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sabraeal · 28 days ago

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Truth in Masquerade, Ch 9: Between These Wandering Hands

[Read on AO3]

Written as a late entry for day 1 of the Obiyuki Winter challenge (How It Started)...as well as part of a favor exchange with @claudeng80, who was perfectly happy to field a binding request for free, until I mentioned I could pay in fic 🤣 (and who could blame her)

With the lamps blown and her eyes still dark-blind, it’s impossible to tell when Obi joins her in the bed. The mattress may be eiderdown, dipping beneath the solid weight of muscle and bone— both of which Obi has in spades— but it’s also the size of a small country. What happens on one end hardly disrupts the other, unless there is a concerted attempt at an incursion.

And so the only sign of settling is his sigh; the smallest hitch of breath as the down catches him, cradling him in its cloud-like grasp. It had shocked her how soft a bed could be, that first night in the palace— years ago, now. The medical dormitory’s beds had been much like the one in her grandparents’ house: narrow, with a single rag-stuffed pallet intended to be sturdy and supportive, albeit newer than the one she left behind. But in Wistal’s guest chambers, enveloped between silk and velvet, the mattress holding her with all the gentle care of a babe in its mothers arms, well— Shirayuki finally understood how sleep might be seen as a luxury rather than a necessity.

The dark slowly fades to grays and blues, shapes resolving out from what had seemed to be unrelenting black. The washstand in the corner first, its linens taking an extra moment to settle; then the fluttering curtains by the window, left open to let in the breeze; followed by her own hands laid upon the silken sheets, the fine bones apparent even in the dim. And finally, Obi’s back, warm bronze turned to cool stone in the shadow of night, more statue than skin.

Pale scars bite into his flesh, ugly nicks and gashes so old they no longer pucker but lie flat, a fine tapestry darned like a sock beneath less skillful hands. Some might wear their hearts on their sleeve, or their thoughts written on their face, but Obi’s history cuts into him, carving him from flesh the way sculptors wrought wood or stone. Her fingers itch, desperate to reach out, to trace where not even time had healed.

If you’d been the one dressing the wound back then, he’d said once, his fingers wrapped like a whisper around her wrist. It probably wouldn’t have left behind such a nasty scar.

The knotty slash across his chest was always destined to silver and scar, and that gouge over his belly would have left something behind no matter how fine the technique, but those littler cuts just needed some care that didn’t come from the bottom of a bottle— or a ditch. An ointment could fade those slashes to slivers still; a nightly application, perhaps, though he’d need her help to reach more than a few of them. The handful between the blades of his shoulders, for instance, or maybe the pair of nicks at mid-back. The one just above his hip might even be—

That’s quite enough sight-seeing, Miss. Her whole body flushes from head to toe, so hot she could melt straight into the sheets. Experience has already shown that that’s not a place she should touch him. Not unless…

Her eyes narrow, adjusted to the dim light. Not unless she wants to spook him off the mattress entirely.

He’s hugging to the edge once again, one unwary roll from the floor. The carpet is soft enough to sleep on, she’ll grant him that, but that’s hardly the point. There’s more than enough mattress for the both of them, and even if there wasn’t, well— it defies the point of this to have him half-naked and still clinging to its farthest corners. Shirayuki may not have much experience with paramours behind closed doors, but even she knows they shouldn't seek to make space between them. Especially not on a bed as fine as this one.

“Shouldn’t you be”— she hesitates, the strange simmering beneath her skin making it hard to think, to keep her voice from sounding petulant— “closer?”

“W-what?” His yelp practically rattles the fixtures. If she weren’t in a different country, she might have even felt his shoulders clearing the mattress.

“We’re supposed to be i-intimate, aren’t we?” It’s silly the way she stumbles over the word, like she’s some apprentice pharmacist and not a master in her own right. “I don’t think we would be…I mean, that you would be”— her hand sweeps toward the edge of the mattress, and him with it— “You would want to be closer. If we were…”

Together, she fails to manage. Or maybe, like that. But certainly not, having sex, or, heavens forfend, making love. Not when he could just glance over and watch her make the words with her own mouth. The same one he’d kissed early, and she— she really should stop thinking about that.

