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Gyouyoh paced. It had been suggested today that he should start looking to find a consort. At fifteen, he wasn’t sure what he even liked, let alone who would be a good consort. All his life, he’d watched the horrible politics of women shoved at men in power whether they wanted to be there or not. His mother had almost died giving birth to him all because of political machinations shoved onto the shoulders of a child.
Worst of all, he couldn’t help feeling terrified that he’d turn out just like the current emperor—depraved and cruel and using young girls before leaving their lives ruined. Or just as bad, the empress dowager looking away from the whole thing because she could use it. Surely, he wouldn’t, right? The very thought made him sick. He’d met girls in the rear palace, had known some of them well when he was growing up, and knowing what happened to them…
He stopped pacing. Gyouyoh needed to talk to someone about this. His mother, perhaps… But no, if he spoke to her, it would only bring up bad memories and old rage. He still saw the way her eyes would go cold and distant when they ran across the emperor or saw him linger near a young girl.
In the viper’s den of the imperial court, there was truly only one person he could trust to bare his soul to without all the baggage of having been a victim herself; Ah-Duo.
They had shared everything. From milk from her mother’s breast, to lessons, to silly children’s games that got them into shared trouble…
Technically, Ah-Duo was a servant. Her mother was lady in waiting to his mother, after all. But they’d never cared about that. She’d never hesitated to call him out when he was being stupid or to hold back in showing him up horse riding or hidden her skill at her studies just to make him feel better. She was beautiful, admired, brilliant, and might even have suitors already though he’d been hesitant to ask. The idea of her marrying and going off somewhere to be someone’s wife was awful.
At this time of day, she’d be doing some sort of chore. Lately she’d been picking up doing some paperwork for her parents. Bookkeeping, he was pretty sure, because she had a good head for numbers. That meant she’d be in one of the adjoining offices. He rushed there without much more thought.
“Ah-Duo,” he said as he burst into the room.
Her hand twitched on the brush, probably leaving a streak on her page. “The polite thing to do is knock,” she said pointedly, as she carefully finished the line she’d been writing before setting the brush down. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m being pressured to take a consort,” he said, not bothering with the niceties that most people required.
“Already?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “The emperor and empress dowager are looking pale recently, haven’t you heard? So clearly the line of succession needs to be seriously considered, and oh, the crown prince needs to know the body of a woman to prove he can truly provide such an heir.” Gyouyoh shuddered. He’d always felt a bit like a chess piece in a room full of people trying to play the game, but the way his life, body, and choices were spoken of sometimes made him feel very… less. Being a prince was supposed to come with power, but so far he’d mostly seen negatives in the whole deal. Not that he had any choice in the matter. Gyouyoh was the only heir, all the eggs placed in one young basket.
Ah-Duo wrinkled her nose. “The Emperor and Empress Dowager are as hale as ever even in their old age. They’re being alarmist.”
“I know. I know, but…”
“But,” she agreed, nodding. At sixteen she’d taken to dressing like an adult lately. No more childish braids and stealing his clothes to look more masculine. She’d taken to wearing things that were a bit more formal, though still not terribly feminine in cut. He’d noticed lately, the way her hair would fall in a certain way that touched her collarbone when it would peek from the folds of her robes. He’d noticed that some of the new clothes would hide the fact that her chest had swelled with a mature shape. He noticed now the way the robes shifted to show that bit of collarbone and the sleeve fell to show her forearm as she rested her chin on her palm.
Gyouyoh drew his eyes back to her face. “They likely want to be sure I won’t be like the Emperor.”
She snorted. “As if that would happen.”
“But what if it did?” he insisted, the terror and disgust rising in him like it always always did whenever he let himself think too long on the topic.
“You’ve never looked at a child like that in your life,” Ah-Duo said confidently.
“But I could.” He wanted to throw up at the mere possibility.
“Gyouyoh,” she said, sharp to pull him from the horrifying thought of reaching toward a girl’s pretty, childishly-patterned robes, and back into the moment. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.”
He looked and saw she’d parted the top of her robes enough to show a bit of the cleavage she’d gained the past few years and Gyouyoh’s brain tripped. He stared.
“See?” she said, tucking the robs closed again.
He sputtered, his face too hot.
“I--! You!”
