Gin and Kuro: The Greatest Stories

Maenomi waited in her room, braiding and unbraiding her hair as she stared in her reflection in the mirror. Seiko said Lady Aimiki brought her back from the dead; she could barely remember that night, but the scar on her neck remained.

She perked up at the knock on the door. It slightly opened and Seiko poked her head in, her silver hair falling down even more elegantly than it did when brown. It fit her well.

“Are you ready?”

Maenomi nodded, completely turning without looking at the mirror again, her hair half-braided. She didn’t care if she looked ridiculous.

Seiko smiled and pulled back. A moment later, a familiar face came in. Maenomi let out as much of a laugh as she could muster when Teha smiled at her.

“Miss Tsujihara said you can’t talk much,” Teha murmured. “Don’t feel pressured to, all right? I’m just glad you’re still alive.”

Maenomi weakly gave some kind of agreement. She met Teha halfway across the room, gave her a light kiss on the cheek, and hugged her. Teha held her tight in response.

“Are you doing all right? Without…your brother and parents, I mean. I heard what happened.”

Maenomi sighed. “Father helped us. Kyuru is…hard. But Yukira?” She gently pulled both of them down so they sat on the floor, her head on Teha’s shoulder. “Good riddance.”

Teha fell silent, her eyes wandering to Maenomi’s healing wound. When Maenomi noticed a little bit of tears, she wiped them away.

“I’m fine,” she quietly assured her. “...Thank you.”

“Lady Aimiki is kinder than most, it seems.”

She looked back at Maenomi and stared for a minute.

“Do you still want to keep your promise?” Teha asked.

“Mhm.”

“Do you want to stay here with Miss Tsujihara, or go east?”

“East.”

“You’re sure?”

“‘Maenomi’ is dead, remember?”

Teha seemed to understand. “Okay. Do you want to stay for the wedding?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t feel safe here, being a supposedly dead person—she would have to stay in the palace, away from any servants, for a while until people started to forget what she looked like. Maenomi couldn’t attend the wedding herself, but she could help Seiko prepare for it; her sister had enough to do as it was.

“That gives me enough time to prepare for the trip back,” Teha said. She smiled and brushed away some of Maenomi’s hair off her face. “We can catch up for another few days, then leave whenever you’re ready.”

“Good.”

Maybe, when her scar faded, they could come back to see what Seiko managed during her reign. Maenomi looked forward to it.

— —

Asahi stood in the study flipping through papers—documents and forms, mostly. He only had some confidence because his parents showed him how to understand and decode all the legal words just in case something happened to his older siblings.

Every time he felt unprepared, all it took for him to regain some motivation was to glance at Seiko. She didn’t have any experience; she could handle the public part of the role fine, but she struggled when it came to paperwork. Even the wedding-related papers were a bit much.

He opened his mouth to offer to help. A familiar teasing voice cut him off.

“Paperwork. How romantic.”

Asahi glared at his sister while Seiko looked up at the stranger.

“It’s a little too early to joke, don’t you think?” Asahi asked with a sigh.

Nayano shrugged. “It’s the stress finally fading. Mother was worried sick these past two years; it was hard to convince her that you sent back letters as often as you could.”

“Is everyone here?”

“You say that as if you think we’d skip out on the last wedding of this Kinjo generation. We brought cousins! And, of course, Naonkei’s family, too.”

He managed to let out a chuckle, putting down the papers and leaning against the wall. The hardest part would be trying to figure out if they were genuinely happy for him, or just wanted to see the bastard village girl who turned out to be a princess.

Nayano’s gaze turned over to Seiko. They shared a blink for a moment, then Nayano straightened.

“Let me introduce myself,” she said. She offered a quick bow. “I’m Kinjo Nayano, Asahi’s older sister; I’m married to Wamiaki Naonkei, a fellow eastern noble. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.” Seiko pushed back the chair and stepped aside so she could offer a greeting bow as well. “Tsujihara Seiko. Asahi told me a few stories.”

Nayano’s eyes glimmered with mischief. “Good ones, or bad ones?”

“A mix.”

“Well, I’ll be pleased to introduce you to the rest of us,” Nayano said kindly. Her smile faded into something a little more sympathetic. “I heard you were the last of the Tsujihara and Gin families. We thought it would be nice to fill up the crowd with the family you’ll be marrying into instead.”

“Thank you.” Seiko gave a sad smile back. “None of it feels real yet, to be honest, but it’s reassuring all the same. My mother’s death has been the hardest to cope with.”

They all fell silent for a minute in respect. Nayano’s eyes traveled across the room while Asahi kept an eye on Seiko, watching her expression shift from her little smile to a frown to a slightly bit lip.

After a little bit, Seiko shook it off and opened up one of the drawers.

“A letter was left for you, Miss Nayano,” Seiko announced. She pulled it out, then closed the drawer again while she passed it to Asahi’s sister with her other hand.

“Who’s it from?” Nayano accepted it, turned it around to see if it had any names on it.

Asahi sighed and looked at her. “Sonoru left it before he disappeared.”

“...Oh.”

She winced as she unfolded it. He knew she still cared for Sonoru, to some extent—it took her a while before she accepted Wamiaki’s proposal. Seiko sat back down again while Nayano read through the letter once, then twice, then leaned against the doorframe and sighed.

“Something troubling?” Asahi guessed, trying to be gentle in case it bothered her.

Nayano glanced away and fiddled with the edge of the paper.

“It’s a confession written like a final will. He blamed himself for the deaths of Princes Kyuru and Chiki and fled—abandoning what’s left of Masaaki territory in the process. He says there aren’t many people, but it’s a large portion of land; he gave it to me and Naonkei.”

She thought for a moment, then looked at both Asahi and Seiko.

“Wamiaki territory is too far to efficiently rule a second district,” Nayano noted. “I’ll have to talk it through with Naonkei first—however, I could probably let you two have it? Something of a wedding gift.”

“It would give somewhere for the Tsujihara family to grow without removing land from preexisting families and towns,” Asahi mused. He gave a curious look at Seiko. “What about you?”

She gave a tiny smile.

“...It sounds nice, at least.” She looked up at Nayano. “Let me know what your husband says, then we can all discuss it when Hiroki gets here.”

“It’s a plan, then,” Nayano replied with a nod. She folded the paper back up and offered a little wave. “I’ll talk to him about it now.”

“Every personal guest is invited to meals, so we’ll see you then,” Asahi promised.

She smiled back, then slid away. Asahi glanced at Seiko again, prepared to ask what she thought of Nayano, but she sat back and stared at the ceiling with a fond look.

He didn’t want to interrupt her. If daydreaming was what helped her through, he wouldn’t interfere with that. She deserved to spend a few minutes just…thinking about what might come out of this.

The war cost many lives, and in a sense Seiko was the last of two families. But for the sake of her smile, her laugh, everything—Asahi swore to make the coming peace as happy for her as possible.