Every muscle of his back stands out in relief, obvious without shirt or sheet to obscure it, practically stone-carved as he murmurs, “I wonder…”

An odd answer, even for him. “Obi?”

“You’ll have to excuse me, Miss,” he says, louder, voice rising and falling with its usual lilting sing-song. “I’ve never been what you’d call a post-coital cuddler.”

“Really?” She watches as each muscle loosens, not all at once, but a conscious relaxation of each group until he’s as languid and limber as a cat. “Then what did you do after, um…?”

A foolish thing to ask, far too personal, but Obi’s teeth flash in the dark as he flips to his back. “Look for an exit route, usually. I told you, Miss, I wasn’t the sticking-around type.”

Her mouth is too dry as he scoots toward her, the muscles of his stomach tensing and releasing with every sinuous scuttle. It’s a simple movement, silly even, and yet she still blurts out, “But you stuck around here.”

He stills, not even his breath lifting his chest— and then his smile widens to all teeth. “Well, you haven’t taken me to bed yet.”

“We’ve slept together,” she reminds him, those cold Lyrias nights a lifetime away from Tanbarun’s humid heat. “Plenty of times.”

“Th-that’s different, Miss,” he splutters, wide eyes darting toward her before he falls back on his pillow, the ceiling infinitely more interesting. “That’s just sleeping. Not…”

Participating in not-sleeping activities. The kind that often brought to young women to the pharmacy, for one reason or another. Ones she knew all too well, thanks in part to Garrack and her comprehensive lesson plan-- and another, much larger part to Suzu’s concerted effort in slithering out of any consult that might call for a professional recounting of both the birds and the bees.

“That’s still not very convincing,” she says, eyeing the gulf of silk between them. “The space I mean. If we’re supposed to have…ah, I mean if you had just been intimate with, um…” Lover is a whip crack of a word, a goad and a shock rather than a position, but partner is as sterile as the tools she keeps in her kit, not enough for what she means. “Someone…”

That’s worse; a withered flower in lieu of a bouquet. So bad, in fact, that Obi barks out a laugh, his whole chest shaking with the effort of keeping the rest from pouring out.

“I think you mean,” he hums, hands hooked behind his head, the molten gold of his eyes pouring towards her. “If we made love.”

Her hands flex against the mattress, and, ah, he didn’t need to— to make it sound like that. Like they were already skin-to-skin, the rough pads of his fingers catching on her spine, breath rasping in her ear as he—

“You would want to hold them closer, wouldn’t you?” The words squeak out of her, and she clears her throat before adding, “If you had just…just finished.”

There’s that glint of teeth, a knife’s edge in the moonlight. “Didn’t I just tell you, Miss? I wasn’t the sort to hang around after all was said and done. Always been the type to be more interested in the doing than the saying.”

(“Impossible.” Most people with a pedigree disdain the sort of noises that imply organs— or, ancestors forbid, mucus— but Miss Kiki snorts with relish, disdain saved solely for doubting him. It’s almost romantic, when Obi thinks about it. Makes a man feel special. “You’re in love with the sound of your own voice.”

It’s an ambush he doesn’t expect— a whole year talking up each notch on his bedpost to every uniform that would listen should have borne the sort of fruit that would make the dear Lady Seiren smirk over her glass and drive Sir choke on his. But instead it’s his tongue that gets tangled up, protest perched right at the precipice, flirting with the fall—

It’s not love, it’s that everyone’s too busy paying attention to your mouth to bother watching what the rest of you is up to—

Ah, damn. He’s had one too many tankards tonight if he’s already starting to reach for that top-shelf honesty. Obi sets down his own cup, too precise to be casual— a detail that won’t be escaping the iron trap of Miss Kiki’s mind, even if she saves him the trouble of calling him on it.

