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Hardly a week after the closing of court, the horses were brought out. It’d taken time, but I’d overcome that fear, practicing with Susa and learning her cues and movements as I had Saburo’s. Though, I’d missed the stallion and often stayed in the stable to comb out his mane or pat him.
Koji didn’t like being brought into the stables at first. If the horses were large to me, they must’ve seemed massive to a dog. In time, he’d learned they wouldn’t hurt him, and would watch me as I practiced. On a rare occasion, he would get up and trot alongside us, giving some distance while looking at me and Susa with a curiousness to him. I was glad of it, since I’d hoped to have him along when riding up the mountain.
Not this time, however.
Lord Kwan’s brothers had remained, and would be joining us. The eldest brothers made no secret of their dislike of Syaoran coming along. I didn’t blame my friend for staying behind with that in mind. After all, he’d hid away several times before when Lord Kwan’s brothers visited.
Though, when they mentioned a complaint about my coming, I ignored them. I liked going to see the lake, and to pick from the peach grove. And unless Lord Kwan commanded my stay, I wouldn’t allow their snobbery to keep me from coming. I was determined to prove their low opinion of me didn’t hold any actual power. My silent defiance.
Between the escorting guards Lord Kwan brought, and those of his brothers, it was a suffocating ordeal. Likewise, I was expected to be more restrained, and take my luncheon separate from the lords. Through it, Gi was a comfort, awkward as he was in trying to help me understand the rigid cues.
While the brothers disliked my picking the fruit, no one stopped me from doing so. Though, I wasn’t allowed to eat any, not in front of the lords. There was too much ceremony, though I swore never to reveal my frustration. When I was bid to stay behind while the heirs of the Tiger Clan went to speak with the Dareun statue, I calmed. With no one around, and still a little hungry, I devoured a peach. And then a second.
It was a lonely journey. Though, before Lord Kwan had gone to the tiger statue, he asked me a queer favor. When bidding me to stay, he’d also said that I should pick a time to ride off a short distance and aim for the lake. It didn’t make sense to me, but I didn’t have the chance to ask any questions. Still, I was curious enough to see it through.
There were questions by the guards on where I was going, to which I simply replied: the lake. I didn’t mention that it was Lord Kwan’s instruction. If he’d made it so secretive, then exposing that wouldn’t help.
I didn’t ride fast, keeping to a soft trot and slowing when I didn’t feel confident in the path I’d chosen. Susa nickered, like a question for me asked in a language I didn’t know. Once far enough away, I explained, and her ears pointed up again. I didn’t need to direct her after. Her confidence renewed, she took initiative in making a new route through the undergrowth.
It allowed me to look around, and take in the view. We came to a stop, listening to bird songs, and breathing in the thick air. Being away, with only Susa, bettered my mood. The calming sounds of the forest, a running stream, the wind rustling the leaves soothed me.
“Hisa.”
My spine went cold, and my body locked up, pulling on the reins and irritating Susa. My head whipped to the source of the whisper. I should’ve guessed, even if I didn’t hear Saburo walking up. Lord Kwan’s start of a smile sat on his face, and a softness in his eyes. He looked relaxed at last, and my tension melted from me.
“You wandered off. I had to come looking for you.”
I blinked, twisting my brow at him until I understood: that was the excuse he’d made.
“Since we’re this far anyway, do you want to see the lake?”
“Isn’t that far, though?”
“You already stayed the night with me in the wilds once.”
“Lord Kwan!” I scolded his tease, my cheeks heating up instantly. In that same second, my imagination betrayed me again, digging up the memory and quickly assembling a fantasy of it being deliberate and without injury.
“It’s a spell, for Saburo and Susa,” said Lord Kwan. “It won’t feel like we’re going fast at all, but we’ll be at the lakeshore before the hour is up.”
“I,” hesitation took me. “I do want to see it. But I’m scared that something will happen again. I don’t want you to get hurt because of something I did.”
His smile grew a little. “Do you trust me?”
I sighed, trying to read the hint of mischief on his otherwise stoic expression. I couldn’t. But I nodded anyway.
With that, he led the way. “Besides, I like that you fuss over me.”
I scolded him again. He ignored it.
