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The chime of the bell echoed through the lobby of the Hakurokaku Inn as Kuon opened the front door. She wasn’t fond of the sound of that bell at first, but as time went on it became a comfort for her. It signified that she was home, where a warm bath and comfy bed would always be waiting for her. But now was not the time for sentimentality. Not when she was caked with dirt and mud from head to toe.
Even through the thick layer of grime, the irritation emanating from her body was clear. She was not happy, and who could blame her? It was going to take forever to wash all of it off her skin and out of her clothes. And Haku’s too, for that matter, considering he was covered in even more mud than she was. But he, at least, deserved it, because it was his fault that they got into such a filthy mess to begin with. Him and his stupid harebrained schemes.
“Okay, look, I know you’re angry right now, but—”
“Angry? What reason would I have to be angry?” Kuon deadpanned. “Everything is fine. In fact, I think I’m the happiest girl alive right now.”
“Wait…really? You’re not mad?”
She turned to face her partner-in-crime. “Of COURSE I’m mad, you idiot! Just look at me! I’m completely covered in filth!”
“Yeah, and so am I, but you don’t see me complaining. It’s just a little mud.”
Kuon scoffed. “Just a ‘little mud’? I’d say this is more like a ‘lot’ of mud. And it’s because of YOUR stupid plan that we got this muddy in the first place.”
In the morning, Oshtor had assigned Haku and his group an urgent job to be taken care of that day. There were two or three animals that had gotten loose from the private collection of a wealthy Yamatan eccentric yesterday. They took up residence in the nearby woods and had begun terrorizing the people of Yamato from the trees. He had called them “kimamaus”, apparently imported from a foreign country. Haku’s job was to either capture them or chase them away from the capital.
Miraculously, the rest of their party was otherwise occupied or out running errands. Even Uruuru and Saraana were unaccounted for, which was extremely rare. The only person available to help was Kuon, and the two set off to the forested area outside the capital that afternoon to take care of the problem. Then, it started to rain. Heavily.
After a few run-ins with the kimamaus and dodging thrown excrement, Haku devised a sneaky plot to lure the animals out from the trees and trap them. Like all his other out-of-the-box ideas, it sounded idiotic and inefficient at first, but Kuon knew that Haku’s plans almost always worked.
The only problem was that they needed to run through the mud for a minute or so to bait them into the trap. Kuon was already soaking wet from the rain, and the last thing she needed was to get mud all over her clothes. Of course, Haku confidently said that it wouldn’t happen, and everything would be fine as long as she just trusted him.
He gathered up some walnuts and rocks and tossed them at the kimamaus, pissing them off and causing them to chase him and Kuon. They then ran back towards their trap, baiting the kimamaus into some nets that would drop down and ensnare them as soon as they stepped underneath them. The plan worked perfectly, and all three kimamaus were captured.
But as soon as Haku heard the traps spring behind him and turned to check them, he lost his balance and slipped. Naturally, he tried to grab onto the nearest object to prevent him from falling. That object unfortunately happened to be Kuon’s arm. Not only did he trip and fall face-first into a large puddle of mud, but he also dragged her down into it with him.
“W-well, I guess, but it worked, didn’t it?” Haku protested. “We got all three of ‘em, first try and everything!”
“Yup. Your genius plan went off without a hitch. Especially the part where we got covered in filth. You know, the thing you were so confident wouldn’t happen.”
“How was I supposed to know the puddle was that deep? Actually, no, think of it this way: I did you a favor! This is the perfect opportunity for you to take a nice, warm, bath and—"
Kuon’s response was to flash her signature sweet smile she reserved only for him, stopping his sentence dead in its tracks. As soon as he saw it, his face slightly paled. “Hm? I didn’t quite catch that. Would you care to repeat it? Something about doing me a favor?”
Anyone who didn’t know Kuon would think nothing of it: just a simple, cute smile. But Haku knew better. Whenever she looked at him like that, it almost always meant malicious intent. And it also usually meant…
“Owowowowowowow!” Haku cried out as Kuon’s mud-spattered tail wrapped around his head and squeezed hard. “I get it, I get it, alright? Don’t squeeze so tight! I’m sorry! It was an accident, I swear!”
Kuon loudly sighed, releasing her tail’s tight grip around his skull. These days, she seemed to have a much harder time staying angry with Haku than usual. And she knew that it wasn’t ever his intention to drag her down into the mud. There wasn’t much point in taking out any further irritation on him. Plus, he was right – she was looking forward to a warm bath.
“Yeah, yeah…I know. I know you didn’t mean to. I’ll just have to find a way for you to make it up to me later.”