“I wonder,” he hums instead, smoothing the edges with his smile. “A man in my line of work learns to be silent, don’t you know?”

“I sure don’t,” Master mutters, fingers already pressed to his temples. “When does that happen?”

“I could be as quiet as a church mouse,” he insists, with all the gravity of a marquis. Well, at least the kind he’s had the displeasure of knowing.

“They squeak,” Sir offers, nursing yet another sip of his ale, and honestly, he might have taken offense, if only Miss Kiki didn’t add, “I’d bet he honks.”

“Honks?” Obi squawks— a noise at least a decibel nicer than honking. “You think I honk when—?”

“I think it would kill you to be quiet.” Miss Kiki’s tongue lashes him with the same unerring precision as her sword. “I’ve heard there are fishes who have to keep swimming to keep afloat. Maybe you have to keep talking in order to breathe.”

“I’ve been quiet loads of times,” he insists, even though he’s got to admit, there’s not many that come to mind. “I could probably be quiet all day, if I—”

“I think,” Master groans, drinking down the dregs of his own cup. “That I’d like to talk about anything else.”)

The night paints Obi in tiger stripes of light and shadow, the flex of muscles beneath skin giving them a hint of movement, like swaying stalks of long grass. Laying like this, a hint of his smirk still stalking the corner of his lips, it’s impossible to say whether he’s more a dangerous predator or indolent house cat— maybe both, in equal turns. He had played pet all too well the first time they had come here, only to shed his collar the moment her hand was out of reach, chasing her across half the country and out to sea. He’d cut a man down, right in front of her, but—

But he’d never turned his claws on her. Not since that arrow sunk itself into the wall, at least. If anything, he’d been too cautious about the way they touched, as if the barest brush of skin against skin might mark her, might leave her bruised.

Maybe he was right; even now the pressure of his lips still lingers, firm enough she’s sure she could lift her fingers and feel the dints where they had laid. His hands may settle softly onto silk sheets now, but the specter of them still burns over her cheeks and chin, scalded from where he cupped them. A whole handprint curving right around her jaw and up into her hair, tingling as if he still hovered there, just out of touch.

It’s distracting. Maddening. At least it must be, for her to say, “But you would, wouldn’t you? If it was me?”

There might be a gulf between them, a sea of silk it seems impossible to cross, but she’s still close enough to see the ripple of her stone’s throw, every muscle tensed into stark relief. It lasts for the length of a blink, the duration of one of her quick-caught breaths before easing, one by one, back to smoothness, his striped skin a still lake once again.

“I guess you have a point there, Miss,” he admits in his playful sing-song, but yet— his lilt is just out of key, too sharp in places and flat in others, like a piano fallen out of tune. “If it were you, I might hold on and never let go.”

It’s the same as that night, years ago— the way his fingers brushed over his chest, not bare as it is now, but covered in the unrelenting black of his formal dress. The way his voice lowered, not quite himself, to whisper, Will you hold onto it for me?

Why don’t I keep holding onto all of you, she’d decided, arms wrapping around a body that felt so much more solid than it ever had before. Just like this?

“Obi...” It's half a warning, half a wish, catching in her throat as he scoots along silk. He doesn't gently sweep of her into his arms, the way Yuzuri's books lived to linger on, but scoops— no, manhandles her until she’s half sprawled over him, head tucked into his shoulder and legs tangled together.

“There,” he huffs, chest expanding against the back of her fists, balled up between her sternum and his side. “That better?”

“Ah…” It’s certainly more convincing, but better made for a harder metric. Especially when there suddenly seemed to be so much more of Obi than she remembered. “Yes?”

“Good.” His head falls back on the pillow, every sharp angle of his face utterly spent, as if she were the one that manhandled him, and not the other way around. “I don’t think I can get much closer to you without Master asking me to draw swords at dawn.”

