The Serpent's Coil (Tsukkiyama)

Decisions and Lack Thereof

Yamaguchi didn't regret his decision. Really, he's glad everything worked out; Tsukishima is safe in the Firefly empire, and his friends are happy on the Nekarasi. Kageyama and Miwa probably moved onto the train; Yamaguchi rests sure that they got the fulfilling and lucrative jobs they'd always dreamed of. So everything was fine; there was nothing to miss, no decisions to rethink. Sure, Yamaguchi didn't exactly love the Slithering Isles, or Daishou for that matter, but this had never been about him anyway.

Winter had come to a close far faster than the olive-haired boy had expected, with barely thirty days left before the spring equinox. Not that there was much way to tell seasons apart this far south. Winter in the Slithering Isles was warmer than any summer Yamaguchi had ever experienced up in the northern scrapping lands. Everywhere, from the garden outside to the confines of the palace walls, the air was warm and stagnant, heavy with unshed humidity. The people of the archipelago measured their time in only two seasons, rainy and dry, which Yamaguchi took to mean wet, and even wetter, for even in the winter, the storms were long and frequent. Perhaps Yamaguchi was too harsh; he had only just settled into his new life and had only been on the island for a few odd weeks. Still, he missed the frigid snow and clear skies that would linger well into spring the further north.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Yamaguchi didn't have much time to sit and think about how much he missed life on the mainland. His schedule had been awash with wedding preparations the second he stepped foot on the capital island. It would take place in three months' time, during the supposed epicentre of the rainy season, right at the change of spring to summer, for those who had more than two seasons. The significance of such a time, which had been drilled into Yamaguchi's head along with many other cultural and history lessons, boiled down to old beliefs of fertility and favour from the Goddess. Thematically, he understood why the time had been chosen; political leaders liked to stick to tradition as a show of nationality, but he still wished they had chosen a less rainy date. The ceremony was meant to be conducted outdoors, and soaked wedding attire sounded like a nightmare.

Half of the time, Yamaguchi didn't even know why he was included in the planning efforts; no one ever asked his opinion. His outfit was decided by Daishou, and the same went for the meals and the music. Anything not chosen by his fiancé was left up to the whims of Daishou's mother. Even Yamaguchi's own wedding party wasn't up to him. He had wanted the Kageyama's to stand in as his family, but no, instead he would have to settle for Daishou's distant cousins. That particular decision had caused quite the fight between the two, Yamaguchi had to throw a full-blown fit for the Kageyamas to even be invited. Daishou had been particularly hostile after that situation, and in order to placate him, Yamaguchi had to act especially docile, further reducing his say. Oh, how he hated wedding plans.

To add insult to injury, no one in the palace took him seriously. Yamaguchi was a foreign commoner from the dirty and uncivilized northlands; he supposed they had no real reason to respect him. The only thing he had to offer to the royal family was his synergy, which was kept secret from even the other noble families. As far as the servants and palace workers were concerned, Yamaguchi must've seemed like an overly lucky crown chaser, some kind of parasite ready to leech on his newfound social status. That thought made him feel no better as the servants and guards talked about him as if he were just some shiny new toy for Daishou to play with; maybe he was.

Yamaguchi couldn't help but feel ungrateful with his unspoken complaints; anyone from 16-B would've killed to be in the lap of luxury like him. Still, he was terribly unhappy. Those months on the Nekarasi had been Yamaguchi's first taste of freedom, his first step into the outside world. There he had a purpose; he was important and had value. People on the Nekarasi cared about him in a way that went beyond the surface-level necessity the people from his hometown treated him with. Those months, stressful as they had been, were the best Yamaguchi had ever experienced. He had taken his first bite of the forbidden fruit, and now, locked inside yet another golden prison, he craved more.