“Make it up to you? Hey, wait, hold on! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hmm…well, you’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” Whatever it was, judging by her singsong tone of voice he was willing to bet that it wouldn’t be very fun. “Oh, I know! You can start by going and delivering your report to Oshtor without me. I need to get cleaned up.”
Haku breathed a sigh of relief. She just wanted him to report their finished job so she could bathe early? That was a lot more tame than he first thought. “Really? That’s all?”
“Nope. That’s just a start. You’re still going to have plenty of work to do, mister.”
Getting just the tiniest bit of satisfaction from hearing Haku’s groan of disappointment, she left her partner in the lobby and made her way further into the inn. The earlier she could get the dried mud off of her, the better.
Anyone who had spoken to Kuon for more than five minutes would have easily been able to predict her next destination – the inn’s famous steam baths. As soon as she entered the changing room, she almost instantly felt her mood improve. To her, this place was heaven. There wasn’t anything that she loved more than indulging in a long, warm soak, especially after a long and stressful day.
After shedding her wet, dirty clothes in the changing room, she gingerly stepped into the hot bath, savoring the pleasant feeling as she immersed herself in the warm water. The towel that was wrapped around her body began to quickly absorb the water and clung tightly to her skin as she began to clean the dirt off of herself, already feeling refreshed.
As it turned out, scrubbing the mud out of her skin and hair didn’t take nearly as long as she thought it would. Her clothes were a different story, but she’d just wash those separately. Even if the dried mud was set in too much to salvage them, it wasn’t a huge deal. She’d just use the money she and Haku earned today to go clothes shopping tomorrow.
Once she was done thoroughly washing her body with one of her special bath soaps, she had all the time in the world to relax. Sighing in contentment, Kuon waded towards the back of the baths and sat down, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes as she soaked in the hot water and relaxed without a care in the world.
After a while, Kuon’s ears caught the sound of the door opening. Until then, she had been alone, and she wasn’t sure how long she had been soaking for; it could have been hours for all she knew. It wasn’t uncommon for her to lose track of time while bathing, after all. But the door opening indicated that someone was about to join her.
“…Kuon?”
Her eyes quickly opened as she turned towards the sound of the familiar voice. Standing in the doorway was Haku, the dirt still very visible on his body. Much like her, the only thing covering him was a towel. “You’re still in here?”
“U-uh…yeah, I am. H-how long has it been?”
“At least forty-five minutes. I couldn’t find you when I got back to the inn, so I figured you were here. Um…do you mind if I join you? Still need to scrape this mud off.”
Under normal circumstances, Kuon wouldn’t have been too keen on the idea of sharing a bath with a guy. She would if she had to, but it typically made her very uncomfortable. Now, though? For whatever reason, the idea didn’t really bother her. Not when it was Haku, at least. “Oh! Right…sure, if you want to.”
“Alright, cool. Thanks.” She quietly watched as Haku stepped into the water and waded towards the opposite corner of the bath, beginning to wash the remaining filth from his arms and shoulders. Kuon certainly wasn’t accustomed to sharing the bath with a boy. It felt very weird. Not a bad or uncomfortable weird, just…weird.
She tried to lean back and relax, but inexplicably found herself having bit of a hard time keeping her eyes off of Haku. Her gaze kept wandering over to the young man on the other side of the bath, observing as he got to work cleaning the rest of the mud from his arms and upper body. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t having much success.
Noticing that the dirt wasn’t coming off, he put a little bit more effort into scrubbing himself, but it didn’t help. So, he decided to scrub harder. When that didn’t work, he scrubbed harder still. Even then, the dirt didn’t seem to want to wash off.
“Oh, come on! Get off me already, damn it!” he grumbled, continuing his attempts at getting rid of the stubborn patches of dirt. Kuon couldn’t stop herself from giving a wry grin. “Having a little bit of trouble over there, are we?” she teased.
“Ugh…you could say that. How did you get all of this shit off, anyways? Feels like this stuff is concrete.”
“Because you’re not using the right kind of soap to get it off, doofus.”
“Huh? There’s different kinds of soaps for cleaning different things?”
She paused for a moment. Wasn’t this common knowledge? “Uhhh…yes?”
Haku scratched his head, puzzled. “Huh. I guess that’d explain it. So, if this one won’t work, which one did you use?”
Kuon gestured to the bar of soap that was resting above the edge of the bath, right next to her. “This one. I don’t use it much, but it comes in handy on long trips. Does a much better job of actually cleaning than the usual scented ones I like.”