It’s such a simple excuse, one he’d used a half dozen times before. What would Master say, Obi would laugh, stepping out from under her hand, or, I think Master won’t be pleased when he finds out about this, when yet another lord took them for lovers. For years, she would tilt her head, trying to puzzle out which angle made them seem too close, what small gesture might be deemed too affectionate for friendship, but then—

Then Lord Eisetsu had found her in Obi’s room, looking between them with the wide eyes of a rumor well-proved and she— she blushed. “I don’t think Zen has any right to concern himself with how close we choose to be.”

“Ah…” The muscles of his abdomen jolt against her thigh, only a scrap of linen to obscure their sharp edges before they smooth once more. “Of course not, Miss. Must have drank more than I thought to forget…”

That he left her. That they’re only in this spot because Tanbarun’s ears are too sharp in Izana’s court. “It’s all right. I don’t”— mind, she means to say, but the lie of it sticks to her teeth— “it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” he grunts, the sound harsh against her knuckles. “If he was going to lay all this on you, he should have come north. Or at least let you go back there when it was all said and done.”

“It’s not Zen’s fault we’re here.” Her eyes angle up, fixing on the way his throat bobs as he swallows his anger. “Izana’s the one who sent us. And if we’re being fair, Raj is the one who sent the invitation.”

“What would have been fair is letting Yuzuri at him after—”

“Obi.” His stomach tenses beneath the press of her palm, the more thickly settled dark hair crinkling under her fingertips. “It’s fine. There was no good way for this to happen, but it had to. I’m only happy that everything was…civil, in the end.”

His laugh pulses against her hand, so low, so soft that her stomach churns, confused by the heat of it. “You might try being civil with me, Miss.”

“I…?”

His fingers wrap so gently around her wrist, guiding it from his stomach to his chest. She frowns, brow furrowing, nearly about to ask, how have I been anything but friendly—?

But then she feels the heady thrum of his pulse against her palm, and, ah, perhaps she'd been too friendly with that touch. Her fingers curl, catching in the sparse hairs on his chest—

(“Where’d you get those?” Yuzuri scoffs, sweeping past Shirayuki’s side to take a choice seat on the training yard’s rail. Makiri’s been working the trainees hard this summer— letting them sweat out the weakness, Jirou had laughed, the last time they’d been by— and even the officers are down to skin and trousers now, sweat pouring off them like snow down a mountainside. “I thought you couldn’t grow a single hair to save your life.”

Obi grinned, toweling off with the cloth she’d handed to him before taking one of their iced teas for good measure. “Try getting close to the wrong side of thirty. Couldn’t miss ‘em even if I wanted to.”

Her nose wrinkles, hiding a faint spray of summer freckles in their folds. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.” )

— and just barely resist the urge to drift lower. It would be a more natural sprawl, for one. And for two—

Obi’s palm presses her hand in place, fingers lacing them tight. “Good night, Miss.”

“Obi…” His eyes are already shut, the frantic tattoo of his heartbeat lulling into a more sedate hum.

Will you hold onto it for me? Her fingers squeeze his tight as she answers, if you'll let me. “Good night.”

Obi comes to consciousness the way leaves float downriver: meandering, mindless, and to the downright incessant song of the birds outside his window. Awareness only comes to him in dribs and drabs; first the smooth silk pressed into his back, then the scent of oleander and jasmine wafting on the warm breeze, then the strange sense of contentment brewing in his chest. A comfort he’s tempted to sink into— wallow in, until sleep finally deserts him.

Not the sort of thing that’s part of his usual morning routine, that’s for sure. Maybe he’s been drugged— they like that sort of thing here, don’t they? Putting things into drinks and letting it sort itself out the next day. He’s immune to most of the usual sedatives— at least the kind that weren’t applied by a firm whack to the back of the neck— but clearly someone’s done their research. Be a pity to ruin all their hard work by waking up.

