Chapter Forty-Five

Rockhard

Part 2 of 3

"Mom! Apples!"

The Head Priest had only allowed Nekohiko to leave with Abihiko if someone he could trust came over to fetch the two of them. Abihiko's family guards weren't it. But Abihiko's mother -- Lady Asazuma -- was. However little Nekohiko knew about her, Suminoe must have decided she was worthy of the role: the future Emperor's temporary bodyguard. It was with her that the small procession mainly consisting of Abihiko's abundant trinkets and other possessions left the Izumo Shrine and slowly made its way down the coast.

Several Binder soldiers of both Hira and Abi family escorted them. Some middle-aged man called Daichi was especially annoying when he and Abihiko started their joke-exchanging match or the pretend-fighting.

Sour, Nekohiko trod on his cheaply-bought horse, watching Abihiko and Daichi go on around the procession as they swung their wooden swords at each other, laughing their butts off.

For some reason, the sight caused his mood to worsen. He focused his attention on the countryside they were passing. As the Emperor, this was what he should devote all his time to learning and appreciating: his land. Not whom Abihiko fought this time or another, and for how long.

The Hisome Lordship hills rolled by, velvety and mossy, the sea breeze carried on the cries of the seagulls. The sea whispered gently in the ear. Nekohiko squinted at the sun as they passed the endless rows of rice farms with the ant-like figures of peasants crawling under the heat and the humidity as though this was exactly what they wanted to do in their lives. To serve the land.

His beautiful land.

He sighed, dreamy. Then got knocked on the back with a rude smack. Abihiko finally finished frolicking around and came to rest and pant beside him on his own cheap animal horse. Of course, both of them had desired an automated vehicle to ride in, but Lady Asazuma had been so vexed by their whining and gushing about it that she had bought some shabby horses in Izumo town's stables. Just to teach them a lesson in frugality and tact.

"Did you see how amazing I was just now? My Maple Apple will one day become a Legendary weapon, I promise you that," he said, heaving and rubbing the sweat off his face with his sleeves.

"Not with such stupid name, it won't," Nekohiko mumbled vengefully.

But Abihiko already stopped listening. "Mom! Food! Water! Apples!"

Lady Asazuma rode an animal horse, too, and led the procession from the side as her stallion plodded over the grassy patches. Like Abihiko, she was dressed in reds today -- so searing and so flamboyant -- Nekohiko's eyes burned from having to look at the mother and son duo. Nekohiko also wore a single red item: the Abi family's bamboo hat. Because of the day as hot as this one, Lady Asazuma said he had to protect himself from the heatstroke, so, in the same hat as Asazuma and Abihiko, he already felt as though part of their family.

A strange feeling. But a pleasant one.

Asazuma was fanning herself with a fern leaf she'd Bound cooled air into and preferred to not be bothered by anything on such a hot, languorous day. So, every time Abihiko's sharp voice called her, she rolled her eyes at him just to make him leave her alone.

"Suna, give him his water and his apples," she moaned to one of the guards.

The red apples were quickly delivered to the boys along with the water canteen with the engraved symbol of that same apple Nekohiko was holding in his hand now.

"Is your family obsessed with apples?" he asked, taking a heavenly gulp. The water was cooled with Bound ice aspects, so it was very much like a taste of paradise. "I thought it was only you."

"Pfff." Abihiko ripped the canteen out of his hands and splashed water generously into his mouth and all over his face. Sputtering, he flung the canteen back at Nekohiko. "These are the famous red apples of the Blue Forest region! Dummy! They are the most delicious apple in the world. How dare you suggest anyone should not obsess over it?" He took a large, crunchy bite out of the apple as though to prove something. "Like, why do you think our lips are as red as these apples?"

Struck, Nekohiko paused in his nibbling on the apple in his hand, to Abihiko's deafening laughter.

"You bought it! You bought it, you dummy!"

What an idiot. What was so funny, anyway?

"Just didn't want to end up with red lips like yours! Wouldn't want to look like a girl for the rest of my life," Nekohiko spat in response.

Abihiko squinted in confusion.