“Well, if there’s anyone that I can trust on this, it’s the continent’s leading bath expert herself.” Haku sheepishly laughed as Kuon slightly narrowed her eyes at him. “Sorry, sorry. Could you toss it over here?”
“Toss it? Absolutely not. This isn’t any plain old soap, you know. It’s expensive, and this is my last bar. I haven’t gotten around to buying more yet.”
“So? It’s just soap. What’s the big deal?”
“Like I said, it’s not just any plain old soap. If it gets fully submerged in water, it’s ruined. I’m not going to throw it and risk you not catching it.”
Haku sighed. He already knew this was an argument he had no chance of winning. “Alright, alright, fine. If I come over there and get it myself, can I use it?”
“Sure, I guess. Knock yourself out. But if you drop it, I will kill you.”
In any other circumstance, if someone asked to borrow one of her expensive soaps, she would adamantly refuse. But at the same time, she wasn’t heartless enough to let him leave the bath without getting clean. Besides, when Haku was the one asking, it didn’t really seem to bother her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Cool, thanks.” Haku waded over from his side of the bath towards the corner where Kuon was. He reached his hand out towards her. Grabbing the soap next to her, she leaned forward and placed it in his hands. “Alright, this mud is going down.”
He stepped back a few feet away from her and started to make quick work of the remaining dirt on his upper body. Once again, Kuon had the luxury of paying attention to anything else in the room or even closing her eyes, but those eyes decided to remain squarely on Haku.
She watched closely as her soap worked its magic on his body, effortlessly rinsing away all the grime on his upper body. She especially noted that the soap and water did a really good job of emphasizing the muscles of his upper arms, and—
Kuon blinked once, then twice. Where did that come from? Where the hell did her brain think it was going? That’s not something she’d normally ever even consider going out of her way to look for. What had gotten into her today?
“Wow, you weren’t kidding. This stuff worked better after five seconds than mine did after five minutes.” He turned around to face her and began to walk back towards her corner. “Here, you can have this back. I really apprecia—w-whoa!”
Somehow, Haku lost his balance again and tripped forward, accidentally dropping Kuon’s soap into the water. Once again, in any situation other than this one, she would have murdered him where he stood. But this time, the soap was little more than an afterthought. She had a much larger issue to deal with first.
By attempting to break his fall, his arms reached out and grabbed hold of each side of the bath’s corner. The very same corner that Kuon was sitting in. It was enough to stop him from falling directly onto her, but they still now found themselves in a rather compromising position. She was backed up against the corner of the bath, Haku now just a little bit above her. The only thing separating their bodies were two thin towels and no more than a few inches of space.
“Oh, crap. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m so sorry, Kuon! I promise I’ll buy you another one!”
He was too close. Way too close. One second, he was talking to her, and in the next she was effectively pinned in the corner of the bath, staring the young man in the eyes. As they wordlessly looked at each other for a few seconds, Kuon could feel her face grow hot, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t from the steam.
“…hey, uh…Kuon…?”
In any other circumstance, she would have shoved him away in anger and embarrassment, but it seemed like her arms and tail didn’t have any intention of interfering. Her muscles felt stiff. Her thoughts were clouded by a sudden burst of multiple emotions – panic, anxiety, nervousness, and…something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Kuon…? Hello? You there?”
The girl remained silent, not knowing how to respond or what to do. Her eyes remained locked on his as his face also started to slightly redden. For some reason, her pulse began to quicken, and that weird feeling she had been experiencing ever since he joined her in the bath was getting stronger.
“You…um…while we’re here, I just want to say…I just wanted to say thank you. I know it’s a little random, but I swear, I’m not saying this to try and make up for the mud incident and your soap. I mean it.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Now she could feel her heart beating wildly through her chest. That weird, fuzzy feeling from earlier continued to intensify even further. What the hell was going on? Why wasn’t she pushing him away?
“I know I can be a bit of a jackass and sometimes cause you trouble, but you always go out of your way to take care of me. You’re a great friend, and, well, you’re really important to me.”
All she could do was continue looking Haku in the eyes. Suddenly, an idea of what might be going on popped into her mind. The reason why she couldn’t stop staring at him, and the reason why she was allowing him to stay so close to her.
“And…um…you see…”
Kuon had a sinking feeling that she knew where Haku was going with this. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t…no, wouldn’t make a move to push him away. Maybe she secretly wanted this to happen. Maybe, deep down, she actually…
“Uh…damn it. I give up. At this point I’m just going to embarrass myself even more if I keep talking. Screw it.”
Suddenly, Haku leaned in even closer to her. Kuon let out an uncharacteristically high-pitched squeak and her eyes widened in surprise as his lips pressed against hers. They remained there for several seconds before being separated once again.
