A long silence fell over the living room with the eldest siblings staring at each other. After Momoko had spoken out she only held her eyes on Yuki. Jun and Ken gave the two a confused and puzzled look back and forth trying to understand. Jun tugged on Yuki’s dirty shirt trying to break up the tension, but only seemed to touch the line receiving a dose of what was going between them.

Abruptly, Yuki stood up from the table keeping eyes on Momoko. He looked down at his younger brother, giving him a warm smile. “Why don’t you and Ken play a little! Momo and I have some things to talk about quickly.” Yuki knelt down to Jun to pat him on the head. There was still some hesitation from him, but Yuki was slowly allowed to be let go.

Picking their usual talking grounds, Momoko led the way to the kitchen. There was still plenty of unprepared food laid out for the planned dinner that Momoko had in mind. Momoko picked up the knife from the counter and began to chop the vegetables waiting.

Yuki walked over to the island beginning the prep that she started. He waited in silence to see what Momoko had to say before he even dared a word himself. However, their continued silence forced his hand. “What did you want to talk about?”

Chapter 87 – Unspoken Words

There was a bit of pause in Momoko’s chopping before she continued. “You know what I want to talk about, Yuki…”

“That’s a little too vague…”

“Come on, Yuki. You’ve been acting weird for the last two weeks on top of the crazy world change events. Even before you told me about the powers and Ayumi, you’ve not been yourself all the time. What aren’t you telling me?”

He stopped moving as his sister hit nearly a bullseye. ‘I knew this was going to have to happen before… Doesn’t matter, I was never going to be ready…’ Yuki stared at the raw beef half cut. “So much for pretending to be happy…”

“Yuki…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…”

“You’re good at hiding it, but you still slip up from time to time. I’m going to notice.”

The meal prep resumed. A thud of the knife gave him a rhythm and focus. “It’s all really complicated and I’ve been trying to protect you from all of it.”

“So what’s the complication?”

A sigh came from Yuki pausing again. He looked up towards Momo, still trying to make the final call. ‘I don’t know what she’ll say. I don’t even know what’s going to happen.’ The hesitation eventually called her to face him. “It’s about the real reason that Ayumi’s here.”

“You said there’s people trying to kill you because they view your existence as a threat to their political standing.”

He nodded, not able to summarize it better. With so many different versions of the story out, it became difficult to keep them all straight. “Right. And I need to see a resolution to that so that I can live in peace. As much as peace can exist like this.”

“Is there a way to stop the attacks?”

“Probably. I don’t understand the political system. If I give up my rights to the throne maybe they’ll stop. I guess it depends on how paranoid these guys are.” Saying it aloud made him realize how many unanswered questions remained. ‘In my indecisiveness, I didn’t probe for more than I needed…it’s probably time to start getting some clear answers.’

Listening to him talk made her hand tighten up on the knife. A little shake began transferring down until she forced herself to put it down. “You’re leaving.”

“Ignoring it hasn’t been the solution. I let Kazuhiro die because of my inability to act.” His voice rose in anger before cutting off harshly. Yuki pressed his hands against the island, resisting the urge to punch something.

Momoko reached across the island to grab his hand. “Don’t–”

“Don’t what?! Blame myself for his death? Be the one that put his head in the noose?”

“That’s not what happened. I wasn’t there–”

“NO! You weren’t! I saw him die! He’s dead because of me, I killed him.” The familiar feeling of depression that he thought buried behind layers of fake happiness surfaced. His hand gripped the side of his head as violent imagery painted dark memories. A crooked laugh escaped his lips. “I’m just bad luck for people. Everyone around me dies…”

She immediately marched around the island and whacked him with a chop to the forehead. “We’ve had this conversation before. Mom and dad weren’t your fault and neither was Kazuhiro. You can’t keep putting the blame on yourself!”

“He’d still be alive if I acted sooner!”

“And could you have?”

Yuki pulled away when the answer didn’t come to him. The time at the grave only cooled the emotions. Turned out, he was a broken record skipping back in a loop. When nothing came after the waiting, Yuki broke away. He bolted from the kitchen and didn’t stop until he left the house.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Hearing what Yuki just said took Momoko back. It made her close up her mouth and step backwards to lean against the counter. She did not have a response for him. Everything that was running in her mind had shut down. There was nothing that she could think of anymore.

“…Yuki…” Alone in the kitchen, she stared off blankly as the silence became a thick oppressive weight around her. ‘Dammit! He’s carrying so much on himself…worse I don’t think that’s even the main issue right now… What’s going through your mind?’

Outside in the darkening sky, Yuki stiffly walked off into the grass street. He began moving slowly towards Ayumi’s house, still feeling the fatigue from the work at the school. It had disappeared from his mind while he was fighting with Momoko, but it became acutely pronounced the moment that he had left the house. When he came to the gate of her house hesitation filled his heart.

