Chapter Text
“We’re gonna die, Mizuki!” She whispers in between fits of giggles. She says it far too cheerfully for a princess sneaking out of a castle, She dances along the cobblestone streets, amazed by how the bustling square of the day had become devoid of any music—or anyone by night. Nothing but the sound of her heeled boots slamming onto the stone and their laughs that echoes through every dark crevice of the town.
“If we don’t learn to shut up, yeah we are.” They smile regardless. Oh, it’s bad, a bad, bad terrible thing that An’s heart leaps at the curving of their lips.
“I trust you still would like to dance with me.”
Mizuki hummed, “Ah, but we’re supposed to be sneaking out, princess .”
“ My esteemed knight—” She chortles at her own phrasing, “you’ll soon discover that I can be great at sneaking around when given the cha—”
Not even seconds later her back is slammed into the branches of a nearby berry bush, the twigs beneath back snapped from the impact though that could easily be mistaken for her bones.
“Wh—” A squeak bubbles up her throat. An tries to clamber out of the flora but she can’t move her arms very far because Mizuki’s body is melting into hers. They had pushed the two of them into a bush…but why!?
“Nightly patrols.” Mizuki whispers frantically, “We can get past them if we time it right.”
“…Nightly patrols!? Since when did those hap—” Unless she had been caught up in a terrible lie woven by her own brain cells, An was sure that her kingdom had never been as prosperous as it is now…was a patrol in the dead of night necessary?
Mizuki pauses and looks down at her—their face turning as red as it could look in such a dark area.
“D-did you hit your head? Oh saints, I’m probably crushing you with all this armor…”
“—pen…uh, yeah—but I’ll be fine!” She wonders if Mizuki is craving her touch the way she is dying for theirs, how she suddenly wishes she wasn’t wearing this cloak so she could feel their nails on her bare shoulder blade. A perfect princess wouldn’t be thinking these things—hell, a perfect princess shouldn’t even be out here . But, that perfect princess sounds perfectly miserable, and she was far from being a perfect, proper, princess.
She’s privy to their every movement—how their body tenses up when the air is suddenly filled with the clanking of metal armor alongside their rapid, heavy breaths.
“You always say that…” They huff, sinking back into her, their head resting idly on her chest. And for the first time, the weight of the entire world doesn’t feel all that bad.
It’s funny—it’s as if the two of them have completely forgotten how wrong this is. Also how there’s apparently nightly patrols lurking around the small bush that they're shrouded by.
That’s the thing about being with Mizuki—they’re an escape. An escape from well, everything . They understand how An feels, won’t pressure her to talk about the things she doesn’t want to. Her eye twitches. Anybody could say the way they were so attentive towards her was simply because she was a princess—Mizuki had sworn their life to hers two years ago. None of this was real . But was it so bad to believe it was?
“You best not be falling asleep on me. Again.”
“Shhhh…” Their voice cooes into her skin, and it’s awfully soft. “I’m trying to hear if they’re gone.”
“I don’t hear anything.” An says, because she genuinely can’t. Or maybe the accelerated palpitations of her heart are louder than anything else. “Perhaps you’re lying just to lay on me?”
“I’m not! I’m not, I swear—uhm,” They laugh nervously, trying to scramble off of her, but their head is only met by the foliage above, a few twigs and red berries manage to get stuck in their hair. They collapse back onto An’s body, forcibly tugging the nature out of their hair. She finds her gloved fingers worked in their pink ponytail eventually, and she tries her absolute best to gently take out some random twigs and thorns.
The words tumble out of her mouth before she can even think about what she’s saying, “I never said I was opposed to it.”
“Hah!?” The knight clamps their mouth shut in an instant. A flock of birds that were so silent just a moment ago squak stridently before flying out of the area. It turns out Mizuki wasn’t lying—what she had stupidly implied earlier was more of a daydream, because the metal she had subtly been hearing before grew louder.
So there were nightly patrols…that was strange. She would have liked it much better if Mizuki had been lying. The wind whispered an ominous tune as the clanking of metal neared them. Mizuki stiffened—it was as if they were able to stop breathing completely, a motionless log being brought up and down by An’s breathing. She tried to hold in her breaths as best she could.
Her blood went cold as a gloved hand poked through the foliage. She practically jumped out of her skin, gripping onto Mizuki’s shoulders for support—anything to stop herself from making a peep. Being caught and shoved back to the castle would be embarrassing at best; as the heir to the throne she could at least put a little effort into setting a good example.
The hand did some grabbing motions, nearly touching Mizuki’s hair before the owner of it clicked their tongue obnoxiously loud. A voice emerged, sounding proper and put together, “We’re in the clear.”
In the clear? In the clear for what!?
Once the footsteps have become quiet again, Mizuki wastes no time in dragging her out of that bush. They cough out literal leaves, and pull An behind a stone village house. They should be out of sight now that her chest is cold with longing.
“Here,” Mizuki says. They raise their hands into An’s hair, running their fingers in it for far too long before they pull a leaf out of it, followed by a twig.
“Chivalry.” An notes at the clasp of the button on her neck. Mizuki seems oddly focused on the simple—yet bold—gesture of putting the hood of An’s cloak back over her head while their noses are barely touching and she can feel their breathy giggles crawling across her cheeks. “I like it.”
“It’s my duty” Mizuki says, slightly shrugging. Ignorant of the fact of how close the two of them are—ignorant of how a moment like this shouldn’t be happening between them at all. As her guard, Mizuki was supposed to lurk around and protect her, but the distance only fueled An’s desire and now the two of them were playing with fire.
“It’s your duty?” She snorts far too boisterous for a princess, placing a hand to her heart in mock offense. “Hah! And here I was thinking we actually had something.”
“Well, of course we do.” Mizuki winks friskily and removes their hands from An’s hood, stepping back to look her up and down. “You’re all good, now let’s go. Just try to be quiet, okay? The patrol could still be out.”
“I could say the same thing to you.” An laughs. “I’m sure we wouldn’t of had that close call if you hadn’t—”
They groan, “Ah, I’ll get fired if we’re caught. You’d be devastated if I lost my job.”
“True. Very true.” An agrees and shakes her head at the notion of Mizuki not being by her side anymore. It would be weird, especially now that she was so accustomed to seeing them and their devilish smirks at the most random, yet necessary times. “Then, again I keep seeing you asleep on the job. Looks like you’ll be discharged as a knight in due time.”
She tries to play it off as a silly little joke. Those kinds of things were better as small gags—things that were so improbable to happen it was almost humorous. But now, she glances at Mizuki and knows that as long as a ring is bound to her finger, digging its metal claws into her skin…if she doesn’t keep her traitorous emotions in check then those jokes could become a reality.
This is why they’re sneaking out—An needs some time to clear her head without a batallion following her around town. She wants to relax. It’s unlike her to worry so much and she hates it more like anything. She and Mizuki are crown princess and knight—nothing more and nothing less. She wouldn’t let the way their fingers grazed onto her neck just moments ago and the smell of their breath change anything. She wouldn’t let their time in that bush change anything .
“You were showering me with praise just moments ago, princess. What did I ever do to deserve this?” They pout, then elbow her side playfully—which successfully knocks An out of her trance, “Let’s get out of here.” They snatch her wrist and guide her out without a second thought. The sudden contact shoots electricity up her arm. An gulps. The words left unspoken always scream the loudest.