Now that Haku’s head had been pulled back a little bit, his gaze was fixated on her once more. Now, though, he looked nervous. As if he was anxiously waiting for an answer.
Kuon, on the other hand, was still trying to wrap her head around what had just happened. Haku…kissed her. He kissed her. She let him do it. And it felt good. Really, really good.
As soon as they made contact, a shock of excitement jolted through her entire body from her lips. Her face felt like it had been lit on fire. She slowly brought one hand to her lips, feeling them tingle as the electricity danced across her fingertips.
“…Kuon…?”
By now, she was as red as a tomato, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Haku. Her conscious mind finally realized something that she had unconsciously known for a while now. She definitely wanted this. Perhaps she had secretly wanted this for quite some time now. She couldn’t think of a better way for him to make up for the mud incident.
He was so close that she could easily feel his breath on her face, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more. She wanted him to get even closer than he already was. She wanted to feel that pleasant spark of electricity surge through her nerves again. She wanted him to touch her again, to feel his body pressed against hers. She wanted him to hold her tightly and kiss her again and again. And after realizing this, she finally spoke.
“H-Haku…I…I…”
The problem now was that she just had no idea what to say. At this point, she was all but certain that she knew what these weird feelings were. It just seemed like there was no possible combination of words that she could come up with to adequately express it.
However, there was still another way that she could. She didn’t have to use words when she could just use actions. Her heart was racing, kicking itself into overdrive as her instincts took over in the heat of the moment. Before her rational brain knew what was happening, she felt her body begin to move on its own. Kuon threw her arms around Haku, pulling him as close to her as possible. She leaned in, closed her eyes, tilted her head, and…
*THUNK*
A sudden jolt struck the carriage as it passed over a large rock, startling Kuon awake in the process. At first, she didn’t know where she was. Wasn’t she just relaxing in the Hakurokaku Inn’s steam bath after a long day of work? Where did Haku go? Why wasn’t he with her?
She looked around the interior of the carriage with her still-sleepy eyes. What was happening? This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. She was just there – she could visualize it so easily. She could still hear the sizzling sound of steam emanating from the hot water, smell the soothing aroma of bath soap. She could still feel the wet towel wrapped around her body, soaked with warm water and clinging to her smooth skin.
*CRASH*
The carriage lurched again as its wheels passed over another big rock, jolting even more of the residual sleepiness out of Kuon’s body. She assessed her environment once more. This was definitely not the Hakurokaku Inn, but her surroundings seemed very familiar. It reminded her so much of home. The architecture of the carriage was clearly from Tuskur – she would recognize it anywhere. But she was just in Yamato, right? Wouldn’t that mean--
Oh…that’s right…I’m…
The pleasant feelings from her dream slowly faded from her senses as remembered. After rescuing Anju from the attempted coup, she had returned to her home country of Tuskur. Now, she was back in Yamato, being escorted by two of her most trusted generals to the capital of Ennakamuy for “diplomatic negotiations”. The journey to the remote city was long, and she had fallen asleep in the carriage as they rode through the night.
She was on her way to meet her former traveling companions, but this time under much different circumstances. She wasn’t going to present herself as Kuon, the traveling apothecary, and it wouldn’t be a happy reunion of any sort. This time, she would appear before them as the Princess of Tuskur, and no matter how much she missed her friends, she couldn’t allow them to know who she was.
Instead of being comfortably immersed in warm water, she could feel the chill of the cold night air even through the walls of the carriage. Instead of the soft towel snugly wrapped around her body, she felt the uncomfortable hardness of the carriage’s floor underneath her blankets. Instead of being surrounded by the pleasant sounds of the steam bath, she could only hear wheels on the ground and the footsteps of woptors.
The worst part of it all was that she was alone. Benawi and Kurou were “driving” the woptors that were pulling the carriage along, so she had the interior of the dark carriage all to herself. Haku wasn’t there with her. Instead of being by her side where he belonged, he was…he was…
He’s dead. Haku is dead.
Kuon wouldn’t ever be able to forget that day for as long as she lived. It was the last day she’d ever lay eyes on him, the final day before her adventures in Yamato were tragically cut short. The memories were still all too vivid in her mind. The look on Nekone’s face as she tightly gripped onto Oshtor’s hand, her eyes simultaneously empty and full of pain and sorrow at the same time. The forlorn expression Oshtor had when he handed her the fan that she had originally gifted to Haku, now splattered with blood.
