Chapter Text
Cherry blossoms: the scent of a freeing and longing heart. Overmorrow, Akiyama Mizuki had longfully detested the cherry blossoms. Symbolic of the short and fleeting memories of springs far to come and springs far to disappear, transitions of new beginnings of life; merely things Akiyama Mizuki had found futile to make grand schemes of euphoria nor distaste. Words of innocent sin burrowed in the depths of innocence of forms of flowers, which spoke of love that she’d rightfully lost a chance to live. But those very cherry blossoms have taught her the weight of a lot of things— including that detesting the heart and betraying your own identity is purely calamity. And cherry blossoms are surely a symphony of the bells that ring underneath her head.
Dressed in the purest of whites and bundled chrysanthemums; cherry blossoms; sequentially decorating, with the purest of a white, folded gown with intricacies that her eyes have longfully studied and with the purity of her hair tied back with a simple white laced ribbon, she fools a naive outsider who dares to look their scandalous eyes at her. The folks of the town simply rush past in hastening patterns, to the shops of greed and riches of the farmers and commonfolk, choosing ignorance within the chains and shackles located onto her wrists, bound to the altar of love.
They avoid her, for she is a heretic. She has committed the unbelievable sin of love, that is, sentenced to the fate of hanging on a religious altar until her breath merely drops to a halt.In their eyes, she’d fail to retribute to Christ and the All Loving Jesus.
The debt for her sins was a punishment of worth. As the clergy had deemed it, life was fatefully over for her as she failed to pledge full loyalty to the heavenly king and lord of their God. No reasonable sin, in the eyes of the council, could be repaid back as much as the sin of a woman daring to lay with another in romantic regards. Indulging in the sins of homoerotic desires was punishable to reasonable treason: disobeying the words and the laws of nature as it had been commanded. Therefore, she accepted her fate within being the hanged girl. She was an heretic, for all of their eyes would scourge and scavenge but she not lay a single eye on a man.
The faintest thing resembling tears had clouded her vision, forcing her to stare back down at her clothes; deceiving clothes that never fit quite right on her body type nor complimented her shape. Her friends had formerly resided her inside comments to the title of becoming a recluse, the hermit that ventured outside at rare moments to ravage through the cornucopia of the village and return back to her home in peace. They meant well in their jokes.
Maybe she’d begun to believe them: day by day she became closer to a recluse, akin to an elder who spent their last days hiding away. But then, she remembers. She’s committed a terrible sin and her friends have dethroned her from such a title.
They only command her to the class of the sinner and the one that had relations with somebody in an inappropriate gender of love now. Never commanding or seeing her for the careful letters she’d tenderly press into their hands, kind words loaded when one went through the act of losing a newborn or when one gravely injured their body in a permanent loss, careful words of advice about facing problems when you’re ready to despite being the coward that ran herself or the warmth of her hand on the rain days that pelted downpours endlessly. No, only a sinner. She didn’t blame them.
After all, hadn’t she caused the fate of this? If only she hadn’t engaged in the temptations and the filling sins of her scandalous prefrontal cortex, a screaming prayer from her brain to develop into the young woman as she is now. Maybe then, she’d never have to depart from the friendships she had once admired, cherishing deeply. These were people to reside to after a cold day in the rain.
Her whole existence had been one lie built after the other, sin atoned in cute lace as to distract the image. She’d never be who she said she was, only a disgusting and cruel woman who committed to the worst sin known to mankind. Her cute remarks were sly lies. She’d keep running and running if she ever got the chance to never see this cursed place ever again. Even if she abandoned the future that was out of reach for merely herself. Another sin— selfishness. Selfishness, the sin of love, the sin of lying, the sin of existence. Things that she couldn’t dare to erase nor could anyone understand.
There, she decided to dry her eyes. For soon, her demise would fall. The executioners had laced her up in the prettiest fabrics known to the village, assuming peace and harmony was to cleanse her soul. The main gentleman, Kamishiro Rui, led her to the altar with a certain grace to his movements that met the eye, and a soul wouldn’t assume he wasn’t the person to find the demise in another’s life. She hadn’t missed the way the man; the one with purple and the cyan faded streak in the front of his bangs, had refused to spare a glance at her.