“Mm-hmm.” She grinned, looking back down at her papers. “You like women with full-figured bodies. You aren’t going to be cradle-robbing in this lifetime.”
“…You noticed?” he asked in mortification. He’d thought he’d hidden his looks at her chest. It wasn’t like he looked that often, but they were close, and sometimes they still wrestled over some small thing or another, and there were moments without propriety and… and… And his body was very obvious sometimes without him meaning it to be. And it wasn’t that he was looking at every woman around him either! He didn’t want to be like that either.
“You aren’t subtle.”
“Oh.” He finally sat in the chair across from her. Ah-Duo went back to working for a few minutes as he processed that new information. And that he did in fact prefer to look at adult female bodies. “I would rather cut off my hand than touch a child that way,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “If I thought you’d do that, I’d cut your hand off myself.”
“You’d get killed for that.”
“Worth it,” she said with another small smile.
He took a breath, let it out. “I’m still worried though.”
“About?” She didn’t look up from her papers and somehow that was comforting. She was listening, but she was still treating him the same as she ever had.
“About being forced into something with a woman who only wants the power having my child could give her,” he said honestly. “About being put with a girl who doesn’t want to be there but won’t say no. About laying with someone who—” He flushed, feeling terribly naïve and childish about the whole thing. “Who won’t like me and I won’t like, and she only does it out of duty. Or that I only lay with people out of duty, and I can never actually trust any of it.”
This time she did pause again, looking up. A faint frown on her lips as she studied the way he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“I’m afraid of you leaving and something happening to Mother and it will just be me alone here where no one will see me and everyone will want something from me.”
An emperor is supposed to be above those sorts of thoughts. An emperor is supposed to be more than a man—more than a boy—someone who can lead and be a pillar of the kingdom to lead it to prosperity. They’ve made it through having a poor emperor because the empress dowager had a firm hand and didn’t let her court get away with anything, but he didn’t know if he would be able to hold the shifting mess of it all with the same strength. He was still barely more than a boy, and sometimes he wondered if he was truly suited for this at all.
It didn’t matter. No one could change being born royal.
“You find someone you can trust,” Ah-Duo said gently, taking his fears seriously. “Find someone you trust and whose council you’ll listen to and you do your best.”
“I trust you,” he joked, not really joking.
“Ah, but I’d make a terrible Empress,” she said with a wry smile. “Can you picture it? Me?” She laughed.
He didn’t. Gyouyoh could picture it. She’d be lovely and he couldn’t see a future with her as empress that people didn’t love her. Ah-Duo was charismatic and smart and good. There was a twist of selfish want in his gut and he pushed it down. “They spoke of hiring someone to lay with me,” he said instead of saying that he could make that future true.
“They need to hire someone for that?” she teased. “But you have so many admirers!”
He scoffed. It wasn’t admiration when they wanted something from you. “They’d hire someone to teach me how to please a woman and, er. Please myself.”
Ah-Duo’s brow quirked up. “Isn’t that rather self-explanatory?”
“I’ve never even kissed,” he said with a huff. His blush grew. “I wouldn’t know where to put my hands let alone…” He made a crude gesture.
Ah-Duo snorted a laugh. She set down the brush and gave him her full attention. It was always a bit like being in a bright sunbeam; warm and a bit too bright. “You’re that nervous about all of that?”
“Of course!” It wasn’t like he had the luxury of having a fumble in the hay like some common farmer. Everything he did had eyes on him, sexual things included. If he failed to perform, it would get out. If he was a poor lover, rumors would happen. If he couldn’t even please a woman, how would he be any better than any other man forcing her into something when she was probably there because she had to be in the first place? She should at least have a good time!
“That’s an easy fix then.”
“It is?”
“We’ll just practice together.”
Gyouyoh blinked. “Pardon.”
“We’ll practice,” Ah-Duo repeated, amused. “We’ve shared so much else, so it isn’t a big deal. I trust you. You trust me. We’ll have our fumbles and come out the other end more confident.”
He opened his mouth, closed it. His head was oddly blank.
“Well?” she asked. Her arms crossed over her chest and she leaned back in her chair. And all he could notice was the way her arms pressed her chest just a bit more up and out and—
He swallowed. “That’s. Yes.” He wanted. He wanted more than just a fumble, but he’d take a fumble if it meant that she’d touch him. That he’d get to touch her. That this wouldn’t be some terrifying thing done with a stranger.
