As luck would have it, “Kou Reirin’s” assigned room in Cloud Ladder Gardens was on the opposite end of the emperor’s, so Keigetsu had a long way to run. The military officers guarding the halls, the servants changing out the candles in the rooms, and the court ladies carrying trays all did a double take when they caught sight of the Maiden dashing down the cloisters, tears streaming down her face and manners the furthest thing from her mind.
The prince’s butterfly would never run until her skirts were in disarray or shed tears in public. Keigetsu realized as much, but all she could think was, To hell with that! Crying was like breathing; if she inhaled a nasty reality, she had to expel it somehow. Holding it in would kill her. Even without getting into that logic, there was nothing she could do to stop the unending flow of tears and anger.
Why is she like this?!
Keigetsu was filled with rage, impatience, and helplessness, along with self-loathing for the tantrum she had just thrown. The flood of emotions tasted downright disgusting on her tongue, intensifying to the point that she feared her head would explode. Knowing that her shameful conduct was bound to set off a new wave of gossip, she was tempted to flee Cloud Ladder Gardens altogether and go into hiding.
After running like mad, Keigetsu finally found “Kou Reirin’s” assigned room and dove inside. The sight of her perfectly arranged bed made her angrier than ever. It was a pristine white, and no matter how many wrinkles Keigetsu made with her tossing and turning, she would always find it neatly made the next morning. It was just like the girl herself. No matter how much Keigetsu lost her head and yelled, Reirin never changed.
Keigetsu reached for her hairpin, yanked it free, and slammed it on the bed. “What is her problem?!”
Caught in the bed’s soft embrace, she hardly caused a creak in the metal. Keigetsu felt as though her own anger had been brushed aside. Her irritation mounted, and she picked up a large pillow and swung it down with all her might.
“How stupid can she be?!”
There came a muffled thump.
But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
“Why does she always—”
Just as she was panting and looking for her next thing to throw, a voice called out to her from behind. “Wow, looks like you’re having a grand old time in here.”
She jumped, startled. “Eek!” Although she whipped around, she recognized the man by his voice before she even had to look.
It was Kou Keishou.
“Apologies, but I’m going to shut the door in the interest of keeping the noise down,” he said. “I promise I won’t do anything untoward.”
“Go away! I want to be left alone!”
Keigetsu’s ear-piercing shriek earned a chuckle and a helpless shrug from Keishou. “See? That didn’t take long.” He deftly closed the door behind his back. “We’re ‘siblings’ at present, so no need to worry about any scandalous rumors.”
“That’s not the issue!”
Most of the time, Keigetsu found this man’s unruffled poise in the face of her shouting to be comforting. At the moment, however, it had the opposite effect. The blither he was, the more incensed she became. She hated that feeling of disconnect between them—like nothing could reach him, nothing could get across to him, and nothing could make him understand her feelings. Keishou’s composure reminded her of Kou Reirin, and in the blink of an eye her anger and frustration fused together, setting off fiery sparks inside her.
“What? Are you here to calm me down? Let me guess: His Highness wants me to apologize to his precious butterfly, and he sent you to convince me!”
“No one is looking for you to apologize. Not me, and not His Highness. But yes, I did come to calm you down.”
“Mind your own business!”
His breezy tone sent Keigetsu over the edge. Granted, she would have been even angrier had he jumped right to scolding her, and she would have spurned any attempts at sweet consolation. At present, she was predisposed to find anything she laid eyes on—no, anything that reminded her of that woman—absolutely infuriating.
“You listen here. I won’t come around on this so easily. I am extremely upset right now.”
The man continued to approach, undeterred by Keigetsu’s rage, so she grabbed another pillow off the bed and hurled it at his face.
Whap!
Keishou caught it with ease and tucked it under his arm. “Yes, I’m getting that,” he said.
A pillow wasn’t good enough. Too far gone to back down, Keigetsu snatched up a small flower vase sitting on the table and lobbed that next.
“Could you at least pretend to care?! That lack of concern is the reason I’m so mad!”
