Chapter Thirty-Five

The Prettiest Face

Regardless of how calmly Kasuga accepted their bizarre situation, she would not relent. They were still more hostages than guests, still not allowed to leave the castle's west wing. And still under her meticulous investigation.

But at least it was the investigation that only she and one other person participated in: the mysterious Wind Listener. No mention of Nekohiko's condition had slipped out of this small circle during their entire stay in Nagare that had already stretched for days.

Himself, he could only sulk and wait for the development of Kasuga's research. He had tried to come up with an explanation -- any explanation to who and how could have Bound him to a tree. Or why. But he simply didn't know enough to make even the tiniest of claims.

The more he thought about what had happened to him at the moment of his "death", the less he understood.

He had died, of that he was sure. But right at the moment of his body's "death" -- his soul had been caught. By someone. And trapped and preserved long enough to Bind it into a tree of an Emerald Fir.

So while his human body had technically died... his soul had been allowed to go on. To cling to the material world. To avoid being scattered and absorbed into the Spiritside void where all the other disembodied souls went.

But... who would be so kind to him to have done that?

Worse still wasn't the question of "who would?" but rather the question of "who possibly could?!".

Nobody possessed such power over Binding other than maybe... himself? Only the true Emperor could manipulate souls and Spirits by forcing them together against their will or nature. But when he had been murdered... there hadn't been another Emperor yet? Abihiko clearly wore the title nowadays, but the Spiritual powers didn't transfer in the same easy manner as titles did. And besides, Abihiko had claimed the throne because the Five Great Lords put him there by mutual agreement. Not because he was meant to sit on it. Like Abihiko had told him once -- there'd been at least two dozen people between his blood right and the Emerald throne.

But then, who?

The Head Priest Suminoe, the thought came next. Obviously, the most powerful person beneath the Emperor was the Izumo Head Priest. But back then, on that terrible night five years ago -- where had Suminoe been? Nekohiko struggled to remember because the night had been so turbulent and frenetic. Flashes of memory, shards of glimpses here or there. But no real cohesion due to fear, exhaustion, several battles he'd been through by the time he had risen up those steps into the Palace.

Back then, he had thought that Abihiko being so close to him, helping him walk forward no matter what -- was a blessing. Without Abihiko, he would have been completely alone.

So not Suminoe, probably. As if the Head Priest would allow Nekohiko to die at all if he had been close enough to Bind his soul to a tree to save him! But that only left out...

The Lords who also hadn't been present. And the Five Great Lords' bodyguards who had been there, right beside Nekohiko's dying body.

Daichi, Etsuko, Arata, Chinatsu. As Binders, they were all above average but not even remotely close to what a truly powerful Binder like Abihiko could do -- let alone like Suminoe or Nekohiko. The only guard whose powers somewhat made sense to Nekohiko in such a situation would be Hibiki.

The Hisome family's young bodyguard.

Not because Hibiki was so unique or superior to the other guards but only because Hibiki's Binding talents lay almost exclusively in stealing cognition and Resign from the animals and sometimes, horrifically, from humans. In short, he was an expert that one would call to Bind a human's real voice into a dummy. Or an animal's Resign -- the ability to follow orders and understand commands. Or something even worse than those -- an animal's urge to survive, a human's perception, a human's understanding and will...

Hibiki wasn't abusing his powers, of course. Nobody would have allowed something like that to be done lightly. But the potential existed. Nekohiko was only too confused to be able to think of a reason Hibiki would do this for him? The two of them... hadn't been that close, to begin with?

Ugh, he simply had to wait till Kasuga made a breakthrough in her investigation of the methods and maybe some examples of a full soul's Binding having been done in history. Then he wouldn't have to guess. He would know.

Yet all this waiting was surely torture.

"Do you think she'll come today?" Aomi asked Kataji who was as obsessively carving in his corner as always.

Aomi dressed up in newer and bizarrer outfits she made up from several she'd already owned. Just to impress Kasuga, probably. Nekohiko's snake form was a frequent accessory for these purposes.

