Work Text:
“My, this was so much easier when you and your brother were the splitting image of each other!”
“Just admit that you’re lazy, Tsubaki-san. It’s okay, no one will fire you over that.”
“Look here brat, I’ll have you know-!”
Haruka stops, lowers the hand that had been reaching for the ornate handle of the door that guards the entrance to the palace’s clothesmaker. There’s no mistaking the place - even if he hadn’t escorted Prince Suo to this very same door a little over two hours ago, the huge, colourful sign hanging from one of the door’s handles would be enough of an identification card. Furthermore, it’s clearly Prince Suo’s voice - a bit distorted as it might be - that he can hear coming from the inside, raised in a petulant tone that Haruka only tends to hear from him muddled with either sleep or exaggeration.
It makes him smile, if only just a little.
The Prince’s voice rises in a rant he doesn’t quite hear, instead letting the words wash over him as he considers his options. There's still over half an hour to the time the Prince requested him to be back - Kotoha had kicked him out earlier than predicted, claiming that the bread ‘doesn't rise right if you're here nagging me like that, Sakura’.
Whatever that means.
That said, while he doubts the Prince would mind in the slightest if Sakura were to go in and intrude on the conversation - if anything, he would probably only pout and complain even harder, since the audience doubled - the problem lies in his friend. Because going by the relaxed tone to the Prince‘s voice, the clothesmaker can't be anything shorter than a good friend. One that Haruka has never met before, and thus has no clue of how they would react to his presence.
Turns out that being the Second Prince's personal bodyguard tends to instill fear in people even faster than his cursed looks ever did back in the day.
Even so, it's literally in his job description - it's literally his job description - to tail the Prince at all times. And what better than repetitive exposure to make someone more used to - and thus unbothered by - his presence?
Mind made, Haruka knocks on the door, waiting for a moment before opening it. When he does, it's to find the Prince nowhere to be seen, only a woman - the clothesmaker, probably? - standing at the center of a grand room, half turned towards him. They blink at each other for a moment, before Haruka remembers that he's able, in fact, to produce words.
“Sorry for the interruption” and then, as if he didn’t just spend the last five minutes loitering in the corridor and listening to their conversation behind the door, he asks “is Prince Suo still here?”
“Sakura-kun?” calls the Prince’s disembodied voice, from behind a beige dressing screen whose top is overflowing with fabric. Although red and gold are the predominant colours, there’s quite a lot of greens and some blues mixed in between. “Is that you?”
“Unless you have another bodyguard you neglected to inform me of” he shoots back, pretending not to notice the woman’s assessing gaze. Nor the way she slowly edges closer to him, light pink dress swaying softly with each of her steps. “If you are behind schedule, I can come back later.”
“No need, no need!” the intervention of another male voice doesn’t quite startle him as much as the realization that it comes from the clothesmaker themselves. For a second, he just stares at them, as they forge on with a slightly yellow smile “it’s always good to have a second opinion when it comes to clothes. Especially for one of the Princes.”
Haruka blinks once, twice, before once again glancing towards the dressing screen. “Are you sure that peacock doesn't just want more audience?”
It startles a little laugh out of them, and a slightly shrill “I can hear you, you know?” from the Prince, who sticks his head around the side of the screen just to glare at him.
The sight of a silver pendant nestled on a naked collarbone, creamy skin sprawling all the way to an equally bare shoulder, has him averting his gaze just as fast. Best not to fantasize about the exact amount of bare skin hidden away behind the screen, not while he’s in such a public space and his clothes don't do much to cover unwanted bodily functions.
In an effort to distract himself from the unwanted mental images - auburn hair spilling over a pillow, a heaving chest and a chain caught between red, kiss swollen lips and nope - that start to fester, he turns more fully towards the clothesmaker.
“You must be Tsubakino, then? Kotoha says there's no one in the Empire more skilled at making clothes than you.”
A blush rises to their cheeks, the compliment causing them to hide away under their long hair to avoid looking at him fully in the eyes. Perhaps Haruka should grow out his hair too, it doesn't seem that bad of a strategy.
And he can always tie it up for fights.