"Like a girl?" he mouthed to himself, but as always -- he wasn't that bright to pick up on Nekohiko's constant tongue slips. It wasn't that Nekohiko actively hid the truth from him now that they'd begun to sleep together. But for some reason, Abihiko was never too interested in Nekohiko's girliness. Or the lack of it.

As with everything else, he just accepted him the way he was.

But that kind of carefree acceptance didn't spread to anyone else just as easily.

When their little group stopped at an inn beside a small farming village, the innkeeper separated the people in the group by gender almost immediately after they had asked for rooms. And the old man didn't even do it consciously. It was simply how things were done.

Even though the inn -- Migrating Silver Geese -- belonged to some nowhere village, it stood on a large trade road, so there were plenty of customers around. The stables and the vehicle shed were so full, Daichi had to take their animal horses off to a cheaper place down the street and leave them there.

The inn was spacious, Bound from rough, but charming-looking stone. Lights in the rooms dimmed and brightened according to the music the zither player produced in the entertainment hall, and the inner courtyard was filled with conversation and laughter as the merchants and traders ate and drank the inn's selection of meals. The smells wafting from there were oh, so delectable...

Abihiko already gravitated to the entrance into the courtyard to peer at the merriment going on in there.

"Esteemed Ladies," the innkeeper said, bowing to Asazuma and Nekohiko as he ushered them up the stairs to go check their room out. It was very clear to him that Nekohiko, Abihiko, and Asazuma were of noble birth, and everyone else -- wasn't. So of course he wanted to accommodate the noble-born before their entourage, and women -- first of all.

Asazuma yawned, unladylike, but trudged after the man onto the stairs. Nekohiko was a bit uncomfortable, though. He hadn't expected he would have to sleep with Abihiko's mom, of all people! He didn't know this woman very well. She was a complete stranger to him.

But Abihiko was of a different mindset entirely. "Hey, why don't you show me my room, too? Why am I left alone in here?"

"Young Master's room is ready for him to enjoy, too," the innkeeper quickly added, gesturing at his young daughter who stood beside Abihiko, waiting to lead him there. The man wanted to continue his walk up the stairs with only the ladies.

But Abihiko wasn't having it. "My room? My? I don't want to sleep alone here! This is an inn, right?" He turned a paled face to Nekohiko. "All kinds of people come through here! Do you have any idea how many of them are murdered at inns? How many people's ghosts linger in such places? I'm not an idiot, to sleep alone at an inn when in the middle of nowhere!"

"Wh-- Young Master!" The innkeeper got very pale himself. He tried to politely shush Abihiko because his cries had already attracted some of the other patrons' interest. "Migrating Silver Geese Inn is the safest and most comfortable! No ghosts! I swear--"

"Uh-huh, like I'd believe a salesman. Neko, come on. We're sleeping together."

Yes, please! Nekohiko felt a bit lighter already. He didn't have to share a room with a stranger lady, however nice she appeared.

Asazuma leaned against the railing, watching the scene unfold with sparking intrigue in her eye. "Are you, though?"

"Yeah?" Abihiko gave her a scowl. "Who'd stop us?"

"No! No, Young Master!" The innkeeper cried, folding his hands into a praying gesture which he quickly redirected at Asazuma. "A young man and an unmarried young lady together in one room -- ah! Migrating Silver Geese is a respectable establishment! Think of the young maiden's honor!"

"What about my son's honor?" Asazuma crossed her arms on her chest, very much amused. "What do you think he would do to her?"

It was Nekohiko who saved the poor man from withering under the two scalding gazes directed at him from both sides. Nekohiko sighed, pointing at himself. "Do not worry, kind sir. I'm not a maiden. I'm a boy. This is only a disguise I wear for today."

"Exactly," Abihiko chimed in. "What about this face looks like a girl to you? Strong jaw, big eyes, straight nose. You'd have to be blind not to see that."

Part of Nekohiko was strangely relieved when he heard Abihiko say this. The deal with allowing them to stay in the same room was solved very quickly, with Asazuma bearing the load of explanations about it while the two boys skittered up the stairs to get a good look at the place they would be sleeping in tonight.

Nekohiko had never stayed in an inn as luxurious as this one. His retainers had only had enough to scramble up some coin for a common house when they had traveled with Nekohiko to leave him at Izumo. And outside of that time and today, he had never traveled in the big world at all. He had hardly seen anything other than the small mountain hut he'd been raised in -- and Izumo town and Shrine.

