—then—

Mita Palace
Keio, Kingdom of Minato

It’s rare, a day where his mother doesn’t once leave his side. He wakes from feverish dreams to see her still sitting with him, humming gently as she wipes his face with a cool cloth. The influenza outbreak has finally reached Keio, and it’s no secret that the death toll is rising. Jun is fourteen, and he’d normally be rather embarrassed to be coddled so, but he feels so miserable that he welcomes his mother’s tender loving care.

The palace is mostly locked down now that the sickness has reached the servants’ quarters. The King is off in Kansai with his advisors and war council, so it’s only the Queen and the children at the palace. As far as Jun’s been told, they’re sequestered in the nursery. Well, Sho’s not, but he’s been neck-deep in language lessons with his tutor the last few weeks and has barely emerged for air. Jun’s just happy he hasn’t made the Crown Prince sick.

His mother speaks of his father very seldom, a soldier who’d been quartered at the palace in her early days here, when Sho’s grandfather was in his final months of rule and Sho himself had just been born. Matsumoto Hana had only just discovered she was pregnant when the soldier was shipped off. “It wasn’t love, not quite,” she’s always explained in such a matter-of-fact tone. “I saved all my love for you, Jun.”

For many years, he’s rolled his eyes at the cheesiness of that, wondering if there was more to the story than that. If his mother’s heart had been broken, if the soldier had been married. All he knows is that the man had been promoted to lieutenant before dying in some skirmish, trying to put down a worker uprising in the south. He’d been four, and he doesn’t remember how his mother reacted. She doesn’t even have a picture of him.

But as she tends to him, telling him stories of her childhood in Chiba, she also tells him that she sees his father in him, in his face. The more he grows, the more Jun seems to resemble him. He wonders if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

He fades in and out and is returning from a strange dream of dancing knives and forks, the ones that he polishes regularly. He’s just emerging from that odd fog when there’s a knock at the door. His mother presses a kiss to his forehead and rises. He coughs, wondering who it might be. He definitely doesn’t expect the surprised sound to his mother’s voice when she says, “Your Highness, you mustn’t come here!”

Sho? Sho’s here?

He turns, but the door opens the wrong way and his mother is blocking him entirely. But he can hear Sho, his voice firm in the corridor. “Matsumoto-san, I must insist.”

“It it not proper. Please reconsider,” his mother is saying, and Jun can barely resist a smile. Few servants can get away with speaking to Sho this way. Sometimes Jun thinks that Sho treats Matsumoto Hana with the same respect he has for his own mother, if not more. For one, Hana does not force Sho to consider his future marriage.

“My father is away, and I am in charge,” Sho says arrogantly. “Stand aside and let Takenaka-sensei see him.”

Jun coughs hard, astonished. For years, Takenaka-sensei has been the Sakurai family’s trusted physician. He delivered all three royal children, helped a young Sho through measles and chicken pox, tended to Eriko when the last influenza outbreak touched the capital. It is an insult to such a highly-regarded physician to have him look at a servant. Does Sho realize what he’s doing?

But his mother allows the doctor into the room that morning, then that afternoon. Over the next few days, under Sho’s direct orders, Takenaka-sensei visits Jun repeatedly, bringing him medicines and providing him with diligent care. Even when his mother apologizes over and over again, the doctor just laughs. “I serve at the pleasure of our future king,” Takenaka-sensei says, patting Jun’s leg.

Jun is back on his feet, totally recovered, by the end of the week. He suspects that without Takenaka-sensei’s help and medicines that he’d have been ill for much longer. He may have even worsened. It’s his mother who makes the grave mistake. Because when King Hiroki returns, it’s obvious that nobody would have said anything to him. Not Sho, not Takenaka-sensei. But Matsumoto Hana requests an audience with the king and because of how dear she is to Queen Kanako, the king sees her without complaint.

Jun is by her side and cannot bring himself to stop her when she gets down on her knees and bows low to the king. “The Crown Prince saved my son’s life,” she says, voice strong and appreciative. “I would ask that my wages be taken until the full cost of Takenaka-sensei’s services are paid.”

The king has Sho summoned to the private audience chamber, and Jun keeps his head down, ashamed as the king berates his son in front of servants. “Takenaka-sensei is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Medicine and you had him enter the servants’ quarters!”

“Jun was ill,” Sho says, as if that’s explanation enough. It makes Jun’s heart ache to hear it.

“And how did you expect a servant to pay for the medicine? Takenaka-sensei is under our employ. He is paid from the royal treasury. So now the royal treasury has financed the recovery of a servant!” The king points to Jun’s mother. “This woman is prepared to have her wages taken from her. I suspect a few months’ worth of wages will not cover the doctor’s time and efforts, and yet she would pay it. Unlike you, she understands the real cost of your idiocy!”

Sho’s eyes flash with anger. “Then I shall pay it, father!”

Jun and his mother are dismissed and are not privy to the remainder of the argument. However, his mother’s wages are not taken from her. The topic is not to be discussed again, Hana explains after returning from tending to the queen.

Jun discusses it anyway, the next time he and Sho are alone. They speak of other things, of what is happening in Kansai, before Jun can bear to bring it up. “It was a breach of protocol,” Jun says quietly. “Having Takenaka-sensei treat me.”

“It was common sense,” Sho replies. “If you died of influenza, who would light the fire in my chamber?”

Jun looks over, and Sho can’t meet his eyes. He looks down, smiling. “Thank you, Sho-kun. Truly.”

