Chapter Text
When he gets word that the guards have returned, Daisuke is in his bed, his head begging to be left lain on the soft embroidered pillows as the dark of the night sky dawns heavy on his eyelids. Yet, before sleep could take him into dreamless bliss, he’s alerted by a knock at the door, followed by the sound of his sister calling out his name.
He grumbles in response, but only in his mind, sitting up to let Suzue come inside.
“Brother,” She approaches with a careful tone, kneeling by his bedside. “They’re returned. I want nothing more than to question them about their findings now, but the risk is high. I scheduled them to accompany the both of us on an outing in two days, starting tomorrow. It seems less conspicuous, I’d think. I wanted to let you know now. The four of them have been informed as well.”
“You did well.” He replies, struggling to keep his words from slurring together. “We will make a plan in two days then.”
“Two days.” She nods, once, before standing up. “Goodnight, Daisuke.”
To this, he only nods back, restraining a yawn. And when she is on the other side of the wall, he lets his body sink into the comfortable mattress.
Between his concerns about the guards absence in regards as to how it would look to the King and keeping up with his ‘princely duties’, rest - true rest, that has your body as well as your mind recovered from excessive strain - had been a rarity in his days. There was only so long anyone could handle sleep deprivation. And in his state, Daisuke missed it, but Suzue had walked out of there in the same condition he was in. She, on the other hand, had noticed, and hoped that both of them would be well enough by the time they’d have to think of how to take their father away from the throne.
“Suzue. Where are we going?”
The Kambe siblings are escorted by the four chosen guards to their carriage out by the front gate of the castle. And Daisuke only asks because his sister had never told him their destination. He did not think there was to keep it a secret from him, of all people, yet she had insisted on not giving him an answer ever since breakfast and even when the King had inquired, her response had been kept vague.
“Just for a walk around the village, father.” She had smiled at him. “I would like to go out today, it’s been a while since we left the castle.”
It was convincing enough, Daisuke thought. And their father had no reason to question the validity of it, regardless of how uncharacteristic it was of him to even investigate where his children would be going. It might mean he was indeed suspicious. Perhaps that was the reason Suzue hadn’t said anything, even to her brother. Yet, Daisuke wasn’t fond of not knowing, even if he did trust the person taking him.
“You’ll see, brother.” She says when they reach the open.
At this, he grimaces. Suzue wouldn’t budge no matter how persistently he pushed, the one quality she got from their father but she tended to use it for better reasons. Still, when Daisuke took his seat, he was biting down on his tongue.
One of the guards already inside was Haru Katou, eyeing him and Suzue with the same contempt Daisuke had thought was gone from his stare just a week prior. He wondered what had happened between then and now to make it come back and so… alive.
“Good evening, your Highnesses!” The other one said, making Daisuke take note of her presence.
The royal siblings nodded at her together, waiting for Katou to properly address them as well.
Clenching his jaw, the man greeted, “Your Highnesses.”
“And to you both as well.” Suzue made sure to smile at the two of them. “How was your week off?”
“It was good, your Highness.” Katou shot. “But I was left with some questions I’d like to address.”
The politeness, albeit forced and apparently so, was new and seemed unfitting. Yet if Haru Katou addressed them freely, it would be reason to throw him in the dungeons, have him executed if the King was feeling particularly blood-thirsty. Daisuke would’ve welcomed it with internal glee instead. And Suzue? If he knew her as well as he thought, she found it rather amusing and only scolded him for appearances’ sake.
“And we’ll answer soon, Haru Katou, I promise.”
The man across bobbed his head, almost in slow-motion, as his eyes travelled in a straight line to meet Daisuke’s and it’s like they dared, “Will you?”. As in, Suzue might tell him the truth, but would her brother? So it seemed their relationship, if that is how you could call it, had suffered a slight set-back. Whatever the guard had learned during the past week had altered, yet again, his perception of the Kambe siblings.
Daisuke smirked at him.
“Only with the answers we have.” He said.
Katou snickers at this and turns away, mumbling under his breath, “Of course.” And if he had tried to make it unlistenable, he had misjudged his volume by a lot.
It was an interesting ride in silence for nearly half of the hour. When the carriage stopped, Daisuke looked out to see they had arrived at an abandoned site he struggled to recognize. It was an old looking house of three floors, all with broken windows and a torn down front door. There was a yard upfront with dead floors and mold growing at the corners. As the six of them crossed the front gate, Daisuke saw the corroded metal and the smell it polluted the air around with, and just up ahead where the door was supposed to be, was also a little balcony, its wood also broken in places.
So he turns to face his sister, getting off of the carriage, waiting on an explanation.
“Daisuke… you don’t remember this place?”
He follows behind her. “I cannot say that I do.”
“This-” Katou speaks, looking around the rundown house. “It’s the refugee asylum, isn’t it?”
