Week One, Monday
Ayano Aishi’s first impression of the prince?
He’s an insensitive, uncaring, unsympathetic prick .
Okay, let’s be a little more rational about all of this, because Heaven knows that the prince sure won’t be.
Ayano woke up with the rise of dawn to Raibaru’s knocking, the girl nudging open the door with her free hand, a tray with fruit and water held in the other.
“You shouldn’t fill up before he arrives,” Raibaru had advised as she put down the tray. “I doubt your prince has eaten yet.”
The two ate together in relative silence, the only words coming from Raibaru as she asked, “So, would you like to wear the red or blue dress?” They hadn’t decided last night.
“Blue,” Ayano decided, and that was that.
An hour later, Ayano was sitting beside her father, dressed well in a dark blue gown, with her hair loose and lightly curled, and soft pink painted onto her lips and cheeks. The two remained in silence until, at long last, the prince arrived.
From the moment he stepped into the throne room, Ayano was unimpressed. He glared at the man who opened the door, yawned in her father’s face, and snapped at one of his own servants.
How...disdainful.
Breakfast was a sour sight, the prince awful at conversing, and barely remembering to thank her parents for allowing him to stay an entire week. The moment she could, Ayano excused herself to the library.
“I really must be doing some studying,” Ayano claimed, and she couldn’t leave the room quick enough.
Ayano sighs as she enters the palace library, giving a polite nod to a servant who dusts some random artifact that sits on a nearby table. The young boy stumbles, nearly knocking over the object as he bows to her.
Ayano looks away, heading to the far back of the library, to her own little corner of the room. It’s hidden, unremarkable, with a plain table and chairs for Ayano to spend hours reading texts and learning all that she can. It’s her safe space, so to speak, where she can forget about curses and responsibilities, where she can fulfill a task without worry.
It gives her a purpose, learning. And it reminds her of a place not too far away, where another half of her becomes free and her one friend resides.
Perhaps she should visit him soon. It has been a few weeks since she last snuck away, even if only for a little while…
Her musings are cut off short by the man she wants to avoid most. The prince smiles awkwardly at her as he asks, “Is it alright if I sit here?”
Ayano sets down her book, one she had picked up without much thought, and nods. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” he says with yet another awkward smile, and then he sits. He seems uneased, eyes darting around the library, around her, not quite looking at her.
“Is something the matter?” Ayano asks at last, and he flinches .
“No, no. Nothing for you to worry your pretty head about,” he says, and then his face turns red.
JE LEEST
Ten Weeks
Romantiek"Ten weeks. Ayano Aishi has ten weeks to choose her husband. Ten weeks to feel, to fall in love, to choose her future partner with whom she will rule over all of Akademi Kingdom." A story in which Ayano is a princess trying to fall in love and break...