It’s quiet for a while before he hears Sho’s mumbled “You’re welcome.”

—now—

Kaigan Ruins
Near Minato/Chiba Border

The petrol remaining in the truck got them another twenty-seven miles, but after examining the atlas, they decided against Hanamigawa and the risk of being caught. Instead they’d taken a chance and driven further north. As the truck made its last gasps, Nino managed to pull off the road and into a grove of trees. They spent the night huddled together, the three of them, in the truck cab. Sho woke to the feeling of Jun’s head resting on his shoulder, and he let him stay like that a while before he slipped out to relieve himself.

Upon his return, Jun and Nino were already stirring. It was about twenty miles to the border, their current destination Kaigan City. Or what remained of it.

A tornado had flattened the town when Sho was ten, taking with it a majority of the three thousand residents. An unprecedented loss of life in the region, most survivors had moved south to Hanamigawa or further to Funabori. Even the out-of-date atlas they were using listed Kaigan City as a desolate ruin. But it had once had a bridge over the river, the furthest the river came inland from the border. It would be a journey of two miles past the river to enter Chiba. They didn’t know if the bridge was still there, but at the very least there’d be no soldiers.

They took everything they could carry from the truck and set off on foot. Even with Sho’s bad foot slowing their pace, the terrain was flat and they reached the edge of Kaigan by mid-afternoon. In Keio, what happened in Kaigan had been a shocking tragedy. Among the superstitious in the borderlands it was considered a cursed place. Rescue teams that had gone in to search for survivors had lost men, crushed in collapsing buildings. A team of doctors from Chiba had gone missing, even though they were a mere two miles from their home country.

Clean-up efforts had been abandoned, and though it had only been about twenty, twenty-five years since the tornado, Kaigan was frightening to behold. A trading town, the main square had once been home to wagons and caravans. Some were still there, turned on their sides, wheels bent and spinning a little in the early spring breeze. The streets were still strewn with debris, and Nino nearly cut himself open when he tripped over a metal beam. They slowed their pace, making their way around uprooted and rotted trees, boots crunching on shattered glass. Sho could have sworn he’d seen bones, part of a human skeleton poking out from under some wooden boards, perhaps a hand reaching out for a dirtied toy.

Jun stopped in the middle of the road, setting down the bag he was carrying. Nino put a hand on his shoulder. “We should keep moving. Could be scavengers around,” he said.

“What’s to be scavenged?” Jun scoffed, taking a look around.

Nino nodded. “I don’t much like walking through an open grave either, Jun-kun, but we have little choice.”

Jun looked miserable. “We gave up on this place. Minato did, I mean. We just left all this. Nobody even buried these people.”

“It wasn’t safe,” Sho said. “I suppose that’s what was decided.”

Jun gestured around at the ruined buildings, the gnarled trees pulled up and out of the ground. “It’s the way of this country. We let things fester and ruin instead of fixing them. They think the answer is always with a new government, a new general calling all the shots. Building more buildings to house people, but building them so shoddily that they’ll just throw up their hands and shrug when they collapse. Killing more people when they disagree with how things are done. What kind of country is this? And now we’re just leaving. We’re the ones throwing up our hands and walking away thinking there’s nothing to be done.”

Nino crossed his arms. “Why are you suddenly so patriotic?”

“I’m not,” Jun admitted. “I just think it’s…wrong. It’s like what Sho-kun said, about taking the truck. If we hadn’t left money for those people, we know what would have happened to them.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “Oh god, come on. We don’t know anything for a certainty.”

Sho stepped forward, trying to meet Jun’s eyes. “You’re right. It’s selfish what we’re doing. We’re running away.”

“And why shouldn’t we?” Nino shot back. “Why shouldn’t we want something better?”

“Why should our ‘something better’ come with such a high cost?” Sho asked. He looked between the two of them. “We’ve stolen and we’ve lied. We’re on our way to take money from Masaki and then what? That reward, that massive crazy golden reward…we’re just going to pamper ourselves with it?”

Nino was silent. Sho knew Nino had every intention of using his share of the reward to help his parents, but aside from that…

“What do you really want, Jun?” Sho asked gently. “What do you think we should do?”

Jun thought it over for a moment, his face utterly serious. Sho didn’t know why, but he felt a strange sense of pride knowing that Jun wasn’t just motivated by money. “I don’t know. I don’t know yet. But I think we have to help. We have to help Minato.”

“A true humanitarian, Matsumoto Jun,” Nino said, hoisting his bag and walking again. “Dream all you want about turning Minato into some happy, cheery paradise, even though it’s never been like that, will never be like that, and you know it. Kings didn’t make it that way and warlord generals didn’t either. But dream away, so long as we keep moving. We’re two fucking miles from Chiba, and we don’t have time to get all sentimental for the country we’re leaving behind.”

Jun seemed like he wanted to say something, and if he did, Sho imagined it would be about Ohno-san. Instead Jun stayed quiet, following Nino further east to the other end of town. Sho didn’t quite know how they could help Minato. Hell, they didn’t even know if Masaki would see them at this point. There were answers out there, surely, but none of them were readily apparent.

But Sho understood Jun’s feelings, more than Jun could possibly realize. The more Sho came to accept who he was, what had happened to him, he remembered the things he’d been taught as a boy. There’d been many things he saw now as foolish. That by his royal birth he was better than the millions of people he’d been set to rule. That honoring treaties and mobilizing for war was more important than ensuring the people had food to eat. But as a boy, he’d also memorized the traditional coronation blessings bestowed on the King of Minato. The blessings he had expected to be given to him one day.