"Mn," Kataji answered as if he was even listening. But he wasn't. The young man was solely devoted to finishing Nekohiko's body parts faster now that they had so much free time to waste.

Nekohiko had to spend so many hours with him just grinding, shaving, carving, whittling, scraping. He barely noticed how days passed in this endless kaleidoscope of pain Kataji's woodwork was unleashing upon him.

In the brief respites between these carvings, Nekohiko checked on Abihiko to see what he was doing. But it was nothing much other than councils and endless arguments with his advisors about the new taxation bill they were passing. The Emperor's life was surely too busy for anything else, and Nekohiko calmed down when he realized Abihiko wasn't abusing his powers or his status.

Oddly enough, he did exactly what he was supposed to -- what Nekohiko would have done if he were on the Emerald Throne himself. Only... in Abihiko's case, he also sucked at it.

It gave Nekohiko no joy to acknowledge that. Part of him smirked seeing how lame Abihiko's efforts to argue were or how unobservant his additions to the bills and law drafts were. Abihiko had never had any interest in these things. Only Nekohiko had. And for Nekohiko, talks about economics, taxation, policies, agriculture, and foreign diplomacy was like honey come straight from heaven. So the other half of him wept bitter tears seeing how his beautiful Empire came closer and closer to ruin in the hands of someone so incompetent.

Nekohiko wanted to reach out from his seashell form and overtake all of Abihiko's pathetic attempts to do something worthwhile. Because in Nekohiko's hands, his Empire would reach its true, grander potential! Ohhh, how he itched to advise Abihiko on doing it right...

But he couldn't. He could only watch and listen to the councilors argue in Abihiko's presence -- every man obviously too loyal to their own Great Lord to bother with keeping fair to the Empire as a whole. And Abihiko could not reign them in. He was either too apathetic to try or too easily tricked by them to not get lost in minor technicalities. Nekohiko tried not to palm his face hard with his cat paws each time he emerged out of his seashell body afterward.

Too aggravating to spend his time there!

Here, it wasn't good either, but at least, here he could do something other than watch. He could go to the Nagare library himself and do his own research -- as much as the archives allowed him.

And he wasn't there alone doing that.

***

With him, almost every single day, Aomi came out of their rooms. Yet oddly enough, she didn't distract him or annoy him with her nonsense as she usually did. For all the time he spent in the library, digging up books and scrolls and voice-yarns on rarer uses of Binding -- Aomi was busy elsewhere.

But always in the same library as him.

She rustled the books and scrolls as well. Why? The thought fascinated him. So Nekohiko was first to become too intrigued to keep to his own devices, and not the other way around. Out of the two of them, it was he who now tried to distract her.

The library was a long hall of black glass bookshelves floating in a magnetic waver over the floor. With only a single touch, one could move the entire shelf and have it sink into the floor to access the higher shelves, or rise from within the floor to display the lower shelves. The Nagare walls and floors and ceilings had this wonderful quality of being malleable. Sometimes, as he and Aomi were wandering the halls, he noticed the servants and Nagare ministers used walls more often than doors to walk through. Kasuga entirely preferred to move up and down and diagonally through her castle regardless of where the corridors and rooms were. The entire castle shifted to accommodate her, so she never barged in on any of the private rooms as she phased through the building.

Aomi shrugged and mumbled, "showoffs" every time she witnessed such behaviors. Kataji was impressed and inspired, but not so much as to take his mind off his endless carving mania. Life as usual, with those two.

Cat Nekohiko sank the closest shelf to deposit another monumental tome back in its place. In his side-eye, he studied Aomi further away by the desks on which she had amassed her small collection of archival notes. The bright glare of carved Nagare electric lantern threw beautiful flickers of blue over her and the glassy floor around her.

So absorbed, the girl was. Nekohiko couldn't keep wondering any longer.

He had to know.