“Good.” Ah-Duo got up and rounded the desk and Gyouyoh could only stare as she came closer.
“Right now?” he asked, voice breaking in a truly embarrassing way. His body was reacting in other embarrassing ways as well. He hoped it wasn’t obvious.
“Is there a reason not to?”
If there was a reason, he couldn’t currently remember it. He shook his head and jumped slightly as Ah-Duo caught his cheek cupped in her palm.
“Relax. It’s just me,” she said as she leaned down.
And it was just her. He could trust her. Gyouyoh closed his eyes as she kissed him. It was strange and gentle and wet and made something in him burn in a way he barely recognized. When she pulled away, he leaned to follow without a thought.
“Not so terrifying,” Ah-Duo said in the scant air between them.
Gyouyoh realized she didn’t say this was her first kiss and a bit of bitter jealousy twined into the heat. If she’d kissed before, it wasn’t something she’d confided in him. But she’d been his first kiss and nothing could take that away. He reached to clumsily pull her back in and kissed her again. It was probably a terrible kiss. There was a bit too much pressure and teeth and it was definitely wetter than the first one, but it was like she was air and he couldn’t breathe enough of her.
Things went quickly from there. It was hard to be embarrassed when Ah-Duo was so steady and teasing and familiar. It was hard to be worried about being like his father when his face was pressed to her mature chest. It was hard to be scared of politics and motivations and futures when they were on the office floor, legs twined together and his body cradled by hers.
It was good. It felt the safest he’d ever felt, the most loved and seen even as he made mistakes and things weren’t quite pain-free. Ah-Duo held him. And they laughed at each other. And she held him close after too, curled up on their pile of ruined robes, all long hair and soft body and gentle hands. There was care in her eyes. Love and affection and a little bit of sadness that he didn’t quite understand beyond his own slight sadness about how they were growing up. Growing into inescapable roles that would define their lives.
He didn’t want to let go of that moment.
All good things came to ends, though, and eventually they got up and dressed and Ah-Duo kept treating him the same as she ever did. Gyouyoh preferred that to if she started treating him like something to be reverent of. Or worse, as something breakable. She hadn’t even teased him about his tears when he got overwhelmed. But then, he didn’t tease her for hers, either.
He left feeling warm and cared for.
So why did he selfishly want to have more?
*
“I’m pregnant,” Ah-Duo said a few months later, pale-faced and worried. “I didn’t think—”
Oh. He should, Gyouyoh thought from a long way away, have realized that would be a possible consequence of their actions. If Ah-Duo was pregnant, it was with his child. A woman who laid with royalty, who carried a royal child…
Ah-Duo had mentioned, once, about becoming a merchant. Of travel. Of politics. Of going so many places he could never follow.
It was a crime to abort the child of royalty. A danger to try to abort a child at all.
He was a terrible person that his first true thought was that now she couldn’t leave him. What sort of person was it that would be relieved to ruin the dreams of the person he loved? Was that better or worse than leaving a string of people broken behind him that he didn’t care for?
Ah-Duo could still leave. Could still run away and choose to become someone else and never look back. Could leave him and everything he had to represent just to stay her free-spirited self.
Gyouyoh wasn’t sure he’d survive that.
Hie eyes teared at the mere thought and he could see her catch that, catch on his shock and anxiety and all the new fears this brought up. And he could see her hesitate with whatever she had been planning. (She was planning to leave, he was sure. He was sure.)
“I’ll make you my only consort,” he said, his voice coming out choked. “You’ll be my Empress—please—”
How humiliating. Reduced to begging and yet how could he not beg the woman he was in love with to stay by his side? His closest most trusted friend? Gyouyoh wasn’t a prince in that moment, just a man barely more than a boy with a whole life waiting ahead to crush him.
Ah-Duo’s eyes closed and she released a slow breath. She always was much more mature and controlled than him. One year, she’d say, made all the difference. “Only if you make me as powerful as the Empress Dowager,” she joked, trying to be as light as ever.
Gyouyoh could see the strain hiding behind it, but he chose to hold only to the surface. This didn’t have to change them. They’d be together. They’d be okay and he wouldn’t be alone. He pulled her close and felt her arms close around him. Gyouyoh didn’t look in her eyes to see if regret was hiding there.