He shifts, mind sloshing, and ah— seems he’s the culprit here. Or at least, the two or three bottles of fine Tanbarun red he’d polished off himself, trying to keep up with Prince Raj. Obi’s no lightweight; Kiki and Sir would have seen to that over the years, if his natural talents hadn’t already shined through, and Lyrias’s top brass had kept him honest when they couldn’t do the job, but well…he’s flirting a little close to thirty to be playing such a young man’s game. His knees ache now when he takes those hard landings, and sometimes he’s even got to stretch before—

Nails prickle over his chest, a small hand flexing right over his heart, and haah, he’d had quite a few last night, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t indulge in anything to put him out that pleasant. But the warmth pressed to his side begs to differ, soft curves snug against his ribs and a too-smooth thigh thrown over his hip, knee dangerously close to a part of his anatomy that’s already starting to get ideas.

His eyes slit open, catching bare shoulders and candy apple red spilling across his chest, and his heart near stops. Well, fuck.

Miss complains about the sudden jerk of her pillow, snorting and groaning and rolling to keep his shoulder pinned beneath her. It’s enough commotion to make the bird song outside the window stutter— just like his heart— and the covers shift, baring not more skin but linen. The last night comes barreling back at him; not just I don’t think the maid will be convinced by you wearing buckskins to bed, and you know I prefer to sleep in the nude, but, most devastatingly, I trust you—

He nearly misses the clatter by the door.

Obi’s not fool enough to crane his neck toward the slightest sound, but he does let his head tilt, just so. Enough to catch black-and-white from the corner of his eyes, and the silver spilled out across the floor. Ah, so that’s what really woke him: the maid’s come, breakfast in hand, to fill the basin and pull the blinds. And spy for His Majesty, of course.

Mischief curls at the corners of his mouth. Well, if His Majesty wants a show, then Obi would hate to disappoint.

The sheets he’d been so careful to tuck around Miss’s shoulders last night— after she’d fallen asleep, her kitten snore muffled in his side, and every inch of his skin had felt electric under her touch— ruck around his waist instead, leaving only the most interesting bits to the imagination. He makes a real production of it, groaning and stretching and letting every bit of the muscle seven days of weekly training carved into him have its day in the sun. By the catch of breath by the basin, it doesn’t go unappreciated.

Step one, complete. He doubts the king’ll be hearing about this part, but it’ll set the tone for the rest of the gossip this girl pours in his ear. Margravine Entaepode’s shameless lover makes for a more scandalous story than our guest’s living bedwarmer.

The next bit is harder— in more ways than one. There’s no natural way to roll up to his hip, for one, not when Miss is clinging to him like soil to a root, unwilling to cede a single inch to him unless he moves her first. She seeps into every space he manages to make with no more than a disgruntled huff, burrowing more tightly than before.

In the end, he has to half pull her on top of him first, then roll as single unit from flat to upright. From there he’s got to sling her leg over his hip; an easier proposition a few minutes ago, before he crushed all that soft girl flesh against his chest, and certain parts started to take notice. Now he’s got to negotiate that freckled thigh of hers around his cock, so hard it strains against the strict binding of his drawers, dying to bury itself somewhere, anywhere that resembles warm flesh.

He manages it, though. Gracefully, even. Almost natural, he’d say, until—

Until the much looser fabric of her chemise rides up, no longer nestled between her thighs but pulled taut across them, the rest of it trapped between her and the mattress. Her wet heat splits over the muscle of his thigh, only the thin linen of his drawers to keep them from being skin-to-skin, and he— he groans.

Between this and the kiss last night, it’s the closest he’s come to a good fuck in years. A mortifying thought-- made worse by how every lick of good sense in him scatters the moment Miss squirms closer, her heavy breath skittering over his neck. There’s already barely enough space for a breeze to pass between them, but one jerk of his arms traps her breasts against his chest-- all the encouragement his cock needs to test its restraints.

Really, all this following Miss around, playing at being a good knight has him strung tighter than he was at thirteen and just discovering what five minutes alone and some imagination could pull out of him. One hard twitch wins it enough play to jut right into her belly, which would be bad enough, really, if only—

If only she didn’t squirm into it. And he didn’t let out a noise more at home on a wounded mutt than a man.