"The Great Families' dynastic trees?" he asked when he peeked into one of the splayed manuscripts she had before her.

His eyes fell on the paper stack on which she was scribbling something ferociously. Two words popped at him.

"Hira."

And, "Ezo".

Neither thing related to another. The Great Hira Family lived in the south of the Empire while the Ezo tribes Abihiko's family had displaced centuries ago -- had once lived in the far north.

The only possibly connecting thread between these two was... Abihiko?

He had been raised by Hiras, plus his ancestors had massacred most Ezos a long time ago. But truly, the connection was flimsy at best, so Nekohiko leaned it to read more.

Aomi's glower met him with force. She slid her paper stack under her roomy dark-purple sleeve.

"You done with your stuff?" she asked, clearly annoyed. "Do you want to go back to our rooms?"

"Why your sudden interest in genealogy?" Nekohiko asked, eyeing the other books on the desk. "You seem very interested in reading about the Great Families and how they are related to one another."

With loud snaps, Aomi shut each book one by one. "Gossip. And Family drama." She already switched her previously harsh, absorbed mood to her usual cheery, laidback one. She cocked her chin and gave Nekohiko a crescent-eyed smile. "You knoooow I love family drama and intrigue? I live for this crap. Can't get enough of it! The news letters they spread in Sai are so stale and boring in comparison, ah."

The girl was so secretive and so good at keeping a low profile if she needed. No amount of probing her would yield results other than a deluge of lies and innuendos, and Nekohiko didn't need any of that now.

Nekohiko sighed.

"Yes, but I never took you for a person of such ardent patience. Sitting here with me for hours, poring over books and scrolls. Who knew you were so diligent?"

There were other people in the library, but too far away to care for them. Mainly the distant family members of Nagare who had been very excited to hang out with Aomi -- the Supreme Divine Emperor's little sister -- on the first few days. But they had been given such an acidic, aggressive push-back from her that they had never initiated a conversation with her again.

Thus, Nekohiko wasn't afraid to speak. His voice was pretty low so nobody but Aomi would hear it close by. And the rest of his actions could be attributed to him being her Bound Servant in the shape of a cat.

Aomi grew serious again. "Getting more information about people is never a bad thing. It will always be useful in some way. Only fools ignore an opportunity to learn."

Ah.

And learning was what she did all the time, apparently. About Nekohiko most of all. Though she didn't feel the need to allow him to learn about her in return, huh.

"Speaking of which..." She carefully stacked the books one on top of the other, then put her elbows on it. "How is that seashell doing with spying all over my Eldest Brother's life?"

For a moment, he was scared she had somehow found out he'd been prying into Abihiko's life recently! But then he remembered.

Oh yes. The spying seashell pendant had been her idea all along! She had wanted him to spy on Abihiko for... reasons? Anyway, she was likely only asking about that.

Definitely.

"The seashell has arrived at the Emerald Palace a week ago, but sadly," he said, hiding his eyes from her, "your Eldest Brother hadn't taken it out of the jewelry box he'd put it in right after he saw it."

Aomi's eyebrows shot up. "Mmm?"

He enjoyed his petty revenge on her. "The Supreme Divine Majesty seemed to have been gravely offended at you when he saw the seashell. He clutched it in his fingers and roared, 'Aomiiiiii!'. And then threw it into the jewelry box and there I've been ever since."

He wasn't even lying that much.

"I wonder what it was all about," Nekohiko purred. "Do you have any idea why he got so angry at the seashell?"

"None." She spread her hands. "Not a clue in the world."

Rrrrrr, you little liar.

"Why do you want to spy on your brother so much, though? For gossip and drama, like you just said?" He tsked, fully aware how hypocritical he sounded. "Just how bored must you be to breach his privacy like that..."

"Knowledge drives the world. For example, I admire it that you're spending so much time every day seeking information about your tree-Binding issue. Otherwise, how else would you advance your revenge scheme against that traitorous best-friend Tenma you want to ruin?"