At first, she didn’t believe it. She wouldn't believe it. There was no way it was true. It had to be a sick joke, a messed-up prank. Haku had gotten himself out of much stickier situations time and time again, and this one should be no exception. He had to be coming back to her. He always did.
She tried her very hardest to deny it, to convince herself that what she was hearing was a lie. She tried to convince herself that he was just behind Nekone and Oshtor and would come into her vision any second now. But a second went by, then two, and then three. Oshtor’s solemn expression wasn’t changing. A “just kidding!” wasn’t going to come.
After the initial shock wore off from Oshtor’s declaration that Haku had been killed, she felt like a part of her very soul had been violently ripped out. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget the intense grief and anguish that consumed her heart and shattered it into a million tiny pieces. Or the sickening feelings of regret and defeat that continued to torment her to this day.
He was gone, and he wasn’t coming back, no matter how much she pleaded or prayed. Her own mind had simply decided that it was going to make her suffer tonight. Everything that she thought she had just experienced, every pleasant feeling that had felt so very real to her, was a dream. A cruel, cruel dream.
The mission with the kimamaus didn’t happen. Practically nobody in Yamato knew what a kimamau even was, anyways. She had never been alone in the steam baths with Haku. She had never kissed him, and she was never able to express how she truly felt about him. The entire thing was nothing more than her own little fantasy of what could have been. What should have been, if only she had the awareness to recognize her own feelings before she lost him forever.
Even now, she could still feel the warmth of Haku’s breath on her face from that dream. The sensation of her arms wrapped around his bare skin. The taste of his lips on hers. She vividly remembered the shockwave of excitement that reverberated through her entire body when he kissed her, leaving her desperately craving for more. But that craving, that aching feeling of want would never be satisfied. After all, Haku wasn’t with her, and he wouldn’t ever be with her again.
“It’s not fair…” she quietly murmured to herself.
Never again would there be a moment where she caught Haku in the act of doing something stupid and chewed him out for it. They’d never get to go on another adventure together. She would never be able to tell him that she loved him, because she was too damn stubborn and stupid to realize it before it was too late. She didn’t know what she had until it was suddenly torn away from her.
“P-please…”
After she had gotten as much of her sorrow out of her system as she could in her father’s arms, she promised herself that she wouldn’t cry anymore. She was the Princess of Tuskur, the sole heir to the throne of an entire nation, and soon to be the leader of tens of thousands of people. She could not allow herself to show any weakness. She had to be a strong leader, for her people’s sake and for her own.
But no matter how many times she told herself this, no matter how hard she tried to bottle it up and endure the pain, her fragile heart just couldn’t take it anymore. She felt teardrops begin to run down her cheeks.
Considering she couldn’t make good on her promise to keep Haku safe, it only made sense that she wouldn’t be able to keep a promise to herself, either. Kuon rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, silently praying that her traveling companions wouldn’t be able to hear her.
“Please…come back…come back…!”
“Ugh…how much farther away IS this place? Feels like we’ve been walking for week.”
Benawi sighed in response to his partner’s complaining. To be honest, he echoed Kurou’s sentiment. It was a long, quiet ride through the night. They hadn’t been on the road for even a full day, yet it still felt like several.
“At the rate we’re going, I estimate we’ll be there by sunrise. For now, we should just be thankful that the journey has been uneventful so far."
Kurou scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, sure, I guess. ‘Uneventful’ is definitely one way to put it. I can’t really sleep while I’m holding onto woptor reins, you know. I just wish there was something to do around here.”
“The only thing to ‘do’ on an empty road at this time of night is get ambushed by bandits. It’s a good thing that we haven’t run into any trouble while Her Highness is sleeping. I’d much rather be bored than put her at risk.”
“Aw, c’mon, you’re no fun,” Kurou whined. “It’d be a good change of pace. Besides, it’s not like it’d take us very long to give a bandit group or two a good beati—”
Suddenly, a new sound reached the ears of the two Tuskurian generals, just barely audible over the noise of the carriage’s wheels as it was pulled along the rocky path. Kurou’s lips curled downward into a frown, and Benawi could feel his eyebrows furrow as soon as he heard it.
They continued in silence for about a minute before Kurou broke it. “Hey, Benawi…do you think we should…uh…”
“No. I doubt there’s anything we could do. At this point, we just need to give her some space.”
Kurou looked like he wanted to protest, but he knew that Benawi was right. They were both elite soldiers extensively trained in military combat and tactics, but mending a broken heart was something that neither of them were capable of.
And so, they continued to ride through the night towards Ennakamuy in relative silence, trying their hardest to keep their attention on the road and away from the sound of their princess’s pained, muffled sobs.