“As though I weren’t my titles and prestige but someone more ordinary. Anyone else would typically bombard me with questions and reports.”
I sighed, holding in my grumbling words for more sensible ones. “I know you’re a powerful Juneun. But you’re my friend. And I don’t think I’ll ever not worry when my friend is hurt, no matter how powerful they might be.”
“Might be?”
“Are,” I corrected, brow furrowed.
He thought about it a while as we walked on. “I liked your fussing anyway.”
“Didn’t you also fuss over me when I was unwell?”
“Of course,” he looked over his shoulder to me, “you’re my friend.”
The sentiment both warmed and hurt my heart. We went on, sometimes talking, but mostly riding in the comfortable quiet of each other’s company. At the end of the hour, the edge of the forest came into view, and the lake beyond.
The gentle splash of its small waves, like it breathed the same as we did. I nearly leapt off my saddle to see if it was real. The water spanned so far, it looked just how I imagined the ocean. My head turned me, seeing how high the mountain reached from where we were. It might’ve easily been a day’s ride with no clear trail to follow.
“The mountain is a cradle,” said Lord Kwan, looking across the lake. “The sky, a loving parent. Watching the children of trees and animals basking below.” The wind picked up, tussling his long hair wilder than I could remember. His clothes, too, danced, defiant in his stillness.
There was a weight to his words, even if I didn’t quite understand why.
He looked at me, half turning, and with that gentle smile on him. “What do you think of the poem?”
Awkward, and feeling a little foolish, I answered. “I didn’t know it was a poem. It felt... The words were pretty, but it felt unbalanced somehow.”
A grunt, and he stared a moment. “Perhaps you’re right. I may have lost my touch with creating poems.”
“I didn’t know you made poems.”
“It’s been decades since I’ve composed one properly. It’s one of the few ways to express myself in my station.”
I smiled, against the prickling cold of the wind, and pushed my hair out of my face as I went to stand beside him. It was only the two of us now; Saburo and Susa grazed a short distance away, bucking on occasion in proud displays of strength and endless energy. I decided then, that I would tell him how I felt. Even knowing there was hardly any chance of my feelings being returned, I would tell him rather than stay trapped by them.
Taking his hand, I prayed for strength. I’d kiss him, like he’d kissed me before, and he would know that it wasn’t teasing. We stood there, side by side in front of the lake, watching the sunlight shimmer off the ripples. All I had to do was turn his face and pull myself up. The same way I did with Syaoran.
So why was it so difficult this time? When I tried to get rid of my feelings, I didn’t hesitate. But, maybe, because the kiss would mean something this time—something honest, rather than desperation. At the slightest attempt to go through with it, I froze. I was at war with myself. The desire and the plaguing fear battling for what action I should take.
What was stopping me? We’d kissed before. Twice! A third kiss should be nothing. So why couldn’t I do it?
Just grab him. Move fast, faster than I could stop myself. That’s all I had to do. And I couldn’t.
Maybe if I said it first. Once the words left me, there’d be no backing out. And if he thought I was joking, then I’d kiss him to prove I wasn’t.
My jaw locked up. Say I love you, I told myself. I’d said those three words to my brothers, to my father, to Fumei and the children in my village countless times. But this was different. I knew that.
Another prayer for courage, I tried again, managing to take a breath and open my mouth before my voice abruptly stopped.
This was getting ridiculous. Three words. Even if I said them quickly, I just had to get them out.
“Lord Kwan?”
He looked at me, a gentleness to his usual stone-expression. Before I could choke out what I wanted to say, the wind picked up, muffling sound and ushering in a biting cold. I recoiled my hand from his, tucking into myself against the sudden sting. It was summer, and the wind rejected all warmth.
“This high up, the air is colder,” said Lord Kwan. “It cools off more cascading down the forest, and chills across the lake.” He turned, walking a short distance and gesturing for Saburo.
The stallion shook out, in no great hurry to obey his master. As a spirit, Saburo had a will and an intelligence of his own, stronger than a normal horse, and watching him always made me smile. From under the saddle pack, Lord Kwan produced a jacket. Green in color, with a pair of hares printed at one corner. It wasn’t as long or as thick as my winter deel, though I was sure it’d offer plenty of warmth, regardless.