The room was so wide and well-lit! It wasn't a full summer evening yet, so the dusk was still golden and pinkish in the large window. The sun rays filled the room with glowing freckles from Abihiko's buckles and scabbard gilding when Abihiko started swirling in the center of the room because of how free the victory over the wicked innkeeper made him feel.

Nekohiko paused to watch him swirl. A feeling like gentle joy filled him from the realization that Abihiko had accepted that he was a boy.

But then, of course, the reality hit.

Hard.

"Great save, with the whole 'boy' lie," Abihiko praised him. "You sounded so weary when you said that I would have believed it myself if I didn't know better."

"Well..." Nekohiko began.

Abihiko snorted, stopping abruptly to marvel at how the hems of his long skirts went on swirling. "Brrr, so weird. As if I'd sleep with a boy like I can with you."

Nekohiko quietened.

"I would feel so awkward." The other boy cringed, leaning on the window sill to peer outside. "I want a friend, not another boy to have a hopeless crush on. I'm so lucky to have met someone like you. And I can't even stomach girls, which is the weirdest thing!"

...

"True. We girls do cause indigestion when eaten in large quantities," Nekohiko said at last.

***

Everything went exactly as it should, but a sense of resentment settled inside him for the rest of the evening. It didn't want to dissipate even when Asazuma poked her head into their room to call them out for dinner.

Abihiko had been distracting Nekohiko from his studies of taxes and customs of the Western coast of Nagare, but he quickly jumped on the occasion to go out and bother someone else. The mellow, prim merchants gathered down in the inn's courtyard most of all. Throughout the wait in the rooms, the boy had been Binding small droplets of water onto their faces from the window, making them worried that the rain was coming. Of course he would want to torment them all in person, too!

But nope.

"Daichi found a great common kitchen in the village," Asazuma told them when the three of them descended the inn stairs and went out of the main entrance into the balmy, violet dusk filled with mosquitoes and the cicada burring.

Nekohiko warded himself with Binding off mosquito bites almost by reflex, then reached out to Abihiko to do the same.

"But the kitchen in the inn seems so great!" Abihiko said.

"Yeah, but someone had been screaming about the whole boy-girl issue so loudly in the lobby, the innkeeper is afraid to disrupt the other clients with you two going there. Apparently, now everyone wants to see the girl who is actually a boy. Congratulations, loud child."

The village was far less exciting than the rich inn. A typical, unnoticeable, no-name place the closer they came to its edge. Nekohiko was a bit disappointed about the prospect of eating in there.

"Besides..." Asazuma stretched her back with a delicious creak. "Aaaah, the Migrating Geese is so proper and dull. They didn't even have a good selection of liquor in there! Now, the place we're going to..."

"Don't tell me this whole story with other patrons was to cover up the fact that you want to get drunk tonight," Abihiko grumbled, trudging along. "Obviously. If we get to Hira castle tomorrow night, no more drinks for you there." He leaned to Nekohiko, secretive. "Lord Okinaga hates anything alcoholic. Especially when Mom--"

"Eeeeh? Whatcho two whispering about, you weirdo indecent children sleeping together unmarried? Whooooo's the indecent children? Whoooo's the shame on both your families???" Asazuma headlocked both of them in each of her arms and laughed just as meanly and obliviously as Abihiko tended to do when he was bullying someone.

It was terrible. This woman was not at all trustworthy! Nekohiko was very glad he wasn't sleeping with her tonight.

But as they were entering the doors of the common kitchen house, a sudden whelp from the side made Asazuma pause and let the boys go.

An old man was gasping in pain.

In the dark corner of the street, two large Spirit Wayfarers judging by their robes were spitting insults at a very dirty and ungainly old man who wore the simplest rice farmer clothes and was barefoot. He was bowing endlessly to them, shielding with his body a fat, old mare that stood clumsily in the middle of the road as though too shocked to move or understand what was going on.