Whap!
This, too, he caught without letting a single petal fall.
“You’re just as bad as her! You’re both so aggravatingly composed! You have no clue what I’m feeling!”
She threw a mirror. He caught it again.
On top of the chagrin Keigetsu felt, the things Reirin said earlier came flooding back to her, bringing tears to her eyes. That girl could sacrifice her own life like it was nothing. No matter how much Keigetsu shouted at her from behind, she would respond with only a smile and a wave before casting herself off a perilous precipice, caught in a perpetual danger of her own making.
“Why doesn’t she get it?! Why is she always so reckless and stupidly self-sacrificing?! Doesn’t she realize how heartbroken I’ll be if she actually dies?! Have none of my feelings gotten through to her at all?!”
Keigetsu threw anything and everything she laid eyes on: A pot. A hand fan. An inkstone. A teacup saucer. A decorative plate embellished with gorgeous gilding. Alas, Keishou snatched every last object out of the air before it could break. That unsatisfying impact—that muffling of sound—made her cry harder than ever.
It was so reminiscent of her. Not a single one of Keigetsu’s feelings ever got through to her. They had no effect whatsoever.
“I told her to stop putting herself at risk! So why doesn’t she ever change?! Do the things I say mean nothing to her? Do I mean nothing to her?! I’ve had it up to here with her nonsense!” For the finale, she unleashed her loudest scream yet and chucked a heavy teapot.
“Whoa there!” Keishou cried out, nimbly catching it by the handle. “Phew. I’m not sure anyone but me could have caught that one.”
Don’t sound so proud of yourself! Keigetsu wanted to snap, but she was completely out of breath after all that throwing. Her current slender arms weren’t built for lifting a slew of heavy objects.
“All done?” the Kou man asked. “My turn, then.”
“Excuse me?”
Smiling, Keishou set the items he had caught on the table, only to retreat to the door. At some point beforehand, he had hung a bag on the door handle. He took that bag in hand—and, not a moment later, thrust one of its contents straight into Keigetsu’s mouth.
“Nothing like sweets to cure a bad mood! Here, eat up!”
“Mmgh?!” Seeing as he had closed in on her in a flash and shoved something into her mouth, she was briefly afraid she had been poisoned. A beat later, however, she processed the aroma of sesame seeds and the sweet taste of a rice cake.
Was that a sesame ball?!
“What comes after the berserker ball? Let’s see here…” While she was still reeling, Keishou stuck his hand in the bag and foisted sweet after sweet on her. “Have a mooncake! Have some roasted chestnuts! Have a tanghulu skewer! Have a flower cake, steamed bun, and longan candy!”
“Wha—?!” Keigetsu opened her mouth to shout, and the sesame ball stuffed into it nearly fell out in the process. She caught it between her teeth in the nick of time, but her hands were saddled with more and more treats while her mouth was occupied. “Mmph!”
“There’s more where that came from! Next comes a plum pastry, then a red bean cake, and after that we’ve got dried apricots, candied lotus seeds, honey, and starch syrup!”
Most of the treats were wrapped in oil paper, but things like honey came in a jar, so Keigetsu’s burden was getting to be quite heavy. Left with little choice, she gulped down the sesame ball and yelled, red-faced, “Knock it off!”
“Oh, were you hoping for me to feed them to you?” Keishou caught the mooncake she was about to drop and brought it to her lips without hesitation. “Open wide!”
“No! I want you to let me get a word in before you foist things on me!”
“Why?” All traces of Keishou’s playful manner vanished, replaced by a soft smile. “You never let anyone get a word in when you’re screaming.”
Keigetsu was blindsided.
As she lapsed into silence, Keishou took the mooncake away. In a voice as warm as the sun-dappled earth, he went on, “From a third-party perspective, it’s clear as day that you’re worried about Reirin, and that really does mean a lot to me.” One by one, he emptied her arms of the treats and laid them out on the table. “But it’s too much for the recipient herself to juggle. She’s gone through her whole life without a plate to put concern on.”