WHISPERS OF A BUTTERFLY • Kamisato Ayato

five. 五

"I thought you were in love."

"Well, the truth must be a bitter disappointment to you, Thoma."

When you were little, the moment you met Ayato, you knew that he was going to be a difficult acquaintance. During the meetings that your uncle would attend before his arrest, you could already sense that he was ready to pester you. You'd known each other for a while now, and he was only shy of his early teens, but he was a charming rascal. Ayato on the other hand was delighted with the luxury of passing you during Tri-Commission meetings and not having to pretend he was unaware of you.

You'd let him drag you around Tenshukaku, hang your wishes by the Thunder Sakura, count the boats at the Ritou dock. You liked racing when he was far from done with his rounds, or by the grocer and the baker as they were just getting ready for business, liked to run along the shore and the promenade when there wasn't a soul about yet and the world seemed a distant mirage. You liked it when your feet were aligned, left with left, and struck the ground at the same time, leaving footprints on the shore that you wished to return to and, in secret, place your foot where his had left its mark.

You hadn't had the chance to tell him because the day came that he rose to power and you stayed the same. His parents died; yours became corrupt. Thus did your paths in life diverge.

Adulthood was not kind. Ayato pillared as a man while you were still the princess. The sudden distance that crept between you was chilling and off-putting. It was almost as if he did it on purpose; feeding you slack, and more slack, and then yanking away any semblance of friendship. Perhaps your once-empathetic belief was the reason why you could never truly hate Inazuma for turning on your family, or feel ill towards Chisato for entrapping you into the complicated web of lies.

Ayato watched as you turned the corner, soaked to the bone as you retreated to your quarters.

"You have to pull yourself together, My Lord," Thoma said as Ayato attempted to ignore him, inspecting the shrapnel of his sword. Well, it was fascinating when his butler was chastising him for arguing with the same woman he'd been arguing with for years. "You can't pull your fiancé into a pond just because you're angry with her!"

"She pushed me first."

That was the wrong thing to say. He could see the disbelief in Thoma's eyes of his childishness.

"My Lord, you have to be better than that. You're the High Commissioner, you have to set an example! And by pushing your fiancé into a garden pond—"

"After she pushed me first."

"By pushing your fiancé into a garden pond, you're not helping her quell any rumors. I thought the whole point of this marriage was to help the Kanjou Commission. If you loathe her so much, you should have gone for Chisato's hand instead."

Shaking his head, Ayato sighed as he let the sword disappear into thin air. "I don't want Hiragi Chisato. Thoma, F/N and I have had a strained relationship with each other since we were young. You know this. We're not friends."

"You were friends once," he countered.

"Not anymore," he said. Something in him must be coming to the surface, something in the way his eyes became downcast and his mouth shifted became tells, and suddenly Thoma backed away, his arms falling as he cocked his head ever so slightly to the side.

"Pardon me for asking, but why did you stop talking?"

Oh no. This can't happen. He can't let him know this. "It's nothing. Just... I don't know how we can ever become friends after..."  Shaking his head, he lowered his voice. "The point is, she hates me. There's not much I can do to change that."