Work Text:
There had been a monstrous, violent storm the night that boy arrived at Galethorn Castle. Nene’s father found him sprawled out, half-dead in the garden, rainwater soaked in his beaten coat, and bruises discoloring his pale, thin skin. With a heavy heart, unlike many of the kings before him, he ushered the boy inside and ordered the kitchen staff to cook him a hot meal.
The boy sat on one of the plush seats, alone at the grand dining table. All the while, Nene watched from the sidelines, eyeing the peasant boy suspiciously.
Though she was a proper lady in the making, often taking classes in behavior and literacy, she harbored no fondness for strangers, especially those of a more destitute kind. Truthfully speaking, he was pitiful. So pitiful, it almost irked her.
When the food arrived—steaming plates of roast chicken and lamb chops with a healthy extra serving of buttered asparagus and tomato—none could tell if the water running down the side of his mouth was from the rain or his hunger. Nene’s father sat at the head of the table, laughing heartily as the boy ate heartily. The boy finished within a minute with such voracity and improper etiquette that it allowed Nene’s father to start peppering him with questions.
After gleaming some information from eavesdropping on their conversation, she learned his name, Rui Kamishiro, and that he came from the nearby grange. Though it wasn’t considerably nearby since it was just further beyond the moors and required a great deal of walking, it was the closest residence to the Galethorn estate and possibly even older than the castle. According to the boy, his parents had passed earlier in the week, and he’d been struggling to find work to afford necessities and rent. He went out in the dusk, hunger plaguing him, in search of food, and ended up passing out on the way to the castle.
“I happened upon the lights in the distance, and I nearly ran my way here, thinking I’d found hope. I pushed myself to my limits, and my legs had given up on me. I slumped over… I thoroughly believed I was dying, if not already dead,” Rui said, bowing his head. Tears tore a path through his dirt-streaked face. “I’m ever grateful for your kindness, sir…”
The wind knocked around the house as the rain battered the roof harder. The storm grew increasingly restless as Nene felt an emotion she’d never felt before—spite. This boy, like a vampire who’d trickily invited himself in, invaded her precious home. A flash of lightning lit the room briefly. She felt the following crack of thunder ripple through her veins.
This hatred would soon be justified; at least to the princess, it was. Her father wasted no time in adopting the poor boy, cleaning him up with newly bought clothes, and purchasing ownership over the grange, which he then named Shiro Grange. Nene bit her nails to the quick, seething. Overnight, this stranger became part of the family. Her mother doted over him as if he were born of her blood. Her father treated him like the son he never had.
Now, he was attending the same classes as she was, sitting beside her in the personal schoolroom her father designed. Nene scribbled furiously as their governess, a kindly and quaint woman named Mochizuki Honami, asked the two to close their books. “Very well, Nene, Rui. Would any of you care to answer why Joan of Arc remains such a prolific figure in French history?”
Before Nene could raise her own hand, Rui’s had already risen. “Yes, Rui?” Honami nodded at him.
Nene nearly laughed. Knowing his upbringing, there was no reason for this boy to even know how to read or write. Let alone understand something as complex as history. He’d probably only needed to use the bathroom.
“Due to her exceptional leadership and courage, of course. Irregardless of her peasant upbringing, she’d convinced King Charles VII to allow her to accompany the French army in raising morale after Orléans had been sieged, and despite her contributions and victories, she’d been accused of blasphemy by the English and was burned at the stake at nineteen, making her a martyr and a lasting symbol in French history,” answered Rui with a humble smile.
Nene gripped her pencil so tight that it almost snapped in two. There was absolutely no reason for him to be able to comprehend a dense amount of information and regurgitate it so eloquently. Both contempt and intrigue warred inside of her, the latter feeling she wanted to rip out of her thick skull and crush with the bottom of her heel.