Agh, he had almost forgotten Tenma was the name he'd made up for Abihiko once. Though it seemed Aomi had never forgotten.

"You want me to forward my revenge, Kataji wants me to live for myself and enjoy my second life away from murder and vengeance." Nekohiko stretched his furry back and lay on the desk in his full cat-like glory. "You two want the direct opposite things from me. Isn't that strange?"

But Aomi shook her head. Her mouth was in a thin line and her eyes wide and very, very grave. "No. I don't want you to forward your revenge."

"Oh really?"

"I want you to take care of how you do it. To find out more. To research. To prepare. To dig out the truth that's hidden and requires extreme care to uproot. Otherwise, you might hurry, go, and do stupid shit instead, probably hurting someone who doesn't even deserve it." For a moment, it almost looked as though there was a glint of tears misting her eyes. But she blinked it out quickly. "Don't you see how information is everything?"

...

"Aomi," he said, upset. "What are you talking about? Did something happen?"

"It's just... uncle Daichi." She played with her fingers as though unsure. "He'd been murdered a week ago. And the person who had done that... clearly didn't know him. Didn't care to know him. I can't really imagine the mindset of someone like that. It hurts me to even think."

Nekohiko dropped his gaze. She needed to talk about this, so he would listen. But nothing beyond that.

He knew it might be cold of him to refuse to feel guilty about what he'd done, but it was a simple truth. Daichi had "stabbed" him in the back. He had "stabbed" Daichi in return, but at least he'd warned him about it beforehand.

What did people imagine justice and equality of treatment were? Hugs and smalltalk with someone who had once helped murder you?

Please.

"Talk, Aomi. You will feel better once you do," he said softly.

"He was a good man, uncle Daichi," she mumbled in her folded arms. "Did you know he had sat with me once when I had a high fever for two weeks because Aunt and Uncle were away and Kataji was also at risk of getting infected from me? He had never left. When all of our horses and carriages broke down, he ran to Sai and back again just to fetch my medicine." When she raised her eyes at the ceiling as she reminisced, this time, he saw clear reddening in them. "...And now, he's gone. His sister has bad legs, so she cannot work. Her two little kids are fatherless, and Daichi took care of all of them. Had always done that. Everything, to care for his family and those others he loved, like me, or Kataji, or Eldest Brother. And now his sister and his nephews... what would even happen to them." She sniffed, rubbing the edge of her eye with her sleeve. "Kataji and I have to go see them when we're in Nara. I think... we have to take care of them now. Instead of him..."

"Lord Okinaga probably takes care of them now," Nekohiko said.

Aomi didn't even notice the discrepancy of such a statement made by a person who supposedly had very little knowledge of Daichi's and Okinaga's friendship. She only nodded.

He didn't want to argue with her claims about how amazing Daichi was and how unfair his murderer. This wasn't what she needed to hear right now. She needed his support and blind assertion, so he gave her that.

And her many cute moments and memories of Daichi taking care of Abi siblings did move him when he listened. Absolutely. But much deeper inside him was still lodged a thought:

And what about me?

What if my murder had made my mother or my nurse cry? What if it would have broken down my father and sapped all life out of my lover's heart? What then? Would avenging myself and murdering Daichi would somehow be justified then? Did the existence of people a criminal cares about absolve this criminal of any blame for his crimes?

Of course the stark difference was that there was no one who had mourned Nekohiko's death. And no one whose heart had been shattered by it. He was an orphan, after all, and he had very few friends.

And nobody who had truly loved him.

But it was untrue that he hadn't cared about anyone, either. He had. They might have nit mourned his passing, but he knew he had missed them very much. And had mourned the fact that he would never see those people again.

He'd mourned their betrayal even more so.

In the end, Aomi was sad about someone she had very minor knowledge of. About Daichi because he'd turned out to be someone far less wonderful than she imagined him. And about Nekohiko because his reasons and his actions had nothing to do with her.

