He's My Knight in Shining Armor (Akagami no Shirayukihime Fanfiction)

Chapter 9

"WHAT?!" Shirayuki yelled. "She's your SISTER?!"

"Shhhh!" Obi hissed at her, gesturing towards Ryuu. "There are some of us who'd like to get some sleep!"

"Sorry," She whispered her apology. She suddenly felt very light and carefree. It's nice to know that my conjecture was incorrect.

"Why do you look so relieved?" He asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. He slanted his eyes in realisation. "Wait... did you actually think I... that I would ever cheat on you?!"

"The thought did cross my mind once or twice," She admitted hesitantly, "but I wasn't worried."

"You... weren't worried?" He asked, slumping his shoulders in dejection. Naturally, he'd thought she'd been enraged by his casual brushing off of being with another woman. Though the woman in question was his sister, he'd thought that she'd at least be angry with him beforehand.

Her eyes widened as she frantically waved her hands. "N-No, it's not that I wasn't worried—I couldn't even sleep since my pulse was racing so fast. I wasn't worried about us, though. I tried my best to stay up to wait for you, but—"

He put his hand on her own. "You were waiting for me?"

Her face began to turn a bright red. "I-I wasn't waiting for you for long... actually, I was planning on going to find you if I had to wait a minute longer..."

Obi smiled as he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against Shirayuki's own. "Sorry to make you worry."

She closed her eyes as she began to smile. "You're not sorry in the least."

Rather than feebly try to defend himself, he shrugged and let a soothing silence envelop both their senses. They stayed like that for so long, the two of them lost all sense of time.

Eventually, Shirayuki snapped back to her senses and—albeit she hated to ruin this perfect moment—straightened and opened her eyes. "Since when did you have a sister? Did you not tell me the truth about your family?"

Obi followed her example and snapped back to his senses as well. "I did tell you the truth about my parents, but it was half of the full truth. After my parents were brazenly murdered, I assumed they had done the same with my younger sister and fled to a nearby village with a couple of friends I knew. After the village calmed down and the Chief himself apologised to me, I went back to the village. Turns out my sister had also fled to one of her friends a few towns away. When I heard she was still alive, I wrote her a letter, begging that she come back. She did, once I assured her it was all right to be in the village."

"But that can't possibly be it, can it?" She asked quietly. That still doesn't explain how he became an assassin or how his sister had become a noblewoman but, most of all, it doesn't explain how they ended up being so distant to each other. You'd think they'd be closer, considering the tragedy that befell their family.

"No, it isn't," He affirmed after a few hesitant moments. "At first, everything was great. I quickly found a job with the help of a friend of mine where I cut trees, and my sister, like you, knew a lot about herbs. She planted a garden behind our house and grew most of our food—save for bread, eggs, and other such things—by hand. She even embroidered dresses to sell and stitched any of our ripped clothes back together. We didn't have a lot of money, but we lived comfortably enough. More than that, we were happy. We had each other, and that was enough.

"One day, as I was coming back from my job, I heard a shrill scream I recognised as my sister's. I rushed home quickly only to see two men try to kidnap my sister. The man who wasn't restraining my sister lunged for me with a knife in his hand. I dodged his attack and aimed my fist at his rib cage. He let out a muffled grunt, but soon recovered and aimed the knife at my heart. I used this chance to use his momentum against him and quickly took hold of his knife before turning it toward him. His momentum couldn't stop in time and he ran straight into the blade. He didn't even scream; he just slowly crumpled to the ground. The other man, the one restraining my sister, didn't look angry. In fact, he looked impressed. I was about to do the same to him when he suddenly pulled a gun out of its holster and aimed it at my sister's throat. He threatend to kill her if I even made a move towards him. After seeing I wasn't about to do anything, he gave me instructions to meet him at a nearby bar at exactly midnight if I ever wanted to see my sister again. He then took my frightened sister away with him, and I couldn't do anything!"