JE-united surprise fic for xdestroying 3/9
-then-
Mita Palace
Keio, Kingdom of Minato
Nishikiori-san the head butler is fuming as always, clapping his hands for the footmen to get moving. It’s no secret in the servants’ hall that Princess Eriko’s violin skills are lacking, and the distinguished guests will want to reward themselves for enduring her performance. Which means that the appetizer trays need to be in the ballroom…now.
His mother’s upstairs already, out of the way and unobtrusive as always, but ready to swoop into action if the Queen has need of her. Kusanagi-san, one of the younger footmen, nudges Jun with his tray when he comes back into the hall to bring up the next round of treats that Cook and her staff are making. “Be lucky you’re down here, Jun-chan.”
He’s thirteen years old, and the way they still baby him here in the hall irritates him. “I can carry a tray just as good as you can.”
Kusanagi ruffles his hair and hurries off, leaving Jun alone at the table. His position in the servants’ hall has always been a strange one. The youngest scullery maid is of an age with him, but they don’t live in the servants’ quarters. They stay with their families in town and will only move in when they’re old enough to be full-time kitchen maids or housemaids. None of the footmen are younger than eighteen. But then of course, Jun is no ordinary servant.
His mother Hana came from Chiba with Queen Kanako, having been her lady’s maid since the Queen was a teenager. His mother’s pregnancy was grounds for dismissal, but the Queen had refused to part with her. Thus Jun became the first baby born in the servants’ hall in decades. And despite protocol, the Queen’s enduring favor for Matsumoto Hana meant that Jun had been raised alongside her own children. He’s always slept in the servants’ quarters, has always taken his meals there, but at the same time, Crown Prince Sho is the only friend of an age with him that he has.
Crown Prince Sho who is upstairs right now, probably hiding his snickering behind his hand while his younger sister butchers some sonata or other. Jun’s been granted special privileges today. Instead of cleaning the hall at his usual time, he’s been given permission to watch Sho-kun’s performance. It’s a small affair by normal standards, a gathering of about fifty nobles to celebrate the second anniversary of Minato’s participation in the Western War.
Sho’s father had signed a treaty with the Kingdom of Kansai before Sho or Jun had been born, saying they would aid one another if either country went to war. It’s been two years, two long years, and thousands of Minato soldiers have given their lives for a “cause that isn’t theirs,” or so say the newspapers that some of the footmen sneak in. Jun could report them for reading such seditious newsletters, for reading essays that call for the King to step down (or be forced out) for pushing the country into a war it can’t afford.
“These are things we cannot comment on,” his mother has said to him again and again. The King is always right, such is the law of the land. To have ignored the treaty would have been dishonorable. Honor, Matsumoto Hana says, is something King Hiroki values above all else. Jun doesn’t understand much of it, since politics are not a matter for the servants, but Sho is angry about it. He’s angry that at fourteen, he is still excluded from his father’s war councils. He’s angry that he doesn’t know everything that’s going on and has to instead perform for the nobles.
“He’s showing me off like I’m his pet,” Sho had complained to Jun the night before.
It’s nearly an hour before Nishikiori-san grants Jun permission to go upstairs, where he stands behind the tables full of appetizers and sweets. Dressed in his finest jacket and slacks, his hair oiled and slicked back, he cannot see the piano from where he is, but he knows that he’s late. He spies his mother nearby, holding the baby. Prince Ryota, for once, isn’t screaming his little baby head off.
He’s listened to Sho practice for nearly three weeks, the piano teacher stopping him again and again to offer corrections. Sho has a very short temper, something that Jun finds annoying about him. But today, he can’t hear any mistakes coming from the piano. Even though he’s mad about it, he’ll never show it when there’s a crowd. If only the nobles knew how grumpy their Crown Prince could be.
When Sho finishes, there’s the slightest parting of the crowd, the nobles applauding their Prince and his musical talents graciously. Unlike Eriko, they probably aren’t just clapping to be polite this time. Jun’s able to bend a little, straining his neck to look between a few members of the crowd to the center of the ballroom where Sho, dressed in a fine suit and wearing a red sash with his family’s crest, is bowing. Eventually Sho turns, directing his attention toward him. He straightens up, offering a wave that some nobleman thinks is meant for him. Jun doesn’t dare wave back, but he smiles from ear to ear.