One of the Binders kicked the mare in the side, and the old man whelped again. "Please don't..." He spoke with a thick accent Nekohiko couldn't place, to add to the bumbling and endless apologizing that slurred his speech further. "She's old. She didn't mean to kick you, kind Master. She is only a stupid old thing--"

"Stop speaking, stop speaking. My head is splitting," one of the Binders mumbled in aggravation.

"You need to give up that horse for Binding materials," the other was saying, a hue of drunkenness in his voice. "Come on. Let me relieve you of this garbage thing... come here, old girl, I'll make it quick..."

He grabbed the horse by the rope on its neck and pulled, his other hand reaching for the sword on his hip. The old man shook whole, not knowing what to do or how to stop them.

"But what will we do without a horse! We can't survive without one, it's our only--"

"Argh, please stop talking..." 

"Buy the Bound dummy plow!" The second one blared. "Such garbage isn't even good for plowing! It's fat and broken, look at it!"

Nekohiko frowned, confused.

Did the man really speak about an animal as though it was a mechanism?

The old man's low mumbles came back. Something about not having enough to buy it with, or having always had this horse in his family...Too fast and too weepy to make sense.

Nekohiko's heart panged when the Binder planted another rough kick at the poor animal. The mare didn't even make a sound, so scared she was.

"Hey! Stop that!" Abihiko rushed forward. "Can't you see she's afraid?"

"She is animal tissue fodder." The second Binder flapped a hand at him, then motioned him to be quiet. "They don't feel anything, don't worry, sweetheart."

"Sweetheart?"

Nekohiko followed Abihiko in an angry march toward the mare and the old man. Abihiko didn't even spare the two Wayfarers a glance.

The old man immediately saw his salvation and spread his quaking hands to Abihiko even though he kept bowing to the two Binders as well. "Forgive me for ruining your moods with my ugly horse, kind Masters. We will be going. Forgive us, forgive us please so much..."

"Shut up, and you're forgiven," the First Binder snickered, then did only a small flick of his fingers.

The old man wouldn't notice what happened and how, but Nekohiko saw at once.

That Binder had just... Bound this old man's mouth shut!

Never in his life had Nekohiko been so stunned at such a drastic abuse of Binding power. What was even happening?!

But though the old man quickly realized something wasn't right with his face after a few of his attempts to speak, he didn't act all that surprised either. In fact, he didn't even look frightened.

He just accepted it, smiling in a pained way and going on nodding in apology at the Binder who'd done this to him. Worse still -- neither Abihiko nor Asazuma were shocked by what they were witnessing. If anything, they all looked as though this was... normal human behavior.

...was it?

But Abihiko still frowned at the drunk Binder. The boy quickly lifted up his hand to undo the Binding on the old peasant's lips.

"What an asshole," Abihiko said under his breath.

"Huh?" The two Binders had already decided the scene was becoming too boring for their liking, so they had started to walk away.

But Abihiko's remark got under their skin. "What did you say?"

"That you're an asshole," Abihiko replied grandly. "Next time you decide to Bind someone's body parts, do yourself a favor and Bind better hearing in your ears first."

"You little brat," the First Binder spat back. "Wanna me Bind your mouth shut, too, or what? Here we are, working our asses off for this no-good, ungrateful lot of Spiritless trash, cleaning up their hovels from the Demonic Spirits and ghosts they are swarming with -- and what we get in return is this kind of disrespect?"

"Yeah. Maybe now we'll take that horse after all. Compensation!"

Abihiko's pupils brightened with a hidden red glint. He flicked his short hair off his face and cocked his chin. With each second, the Hira Binding method flared up in his eyes with a fiery glow.

"Please, try," he told the Binders.

Very loudly and very slowly, Asazuma cleared her throat. That called the two Binders' attention. She smiled at them with no real kindness in her features. "Good night, gentlemen. Keep walking."

Nekohiko stood paralyzed by distress all the time it took for the two drunks to wobble down the street and out of sight and for Abihiko to finally undo the spell glueing the old man's lips shut. Nekohiko only flinched when Asazuma's hand lay on his head while her other hand stroked Abihiko's hair.

"You two are good kids, aren't you?" she murmured, something like pride in her tone.

Nekohiko blinked, astounded.

Pride? For what?!