Indeed, knowledge was everything. In this, she was very right.

But all of this flickered only barely at the back of his head. He leaned in close to her and patted his paw over her head with as much tenderness he could offer.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Aomi. Please don't cry."

"I'm not crying," she said stubbornly. "Your stupid cat eyes are probably broken."

Funny. Even furious, the girl was so sweet.

Sometimes? -- yes, he could attest -- his fake eyes turned slower and slower the longer he used them. But other times like right now? They were incredibly sharp, especially when perceiving small movements in his periphery.

Someone was watching the two of them from beyond the bookshelves far away. Which was weird. Why would anyone watch them so intently unless they could hear them?

Yet he could bet their voices didn't reach that far. Unless...

Unless the person who was listening had the ability to gather sound from too far away for even the best Binders.

Nekohiko snapped his head in that direction, and the person immediately blanched away. They were trying to avoid being seen.

Definitely suspicious.

"Hey, who are you?" Aomi yelled at that person once Nekohiko slipped to her what was going on. With no regard for the integrity of the fine art that was book crafting, Aomi snatched a thick volume off her desk and flung it toward the mysterious listener. "Spying, you asshole?!"

But the person in question had already sunk through the floor and hell knew where. A Nagare Binder, for sure. But not any of the usual people Nekohiko had seen here before. This one person had a small, twiggy stature. And a very easily-spooked, twitchy manner.

Suspicious... and intriguing.

***

"Do you think it's a child?" he asked Aomi later as the two of them wandered the halls back to their rooms. "They seemed short enough. Probably your height."

"I am not a child!" she spat, then stopped. A mischievous grin slowly crawled on her lips.

Nekohiko trailed her gaze to the section of the giant colonnaded hallway where the doors to the bath houses and hot springs were. In particular -- to the masterfully-lined group of Nagare soldiers standing guard before the entrance as though waiting for someone.

"Do you think Kasuga is inside the bath house?" Aomi drawled, savoring each syllable. "I bet she is. Oh-ho, I bet she is!"

"Aomi, what are you doing--" Nekohiko couldn't even take a step away when she caught him. She skipped toward the bath house entrance, holding Nekohiko in her arms and stroking him playfully with her fingers.

Most people who came inside wore bathing garments, so naturally her outfit roused suspicion when she neared.

"I only need to bathe my poor little kitty," she explained. "May I, gentlemen?"

Yet once inside, she dropped "her kitty" to the floor like trash (or books -- same thing to her, apparently). She didn't stop to grab the towels or the washing items from the shelves, didn't go to the relaxing lounge or to the steamery on the side. At least, she had some sense to remove her shoes. Barefeet, she pattered down the fluffy glass floor from which all slipperiness and hardness had been Bound off. She beelined to the hot springs themselves, checking to see if any of the sections separated by the wooden screens were occupied.

"Not here, not here. Ugh! Definitely not here," she mumbled to herself, taking a peek into every section and the people bathing there -- to those people's indignant gasps and curses in response.

"Aomi, what are you doing? This is so inappropriate!" Nekohiko hissed at her. "We aren't perverts!"

"We aren't? Of course we are. Don't be such a prude," Aomi scoffed back.

"Do not lower me to your level," Nekohiko said in affront. "I am above such indignities."

She only stopped when she distinguished Kasuga's familiar outline in the water of one such section. Nekohiko didn't have the chance to stop her. Too late -- there Kasuga was with her thin pale shoulders sticking out of the water, her dark hair wet and wrapped in a small soaking towel. Her eyes closed while she was easing down from all her day's worries.

And right into that serene scene came the jumping explosion that was Aomi.

In full clothes!

"Ah-!" Nekohiko mewled, embarrassed and mortified as he'd never been.

Such disgrace! Such inappropriate behavior -- to not wash oneself off! To not remove one's clothes! To dive into someone's bath uninvited! Too many rules of good conduct rejected at the outset!

The giant wave of hot water splashed at Kasuga after Aomi had plunged into the pool.

