Glaive Snow

Chapter 10 Stranger

       The scorching sun was in the sky, but behind the imperial palace was untimely silence. Weeds have invaded the untended garden for a long time, covering up the small gazebo in the middle of the pond. Iemitsu sat silently in the gazebo. Her dark, grey commoner's clothes were engraved in the wasteland like a stone carving. The carriage was already parked miles away. Nobody knew her visit today, except that person who forced her to let go.

       Her hand caressed the stone table's texture. The former mirth was pages covered in dust, following her fingertips and turned over again. The former emperor often came here to drink tea and have a rest, laughing and cursing at them who were fighting in the courtyard, those ridiculous and carefree years. Her thoughts followed the suffocating wind and brought back the reality. She put her gaze to her palm but did not see any dirt.

       He has been here.

       And he came here often.

       The happiness she thought would emerge only let her exhale a few dry laughs as if satirizing him who fiercely abandoned her in the memory, who also could not escape from his persistence at the end.

       " Iemitsu Tokugawa, Mizunoo said he wants to see you. Follow me." The mysterious man in a white robe stepped on the silent air and arrived. Nobody knew his origin, only said that he was the overlord's best drinking buddy. He was the only one who could enter Mizunoo's bedroom.

       Obviously, Iemitsu at this time did not care about these.

       " I know." She got up, patting the meaningless nostalgia, stepping out of the withered yellow weeds.

       The door made of pure gold was pushed. His palace was luxurious as usual, but except for their paces' echoes here, there were no others around.

       Gorgeous, hollow, just like him.

       " Mizunoo, I brought the princess here. I'm going to have a drink." The man's arbitrary voice left, leaving the two who were deep in the memories.

       " Tokugawa greets the overlord." She saluted, followed by a long silence.

       Mizunoo looked at her whom he had not seen for a long time. Her formerly insolent only remained the obedience to superiors, or rather, the disinterest towards those emotions.

       It was he who used despair to cut off her edges and corners, but he felt that any apology was insignificant.

       She was observing his room. Different from the splendor outside, the time here seemed to stop at the moment they broke up, ancient and lonely.

       Such a proud man like him should be the moon held by all the stars, receiving love from the world, but she felt this cool breath was the finest to him.

       They were merely looking at each other, looking at that familiar stranger. The thoughts should be depressed and resentful vanished at this moment.

       As if those pains were merely madness at a young age.

       As if those obsessions were merely clouds and smokers in the past.

       Here was the most ordinary room, and the ones standing in the room, were merely him and her, nothing more.

       Everything was said in unspoken words.

       "... Let us go."

       " Okay."

       The breeze blew over them, taking away their long-gone fate.