The old man kept piling on the never-ending thanks and prayers to Abihiko's and Nekohiko's health and their ancestors long after they left him behind on their way to the common kitchen. And Nekohiko couldn't comprehend that either.

Thanking them for what? Nekohiko hadn't even done anything! And all Abihiko had done was to lift the spell and tell one of the Binders he was an asshole!

"Why...?" he asked in the doorstep of the common kitchen from beyond which strands of conversations and inebriated singing echoed.

He refused to go in. He was too confounded to even consider eating.

"What was that, back there? With the man? Those two Binders... they..."

Abused a person. Abused a person and weren't even punished for that! They had almost killed an animal, too -- as though that animal was no better, and in fact much worse and much less important -- than a lifeless piece of wood made into a Bound dummy!

He had always known that animals were second rate power for most tasks a person would need to be done. Izumo town didn't have many animals, but he had always thought it was because Izumo town was rich, so it didn't need to invest in animals -- creatures with short life spans and too many potential threats that rendered them useless. Having a dummy was more practical for almost any person in Izumo.

But the fact that animals were seen as literal trash by Binders was nothing less than painful. And what about the way these Binders treated people who possessed no Spiritual powers...?

He had been one of such people very recently. However, he'd thought he was bullied because he was such a failure. Not because that was the most common thing imaginable.

Everything he'd known about his days of bullying in Izumo Shrine School was now thrown into a horrid perspective. Was it even bullying, or did all those kids simply have no idea that non-Binders were... people, too?

People worth respect or regard?

"Binders are far less civil the farther you go from the Lordship centers, yes," Asazuma sighed, shrugging with a sadness that was more tiredness than real sorrow. "But what are you going to do with them?"

"We... can do something!" Nekohiko cried, dismayed.

How was this even debatable?

"We could kick their asses," Abihiko offered as though agreeing. "I know I wanted to."

Hopelessly, Asazuma smiled. "And risk issues with the different Lordship? Yeah, you just do that. We'll see how it ends when the Emperor finds out Binders were fighting outside of training grounds. Because you offend another Lord's Binder -- and more of that Lord's Binders come after you to sort it out. And then what do we have? A massive battle between two Binder factions? What a great idea. The Emperor would certainly love to hear about it and would absolutely not punish the Binder who had attacked the fellow Binder first. Noooo, no way."

The Emperor.

Nekohiko squeezed his fists, trembling. Not the Emperor! That man was the Usurper!

And it was his fault, then, that the Empire was in such a state that Binders mistreated common folk! It was the Usurper's fault.

All his fault...

"And His Majesty would be right to do that. Because do you know what Spirits do when Binders fight?" Asazuma went on. "Spirits go insane with conflict. This whole village would have a catastrophe after catastrophe if two Binders fought anywhere nearby. It would take too many to come and cleanse it from such a deep Spirit grudge afterward. Spirits loathe Binders abusing them to harm one another. The Spirit resentment is a scary thing, dear." She suppressed a visible shudder then ushered both boys into the common kitchen hall with a frustrated groan on her lips. "Come, come. Let's eat."

Eat?

Nekohiko had a hard time understanding. All the times of his life he had been attacked flickered in his mind. Was it true? None of them had involved Binders fighting against Binders... true. Only the ghoul-raising woman who wasn't a Binder and some non-Binding crooks who had tried to poison Abihiko.

So it was... for real? Binders generally avoided fighting other Binders.

He had believed it was some legal issue the teachers at Izumo taught them. A political way to prevent duels and in-fighting... But it had been because of the Spirits all along?

But then -- who would defend average mortals from the Binders abusing their powers like what he'd seen tonight? If Binders never fought, then who would stop Binders from oppressing the simple folk all they wanted?

"Ah, life's not fair," Asazuma told him when he was still too reluctant to sit down at the closest circle of people sharing one hot pot of stewed vegetables and rice. Asazuma had already seated Abihiko. The other boy also sulked, but not to the extent Nekohiko did. She patted Nekohiko gently on his shoulder. "We can do nothing about it. We can only try and relieve the miseries, but not always prevent them. It's good that you learn this sooner rather than later."

Spirits. Was it like this all across his Empire?

