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paildramonnn · 7 years

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Daiken Week | Royalty/Historical

“Jun would be better at this,” Daisuke says, stuck somewhere between stunned and morose.

Trade agreements are no easy thing. Too many parties to satisfy, and too many interests to protect on all fronts to satisfy anyone completely. Had Daisuke’s education been more complete, his statesmanship polished under another couple decades as crown prince -- but, then, if they were going to bargain for ideals, why bother with the burden of trade agreements at all.

Daisuke interprets Ken’s look of errant daydream as disapproval. He grimaces. “I know,” he says, shoving himself back from the books with a little groan of complaint from zaisu and floor both. The palace has survived three centuries, some far more turbulent than this, but Daisuke is something else entirely. “Jun would be awful, but she’d still be better at this. That’s how bad I am.”

The Motomiya family have been ruling for seven generations. Before that, they were only of enough money and importance to intermarry with the previous ruling family, until such time as the two became so tangled as to be indistinguishable. Then, as the story always goes, those noble cousins and in-laws decided they would do a better job of it themselves, ties were cut, and the throne was squabbled over with the brutality that only family members and hopeful royalty can manage. And it has all lead, blood shared and shed, to this.

Daisuke snarls two fistfuls of hair in his fingers and pulls, like he can yank the right answers out of his skull. Ken’s hand on his arm is probably not all that soothing, but it’s the best he can do, short of pushing Daisuke aside and planting the royal seal on the latest draft himself, to hell with the ramifications.

When Daisuke no longer looks like he’s going to prematurely bald himself or, marginally worse, abdicate the throne in favor of his sister, Ken pulls him to his feet. Daisuke is better in motion; thinks better, acts better when that part of his mind is occupied. That they’ve been holed up for the better part of two weeks now isn’t helping anyone, least of all Daisuke himself. So Ken guides him with little veering touches until they’re out of the warm dark of the king’s study and, the manicured green of the outdoors within grasping distance, Daisuke takes the initiative and hauls Ken out into the sunlight.

Encouraging a break now and again is the least Ken can do. For all that Daisuke keeps him close, relies on him, Ken is doing him few favors. He has his own interests, his own royal family, at least nominally. It’s been months now since any real word from Osamu, a note smuggled out of prison and into Ken’s hand, telling him once more that the conditions were too horrible to bear, that the indignity of it could not be borne, that Ken must do his duty and take back their birthright before the rabble decided that Osamu was too dangerous to suffer to live.

Osamu ordered him to burn the letter immediately and then, a few lines later, to show it to any ally he might muster, as proof of Osamu’s continued existence. Was it madness, his certainty that a royalist counter-offensive be mounted, or was he only seeking to share his misery with Ken? It seemed a fair payment to make, for his own continued freedom while Osamu diminished daily.

It would please him to know that, while he is reduced at home to nothing, he still has some effect in Daisuke's court. Ken will be dogged to the end of his days by Osamu's legacy, by the memory of a crown he never wore. It doesn't matter that he never aspired to wear it, that he was in every way a distant second son to a fiercely hoarded birthright. His home is kingless now, and suspicious minds will watch his every step to see him move toward reclaiming that crown. And there are many suspicious minds at court.

That Daisuke trusts him enough to dismiss those whispers outright is the kindest thing he could ever do for Ken, and he has been unconscionably kind. Ken returns it as best he can: he was never going to be king, was sequestered from court and people who might have planted sedition in his young head, but he was not kept from the education of a royal nursery. While his brother ran his kingdom into bloody ruin, Ken emptied a library of knowledge into his brain. History, policy, warfare, these are the only gifts that he can offer Daisuke, and so he does it open-handed, glad payment for his continued place in Daisuke’s sprawling palace, at his side, in the warmth of his affection.