May you guide us, your people, with a just and righteous hand. As a father provides for his children, so must you provide for us.

It was his duty to provide for Minato. He would never be crowned. He would never be their king, and he knew that. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and fulfill that promise.

By some miracle, the bridge over the river was still there, a wooden structure with several planks missing thanks to the tornado. But it still stretched over, spanning the distance. The only problem, in Sho’s eyes, was the height of it. The river crossings at Hanamigawa, at Funabori, were lower. The terrain was lower there, the bridges maybe ten, twenty feet over the waterline.

The bridge that spanned the Shibaura River at Kaigan was a different matter. The river wasn’t as wide, but the valley was deeper. What remained of the bridge went up and over the river, and it was maybe a fifty foot drop to the water below (and likely, a strong current and rocks). Sho had never been fond of heights. As a boy summering at Sakura House, he’d tried to assist in the groves of fruit trees one day, climbing up a ladder to help the field hands. He could still remember how frightened he’d become once he reached the top of the ladder, and he’d been wary of climbing high ever since.

As they approached, Nino grabbed a large piece of wood that had been flung this far from the ruined town by the tornado. He threw it onto the bridge, as though he expected it to land and shatter some of the wood planks. The bridge held firm, and apparently that was good enough for him. “See you on the other side,” Nino said cheerfully, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, testing each subsequent board with a few thumps of his foot before putting his full weight on it.

Jun, however, knew of Sho’s phobia. Of course he’d remember. As they’d grown older, Jun had never forgotten how cruel Sho had sometimes been to him. Cataloging Sho’s weaknesses in return had been a joy for him. “Would you prefer to swim across?” Jun asked, standing beside him at the beginning of the bridge. “Cut yourself to pieces on those rocks?”

“No,” Sho mumbled, shaking so hard he was afraid he might wet his pants. “What if I close my eyes to cross?”

Jun’s mean-spirited little laugh was rather annoying, but at least he was in a better mood than he’d been in earlier, walking through the ruined, abandoned town. “Come on, Sho-kun.” He gave Sho a little push and he couldn’t help moaning weakly in reply. “Seriously? Aren’t you an adult?”

“It’s really high,” Sho whined, clinging to the strap of his satchel. “You go ahead, I’ll follow you.”

“Nope,” Jun decided, “because if I go ahead, you’re not going to move and I’d rather not have to come back and carry you across.”

“You couldn’t carry me,” Sho grumbled.

“Try me.”

He looked beside him, seeing the wicked glint in Jun’s eyes. Sho still had trouble reconciling the grown man at his side, the strong and tall Jun of today, with the scrawny, shy Jun of his increasingly returning memories. “Isn’t there anything you’re afraid of?” He leaned forward, into Jun’s space, scowling. “Are you still scared of the dark?”

Jun gave him another push. “No. Now move.”

It wasn’t the manliest moment of his life, making his way across the old bridge and whimpering like a baby the entire time. It didn’t help that Jun was walking behind him, laughing and teasing, walking so close that Sho had no choice but to keep moving or get pushed again.

“You can do it!” Jun said, poking him repeatedly in the spine as he was walking, still being careful to avoid Sho’s damaged shoulder. He wasn’t entirely heartless.

“I don’t need or require your support, Matsumoto,” he complained in return. “And I seem to recall a little servant boy who…”

Sho felt Jun push him hard when the boards shattered just behind him.

“Jun!” Nino screamed from the other side, and Sho whirled around just in time to see Jun fall through, his hand missing the boards at Sho’s feet. He hadn’t even had time to shout in surprise. He’d tried to push Sho forward and out of harm’s way instead.

Sho lunged for the now broken space behind him, hearing two splashes in quick succession far below. “No,” Sho gasped. “Oh no no no…”

“Jun!” Nino was screaming, over and over. Sho ran the rest of the way across the bridge, two or three shuddering planks at a time. Nino had dropped his bag, was already skidding down the embankment toward the river. Sho overtook him easily, horror and adrenaline pushing him forward. He nearly tripped and fell, stumbling over slippery rocks and grass, his hands squishing in the mud as he desperately hurried to the water. Jun had fallen in, Jun had fallen in. He’d lost them all, his brain was reminding him. He’d lost them all, but he wasn’t going to lose Jun. He was not going to lose Jun too. He dropped his satchel in the mud and plunged into the river, his shoulder screaming as he ignored the freezing cold water and set out.

“There!” Nino was hollering. “Over there! Yoshimo-chan, he’s there!”

He saw as Jun surfaced about fifty feet away, gasping. Sho swam to him without stopping, hearing his heaving gasps for breath. He said nothing, merely getting an arm around Jun. He towed him to shore, teeth chattering and soaked to the bone. Nino was at the shoreline, knee-deep in the cold river and holding out a hand, helping to pull Jun out of the water. Sho’s clothes clung to him as he moved, crawling through the muddy shallows to where Nino was already dragging Jun onto the grassy embankment.

“Is he okay?” Sho asked, limbs shaking as he blinked water out of his eyes. “Nino, is he okay?”

“Ow,” Jun murmured, coughing up water.

“You lost another bag with our money in it,” Nino chided him, but with very little bite to his voice.

“Sorry,” Jun answered, shivering. Jun had probably dropped his bag of clothes and food as he fell. It had been the first splash before Jun himself had hit the water.