Wrapped in it, I offered a quiet smile of thanks as I hurried to get my arms into the sleeves and hold it snug against me.
“Better?”
I nodded. “Did you plan on this?”
He said nothing, flashing a knowing look in place of words.
“And what would you have done if I didn’t agree?” I said, sly.
“I would have felt foolish,” said Lord Kwan. “When you leave for home, I’ll have to invent new ways of coming here. Where I can be without other matters vying for my attention, or pressured to return.”
“You can’t just leave whenever you want?”
“Not without an uproar in my stead. I dislike feeling watched, or that I’m expected to return in a set amount of time.”
I looked away, back up the mountain. “I know the feeling.”
“Oh?” said Lord Kwan, which I knew by now meant he’d come up with some tease. “So Hisa is also—”
“I’m the woman of the house at home,” I interrupted, grinning as I did. “All the cooking and cleaning and sewing and laundry... And no matter how I plan and prioritize, something always disrupts it. It feels like, even on the longest days, I never have time to get everything done. It happens so rarely that, when I have nothing more to work on, I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“You draw,” said Lord Kwan, hinting at a cheeky tone.
“That’s after I stand around mentally running through all my chores for a long time.” I laughed. It made my heart glad that we did know each other well enough for conversations like these. While I could still speak, I wanted to get my feelings out.
“I think I’ll miss your running around and fussing,” said Lord Kwan. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
For whatever reason, that stole my voice from me. I wondered what he meant. If he shared my feelings, or if it was the friendship and the company.
“Syaoran has become very fond of you as well. Despite bringing in Koji and not telling him.”
A hand fidgeted with my ear at the mere memory. I’d never seen Syaoran so angry. On the day I shoved him out of my own fuming, he didn’t retaliate or yell, but he hated dogs so much that it couldn’t be helped when I snuck one into the villa.
“We’ve become close friends,” I said. “Since we’re both outsiders when it comes to court and that sort of thing.”
Quiet. Lord Kwan shifted his gaze elsewhere, considering it. “Perhaps I’m to blame. I thought the best method of protecting him would be to shut away everything. Instead, if he were brought into society more, maybe a tolerance would be made.”
It was my turn to think on it. “When Lord Genji visited, he said that the other lords never accepted his wife as a human among them. I think you made the better choice. Syaoran might’ve felt like he was being paraded around. But in the house, he’s made a place and everyone knew him over time.”
“That’s true.”
For a long while after, we said nothing. Walking the brim of the lake, pausing now and again, but all of it in wonderful, wordless company.
Through it, I kept pushing myself to speak about my feelings. When would I get this chance again, being completely alone with no one else to know?
“I,” my voice stuck fast behind my tongue.
“Genji is fond of you as well in such a short time,” said Lord Kwan, distracting from my awkwardness. Or, perhaps never hearing me. “Soon Hisa will have too many Juneun suitors to pick from.”
“Don’t say things like that,” I grumbled. A small piece of my heart delighted in the idea, after having spent so much of my life thinking I’d never have a single man’s affection let alone more.
“Many more might line up after learning about Genji’s favoritism to you.”
“And what about yourself, my lord?” I said, in as smug a tone as I could muster. “We all thought you meant to announce your engagement twice in two years.”
His stone expression broke, becoming awkward on him.
“So why did you send for Feng? Did you know that she was hiding away on the mountain?”
“I did,” said Lord Kwan. “Very little trespasses through without my finding out eventually.”
“But if you didn’t intend to engage her, why did you host her all winter?”
He regained himself, a knowing look taking hold. “Why did you give her your peach?”
That caught me off guard. “I...” It was hard to describe. I still thought of her as a friend, and wanted her to be happy, but there was a little more to it than that. I wanted to be a source of comfort, to give hope. I wanted to be to her what I wished someone was to me. “I wanted to protect her.”
“As did I,” said Lord Kwan, taking his time. “Gumiho isn’t the only threat. Even if she was gone, there are others who will want to rise up and challenge any Juneun they come across. Often, they’ll start with the most vulnerable, and antagonize a full assault.”
I blinked. “But Gumiho is gone. You said it yourself.”
His eyes widened for less than a second, and he nearly stumbled in his next step. “True.”