Had all the rice farmers and any other non-Binding folk he'd seen today also been abused by Binders with unchecked powers? Had all animals been simply slaughtered the moment they evoked someone's scorn?

Was this only because of the Usurper's pathetic reign? Or... had it always been like this? Of course, he'd been raised by three non-Binding people, so... it was as though he'd been exposed to life from the side most Binders simply knew nothing of. And this was what made it so horrible.

That they didn't really know. And didn't really care. And couldn't do anything about it either for the fear of making it worse with the Spirit resentment...

Food left no impression on him. He didn't remember if he was eating at all. A knot on his stomach weighted on him well into the night after the meal was over and they had gone back to the Migrating Silver Geese.

He sat, unable to shake off the lingering film of disgust and ache at the thought that he'd been so blind to the world's issues outside of what he knew. He sat and stared at the wall, too absorbed in his thoughts to see anything before him other than that old farmer's face. He couldn't stop imagining Saho's, or Kusaki's, or Hachiro's faces superimposed on that old man's.

Because the likelihood was -- while he had been safely kept away from all this -- the non-Binding people he loved were living in constant fear of Binders who could oppress them without any real retribution for their actions.

"Hey," Abihiko whispered, poking him softly in the side. "Are you all right? You look sick."

"I am sick."

Nekohiko lifted his face, finding Abihiko's eyes so clear and close even in the room's murk, he didn't doubt for a second that the boy would understand him if only he spoke about it.

"I hate everything," he said.

Abihiko nodded. "I know. I do too sometimes."

"We need... to do something about it," Nekohiko suddenly sparked up. "We need to fix it! To make it all better!"

He knew he was talking nonsense. Abihiko's mom would sigh again if she heard him. Do what? Fix what? Life was not fair. People were born unequal in this world. Violence and misery only bred more violence and misery.

Practicality outweighed justice. And so did the healthy dose of realism.

And yet...

Abihiko smiled, wistful. "Well. We have to get stronger, much stronger than we are now to do that. So that nobody can tell us no like today."

...exactly!

"Then we'll get stronger," Nekohiko said, decisive. "And we will change this world for the better."

Whether it likes that or not.

Abruptly, Abihiko let out a chuckle. "We can try."

It sounded so... dismissive, for some reason. As though Abihiko didn't really believe in what he was saying now or as if he never cared about it in the first place.

And this was a very familiar feeling to Nekohiko: Abihiko rarely cared about anything. Not deeply, at least. He had insulted those bully Binders earlier, yes, but something told Nekohiko he'd done it because he saw an opportunity to fight someone and prove his worth. Not because Abihiko ached at the injustice so much.

Abihiko had fought for Kotone, too. But had he ever apologized to her afterward for ruining her reputation? He'd cut his hair off, but was it not because he wanted to prove a point to the Hisome girls? Had he ever shown anyone that he gave a damn about their issues? No. He only jumped into fights and insults to dominate others, no questions asked, no desire to understand anyone.

Only to prove how amazing he, Abihiko, was.

Nekohiko's memory flicked back to this very morning when Abihiko had simply discarded the idea of Nekohiko being a boy.

Not because Abihiko was that dense to not realize it. Because he wasn't. He had a sharp mind when he wanted it to be. It was just that... Abihiko didn't care.

About anything.

Flippant. Arrogant. Careless.

Was there even a purpose in talking to such a person about the injustices of the world and how they pained Nekohiko? No. Not really.

This kind of frustration only pulled Nekohiko deeper and deeper into sullenness through the night. He didn't want to be mad at Abihiko, but he couldn't help it tonight. The best he could do was to keep quiet and apathetic because he didn't want to start fights with Abihiko or hurt him with his attitude.

And Abihiko's soft, playful proddings did nothing to improve his mood.

Queenfisher

It ends on a sour note, but fear not ^^. This issue between them gets resolved in the last part of this chapter which is finally about how they spend their summer break at Okinaga's.

I know this whole chapter seems extremely episodic, but it wraps up by the end. Everything they talked in part 1 (sharing everything, Okinaga, Abihiko's wardship gift) and part 2 (Abihiko being careless, him ignoring Nekohiko's identity, the injustice of their world) gets resolved in the 3rd part, so it's all the same narrative, I promise ^^.