Sho was at Jun’s side, dirty fingers fluttering along Jun’s neck, his jaw. “You’re okay? Jun?”

Jun looked up at him, squinting a bit. He’d lost his glasses in the water too. “I shouldn’t have…” He coughed, wincing. “…shouldn’t have made you walk so fast.”

Sho flicked his forehead. “Stupid!” Jun had saved his life, nearly at the cost of his own. Sho’s heart was still racing, barely able to control himself. So close. It was too close a call. He didn’t want to be alone. He’d been alone for so long, and he finally had him back. Then he was cradling Jun’s face in his hands, crying, his entire body heaving and sobbing. “If I’d moved faster, you wouldn’t have fallen at all!”

“Sho-kun,” Jun mumbled, “I’m okay…”

Nino pushed Sho away from him gently. “Come on, both of you, before you freeze to death debating the structural integrity of that damn bridge. We’re across it, okay? Now let’s take care of you. I’d rather not wander on in to Chiba with two frozen icicle people.”

“That’s Prince Frozen Icicle,” Jun wheezed, pointing weakly at Sho. “Ninomiya, don’t you forget it.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “Order me around all you like, Matsumoto. I’m not the one who has to get naked so you don’t freeze in these soaking clothes. As soon as you can move, you’re getting naked in front of your beloved Prince Frozen Icicle so laugh all you want now.”

—

Shibaura River, East of Kaigan Ruins
Near Minato/Chiba Border

To avoid having to move too much, since he was still sore from hitting the water hard, Nino had gotten a fire going not far from shore. Nino had taken charge rather easily, since he and Sho were mostly out of commission for a while. Up and down the slippery embankment Nino had moved, getting their bags and tugging out clean, dry clothes. Up and down the shoreline Nino had moved, finding driftwood to use for the fire, wetting a hand towel from his bag to clean some of the mud from Jun and Sho himself.

They were still shivering, the pair of them huddled side by side as Nino went to look for something they could use to cover themselves since it was likely they’d be spending the night here. Jun ached from head to toe, and though he was certain he could trudge his way to the border, Nino had already said he wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

Sho had been hysterical for ages, and he’d only calmed once Nino had given him a shake and commanded him to change clothes. Jun hadn’t seen him like that since the train, since that night when he’d finally emerged from that fog of amnesia. Jun could still hear his screams from their train compartment. Sho, despite his bad shoulder and his limp, had come running, diving into the water to save him without a second thought. Jun shut his eyes, listening to the pops and crackles from the fire.

His spare pair of eyeglasses had been in the bag he’d dropped in the river. Nino had walked up and down the shore looking for it, but it had presumably gone on its merry way. He could still see things up close, could read if he had something to read, but anything five feet away and beyond was impossible and would be until he got some new glasses. Their journey from Keio to the border had been horrible enough, and Maku-Harihongo was still a good distance away. Now he was pretty fucking useless. He couldn’t see, he wouldn’t be able to drive if they found a new truck to “borrow.” Jun hated being dependent on people, and now he had little choice. He was going to slow them down.

And then he didn’t exactly know how to deal with the fall to begin with. He could have clung to Sho, tried to save himself, knocking them both forward onto the bridge and praying it didn’t collapse all the way. Instead he’d given Sho a push, had let himself drop. Before he’d hit the water, though it had only been seconds between hearing the boards break and going under, he’d felt an extraordinary sense of clarity. Even if he drowned, even if he bashed his head on a rock and never came up again, at least Sho was okay. At least he could go on to Chiba, reunite with his cousin. With his family.

Fifteen years ago, his mother had asked that of him. She had pressed a pouch full of coins into his hand, directing him to take Sho’s horse and get Sho over the border to safety. He’d never seen her alive again, but he knew what she’d done. She had given her life to try and save the family she served. She had roped Jun in to doing the same, commanding her own son to put the Sakurai family’s survival before their own. Once he’d come to terms with her death, he’d still disagreed with the choices she’d made. He’d been angry with her, for choosing them instead of him. For choosing them instead of herself.

And yet, hadn’t he just done the same thing? In saving Sho, a split second choice in the heat of the moment, Jun had accepted the possibility of giving his own life in exchange. Thinking of his mother made his heart ache, but for the first time in all these years, he could truly feel her presence again. Jun didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, but it wasn’t so strange to imagine his mother somehow intervening that day, ensuring that when Jun fell he entered the water cleanly, without a sharp, jagged rock in sight.

She’d be proud of him, wouldn’t she? Fifteen years late, but he was getting Sho-kun to Chiba. He was doing as she asked.

“Are you alright?”

Sho’s warm voice tickled his ear, and he kept his eyes closed, wrapping Nino’s suit jacket tighter around him.

“Jun?”

He nodded. “Just thinking.”

“You’re crying.”

“Am I?” He wiped his face, shrugging a bit. “Sorry.”

Sho chuckled quietly. “There’s no need for apologies. I ought to thank you.”

“I was thinking about my mother,” he admitted, opening his eyes again but staring only at the flames before them. He hoped Nino would get them something to eat soon.

“I see,” Sho replied. “That explains it then. I remember her. She was a good woman.”

“A stubborn one.”

Sho laughed again. “Most mothers are, putting up with sons like us.”

“She died at Sakura House that night.” He took a breath. “Do you remember?”

Sho was quiet. “Bits. Fragments.”

