CELESTIAL FLOWERS ( s. gojo )

arc ii ━ chapter v. defray

a r c  ii.
❝ is this the price of your loyalty? is this the price of your love? ❞
━━ chapter v. defray

KAZUKO IS MADE TO STAY IN THE INFIRMARY. The healers insisted and threatened to tell the elders if she desisted so she shut her mouth and did as told. An entire week passed before any noteworthy event occured, the past days all monotonous and repetitive, the same questions asked, the same routine of staring at the windows and averting attention from the whispers inside her head telling her to wreak havoc.

Since the day Erisu bared her feelings of self loathing and regret, Kazuko has not seen her shadow darken the doorway. She misses her dearly, but she can't bring herself to expose a vulnerable emotion to the healers who can tattle to the elders anytime. Vulnerable sentiments that would surely make her punishment even worse. This softness has led to your undoing, it doesn't take long for it to be your death, worse, Erisu-sama's death.

She can imagine it. The scent of tobacco lingering over the air, the shadows forming on the walls, the low hum of flames flickering inside lanterns and breaths unfurling into the night. Love her, worship her, but do not let her decide with her heart. It is your job to be the brain, the calculated tool, you decide what's right and what must be done.

Every day, she keeps envisioning the rapid fire of complaints and accusations from the elders. The gravity of her failure, her incompetence and it makes her head hurt and her heart fear, but it's true and it hurts even more because it is not a falsehood.

The door slides open and Kazuko raises her head to meet the incoming visitor. When she realizes that it's not the healers, the thought of the elders summoning her has become more apparent.

A lone figure is revealed. Dressed from head to toe in expensive cloths, gold and blue motif with a face that may have sagged with age, but still managed to retain a semblance of beauty. An important figure in their world. The patriarch of the Nakano clan. His dark hair and golden eyes, the regality in his footsteps and the way he walked without any fear, with full knowledge of what he was and what he was meant to do.

"I'm honored to be in your presence, Ebisu-sama," she greets and bows in respect. Among all the Nakanos, perhaps he is the one she respects the most. The one she is most thankful for, for it was him who chose her, who chose her among all those other girls with bloods hailing from respectable clans in their world, who chose her to be Erisu's companion since childhood. Who weaved Erisu and Kazuko's thread of fate together.

(Who made you a tool? Who made you chain your life to a duty filled with pain? Who made you endure those scars and scratches and screams?)

"Kazuko," Ebisu begins. Kazuko. He's called her Kazuko for the longest time. Her name. Her chosen name is worthy to be on the lips of the most powerful man in the Nakano clan. "I'm glad to see you recovering."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"You're a tough girl," he says. His eyes are gold just like Erisu, but there is no shimmer, no brilliance; it is not a gold made for glitters, but one that reminds her of solid foundations.

She thanks him again.

"Just like your mother..." he adds and Kazuko doesn't really care about her parents. Her mother died when she was barely one year old and had given her to Fuyuko to take care of. Her mother, who she never bothered knowing the name of, was once an attendant to the elder and had served her with unwavering loyalty. Her father had died before she was born. Both of them, faces she has no memory of. Hands she doesn't know the feeling of. Voices she never heard.

Kazuko is spared from the chore of formulating a response for the door opens and Erisu appears. She's dressed in formal clothing like her father, the kimono with blue fabric and patterns of sunflowers, an obi with a minimalistic design of pastel lines. Colors that make her eyes glimmer, accentuate the curves of her lips. Today, Erisu looks more like a lady than she usually does.