When their lessons ended for the day—with Rui having bested her in every following subject—Nene decided she had had enough of the boy. She’d find something, anything, that she could report to her father, which would hopefully result in his banishment. She’d planned initially for execution, but she’d have to settle for banishment. Once they left the schoolroom and rejoined the castle’s sunlit halls, she turned the opposite corner from him and hid in the nearest supply room. She listened to his footsteps floating down the hall, waiting for a few heartbeats, before she exited and followed his path.
Down the hall after a turn, Rui was stopped at the large doors to the grand library. Noticing the slightest turn of his head, Nene ducked behind the wall, back hugging the cold stone bricks. When she looked again, he’d disappeared. Now was her chance.
She traipsed across the carpet, soon reaching the library doors. If she could catch him in the process of stealing, vandalizing, or even anything remotely suspicious in nature, then, finally, finally, he would—
Nene paused, peering through the small gap between the doors. Rui sat beneath the light of the glittering chandelier, a book spread out on the table. He propped his cheek up with a fist, his thoughtful face so beautiful, his champagne eyes sparkling. Nene found herself blushing and cursed herself. She wouldn’t fall for the false beauty of a manipulator.
“You know, I’ve already noticed you when you hid away after class. You’re trying to find something out about me, aren’t you, Princess?” Rui asked with a teasing lilt, most especially when he called her Princess.
Nene peeked into the room again, and Rui was looking directly at her. Finding no reason to continue her secrecy, she entered and sat opposite him, crossing her hands and pouting. “I-I would do no such thing. Are you accusing me of something?”
“I wouldn’t accuse you of anything, Princess.” Again with that ‘Princess’ thing. It felt more like a backhanded tease rather than a formal title. “I just find it rather odd that you’ve been following me around, observing me like a hawk.” He grinned.
Nene instead focused on the highest shelf, three times her height, behind him. Damn her if she were to be charmed by him. “I was making sure you wouldn’t do anything.”
“And what exactly does ‘anything’ entail?”
She huffed. “Since you’re so smart, why don’t you figure it out?”
“I don’t suppose you didn’t take me as the type, huh? I couldn’t help but notice during class that you’re not exactly straight-faced. You’re quite prejudiced, aren’t you?”
Though she wouldn’t admit it without her spirit being extricated from her body, yes, she was very much so. It’d been part of her nature until she shook it off at the age of womanhood, but her younger self was nothing but a stubborn classist.
She simply shook her head and denied the claim. “You’re assuming.”
“Ah! you wound me so, Princess. I must be right, then—I can see it by the red on your cheeks.” He pointed to her face.
Nene swiftly turned her head away, now feeling the heat palpable on her skin.
“Admit it, Princess—I’ve become your object of desire, even if unintentionally.” He leaned in with that trickhy grin of his. It made Nene’s prior vitriol melt into fluster.
She stood up, grasping her chest. The chair groaned against the wood floor as it flew back in her haste, but she had no care to set it back proper. She needed to leave before her bastard heart won over her sensibility.
But, before she left, she paused before the exit, not turning back. She didn’t understand why, but curiosity still ached inside of her. There had been so many questions left unanswered, she couldn’t help but ask, “How are you so… well-read, anyway? I’m—I’m not asking this because of suspicion anymore, but…” She trailed off.
“That’s easy,” said Rui. “My father used to work at a bookstore and would bring back enough books to feed the hungriest of minds.
“But, truthfully, the answer is that I had nothing else to do. It was an empty house, after all.”
The answer wasn’t the least bit satisfying, but Nene accepted it and made her leave. Maybe this boy had cursed her, after all, with the same spell he put on her parents. Yet, with that frustrating charm and wit… she was no better. Not in the slightest.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
The next day at class, she’d continue to write in her notes as per usual with a steady hand, reading out loud from her textbook as asked by their governess.
When Rui glanced in her direction with that backhanded smirk of his, Nene had the courage to ignore it, even as her stomach unsettled with a crumbly feeling, like a cookie baked with excessive flour. It was then that she decided she wouldn’t lose to this smug boy. Maybe she could impress him herself—wouldn’t that be something?
Thus began the petty rivalry between them.