Jun found himself telling Sho his side of things. Fifteen long years, he’d only known his own experience of that day. His mother coming to him just before dark with money. Watching the guards, waiting for them to look away so he could run to the stables. Saddling Yama, riding her to town. Waiting and waiting and waiting at the ryokan. The soldiers coming to town, looking for Sho. Returning to Sakura House come morning, emerging from where he’d hidden in the woods to see the hole the guards had dug, seeing them drop bundled blankets into it. Bodies. The blankets, of course, that Jun thought included Sho as well. He’d been half out of his mind, paralyzed with shock. He hadn’t counted them accurately, had he?

Sho’s voice was shaky. “Just like that, an unmarked grave?”

“I’m sorry, Sho-kun.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Sho moved a little, probably to exercise his shoulder a bit. “You remember the cellar? The passages that we used to sneak around in?”

“Yeah.”

“A guard was trying to take me out of the house that way. I must have gotten shot then. Those walls were thin, I bet it just passed right through.” Sho took a deep breath. “I don’t remember it well, and I think your mother had something to do with it.”

“How?”

“I remember her bringing me a drink on a tray. I remember her face. I remember…I remember asking her where you were. It was the afternoon, and we sometimes played cards in the afternoon, didn’t we? You, me, my sister…”

Jun nodded, remembering. There’d been so little to do at Sakura House, in those last weeks. They’d been shut up in the house, the family and handful of servants. There’d been whispers that the family would be moved elsewhere, but nobody knew where. Obviously that plan hadn’t happened. “She’d already sent me off.”

“She probably knew I wouldn’t go quietly, or that I wouldn’t trust the guard. She put something in that drink. It’s why so much of it is a blur when I can remember so much else now.” Sho shook his head. “After that I never saw her again. They must have…well, they must have after my parents…”

Jun rested a hand on Sho’s thigh, quieting him. “It’s okay. We don’t have to…it’s okay if you don’t know, I didn’t expect you to.”

“I’m sorry, Jun,” he whispered. “She saved my life, I’m sure of it.”

“It was very sudden,” Jun said. “She tried to save you all.”

“She’d know how to save Minato, wouldn’t she?”

Jun felt himself smiling sadly. “Probably.”

He moved his hand away from Sho when Nino returned, having dug through the ruins of an overturned wagon on this side of the river and finding a few saddle blankets. They were musty but dry, and Jun sighed in contentment when Nino tucked one around him, rubbing his shoulders and his back. “When we get to Maku-Harihongo you can hire someone to massage you. This is a one time service.”

Nino warmed up the tins of beans and other vegetables, making sure they all ate their fill. The three of them were exhausted, lying down on the old blankets and liable to sleep through the night with no problems. They were two miles from Chiba, and Jun just hoped it would be easier now. He couldn’t imagine things going any more wrong for them.

He had Nino curled up on one side, Sho on the other. He shut his eyes and tried to shove away the intensity of the feelings coursing through him. Because Jun knew exactly why he’d done what he’d done that day. Fulfilling his mother’s final wish? Not entirely. Ensuring that the fallen heir to the Kingdom of Minato made it safely to Chiba? Not exactly.

He’d pushed him, saved his life, because the way he felt about Sakurai Sho had not changed in fifteen years. He’d known it when the boards on the bridge had cracked, when he’d been about to hit the water. He’d known it on the train, when he’d taken Sho’s face in his hands and begged him to escape with him to safety. He’d known it in Mita Palace when he’d held up the lantern and seen Yoshimoto Koya for the first time.

He would do anything for Sakurai Sho, absolutely anything, and that terrified him.

He loved Sakurai Sho, and that frightened him all the more.

—then—

Sakura House
Near Gunma Town, Kingdom of Minato

At first there were twenty soldiers quartered at Sakura House. In those early days, there was still the belief that Chiba might do something. That King Masayoshi would demand the family be sent to Keikarou Palace. Two seasons have already passed out here in the quiet countryside, and Chiba has not answered the Sakurai family’s call.

It’s angering to know that family cannot be relied upon when needed most. Sho suspects if his cousin Masaki were king that he’d have sent in full battalions to rescue them. Masaki, even growing up, was a kind soul, gentle with animals and respectful of his elders. But his strongest trait had been his loyalty. In every letter, Sho could just hear his cousin’s anguish, his feelings of helplessness for being unable to send aid. The letters have stopped. Unfortunately Chiba has chosen to be loyal to itself instead of sticking its nose in another country’s civil war. Masaki, as Chiba’s heir, has probably been forced to accept this reality.

With nobody coming to their rescue, General Kitagawa has pulled most of the soldiers away. There are six of them now, and Sho knows them each by name. Sato. Uchiumi. Osawa. Kimura. Mori. Inohara. Orders arrive for them every few days by courier and they’ve mostly remained unchanged. Maintain watch of Sakurai family. Do not allow them to communicate with the outside world. Watch the servants to ensure they do the same.

He feels like a bird in a cage, although there are worse cages to be trapped in. The grounds of Sakura House are rather extensive, and he’s allowed to exercise outdoors. When he rides Yama, though, the guards ride mounts to either side of him. Sho hasn’t been able to take Yama out for anything faster than a trot the entire time. He wonders sometimes what they’d do if he urged the horse on, made a run for it. Would they shoot him in the back?

His father goes for long walks, often with Sato or Uchiumi by his side. His mother sits in the parlor with Eriko, Ryota, and Hana-san, the women knitting. Sometimes his mother, of royal birth and a grand lady, launders the soldiers’ uniforms for them. Her soft, elegant hands now have calluses. Sho can’t bear to look at them. Ryota has no idea what’s going on and Sho plays with him, reads him bedtime stories.