As soon as the applause dies down, Jun picks up an empty tray and heads back for the kitchens with it. The performances are over, and now the King will make some speeches. Jun changes into his livery, into his suit jacket with the Sakurai family crest that denotes him once again as a servant. He spends the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening being ordered around by Nishikiori-san.
He’s exhausted when he heads for bed, his mother most likely in the nursery with the Queen, tending to the baby prince. There’s a tap on the door shortly after he’s put out the light, and he grumbles, getting to his feet. What’s he forgotten to do now? But when he grabs his glasses from the bedside table and opens the door, it’s Sho.
They sneak through the servants’ stairwells, the secret routes that Jun taught Sho years earlier, arriving back in the ballroom. It’s empty now, silent as a tomb, and Sho shoves him when his slippers scuff against the floor. “Take them off, dummy.”
Jun rolls his eyes, but obeys. Moonlight shines through the large windows of the ballroom, breaking up the shadows. The piano has been moved back to the music room, leaving the room empty. Sho takes his usual seat at the far end of the room, plopping down on the throne. Jun takes his usual place on the stairs in front of him, yawning. Most of Sho’s complaints, at least the ones he shares with Jun, are about how powerless he feels. The heir to a country and he knows so little about governing. Jun sometimes wonders how much Sho knows about the world beyond Mita Palace, the riots in the street, the protests against the war. It’s something they don’t talk about, because Jun figures his mother has super hearing when it comes to topics he should avoid.
Sho sits on his father’s throne in his pajamas, slouching. “I’m glad that’s over. I hate playing the piano.”
“No you don’t,” Jun shoots back.
Sho laughs. “Shut up.”
Sho is mean to him sometimes, lets out his frustrations on Jun. When they were kids, Sho had pushed him once and he’d fallen, breaking his wrist. When they were kids, Jun forgave him. Now he just deals with it, feels far more mature than his friend. Sho’s under a lot of pressure, but Jun’s not his punching bag anymore. One of these days, he thinks Sho will figure it out, will respect him more. After all, he’s the only friend Sho has, and Sho probably knows it. With the war on, Sho hasn’t been sent off to private school as planned, for fear he might be kidnapped by Kansai’s enemies. Instead he’s being tutored, all but trapped in the palace with nothing to do but give piano recitals by day and defiantly sit in his father’s place at night, ranting about all the injustices he endures.
“You did good. I didn’t hear you screw up once,” Jun says.
Sho crosses his arms, cocking his head. “High praise from you, Matsumoto-kun.”
Jun grins. In the daylight, Jun must defer to Sho. He must bow low to him, address him as “Your Highness” and never speak before being spoken to. It’s Jun who wakes before dawn to light the fire in Sho’s bedchamber, a task that belonged to the housemaids but that he’d asked for and received. Jun’s ambitions are high. With his education, being allowed to sit in on so many of Sho’s lessons, he believes he would be an excellent member of Sho’s future staff of advisors. After all, he’s spent so many hours of his life listening to Sho complain. And if his birth denies him such a position, he figures Sho can find a way around that. Sho will need friends in the days to come.
Though he’s technically just a servant, by night he is the confidante of the future king. By night, he’s free to speak his mind. He’s free to call Sho by name, something Sho’s insisted on since they were Eriko’s age.
“I wish you could have stayed,” Sho admits. “My mother made me speak with the Duchess of Atago again.”
“Eww,” Jun says, laughing. “The old lady with the bad breath?”
“She’s a warmonger, the old bat,” Sho replies. “I have to give her compliments so she’ll keep funding the war, you see. ‘Oh, my dear Duchess, all the makeup you’re wearing makes you look like less of a corpse than usual.’”
“She probably wants to marry you, with the sweet things you say.”
