A Castle in the Trees (Saiouma Fantasy AU) (HIATUS)

7

"Are you absolutely sure? If something's bothering you, I'd like to try and help to the best of my abilities." She insisted. He put on a saddened expression instantaneously.

"What? I answer your question, even though I didn't have to, and the first thing you assume i-is that I'm lying to you? I though we were friends, P-Peko! I thought you trusted me!" He exclaimed, staring at her from across the table with wide, hurt eyes, complete with tears building at the bottoms of them.

Peko gave a heavy sigh. "You are a liar, Kokichi, and it's difficult for me to trust you when that's the way it is." 

Kokichi wiped his tears away, grinning. "You know me too well for my own good, Peko! Oh well, that's just incentive for me to get even better."

Peko sighed. "I may not be too experienced in the subject, but I know at least the basic giveaways. There's something, or someone, on your mind." She commented pointedly, staring into him with those steely ruby-colored eyes.

He held up his composed and relaxed nature, although beginning to panic internally. "What do you mean?"

"You don't have to tell me. I'm just curious to know, really. I understand that feeling myself, although it may be difficult to believe." She replied casually, popping a strawberry in her mouth.

"Nope! There isn't anyone. Even if there was, why would you care?" He insisted, despite being backed into a corner.

"If you insist. Perhaps I am wrong. It just seems to have been bothering you quite a bit, or at least taking up most of your thoughts. You're good at making it seem like nothing's wrong, but I've noticed nonetheless." She replied.

"...There might be someone, I guess, but it's none of your business anyways." He huffed, mostly to get her to change the subject.

She seemed to accept his aggression as her cue to back off. "Alright. I just suppose it'd be interesting to know which lucky girl- or boy- caught the prince's eye." She smiled.

Boy?  He questioned in his head, effectively taken aback by just that one statement and unable to come up with an effective comeback. Does that mean it's okay for me to like boys? 

His parents had only ever tried to pair him up with girls, and he hadn't had even the slightest flicker of romantic interest in any of them, despite everyone's declarations that he was around the age for thinking of a relationship and that they were all good choices for him. But the possibility that he could try and see if he clicked with a male instead was intriguing to him.

"Well, what about you?" He asked, quickly changing the subject.

"What about me?" She threw the question right back at him, tilting her head slightly.

"You said earlier that you knew the feeling. Does that mean that you have someone on your mind?" He questioned with a sly grin. She suddenly appeared struck by some hint of sadness, looking away from him as if deep in thought.

"...There is someone I must return to one day, after I'm finished teaching you." She responded. "Circumstances beyond my control have placed me in debt here, and I must work off that amount of time before I can be free to go back to them with the money I've earned from my work."

"Oh? How long's it been since you've seen them?" He was interested by this statement. He had never learned anything about her backstory beyond the fact that she was from out of the kingdom. Someone as formal and stoic as Peko had an important person she had to return to?

"It's been a year or two, I'd say. I know they're still waiting for me, though. We write each other letters every now and then. It's so far that they can take several months to deliver, and it's only on occasion that I'm allowed to." 

Kokichi felt a bit of empathy at her situation. The poor girl was only a teenager and was forced to be seperated from someone that was seemingly incredibly important to her and work hard for what could be years until his training was done and she was released off into the world again. A seventeen-year-old shouldn't have to go through that, in his opinion.

"I'm sorry. That must be tough." He responded, a genuine sentiment, for once. "I'm sure they miss you just as much as you miss them, though!"

This put a smile back on her face. "I hope so."

He stood up from his chair and stretched. "Well, that was fun. I should probably be going now. My sister needs me for something super duper ultra important, so I'm gonna go find her. Bye!" With that, he ran off before she could even get a word in.

Peko watched as he ran off, still not feeling quite finished with the conversation, but she knew there was nothing she could do to stop him. 

lmao this took me a fucking year to post bye