How he— a trained man with expertise of over ten years, purposefully must’ve set the chains looser than they had ever meant to be, judging from the past exuberant celebrations had gone beforehand. Nor had she missed the scourge of one she had once considered a friend who failed to meet her gaze, whispering muttered prayers from the Old Testament about the oddity that she was and to repent the sin, which would only fruition. She’d refusen.
But while they dressed her in pure white, they dehumanized her identity henceforth. Her pink bow of freedom was torn off, her sight obstructed partially by the side of a white and black blindfold.
Everything making her who she was with all of the lines intersecting and intertwining together was what they destroyed and crumbled in front of her face. Smudging her makeup to bits. Then they hung her in a vulnerable state for the entire townsfolk to watch her demise tomorrow morning, when the bells would chime and the crowd would gather mighty finely.
The ticking of the clock hands commenced. The bells that hung in front of the altar were unusually quiet for the night time, whereas the streets that triggered the bell to ring lacked the crowd. Faint cherry blossoms from the fleeting trees of the season dangled upon her eyes, landing one carefully in the front of the blindfold. A bird unidentifiable to the eye chirps around her for another second before skidding away like she’s sin reincarnated herself. Everything moves past her, except for Akiyama Mizuki herself. There, tomorrow, is her ultimate demise. There’s not a thing she can do.
If only those cherry blossoms fleetingly leaving around her hadn’t reminded her so strongly of the one she loved and their relationship together as the coward and the beauty, then she would feel quite pleased with the jurisdiction for her crimes. But she’s not.
There’s not much but silence within the hall of the courtyard. Silence falls where the bells should’ve rung, the church service overheard from the door near more quiet today. Paintings hung on the wall and on easels to the side, showing a diverse and rich collection of art built from decades of hard work and the mastery of painting and the fine arts. Beautiful church architecture was present. Everything is expensive and carefully placed, made as an illusion to keep anyone from the suspicion that something darker aligned with the church. Chandeliers lit the room dimly and carefully carved pillars make the room incredibly bright.
But there’s a beauty and a warmth to be said in the way the two girls—Akiyama Mizuki the knight and Shinonome Ena, the artist, were passionately kissing in the next door room where nobody usually tended to go. Nobody was around to hear the two of them exchange sinful messages in the words of their lips and tongues together.
Chimes of the clock from overhand were practically nothing. The sound of footsteps lingering two doors over was deafened out by this, whatever this was. Ena grabbed a fist of Mizuki’s hair against a royal table counter, legs pinning her back towards the table as the two practically devoured the other on the lips like dying men on a pirate ship. This wasn’t so wrong.
“—Ena-“ There's a gasp from her lips as Ena, her beautiful brunette with long hair, only deepens the kiss. “—shit, someone might see—“ she’s cut off with the tilt of her head towards the other. Warmth in her brown eyes.
“Let them see.” She smiles, pursuing her lips to stop kissing for a momentary moment, allowing a sigh from her lips. Both of them know the crime for the scene they’d just presented between the other; including death. But here and right now, the sin for the crimes they’d face wasn’t enough to deter them. Love commanded sin to disappear in face for the way that the passionate love spurred between two girls. How wrong could that theoretically be if it was akin to natural and beautiful? What much difference between a man kissing a woman and a woman kissing another woman in his chambers? What’s so wrong about them together?
“I want you, Amia..” She breathes out. The ghost of old paint and the well-maintained, wealthy artist’s hygiene fills the scent of her eyes and nose. She couldn’t believe that this was for all hers to devour and to see, for nobody else to lay another eye on Ena in this moment. Those hands that painted art canvases together with the gentle nature and touch were holding her very hair back and in a beautiful manner. Her lips were light pink and her cheeks were so delicate and soft that she resisted the urge to reach another hand onto the girl’s face while they kissed again to feel.
“Me too.” Her own voice is soft. It's the most feminine she’s ever felt herself, the most beautiful that she has ever felt seen or been before. Nothing masculine that wrestled with the thoughts in her head that said she was just pretending. She felt so much of a woman in this moment.
