knot began to tighten in the pit of Junno’s stomach.
I know I won’t change… but Tat-chan is so beautiful and so desirable. What happens if he stops loving me?
Ueda listlessly fiddled with his sake cup as the vice-minister of agriculture gave an exceedingly long speech to the newlyweds. Apart from only Junno was there to hear it. Yuri had been directed to the bedroom and was waiting patiently for the entire hubbub to finish.
Ueda was afraid at the rate the old man was going, Yuri would die of dehydration before anyone got out. At least he had some alcohol.
The problem was not that the speech was boring. The problem was that the man with a curious beard was so hilarious and the half-drunk guests kept asking for encores, including regent Imai, which did not help. If Ueda’s lover were not the one in the wedding garb, he would actually be quite interested in the puppet play of vegetables the vice-minister of agriculture was putting on as an ad-lib. He didn’t want to eat his taro root anyway.
Junno seemed quite busy entertaining some Hokkaido court officials, and seemed to be getting along quite well with the semi-intoxicated old men. Watching Junno fixated on politics and none too bothered with the whole situation, Ueda sighed.
“Ne Uchi,” he leaned over to the only other sober person, “how long does it normally take for love to fade?”
“Whose love?” Uchi refilled his cup with rice wine, leaning dangerously close to Ueda. “If we’re talking about yours, I hope it never does.”
“Even you’re trying to talk me into being irresponsible now?” the beautiful king downed another shot, “Not happening.” For just a moment, the burning liquid streaming down his throat provided an antidote to the searing pain further down in his chest. He didn’t want to sit through another second of being in the same room as Junno in wedding clothes.
Glancing over at the special guests, Ueda sighed once more. Ryo and Tegoshi had seemingly made up, were snuggling and whispering sweet nothings to each other as Kame was yelling at the chef for putting the much despised pickled plums into his salad while Jin tried to calm down his boyfriend with a series of back rubs.
Everyone seemed so happy.
His gaze shifted to Junno, who was staring right at him. Gazes met for a split second before they each tore away, hearts thumping. Smoothing down his attire, Junno decided it was time to move on before he was tempted out of it.
He didn’t even remember what he said to get out of the feast, but everybody gave one last toast as he walked towards the inner chambers - right past Ueda’s seat.
He stopped for half a second, thing more. He hoped with all his might, prayed to every god in existence that in half a second, Ueda would grab his sleeved, beg for him not to go and they could bust out of that white prison. Then they would be free, like sparrows in a meadow.
Ueda lifted his hand off the table three inches, and set it back down onto his chopsticks like the thought to grab Junno and making a run for it never crossed his mind at all. When Junno finally walked past him and disappeared into the dark hallway, his fair hands trembled so violently that the silver chopsticks clattered onto and ground to do a few jumps and rolls like a dying fish.
“That was your last chance Uepi,” Uchi fished the chopsticks back up off the wooden floorboards.
Nobody needed to say anything more.
The vegetable play was still commencing, Kame was almost making the chef cry and Ryo had drunk enough to start giving Tegoshi a lap dance to which Jin applauded loudly. Maru looked like they were embarrassing Honshu on a diplomatic level. Of course he was wrong - the Hokkaido administrators were too absorbed in the love triangle between the taro root, potato and bamboo shoot to notice.
Such was the wedding of Honshu’s emperor and Hokkaido’s princess.
A.N..... utter crack for everyone else, while Tat-chan is sitting there, depressed.
Comments are <3 gimme gimme gimme LOL
CHAPTER 60!!!!! OMG OMG OMG
As if hit by an arrow, Kame sat bolt upright at the voice - only to see Maru and an incredibly pissed off Jin standing in the doorway.
“Kame,” an expressionless, butt-naked Ueda complained from under him, “you’re crushing my vital sex organs. Please get off.”
Jin’s left eye started to twitch, much like Maru’s. Maybe it was contagious.
“As much as the situation is inappropriate right now,” Maru stepped forward and dragged the soaking Kame off Ueda, “I’d still like to thank you for coming back.”
“I don’t want anyone else to die for our mistakes Maru.” He grabbed a towel to cover the necessary parts just as guards rushed in at the commotion. “Escort my guests to their rooms please.”
“Do you not have anything left to tell me? Like how you became the king of Hokkaido?” Maru shrugged off the guard who had laid a rough hand on his shoulder.
Ueda smiled sadly. “Do you remember telling me once that it was your father’s dying wish for you to intervene when Junno is about to make a stupid mistake?”
“Of course.”
“Then don’t ask any questions. I don’t even know how or why I am who I am. You are an intelligent man Nakamaru-san. You can see as clearly as I do why this whole marriage needs to be done or nobody leaves here alive.” He waved at the guards to get a move on.
