The Guarded Princess

LXIII

A knock sounded at the door. "Are you ready yet, Lucy?"

Lucy turned around and smiled. Kaede stood at the door with a smirk on his face as he leaned against the wall, a hand placed upon his hip. Contrary to the western-styled clothes that he usually wore, he wore the clothes that the Kina Kingdom had prepared for them. Kaede wore a dark purple kimono with a blackish obi situated around his waist, chrysanthemums slightly patterned over the cloth. His metal vessel hung from his ear, gleaming in the sunlight as his dark violet eyes sparkled with pleasure.

Situating her hairpin through her hair, Lucy turned around, her metal vessel and phoenix bangle clinking gently against one another. Her hair was situated into a loose bun, a large white flower pinned against it along with several other smaller flowers of different shades of pink. She wore a white furisode with tints of dark and light pink along the edges of her sleeves and dress as different sized flowers of white, yellow, purple, and pink dotted it. A golden obi was tied over the dark pink koshihimo at her waist as a red ribbon was tied over that. The servants placed a transparent, white shawl over her arms as she put on her zori.

"Just finished," she answered.

Kaede smiled. "As expected. You look great in it."

"You look well in yours, too," Lucy chuckled. "Though western clothes suit you, wearing eastern clothes from time to time isn't that bad of an idea."

"Well, I do have to say that it is a rather beautiful piece of cloth but," he grinned. "It's a lot more comfortable moving around in western clothes."

"That I won't disagree with," she laughed.

Just as they were chatting, Masrur peeked into the room with a blank face and noticing him, Lucy perked up and flashed him one of her blinding smiles. Kaede just stood there with a smile as Masrur just stared at her, their surroundings now a complete white as sparkles were painted across their vision. There was not a person who wouldn't smile just by seeing her smile.

"Are you two both finished?" he asked, stepping in, a hand upon his obi.

Masrur had on a maroon red kimono in which the collars were loosely fitted, leaving his chest partly bare. He had a dark purple obi wrapped around his waist as he wore a cherry blossom printed, dark red kimono jacket which hung from his shoulders. With Masrur's build, anything looked good on him and both Lucy and Kaede agreed.

"Yeah, we just finished," Kaede replied. "Right, Lucy?"

Lucy nodded her head. "That's right."

Masrur walked towards Lucy side. "Don't worry about anything today and have as much fun as you like," he patted her head. "Okay?"

Lucy stared at him before breaking out into a grin. "Mn!"

Seeing her smile, that was all he needed. Kaede sighed helplessly on the side as he called out to the two, interrupting their moment and breaking into their world.

"Now then, shall we get going?"

"Yeah," Lucy nodded her head and looked around. "But, I thought Tomoyo was meeting us here. Where is she?"

"Who knows? Maybe she had some business?" Kaede proposed.

"Then let's go ahead of her," Masrur said, uninterested in what happened to Tomoyo because, for all he knew, that girl was too attracted to Lucy and with her being there, his position would be endangered.

"No!" a voice shouted.

The three of them turned to see Tomoyo standing there in a simpler kimono than the ones she had worn before, a large white peony flower situated on her head with two loops of hair sprouting from it, the rest of her hair flowing down beside her. She had taken a long time choosing her outfit and realizing that she was late, she ran here at full speed which was why she appeared out of breath.