Chapter Text
The narrow alleys of the Slums always smelled of damp earth and desperation, but for Takemichi, they had felt like home. He and Koko had just finished a daring sprint through the marketplace, their hearts hammering against their ribs like trapped birds. They had played a dangerous game with a nobleman’s coin purse and they had won.
When they burst through the crooked door of their hideout, the tension vanished.
"Koko! Michi! You’re back," Akane greeted them, her voice a thin thread of warmth in the drafty room. Beside her, Inui looked up from a sharpening stone, his eyes softening.
"We promised we would be, Akane," Takemichi panted, leaning against the doorframe. "But should you be up already?"
"I feel much better today," she insisted, though her skin was pale. "How was your hunt?"
With a triumphant grin, Takemichi held up the heavy velvet bag. "Look at this!"
"Wow," Inupi breathed, a rare smile breaking his stoic expression. "You two really are the best."
They were a makeshift family forged in the fires of a Great Plague that had ravaged the kingdom years ago, leaving them with nothing but each other. They lived hand-to-mouth, snatching scraps from the silver platters of the elite, bound by a bond stronger than blood.
Akane reached into the bag, her fingers dancing over the loot until she pulled out a delicate silver chain. "It feels like there's a fortune in here! Oh, Michi, look- a bracelet with a lapis lazuli. It’s as blue as the ocean... and just like your eyes."
Takemichi felt the heat rush to his cheeks. He ducked his head, hiding behind his messy bangs. "Stop with the nonsense," he muttered, shielding his face.
"It’s not nonsense," Akane teased gently. "Your eyes are beautiful, Michi. It’s a shame you always hide them."
Koko’s voice cut through the air, sharp and protective. "You idiot! If he doesn't hide them, the slavers will hunt him down. Eyes like that are incredibly rare, the kind of rare the rich would pay a king's ransom to own and keep in a cage."
The mood shifted, the shadow of the world outside creeping back in. Takemichi quickly turned toward the hearth. "I'll make some food. Let's just eat."
"Michi's food is inedible!" Koko groaned, trying to lighten the mood. "Nobody can eat that charcoal!"
"That's right!" Inupi chimed in, laughing. "We might survive the plague but we won't survive your soup!"
"Shut up!" Takemichi yelled, though he was grinning. In that moment, surrounded by their laughter, he believed their world could stay this way forever.
The laughter didn't last. The cold arrived, and with it, Akane’s health collapsed. The "better day" had been a cruel trick of the light. Now, she lay shivering under threadbare blankets while the three boys watched helplessly.
"Her fever won't go down," Koko whispered, his hands trembling. "She... she isn't going to make it..."
"What are you talking about?" Takemichi snapped, his voice cracking. "We have to get a doctor! A real one from the Inner City!"
"And how are we going to pay for that?" Inupi asked, his voice dead. He looked up at the ceiling, at the gaps in the wood. "That's just how our world is, Michi. Everything is determined by the stars. The rich are born under gol,; we were born under lead. We can't change what’s written."
"But it can't be like this forever!" Takemichi cried, slamming his fist against the wall. "Surely something has to change—"
"Change?!" Koko screamed, his grief finally boiling over. "When is 'change' supposed to be? We don't even know if Akane will see the sun rise tomorrow!"
Takemichi stood frozen, the helplessness tasting like ash in his mouth. "I’ve had enough! I’m going to do something about it, you idiots!"
He ran out into the night to find a way, any way. But by the time he returned with stolen medicine and bloody knuckles, the house was silent. Akane was gone.
In the days following the funeral, Koko became a ghost. He wouldn't look at Takemichi. He wouldn't eat. Then, one evening, he approached Takemichi with hollowed-out eyes.
"Michi... come with me, please?"
"Okay," Takemichi said softly, hoping Koko finally wanted to talk.
He followed Koko to a part of the slums he didn't recognize, a warehouse near the docks where the air smelled of salt and iron.
"Where are we, Koko? What's going on?"
Koko stopped, his back to Takemichi. "This can't go on like this... I know that now. We can't survive on scraps. This is the only way to save what’s left of us... I'm sorry."
"What are you-"
Before Takemichi could finish, two massive men stepped out from the shadows. Heavy, calloused hands clamped onto his arms like iron shackles. Takemichi thrashed, his heart stopping as he saw the gleam of gold coins passing from a third man to Koko.
Koko didn't look back. He turned and ran into the darkness, tears streaming down his face, clutching a purse of blood money.
Takemichi went limp in the guards' grasp. The realization hit him harder than any blow.