“That’s why…” Maru turned around one last time before the guards ushered them out, “I wanted you to tell me that there is another way.”
Watching the disappearing silhouettes of his friends, Ueda sank back into a puddle on the floor and fiddled with a rose petal miserably.
“There is no… other way.”
“Umm… Your Majesty?” two maids timidly tip-toed beside him with more towels and some clothes, “Please allow us to clothe-
“BOTH OF YOU GET OUT!!” The beautiful king roared with unexplainable fury at the innocent girls, “WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO ENTER?!? I CAN CLOTHE MYSELF SO GET OUT!!!!” He was close to lashing out with a knife.
Tearing the robes from their hands, Ueda gave a dismissive flick of his wrist and the startled maids scuffled out like scared sheep. Only he could look so decidedly terrifying while dripping wet and almost naked on the floor.
The trip out to Sapporo city had given Ueda a sliver of hope that he didn’t want to see… Maru’s words etched even more. There just was no other way.
Dressing himself turned out to be easier than finding the motivation to get off the wet tatami and dragging himself out of the room. At the end he gave up, flopping listlessly onto a patch of dryness, Ueda called for a manservant. “Get this place cleaned, and get rid of the bath tub.”
“Oh this is pathetic…” The voice he least wanted to hear came within earshot, “Can you even PRETEND to be someone who’s being crowned as king tomorrow?”
“I was jumped on while in the bath tub, Yuri,” Ueda didn’t even look up, “can you please leave?”
“I heard from Uchi,” the princess paid no heed and stuck up her nose, “why did you not just elope-
“BECAUSE I WILL NOT HAVE YOUR MOTHER KILLING MY FRIENDS!!”
“Don’t act all great! You just didn’t want ANYTHING to happen to hottie…”
“Either way you win,” Ueda gritted his teeth, “but if you’re here to gloat, right now’s not a good time.”
She sighed and sat down heavily beside the flawless beauty. He could smell the aroma of fried prawns - it was well past dinnertime. “Look I’m sorry for not telling you first about the wedding plan-
“Guess what genius? Too late.”
“It’s not.”
His eyes widened in another impossible hope. “What do you mean?”
“Great job Kame-chan,” Maru looked around at the 30 guards with them in one relatively small room, giving them dirty looks. “I’m going to the garden to cure my claustrophobia.”
Kame observed his slam of the door. It was loud enough to rattle nerves but not enough to suggest the man was ready to hit anyone.
“He’s not happy with me,” he remarked.
“No shit. You jumped on Tat-chan in the bath and now there are like 3 trillion guards with us everywhere we go!”
“Jin my hair is coming off! Kame whined as Jin’s hair-drying became hair-grating instead.
Jin’s pressure on the towel increased. “I have to dry it properly otherwise you’ll catch a cold! Stay still!”
The younger man simply sat and smiled coyly to himself, leaning back into the intimate moment. Maru’s exit had taken most of the guards away, and his next death glare made the rest quickly retreat. Every other time he’d gotten wet from a mission, it was Ryo who told him off like a mother hen and dried him by the fire.
But Jin’s hands felt warmer. The strong palms, calloused from years of sword-wielding, ruffled his slightly brown locks gently and made him purr.
“Ne Kazu?” Jin nuzzled the crook of Kame’s neck, “I’m going to join the secret service when I get back okay?”
“Why suddenly Kazu?” Kame chuckled at the unfamiliar nickname.
“Well everyone calls you Kame and I wanna be special,” Jin licked Kame’s neck teasingly, “and next time I will mark you.”
“Welcome, but really… the secret service? Why?”
“I know it’s impossible to ask you to stop that job so I’m just gonna have to make sure I’m by your side. And plus you can’t talk to anyone about work unless they have also signed the code of secrecy. I hate that.” Jin’s towelling had stopped and he was totally focused on hugging his turtle from behind. “I don’t want you to be alone anymore.”
“Then who’s going to take care of Junno?” Kame asked, “You’re the head of palace security!”
“I can still do that job but I need to be part of your life too. Will you accept my hand in-
The younger man’s eyes almost let out a light of their own in anticipation of what was to come. Or maybe it was tears of joy.
“- will you accept my hand in marriage?”
“….you know everything I’ve done and you still-
“Don’t give a fuck? Indeed I don’t care.”
“Ask the question again Jin… I want to hear it again,” Kame let the streams trail down his cheeks.
“Will you marry me o beautiful one?”
“Of course.”
[Ueda’s room, a few courtyards away]
“Your plan is crazy, it’s going to stuff up and we are all going to get killed for it. Apart from you, of course,” Ueda shook his head in disbelief. He had decided right then that this girl was crazy for coming up with the plan and because only crazy people fall in love with Junno, he also decided that he was crazy too.
For falling in love with Junno, and for secretly thinking the plan might work due to its sheer stupidity.