“Don't listen to her! She was just exaggerating.”
With a raised brow and a pointed look down at his own clothes - comfortable black trousers and a dark green shirt under a simple but sturdy black and gold vest - Haruka retorts “I don't know. I quite like the ones you made me.”
“You know that Tsubaki-kun receives a salary too, right?” once again, Prince Suo sticks his head through the side of the dressing screen. The way he glares at him feels like mock indignation, though Haruka isn't quite so sure he’s reading him completely right. “You don't need to flirt with them to get them to make you more clothes, Sakura-kun.”
“Your opinion was taken into consideration, oh Your Meddlesome Highness” he drawls with an eyeroll “now will you go back to your clothes? I'm sure that Tsubakino had more profitable things to do besides putting up with us for longer than needed.”
A laugh “oh, please call me Tsubaki, Sakura! You're just like Kotoha described!”
Deciding that it's probably better for the sake of his mental sake not to know how, exactly, did Kotoha describe him, Haruka decides not to even address the comment. Instead, he inclines his head in their direction - he might've been raised a street rat, but even street rats can learn some manners. “If you say so.”
“Now, that's not fair” a too loud rustling sound, followed by a bitten off groan “why did you accept to call them Tsubaki but won't call me Hayato?”
Haruka huffs “probably because one of those things can very well get me into jail for disrespect to the crown, and it's not the clothesmaker's name?”
“How would you be arrested if I was the one to bring up the subject in the first place?”
“Mm, yes, because that would make the Emperor so much fonder of me than he already is” Haruka crosses his arms and shakes his head, even if he's perfectly aware the Prince can't see him right now. If he projects hard enough, though, his disapprovement might just well reach him. “Is this your way of implying you want to start looking for another bodyguard?”
“Mah, Sakura-kun” the soft tap-tap-tap of wooden soles against the ground “why must you always go around putting words in my mout-”
Haruka could say that, after working side by side with the Prince for days on end, it gets easy to forget the man's beauty. Of course he could. He would be a liar of the worst kind, but still.
No, Suo Hayato's beauty is not something one can easily forget. Not when he looks like a fairy tale prince come to life, with soft hair and smooth skin and the kind of lips that just seem to beg for kisses. Sometimes, when they are alone and the Prince gets into one of his pouty moods, it takes all of his self-control not to press him into the nearest wall and kiss him until he goes crosseyed.
You'd think that following the man like a shadow every day would have desensitized him to it. Would have numbed him to the heat he can feel when the Prince steps in too close, to the scent that clings to his skin, to the clothes that stick to his muscles during training sessions and especially to his fucking habit of starting to undress before Haruka is fully out of the room.
You'd think.
(What would he taste like? The teas he's so fond of drinking? The lip balm Haruka knows he keeps in one of his inner pockets, because his lips have the tendency to dry? Would he let Haruka pull him into his lap, bashful and pliant or perhaps tall and imposing, holding his head high and making Haruka work for the prize of a kiss? Or maybe, maybe Haruka could be the one to climb him up, fist his hands into auburn locks and bite his way into the warmth of his mouth and the jut of his Adam's apple, lick into the hollow of his throat. He'd-)
If there's an indubitable charm to Prince Hayato on his everyday clothes, the sight of him in fine clothes turns his tongue to stone and has his heart doing bench presses like the fate of the world depends on the next beat.
With a clear military-style cut, the soft beige that rules over the outfit is contrasted with the deep forest green of the jacket's front and the golden details that accentuate the more delicate zones. High collared, the jacket covers halfway up the Prince's throat, full of gold and green. The white cravat, on which lays a beautiful, oval emerald, gives him an even more dignified look.
Ending just below the Prince's knees, the deep green filled with golden details of the jacket's tail once more contrasts with the soft beige of the trousers, which give way to knee-high boots of a brown so dark it borders on black.
To finish the look, a black cape with golden accents at the edges is draped over his right shoulder, the left one occupied by a golden epaulet.
“He looks handsome, doesn't he?” pipes up Tsubaki, and it's only then that Haruka realizes that not only didn't he hear nothing of what the Prince said, but he's also been staring at him in silence for a moment too long.