There’s another clatter— trays being set down too hastily on the side board, by the sheer amount of jangling silver, setting his teeth on his edge— followed by hasty heels and the hurried slam of the door.

Haah, well— that's one way to complete step two. His Majesty will definitely be hearing about this one.

He just has to hope it's only the one on this side of the border.

It’s not the birdsong that rouses her— though it’s loud enough; a pair of nightingales scolding each other right outside the balcony doors. There’s a bunting there too, chattering as if it were only a friendly neighbor, come to mediate between another two, but the whole conversation takes place at a pitch that would cause dogs to howl and cats to pace. Shirayuki, however, simply turns over; it’s nothing compared to the jackdaw that’s taken up residence outside her room at Lyrias, arguing with every swallow and rock dove and crow that comes close enough.

No, what finally drives her from sleep is the empty space her hand finds when it splays out, searching for a place to perch. For the lack of warmth curled against her side, blankets smooth over the space where a body should be.

She lifts up her head, disoriented. This isn’t her room at Lyrias— she’s in Tanbarun now; Raj's guest of honor, complete with a set of chambers that would prove it. A carved bedstead with curtains, fashionable paper on the walls, and a balcony that looks out over the woods she’d run through that night, over half a decade ago. The only thing that’s missing from it is— “Obi?”

“Here, Miss.” He wheels out from the parlor door, toast in hand, one cheek bulging around what she assumes is the rest of it. “Seems they brought both our breakfasts to your room.”

“O-oh.” It’s too early for her to try to parse out all the layers of that, but at least it seems that the domestic staff have noticed their…cohabitation. Though whether it's made its way to the king’s ear is a different matter entirely. “I suppose I do have the bigger parlor.”

Obi snorts, sauntering out from the shadows to her bedside, bare chest a burnished bronze in the light from the balcony. “And the bigger bed.”

Her mouth is too dry when she says, “They looked about the same size when I was in there yesterday.”

“Right you are, Miss. Same size down to the sheets.” He slants her a hooked sort of grin, one that sets a simmer right beneath her skin. “But I think in these sorts of situations, it’s the knight who kneels for his lady, and not the other way around.”

It would be easier to talk, if her tongue didn’t have to be peeled from the roof of her mouth. “I don’t see…?”

“Let me put it this way, Miss,” he says, far too amused, and bare chest much too defined where he sits. “There’s only one of us who comes when they’re called.”

It’s terrible how quickly the heat fills her cheeks, hot enough to cook her own set of toast— and char it too. “I-I listen to you. When you call for me.”

He hums, taking another thickly buttered bite. Her own stomach grumbles with envy. “When it suits you.”

Hardly a fair assessment, when he’s the one that’s been leading her around these part few days, taking her to task when she extends too far past their plans, but—

Ah, hm. Her brow furrows. This is the sort of argument that shouldn’t be picked on an empty stomach. “Do you sleep well, at least?”

If she had blinked, she would have missed it— the flinch before Obi turns all smiles, playful lilt pitch-perfect as he says, “Like a baby.”

Shirayuki frowns. “Really?”

There’s a small hesitation, a flicker of his eyes to the doors, the windows, before he settles into a much more rueful grin. “Sleeping wasn’t the problem, Miss. Getting out of bed, though…”

(It’s a miracle that keeps Miss from waking as he slips out from the bed— and the tangle of their limbs. Ones she tightens as he begins to pull away, like the vines they’d grown in the hot house that one year, until they’d found one of the city’s stray cats mewling in its tendrils. Shidan hemmed and Suzu hawed and Kazaha dug in his heels, but eventually, Miss convinced them to forgo whatever medical advancements murderous vines might provide until the university board saw fit to provide them with a more secure location to cultivate them.

