Equally Lost (Kyohaba)

Chapter 56

Yahaba's POV:

A week from the wedding. Kentaro had all of his business stuff cancelled to make preparations. Roles had been chosen and outfits decided. It was so close, the end of all this mess. I could nearly taste it. And yet...

Everything we wanted seemed so far away.

I was drifting off to sleep alone again, thinking about these things. Or, more like attempting to sleep. It was all happening now, how could I be able to sleep? I wasn't even involved much besides having a short speech later on and playing man of honor. The real people of honor were Tanaka and Ennoshita.

Kentaro would be out late with his family finishing things up. I wanted to join him, but he insisted I stayed behind. So, I'm stuck staring at the ceiling, thinking.

Wait. No I'm not. This place is massive, there's no reason for me to be bored, I have a place for drawing.

I left the bedroom and walked to the place Kentaro gave me for art. Grabbing the sketchbook and drawing supplies I'd gotten from him ages ago, I went outside.

It was lovely out. The stars were visible this far away from the main city. But, I don't feel like drawing that. Normally I would draw a wolf of some kind, probably in distress. Not tonight.

I started thinking recently about my wolves. They clearly showed Kentaro and I, but they were also discrete enough that someone outside of the people who knew about our tattoos wouldn't understand most of them.

It was an easy way to draw my being in love when I couldn't show the world.

I began a new sketch, one that I would be able to be proud of when I created something bigger out of it. I know exactly what I'm going to do with it too. It will be my best work of art.

———

Kyotani's POV:

So many things to do, and the clock ticks before I can finish any of them. Even though plans are done, there is much more to do.

Guarantees I won't keep about staying in the marriage until an heir is produced, all the paperwork of joint inheritance with a married partner, and Shimizu's last name changes after marriage. The last one won't ever be used, Hitoka's taking the Kiyoko last name.

This leaves me to sit with my confusing father and currently very aggressive mother as I fill out pointless paperwork for a marriage that won't happen. I hope they aren't making Shimizu do a whole bunch of this on her side, she's stressed enough.

What if the plan doesn't work? Oh god, what happens if it doesn't work?!? In the upside, this paperwork will be used. But everything else will fail, there's no point in even trying if it fails! We'll be stuck like this for ages! Why did I mess this up? Why did I drag everyone into this? It's been a year of this disaster and it still might not be fixed...

Maybe I don't deserve what I have now, and this is the universe's way of letting me know it's had enough of my ungratefulness. Maybe this is my fathers trickery if finally getting me to do what he wants after we told him a little too much after that accident. Or maybe this is simply my mother doing what she was raised to do like he suggested. Either way, the responsibility for all of the problems fall onto me.

What I would give to be with Shigeru right now. Maybe he's sleeping, or stargazing. He's probably sketching though, he loves doing art when he can't figure out anything else to do. Is this plaguing him as much as it is me? I hope not, but I'm probably right. Even when it only involves him indirectly, he finds a way to blame himself.