“Huh” think, Haruka, think “is that… crystal thingie supposed to be hanging off his shoulder like that?”
“What? Where?!”
While the Prince and Tsubaki are busy fretting over the little crystal that is, quite in fact, hanging crookedly off his shoulder, Haruka takes the time to recompose himself.
Handsome? Somehow that feels like too reductive of a word to describe what the Prince looks like. Haruka has never been much of a man of words, but if he had to truly try, he'd say Suo looks ravishing. Magnificent. The sort of fantasy that stars in every teenager and not-so-teenager's wet dreams.
A very nicely wrapped gift, only just missing the bow. What a shame he won't have the opportunity to unwrap it.
Gods damn it, Haruka, will you fucking focus-
“Good eye, Sakura” praises Tsubaki while clapping their hands “maybe I should invite you over more often.”
“Now, now, Tsubaki-kun” prowling closer, the Prince comes to a stop just a step in front of Haruka, filling his vision with a sea of white and green and gold. It's odd to see him with his hair tied back in a low ponytail, and even more so without his usual earrings, though Haruka supposes it's just a question of practicality. “Don't go around stealing my employees, yes?”
“You look nice” the words come out of Haruka's mouth before he can properly think them through, the suddenness of them startling him as well as the other two, who are rendered silent. Prince Suo, in particular, looks a little like he was just hit over the head with a pan. So, in an effort to dispel the sudden awkwardness of his own making, he rushes to add “Tsubaki can really do wonders.”
“Oh, you're so cute!” surging forward, Tsubaki grabs him by the shoulders before he has time to dodge, shaking and hugging him to their chest as they babble something along the lines of ‘cute’ and ‘Kotoha’ and ‘Hayato should've brought you here sooner’.
After careful consideration (and an utterly failed attempt at disentangling himself from the arms around his neck), Haruka decides that it's better to just let things be and not complain too much about being shaken like a maraca. Tsubaki seems like a good person, someone Haruka could see himself getting along with. And from the unmistakably fond gaze directed at them, the Prince quite likes them too. All the more reason for him not to go around kicking up unnecessary fusses.
“There's still something I don't understand” he pipes up a while later, after things have calmed down, Tsubaki has taken note of all the minor but necessary adjustments, and Prince Suo has gone back behind the dressing screen to change into his last outfit. “Isn't his color scheme… a bit wrong?”
Confusion gives way to a flicker of surprise, Tsubaki's eyes widening just so before they turn back to their notebook. Small and clumped as the words are written, he only has hope to understand the little drawings around which they are written. Some things he recognizes, others not so much, but the love and effort Tsubaki puts into their craft is undeniable.
“So you noticed it” they mumble, almost in contemplation. “Say, Sakura, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from?”
“I- from Orstad, why?” and then, seeing their mental calculations in the narrowed eyes and pursed lips, he adds “it's near the border with Breida.”
“Oh, really?” followed by a look he doesn't quite get. Before he has a chance to ask them what it means, though, they are already moving on “I thought you'd be from farther south- well, never mind. It makes sense, anyhow.”
“Wha-”
“Did you know that Cison wasn't always Soledo's capital?”
Just because he was raised just a line above a street rat doesn't mean that he do-
No, no, he has to stay calm. Their tone holds no trace of mockery nor disdain - and trust him, he's been subjected to so much of both that he knows all of their shades - it's only a genuine question.
“Yeah, it used to, huh, be somewhere closer to the coast, right?”
“More like exactly by the coast” closing their notebook, Tsubaki leans back against the table and crosses their arms. “It might not look like it, since we occupy such a big part of the continent, but Soledo actually started out as a naval nation. For quite a few decades, we were little more than a navy and the ports we used along the coast to stop during our travels.”
“Of all those ports, Rivendell in particular started to grow and grow, until it naturally became capital. It stayed so for nearly three centuries, but with the annexation of the Cruria Kingdom and the formation of the Empire, something more central was needed. Thus, Cison.”
“Even so, Rivendell is still the second most populated city in the Empire, and the focal point to everything related to our navy. Which they take as a big pride.”
