PENUMBRA // Tamaki Amajiki x Reader Royal AU

Chapter 8

Morning rays pierced the room, awakening me from my slumber. I had started to get used to the idea of living in sunlight more often. Sitting up, a couple of books fell on the floor reminding me of what I got up to the night before.

When I left Mrs Toyomitsu, all the while struggling, I managed to follow her directions and made it to the library. The librarian looked wide awake and maybe it was because Mrs Taishirō had mentioned it, but he did vaguely resemble an owl.

I inquired about books on the kingdom's geography and its political affiliations, as well as books on secret tunnels. Albeit the library was quaint and had a smaller selection of books than what I had seen in the king's small library, there was quite a selection on secret tunnels, but only one on secret tunnels in this kingdom.

My studies had ended partially successful: I found a good load of information about secret tunnels but not so much about the kingdom, I believe most stories about it were aurally passed on, as well as a tiny suspicion that books about the kingdom's history were destroyed after king Amijiki took over.

The tunnel I had travelled through was originally a work-staff tunnel, creating ease of access for them to travel to district four from the castle in case of an emergency. It did not explicitly reveal, but I thought it implied that the tunnel was built during the war for emergency evacuation in case the enemy infiltrated the walls but is no longer in use.

According to the book, the tunnel was sealed up after the war ended but clearly then king told everyone that but never actually did it - which made life easier for me. Four more tunnels actually exist, their assigned doorway found somewhere in the castle, but I clearly was not permitted to go through them. Each tunnel led to a district, so there was even one to district five, this greatly piqued my interest, and I wondered if I would be able to find a map revealing the layout of the castle.

Cleaning the books into a neat pile, I prepared them to be returned to the library. I had scoured the contents enough and did not need to be drawn in deeper. After getting myself ready, I headed out the door, in attempts to find a member of staff to escort me to the tunnel again.

After roaming the halls for a few minutes, I ultimately came to the conclusion that no one was around, and they all must have been busy; it was slightly early for my escort to arrive. Instead, I made my way to where I believed the door should have been, after managing to follow Mrs Toyomitsu's directions yesterday I assumed I could find anything, but each part of the castle was identical to the last, so it took a strenuous effort to make it to any door at all.

Stopping at a dead end, I found myself facing the door to the prince's tower. Fists clenched to subdue the shaking and mouth dried out, I heard footsteps emerging from behind it. With nowhere to hide, quickly, I placed myself flat against the wall and wished I was invisible, holding my breath and not daring to even blink. It was the king.

He stormed out the door, servant following behind him, as he near slammed the door off its hinges, exposing me to his gaze, however he did all but look at me. No stone which made up the wall in front of him was left unseen by his eyes except the stones near me, I thought he was angry at me and waiting for me to confess myself, a discipline tactic they used at school before resorting to... other methods. When his eyes slipped over me, angry but unchanging, I was about to step towards him and apologize, until he stormed off himself, away from me, in the other direction, servant following pursuit.

As he left, he muttered some swears under his breath and whether he was speaking to himself or his servant, I could not tell but I made out the words, "Stupid boy.", "Duty to serve me." and "Can't go on like this." among other less kind words directed at his son. I could not help but feel sympathy for the king, having a son like that, especially after his wife died. Contrary to what the villagers thought, I was certain he was simply misunderstood.