‘They aren’t your real family!’

“I wish it was that simple…” Yuki turned away from her house. There was no place that he could go. He started walking away feeling lost. Everything seemed to be barking at him to stay away.

Nearly thirty minutes of wandering aimlessly found Yuki nearing Saki’s apartment building. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t realize where he went. His eyes were totally unfocused. It had been his feet that had managed to guide him around the obstacles. It was another minute before he finally looked up. “…Saki…”

Yuki started to turn around knowing that it wasn’t a place that he should be standing out for too long. ‘…this isn’t her problem and I don’t want to make things any worse for her…’ He began walking back down the street.

“Yuki!”

It took a moment for him to realize that he was hearing a voice. It wasn’t until they called out to him once more that he actually stopped. He glanced back in the direction of the voice already knowing who it was, but still having to turn to see. ‘…Saki…’ Yuki resumed walking away not wanting to bother Saki with his problems.

“Where’d you think you’re going?” Saki appeared in front of him, having previously been on the second floor of the apartment building several houses away from him.

The sudden appearance of Saki in his path made him stumble back as well as startled his concentration. “Saki?! What are you doing here?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious! Talking to you!”

A narrowed expression appeared on Yuki not pleased by the almost sarcastic tone that came to him. “That’s not what I mean! If your mom sees you talking to me you’ll get in trouble! She hasn’t forgotten you know!” There was a bit of a distant extension to his words as he finished as he reminded himself of the past.

“Like I care about that. She’s been hovering around everything I do lately anyway. So this won’t be any different.”

Yuki gave her a disbelieving stare with how casually she acted about her mother. He wasn’t going to be the cause of increased tensions with her family. He moved to walk around Saki trying to leave, but she grabbed him by the upper arm tightly. There were no words spoken between them, but a fast power struggle ran its course.

He tried to break free and quickly learned that Saki’s grip was far stronger. It had shifted sharply into a staring contest of intention with Yuki implying silently that he was determined enough to use his power. While Saki countered him with an even more resolved stare that would shatter anything he tried. After only a few seconds Yuki gave up flight. ‘I remember protecting her years ago and now I can’t even beat her…’

Since they settled their debate Yuki gave a reluctant shrug to her fitting into his place. “So where you wanna go to talk?”

“Since you’re so concerned over my mom finding us we can move a little out of sight.” She escorted him several meters down the street until the neighboring homes made it impossible to actually see that they were outside. Once Yuki fell into a place leaning against the property wall of the house, Saki took the initiative. “Fight with Momoko?”

“That obvious?”

“Well I could say a line like ‘You always come to me after a fight with your sister’ or something like that, but I know that’s not true.” She could see the slight smirk on Yuki’s lips from her joke. “So what is it that you’re unable to talk to Ayumi about?”

“Huh?”

“I’m neither blind nor jealous. But it’s been pretty easy to see that you’ve been going to Ayumi more recently for your problems. It makes sense with her having the same powers. It doesn’t really matter to me who your girlfriend is.”

There was a quick blush of red in Yuki’s face before he protested Saki’s accusation. “She’s not my girlfriend! I don’t have one!”

Saki grinned a little to herself. “That’s a pretty fast denial. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other this week while at school. She understands what you’re going through better than anyone, it makes sense.”

“Stop making assumptions. Besides, I don’t think her interests are in guys.”

“Either way, tabling that. I’ve seen you looking pretty distant the last few days as though you’ve been thinking heavily about something. Considering the number of things that have been happening to you lately I don’t know which of them is the problem. But seeing how much you’ve been distracted by it I’m guessing that it was also the reason you fought with Momoko. And it’s important enough that you can’t talk to Ayumi either, but you can to me. So what is it?”

There was a long pause from Yuki as he took in what she had said. The intention had been the same as Momoko, but everything about the way that she spoke to him seemed so different from his sister. Perhaps he was done venting over the matter and a willingness to talk about it. It could have been that it was his sister and he wanted to protect her. Whatever the case, he found himself ready. “Since when did you become so observant and convincing?”

“It’s part of becoming a woman,” she teased.

“Right…well I’m considering Ayumi’s offer that she made to me the first day that she showed up at school.”

“This about her people?”

“She wants me to go back to her homeland and become their King.”

Saki had widened her eyes a little with this new revelation to what had happened that day. They had told her about a lot of what was going on, but she had always felt that they had left out some details. The weight of what it would mean started to push down on her shoulders. “So you’re going to leave everyone behind?”

Yuki hesitated in his response to her as his mind swirled with thoughts that he had been tossing around for so long. The words that Ayumi told him whispered to him as though trying to convince him that he did what was needed. Yuki looked up at Saki carrying deep sorrow filled eyes of regret. “…they aren’t my real family…”