Sho makes a gagging noise. The only good thing about the war is that his betrothal has been postponed. The last thing Sho wants to think about is which foreign princess or highborn Minato lady he’ll have to marry someday. Sho starts another of his rants, about each of the nobles who fawned over him, hoping to curry favor. Like always, Sho talks and talks and talks, letting out everything he kept inside all day. The words only Jun is allowed to hear.
Jun lies on his back, the cold floor under him, dozing off to the sound of Sho’s complaints.
-now-
Takamatsu Residence Block 9
Keio, Workers’ Republic of Minato
Koya paced back and forth, feeling that one of these days the rug would shred under his feet. “The name again?”
Matsumoto, sitting at the table, was astonishingly calm. “Kamenashi.”
“Kamenashi,” Koya repeated.
Matsumoto cocked his head, grinning. “A hint?”
“I don’t need a hint,” Koya snapped. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d been rude to the man all day. “I’m sorry.”
“Kamenashi,” Matsumoto said once more. “We’ve got time.”
Koya stopped his pacing, exhaling. His feet ached from the effort of so many quick steps, doing his best to hide his limp. To hide the stiffness in his shoulder. If Ninomiya and Matsumoto had noticed his pain, they hadn’t yet commented on it. Two long weeks, mostly shut up in their apartment. Ninomiya took him out during the day when he wasn’t busy with his criminal enterprise, with working on their travel papers. Koya relished the trips to the public baths, getting out into the chilly air. It was February now, still bitterly cold, but at least the cold air reminded him there was more to the world than Takamatsu Residence Block.
All his years at Gyoranzaka, he’d walked the grounds. Shoveling the snow in winter, pulling weeds and cutting the grass in summer. Putting his hands to work by helping the kitchen staff to carry food into the dining hall. Koya didn’t like to be idle. He technically wasn’t idle, shut in the apartment with Matsumoto Jun night after night, but it was only his brain that was being put to work. A brain that simply wasn’t holding on to the information Matsumoto was telling him.
He’d been a good student initially. Matsumoto was an exacting instructor, teaching him proper table manners. Koya had picked it up fast, some of it almost like muscle memory. Matsumoto had moved on from that to basic court decorum, to how things had worked in Mita Palace. His mind was swimming with all the rules, so much that he was dreaming of them. He had dreams of the palace, walking its rooms, shouting orders to staff. The hours of lessons were staying with him even when he wasn’t awake.
But now as their second week of “school” was winding down, as Koya’s thirty-fourth birthday had come and gone, he was starting to hit a wall. Now that the “basics” were out of the way, Matsumoto was drilling him about noble families. There was no way Koya could march into Prince Masaki’s parlor and not know who these people were. He had to be believable. He had to become Sakurai Sho, who would know the Duke of Such-and-such’s family going back generations. He had to know at least the leading handful of families in Chiba as well, simply because Sakurai’s mother had been from there and he would have known them.
All these years, Koya had coped with pain, with his cramped life under the stairwell, but now, released from that simple life, he was discovering a lack of patience. He’d endured the boys’ teasing, the staff’s irritation over his nightmares. But now that Koya was being asked to step up, to actually use his brain rather than his body, he wasn’t succeeding. The frustration made him lash out again and again at Matsumoto Jun, who demanded more and more of him each day.
“Kamenashi,” Koya said. “The Kamenashi family is from…the east.”
“Correct,” Matsumoto acknowledged. Hours upon hours they’d been in this room together, sharing meals, and still Koya didn’t know what Matsumoto really thought of him. He was a serious man, rising early for his job, working and then coming home to devote all of his free time to Koya’s training. Even when Koya grew defiant, telling Matsumoto they were moving too quickly, that he had a hard enough time retaining what had already been taught, Matsumoto refused to quit. Matsumoto’s stubbornness was a match for Koya’s, but Matsumoto had never actually yelled at him.
But his disappointment was obvious when Koya forgot names, places, events. He wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t chastise him for forgetting, but his face was an open book. He had large, expressive eyes, and Koya now understood when Matsumoto was angry, was frustrated. When Koya begged for a break, to talk of something that wasn’t the name of some Mita Palace footman from when Sho was a child, Matsumoto’s upper lip would curl the slightest bit.
