Breaking out

Chapter 15

"You are back," Yeran looked up, feeling eyes on him to find Aki leaning against a pillar, staring straight at him.

'I'm going to stick a bell on him,' Yeran thought. 'So damn quiet, I didn't even hear the door opening,'

"Did you missed me?" Aki asked, a small smile decorating his lips. It wasn't flirty, it wasn't teasing, just a normal soft smile, at least as normal as Yeran assumed Aki's smiles were, maybe a smidge tired.

Yeran rolled his eyes, turning back to his paper work.

"I'm tired today Yeran, let's play tomorrow," Aki said, heading to the bathing room.

"I didn't asked," Yeran replied, paying him no attention.

"Aww.....you wound me!" Aki said, leaving Yeran to roll his eyes, again.

No more words were exchanged between them, Aki disappeared into the bathing room, and Yeran focused on his own work.

Yeran was alerted by Aki's presence this time, the door creaking loud in the too quiet room. He looked up, almost as if in a trance.

Though the day wear changed, Aki still dressed in white for night, a long flowing robe over a pair of white trousers. He had braided his hair for the bed, pulled over a shoulder, some damp strands sticking to his face.

Under the soft glow of candles he looked almost ethereal, not paying much of an attention to Yeran, but gaze fixed upon the outside through open window.

"What is so fascinating about the garden?" Yeran asked, unable to help but be curious noticing this habit of Aki for the days he spent in these very chambers.

At first it was almost as if Aki had not heard him, letting the bare feet swing over the sill, slightly waving in the open air, sat at the very edge, three stories above ground.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Aki answered in a sly tone when Yeran had almost given up on expecting an answer.

"And satisfaction brought it back," Yeran fired back, not backing off.

Aki looked at him over a shoulder, again gifting him with a smile.

"Give and take Yeran, give and take," he said, philosophically.

"Are you not afraid I would sell court secrets to someone, doing your paper works here?" He asked while Yeran was contemplating over that sentence.

"Not really, it's not like you have anyone to sell them to, and I don't think toppling this empire being an intention of yours," Yeran replied absent-mindedly, only to realize what Aki meant at the same time, 'You give me answers, and I'll reply in kind,'.

"Freedom," Aki said.

"Hmm...? Yeran asked.

"You asked why I'm fascinated about the garden, but it isn't garden I'm interested in, it's the freedom. Sometimes I just want to let go, if I did, will I fly? Or are the chains around my ankles too heavy and pull me to the ground?" Aki pulled a leg up, turning side ways to lean against a window pane, eyeing Yeran, an unreadable look on his face.

"I don't understand you, not really," Yeran said.

"No one actually does," Yeran could not not for the life of him decipher what exactly was the emotion in Aki's tone, be it sad, sarcastic, proud or even flirty, though his eyes twinkled like stars.

"Where is Zeke?" Aki asked, so very suddenly it startled Yeran out of his deep concentration over the border troubles at Southern region. 

"What?!" He asked, disoriented.