Cook was dismissed a few months back, and Amami-san, the housekeeper who stayed behind at Sakura House when everyone else left, now cooks and cleans the house with Hana-san’s help. There’s a groom who maintains the stable and the animals within, a groundskeeper, and that’s it. Well, there’s Jun too. Sho knows it’s meant mainly as an insult, that a boy who has only just turned seventeen is valet, footman, and head butler all at once. He dresses Sakurai Hiroki for dinner, brushing lint from his collar before hurrying downstairs to set the table, to hold out trays to serve them. Jun does all of this with such pride, with courage.

Sho wishes they’d just stop with the ceremony of it entirely. The monarchy is abolished. There’s no need to dress for dinner, especially since they have few clothes left here. Anything with fine fabric, anything of his mother’s that had jewels or pearls sewn into it, has been taken away and sold just like what happened back at the palace. Sho’s taken to wearing cotton button-down shirts and ordinary trousers. He lets Jun call him “Sho-kun” even when their parents are around.

He doesn’t understand why his family has befriended the soldiers. Sometimes they’re even invited to join them at the table for dinner, Jun holding out a tray for Private Mori in the same way he would for Sho’s father. His mother says they’re just doing their jobs, which is true, but Sho wants to remind her who they’re doing their jobs for. Who their employer is.

Sho is desperate for news about Minato. Any news. Which cities have gone over to Kitagawa, which ones might still have pockets of people loyal to the royal family. He wonders if anyone even knows what happened to them. One day they were still living in the palace, the next they weren’t. The noble families fled fast, the ones that had the means to. Sho knows many have been imprisoned, though he doubts they’re living as comfortably as those trapped at Sakura House.

The local newspaper from Gunma Town is delivered twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. The soldiers are allowed to read it, the prisoners are not. When the soldiers have each had a chance to read it, Lieutenant Sato burns it himself. But Jun has been Sho’s eyes lately. He helps his mother and Amami-san clean the soldiers’ rooms. He doesn’t dare take anything, but one morning he brings a pencil and paper to Inohara’s room, finding a newspaper left behind on the nightstand. Jun hurriedly copies down all the headlines, the topics of the main stories. Sho is due to take Yama out that afternoon, and Jun plans to meet him at Yama’s stall in the stables.

Jun’s just slipped the paper into Sho’s fingers when Lieutenant Kimura comes into the stable. Sho lets the paper drop down behind him, stepping on top of it with his riding boot. Lieutenant Kimura is twenty-seven, handsome, and Eriko has a stupid crush on him. He’s also an elite sharpshooter. Sho knows this because when Kimura came home from the Western War, Sho’s father pinned a medal on him.

“Aren’t you needed in the house?” Kimura asks Jun, who has no choice but to dash off. As soon as it’s just the two of them, aside from the horses, Kimura looks at Sho with something close to boredom. “This is the kind of thing we have to report back about.”

Sho scowls at him. “What are you talking about?”

Kimura comes up to him but Sho stands his ground. The lieutenant doesn’t touch him, but moves behind him, brushing the straw aside to find the paper Sho’s still got under his boot. “I’d let me have that.”

Sho lifts his foot, and Kimura takes the paper. He comes back around, unfolding it. His face betrays nothing as he reads whatever Jun’s written on it. When he’s finished, he shoves it in his pocket.

“You’ll get your friend in trouble,” Kimura says. “Asking him to do things like this for you.”

Sho looks away, fuming. “Why can’t I know? You’ve got us locked up here, so what does it matter?”

“I don’t make the rules, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

Kimura considers him. “You’re better off as one,” he says quietly. “General Kitagawa isn’t the type to kill children.”

Sho’s blood runs cold. “Is that what it says? That we’re to be executed?”

“No. It doesn’t.” Kimura’s not very sympathetic. With his skills, he clearly finds this assignment beneath him. “But one day it might. Ignorance can sometimes be preferable, Sakurai Sho.”

He suddenly doesn’t have the stomach for a ride. He instead moves to the stable’s supply cupboard, pulling out what he needs. “I think I’ll just tend to my horse and not ride her today.” Sho takes a breath. “Lieutenant.”

Kimura pulls up a stool and perches himself on it, watching him. He’s not going anywhere. As Sho brushes Yama, his hand shakes. He gets the feeling that Lieutenant Kimura isn’t planning to report him. But he can already sense his cage shrinking, inch by inch, minute by passing minute.

—now—

Nairiku Boarding House
Inage, Kingdom of Chiba

They hadn’t expected the currency exchange rate to be as high as it actually was. Their Minato money was little better than trying to pay with newsprint, but they arrived in Inage exhausted, hungry, and in need of a proper night’s rest.

There’d been no soldiers at the Chiba border. They’d gone five miles inland before even being greeted with the knowledge that they’d entered a new country. A roadside sign welcoming them to Inage Prefecture, the sign emblazoned with the crest of the royal Aiba family. Nino had dropped his bag and hugged the sign, laughing loud enough to wake the dead.

They’d slept one night under a bridge, but one more full day of walking brought them to Inage, the main city in the prefecture. No soldiers walked the streets in Chiba, only the occasional policeman with a club rather than a rifle. It was a small market city, full of tradesmen and laborers. As they’d moved through the streets, looking for a place to change their money, Sho had been astonished by how happy the people seemed. It had been a long time since he’d seen folks with easy smiles and full bellies.