It was best when Ninomiya was around, or Nino as he preferred Koya to call him. Nino had none of Matsumoto’s stoicism, making constant jokes to ease the tension palpable in the air after a difficult few hours of lessons. It was Nino who could get his friend to ease off, to give Koya a break.
“Kamenashi, they fled Minato before the revolt. One of the only noble families to survive,” Koya remembered.
“Correct.”
“Originally a family of…merchants, but raised to noble status by…Sho’s grandfather.”
“My.”
He looked at Matsumoto, who had that frustrated look in his face again. “What?”
“Say ‘my grandfather.’ It’ll stick better. Take possession of it.”
Koya bit his lip. How many times had he been told this? It was so strange to say it. But to avoid his teacher’s wrath any further, he played along. “My grandfather raised them to noble status. At the time of the revolt, the Kamenashi family was headed by Seiichi…”
“Right.”
“He had…” Koya shut his eyes, thinking. “Four sons.”
“Their names?”
“Yuichiro…Koji…and the youngest was Yuya.”
Matsumoto leaned forward, covering the book Nino had managed to find for them. It was a guidebook to the royal and aristocratic families of Minato, a musty book that Nino had purchased from a rare bookseller once they’d decided to find someone to train for their plot. The book was mostly up to date, Matsumoto believed, though he’d had to fill in a few names from his own memory. “The third son?”
Koya’s head ached, trying to remember all these names. But it came to him in a flash. “Kazuya.”
Matsumoto sighed. “No.”
“I’m right.”
“It’s not Kazuya,” Matsumoto insisted.
“It is, though,” Koya snapped.
Finally, Matsumoto’s seemingly endless well of patience had dried up. He shoved the book across the table. “Look at the family tree, Koya-san. It’s not Kazuya.”
Koya, feeling as though he might punch a wall if Matsumoto provoked him further, walked over and dropped to his knees, facing the man across the table. He examined the Kamenashi family tree, the family crest with the turtle against a blue backdrop. Four sons. Yuichiro, Koji, and Yuya…and then the two characters of the third son’s name. “It’s Kazuya.”
“It’s Kazunari,” Matsumoto said, raising his voice for the first time. “It’s the same characters as Nino’s first name. Of the four of them, this should be the easiest for you to remember! It’s Kazunari, look again.”
Koya shoved the book back across the table so hard that Matsumoto barely had enough time to move his teacup out of the way. “It’s the same characters, but you read the third Kamenashi son’s name as Kazuya. I’m right about this. The kid’s name was Kazuya. He was skinny as a reed!”
Matsumoto said nothing for a moment, pure shock registering on his face. Koya winced, his shoulder aching from the quick movement, lashing out and pushing the book. He’d gone almost a full month without his pain cream, and one of these days he was going to have to ask Nino to procure some. It was only making his lessons with Matsumoto all the more difficult.
He was breathing heavily, so furious he was about ready to pull on his boots and leave. “His name was Kazuya.”
Matsumoto’s voice was barely a whisper. “But I never told you that.” His fingers were shaking, and he let them drift over the book of families. “I taught you Kazunari.”
“Then you read it wrong,” Koya said, trying to calm himself. “It was your mistake.”
Matsumoto, who’d been so demanding, so insistent all this time, was stunned. “How do you know he was skinny?”
Koya shrugged. Matsumoto, despite his place among the servants, knew what several of the nobles of Minato had looked like. If he hadn’t seen them, Sakurai Sho had often described them to him. “You must have told me.”
Matsumoto opened the book again, eyeing Koya with confusion. He looked at the Kamenashi family tree one last time. “It can be read both ways, you’re right.” He got to his feet. “But I never told you what they looked like.”
“Matsumoto-san?”
He headed for the kitchen. “We’ll take a break. I’ll make us something to eat. We’re both exhausted.”
“Matsumoto-san, you probably just forgot that you told me.” Because there it was, in Koya’s head. He knew with a certainty that the third son was Kazuya. He knew with a certainty that he had been a very thin boy, with a long face and a square jaw. Matsumoto had told him that, just as Matsumoto had told him so many other little things that would strengthen his case if Prince Masaki started quizzing him.