Looking at his sister again, Daisuke’s eyes widened. Suzue nods slowly before responding. “Yes, you are correct.”
“So you know?!”
Before she could speak again, Daisuke steps between them, crossing his arms over his chest. “I do not, and I’d appreciate being brought up to speed.”
“Brother…” Suzue started. “Father has been turning away refugees since the so-called war started. We’ve never been a safeplace for anyone outside of our borders, they never even get to reach past the wall.”
Except that could never be the case. Not when Daisuke spends hours sitting on a chair every week singing paper, allowing passage to at least a couple dozen every time he does so. Not when he is the person tasked to keep those permission papers safely in the drawers of the castle’s library. Not when that’s the only meaningful thing he’s allowed to do with the meaningless title he has.
“Daisuke…” His sister calls with a softer tone, meaning that she noticed something in his expression. Now, was it the confusion? Was it the pain? Was it the complete and utter anger building up at the back of his mind? What had been showing in his face?
“How can you be sure?” He questioned once he managed to face his voice. “Where did you get such information from, Suzue?”
She sighs, meeting his eyes. “Our military. I wanted to tell you sooned… yet, I thought you wouldn’t believe me if you couldn’t see it for yourself.”
“You are right.” He snaps and leaves it at that.
Silence doesn’t have the chance to settle between them. Yet surprisingly, the one who interrupts the process is the female guard. Saeki Mahoro, Daisuke believes is her name.
“Your Highnesses.” She curtsies before the siblings. “I was also made aware of this during our scouting. I reached the wall, the guards stationed there have orders to not let anyone through and to… well, to not have mercy upon those who try.”
It’s quiet then. The guards stare at the princess and the prince but they simply avoid their gaze. Daisuke looks past them, to the concrete wall behind them, while Suzue turns away completely, facing the abandoned house. The stare which Daisuke feels on him most is Haru Katou’s and he knows that if he were to lock eyes with him, that burning hatred would be there again. Somehow, the thought hurts a little bit deeper than he’s expected. Yet, the man surprises him there.
“If I may.” Katou speaks, stepping closer and crunching a dead leaf under his foot. Daisuke lowers his head slightly, giving him permission to continue. “I should be honest and say I was furious, resenting the two of you for this. But… it seems as if neither of you knew. I didn’t either before we left last week. I met with an old friend of mine who has since we last seen each other, joined the rebel forces and he said that they have been trying to contact the two of you to form an alliance for a while now. That last attack on the castle wasn’t on your life, they meant to kidnap you, which... doesn’t sound all that much better honestly, but I also figured rebels talking about overthrowing the King in his castle wouldn’t work very well.”
“You- You got into contact with someone from the rebel group?” Suzue spun on her heels towards him.
“I did.”
“They… they really want the alliance?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“We must contact them immediately then!”
Haru bowed to her. “I’ll send him a letter as soon as we get back to the castle.”
And so, from the corner of his eyes, Daisuke noticed her change in posture. Her shoulders dropped, the corner of her lips curled a little… she let out a breath.
“This is good news.” She declared. “Finally some good news.”
If you’d rather focus on the positives only, sure, good news it was. Everything else didn’t quite seem fitting to be considered part of that category, Daisuke believed personally that none of it was good news since it was all part of the larger plan they had. But as brutally honest as he was, Daisuke wasn’t in the business of making his sister miserable.
Later that night, he holed himself inside the library. Sending the librarians away to be left alone with his books and the false asylum authorization documents… How come his father had given him this work to do when it was all fake? The King could just pretend to have someone else do it and hide it from everyone, why waste Daisuke’s time on it?
His will was to burn it all. Let the ashes build and gather more fire and destroy the whole entire castle. But patience was more than a virtue, it was a skill that Daisuke had been honing since young and it would pay to have it now.
His father, the King, the man on the throne, he would fall and it would be a long way down.
That thought alone was enough to motivate Daisuke to leave and head towards his room. It’s silent through most of the way, until he meets with Haru Katou near his bedroom door, that’s when Daisuke finds himself approaching the man with a tiny teasing remark in mind.
Katou is quicker to speak. “Your Highness. I hope you’re well.”
And it sounds sincere. The words come out without a hint of sarcasm or snark or bite or anything resembling insubordination. It makes the prince stop dead in his tracks.
“I- Yes, I am well, Haru Katou.” He manages. “As I hope you are.”
“I am, your Highness.”
It almost seemed as if he knew Daisuke hadn’t been truthful. Those golden-like eyes fixating on his face, them themselves asking for more sincerity or simply letting him know that they saw through his words. Daisuke might’ve told him something had they not been at the castle, he thinks, but he could barely tell his own sister.
“Good night, Katou.” He shot, a bit too uncharacteristically fast of him.
And it takes him another second, but the other replies without any tone changes, “Good night, your Highness.”