Which they hadn’t in the three years since they’d had him lug the things out with the other brush to be burned, but that’s neither here nor there. And hardly something he’s got time to think about, when Miss keeps growing two hands for every one he manages to pry off.

With one last gentle sweep of his wrist— and a disgruntled whimper from Miss— Obi finally disentangles himself, snatching his trousers from the floor before she can figure out a way to grow longer, stickier limbs to grasp him with. She’s always been a heavy sleeper, but from a safe distance; a lump wedged at his back when the braziers burned too low and only the heat of two bodies could keep out Lyrias’s chill. A belligerent hillock of blankets when Suzu flagged him down after a late night of celebrating, asking if he’d go check on their star pharmacist— or else she’d be late for her shift. But this…

Well, he’d have a whole new reason to keep her at arm’s length tonight. One that didn’t have to do with how much he’s struggling to button his trousers.)

“Don’t worry about it, Miss.” He waves her off before she can open her mouth to ask, popping the rest of his toast past his teeth. “You’ve got what they call ‘more pressing concerns.’”

Shirayuki squirms upright, settling her back along the pillows. “Do I?”

Both of Obi’s narrow brows hike right to his hairline. “At this point you’re made of them.”

“Well, I suppose Raj’s father is trying to make me queen.” An utterly strange sentence for a girl who, six years ago, barely knew anything of her country’s royalty besides a few names and the way the king's profile carved into her fingertips as she clutched every last penny. “But besides all that…”

Obi snorts. “And your cousins are trying to kill you.”

“No one has tried to—”

“Yet.” It’s impossible to miss the look he gives her, fond and frustrated all at once. “And that’s not even getting into your social schedule…”

She blinks. “My what?”

“The maid brought the post in with breakfast this morning. Seems like you’re a popular young lady, Miss.”

A shower of cards rains down onto her lap, the scent of rose and lilac and a dozen less overpowering scents wafting up from their envelopes. Her hands hover half-curled above them, uncertain; Shirayuki could compose protocols and troubleshoot pesky variables with the best of them, but she’d never had what she would call an analytic mind, the way Kazaha does. She might do well enough sifting through her own day-to-day data, or casually compare observations while wading waist deep in the morass of her own journals, but she could not sit surrounded by stacks of numbers and compose correlations the way he could. Strategy was a skill, and staring at this scattered array of invitations, she realizes— it’s not one she’s cultivated. Not in the way a woman born to this world would have. Not in the way she would need to navigate it.

“What am I supposed to do?” she murmurs, splaying her hands over the mess. “A real lady would be able to tell which card came from whose desk with just a glance and a whiff of the glue. But I…?”

Can’t. That’s what she meant to say. But she knows what she means is, don’t want to.

“Will have to open them one at a time.” She glances up, right into the same he’d worn that day outside Makiri’s office. It’ll be fun, he'd said, and it wasn't, not even a little, but she'd come out of it better a better ally than she'd gone in. For all that it had mattered, in the end “Good thing your trusty knight brought you the kind of blade that can cut through these things like Sir’s sword through Hisame’s shoulder.”

She doubts Mitsuhide would appreciate the comparison— not when he’s so adamant that it’s all water under the bridge at this point— but she barely gets the opportunity to muster an, “Obi!” before he brandishes said blade before her: a letter opener, silver and filigreed, and almost certainly not hers.

“Courtesy of the Little Highness,” he assures her in his most cultured tones, though she can’t possibly imagine when such a gift might have been tendered. Knowing Obi, it was probably best to not. “Now give one of those things over here. I think one of ‘em might be for a horse race, and I’ve—”

“We are not going to a horse race,” she informs him firmly. The last thing she needs is Obi trying to trade favors among Tanbarun’s nobles the way he did with Lyrias’s guards. “And I’m perfectly capable of opening my own mail, fancy opener or not.”