Matsumoto was opening cupboards, making considerable noise as he set a pot on the stovetop, opening the icebox to search for something to cook.
“Matsumoto-san,” Koya mumbled, all his rage slipping away as he saw how shaken Matsumoto was. “You must have told me. You probably forgot.”
When he received no further reply, he lay back against the rug, staring up at the ceiling, knowing their lessons were at an end for the day.
-
Mita Shopping Arcade
Keio, Workers’ Republic of Minato
It was his day off, and he needed to breathe. These last few weeks if he wasn’t in the truck, puttering through the narrow streets, he was cooped up in the apartment with Yoshimoto Koya. And if there was a face he was tired of seeing, it was the one belonging to Yoshimoto Koya. But there was no escape, at least not today.
It was a Sunday morning, and there’d been snow the last several days. Jun had nearly crashed the truck a few times, skidding on ice as he made his deliveries. Now it had finally cleared, and Jun needed to be outside. Unfortunately, Nino had chosen that very same Sunday to meet with one of his contacts. Koyama-san was a pencil pusher at the Transportation Bureau who often supplied him with up-to-date stamps to use in his forgeries. Today Nino’s plan was to get Koyama to get him inside the deserted bureau offices, making up some lie or other about the Keio Bay ferries and the stamps required. He’d then somehow filch what he needed for the railway instead, leaving his source none the wiser to his real plan.
It all sounded dangerous, but Nino seemed to get off on things like that, using his wits and his charm to talk some mild-mannered civil servant into committing treason. Nino knew just the people to pick - the ones who weren’t married with small children, the ones who had just been passed up for a promotion by one of their juniors. The ones who were angry, malleable, with far less to lose by working with him. In exchange, Koyama-san was getting a Ninomiya special, a work permit for his sister, who’d had trouble finding employment after having a baby. She’d be assigned to a factory with humane hours within the week.
With Nino out for the day, it was left to Jun to keep an eye on their guest. Jun would have preferred to leave the man behind in the apartment or let him wander Keio on his own, but the closer their departure day came, the more anxious Nino was to not let him out of their sight. Half the furniture in the apartment was already sold and gone, including most of Jun’s cookware. They were surviving on the food remaining in their kitchen, mainly rice and the occasional salmon fillet Jun brought home from work.
“We’ve made an investment in this person. I’m not letting you fuck this up because he’s sick of your lessons,” Nino whispered to him in the bedroom at night. Jun usually just turned over in his futon, enjoying its comforts. One of these days he was going to come home and find that Nino had sold all their bedding, and that was not going to be a happy day for him.
After almost a month of training, of every night spent learning the names of fifth cousins twice removed from the Minato Peerage Guidebook, Yoshimoto Koya was a walking encyclopedia of the fallen aristocracy. Though at first Jun had had to truly push him, Yoshimoto often surprised him with how much he’d picked up. For someone who’d spent the last fifteen years doing manual labor instead of reading treatises, he was sharp. Remarkably intelligent. And sometimes, what he knew was something he hadn’t been taught. At least not by Jun.
Jun had been especially wary of the man the last two weeks. It was clear that he wasn’t sneaking out to some library to hunt down old newspaper clippings. He was either with Nino or with him, twenty-four hours a day. As time went on, Yoshimoto often got that sheepish look on his face, that strange look in his eyes. “I don’t know, Matsumoto-san, you must have told me!” How many times had Jun heard that line now? It sent a shiver down his spine each and every time.
The first few times it had startled him, but that was all it had done. Jun worked hard. Jun worked long hours. Coming home from that, exhausted, only to force himself to stay awake, eyes burning and body hunched over books on etiquette…perhaps he really had told Yoshimoto these things. Between this and that cousin, this and that member of the kitchen staff, the twentieth reminder of Queen Kanako’s date of birth, maybe even Jun forgot what he had and hadn’t told him.