Ah. All the beige and gold and green - the more predominant tones in the emblem of the Empire - suddenly makes a lot of sense.
“And the red?”
“Hum?”
“I remember I saw some red fabric on the screen when I came in.”
“Looks like I can always count on you to have an eye for the detail, Sakura-kun” a piece of beige fabric is whisked from the top of the screen, followed by a soft thump “or is it just that you like seeing me in red?”
Resolutely ignoring the heat that threatens to rise to his cheeks, and even more resolutely the side glance that Tsubaki not so inconspicuously directs at him, Haruka barks back “you pay me to protect you, not to pay attention to your fashion choices.”
“You could always add it as a little bonus on your part.”
“And you could always hurry a bit. I bet that Tsubaki has more important things to do besides putting up with us.”
“Ah, it's okay, don't mind me! Just take your time, you two.” Which, what?
He doesn't have the opportunity to do more than send them a confused look, though, as Prince Suo decides to step from behind the screen just as he was about to speak up.
And, well, if the previous look had already been bad for his blood pressure, this one is an absolute disaster waiting to happen. For a wild second he finds himself praying for a surprise attack, an attempted kidnapping, anything that might give him a valuable reason to not have to look at the Prince any longer.
Then again, he might be a little too distracted to properly fend off the attackers, so maybe not.
Red suits the man like a ring, and the deep crimson of his vest, darker than blood but brighter than wine, looks handmade to fit him. Full of golden details and with jewels enveloped in gold for buttons, it almost looks like something too precious to be worn.
And what better to serve as its contrast than the graphite black of his trousers, the fine fabric bare of any sort of details. Smooth, as it clings to the lines of his legs without being too obvious, just toeing the line between ‘complementing and teasing’.
Balancing on the edge between the both extremes, both his jacket and boots present themselves mainly in black, with only the edges in red and a few golden details here and there. And to finish it off, of course, a cape draped over both shoulders, of the same crimson as the vest except for the inner face, which is of a soft beige.
“So? What do you think?”
That I could eat you. That you would look marvelous spread over your cape, glowing under the late afternoon sun and flushed with pleasure.
That red was made for you to wear it. That I’m lucky Tsubaki is here, or else I might not have been able to properly contain myself.
“That you're very lucky to have Tsubaki working for you.”
The Prince's lips pull down into a pout, just only half exaggerated. “Is that really all you have to say?”
“I-”
“Your Highness! Are you still here?” an urgent set of knocks to the door breaks them out of their little moment. “The Emperor is requesting your presence for an urgent matter!”
The moonlight feels heavy on Hayato's shoulders as he trudges through the corridor, back to his chambers. This late at night, there's hardly anyone besides the night guards standing around, submerging the whole castle in a silence Hayato is more than thankful for.
Sakura, too, barely makes a sound as he keeps pace not even half a step behind him. Closer than he usually does, and for a wild, delirious moment, Hayato wonders if this is his own, silent way of offering him some support.
Except that no, it's not that wild of a thought. Sakura can be surprisingly sweet, even if oftentimes that sweetness comes off mixed with equal amounts of awkwardness.
Case in point, “do you want me to go get you something from the kitchens?”
“No need, but thank you. After all this talk about Kleim, my appetite has thoroughly vanished.”
“What about some tea?”
Hayato doesn't quite stop, but he slows down just so, turning his head until he's able to look at Sakura. Surprised to see him looking directly at him, instead of pointing his eyes at literally anywhere else as is his usual, Hayato nearly averts his eyes himself out of instinct.
“You're being awfully sweet to me tonight, Sakura-kun” he comments, doing his best to walk the careful balance between teasing and honesty. Although a bit surprising, this sort of treatment is not unwelcome. The complete opposite, in fact - it makes him feel giddy, the kind of giddy that very few things have been able to make him feel like since he grew out of his early teenage years.
He half expects some prickly retort along the lines of ‘are you sure you're not dreaming?’, but Sakura decides to surprise him once again:
“It felt like a badly placed ending.”
Hayato blinks, uncomprehending “oh?”