He’d been on a few royal visits as a child to visit his cousin’s kingdom. Chiba was similar in size to Minato but with more resources. Where Minato was mountainous, Chiba was home to vast plains and far more arable land. What a difference more farms made. What a difference decades without war made.

At the bank, they’d been worried about having to show identification. The clerk had to call over a manager, but only to ensure that the exchange rate was accurate. It seemed few people from Minato came through Inage as a first stop. Then again, few people from Minato came to Chiba at all these days. Especially the last few weeks.

While he, Jun, and Nino had fled the train that night, the regime in Keio had fallen. Chiba’s newspapers still had much of it as major news, but nobody here knew the full extent of what had happened. General Higashiyama was out, along with all of his ministers. The General himself had been imprisoned while the rest of his ministers had been assassinated with calculated efficiency, the same as the Minister of Labor from the train. A new leader in Keio had yet to be announced, though the generals who had overthrown their leader were acting more civilized than usual. They would elect one of their own to govern rather than see whose individual army was mightiest. Perhaps none of them could muster up enough troops these days to try.

What the Chiba newspapers didn’t know, the Nairiku Boarding House filled in for them. The owner hadn’t batted an eye at their lack of identity cards, saying “I know a Minato man when I see one,” and charging them a costly, yet most likely fair rate for three beds in a large men’s dorm of twenty.

Learning that the coup this time had been more bloodless than usual, save for the government ministers, had both Nino and Jun relieved. For now, it meant that Ohno Satoshi was safe in Keio, that Nino’s parents in the borderlands would mostly carry on as they always had. Minato was still as much of a mess as before, but at least it wasn’t gearing up for yet another civil war it could not afford.

While Nino set to work using his usual charms to determine how they might best reach Maku-Harihongo, the capital city nearly two hundred miles to the southwest, Sho had a less enviable task that afternoon. He was walking with Jun to see just how much it might cost to get him a new pair of glasses. Already, after changing their money, they barely had enough for a night or two in the capital. Jun wouldn’t exactly die in his current state, but he was eager to be rid of the inconvenience.

He wasn’t blind, but in an unfamiliar country, walking unfamiliar streets, Sho insisted that Jun remain at his side, stealing away some of Jun’s precious dignity by having him hold onto his arm while they moved.

“You’re treating me like some invalid out for their first walk in years,” Jun had been complaining for the last twenty minutes, squinting and squinting and squinting even though Sho told him he was going to give himself a headache.

“I’m happy to leave you in the middle of the town square,” Sho teased him. “Let you find your way back to the boarding house on your own.”

Jun sighed. “You can’t possibly know what it’s like.”

Sho halted them, pulling Jun aside and letting a woman pass by with a baby carriage. “Oh you don’t think I could?”

“You have good eyes.”

“Yes, but I have a bum shoulder and a bad foot and don’t complain about it half as much as you’ve been whining about these glasses.”

Sho watched Jun’s face, saw the shame creeping across his features, a near-crimson stain. “I…sorry. I didn’t mean it like that…”

“I know you didn’t.”

Jun looked away as they kept walking. “I know about your shoulder. Will you tell me why you limp?”

“The night everything happened, the night I was shot. When I was taken away from the house, I was hardly dressed for the weather.”

“It was cold,” Jun nodded, remembering.

“I wasn’t wearing boots. Wherever I was taken those first few days, they didn’t check because when they finally got me to a hospital, the wound in my shoulder was infected and I couldn’t walk. It was from that night, frostbite, they had to take two of my toes.”

Jun winced. “Ouch.”

He shrugged. “Thankfully I was in so much pain elsewhere that I don’t really remember it.” He’d woken up at Kamezuka Hospital, not knowing who he even was. Both his feet had been wrapped up. He’d been on so many painkillers that they’d only told him about the toes on the third day after he’d been brought in.

“I’m sorry.”

“Still got eight left, can’t complain,” he said gently. “Damaged goods though, hope Masaki isn’t planning to show me off to anyone.”

“I doubt he’d have you go barefoot,” Jun said, his voice a little stronger.

He smiled, squeezing Jun’s shoulder. “Shall we keep looking to fix your little problem?”

“We should save for the capital.”

“Jun, I can’t get my toes back. But if they could magically get sewn back on, I’d go for it.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry about the capital. Don’t worry about the money. We’ll manage, as we’ve managed all this way.”

They found a shop for spectacles a few blocks from the main square, an older doctor with lenses of his own so thick Sho was astonished he could see at all. The man finished up with one patient before sitting Jun down. They weren’t staying in Inage long enough for lenses to be ground to Jun’s exact needs, but the doctor did have a few pairs at varying strengths that would at least give Jun a boost until he could afford a brand new pair.

Sho was amused by how vain Jun had become after all these years. He tried on and dismissed several pairs. Too big, too small, an unflattering color. “Shouldn’t it be about correcting your vision?” Sho teased him, examining a few pairs himself.

“It’s my face.”

The doctor lost patience with Jun, retreating to his office in the back and leaving them to the pairs remaining. Sho found a pair in a dark tortoiseshell color, circular lenses that reminded him a bit of the ones Jun had worn when he was young. He lifted them, biting his lip to keep from laughing. Jun practically had his face glued to the mirror by another display case, and Sho came up behind him, his shoulder protesting as he lifted his arms to bring them over Jun’s head and in front of his eyes.

“How about these?”