But it kept happening. Yoshimoto Koya knew things that an ordinary soldier and laborer wouldn’t. He’d even corrected Jun a few times. “No,” Yoshimoto would say, “I’m sorry, but you unfold the napkin on your lap this way during a formal banquet.”
“How can you possibly know that?” Jun would reply.
“Maybe I read it,” Yoshimoto said with a dismissive wave, and that was the only other explanation provided.
With each day that passed, with each nightmare Jun woke him from, with each thing Yoshimoto Koya knew without Jun having to explain it, Jun started to wonder if he was going mad. “You said so yourself,” Nino reminded him. “You said you saw them. All of them. You saw them dead.”
“I thought I did,” Jun would whisper back, grateful for the darkness so Nino wouldn’t see the doubt in his face, the fear in his eyes. “I swear…”
“Ah, maybe our Yoshimo-chan is a ghost then,” Nino would tease, and Jun knew Nino didn’t care one way or another who Yoshimoto Koya really was.
But Jun did. Jun found that after a month of this, a month of sharing close quarters with the man who wore Sho’s face, he found that he cared way too much. He was letting Yoshimoto Koya get under his skin. He was giving in to what he’d probably wanted all along, what he’d spent years hoping for. That Sakurai Sho hadn’t died in that house. That somehow, against the odds, he’d survived. Yoshimoto Koya was the same age, looked just like Sho, and he had the most convenient amnesia imaginable, forgetting everything that had happened before he was eighteen.
The signs had been there, all along. The nightmares, the headaches, the untaught knowledge, but Jun had been so certain that his own memories were correct, that they were real. What he had seen at Sakura House that day, he’d been carrying it for fifteen years. If Sho had somehow survived that, if he or any of the others had still been alive when Jun had turned his back and run away…
They were in the shopping arcade, breaths visible in the cold air as they walked past vegetable stalls and butcher shops. Yoshimoto walked slower than Jun did, but all this time he’d been too proud to tell him or Nino why it was that he limped and tried to hide it, why he carried himself so strangely at times. Nino refused to ask, saying only a soldier could ask another soldier what had happened to him. Jun knew it was far too late to ask, after a month of sharing meals with him. Yoshimoto even sequestered himself when bathing at the bath house, Nino told Jun, waiting for others to leave before entering the changing room. Whatever he was hiding, he intended to keep it that way.
Jun didn’t slow down, if only because he knew it would piss Yoshimoto off. There was a stubborn streak in him a mile wide, and it had only grown more noticeable the longer he stayed. He was unfailingly polite, grateful for his meals and helping out in the apartment with more than his fair share of cleaning and chores. But sometimes he’d get a look in his eyes, something that reminded Jun so much of the looks that Sho saved for his tutor back then, for his mother when she’d wanted to press him about his marriage prospects. Yoshimoto would make that look and Jun would want to shake him, strike him, ask him how he’d forgotten who he was.
“You’re Sakurai Sho!” Jun would scream at him, if he could gather the courage. “Just admit it!”
He was stuck with Yoshimoto for the day. They were surrounded by stalls full of treats at exhorbitant prices, his stomach growling at every pastry he saw after so many weeks on a boring diet. All the money he earned went into the coffee tin on the shelf in their kitchen, the “Chiba Fund,” as Nino called it. Yoshimoto had talked about his life at the boys’ home a lot during meal times lately, about how they relied on government money, about how he lived on rice and noodles and tinned vegetables for weeks. As they walked through the arcade, Yoshimoto’s breath coming in harsher spurts as he tired from hurrying after Jun, he wanted to just dig a few coins from his pocket and buy an overpriced roll or some daifuku.
Instead they just kept walking, Jun determined to make it in time. He had only told Yoshimoto that he was going for a walk, but he had something else to do that day. They hadn’t announced it in the newspaper, most likely to ensure that a very large crowd wouldn’t gather. But Ohno had learned of it through one of the men in the warehouse, whose brother worked on a demolition crew. Today was the day General Higashiyama’s government was going to wipe Mita Palace from the map of Keio, one final nail in the monarchy’s coffin.