“It was nice, wasn't it? Spending the afternoon with Tsubaki. And the morning wasn't that bad either, even if I nearly went cross-eyed from reading all those little letters.”
Hayato feels a smile pull at his lips, unbidden, and he nearly bites it out before remembering that it's just the two of them in this empty corridor. “You should see some of the books I grew up with. I remember having to use a magnifying glass a good number of times.”
“Thank you, but no thank you” shuddering, Sakura places a hand on the pommel of his sword, casts a glance towards the window. Under the moonlight, the white of his hair shines even brighter than usual. “Even so, the day was overall good. Until your father decided he must absolutely talk to you today.” Sarcasm dripping from his voice, Sakura rolls his eyes before glancing back over at him. “Seriously, can't you just tell him to fuck off sometimes?”
A little laugh escapes Hayato's lips without his notice. “If only it were that easy, Sakura-kun” it comes out more wistful than he wanted it to, but it's late and he's tired and only Sakura is around to hear, anyhow. If he can't trust his bodyguard, his very shadow, with secrets like these, then how is he supposed to trust him at all?
“I suppose it is.”
Neither of them speaks again in the short while that it takes for them to reach Hayato's chambers. He thinks of inviting Sakura in, but ultimately decides against it. Not only must he be tired too after the long day, but they haven't reached such a level of intimacy yet. Give it another few weeks, maybe, perhaps a few more months.
“Good night, Sakura-kun” he wishes, already half-way through the door.
“Prince Suo?” he stops, turns, takes in the pink coloring Sakura's cheeks, strong enough to be seen even under the faint light. “I thought red suited you the best of all” and then, just as suddenly “have a good night.”
Hayato watches him go for a moment, taking in the too stiff steps and the rigid line of his shoulders. When he closes the door, it's to lean his forehead against it.
For some odd, unfathomable reason, his cheeks feel hot as coal.
OMAKE
Kotoha is checking a couple of loaves of bread in the oven when the doors to the kitchen open with a bang. Used to these kinds of things as she is, it's not nearly enough to startle her - although the same cannot be said from a couple of the newer hires.
What surprises her about the whole situation is that, when she turns towards the entrance, it's to find Tsubaki in the middle of all the ruckus. Throwing a glance at the wall clock reveals what she'd already suspected - it's far too early for Taubaki to be up, which probably means that they haven't yet gone to bed at all.
Probably spent all night tweaking Prince Hayato's new clothes, she thinks to herself, recalling the conversation she had with Sakura just the previous afternoon.
“Tsubaki” she calls out, stepping away from the oven. The bread will take at least another twenty minutes to be done, anyway. “Why are you up so late? You know Hajime wor-”
“Kotoha!” the older interrupts her, clamping their hands over Kotoha's upper arms with perhaps a little more strength than necessary. “I saw it!”
“You… saw it?”
Shaking his head up and down with effusive excitement, Tsubaki beams down at her “you were right!”
Kotoha simply stares at him a little longer, but no further explanation follows the strange statement. So, with an internal sigh, she prods “I'm going to need you to be more explicit than that. Just because you and my brother have some freaky ‘mind reading’ thing going on” she ignores Tsubaki's squawk, as well as the violent blush that rises to his cheeks. Honestly, looking at him you'd be hard pressed to guess that he and Hajime are nearly married already. “Doesn't mean that I can guess what's going on in there.”
“I met Sakura yesterday” Kotoha nods at him, not really understanding what that has to do with anything. Is it because of his appearance? No, it can't be. Of all people, Tsubaki would be the last one to draw attention to that. “He came in while Prince Hayato was trying out his new clothes.”
Ah. Suddenly, it all makes much more sense.
“So you saw it too, then?” and then, just because she still can't quite wrap her head around it, she adds “that Prince Hayato has a crush on Sakura.”
A look of utter confusion crosses Tsubaki's features. “I thought that it was Sakura that had a crush on the Prince.”
They blink at each other for a moment, before seemingly coming to the same conclusion at the exact same time. Tsubaki's eyes widen, and Kotoha feels her own jaw fall.
“Cookies, we're going to need all the cookies to deal with it.”
At least the bread will take a while to be done.