Yes, since he was crazy, he was allowed to think so secretly
“It’s going to work because of its sheer stupidity,” Yuri shrugged, “what have we got to lose?”
“Apart from our lives, nothing.” The normal, genius Ueda snapped back into reality.
The princess pointed to the handkerchief resting on top of Ueda’s other clothes, still slightly damp from Kame’s splashing. “How long is your life really going to last without him? If you’re dead on the inside, why don’t you do something reckless for once?”
“I can’t… please stop tempting me Yuri. I know you like him and I know you mean well but this is Takuya-san’s country. I can’t just leave it and run for the hills!”
“What about me?! I’d rather not get married to someone foreigner who will NEVER love me! I’ll be cooped up in that palace and everyone is going to hate me for being from Hokkaido and he will NEVER come and see me because he’ll relate me to losing you!”
“Too bad. You should have thought of that when you agreed to marry him,” Ueda shrugged. He knew she was only saying those things for his happiness and refused to budge. Eye already brimming with tears, he stood his ground and forced them back.
She gave up. “At that stage I thought I actually stood a chance against you… Please, just… for all of us!”
“Even if it succeeds, do you think you can pull off surviving the aftermath?!” Ueda turned to stare his half-sister in her eyes. Their eyes really did look alike. Both red, puffy and threatening to overflow.
“To be perfectly honest, you may be talented, beautiful and have the right blood, you don’t love this country. You didn’t grow up here and people don’t respect you. This isn’t something you can learn in a library…”
“Are you implying I will be incompetent as king after you get married?”
“Yes,” she didn’t even try to hide it, “You can rule a country but you will never be able to truly feel a connection. For you, this place is nothing but pain so why the hell are you even bothering?!”
“STOP ASKING ME SUCH OBVIOUS QUESTIONS AND JUST GO AWAY!!” The beautiful man tore out of the room. He slipped once on the still damp tatami but fixed his footsteps and ran like the wind. Yuri followed without faltering, grabbing the handkerchief off the pile of clothing.
They stopped running at Taku’s small shrine. Kneeling down and staring at the engraved kanji filled with molten gold, Ueda clenched his fists in silence as if trying to prove a point.
“This man died for me. I will not let him down. Please leave…”
Yuri threw the hanky so that it covered Taku’s name. “THIS man,” she pointed at the bloodstains on the now off-white silk, “loves you. This man gave up a country, is willing to marry me because YOU want him to and he is probably in his room right now, crying his eyes out. How can you be such a heartless bastard and let him?!”
“JUST LEAVE!!!!!” Ueda stood up and shouted in a blood-chilling scream, swinging his arms in a violent motion towards the open door, the gust of wind blowing the hanky onto the floor.
IF YOU KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS I’M GOING TO CRUMBLE!
Yuri turned on her heels in disgust and strode away with a flick of her sleeve. “Then as you wish Your Majesty,” her voice strained, “I will marry him in two days. But I will have your coronation put off until after the wedding… I don’t’ trust you as a king yet. Have a good hard think about what you actually hold precious in your life before then.”
The princess nearly made it out of the door when Tatsuya bent down to delicately pick up the handkerchief. She rushed back, snatched the piece of embroidered material and held it above her head. “You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve Taguchi-san’s blood and his precious stitching until you sort out your heart!”
In a flurry she was gone.
When the Hokkaido royal family hold weddings, they hold weddings. Maru could not ever have imagined the sheer scale of a project whipped together in less than ten days could be so much grander than when Junno had last gotten married to Ueda. Every white wall in the giant maze of a palace was now painted exquisitely with dainty sakura blossoms, all blowing in the direction of an auspicious, lucky wind. Interiors containing gold gilding had been removed, the gold melted, cleaned and retiled for maximum shine, not to mention the spectacularly white roof tiles had been meticulously scrubbed one by one to welcome this great day in history.
Good Lord if Koki can see this, he’ll go home cursing our palace staff for being incompetent. We planned for months and couldn’t even get this far…
Maru chuckled dryly. The groom-to-be beside him was clinging onto his arm like a spoilt baby, face set in iron.
“Junno for the sake of politics please TRY to look remotely happy?” he tried uselessly, earning a stony glare. “Fine then, but promise me if you get drunk at the formal dinner and the princess doesn’t want to have sex, don’t force her.”
“Maru that’s disgusting! Who do you take me for?!” Junno recoiled in shock, “My heart belongs to Tat-chan and no-one else! You KNOW that!”
The serious man put both his hands on Junno’s shoulders and gazed deep into his hazel orbs. “I know this is tough on you. That’s why I’m allowing such words right now… Remember, you are the emperor of Honshu, not a normal person. The term ‘Tat-chan’ must be erased from your dictionary as soon as you set foot inside that bedroom chamber do you understand?”