The young Queen's head towel was washed off instantaneously. Her huge eyes and mouth that had opened at the last moment before Aomi jumped -- got their share of water, too.

Kasuga rubbed her face and sputtered.

All of her manners and poise had seemingly been washed away as well. For a little while, all she looked like was a very scared, very confused, very wet young girl.

"Gotcha!" Aomi roared, emerging from the water. Her wet hair stuck to her face and her clothes and elaborate black-pearl headdress were in utter chaos. But her grin was wider than Nekohiko had ever seen it.

"You wet duck!" Aomi laughed more, seeing Kasuga's numb expression. "Not so fancy now that you're wet and without any peacock feathers to cover you!"

Kasuga quickly found her cool. She gave Aomi a withering stare, then reached out behind her to fetch her robes and towels, also drenched after Aomi's plunge.

"Hope you enjoy Nagare's castle springs," she said adultly and unfurled her bath robe to hide inside it.

Nekohiko quickly averted his eyes and fled across the wet floor, slithering in between the people's legs. Many people from the nearest spring sections now wanted to see what was happening so loudly and menacingly -- so there were simply too many witnesses for him to bear. Plus, girls bathing.

So frilly. He'd once been exposed to enough of that.

"No-no-no-no! Where are you going, Majesty?!" Aomi's sharp voice reached even from so far. "We're not done! Brace yourself! I'm going to drown you now! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I am one mighty Queenslayer!"

The worst thing -- Aomi's vile behavior resulted in Nekohiko being splashed with water as well! And wood didn't take lightly to getting wet. He managed to get back to their sleeping quarters but now that all he could do in his cat body was to lie on his side and dry up -- he had quite a hard time deciding where to spend the rest of his evening in.

Snake? Ladybug? No hands, so no reading in the library. Damn it.

Woodblocks? Kataji would torture him again, so... no. Thank you.

...

Oh well. The seashell it was.

Frankly, he preferred to not go into the seashell so late in the evening. Abihiko's Emperor duties mainly took place during the morning and day. At night, all he did was bathe, prepare for bed, visit that creepy vault of his...

Yet whatever was inside it, Nekohiko could never see. Either the collars of Abihiko's robes were too high, or folded too tightly and stiffly around him. The enigma of the object or the person named Neko who was kept in that vault remained starkly unsolved. All Nekohiko knew about that thing was that it was situated somewhere low. Around the level of a person's waist. Abihiko only ever needed to reach it with his hands, but he never bent toward it and thus never let the seashell see it.

And even later at night, Abihiko was reading letters and writing his responses to them. A boring, boring life. Nighttime sleeping was, of course, an understandable torture because Abihiko kept yelling and waking up from nightmares almost every single night. Thus, Nekohiko had long abandoned any desire to spy on his sleeping habits either.

But since he had nothing much better to do now...

...he could spy on Abihiko's late-night leisure, he supposed. He hoped it wouldn't put him to sleep before anything interesting happened.

Oddly enough, tonight's leisure of Abihiko's surprised him. There was a party in the Palace.

Nekohiko only emerged in the seashell by its end when Abihiko was already leaving. But from what he gleaned from the sparse conversations Abihiko had with some of his mellowed councilors -- this was a celebration of finishing the trade relations agreement with the Three Kingdoms across the sea.

Many, many nobles, mainly of Hira and Hisome Kingdoms were present, having slow, quiet conversations in small groups all around the throne room.

The music was very ethereal yet festive. The glowing firefly lights on the walls and the ceiling came from all across the rainbow spectrum. The smells of sea breeze and chalky cliffs permeated the air in refreshing waves while the waiters carried around tiny cups of wine and fruit.

A tasteful, elegant party, Nekohiko decided.

"...ah, the result of five months' work. Such a hard case, and such a gruesome work," the bent, crickety-looking advisor told Abihiko, smiling as he waved a hand toward the merry gathering of people Abihiko was walking out on. "People need time to relax, don't they, Your Supreme Divine Majesty?"