For Jun, it simply meant that the place where he’d been born, the place where he’d grown up, was going to disappear, and he needed to see it for himself. As they worked their way out of the marketplace, heading northwest to the fenced perimeter of the palace, Yoshimoto didn’t seem to be working as hard to keep pace with him. But Jun didn’t care. Though there’d been no advertisements about it, there were hundreds of people ringing the fence, standing outside the chained front gate. According to the posted signs, trespassers would be shot without mercy. The building would be imploded within the hour, and the fence, about 500 meters from the building, was the closest anyone would be allowed to stand.
With most of the onlookers gathered to watch the once elegant front facade of Mita Palace tumble, Jun had other ideas. He said nothing to Yoshimoto, heading around, walking past soldiers with rifles, to the other side where the kitchens and servants’ quarters were somewhat visible through the barren trees. He found an empty place at one of the barricades, Yoshimoto coming to stand beside him in silence. Together they watched crews work, performing final checks on the dynamite they’d placed strategically around the site. All glass had been removed since he and Nino had found Yoshimoto that night, the palace probably stripped of anything that might shoot out and strike the crowd during the implosion.
As the time drew nearer, soldiers on horseback served as crowd control, forcing those who didn’t have a place at the front gate to fan out and surround the entire perimeter. As more people joined them, Jun found himself pressed closer to Yoshimoto, their arms touching as people bustled around them. To Jun’s other side, a pair of curious teenagers whispered to each other, giggling that the General’s men had probably not told the homeless people inside about the demolition. Jun held his tongue, wishing they’d just shut up.
The crews cleared out, heading for the rear gate. Announcements went out, a five minute warning to clear the premises. Jun heard the soldiers shouting for people to stay behind the barricades, to not hold children up on their shoulders in case of flying debris. A man pushed up behind Jun, squeezing in between him and the obnoxious teenagers. It pushed him closer to Yoshimoto, and he stiffened a little at the contact. It was a cold day, but with all the warm, bundled-up bodies around them, Jun felt a bit hot.
He took his final glances at the place that had been his home, a place where he’d experienced both highs and lows. He thought of the room he’d shared with his mother. He thought of the things he’d left behind, when he believed that the move to Sakura House was only temporary. Small things like the stuffed rabbit his mother had bought for him when he was a baby. Some of the books he’d been allowed to borrow from the royal library. He couldn’t help but incline his head, thinking of all the people who’d served at the palace, the men and women who’d worked beside him. Thanking them, missing them.
Somewhere there was a platform and someone shouting through a megaphone. A countdown started. When the countdown reached the final ten seconds, he looked beside him and saw Yoshimoto Koya with tears streaming down his face, his lower lip quivering. He was lost. He was somewhere else. He was someone else. Impulsively, Jun reached out, wrapping his gloved fingers around Yoshimoto’s wrist. “Sho-kun,” he exhaled, barely able to speak when the dynamite blew.
Several people in the crowd screamed in surprise. The countdown had been off by a few seconds. The charges went off in quick succession, one blast after another. With precision the stone crumbled, each wing of the once grand palace tumbling down. As soon as the walls fell, clouds of dust formed, shrouding the building as it met its end. At some point, perhaps during one of the dynamite blasts, Yoshimoto had pulled his arm away from Jun.
Embarrassed, Jun looked away from him, trying to calm down. He held on to the barricade before him instead, waiting for the dust to clear, to look through the fence and past the trees to see that it was truly gone. When it finally cleared, when there were no walls to be seen, the voice came through the megaphone again, asking that people please leave the area so the first trucks could come in and start clearing the site. It had taken less than a minute for Jun’s childhood home to be blasted apart, to become rubble.
When there was finally breathing room up at the front of the barricades, as the crowd departed, Jun still couldn’t look at him. The haunted look in Yoshimoto’s face, he doubted he’d ever forget it. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. He pushed it all down, shoved it all away.
“It’s cold out here,” Jun said, only loud enough so Yoshimoto heard him. “We could take the train back.”
Yoshimoto just nodded.