He did not expect Junno to straighten, nod slowly and smile with no expression.
In fact, he did not know it was possible to curve one’s lips upwards in such an empty way at all. The Taguchi Junnosuke he grew up with and vowed to protect was nowhere to be seen - this one did not need protection. Sleek, handsome features still adorned Junno’s face but in an unexplainable way, they seemed different. In a way, the Junno now carried an even more beautiful air, like a frosted rose complete with thorns.
“I’m not so idiotic that I don’t know my duties. It’s children, right?” the young emperor looked up into a patch of bright Hokkaido sky, shielding his eyes from the bright daggers digging in. “Especially under these circumstances. Don’t worry Maru, I won’t cause anyone any problems.”
“The really insane part of me wants to dote on you one more time before you turn into a proper ruler,” Maru ruffled Junno’s hair affectionately, “are you sure you will never regret this love?”
“Not even if it poisons my bones and kills me slowly.”
“Well said Taguchi Junnosuke-sama,” Maru bowed steeply, “remember this feeling and carry it in your heart. This is what happens when you do not have what it takes to protect the ones you love. My later father and I both hope for you to become a man who can carry your own weight and protect what is important to you. The next time you fall in love-
“There will never be a next time.”
“That’s what Jin said when Yamashita Tomohisa left, look at him now.”
A knot began to tighten in the pit of Junno’s stomach.
I know I won’t change… but Tat-chan is so beautiful and so desirable. What happens if he stops loving me?
Ueda listlessly fiddled with his sake cup as the vice-minister of agriculture gave an exceedingly long speech to the newlyweds. Apart from only Junno was there to hear it. Yuri had been directed to the bedroom and was waiting patiently for the entire hubbub to finish.
Ueda was afraid at the rate the old man was going, Yuri would die of dehydration before anyone got out. At least he had some alcohol.
The problem was not that the speech was boring. The problem was that the man with a curious beard was so hilarious and the half-drunk guests kept asking for encores, including regent Imai, which did not help. If Ueda’s lover were not the one in the wedding garb, he would actually be quite interested in the puppet play of vegetables the vice-minister of agriculture was putting on as an ad-lib. He didn’t want to eat his taro root anyway.
Junno seemed quite busy entertaining some Hokkaido court officials, and seemed to be getting along quite well with the semi-intoxicated old men. Watching Junno fixated on politics and none too bothered with the whole situation, Ueda sighed.
“Ne Uchi,” he leaned over to the only other sober person, “how long does it normally take for love to fade?”
“Whose love?” Uchi refilled his cup with rice wine, leaning dangerously close to Ueda. “If we’re talking about yours, I hope it never does.”
“Even you’re trying to talk me into being irresponsible now?” the beautiful king downed another shot, “Not happening.” For just a moment, the burning liquid streaming down his throat provided an antidote to the searing pain further down in his chest. He didn’t want to sit through another second of being in the same room as Junno in wedding clothes.
Glancing over at the special guests, Ueda sighed once more. Ryo and Tegoshi had seemingly made up, were snuggling and whispering sweet nothings to each other as Kame was yelling at the chef for putting the much despised pickled plums into his salad while Jin tried to calm down his boyfriend with a series of back rubs.
Everyone seemed so happy.
His gaze shifted to Junno, who was staring right at him. Gazes met for a split second before they each tore away, hearts thumping. Smoothing down his attire, Junno decided it was time to move on before he was tempted out of it.
He didn’t even remember what he said to get out of the feast, but everybody gave one last toast as he walked towards the inner chambers - right past Ueda’s seat.
He stopped for half a second, thing more. He hoped with all his might, prayed to every god in existence that in half a second, Ueda would grab his sleeved, beg for him not to go and they could bust out of that white prison. Then they would be free, like sparrows in a meadow.
Ueda lifted his hand off the table three inches, and set it back down onto his chopsticks like the thought to grab Junno and making a run for it never crossed his mind at all. When Junno finally walked past him and disappeared into the dark hallway, his fair hands trembled so violently that the silver chopsticks clattered onto and ground to do a few jumps and rolls like a dying fish.
“That was your last chance Uepi,” Uchi fished the chopsticks back up off the wooden floorboards.
Nobody needed to say anything more.
The vegetable play was still commencing, Kame was almost making the chef cry and Ryo had drunk enough to start giving Tegoshi a lap dance to which Jin applauded loudly. Maru looked like they were embarrassing Honshu on a diplomatic level. Of course he was wrong - the Hokkaido administrators were too absorbed in the love triangle between the taro root, potato and bamboo shoot to notice.
Such was the wedding of Honshu’s emperor and Hokkaido’s princess.
A.N..... utter crack for everyone else, while Tat-chan is sitting there, depressed.
Comments are <3 gimme gimme gimme LOL