“Think of my reputation, Miss. If you scrape up those little fingers of yours, what would everyone say? That your knight wasn’t taking proper care of you, that’s what.” He doesn’t wait for her to hand him an envelope, instead seizing on a thick one faintly citrus smell before sliding the knife beneath the seal. “Ah, this is the one for the picnic Little Highness is putting on. Tomorrow, before all the ball claptrap. We’ll have to put on a good show.”

Shirayuki blinks. “Show?”

“Miss, haven’t you heard anything about the princess and her set?” He shakes his head, tongue clucking behind his teeth. “They run fast and loose, and if we want to convince them that there’s some...extra care going on behind closed doors, well…”

“T-that shouldn’t be a problem.” She doesn’t dare look at him when she says it, but she can feel it— the way his eyebrows raise, surprised. “We convinced Raj last night, didn’t we?”

“We did.” It’s careful, the way he says it, like the ice is too thin under his feet. “Though I don’t suppose we'll need to go that far. Unlike His Highness, that bunch can read between the lines.”

She nods, ignoring the strange swoop in her belly as she says, “I’ll tell her we’re going.”

“Doubt you would have had much of a choice.” His mouth hooked as he tore open the next envelope. “The Shenazards aren’t known for giving them. Ah, this one is from the Countess Katares—”

“Nereida?” Her nose wrinkles. “We just had lunch yesterday.”

“And she is inquiring after brunch today,” Obi informs her, “along with a post-meal ride around the grounds. I bet if you played your cards right, you might even get dinner out of it.”

If there had been one thing Raj had impressed upon Shirayuki during her visits to Tanbarun, it was that one must not appear desperate to make a person’s acquaintance. It was fine enough to seek out a morning stroll one day and perhaps dinner the next if you were eager to make friends, but lunch precluded an invitation the next day for all but the most bosom companions. For Nereida to ask her now— “Can I see that?”

“Sure thing, Miss.”

The letter folds over her hand as he passes it, but a quick flick sets it to rights. It’s just as he said: brunch with a fortifying ride after, and a heavy implication that it might run into the evening hours—

The exercise might help you keep up with your strapping young night, she adds, so helpful. I’ve heard the ones in Clarines are quite vigorous.

Heat slaps itself across her cheeks, so hot she must be giving her hair a run for its money— and though he’s too busy slicing open the next seal to look at her, the twitch at the corner of Obi’s mouth tells her he’s well aware why. “Ah…well, you don’t need to worry about this one, Miss. Nothing of note here—”

“It’s no use,” she tells him, “I can see Milan’s signature from here.”

Her cousin is hardly subtle. But neither is Obi, the way his mouth twists up, like he’s taken a hearty bite into a lemon, rind and all. “You already had dinner with him last night. He doesn’t need to get greedy. Listen, why don’t I handle tendering your most heartfelt regrets, Miss, and you can—”

“Read the invitation you’ve hidden in your pocket?”

His smirk stiffens with all the subtlety of rigor mortis. “Ah. So you noticed.”

“You did a good job trying to distract me.” Between the bare expanse of his chest and the suggestive contents of Nereida’s letter, he’d nearly managed it too. “But you’ve got a better memory than me for things like house crests…and personal seals. If you’d seen Milan’s in the pile, you would have already had it taken out with the trash. Unless there was an invitation you wanted me to see less.”

There’s not a shred of contrition in his star as he pulls out another envelope— nearly as fine as Rona’s, with a sweeping hand curled across the front— and hands it to her, offering her the opener handle-first. With a swipe, she opens it, and she doesn’t need to see it fully unfolded to know why he’d scurried it away before she could miss it.

Sincerely, that same steady hand writes, every loop precisely placed, Theodosia.

“Obi…”

There's no contrition in the way he shrugs, only resignation. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

#obiyukiwinter25 #day 1 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #truth in masquerade #my fic #ans #this was supposed to be the last 1/3 of last chapter and then the first 1/3 of this chapter #and yet somehow this all became 6K of its own chapter #low political intrigue this chapter but HIGH shipping content #considering what i have planned next chapter it'll probably be the other way around for a bit #SO ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN GET IT

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