Heavy breaths fell between the two, the silence prolonging into a period of comfortable calm, swollen lips between the two that tasted amazing, heavenly and ephemeral like something never seen before. Nothing around to see this very moment. Firm hands that have handled art with care so many times come to grab her body, Ena’s hands— and then….
Shame. Shame runs through her body. How disgusting she was, for this to occur. She let the temptation happen. She’s letting it happen again and again, the very reason why she is here is for her temptation. But the sin of fruition has borne from her impeccable lust. She consumes and breathes this lust and sin even in her very final moments, detesting it wholeheartedly doing nothing.
Stop thinking about these things, you’re full of lustrous thoughts: runs through her head. There, she’s sitting side by side with her favorite artist. They’re holding hands together while examining the latest piece of artwork Ena had made, specifically dedicated towards her brother Akito. Lil-Bro was what she called him sometimes when they lacked the formal context for a royal setting, because in a way Akito was practically part of her family now. She was dating Ena and they had plans of marriage and the promise rings one day. One day. Integrated families with her mother, father and her amazing sister Yuuki— her family, with Ena’s would be the best option of her life. She looked forward to it every passing day.
“Hey, Mizuki.” It’s a casual greeting in the midst of their conversation, but it’s one that has clearly a hidden meaning beyond just something casual. It meant the precursor to a question, perhaps one that her culminated vulnerability would collapse underneath. Ena squeezes her hand underneath like faint reassurance assured.
“Hm?” She lets out a soft hum as an answer.
“Will you tell Yuuki when you write home?” She questions. Her tone’s full of thoughtful curiosity, one that she can see reflected in her eyes.
Oh. She knew what she meant by that. The question that came to her lips was one she’d expected more of the least from Ena, however she welcomed it in. “Of course.” She immediately answers.
Yuuki would surely accept, she had no reason as to not accept Mizuki for who she was. She’d done it easily in the past and welcomed her cute identity and encouraged her to wear cute clothes that she felt comfortable in. In her eyes, Mizuki was Mizuki: her little sister no matter what identity or what she was.
“Great, I’m looking forward to it.” and then she pauses. The thing she’s dreading for her to bring up is what she opens it up with. “Mizuki, you’ll… always be Mizuki to me, you know that? And whatever you have to tell me, I’ll wait forever for you to come and to tell me what it is.”
She falls silent after that. Ena is one to always accept her unconditionally, no matter what. Ena’s brought so much happiness to her and has prevented her from leaving and running a nefarious amount of times. She’s never judged her for things. But she can’t tell her this time. She’d have to part ways with her if she parted and opened up her secret. So, if she pretended it simply didn’t exist and that none of it would ever occur to be brought up again, they could stay together just like this.
“..thanks, Ena.” She smiles.
“You’re welcome.”
Another thing ruined again. Just how many times had she turned a blind eye to her so-fated soulmate and lover and how many times had she accepted that with grace and kindness? Just how many times had she lied and would continue to lie towards her, even to the grave that she would soon reside in? Just how many times had she been this good in changing and redirecting the subject?
She didn’t know. Merely, this was good enough. The hanged girl and the hermit of all would finally face her demise tomorrow. Everybody would be waiting on it and everybody shall cheer. Nobody shall mourn her nor miss her.
Nobody shall look for her or seek out her grave actively after death and nobody shall free her. Nobody shall look her in those eyes again and tell her the lies of being perfect and amazing and angelic and holy. She’d keep eternally lying to everybody around her, now. Her lips paused in silence and then stopped.
Somehow, it stretched to the twilight hours of nighttime now. She’d gotten lost in the daydreams and reminiscing of her nightmare filled dreams that she regretted to realize how much time passed from when she first got her to when the eyes of night had then fallen. The cold barely registers on her skin when she’s such a beauty for once in this gown. For a beauty that’s sinned.
She just prays that a familiar face is absent from the crowd tomorrow morning. She might be unable to keep herself alive a second longer if this occurred.
Sin, retribution and regret. Shame and regret:
She’d priced it anyway. And maybe, if she kept the secrets to her lips about the dozens of past moments in secrecy, maybe her and Shinonome Ena could be saved by this fleeting reason of sin.