Moments like this

Sunshine

It was not uncommon to change places during his work. Most of the time he could do his work in the workroom, but sometimes he also had to look things up or an urgent matter would came up and he had to leave.
He never really was in a hurry, even when it was an urgent matter. At the beginning of his time as emperor he thought he had to do everything immediately, now he knew that rushing does not automatically lead to a better or faster result. Being calmer was one of the first things he had to learn and it was one of the first things his wife taught him – from his point of view she was a little bit to calm, but that was just his opinion.
Another thing he had to learn – learn again – was having trust in other people.
Since the fire accident he lost all his trust in other people – only his sister was an exception – which lead to an inability in closing his eyes. It took him a long time until he was able to fall asleep even when he was really tiered, and closing his eyes when other were around was impossible – but even when he it seemed like he was alone he couldn't do it. It got slightly better over the years.

It was not helpful when the emperor did not trust his servants and subordinates. And it was not helpful when does people did not trust the emperor. Most of them acted like everything was fine, for some of them it was fine, because they did not care about who rules as long as they could live their life like always. But Hakuryuu knew that there were also those who still did not believe what happened back then and thought that his words were nothing but lies.
In his weak moments hate and anger befall him and he wished those people would die, but he had himself under control. He now knew that there were better ways to express his feelings and thoughts, and now he also had someone who would listen and understand him – he at least hoped so.
He did came a long way from the crybaby he was to the emperor he was now, and he still had a long way in front of him. By going ahead he would then realize a lot of things that he did not see at the first sight.

Today was one of the rare warmer days in the empire.
The palace was a place where you could get lost easily, even people who lied their whole life here sometimes got lost a little bit. As a small child he got lost relatively often, so he started to cling to his sister or the servants. When his brother were around he would follow them until they would send him away. After the great fire he also got lost often, but then no one would help him to find his way back – he wasn't important enough anymore – so he started to wander around and got to know the palace better. And he had found Judar's hiding place.
But all those things were the past now. He had to focus on the future and for that future he had to a lot of work.

When he had to change his working place, because he had to pick some scrolls from one of the library, he liked to make a few stops – at least when the sun was shining. The Kou Empire was not a warm place neither was it cold, but it tended to be more cold then warm. Therefore, he tried to get as much sunlight and warmth as he could. Also he did not have much time to spend outside since he became emperor. Unfortunately the paper work couldn't finish itself.
As child he played almost the whole day outside – well, he trained to become a useful soldier for the empire.
Now he would take the change to look at the sun and let himself be warmed up by her rays when he changes places. Most of the time he would start to remember his childhood and he would remember his brothers, his sister and his mother – but thinking about her hurt him the most, because he had loved her so much and she betrayed him.
The past was the past and he would not be able to bring those times back, but he could try to bring such wonderful memories to the people of his empire. He had a wonderful childhood until the fire and he wanted his people also to have such a good time.
No one should ever lose someone dear to him because of war, because of intrigues, because of an organization like Al Thamen.
He would make sure that his people would have a job, a house, money and time for their family. He knew that it would be a long way until this dream would came true – Sinbad's new created world caused him and his empire a lot of problems, but problems exist to be solved and he would solve them – and for that he himself had to learn so much more.

He liked warm days full of sunshine in the empire, because it remembered him of his childhood and that he once believed in a world without war, hate, envy. He once believed in a world full of love, sunshine and happiness.