"They surely do," Abihiko replied, then wanted to keep walking.

"And so do you," the plump old lady councilor told him next, rousing agreeable chuckles of the few others in the vicinity. "Please, Your Majesty! Live a little. Do not overwork yourself."

"I will. Please excuse me."

"We sincerely hope you'll enjoy the gifts that all the Five Kings and the Trade Charter have sent you," the first councilor echoed her.

And this time, Abihiko's heart noticeably fell. "Gifts?"

"In your quarters," the old lady whispered and winked.

"It's very discreet, Your Majesty. No one has to know. Truly, you deserve it."

Under Nekohiko's surface, Abihiko's chest constricted as though in a shudder. "My quarters? They are locked and Bound. Nobody is allowed to walk in there. Who--"

But he held himself off. As though already knowing the answer to this question.

His jaws ground against each other so hard, Nekohiko heard them all the way down Abihiko's neck.

With a decisive step, Abihiko stalked down the halls and corridors. The Bound servants and guards who met him, stilled under the current of his negative Binding energy that rendered them paralyzed for a little while. The humans who were in Abihiko's path knew better than to obstruct his walk. They jumped into the side galleries and bowed in the corners, preferring to even keep quiet as to not annoy the already-annoyed Majesty.

"Open," he commanded to the Bound dummies who stood guard at the monolithic doors to his chambers.

The gilded, green-laced, filigree doors swung open and to Nekohiko's stunned sight--

-- there emerged another, very festive, very debauched, very shameless gathering of people.

There was music, and wine, and dancing here too, although... the dancing of a different kind than the one reserved for the respected guests and prim councilors of the Emperor.

Above all... each of the people gathered here was male. Very clearly male.

Abihiko stopped at the threshold, his breath quickening in vivid aggravation. The closest of the young men inside his chambers noticed him at last. One by one, they patted each other's shoulders and backs to call everyone's attention to Abihiko.

The music stuttered and died after a moment.

"King Morokata said you'll love this," one of the especially-frivolous young men told Abihiko in a sweet, honeyed voice from over the lounging sofa he was reclining in. "Congratulations on closing that deal, Your Majesty!"

"Let's celebrate!"

"Yes, all hail the Supreme Divine Majesty!"

"Get. Out."

...

The few voices that still tried to congratulate him dwindled out meekly. Abihiko stepped into his rooms, crushing with his boot a stupid golden cup that was lying, for some reason, on the carpeted floor.

One of Abihiko's hands was on his forehead, rubbing it intensely.

The young men around him followed him with their eyes, very confused. Like one, all of them looked from Abihiko to the young man who had dared talk to him first.

As though asking their ringleader on what to do now.

The ringleader gave Abihiko a bright smile and rose to his feet. "My Lord, but we've only begun--"

"Out! All of you! Out! NOW!"

His heart was pounding, yet his skin had grown marginally chillier. In cold sweat, likely.

And Nekohiko fully understood the reasons for that.

He had no passion for gatherings, himself. And for gatherings of this sort above all. Yet the scariest thing about this gathering of young half-naked men was that...

Erm...

...most all of them had features that... quite resembled Nekohiko of his own.

Wait, not "quite".

Very.

In the world of Binding, it wasn't unheard of for people to glamor their faces into a specific appearance. To make it prettier, to make it more fashionable, to make it more unique or downright irresistible.

But never before had Nekohiko imagined that his own face would be deemed the most fashionable, prettiest, or most irresistible face in the capital by so many young men!

Queenfisher

Hooray! Next chapter, the triad of content warnings for this book will finally get finished, albeit with only the "slight dusting of mature content" >_<. The previous content warnings being Chapter 18 (gore: courtesy Nekohiko) and Chapter 29 (strong language: courtesy Kataji)...

Ah, my boys are so grown up and edgy, waaaah >_<. Don't know if I'm disappointed or proud of them! ^^