'I’ve been sold. Koko... why? Was it because Akane is gone? Was I the only thing left to trade for a life worth living?'
As a heavy hood was pulled over his head, plunging his world into darkness, Takemichi realized the stars hadn't decided his fate. His family had.
The journey from the salt-scented docks to the Inner City was a blur of rattling cage bars and the rhythmic thumping of carriage wheels. Takemichi sat in the corner of the iron-bound wagon, his knees pulled to his chest. The blindfold had been removed once they passed the high white walls of the Royal District, but the light of the sun felt colder than the darkness of the hood.
He was no longer a person. He was "a blue-eyed trophy."
The carriage stopped in a secluded courtyard of the sprawling palace of the Sun, a place of marble pillars and manicured roses that felt like a different planet from the mud of the slums.
"Stand up, boy," a guard grunted, unlocking the cage. "The Princess's wing doesn't like to be kept waiting."
Takemichi was led through corridors that gleamed so brightly they hurt his eyes. Every servant they passed looked at him with a mix of pity and curiosity, but he kept his gaze fixed on the floor. He was waiting for the moment he could bolt, for the moment he could find a window to jump through, until they reached a heavy oak door guarded by a woman who looked like she could snap a spear with her bare hands.
"New arrival for the personal collection?" the woman asked. Her voice was low and raspy. She wore a dark tunic with the royal crest, a long blade strapped to her hip.
"The one with the 'ocean eyes,' Captain Shiba," the guard replied, bowing slightly.
Captain Shiba stepped forward, her sharp eyes scanning Takemichi from head to toe. She didn't look at him like a prize, she looked at him like a problem. She reached out, her gloved hand tilting his chin up. When Takemichi tried to flinch away, her grip tightened, not cruelly, but with a firm, grounding strength.
"Blue as the deep sea," she murmured, her expression unreadable. "You look like you're about to faint, kid. Or bolt. Don't try the latter. I am Yuzuha Shiba and I handle the security of this wing, and I’ve caught faster things than you."
"I... I'm not a 'trophy,'" Takemichi whispered, his voice cracking.
Her gaze softened just a fraction. "In this wing, you’re whatever the Princess says you are. But if you keep your head down, you might actually keep it on your shoulders."
The doors creaked open, and a girl in a crisp pink and white maid’s uniform hurried out, clutching a clipboard. She stopped dead when she saw Takemichi, her large, warm eyes widening in shock.
"Oh! He’s so young," she exclaimed, rushing over. "Is this the one the traders sent? He looks exhausted!"
"Careful, Hinata," Yuzuha warned, though her tone was much lighter now. "He’s a cornered animal right now. He might bite."
The maid, Hinata, didn't look afraid at all. She stepped into Takemichi’s personal space, offering a small, sad smile. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief, gently wiping a smudge of dirt from his cheek.
"I'm Hinata Tachibana," she said softly, her voice like a balm to his frayed nerves. "I'm the Princess's head maid. Don't listen to Yuzuha, she’s only scary when she hasn't had her tea. You’re safe here, I promise."
Takemichi looked from the fierce warrior guarding the door to the kind girl standing before him. For the first time since Koko had disappeared into the shadows, the suffocating weight in his chest eased, just a little.
"I'm Takemichi," he managed to say "Takemichi Hanagaki."
"Well, Takemichi," Hinata said, taking his hand to lead him inside. "Let's get you cleaned up. The Princess is waiting, and she doesn't like to be kept waiting for her new 'treasure.'"
Hinata led Takemichi away from the heavy oak doors, her hand a warm, grounding presence on his arm. Yuzuha followed a few paces behind, the rhythmic clank of her sword against her thigh reminding Takemichi that he was still, essentially, a prisoner.
The opulence of the Princess’s wing was suffocating. Every vase looked like it cost more than the Slums’ entire food supply for a year.
"You're shaking, Takemichi," Hinata said softly, glancing back at him. "It’s a lot to take in, I know. But the Princess is busy with the Royal Council right now. She won't be back until sundown. That gives us time to make you look... well, less like you’ve been living in a sewer."
"I wasn't living in a sewer," Takemichi muttered, though his voice lacked conviction.
"Close enough," Yuzuha interjected from behind. She stepped up beside them as they reached a smaller side chamber. "Listen, kid. Hinata is the heart of this wing, but I’m the teeth. You’re in a gilded cage now. It’s prettier than the one you came in, but the bars are just as hard."
