“It’s a lucky one, then. The rest of us are bound by our strands.” I let out a miserable sigh and wiped at my eyes. Then I turned to the boy. I meant to speak imperiously, but my words came out wobbly and guilt-ridden: “You said it was a gift. I could help you paint another one. I’m not very good at art, not like Yotan—”
“I’d like that,” the boy said eagerly, shedding some of his awkward formality.
He smiled again, his disposition even sunnier than before, and in spite of my tears, I couldn’t help smiling back. I folded my arms across my lap, about to sit on the grass to start our painting when, at that moment, someone approached from behind.
The boy stiffened immediately, becoming shy and withdrawn. “On second thought, please don’t concern yourself over it.” He bowed, excusing himself as Hasho came into view. “I’m glad I finally met you, Shiori’anma.”
All this time, that boy had been Takkan! He looked different now. No longer the gangly, timid boy with too much wax in his hair. Then again, I wasn’t the same girl either.
I sucked in my breath, coloring with shame. Even my brothers hadn’t believed me about the flowers. Why had Takkan, who barely knew me? Whose letters I had tossed aside and never read. Whose friendship I had spurned.
“After I met her,” Takkan was saying, “I never wrote to her again.”
Why not?
“Because I had the answer I was looking for.”
I tensed, sure that Takkan had hated me. The answer would hurt, I knew, but I couldn’t help asking:
What was that?
“My parents think of marriage as a duty to one’s family and country,” Takkan said, by way of response. “I think of it as a duty to one’s heart. Food feeds the belly, thoughts feed the mind, but love is what feeds the heart. I hoped, with my letters, that Shiori and I might grow to make each other’s hearts full. That we might be happy together. After I met her, I thought yes—yes, there was a chance.”
My heart quickened and skipped, doing all sorts of leaps in my chest I had never known possible.
“Maybe I was fooling myself.” Takkan held up the painting of me with the kite. “I was going to give this to her after our betrothal ceremony, but she chose to jump into the Sacred Lake rather than meet me.”
It was the first time I’d seen Takkan actually look pained.
His shoulders tensed. “My family became the ridicule of Gindara, and I told my father that we should leave right away. Princess or not, no person of good character would act so disrespectfully.”
The painting drooped in his hands, and my stomach sank with it. I’d wounded Takkan by running away from the ceremony. Not once had I wondered what it must have been like for him, to journey across the country to meet me. He must have been so disappointed. And hurt.
“After I returned home, I wished I had at least given her a chance to explain herself,” Takkan confessed. “I wished I hadn’t left so angrily. But I was too proud to write her.”
He put aside the painting, his back to me. “Then she disappeared,” he said softly, “and I will always regret that I didn’t stay. Maybe things would have been different for her if I had.”
My breathing had gone shallow, and before I could stop them, tears pricked my eyes. I wiped them hastily, but I must have missed a spot, for Takkan offered me his handkerchief. Just like he had all those years ago.
“Are these tears for the princess, Lina?” he asked gently. “Or are they for yourself?”
At the question, I looked up. My brush slipped from my grip, and Takkan and I both bent to pick it up. Our fingers touched, clasping either end of the stick.
He looked down at our hands. Mine trembled, and he covered it with his, steadying me.
“I wish you would speak to me,” he said. “Sometimes, the way you move your lips, I swear that you can. Even if I’m wrong, I wish I could at least see your eyes.”
His eyes startled me, so piercing they seemed to see through my wooden bowl. For a moment, I could have sworn he knew the truth—that IwasShiori.
But then he looked away, and the moment was gone.
Disappointment stung my chest. He didn’t know. How could he? I looked and acted nothing like that carefree princess he had met once, so many long years ago.
He let go of the brush and hung his head. “I shouldn’t have said that. It isn’t fair to you. Just know that I care about you, Lina. I couldn’t be there for Shiori, but I will be there—for you. Whether you need me or not.”
I swallowed, staring at our hands. I should have shaken my head and told him I didn’t want him to be there for me.
But I did no such thing. Even though my burdens were mine, and mine alone, there was a simple comfort in having Takkan with me.