Jun seemed almost paralyzed. “Sho-kun.”

“Hmm?”

He hadn’t thought about it, he’d just seen the glasses and snatched them up. But he was close, so close, pressed against Jun’s back, arms around his shoulders. If the doctor returned from his office, it would be rather embarrassing.

Sho moved back, glasses still in hand. “Sorry, I just…thought they might suit you.”

Jun turned, taking the glasses from him and trying them on. “They do,” he said quietly.

Things between him and Jun, they’d been a little odd since the bridge. Although, to be fair, things had been a little odd from the very beginning. The more he remembered, the harder it was to be around Jun. It had almost been easier to be Yoshimoto Koya. There’d been far less emotional baggage to carry. Matsumoto the stranger was less troublesome than Jun, who knew all his secrets.

Jun balked at the price of the glasses and was halfway to leaving the store, but Sho called for the doctor and paid for them anyway. The lenses were a bit weaker than what Jun was used to, but at the very least they wouldn’t have to be joined at the hip while they walked back to the boarding house.

They found a note from Nino, that he was “following up on things” and would probably return to the boarding house late. Without Nino to lighten the atmosphere, Sho found himself sitting in the dining hall having a silent dinner with Jun. Slurping down broth and munching on potstickers, fortunately it was one of the best meals they’d had in ages. With the new glasses, Jun looked younger, softer. Sho mostly kept his head down during dinner, thinking back to his rather presumptuous behavior at the doctor’s office.

The dorm was halfway full when they turned in for the night, their beds side by side. It was the first solid night’s sleep they’d be getting after their desperate escape from Keio. Even with other bodies in the room, snoring, tossing and turning, Sho found himself looking at the outline of Jun’s body in the bed across from him, unable to focus on anything else.

What would happen if they failed? If they couldn’t make it to the capital or if they were denied access to Masaki?Would they be able to settle in Chiba? Without legitimate identities, they faced potential deportation. He didn’t know what Chiba’s current stance was about people seeking political asylum. Nino, he had skills in areas Sho would never fully know, he’d easily find his way in a new country. But Sho? Jun? How would they survive without money? Would they stay together?

The thought of being separated made Sho’s brain go into a panic. He shut his eyes, frightened at the thought. The shock and horror of what had happened to his family had been enough to make him lose his mind, to erase himself. Fifteen years of loneliness had followed it. Now he finally knew who he was, good and bad. And from that time, from all those years ago, all he had was Jun. What Jun had meant to him, back then, it had sometimes been as troubling as it had been a comfort. And what did Jun mean to him now? Why could nothing ever be simple?

He nearly jolted from the bed when he felt a hand grab his foot. He hadn’t even heard Nino come in. While Jun had somehow found his way to peaceful slumber, Sho had yet to sleep a wink. Nino sat down beside him, leaning over to whisper and keep from waking Jun. He smelled of liquor, like he’d been out on the town, but Sho knew he did everything with their goal in mind. Mostly.

“Found us a driver,” Nino said. “Gonna take us all the way to the capital.”

“You’re kidding,” Sho whispered back. “How are we going to afford that?”

“Found the one Minato sympathizer bar in town. Barkeep left Keio fifteen years back, started again here. Once I got to chatting with him, he roped in a friend who drives a truck. Said friend will take us the whole way.”

Sho’s heart raced. “What exactly did you tell this man about us?”

“Give me some credit, Yoshimo-chan, I didn’t tell him I was traveling with the prince of his old homeland. Nobody would have believed that,” Nino said, squeezing Sho’s arm through the blanket. “Just that we’re like him, looking for a better life. Also I may have given him some diamond earrings.”

“Since when are you carrying diamond earrings?”

“Since I spent my afternoon…wandering about town.”

“Nino!” Sho hissed.

Nino covered his mouth, chuckling. He was never going to change, was he? “When you talk with your cousin, you can have him cut taxes for this town for a decade to make up for it, alright?”

He was fuming, upset that Nino was once again forging their way to Maku-Harihongo by illegal means. His filching fingers had probably been itching since they’d left Keio, and now he’d stolen diamonds.

“One more thing,” Nino whispered. “The only reason I had to sweeten the deal and move up our timetable is because Minato’s not the only country undergoing a regime change. Seems like the King of Chiba is stepping down, abdicating, retiring, whatever they call it here.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Nino said, his voice finally betraying a hint of nervousness. “It was announced here over a month ago, but word didn’t exactly trickle its way across the border. Your cousin’s moving up in the world.”

“Masaki…” Sho murmured in disbelief.

He hadn’t seen his cousin in person since they were fourteen, before the Western War, before Sho’s parents had kept him in Keio, sequestered him in Mita Palace as a security measure. Sho had been short and small before a growth spurt hit after his sixteenth birthday, but his cousin, almost a full year younger than him, had towered over him for years. He’d been a shy boy, always doubting himself, his ability to rule someday. Now his time had arrived, but all Sho could imagine was that boy with the kind smile who’d been growing and growing and tripping over his own feet because of it. The boy who’d written him letters saying that he couldn’t change his father’s mind.

“By the time we reach the capital, it’ll be the week of the coronation. We need to get to him and fast,” Nino admitted. “Because once they crown him, he’s going to be untouchable for a while. They say he’s going to tour the country, that he’ll be away from the capital for months. It’s now or never, Yoshimo-chan.”

He took a deep breath, nodding in the darkened dormitory. “Let’s hope your barkeep’s friend is a speedy driver.”

Part Seven