She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. "Rule number one: You don't speak unless the Princess speaks to you. Rule number two: You stay within the boundaries of the East Garden and this corridor. If I catch you near the servant’s exit or the perimeter walls, I’ll have to treat you like an intruder. And I don't like being bothered while I'm on duty."
Takemichi looked at his dirt-stained fingernails. "What does she want with me? Why did she... why did they buy me?"
Hinata’s expression faltered, a flicker of genuine pity crossing her face. She guided him to a stone bench near a steaming copper tub. "The Princess... she has a fascination with rare things. Most of the nobles collect paintings or ancient coins. She collects beauty. She heard rumors of a boy with eyes like the 'Fragment of the Sea.' She’s been looking for you for months."
The realization made Takemichi’s stomach turn. He wasn't even a person to the royals, he was a legend they wanted to put on a shelf.
"Months?" he whispered. "Then... Koko knew? He knew she was looking for me?"
The thought that Koko hadn't just sold him out of desperation, but had perhaps been waiting for the right price, felt like a fresh blade in his chest.
"Don't overthink it now," Yuzuha said, her voice unexpectedly gentle. She reached out and ruffled his messy hair, though her touch was firm. "You're alive. In this city, for someone like you, that’s a win. You lost someone didn't you?"
Takemichi looked up at Yuzuha. She knew. She must have seen the grief in his eyes, the kind that only comes from losing everything.
"Wash up," Hinata urged, handing him a soft linen robe. "I’ll bring you something to eat. Real bread, Takemichi. Not the hard crusts from the market."
As Hinata and Yuzuha stepped out to give him privacy, Takemichi caught a glimpse of himself in a polished silver mirror on the wall. His eyes, the ones Akane had loved and Koko had sold, stared back at him, bright and haunting against his bruised skin.
He didn't feel like a treasure. He felt like a ghost.
True to her word, Hinata returned a short while later carrying a silver tray. The aroma hit Takemichi before she even crossed the threshold, freshly baked bread, thick honey, and a bowl of steaming vegetable pottage that smelled of herbs he couldn't name.
"Eat slowly," Hinata cautioned, setting the tray down on a low wooden table. "If you eat too fast after being hungry for so long, you'll make yourself sick."
Takemichi didn't need a second invitation. He tore into the bread, the crust crackling between his teeth. It was soft, airy, and tasted of butter, nothing like the rock-hard heels he used to scavenge. For a moment, the warmth of the food made him forget the cold stone of the palace and the sting of Koko’s betrayal. He drank the cool, clear water greedily, feeling it wash away the grit of the slums from the back of his throat.
Once the tray was cleared, Hinata stood up and gestured toward the steaming copper tub in the adjoining washroom. "Now for the hard part," she said with a playful wink. "Scrubbing off the Slums."
The bath was an experience Takemichi couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. The water was scented with pressed jasmine and lavender, and the soap was a thick, creamy lather that felt like silk against his skin. Hinata stayed to help, her touch professional yet incredibly gentle as she scrubbed the layers of soot and street-grime from his limbs. She worked carefully around the fading bruises on his arms, her eyes darkening with a quiet anger at how he had been treated by the slavers.
As the dark, muddy water was drained and replaced with fresh, clear basins for a final rinse, Takemichi finally stepped out. Hinata wrapped him in a heavy, plush robe of white cotton and began to towel-dry his hair.
When he finally looked up, Hinata went completely still.
The grime was gone. The tangled, matted hair was now a soft, shimmering blonde that caught the candlelight like spun gold. His skin, once hidden under layers of dust, was pale and clear, making the vibrant, crystalline blue of his eyes stand out with startling intensity.
Hinata’s breath hitched. She stared at him, her hands frozen with the towel still in her grasp. If she didn't know better, if she hadn't seen him eating like a starving wolf just moments ago, she would have sworn she was looking at a beautiful princess from a faraway land. There was an ethereal, delicate grace to his features that didn't belong in a slave's quarters.
"Takemichi..." she whispered, her voice filled with awe. "You’re... you’re absolutely stunning."
Takemichi blinked, his long lashes casting shadows against his cheeks. He looked down at his clean hands, feeling exposed in a way he hadn't before. "I just look like me," he murmured, though he felt the heat rising in his neck.
"No," Hinata said softly, tucking a damp lock of hair behind his ear. "You look like the kind of treasure people start wars over. I think I finally understand why the Princess was so obsessed with finding you."
She looked at him with a mix of admiration and a sudden, sharp fear. Beauty in this palace was often a curse, and looking as Takemichi did now, he was the most cursed person in the entire kingdom.