They walked to the station in silence, Jun paying for two tokens. The underground train cars with their usual stink of burning petrol were nearly empty, but still Yoshimoto sat right beside him, staring straight ahead as the train clattered along to their stop. Jun imagined Nino saying something like “maybe Yoshimo-chan hates to see things blasted with dynamite,” just to be an asshole and ignore what was staring them right in the face.
That whether he knew it or not, whether he’d accept it or not, the person who’d woken up in that hospital fifteen years ago had not been named Yoshimoto Koya at all.
-then-
“You have to be quiet!”
“Sorry!”
He’s not supposed to come this way. He’s been told it’s beneath him, to come this way. Everyone is to come to him. One day this will all belong to him. Every brick, every tile. But for now, he doesn’t care if it’s beneath him. Sneaking out, it’s the best trick he’s learned.
But gosh, the other boy’s always so heavy on his feet. Aren’t people like him supposed to be quiet?
“Come on, I’ll show you,” he whispers, taking the younger boy by the hand. You don’t touch these people, you never touch these people. They exist to serve you. They’re not your friends.
They have to be even quieter once they get to the floor where his bedchamber is. There’s usually someone patrolling, but he knows the timing. He tugs the boy along, opening the door. They close it quickly. He made sure the curtains were closed before he snuck out, so nobody would see that he still had a few lights on. Bedtime was three hours ago, and he’s no dummy.
“Here,” he says, gesturing to the desk. “It’s over here.”
But when he turns, he sees the look on the other boy’s face. Even though he’s been in here before, once or twice, it still surprises him. He’s standing there with his mouth open like a dead fish. He can’t help laughing when the boy declares that “your bed’s huge!”
“Of course it is,” he answers. “Get over here, or I’ll call the guard and say you were trying to steal.”
The boy’s eyes widen, and he knows it’s a mean thing to say. He knows it’s a terrible thing to say. He always knows, but only after he says it. The threat is enough to make the boy hurry over to his side, his eyes already filling with tears. Gosh, he’s such a crybaby. He’s eight years old, why’s he still such a crybaby?
“I’m just kidding,” he says, not apologizing. You don’t apologize to these people, you never apologize to these people. They exist to serve you. They’re not your friends. “Here, look. It just came today!”
Sensei had brought it for him, and he’d spent almost the entire day putting it together. He’d only just finished it after bedtime, sticking the thing on the front. The propeller, it’s called. The boy leans forward, squinting. He didn’t have time to grab his glasses because he didn’t want to wake up his mother. “What is it?”
“An aeroplane, don’t you know what an aeroplane is?”
The boy shakes his head, leaning so close that his nose is almost poking the tail of the model.
“They have them in Chiba, you know. You sit here,” he explains, pointing to the clear plastic bubble on the top that the kit instructions called a cockpit. “You sit here and that’s how you drive it. Sensei says you have to drive it really fast so it will lift off the ground.”
“No way,” the other boy says, doubtful.
“Sensei’s a lot smarter than you. You don’t know anything except how to scrub the floor, huh?”
He sees the boy’s hand turn into a fist. He can just tell the boy wants to smash the model, to fight back, but he never does. Instead he just cries silently.
“We don’t have aeroplanes here yet,” he continues, ignoring the pathetic baby sniffles beside him. “This here is the engine, and it costs a lot of money to make one. I think they only have a few of them in Chiba as it is. Papa says the train’s good enough for now, but he’s lying. I bet he wants a hundred, but he’d have to raise taxes and people don’t like that.”
He picks up the empty box for the model, holding it out.
“Look at the box, you really think it’s not real?”
The boy takes the box in his shaking hands. “I don’t know.”
“Well if we can’t have one, then we’ll go see one sometime. We’ll go to Chiba.”
“It’s far,” the boy says.
“You think Sakura House is far,” he scoffs in reply. “We’ll see it together. An aeroplane. Then when you see it with your own eyes you’ll know that Sensei was right.”
“Okay.”
He holds out his pinky. “It’s a promise.”
The other boy, eyes red from crying, hooks their pinky fingers together. You don’t touch these people, you never touch these people. They exist to serve you. They’re not your friends.
For the first time that night, the other boy smiles.
Part Four