The diplomats and emissaries are being housed across the miles wide palace complex, staving off the sun on the open engawa between long days of meetings in the close heat of inner rooms. Daisuke and his immediate household retreated to his summer house some weeks before their arrival, shaded by tree cover and opened up to catch breezes off of the pond that lies near enough to hear from the quiet of Daisuke’s private rooms. He is following the sound of it now, leading them away from the house, steps dragging over the stones. Whatever he is thinking, he keeps to himself until the foot of the bridge, where he kicks off his sandals and clamors down carefully lain rock and boulder to shove his feet into the shallow, slightly scummy water.

“Jun really would be awful,” Daisuke says after some cursing and shoving the wet hem of his hakama up around his thighs. He’s sun brown even above the knee, testament to his tendency to do this, to shuck formality for comfort, to indulge the itching need to get away from the rooms full of courtiers.

Why have a pond if he can’t wade into it, after all? Why have a massive complex of landscaped lawns and paved courtyards if he can’t walk it at a whim, trailing impatient lords and generals? Why put up with being king if there aren’t perks?

Daisuke cranes his head up to look at Ken, still standing on the path, and huffs his own softer impatience.

“It’s hot,” he says, by way of excuse and invitation. “It’s hot and someone is going to be really mad at me before the day’s over. Might as well enjoy myself now.”

Ken lines the toes of his shoes up against the rail before climbing down after him. Daisuke scoots over to make room.

“I think,” Ken says, watching his already pale skin get washed out blue-green as he submerges his feet in the water, “it’s very optimistic of you to think only one person will be really mad.”

Daisuke huffs, kicking a weak shower of water up to Ken’s knees. “Fine. Like half of them. But there’s no making everyone happy, is there?”

Ken shakes his head. They have pored over it too long already, trying to assuage the worst offenses. The compromises won’t make half of them furious -- Daisuke is stubborn and Ken is tactful -- but it will be nearer that than either of them likes.

Daisuke leans back on his hands, squinting up through scanty cloud cover to gauge the time by where the sun sits over them. Ken looks down to judge it by their own shadows on the rock. Too early for dinner, too late for lunch in any formal capacity. But if Daisuke requires his monarchy to come with perks, they are only ever as straining as this: somen whenever he wants it, served with egg and pork and radish sliced thin enough to light up pink white as Daisuke passes them over from his tray to Ken’s.

His thoughts are already drifting to thoughts of noodles before they haul pull themselves up onto the path. Their feet are too wet to stay in the smooth lacquer of their sandals, so they scoop them up on their fingers and walk back barefoot. Daisuke keeps his face tilted to the sun. Ken watches where they step.

“If I did abdicate,” Daisuke says, walking near enough to Ken that he can be guided with subtle nudges of shoulder and elbow. “We’d go to Ezochi.”

Too cold for Ken, but there are far more pressing reasons why they will stay right here. Daisuke is the only rightful heir of the most successful dynasty in almost a thousand years. He will rule until he has his own heir to pass the Motomoya legacy onto. But until then it isn’t such a bad thing to think about, before obligation pulls them back under.

“Hishu,” Ken argues, because if they’re going to pretend that Daisuke can escape this palace before he is an old man, they might as well aim for somewhere with plenty of sunlight, somewhere they could retreat up into the hills and watch the ocean wear away at the rocky shore until the end of their days.

Daisuke throws an arm around him, zori knocking into his shoulder where they dangle from Daisuke’s long brown fingers. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says.

Ken takes more of Daisuke’s weight as he leans into him, jostling for his opinion on this or that as he creates a life of pottery and shark hunting for them. Ken smiles and corrects his geography and accepts his portion of paper thin radish slices when somen is brought to them where they lounge together on the broad engawa, dirty feet kicked up, and if they don’t turn their minds back to the waiting trade agreement until the sky is purpling along the horizon, that’s one more of Daisuke’s perks: to lay in the hot afternoon sun with his dearest friend and advisor, making up a different life for themselves, if not a better one.

#daikenweek2017 #daiken #kensuke #fan fic #motomiya daisuke #ichijouji ken #roughly heian era japan #with no real regard for historical accuracy #because <2k #ichijouji osamu #osamu is not nice

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